[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[scooter]

Turn 287



I'm assuming this is the site of the city that changed hands. I'm not sure Gaspar will live to see T300.



So I played most of the turn, but I left everything in this area unmoved. The workers were going to continue roading, but that's obviously unnecessary now since 3b is exactly 6 moves from the capital, so roading the tile itself isn't especially useful. We do want to complete the "1/2 rd" tile road, but that's it. Anyway, I'm kinda thinking we may want to consider pre-chopping these forests so we can immediately get some cultural buildings built in this city since it'll be in an immediate culture war with pindicator. The sheep tile is the main tile we need to flip - the corn/horse should flip to us easily enough. Any thoughts on this area?



We're all set for next turn here. Workers unload onto plains hill. Galleon moves W-W-NW. 2 Grens + 1 Rifle load. Galleon moves 1N.



Oh yeah, and we settled our 6th city!



Quick border pop, then we'll immediately start a chop-aided levee.


This city is 12T old, and it's already pulling down a base 26hpt. It's completely ridiculous, and I love it. It's going to be obscene by the time we get around to our second golden age.

Sullla - should we go straight onto another unit next turn? With the news in the north, I'm wondering if we ought to ferry over a couple more units pretty quickly to account for Dreylin's presence in the area. I know we need that work boat too, though.



Was kinda hoping we could crest 200hpt briefly during the golden age. I think we're going to be able to do it next turn when we settle city #7.



Finally, I just wanted to highlight our Donovan-facing defenses. The good news is it would be pretty difficult for him to advance by land. He can hit the city with a 2-mover out of the fog, but it will require beating a MG + Rifle on a hill and across a river. 1-moving his way would take longer and give us more time to squeeze out a draft or two. I don't think we'll be an appealing target for Donovan, although I think it's more likely than Dreylin attacking us was. I would be more concerned if I was REM. Perhaps we should consider getting out a spy or two at some point. It's something we've neglected thus far, but unkillable sentries sound pretty nice.


Best part about the advanced era setup: this game is just 37 turns old, and the game is already getting to be pretty crazy. What a fun game - I just hope we aren't coneding to Dreylin by Memorial Day.

[Brian Shanahan]

City name possibility, Induction Coil invented in 1831 by Nicholas Callan, an Irishman.

Re the war, any likelihood that you'll be able to either help prop Gaspar up or scavenge off his corpse?

[Zed-F]

Scooter mentioned earlier considering the possibility of going after Lance Armstrong, Gaspar's capital, once the Dreylin war is fully underway. Presumably anything along Gaspar's south coast is fair game if he can muster the troops to take and defend vs Dreylin. Scooter also mentioned popping into Nationalism for another round of drafting, but that even then it could be a tall order. Depends on how well Gaspar does I guess.

[Sullla]

Wow, what an eventful 12 hours since I was last looking at this game! I will have some time in a few hours to do a detailed look at what's taking place. Quick thoughts in the meantime:

* Gaspar/Noble being the target of Dreylin is excellent new for us. We'll be able to claim the barb city without much trouble, and we might have some poaching opportunities via boats in 10 turns or so. We just need to avoid Gaspar/Noble totally collapsing too fast, and I think they're good enough players to drag things out for at least a little while.

This may also just be a case of Dreylin/OT4E capturing a border city and not going all-out conquest mode. Hard to say without more information.

* I think you read my mind on the island city name, scooter. I was also going to suggest that the island have cities named after textile inventions, due to the silk resources up there. Spinning Jenny is perfect.

* I'm pretty sure that pindicator settled east of the corn, making the 3b location an ineligible city spot. Do you know if he popped borders on the first turn? I'm thinking those are first-ring borders, not second-ring ones. If you had a chance to see where he settled in-game yesterday, then that would help decision-making here.

EDIT: Nevermind, was getting the screenshots confused in my head. He definitely is on the hill tile, and that means 3b it is for our city. I'll look at the micro for chopping out a fast theatre. Alternately, we could settle on the hill tile west of 3b, which is a lot safer defensively but has the disadvantage of being completely useless if we can't win the second-ring cultural battle for the corn and sheep tiles. Thoughts?

* I also think it will be tough for Donovan to assault us at Radio. We'll have 2 rifles + machine gun in a city on a hill with 40% culture. He can take it but not easily, and our respective cities make for a nice border. I'm thinking he'd have better luck elsewhere.

[Dp101]

How much longer do you intend to micro everything? I assume at a certain point it will become impossible, right? Or do you intend to keep making plans until the game is over?

[timmy827]

EDIT: Nevermind, was getting the screenshots confused in my head. He definitely is on the hill tile, and that means 3b it is for our city. I'll look at the micro for chopping out a fast theatre. Alternately, we could settle on the hill tile west of 3b, which is a lot safer defensively but has the disadvantage of being completely useless if we can't win the second-ring cultural battle for the corn and sheep tiles. Thoughts?

Is a quick theatre a good move for a border war? It sounds like it is in an earlier era start, but with this setup the 50 (40?) hammers for 3 cpt doesn't seem that hot compared to building culture, and artist slots don't seem important if you're planning to stay in Caste a lot. I suppose you can't chop Culture directly though.

[Sullla]

Dp101, I'll try to keep our sandbox and planning updated as long as possible. I don't think we've hit the point of diminishing returns as yet; these Industrial era games are highly compressed in length, and as scooter said, we've seen a crazy amount of action for only 37 turns played. I think that the benefit of planning ahead of time is too great to give it up in a situation where every turn is crucial. Besides, I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

I had a chance to look around in-game. Some observations:



Here's our border with Donovan. We managed to get the forest chopped this turn without issue, and that's a big relief from a defensive perspective. We did not want any attacker to have defensive cover right next to Radio. The tile in between the corn and the horses flipped to our cultural control this turn, and we'll maintain it since it's second ring for Radio but third ring for Sector 19. (We will never get the horses in our control for the same reason.) Note that dyes are now within our borders as well, which I'll try to have the workers connect soonish for our cities.

Third ring borders at Radio also gives us cultural control over the tile south of the clams and east of the horses. These are nice tiles to have, giving us sightly more warning of incoming ships. It would be really nice to control the two tiles with white dots on them as well; they are third-ring for both Radio and Sector 19. The southern white dot would let us see the two boxed tiles, and that would give us even more warning. Apparently spies are allowed for this game (active missions are banned but the spies themselves are not), and so it would be really nice to put a spy on the hill tile north of Sector 19 at some point. It would be very difficult for Donovan to attack us with a spy granting vision over there. Anyway, if this game lasts deeper into the Industrial age past the point where we get factories, I have some ideas about how to leverage espionage in our favor, through mass building of Jails / Intelligence Agency combos. The building combo produces 24 EP/turn and they're pretty cheap in the post-factory period. Build a whole bunch of them, and we'll have massive passive espionage plus the ability to stick spies essentially anywhere without them getting caught. Getting a little ahead of ourselves though...



Scooter, I'd like to keep our explorer on the southern island stationed on this hill tile. That reveals the boxed tiles, and gives us a good chance to see any incoming attack ahead of time. Unfortunately we can't see the column of tiles further west; it would be nice to have another spotter over by the deer at some point down the road. Maybe later.



I noticed that BGN is about to capture this barbarian city to his west. I see this as a positive development: another city that we can use for foreign trade routes via Open Borders, and something that makes BGN a bit stronger. His position is weak enough that we'd prefer him not to be a tasty meal for Donovan or REM. Also note the cottage economy that BGN is running over by PetroPoroshenko. I think that's part of the reason why he's been struggling in this game, not using Slavery civic in the REM fashion and also not going the production route like we are. Three tall cities with a bunch of cottages is kind of "meh" under this game setup.



Pindicator researched Steam Power this turn, the last team in the game to discover a tech. Here's the full list of what everyone has at present, in the same order listed in the screenshot:

Pindicator: Steam Power
BGN: Scientific Method, Communism
Donovan: Steam Power
Dreylin: Scientific Method, Communism
REM: Scientific Method
Gaspar: Steam Power

Everyone has been on one of the same two tracks, either Steam Power first or Communism first. Generally speaking, the Steam Power track fits with taller cities, while the Communism track fits with lots of smaller cities. We'll complete Communism tech in 3 more turns, and then we'll see where everyone heads next after that. Our empire definitely wants Assembly Line after Communism, despite the huge cost.

Also of note: the city capture makes it obvious, but we can also tell that Dreylin/OT4E are fighting Gaspar/Noble because they show up with war weariness on the diplo screen. That's the truest test of whether a war is fake or real if no cities are changing hands. If the teams involved are showing up with war weariness, that means that units are dying.



So here's the real question for this turn: what are we doing on the pindicator border? Scooter, I moved our grenadier onto the hill tile for vision of this region, and this is the screenshot that resulted. Pindicator founded his city on the dotted red hill tile last turn, and then used Build Culture to pop borders (presumably stealing the copper resource from his other city to make it happen in a single turn). We can't settle on the 3a tile anymore, which means that we have a choice between the 3b tile or the grassland hill tile further west (yellow dot).

I'm a bit uncomfortable setting the 3b spot, as it's a very aggressive location only three tiles from pindicator's city. That would be a difficult spot to defend, as we will always be at risk of getting hit by 2-movers out of pindicator's city without warning. I also don't think that we really want to pick a fight with pindicator, given his traits and the fact that we're going to be bordering Dreylin for the indefinite future. I'm leaning towards settling the yellow dot city instead, for the following reasons:

* Less aggressive towards pindicator
* On a hill for the defensive bonus
* Potentially controls the identical resource tiles

The problem with the hill tile is that we only "potentially" control the same resource tiles. The corn and the sheep resources would be second-ring for the hill city, and they are currently second-ring for pindicator's two cities. If we can't win those cultural battles, then the city has no food and is useless. However, I think that we can almost certainly win the cultural battle against pindicator's Aggressive/Charismatic combo of traits. Our biggest advantage is Caste System civic:



Pindicator is in Slavery civic, so he can't run Artist specialists. Pindicator also has no state religion, and he's not using any religious civics. We can chop a quick theatre this city, while also running Artist specialists, and then use the corn resource to support more Artists once we flip those second-ring tiles. (Pindicator has kindly connected it for us already! ) I think we spread religion in here quickly, and also get library + cheap Spiritual temple + monastery for culture. I just think it will be tough for pindicator to match us given his setup, and his hill city will still be quite good even without the corn. It would also give us a pretty stable border, with each of us having hill cities 4 tiles apart, roughly separated by the lake and channel geographically. (We would then settle a filler city later at the white dot.)

The worker micro for this turn is pretty simple if we go with this plan: one worker finishes the road on the plains tile, and the other worker moves northwest onto the hill tile to road it. Another little advantage of the hill tile is that we get our city founded a turn sooner, T289 instead of T290. What do you think scooter? This is ultimately your call. I simply don't like planting on that 3b spot for defensive reasons. We have enough security risks all over the place, methinks.

[scooter]

I've normally been watching that hill on the south island, and I only moved away from it because I figured we might want to head south and get eyes on the Dreylin/Gaspar conflict. The explorer may not even be able to get down there quickly enough, though, so maybe that idea doesn't matter.

I really don't want to just give up the horse/corn to pindicator. 3b is 6 tiles from our capital and about a dozen from him, so I think he's going to have to suck it up and accept that he improved that corn for us for free. Pindicator ought to be fairly rational about it, and he knows we were headed that way anyway. Yellow just starts way too slow for me while claiming no contested land - it won't even control a food for at least a dozen turns. For me, it's 3b or screw this whole area and send the settler north. Besides, we got map screwed on this region, so there's an irrational side of me where I feel like we're owed one solid city over here.

Let's also keep in mind that this is a weak spot for pindicator. Think of our position. We were just saying with Radio that we can make it annoying to capture, but we certainly can't do anything about it if Donovan badly wants it because reinforcing it is a logistical nightmare. Because our best production cities are all on our eastern side (as everyone's are), we can get boats and units on the water here rather easily. The easiest directions to invade on this map is east or northeast due to your core cities being on that side. Units can move quickly on that side due to water transportation, but imagine how hard it would be to reinforce our west side easily. With Dreylin targeting Gaspar rather than Donovan, I think we've realized that it'll be easier to poach land from Gaspar due to the water than it would be lugging 1-movers clear to our west front. All that to say - I don't think geography favors pindicator being aggressive in our direction, and I think that lets us call his bluff a little bit. Besides, I'm not really that afraid of Boudica. Theocracy Montezuma vs Paganism Boudica is pretty much an even fight anyway. He'll have better targets elsewhere - namely the lagging BGN to his east. If he starts up a conflict with us, he's asking for us to load our units on a Galleon or two and fork all of his western cities instead of heading north. I don't think it would end well at all for him - we don't have a big military, but it's all on this side of our empire. I bet he can't say the same.

I'll give it some more thought, but I'm definitely leaning towards just settling 3b and being done with it. Maybe I'm being overly reckless?

[Sullla]

Well, it if were a dozen turns to gain control of the food resources I would agree with you. However, I think we can claim them a lot faster than that, probably 3-4 turns if that. Remember that pindicator has no culture/turn in that city of his. He only popped borders by Building Culture for a turn. We can easily do the same thing, only we can also chop out a theatre and also run Caste System Artist specialists. I think we can flip those disputed tiles almost immediately.

Maybe I should back up and discuss the mechanics of how tiles are controlled culturally. This has always been one of my favorite topics in Civ4, and the mechanics are not explained intuitively. Essentially, cities put "culture points" each turn onto each tile that they control equal to the amount of culture that the city is producing. They then get bonus culture points for each ring of borders that have popped. Take a city with popped borders with a library inside and nothing else. The culture point would be awarded as follows:

center tile: 2 + 40 = 42 culture points/turn
first ring: 2 + 20 = 22 culture points/turn
second ring: 2 culture points/turn

This is why there's such a premium on popping borders in Civ4 when disputing cultural tiles, as each extra ring adds 20 culture points/turn. Right now, pindicator's city is producing 0 culture points/turn in his second ring. He control the tiles, but he's not adding any further culture points on them. We should be able to wrestle control away quite easily. More importantly, if we can hit 100 culture in our city - and I think we can do that pretty quickly - then we'll be getting a massive advantage on those contested tiles until pindicator can also hit 100 culture in his city... which I think would take a long time.

Anyway, I'm willing to be talked out of this idea, but I do think that we can win the cultural battle at this city, and I don't think it would take very long. Also, I'd rather avoid conflict with pindicator and continue our very successful overall strategy of building up towards the future, instead of settling right on his border and daring him to declare war. Conflict is not really in our interest until we get our factories/power plants done, at which time we become a juggernaut that no one wants to fight.

[scooter]

Yeah fair point and all, but how do we know he isn't going to immediately chop a Theater and run a couple artists of his own?

Even setting that aside though... the bigger issue to me is that I simply don't think Pindicator attacking us over 3b is a real likelihood. To some extent this is a gut feel from having played a couple games teamed with him now, so I know his tendencies pretty well. I've seen him take far more offensive plants than that from opponents without tilting over it, and I'm pretty confident he'll be fine with 3b even if he's probably hoping we'll back off and settle yellow. He has to know he's the person planting aggressively here and not us. And like I said, this is a one-city front for us and a multi-city front for him - this region is tougher for him to defend than us. I think he's every bit as leery of provoking us as we are of him and rightfully so.

I'll think on this a little more before playing tonight, but I'm still leaning towards settling 3b.