[SPOILERS] Pindicator promises brighter days ahead

[pindicator]

That is awesome. This war was a resounding success for all the points you gave. And yes, GA when mono comes in - perfect timing.

I would still go forward with the settler because even though we can't legally settle anywhere now, we don't know how his other 2 wars will play out. If there happens to be a razed city or other spot opening up land then it would be great to be able to pounce in with a settler of our own. Or at worst there are a couple filler locations still to be had.

I am at work and get home in about 8 hours. Sounds like we will need a pause. I'll ask for it on the tech thread.

[pindicator]

Turn 135

Signing peace with Gav is going to send a major ripple through the wars in the area.  It may actually let Gavagai come out of this alive, as now his task gets a lot simpler.




With peace upon us and plako now granting us OB, I decided to send a chariot south to investigate.  (Not the sentry chariot, because that is too valuable to have at home for whenever the next war breaks out.)  Along the way we spotted the first domino from our peace deal with Gav:  all those forces are now lined up to hit the city of Bangor.  Commodore - who played before us and so didn't know the peace deal when he made his troop movements - all but abandoned the city he took from Gav.  But even more telling was that he pillaged the roads to prevent Gav from being able to advance farther.  I'm guessing he didn't realize the true strength that Gavagai had available to him until after taking that city, otherwise he would have razed it.

If this turns into a quick exit from the Commodore then we can expect Gavagai to send that army south against plako next.  With enforced peace on 2 borders, a huge army, then I expect him to be able to take back a lot of ground against plako.  I don't think plako will let his army be destroyed, but instead I fear Gav will be able to recapture all of his cities.  Which would put us as the prime target for retaliation once our peace is up in 10 turns.

With that in mind, Elephantine will not be in a good defensive position.  I doubt we can get second level borders in the south, which means Gav will always be able to hit the city on the first turn of any conflict by coming over the rice tile.  I think we need to just overstuff this city with spears and archers with walls up by the time turn 10 comes around.  Something like 20 units doesn't seem like too much of an ask, because there are FORTY-ONE two-movers visible in that screenshot.  Longbows would be great, but I'm not sure we can get there and accomplish our other goals.

And then we have to contend with the possibility that TBS could come south at any moment ....




I tarried a little to the west to see more of his lands, but no unit stack has been spotted yet.  I did meet dtay this turn, a chariot on our northern border.  Aside from the 1 galleon that Lewwyn commented on 10 turns ago, we haven't seen any motion out of TBS.  But the other reason I show this screenshot is that if you look at the tile yields you will see that TBS has Guilds now, thanks to the 1f3h grassland workshops.

We defend against TBS much like we defended against the possibility that Gav could have sent his entire 2-mover stack into our core:  we pray it doesn't happen and plan like it won't because there isn't a thing we can do about it even if we put our entire effort towards it.

I did move our armies up north a bit.  I think our southern forces have to stay to the south, at least until we see what happens with Gavagai.  Most likely we're going to see Gav retake Commodore's city and then peace him out, and then peace out plako with maybe 1 or 2 cities changing hands either way.  That leaves Gav's army intact and eager to retake his best city: Elephantine.  This is my fear.  My hope is that Gav and plako knock each other down quite a bit and Gav is never more than a border state.

The one thing that we have in our favor against TBS is that the northern cities are all more-or-less expendable.  They're cities we can trade for time if it comes to it.  Not like Elephantine or our core cities, which were all more on the Gavagai border.  Still... Feudalism is a really good target for defense, and leads to Guilds, a great choice for offense and economy.

... which is why we're going to sneak in Aesthetics and Literature first





Temple of Artemis is a 4 or 5 turn build:

135:  52h x +75% = 91/350
136: - trigger the golden age, convert into Org Rel.  25h base x +100% = 50hpt during the GA.  141/350 at end of turn
137: 191/350
138: 242/350  + 2 forest chops finishing this turn = 362/350

The trick is getting 2 forests chopped in time.  I can do it ... inefficiently.  2 workers can move onto the forest south of the silver and then both chop, and then another worker would have to move on to the forest marked 2/3 chop in order to get the wonder built by eot 138.

It may be better to just make this a 5-turn build and use 1 worker to chop a forest coming in on 139 and finishing the wonder then at 352/350.  But I would call it a fine to delay because this is purely a nice-to-have build.  Useful for great people and future golden ages.





With great people and golden ages in mind, Parthenon is the target here at Hyo-Jin.  It is due in 7 turns.

135:  Monotheism finishes
136:  Aesthetics starts
137:  Aesthetics finishes
138:  Start Parthenon, doing 35hpt base x +100% = 70/400
139: 140/400
140: 210/400
141: 280/400 + 2 forest chops = 400/400

Here the forest chops are easily managed - in fact I will probably put one of the 2 in on 138 so I can start the farm chain north earlier.

[pindicator]

136

It's finally time!




There was only 1 whip we could find to do - all the way up at Peiffer the CKN there was sitting at 31/60. After that it was time to make the 2nd civic swap of the game





8 cities left to convert, and we set 3 missionaries out right away: Hyo-Jun and Achereekte are 1-turn builds, and Dahlmeier seemed the next best at 2t. Technically I can 1t a missionary at Gleierscher, but that city is so far removed from the nearest city in need of a missionary that it loses any advantage in travel time.

Aesthetics comes in 1 turn at 80% now, and suddenly the plan to get Parthenon just got bumped up by 2 turns. Next turn we will move a pair of workers onto the two other open forests, and then on t138 we'll follow up with 2 more workers with all of them finishing their chops on 139. The city meanwhile will produce 66, 72, and then 82 hammers on turns 137, 138, and 139 which total to 220 - and the 3 tree chops (another worker is already on a plains forest) will finish off the last 180h of the wonder.


After Aesthetics we will 1-turn Literature, which will be used to then 1-turn the National Epic at Kalla:




Kalla right now is maxing out scientists in order to get our Great Scientist and academy for the bureau capital as soon as possible. We'll probably end up getting multiple great people out of this city before the golden age is up, because after we 1-turn literature that means we chop 4 pre-chopped forests on turn 138 for 240 hammers. We can easily get the rest with working the iron mine.

WIth the golden age, National Epic, and Parthenon combined we'll start getting +250% GP points in Kalla. So I feel confident we'll get 2 great people here without starving the city any.

Something we didn't figure out this turn: Where there be another city that we starve in order to push out more great people? Or do we want to wait on that since there aren't any plans to chain great people yet.




This city will have an academy on t140





And this city will have Moai by end of t138

[scooter]

I don't have much to add or ask, but just a bump to say I'm happy to see this thread active and energized. Nicely done on your conquests.

[Lewwyn]

I don't have much to add or ask

I guess we're doing something right. 

[Lewwyn]

Comm played after the turn rolled. Looks like he accepted peace. So plako gonna get boomed?

I wonder if gav can actually recover everything he lost from plako. No way he's getting elephantine back though.

[pindicator]

Turn 137



I didn't note this last turn, but we were pretty clued in to Gavagai's recapturing of two cities on this turn. We had this picture from our scouting chariot:




Both cities were captured, and Gavagai and Commodore peaced out.




Commodore I think did pretty okay for his war here. He got to get a free shot in against Gavagai, and when it didn't play out, he was able to peace out without much loss. This means Gavagai's huge force is able to square off solely against plako. I'm not sure what plako's army composition is - but his power and Gav's is about equal as of now. What I fear is going to happen is we are going to see plako take back a few cities and then eventually peace out plako without much of a real conflict, which will set up Gav to be able to hit us with enforced peace on all other borders. However I suppose it is possible that he and plako will either continue to stand off or smash against each other - both good outcomes for us.

As Lewwyn said in our chat tonight, this is a good reason to go for Engineering next.




This was the only thing I had to really work on this turn. I had somehow mixed up my workers, double booked them in chopping duties, and had to re-plan how we were going to use 4 workers each for chopping at Kalla and Hyo-Jun each, as well as 2 workers for finishing the workshop. Next turn the green workers move first to chop 4 forests at Kalla and 1-turn the National Epic, and then the blue workers will move to the forests marked so that they can finish all chops for Hyo-Jun on t139.

You can also see our first two missionaries out - their first target is to convert Kalla (otherwise we can't 1-turn National Epic) and then we convert Laffont.

[Lewwyn]

Gav didn't take any more cities back. Either plako is holding him off, they had a big battle, or gav is angling for peace? He's still whipping though.

[pindicator]

I have a fear that they peaced out and Gav only cares to avenge his sacred fish ...

Also, we haven't discussed Heroic Epic! I mean, we mentioned it before but I think in the excitement of everything else concrete plans for it have fallen by the wayside. (Really we probably should be chopping that in HJ instead of Parthenon!) Did we want to try for it in HJ after, or is there another city you would think suitable? I'm not sure there is another good coastal unit producer right now.

I don't have much to add or ask, but just a bump to say I'm happy to see this thread active and energized. Nicely done on your conquests.

Hey, glad to see you pop up in the thread scooter! Don't worry, we'll get our war in with Commodore. The great Zulu Injustice is still not forgotten!

[Thoth]