It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Grotsnot]

Ill tidings, comrades. The barbs have decided to amp up their jerkery. I don't want to sit on the save for long but I also don't want to screw up Chevalier's game, so if anybody can sanity check my damage control in the next I dunno, 20-30mins that would be appreciated. I'll pass on the save after that and hope that one turn can't do anything irreparable...

Situation: Alarm


After some hemming and hawing over whether to switch Zobrist's production - the empire could really use that monument and it is so close to finished - I realize I can send the builder to peek across the lake, hoping, praying that the Grenadan warrior is still out there...


Situation: Fffffffff

Okay, this game does not want there to be a monument up there. My current plan is to scramble a slinger. On max production it can finish in 4 turns:


The healthy slinger continues over, the one healing in Escobar is still red at 31HP. Going to give them 1, maybe 2 more turns to heal. The warrior out east is at least half a dozen turns away from being able to help due to the hilly terrain. Luckily this turn I can move it such that it could either rush west or continue north with no loss of time to either.

In better news, Cain was settled, giving the Early Empire boost. Will follow-up with details soonish. Right now I'm asking:
* Is full-on crash building military in Zobrist an overreaction? It saves one turn at the cost of 4 food and 1 faith per turn. Crash build rate could also finish the monument in only 1 turn. Maybe I should have done that sooner...
* Should it build a warrior instead of a slinger? Arabia needs another slinger eventually and being able to shoot out of the city is very nice. But the warrior strength might be important? For reference, Warrior would take 5 turns to build.

Thanks in advance folks!

[Banzailizard]

I would not go crazy on the anti Barb production. You have maritime industries in place right? Discipline would have been better and makes the situation slightly more serious, but still not aweful.  Only real concern is that the barbs burn the mine or farm. Besides one turn does not really change anything here.

[Grotsnot]

Thanks Banzai. So what, continue on as before? Or keep on with the slinger but go back to working the farm? I'm tempted to at least 1-turn the monument if a scramble isn't needed.

[Grotsnot]

All right so here's where things stand with the rest of the empire.

Cain al Malik founded! As mentioned, earning the Early Empire inspiration. City starts work on a builder.

Southern continent continues on. I think I spy a river in the fog:

From the scores, it looks like Archduke got a tech and Emperor K got a tech and a pair of era points. Barb camp, maybe? We jump up to 48 but the UI continues to 

Strategic overview. Going to quickly finish up the monument and consult for next turn what to do for the following military build. I'm still leaning slinger, whatcha think, fellas?

And Escobar is back to 12.6 so that's nice

[Grotsnot]

So likely plan:

* Zobrist: Build a slinger. On the fence between that and a warrior, with needing a 3rd for machinery boost tipping the balance. Probably go back to working the farm but we'll see how organized the barbs are.
* Healthy slinger: If a barb comes into current range, shoot it. Otherwise continue up the hill line toward Zobrist. Not worth taking a hit on flatlands to go shoot one.
* Injured slinger: Will be at 51 health. Want to give another turn to heal but they could take one hit before needing to flee. Thinking stay and heal if the barbs stay outside our borders, head out if they press in.
* Warrior: Continue north. Will take too long to get through all the hills to be much help.
* Builder: Considering giving the last charge to Escobar but I think we want to wait to use any chops there until Magnus? That's still about a dozen turns away with the setup time. I think this will be the last turn before Chevalier gets back so I think I'll have the builder take shelter on Escobar's forest-hill and have the city put a turn into a new builder with the galley at 1 turn remaining. Then I won't have to be the one to decide whether to chop or carefully head back up to Z's furs
* Boats: Scout boat continues south; Escobar can build a 3rd after the current one. Need to get some contacts. New boat will putter around defogging the south coast & inner sea while waiting for reinforcements.

Thoughts?

[Grotsnot]

All righty, basically did the plan I outlined earlier. Not my most proofread post but it's late so y'all can deal with some rambling

Turn start, convenient barb moves all things considered:

Hit barb, was pleasantly incorrect about other slinger, it's up to 71HP so moved it out to help. Or can heal another turn or two, but I figured the flexibility was worth 5HP-on-1-turn-more-healing.

Scout boat found a channel (hopefully not a large bay), decided to cut inward since we know for sure there's someone back southwest and can reasonably quickly get a different boat over to the east. It's all still the same continent still, so the eastern part might be a small island? Not sure how much sanity the mapmakers can impose on the continents... if it's like natural wonders it might be a useless lens

Started Zobrist on a slinger. Split the difference somewhat and worked the unfarmed wheat - slinger still in 4 turns but get some (small) food surplus and faith going again. Escobar puts a turn into a builder with the current builder able to apply a chop to the 1-turn-away galley

Warrior wanders north, sees some land across the bay (I forgot to check but I'm pretty it was already established it isn't a lake) E-NE of the mountain:

Scores, haven't gotten to analyze yet:

For shits and giggles I pause Irrigation on 1-turn to mask the tech score, might be silly but whatever, don't need it right away and need archery eventually anyway
Also civics and cities overviews because why not:

And finally strategic overview:

Chevalier gets back tomorrow, so thus concludes Arabia's term under Goblin stewardship! Thanks for the opportunity to get my feet wet and hope I didn't mess anything up too bad

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Quick note - 

Thank you, thank you, huge thank you to Grotsnot for covering for me. Looks like you had a bit of a barb wave but you handled it splendidly! I owe you a lot, and I'm glad you got to get your feet wet in multiplayer playing and reporting. Great work!

I'm having trouble with my image capturing software, so no screenshots yet. I may go and try to collect them from the end of turn save. Just a bit more scouting, killed a barb warrior with our slinger battery. Swapped Escobar back to the galley - we have time to build 1 more for chopping, that way I can leave the original on scout duties and use the second 3 for Grenada. 

Really wish there were some more city-states nearby.

[Grotsnot]

Thank you, thank you, huge thank you to Grotsnot for covering for me. Looks like you had a bit of a barb wave but you handled it splendidly! I owe you a lot, and I'm glad you got to get your feet wet in multiplayer playing and reporting. Great work!

Pff, it was, what, 4 turns? But thanks! Glad I didn't botch it Realizing just now I forgot to check GPPs during the barb wave, though At least those are mostly able to figure out districts retroactively.  

I'm having trouble with my image capturing software, so no screenshots yet. I may go and try to collect them from the end of turn save. Just a bit more scouting, killed a barb warrior with our slinger battery. Swapped Escobar back to the galley - we have time to build 1 more for chopping, that way I can leave the original on scout duties and use the second 3 for Grenada.

For screenshots I used Steam's built-in F12 thing. Is there something better?
And yeah I knew there were more chopportunities queued up but wasn't sure if, since the worker had already fled all the way down there, there might be something worth doing. Was only intending 1 turn to be put into the builder as a stall so it would be your decision Though with my luck now Grenada is going to get its walls up 1 turn before the brute squadron arrives and I'll have to seppuku

Really wish there were some more city-states nearby.

Seriously. The north coast of the big island is shockingly empty. Leaves plenty of room for expansion but really sucks for PP. Grenada has contributed something like 80 (maybe like 50% more with policy cards? Possibly a little more if the happiness buff applies, too) since Escobar has built nothing but units, right? Which essentially buys a bunch of the force to go eat it  Not garbage (i.e., Industrial), and if the bonuses apply I think even beats a Commercial, but holy moly a Cultural or Scientific CS would have been sooo helpful. Hopefully everyone else is having similar luck... Maybe if I'm bored this weekend I'll see if I can figure anything out from Banzai's graphs.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So in an effort to get screenshots, I reloaded the save and played the turn again, repeating my moves quickly in an effort to capture them. In so doing, I made a boo-boo: I misclicked the builder and failed to notice that I sent him onto the plains in front o f my slingers, not the hill behind him.

So, uh, long story short, our 1-charge builder is being escorted back to a new home by some friendly locals he may have met out there. >_> 

Serves me right, I guess. Anyway, I did the next turn with Steam screenshots (Fraps is still on the fritz - program is enabled, but won't overlay anything or take screenshots). I'll have a full report up soon, but when you see my captured builder please don't make fun of me too much for it. It's not too big a deal - we lose some turns on connecting up the furs (which is why I didn't use him to chop - better to get Zobrist happy than get a pre-Magnus chop), but the barbs are mostly under control, I think ("he knew as soon as the words came out of his mouth that he had made a mistake - the Gods of Civ do not forget, and they do not ever, ever forgive."), so we'll have him back in a bit.

[Grotsnot]

Bleh, that stinks. At least it's only 1 charge. Hopefully you can catch him before getting him back requires clearing the camp. It's still at least 10 turns until Classical isn't it? I feel like this era is dragging on longer than usual but could be wrong...