[Spoilers] The Network assimilates ipecac, Ruff_Hi & Dreylin (Monty of Vikings)

[ipecac]

Oh, I thought it was elums because of the colour.not sure we'd want to pillage now. I guess it depends if we think either elum or grimace is going to settle there before we do

[Dreylin]

Firstly, a quick heads-up that I probably won't be able to play tonight - dinner out with my wife - at least not a full turn, so we might need to ask for a pause if you can't get to it.

I saw that you'd popped in earlier, did you confirm those are Grimace's borders, or was I going mad yesterday? (more than usual)

About Ainu; we don't need to decide right away, but I think that we probably want to burn it down. Being on the South coast will make it vulnerable to boating, we won't be able to compete with a city on the other landmass to grab the Sheep, and even if we could, we probably wouldn't want to since it will piss our neighbour off (and we really need another pissed-off neighbour!).

Defensively, planting on the Northern Coast in this area is much better - in fact even 1N of the current site would force a landing to attack, and we could support from the mainland (in a push, we could also create a 2Fort canal, but TBH I think the city we're about to plant will be the only canal spot that we'd need). We need to finish exploring to the before we finalise a dotmap, but I've a strong feeling that it won't include this city.

My suggestion for the new turn will be to leave that Axe until last. Play the rest of the turn and assess our finances to see whether we can still get Currency with a comfortable buffer - if so, we found the new city (unless you can think of a reason to wait?). If it then turns out we're short, we can pillage the top layer off the Village to fund the turn; if we're still OK, I'd suggest moving the Axe SE onto the Wine to set up for attacking the city. Those 3 Warriors should give him enough XP to get to Heroic status, and should be enough of a walk-over that he won't need additional support - plus we have a promo in hand to heal if needed. Reinforcements could come from the Spears we've seen to the NW, but he should be able to eat them easily enough as well.

Hsung-Nu is a different matter, as I think we'll probably want to keep it and therefore need to give it a chance to grow. We're also more vulnerable to Barb reinforcements here, since there are Axes to the NE. We probably want to send the Chariot in this direction as backup. I'd suggest moving the Axe up next to the city to extend our view down the coast, but we probably don't want to start attacking straight off, so maybe move E across the North of the city to continue defogging?

I think we need more troops!

[ipecac]

Firstly, a quick heads-up that I probably won't be able to play tonight - dinner out with my wife - at least not a full turn, so we might need to ask for a pause if you can't get to it.

I saw that you'd popped in earlier, did you confirm those are Grimace's borders, or was I going mad yesterday? (more than usual)

I should be able to play, and yeah, those are Grimace's.

About Ainu; we don't need to decide right away, but I think that we probably want to burn it down. Being on the South coast will make it vulnerable to boating, we won't be able to compete with a city on the other landmass to grab the Sheep, and even if we could, we probably wouldn't want to since it will piss our neighbour off (and we really need another pissed-off neighbour!).


Defensively, planting on the Northern Coast in this area is much better - in fact even 1N of the current site would force a landing to attack, and we could support from the mainland (in a push, we could also create a 2Fort canal, but TBH I think the city we're about to plant will be the only canal spot that we'd need). We need to finish exploring to the before we finalise a dotmap, but I've a strong feeling that it won't include this city.

Agree.

My suggestion for the new turn will be to leave that Axe until last. Play the rest of the turn and assess our finances to see whether we can still get Currency with a comfortable buffer - if so, we found the new city (unless you can think of a reason to wait?). If it then turns out we're short, we can pillage the top layer off the Village to fund the turn; if we're still OK, I'd suggest moving the Axe SE onto the Wine to set up for attacking the city. Those 3 Warriors should give him enough XP to get to Heroic status, and should be enough of a walk-over that he won't need additional support - plus we have a promo in hand to heal if needed. Reinforcements could come from the Spears we've seen to the NW, but he should be able to eat them easily enough as well.

Mm. Costs are growing insane, toroid is nuts.

Hsung-Nu is a different matter, as I think we'll probably want to keep it and therefore need to give it a chance to grow. We're also more vulnerable to Barb reinforcements here, since there are Axes to the NE. We probably want to send the Chariot in this direction as backup. I'd suggest moving the Axe up next to the city to extend our view down the coast, but we probably don't want to start attacking straight off, so maybe move E across the North of the city to continue defogging?

I'm actually surprised that it has a Worker but isn't at size two. But yeah, we would likely want to keep it.

[ipecac]

Played the turn.

-We regained CH's graphs, EP's back to 2:2 against Elum and Adrien.
-Another foreign spread of Buddhism


We had 20 gold remaining, so [name] is founded! Costs immediately go up by 6 (will be switching a couple of tile assignments since we have some gold spare):

I'm thinking the right idea is to delay missionary spread by 1T to deliver worker and chariot onto hill and start getting wet corn farm up asap. (Missionary will loop around via land and load 1SW of Smurf).

So I'm thinking that the fur-worker roads that and then the hill so that offloaded troops from the north land on road network, the other worker goes to corn to farm - would like your input if possible before I end turn tonight. Also I'm not sure what you want to do with the Galley at AP with the axe loaded: is it supposed to be a surprise for Adrien, or meant to ship over to Service Pack?

Hsung Nu reached size 2 so capture is a go, or it would be except that two Barb axes are coming from the NE and can reinforce though, which would be a pain

I was wondering why the Axe was wounded, and realised the East may just be Adrien's land.

But it doesn't seem like he wants it that much, so we'll take it. (There's a nice L-shaped ocean patch (102 tiles) that prevent elum from forking our naval cities and vice versa)>

Also, Toroid is messing with my head. I hope you're happy, Krill.

[Krill]

Cylindrical maps can go to hell. Toroid FTW.

[Dreylin]

I'm thinking the right idea is to delay missionary spread by 1T to deliver worker and chariot onto hill and start getting wet corn farm up asap. (Missionary will loop around via land and load 1SW of Smurf).

So I'm thinking that the fur-worker roads that and then the hill so that offloaded troops from the north land on road network, the other worker goes to corn to farm - would like your input if possible before I end turn tonight.

The fastest we can get the Corn up and running is in 6t:

t1- Worker1 roads Fur, Worker2 lands on hill
t2- Worker1 finishes Road, Worker2 roads hill
t3- Worker2 finishes Road, Worker1 moves to hill, 1t Mine (can't move straight to Corn & Farm because of the River)
t4- Workers move to Corn, Farm
t5- Farm
t6- Worker1 finishes Farm, Worker2 moves to city

...
t7- Worker1 moves to city, Worker2 moves to hill, Mine
t8- Workers finish Mine on hill

Also I'm not sure what you want to do with the Galley at AP with the axe loaded: is it supposed to be a surprise for Adrien, or meant to ship over to Service Pack?

I put it on the Galley since Adrien didn't see it pop and so doesn't know it exists; I thought we could keep it there unless you think we need to drop it in SP for defense?

[Dreylin]

Question for Ruff / the lurkers regarding behavior of the Barbarians:

My understanding of their programmed behavior is that if there is a valid target for them - i.e. non-barb city on their landmass - they will head "directly" towards it, otherwise they will mill around aimlessly. Is that correct?

It is based on that understanding that I have been assuming that the southern landmass ("Barbstralia") is not connected directly to Adrien's main landmass (or anyone else's), otherwise the loose Barbs would be heading in that direction.

Of course it would also mean that now we have planted a toehold on the continent, all the loose Barbs will head straight for it.


Additional question: how do "loose" Barbs interact with Barb cities? Will they stop to garrison under any circumstances, or are they programmed entirely separately?

[Ruff_Hi]

No idea. I know that they get bored and leave if you complete The Great Wall. There could also be a blocking mountain that is stopping them moving towards Adrien's cities.

Re the two incoming axes ... best option is to kill them with a chariot. Second best is to put an axe on a forest hill.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Also, Toroid is messing with my head. I hope you're happy, Krill.

I think it was Ceilazul who linked this article a while back, but it's the most comprehensive description of a torus planet that I've read. And if you'd like to mess with Krill's head you could suggest some torus-specific changes for the next iteration of the SMEG mod....For example, trying to figure out ways to use the planet's interior (unstable) Lagrange point (low cost observation satellite, available at Flight, provides visibility of all interior "hubward" latitudes, can be destroyed by fighters/artillery/rockets, etc?). Or make him adjust the viable build latitudes for the Space Elevator (would probably be dependent upon map size, as the larger planets/maps would flatten out more according to that article, impacting rotational speed, etc.)...I could see reasonable argument that a torus map should be required to have a more realistic approach to climactic zones (depending on axial tilt, which, why not, should be a selectable option ), which would require updates to the map generation scripts, etc ad nauseam. Oh, and forget wooden boats being able to survive the deep oceans, with waves that tall it probably isn't happening. Ocean tile traversal would be delayed until metal hulled boats. Then there's the shape of the map...a rectangle doesn't quite do it, right? The interior equator would be much shorter than the exterior one, so it seems we'd need to chop some tiles along the edges of a map. Good luck connecting neighboring tiles to one another in that case and having it all look right on the 2D layer representation we play the game on.

I expect Krill's response to all this would be along the lines of "Fuck off, you do it." Anyway, this kind of stuff would probably be seriously distracting for a strategy game and thus really terrible from a gameplay perspective, so this isn't a serious suggestion post and is more of a "what if" thought exercise. Does anyone have any other gameplay ideas for how to exploit a torus planet?

[Dreylin]

Before the satellite, you could use Observatories on the hubward side to give LoS on the opposite side?

Not that cylindrical maps are really any better from a realism PoV....