Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

I could get a canal city, but Rome wouldn't be able to move their ships through it.

[roland of gilead]

That is something they should fix. You should be able to go through a team mates city. 

Probably a Suzerain city state as well. 

[suboptimal]

After going back through some of the earlier turn reports I've got a question about Industrial Zones - it looks like one is going in at Shangdu at the discounted price. Given the past discussion on the Markets and their return on production investment are IZ's, workshops and factories worth the return on production investment outside of any tech/civic boosts they might provide?

Singaboy commented that a factory at Shengdu would give +3 production to five cities but that's at a production cost of ~150 for the district, 175 for the workshop and 390 for the factory for +15 per turn at five cities and another +5 per turn (workshop + IZ adjacency bonus) at Shengdu.

[Modo]

That's a seriously suboptimal way of looking at it.

[suboptimal]

Indeed, which is why I'm asking.

[Sullla]

Are Industrial districts worth their production cost? Probably not in pure production terms. They do have a place in the game due to their role in some of the tech boosts, and landing an important Great Engineer can do wonders (literally) for your civ. I think the days of us valuing Industrial districts as one of the best types are long over though. They're definitely more of a situational thing at this point. Anyway, on to the turn - this was a busy one.



I noticed that Japper, Cornflakes, and EmperorK all failed to post turn reports today. I actually thought that maybe the turn hadn't gotten around to me, but nope, there it was. It looks like Kongo and Khmer are burning out on the game for understandable reasons. Japper didn't kill any of my units as expected, instead moving his units forward fairly aggressively in the north. Is he spitefully leaving Kinchassa undefended to be taken by England? Well, we can worry about that later. Japper chose to have his crossbow inside Heart of Darkness shoot at my... crossbow?! Huh? What a bizarre choice with melee units surrounding his capital. I actually had enough experience to promote that crossbow and instantly heal away all the damage. That was a waste, although to be fair Japper is pretty screwed here.

I started out by moving the full health knight two tiles east for vision (and yes, knights do get to ignore zone of control as I thought) and then moved the knight east of the city onto the sheep tile with the trader unit. That revealed several more units:



Two crossbows in the north and some more Khmer units off to the east, along with that Khmer archer randomly sitting on the Campus district. I sat here for a long time thinking about how I wanted to play the rest of the turn; the clock in the corner says that I waited about 10 minutes here before I moved anything. Eventually I figured out a way that I thought would allow me to take Heart of Darkness while still keeping all of my units safe from dying between turns. Let me walk through the steps involved.

I started by having the legion west of the Kongo capital attack the city center. At +8 strength I did the expected damage of 42 points here. Why this unit first? The legion was in no danger from remaining on the same tile; those Kongo crossbows wouldn't be able to attack it down there to the south of the river. I didn't want to open up with the full strength knight north of the capital because then it would end its turn on that tile and be in range of two crossbows when the save rolled back around to Japper. So I attacked with the western legion first, and then with the injured knight southeast of the city center. That set up this attack:



I finished the attack with this northern knight instead of starting with the unit. That was counterintuitive from a health pespective, but made perfect sense from a tactical one. Now the knight would end its turn inside Heart of Darkness, safely out of range of the Kongo crossbows.

The first capital city to fall in the game officially went to our team:



Hah! Take that Kongo. Steal away Jesuit Education from our team with dirty tricks? Payback is a dish best served cold.



Next I wanted to deal with that Khmer archer on the Campus district. It was actually safer to kill the archer as opposed to leaving it alive, since that archer could shoot with 30 ranged strength (with Volley promotion) but only had 15 melee strength. The danger was the other Khmer units off to the east, as I didn't want to leave anything in range of the crossbow to move and shoot. If you look back at the previous picture above, I pulled up the knight that started the turn next to Max Havellar and attacked the archer from the wheat tile east of Heart of Darkness. Then I finished off the archer with the pictured knight, which took all of 7 damage while attacking at +34 strength advantage. This moved the injured knight out of the range of that Khmer crossbow while also protecting the Campus district from being pillaged. And the Kongo crossbows to the north also can't hit this tile either, as it's out of their current range and blocked by the marsh and jungle tiles from those units moving and shooting. I should have enough health to survive an attack from the Khmer horseman, so I'm hopeful that this knight will survive and live to heal up and fight again.



Next I shifted focus to the northern part of the formation where Japper was going after my crossbows. He actually attacked the northernmost crossbow with one of his Ngao Mbembas, leaving that unit in the yellow range on health. I had thought about where to put my units and I was pretty confident that I could finish off this unit while also keeping my crossbows safe. First I had the Roman crossbow on the cocoa tile shoot this unit, which it could reach by virtue of the fact that the cocoa tile is actually a jungle hill. Then I moved the crossbow on the marsh tile west and fired another crossbow bolt into the same unit. Why move west? This put the marsh in the way of Japper's units, and while I can shoot over it with my crossbows, his Ngao Mbembas can't cross it on a single turn's worth of movement. They get to move through jungles and forests for free, but not marshes.

Those two shots did 25 and 22 damage respectively due to the various ranged defenses on the Ngao Mbembas. Those were actually both bad dice rolls; with good ones, I might have been able to eliminate that unit with only two shots. As a last move, I had the injured crossbow move northwest and finish off that redlined Kongo unit:



Wait, move on a road?! When did that get there? Roman unique ability "All Roads Lead to Rome" at your service. This is going to be a huge logistical help for our team in terms of moving units around. I love the fact that it let me pull off this move that was literally impossible when Japper was playing his turn. Scratch one of those mighty Ngao Mbembas, which ironically fell entirely to ranged units. I actually disagree with Japper's choice to promote them all along the Tortoise line. They already get plenty of innate ranged defense for free, they would be more effective with Battlecry to boost their melee strength. Promoting them all with Tortoise feels like too defensive of a strategy to me, useful only if you're defending against an attack. Melee units aren't very useful unless they're actually attacking someone, not sitting back and defending. Too passive of a strategy.

The net result was this awesome screenshot:



Heart of Darkness in our hands, three enemy units dead, and ZERO viable targets for any of Japper's or Cornflakes' crossbows. I kited those Ngao Mbembas backwards in the northwest part of the formation like I was playing ranged DPS in League of Legends again. The injured crossbow is totally safe, it can't be attacked my anything. The Ngao Mbembas can't reach it and the northernmost Kongo crossbow, which can move onto the rice tile, still can't hit it because there's a marsh on that rice tile. Moving into will end a crossbow's turn. The other two crossbows can't hit anything either. The one legion within two tiles is on the other side of a jungle hill (with the cocoa) and therefore can't be hit. My crossbow southwest of the marsh can be attacked by only a single Ngao Mbemba, and I would welcome that attack since the Ngao Mbemba would quickly die on my turn to counterattacks. Similarly, I would love it if he attacked my legion in that area. It has Battlecry promotion and managed to fortify this turn, and it will be defending at something like 55 strength. Be me guest Japper, please try to kill that unit with your 35 strenth swords.

I did make one small error: I should have moved up the one-promotion crossbow a tile to the east so that it was supporting the legion. Then I also could have attacked Japper's units with it if they tried to close to melee range. That's a pretty small mistake though. Everything else went perfectly. I am really, really happy with how the combat played out on this turn. I'll swap policies into Professional Army next turn and turn all these legions into muskets, then push on Kinchassa for the final elimination.

Going to take a break from typing for a little bit, I'll put together the rest of the turn report in an hour or two.

[Singaboy]

Awesome progress! I am really happy that we could take those two cities that fast. Let's keep up the pressure on Kongo. I do hope that Khmer will use his units on Nubia not Rome/China.

I am planning to heal promote the southern knight. I am in fact thinking of using it to attack Seoul from the east with it. I would like to use the northern knight to scout towards the east once the unit is healed.

The biggest question though remains. The most important of all things Did you ship cocoa to China

[Sullla]

Picking up where I left off before on the turn report:



As a captured enemy capital, Heart of Darkness is a strong city. There are natural wonder tiles right here inside the city's second ring, which will be useful to work if I can get more of them inside my borders. The city came with a Campus district intact but no library, and weirdly, it didn't have a completed monument. Yet it did have a watermill inside, which I'm guessing was only built to trigger the boost for Construction tech. This wasn't a great city for a watermill otherwise. I'm going to build city walls for the time being while the city is in resistance, since I can at least get the extra production bonus on them from Limes and Monarchy goverment. I should have tossed down a Bath district though, that was an oversight and it will be slightly more expensive after finishing a civic between turns. I think that I want another Commercial district here too, since it can get the river bonus for free. Once this city gets out of resistance, it will be a very nice addition to the empire.

I didn't get around to renaming the city this turn. I think I'll go with "Napoli" (Naples) since that was the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and we are here in the southern part of the empire.



Up in the far north, I finished off this barbarian ship with my quadrireme and earned the rare boost for Naval Tradition civic. My quadrireme even earned enough experience for a promotion, wiping away the damage taken from being shot last turn - nice! I swapped civics research to Naval Tradition and will finish it next turn, swapping policies for one turn into Professional Army, Land Surveyors, and the 2 for 1 Diplomatic policy (Diplomatic League) which will get me 3 envoys in Geneva. I have two more envoys coming from natural accumulation soon, and then I just need to land the boost for Square Rigging (kill a unit with a musket) to hit 6 envoys with Geneva. My science rate should just up close to 110 beakers/turn next turn if all goes as expected.



I finally cashed in the city walls forest chop at Firenze towards the Venetian Arsenal. This was the last forest chop that I had scheduled before leaving Monarchy government and it yielded 230 production total. That led to this screenshot:



I love the 311/80 production on the city walls in the top corner, heh. That meant 231 production overflow into the Venetian Arsenal for a total production of 544/920 into the wonder. ETA is down to 16 turns now, and since Firenze is making exactly 25 production per turn, it's pretty easy to estimate the finishing date. I plan to chop two more forests here for about 100 production each, which will cut off 4 turns apiece on the wonder's finishing date. It should be done in 8 more turns on Turn 121 when the second forest chop arrives. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no one else will beat me to the wonder; the total wonder construction time will be 20 turns, and I think that's fairly good for Venetian Arsenal.



Overview for Turn 113. The most interesting thing here is the continued chase after the next Great Scientist. TheArchduke is due to land it in 2 turns and then I'm on pace to claim the following one in 3 turns with that Campus district project, narrowly passing Woden who would otherwise beat me to the punch. We still have only 4 players in the Renaissance era, which keeps us on pace for the era to avoid advancing after TheArchduke claims the current Great Scientist. I'm actually curious if Woden is deliberately avoiding entering the Renaissance at this point - he discovered two techs in the last two turns but still hasn't advanced in era. We could have the following scenario play out:

Turn 115: TheArchduke claims the first Great Scientist
Turn 116: Rome claims the second Great Scientist
Turn 116 (again): Woden claims the last Great Scientist

All in the same era! Of course, if either Japper or Cornflakes dies in the next three turns, then we'll be at 4/7 players in the Renaissance era and all this will be for naught. So, uh, hold in there a little longer Cornflakes!



Final unit disposition in the south. By all means Singaboy, please feel free to promote the southern knight and send him over to help attack Seoul. Taking that city state in a single turn would be an impressive show of force, and we may as well use the units we have on hand. Two more turns to finish the battering ram, and then three turns to move next to Seoul. ETA for the attack is still Turn 118. As for the main front with Japper, we can't plan too much until he moves his units. Will he move forward aggressively or pull back to defend Kinchassa? We'll have to wait and see. (I'm hoping to send my battering ram up and around to attack the city from the sea with a caravel, which I think would be an easier way to take out the walls.)



And for the most important moment of the turn, the cocoa trade... does not happen!!! I'm sorry Singaboy, Japper only had a single cocoa resource connected in his territory. The tile northwest-northwest of Heart of Darkness does NOT have a plantation on it. And unfortunately, I really do need the cocoa resource myself to keep down war weariness. One thing that we can do is try trading your excess spices to Woden or Chevalier for once of their excess luxuries. They're also hurting for happiness and they would likely accept. Worth a shot, right? I swear, before this game is over I will get your civ copies of cocoa and truffles!

So no cocoa, but I am taking 1000 gold for upgrades. Thanks!

In the Demographics, TheArchduke's beaker rate has climbed again to 127 per turn after he picked up the 3 envoy bonus in Geneva. He's getting the 6 envoy bonus in Seoul and the 3 envoy bonus in Geneva right now. This looks super scary, but he should be cut down to size pretty quickly if we can capture Seoul. The math is suggesting that Rome will actually pass him in science rate if we take that city state. Our team has also essentially caught up to Russia/Germany in score, for what that's worth. Given all of their half cost / double score unique districts, I'm really happy that we're holding even with them in score points. And then I wanted to do some graphing for you guys when it came to power rating:



Check this out. This is the power rating for Woden (orange) and Cornflakes (blue) over the last 30 or so turns, starting with Turn 80 = 1 up to the current Turn 113 = 34. (I'm still learning Excel tables here and working on getting the graph numbers correct, and yes, I labeled the graphs backwards.) It's remarkable how their power ratings track one another over the course of the fighting. There was clearly a major battle around Turn 105, and then another battle that just concluded at Preah Vihear when Woden captured the city. Cornflakes has lost about half his power, but Woden is hurting as well. Down from a high of 988 power to 644 this turn - that's not just units healing, those are significant losses. Chevalier Mal Fet actually has more power than Woden now, and both of them are lower than Singaboy. Even though Japper and Cornflakes are in the process of dying, they've put up a good fight here. The terrifying army that Woden/Chevalier had about 20 turns ago has been greatly weakened, and they've only picked up two cities thus far. We certainly seem to have come out of this lengthy conquest of Kongo/Khmer in a much stronger position than they are.

I think that's all for now. Have a great turn Singaboy.

[Modo]

And for the most important moment of the turn, the cocoa trade... does not happen!!!
So no cocoa, but I am taking 1000 gold for upgrades. Thanks!

Ahh, the eternal support / ADC bot synergy. Although Singaboy also farmed those wonders like a mid laner so there's that

[Singaboy]

Turn 113:

How to progress with such an ally who not only denies amenities but constantly asks for more money. With such friends, you don't need enemies.
The real concern with 1k gold less in my kitty fund is the coming upgrading of several units. I am switching back to Diplomatic Service to be able to swap into Serfdom and Professional Army next turn. I will use this to upgrade two archers to crossbows to get the Eureka for metal casting. This costs 190 gold. I would like to upgrade two swordsmen into muskets for 235 gold. Total damage = 425 gold. handing 1000 gold to Rome leave me with 570 gold this turn.
The following turn (T115), I will need to upgrade two catapults to bombards for 250 gold before swapping out of Professional army the same turn with naval tradition done. At the same time three builders are being produced so we can swap away from Serfdom too.

I am a little glad I am running a commercial project for the added income of 8gpt. Every bit counts. Beijing wouldn't have been able to produce another builder anyway as it is producing one that is on hold for Serfdom.
My income will be as follows (roughly as district completion etc will play a role too):
T114 690 - 425 = 265 gold (if I upgrade 2 swordsmen and 2 archers)
T115 380 - 250 = 130 gold. (upgrading 2 catapults)

I would like to upgrade the chariot to a knight too to be able to attack Seoul with 2 knights, the crouching tiger. The northern approach to Seoul is pretty crowded. I will have to work out the attack details next turn.

Oh, by the way, Khmer are still alive but Nubia seems to be after their units with a knight seen in the east. Let's hope Khmer hold on for a few more turns so we can take Kinchassa for ourselves.




The next question that I posted before but maybe drowned in the flurry of news. What to do with my settler. And to add to that, which district to build in Pagan.

1. If I settle where the slinger currently stands, I open up the possibility for Germany to move their ships through the western canal city and potentially take the new city giving Germany the opportunity to have access to the eastern sea. However, if I use the settler to settle where the eastern chariot is, I deny Germany that canal city spot via city distance. The new city has plenty of forests etc for chop to develop it. What do you think, Sulla?

2. District in Pagan. Originally planned to be a commercial district, I am now leaning towards a harbor for some reasons. There are still two sea wonders to be built and it seems nobody is chasing them. Pagan is relatively safe from sea attacks and could get support from Rome if a naval invasion would be planned by Germany. Shanghai is too exposed to Germany and having two wonders there would make the city a prime target. Again, opinions please?

Besides the daylight robbery deal that happened (ok, I admit for a very good reason), the turn is really quiet. In the east, one knight is moved out of Max Havelaar and promoted to full health. Another horseman is drafted there.
In my core empire, Hangzhou swapped out of the builder for a turn and started the theatre district. The rest is continuing with their builds. Tianjin might finish the campus next turn with a rain forest chop. Either way, by T115, I will have three campuses. With more districts coming online, there is a chance of getting a new round of districts for a discount once I get to 16 districts in total.

As mentioned, civics are lined up for a quick succession swap. Research for metal casting should be done by T115 perfectly lined up for the bombard upgrades. Then, it is another 10 turns or so to cavalry. Of course, the issue will be to upgrade them all, especially when Rome continually empties my pockets.

I think, I have no choice but to draft another missionary too in order to spread the faith to the southeast for more income. It looks as if Kinchassa would get back to Marco Polo with the conquest as it loses citizens.



Lastly, I suggested a trade to England in the hope that I can get another much needed amenity to boost my income etc.