[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[scooter]

Complete report coming in a bit, but more quickly...



Cat's out of the bag. Gaspar's Explorer looked to be headed the other way, so I'm kinda suprised he backtracked to see this. Anyway, I think we kinda freaked them out - I bet they think we're coming at them right now. Sequence of events from their perspective:

1) We meet, immediately ask for maps. They say yes
2) We immediately revolt into Nationhood
3) They spy a galleon headed their way

Gaspar proceeded to take 1 hour playing his turn. That's actually normal, but then it resulted in a flurry of posts in their thread, quickly followed by NobleHelium spending another hour in-game after turn was ended. Um...

Imagine how bad they're going to freak out now that they can see I just drafted on Civstats.

So since the Galleon secret is out, does it change how we respond to this?



That's the offer BGN sent me. I declined for now, but I left the Explorer unmoved. Any thoughts?

[Sullla]

OK, that sequence of events is pretty funny. Probably not good for us, as it means that Gaspar/Noble are more likely to settle towards us, but still funny nonetheless. On the other hand, if it forces Gaspar/Noble to build some military units that they wouldn't otherwise build defending against a non-existent invasion, that might not be the worst thing either. No idea how this will play out, we don't normally do games where your capital is in legitimate danger from the very early stages. I wouldn't change anything for the time being, other than being extra wary about our orange-colored neighbors down the road, and likely keeping an explorer or two permanently stationed to those islands as spotters for incoming enemy ships (once they're done their current exploring tasks, naturally).

BGN is pretty far away from us. I'm fine with accepting the maps and Open Borders trade if you are. I always like having more information on hand.

[scooter]

Turn 263

Ok cool, yeah I was leaning towards re-offering his deal. Turn is currently unended, but after posting this I'm going to log back in and re-offer it and end turn. I'm thinking we may as well cut through his lands and take advantage of (hopefully) some roads since we'll have OB.



The big news of the turn. Yep, I'm a little jealous right now too.



I dropped the explorer here as discussed. I'm thinking he'll head SE-SE onto the hill next turn, and then continue heading that direction to meet Pindicator a few turns later. I moved the Galleon to spy out the rest of the southeast edge of the island, and now it'll head straight home to pick up the other explorer.



Here's an overview shot along with the Galleon movements (I didn't actually set a goto fyi). The explorer will load up on T266, and it'll be on the island the following turn.

Steam Engine does not grow this turn, but the next 3 consecutive turns (T264-66) it'll go to 8-9-10, at which point the settler build will begin.

Telegraph grows this turn, and next turn it'll immediately be drafted for a Rifle. What do we think about next turn (when that draft Rifle is in place) having the Machine Gun start to head up by red dot to ensure a barb city doesn't spawn in a place that delays us?

Cotton Gin drafted a rifle this turn, and it'll do one more when it grows to sz6, and then we'll immediately go back to Bureau (on the same turn actually). These 3 rifles should allow us to churn out a string of settlers without needing to bother with building a bunch of military escorts - they'll already be ready to go. Plus if a barb city pops up to our west or on the island, we'll be ready for that too. Any strong feelings on what to do with the spare rifle in Cotton Gin?



These are going to be not so pretty for the next couple turns while we draft a couple more times and remain in Nationhood. In a normal game I'd just stop posting these until they flattered me again.

[Sullla]

I was actually thinking we put a rifle and the machine gun in the capital to defend against any crazy funny business that might happen by sea. I think it's the most exposed city right now. We'll have 5 total rifles once the drafting finishes, along with the machine gun and a grenadier. Perhaps rifle/machine gun in the capital, one rifle each in the other two cities, and 2 rifles + the grenadier available for deployment elsewhere. Maybe 1 rifle + grenadier in the north poking around near our red dot location, and then that leaves 1 more rifle free to do whatever (?)

Demos are still holding up better than I expected. We've got Dreylin and his Golden Age + free food, and Donovan who's never whipped at all. We're right there near the food leader, and somehow not in last place in production despite having dropped out of Bureaucracy and having a capital working no mines. GNP is abysmal, but again, no Bureaucracy, and not working the gold or the incense tile. Just three more turns to go - as scooter said the capital goes size 7 -> size 8 -> size 9 -> size 10 in that span - and this will all look a lot better.

By the way, still looks like no one else has build a military unit to date. They have to stop at do that pretty soon, right? Not a wise idea to settle four cities with only three military units.

[Brian Shanahan]

Obligatory post by a lurker complaining about lack of any sign of incoming bloodshed.

Patience, patience. It's only been 12 turns .

Your Monty, by rights you should have declared war on everybody at least five times by now.

[scooter]

By the way, still looks like no one else has build a military unit to date. They have to stop at do that pretty soon, right? Not a wise idea to settle four cities with only three military units.

I was actually thinking we put a rifle and the machine gun in the capital to defend against any crazy funny business that might happen by sea. I think it's the most exposed city right now.

So I'm obviously not opposed to stashing another unit in our capital while we have extras, but these two lines seem in opposition to each other a little bit. As far as we can tell, we're the only civ with both an extra unit and a Galleon (or maybe even one of the two). I don't think there's any rational reason to be afraid of a boating with that in mind. Even if someone had a Galleon, we're pretty certain nobody has a Rifle. That means each opponent has at most 2 attacking units since the MG can't attack. Is someone really going to load up 2/3 of their defense to go attack a team that's got 4 units and is already in Nationhood and just hope their single Machine Gun will be enough back home? I bet instead of plotting to attack us, all 3 of our immediate neighbors are instead nervously watching their borders right now for fear we'll come after them seeing as we're the only team to draft in the game so far, and none of our neighbors are in Nationhood. They're more afraid of us than we are of them and all that. If we had a hyper aggressive lunatic type in this game, maybe, but none of these players are really like that.

So maybe I see things a little differently than you, but I don't think any of our cities are exposed at all right now given this. No signs of other teams drafting anytime soon (and most aren't spiritual, so it's a large cost for them to do so too), so we'll probably be the #1 military for the indefinite future. On top of that, Spiritual civs are the worst to try to surprise early because of the extreme flexibility with being able to get into Nationhood (and Slavery). So one of the thoughts that crossed my mind with these extra units is to instead make certain nobody settles up on us or anywhere near us for that matter. In about 2 turns we'll have good visibility on the island, and we should be equipped to start ranking our settling priorities. Once we do that, I think we might consider using some units to make absolutely sure nobody considers heading that way with a settling party. For example, if Donovan is thinking about settling east, and we decide we really want that copper spot as our second plant, he might think twice if he sees a pair of units hanging out just outside the east of his border.

Basically, I think we want to get some sort of return on the drafting investment. It's not a massive investment, but it is one nonetheless. We don't need to attack anyone with them or even declare any wars, but I think our neighbors need to think that we're willing to use them if necessary, and that maybe they should settle in the opposite direction if they want to be friends. I'm all for defending border cities, but I'm not a big fan of worrying about attacks that are extremely unlikely. Given that nobody is building any military, it seems like the gameplan for almost everyone is pure farmer's gambit, which makes sense. Rather than worry about the farmers taking up arms and attacking, I'm thinking we can get more value out of subtly encouraging people to farmer-it-up the other direction so that we get a bigger share of the contested land. (I realize now that this is what Kurumi was asking. Not sure why that went over my head considering the thought was already on my mind.)

I realize I'm also talking to the person who was on the receiving end of one of the top 2 or 3 most dramatic dogpile attempts in RB history, so I also understand that our experiences with the usefulness of paranoia are a little different.

Any thoughts? Am I not being paranoid enough?

[scooter]

I should clarify a little bit. I don't necessarily want to start an arms race with neighbors either, and reading my post makes it sound like I want to get hyper aggressive. I mostly see our extra units as 1) being ready to pounce if a barb city shows up and 2) cheap escorts for our first few settlers. I mainly just don't want to tie them down from doing useful things (barbs and/or locking down city sites before our settlers can get there) as opportunities present themselves because we're afraid of a highly unlikely attack. As it stands, on this exact turn there isn't really anything useful for them to do, so I'm obviously not opposed to sticking them in the capital. And honestly, we probably want barb cities to appear near us since we have the units available, so even fog-busting is maybe not the right choice.

[Kurumi]

Are you sure that not fog-busting gives high enough chance of getting a barb-town for it to be good? Is abandoning the plan of scaring farmers worth it? How feasible is fog-busting anyway? How many units would you need?

[Sullla]

Your idea definitely makes sense scooter. Here's an alternate take: which is scarier, a neighbor with high power and units you can see, or a neighbor with high power where you have no idea where their units are or what they are doing?

I agree that it would be nice to leverage our draftees in some fashion. I'm not sure what that is either, aside from hoping to whack barb cities and expanding aggressively behind our units. Do any other thoughts come to mind?

[scooter]

Are you sure that not fog-busting gives high enough chance of getting a barb-town for it to be good? Is abandoning the plan of scaring farmers worth it? How feasible is fog-busting anyway? How many units would you need?

Maybe I missed it, but are you ded-lurking this thread? Just want to make sure your questions aren't spoilery.

Either way, I may as well answer the question since it's worth thinking about. I really don't know what the correct answer is on fogbusting vs hoping for "free"-ish cities. Let me chart out the positives and negatives and see where it gets us. I'll list them in order of relevance.

Positives
* Ability to save the 330h it takes to build a settler.
* It doesn't delay a settler, so in essence it's a semi-free city in the way it comes online way sooner. The effect is more than just the cost of the settler.
* Ability to get some XP on our military
* Some mild capture gold
* Capturing things is fun

Negatives
* City would lose several of its free buildings. Cost of a settler is based on the cost of the buildings that come with the settler, so we really wouldn't be saving the full 330h. In fact, it may slow down city development quite a bit because 1h in Steam Engine is far easier to come by than 1h in a brand new city.
* If city spawns at just the wrong time and/or has a better than expected garrison, it could delay settling of a planned city.
* City would likely be size 2 rather than size 3, since it'll lose a pop when we capture it.
* We might lose units attacking it, depending on how well it's defended. NOTE: When I tested, new barb cities started with warriors and eventually upgraded to Rifles (I'm guessing dependent on difficulty level). How quickly we jump on it would play a factor.
* City would spend a couple turns in revolt, delaying the time until it contributes


I guess I'm very slightly leaning towards allowing them to appear with the exception of a few turns right before we plan to settle a specific site. Sullla - any thoughts on this?

Your idea definitely makes sense scooter. Here's an alternate take: which is scarier, a neighbor with high power and units you can see, or a neighbor with high power where you have no idea where their units are or what they are doing?

I agree that it would be nice to leverage our draftees in some fashion. I'm not sure what that is either, aside from hoping to whack barb cities and expanding aggressively behind our units. Do any other thoughts come to mind?

I'd like to hear your comments on the above for starters.

Your point on the value of not showing units (or at least not making it obvious what we're doing with them) is something I definitely agree with. The paranoia on neighbors may be enough to secure city sites on its own, really. Either that or opponents will delay settlers so that they can slow-build military, which is still a win for us because drafting sz6 cities like we're doing is a cheaper way to do it.