[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Turn 187 pt 1

The Forbidden Palace almost halves our distance maintenance, and lops 28 gold off our inflation too . The equation for Free Market vs State Property becomes 360 gold vs 20-50 food + ~70 hammers. That extra food would tend to turn into more hammers rather than commerce...


In foreign affairs:
- CH accepted the Banana, Rice, Dye for Deer, Crab, Gold, Clam deal we offered last turn. We've now got duplicates of all the resources we're getting via trades just in case someone cancels unexpectedly.
- BGN is a turn from Liberalism, dtay is four from Communism. Boldly has 3777 cash saved, so it looks like he doesn't realise hes in a race (he had 2671 two turns ago). Krovice are the only players with Steel so far and are two turns from Constitution. None of our Democracy-rivals have gone there yet, so the theory that they're all more interested in Corporation is looking good.
- These are the defences uncovered in the north (so far)


I decided that having a shot of every city in our empire would be a good idea . Especially taking that shot now, during the GA, when they'll all look their best...

First 26 cities:

Alfie is at its final size now, working Scientists as the multiplier is higher 255% vs 100% for cash. That's the right move isn't it?


Butterscotch will build a Harbour and Customs House as the slider is so high that Grocer and Market give less benefit.


Cornelius can build units or Wealth once the Observatory is done.


Daisy will just pump a Cavalry every two turns from now until forever.


Should Englebert complete the University, get a Harbour and Customs house, build an Observatory or just build wealth and give B it's mine?


Flossie has three more turns of being a production powerhouse. That'll nearly get us this Observatory.


I'm windmilling the hills for Gertie with the idea of borrowing the pigs to keep it growing, I dunno how that fits with the GP plan though - we're supposed to run 16 specialists for two turns if we want the next GA t209, otherwise it'll be t212. It's our main EP pump, and will pump more with the Security Bureau .


Hazelnut will only make 87 hammers a turn after the golden age.






Starving Kirby from 14-13 at the end of the golden age allows it to make an extra 72 GP points. It's probably not that much use in this golden age, so lets save it until the next one...


Lucky is due to pop its Merchant t229.


Marmalade could starve 12-11 to get 42 extra GPPs, if we don't bother the GP comes two turns later and doesn't hurt the golden age start date, so again, lets hold off until the 3-man GA.




Ophelia probably wants a Harbour/Customs House, unless we want to keep pushing units.








Not enough cheap MP.






Veggies could do with a Harbour/Customs House combo. Does it want a Forge first though?


Finishing the Harbour before the Rifle as the Rifle wouldn't finish this turn anyway.


I'm not a fan of hybrid cities .




Not long now.

end of part one...

[Old Harry]

Turn 187 pt 2

Second set of 26 cities:

I wonder if we should have build West Point in Endive to get a second Amphi-pump?






There's a lot of stuff to build in Herbs, but to keep the fish we need to keep building Culture.




Is a 0/0/8 tile worth working?














I rushed another Lighthouse.






Rush a Granary?












Free Hindu spread!

If we're going for Theocracy next the cities that need Hindu are:
- Quentin
- Carrot
- Orinoco
- Poppet

Demos and power.

[Old Harry]

Oh, and I forgot to mention we have five Cavalry already .

I put in some estimates for drafting in the google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...edit#gid=0

It looks like we can draft about 70 units. About ten cities can draft three times, so could give us Rifles when we switch to Nationhood at the end of the golden age. I think we're going to have plenty of Rifles for our defensive needs for a little while, so we won't want to draft that many. If Assembly line completes eot196 and our second golden age is due ~ t210 that gives us about fourteen turns to draft 70 Infantry! (It is five per turn on this map isn't it?)

What to do with those infantry?

• Fintourist is keen on hitting Dreylin (currently has Knights, but should have Rifles by then). He should be easy to roll over with a combination of Cavalry, commando Cavalry and Infantry and has some nice cities, just not too many of them.
  
• I still want Pindicator's shrine. Even without Wall St that's still got to be worth 200 gpt to us. He has more cities, but it's harder for us to hit his northern ones. He has a lower power rating than Dreylin, but it's harder to transport our units to hit him.
  
• I really want to capture or burn all of dtay's coastal cities to protect our core from naval aggression. We'll know more about his tech choices once he has Communism, to see how easy this will be. Dumping a stack of 5-10 Infantry by several of his cities at once (but out of range of his cat stack) should do the trick...
  
• If we were real men we'd take down the real competition - a strike on BGN could burn a lot of his core coastal cities and up to three inland ones. Unless he saw us coming. Which he would.
  

If we go after one of the first three a stack of 15 cats should reduce a stack of ten infantry to about 12-15 strength (very rough guesstimate based on 75 collateral hits).

[Fintourist]

The Forbidden Palace almost halves our distance maintenance, and lops 28 gold off our inflation too .

Nice... 2700 break-even bpt during the GA. I think we should be able to maintain that 2000 break-even bpt after the GA even as we lose 200 of them when we switch from Bureaucracy to Nationhood.

Btw, somehow I also enjoy the fact that our in-game score is now almost even with BGN. West Point + Forbidden Palace + Rifling did give us quite a few points. BGN should be able to snowball ahead and also increase the score gap again, but at the moment we are still competitive. TBS has also jumped ahead of dtay and Krovice in score and I think he has a fair chance of maintaining a Top 3 position for the rest of the game.

In foreign affairs:

- CH accepted the Banana, Rice, Dye for Deer, Crab, Gold, Clam deal we offered last turn. We've now got duplicates of all the resources we're getting via trades just in case someone cancels unexpectedly.

Good, we can sleep a bit better now I would still like to win/build one of the "Hit Something"-wonders just that we have an unique resource that will have a good trade value + WW + obsoleted ivory, fur and whales sounds problematic even though Representation will help..

- BGN is a turn from Liberalism, dtay is four from Communism. Boldly has 3777 cash saved, so it looks like he doesn't realise hes in a race (he had 2671 two turns ago). Krovice are the only players with Steel so far and are two turns from Constitution. None of our Democracy-rivals have gone there yet, so the theory that they're all more interested in Corporation is looking good.

for Communism. Aaand I would be extremely surprised if we lose Statue of Liberty. It will be awesome.

Alfie is at its final size now, working Scientists as the multiplier is higher 255% vs 100% for cash. That's the right move isn't it?

Butterscotch will build a Harbour and Customs House as the slider is so high that Grocer and Market give less benefit.

Note that our break-even rate will drop when GA ends, but I would imagine those are still solid builds.

Should Englebert complete the University, get a Harbour and Customs house, build an Observatory or just build wealth and give B it's mine?

I haven't really evaluated mine-sharing possibilities, but in general we are still in the phase where building Infra will beat building wealth. But I guess it's not that long anymore until wealth becomes superior as science multipliers won't have time to pay back the investment.

Flossie has three more turns of being a production powerhouse. That'll nearly get us this Observatory.

Levee afterwards?

Hazelnut will only make 87 hammers a turn after the golden age.

I need to check our factory analysis from the PB13 thread. (not only for Hazelnut, but that's a city where it is an interesting option)

Starving Kirby..

Marmalade could starve..

Yeah, let's not starve those before the 3rd GA.

There's a lot of stuff to build in Herbs, but to keep the fish we need to keep building Culture.

Not too long anymore though as we passed the 100-culture mark (I think)

Is a 0/0/8 tile worth working?

Beats a random specialist..

Rush a Granary?

Nah.. Terry would need a rushed lighthouse too in order to grow and the city north of it can work most of that coast.

If we're going for Theocracy next the cities that need Hindu are:
- Quentin
- Carrot
- Orinoco
- Poppet

I think we are. Sounds good.

Demos and power.

Could you provide the other graphs too in a nearby report? (not sure if I get a chance to log in during the next days and I'm interested. No pressure though)

Oh, and I forgot to mention we have five Cavalry already .

for pre-builds

It looks like we can draft about 70 units. About ten cities can draft three times, so could give us Rifles when we switch to Nationhood at the end of the golden age. I think we're going to have plenty of Rifles for our defensive needs for a little while, so we won't want to draft that many. If Assembly line completes eot196 and our second golden age is due ~ t210 that gives us about fourteen turns to draft 70 Infantry! (It is five per turn on this map isn't it?)

And yeah, it's 5 per turn.

I think now the real question is: How many do we want/need to draft. 70 drafts = 140 pop points = a pretty damn big investment. In my previous thinking I've been speculating with 40-ish drafts. We have still time to think about what's the right number and also prioritize those pop points as they are not of equal value.

(Although I really like how you have divided those in the spreadsheet and I was surprised how you got those 70 drafts in-place without touching our strongest cities and GPP farms.)

What to do with those infantry?

..

Good summary Capturing Dreylin's land creates a larger border with BGN, pindi-land would create a larger border with dtay. Both are kind of bad options.. Dtay has currently a bigger army and he surely is our enemy.. However dtay will possibly always have an annoying Krovice-border to worry about. BGN will be eventually stronger military-wise, apart from us he don't have a neighbor who can threaten him and he has probably a larger navy, but his current military is smaller... Hmm..

Btw,
would it be time to finally offer cease-fire to dtay? Krovice don't seem like they are doing anything and we have probably hurt dtay enough. Is there a chance that pindicator would join in and attack again, when does his peace treaty expire? Leaving the war early might be beneficial and in best case it could make dtay attack Krovice? I would not count on that though as cease fire probably does not give him enough security and dtay does not really strike me as a suicide-revenge type of guy. How do you guys see it? OH? THH? retep?

[Mardoc]

Peace is a bad idea if you want to catch up to Krovice's thread views.

[Old Harry]

Btw, somehow I also enjoy the fact that our in-game score is now almost even with BGN. West Point + Forbidden Palace + Rifling did give us quite a few points. BGN should be able to snowball ahead and also increase the score gap again, but at the moment we are still competitive. TBS has also jumped ahead of dtay and Krovice in score and I think he has a fair chance of maintaining a Top 3 position for the rest of the game.

Heh, I've just been watching as our score ticks closer and closer to his over the last few turns... Drafting is going to ruin that .

Flossie has three more turns of being a production powerhouse. That'll nearly get us this Observatory.

Levee afterwards?

180 hammers is going to take an age with one mine and three plains cottages. Will wealth pay off better?

Hazelnut will only make 87 hammers a turn after the golden age.

I need to check our factory analysis from the PB13 thread. (not only for Hazelnut, but that's a city where it is an interesting option)

Trouble is factories come just when we can start building Infantry. Getting the next level of unit early is usually better than getting them cheaper... There are a few cities that cry out for an early Factory, but we should perhaps head for Plastics and 3 Gorges to coincide with a larger wave of builds once they give 75% hammer bonus.

After Steam Power-Assembly Line we almost certainly want Steel-Railroad-Combustion-Artillery for Destroyers, then Sci Meth-Biology for economy (earlier if we can delay destroyers), then Physics-Electricity-Industrialisation-Plastics. That's some way in the future isn't it...

Note that Zucchini doesn't have a river so won't be able to build 3 Gorges Dam. Carrot is our best prospect otherwise, but will need to grow very quick to have the required hammers in 30-40 turns so I think we should farm every farmable tile (including a couple of villages).

There's a lot of stuff to build in Herbs, but to keep the fish we need to keep building Culture.

Not too long anymore though as we passed the 100-culture mark (I think)

We did, it'll get religion soon to keep putting 41 culture into the tile, but if we don't produce any culture in the city it puts 0 into the tile.

I think now the real question is: How many do we want/need to draft. 70 drafts = 140 pop points = a pretty damn big investment. In my previous thinking I've been speculating with 40-ish drafts. We have still time to think about what's the right number and also prioritize those pop points as they are not of equal value.

As with the GP plan I just went for max possible drafts - we can dial things back as required and we'll have a better idea of what we want in ten turns time. I'd like to have Barracks in draft cities and I'd prefer to just be losing coastal tiles from cities without much infrastructure. We have a bunch of cities that need MP if they're going to draft happily, so when we have a layer of modern units in our coastal cities the ancient trash can move inland.

Btw,
would it be time to finally offer cease-fire to dtay? Krovice don't seem like they are doing anything and we have probably hurt dtay enough. Is there a chance that pindicator would join in and attack again, when does his peace treaty expire? Leaving the war early might be beneficial and in best case it could make dtay attack Krovice? I would not count on that though as cease fire probably does not give him enough security and dtay does not really strike me as a suicide-revenge type of guy. How do you guys see it? OH? THH? retep?

Blockading dtay gives us security in that he can't consolidate navy in the south. A cease fire allows him to work more coastal tiles and seafood, but unless we can guarantee his gratitude and undying friendship it would make me more paranoid...

[TheHumanHydra]

I'm not sure what the point of ceasefires is, to be honest, since you can just break them again anyway. Seems to be mostly a signalling/diplomacy thing. I think what we want is for dtay, Krovice, and possibly Pindicator to be embroiled in war as deeply as possible. Does signalling we don't want to fight dtay anymore discourage Krovice and/or Pindicator from further fighting, because they lack an ally? Does it encourage dtay to further fighting with his other enemies? Does it result in a more complicated analysis of the situation by any of these parties? Which impulse would be stronger? I honestly don't know.

[Old Harry]

Turn 188

Exciting times to be Krovice... Both they and Ruff aren't far from Rifles but Ruff doesn't have compass yet while Krovice have Frigates and Cannon. Their war weariness is 107 and both sides have spent ~600 EPs on each other.


Looking back five turns Ruff had a big navy, so perhaps he's been expecting this. We'll see how Krovice do...


We chatted a bit more about peace with dtay, there are a lot of pros and cons - Fintourist's take:

1. staying in war with dtay helps krovice, they get a better chance to get land from ruff, which is not a huge problem for us, but that might make BGN's situation worse with stronger Krill neighbor and less land from ruff. + warfare has a cost for our dtay relations + possibly a real cost too
2. peace with dtay might create a krill-dtay conflict and make dtay kind of a friend. maybe we could avoid a naval build-up there. Fighting #4 and #5 is kind of good news. The only but is that BGN possibly has an easier time
in #1 both we and BGN have it worse than in #2
but if we believe that BGN is the only real enemy here there are scenarios where #2 still gives us better winning chances

In the end we offered a cease fire. THH - I'm as in the dark as you are about how it'll play out for us, I don't know how I'd feel if dtay resettled all the coastal cities we razed and I don't know if he's a revengey kinda guy... But it felt like a decisive kind of thing to do. And that's just the way that decisive players like us like to play, Damnit!


It'll be nice not to have to observe the clock too closely any more and between the visibility we have on his cities and this Frigate that we snuck past his culture in the south we should see any sneaky shenanigans coming.


In the north we have three SotL now, if we notice any naval action we don't like we'll re-declare and get back to bombarding and blockading. Our super medic war chariot (currently healing frigates in Zebedee - which isn't as dangerous as you'd imagine since we can see any boats coming) could upgrade to Cavlary - that'll put him in more danger if in a stack, but less if he's out and about by himself. I'm torn...


Fintourist noticed on Civfanatics (http://dl.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_points.php) that the jump for new great people goes from 1000 to 1200 not 1100 - the article is from 2006 so is that still true? If so that changes our GP plans a little, but not too much. We're going for the max-specialists plan in Gertie - look at all those water tiles we're ignoring . After the golden age I'd like to get Gertie to size 24, just to make sure she's the biggest city in the world .


Those graphs in full:

Boldly's score will go up pretty sharply once the Q and Nakor cities start to pay off.


That BGN GNP is partly two pre-requisites for Sci Meth, but I suspect some wealth/research building is going on too, fingers crossed he can't 1- or 2-turn Communism. nb: he spent 850 gold last turn.


Our weakness is MFG outside of golden ages let's hope it looks better after this one. I suspect that we can see two golden ages for BGN here (Taj and 2-man) so as PHI he's got at least two more to come...


Crop yield is most important though. Right? :worried:


Our other weakness is power.


Who cares about culture? TBS maybe?


WilliamLP is close to us on Espionage. I don't really see how as he only has 24 cities - has he been working a lot of spy specialists?


Demos - who has more population than we do?


And what will it take for Alfie to be crowned top city? Pindicator has Spiral Minaret and Uni of Sankore for a monk economy with the Hindu Shrine getting 24% of the worlds cities , TBS has Confucian shrine (21%), Sistine, the Apostolic Palace and MoM - when did that happen? It looks like he's used two golden ages already, but that's a bit of a worry with his new, embiggened empire. Boldly has the Parthenon, Taj, Angkor Wat, TGLib and the Statue of Zeus. That's just showing off .

[flugauto]

GPP increase = 100 * (GP / 10 + 1)
1. 100 * (1 / 10 + 1) = 100
10. 100 * (10 / 10 + 1) = 200
20. 100 * (20 / 10 + 1) = 300

[TheHumanHydra]

I'd recommend not upgrading the chariot. I don't know why we'd want to have a Medic unit out on his own in land warfare.