[PB56] Amicalola and Tarkeel are Feeling Spicy

[Lewwyn]

You can move around the map without closing the diplo screen by clicking on the mini map in the corner. Then move around and see off the side of the diplo offer before making a decision.

[Tarkeel]

Yep, but you don't get to see the event log, and it's easy to miss details when you're only viewing on the sides of the diplo window, hence properly. I guess this is one of the places where BTS shows it's age.

[Amicalola]

Map Complaints? Finit.
Whinging? Finit.
Losing temper? Finit.


Coming to Terms
So yeah, I bungled the start of this game pretty badly. Some of it was down to the map or unfortunate geopolitics, but there's no denying I should've quit the attack 5-ish turns before I did. The writing was on the wall in hindsight, particularly AT's low power (I should have seen him dying ahead of time). The disastrous tactical mistake at Anise that cost us the war (in finality) was also 100% my fault. But while we are significantly further behind than we could have been, and winning is no longer on the cards, our game is also not completely over. To suggest that was melodramatic. Besides, waiting for a slow, inevitable demise is boring.

So let's work with what we've got.


Upcoming Problems
While trying to re-frame my view of the game, Tarkeel and I identified three major upcoming problems to overcome. This does not include our earlier whipping, as there is no real solution to that other than expanding as best as we can now, and accepting it will not be as fast as others. So, the problems...

1. Noble. He's much stronger than us, and probably will be for the game. We need to be able to maintain a defense against China to both the South and East basically at all times. Also, his culture is already beginning to pressure Anise, which will cause problems and make defense significantly more difficult. 


2. Happiness. We have that silver, and an ivory that we started with, but that's it for early luxuries. Other than that, we have Wine and Spice in territory likely to be ours, but both require expensive techs. Pre-silver, our happy-cap with no whips is 5. 


3. Production. We just have really low production right now. Part of that is in the delay to settle Red Dot, but our land will always be pretty hammer-poor (and commerce-high). We need to find a way to more efficiently produce things.



Upcoming Solutions
Obviously, Tarkeel and I have tried to find solutions, as best as we can, to all three of these problems. They are as follows...

1. Erm, Units. This one is the most simple to solve, yet also the most likely to doom us in the end. We just need to maintain a consistent military along the entire Noble border. That border is going to be quite big:


I have used White and Pink city-sites to designate what I would roughly expect the border between us to be post-expansion. If we're lucky we will be able to get that Northern Pink site, but I'm not sure. That means we will need to maintain a somewhat consistent garrison in Basil, Anise, and the future-city north of those. Maybe post-engineering we could get that down to two stacks, or even one stack with the acceptance that we would lose a city or two during an initial assault. As Lewwyn was explaining to us earlier, MAD may be enough to prevent war in that scenario, and allow to keep less units over time. Also, a library will be built in Anise once Writing is researched (queued after Priesthood), to hopefully regain our first ring. So, why are we researching Priesthood?


2. The Oracle. What classical tech deals best with Happiness problems? Monarchy! We have a plan to have the Oracle completed around T71 (You can actually see my initial sign-plans; I will do further optimisation, and this time may decrease by a turn or two). That is quite late, so the Oracle may be gone by then. Then, our game probably is fully over. But no one has Priesthood yet that we know. And if we do land it? We can improve the wines, and convert to Hereditary Rule, essentially ending happiness problems for a long time. So that would be cool!  

Something I really liked while reading Noble+Gaspar's PBEM78 thread, was that they try to set specific goals every 15-20 turns, and then bend their entire empire around those goals. I guess Oracle is that for us right now, the micro-plan-to-be revolves around quickly improving marble and horse, and then chopping 4 forests within the vicinity of the city for 30 hammers each. That's the fastest plausible way I could think to do it, so I hope it's fast enough. I still don't have a good sense of when wonders will fall in MP.  Of course, we could then convert to another civic without gaining a turn of anarchy. For that, we are deciding between two options...


3. Organised Religion/Serfdom. Either of these would help with our low production. However, there are distinct drawbacks to both, and we are trying to decide between them. I thought it could be more interesting for lurkers to watch us do that, and give our thread a purpose again beyond this update. Some notable points about either:

Organised Religion
- adds another tech to our queue
- requires us to build many missionaries
- requires us to spend another turn in anarchy (convert to Hinduism)
- production mostly acquired through whips of buildings (library, granary, forge, etc)
- more expensive

Serfdom
- Speeds up our workers
- Requires us to waste our FIN trait to some extent (farms will not get extra commerce)
- Production mostly acquired through watermills and windmills. Windmills less relevant because we prefer mines with this land anyway.
- Watermills and windmills are a considerable distance away, at Machinery.
- Requires us to convert out of slavery, which is tough


I am currently leaning towards OR and eating an extra turn of anarchy. The cost is bigger, but the reward also seems greater. Assuming all goes well, we have ~10 turns to decide. 


Finally, demos. For the curious.

I hope this was informative on where our heads are going, and how+why we are planning to steer our civ.

[Tarkeel]

Thanks for the update! While we've discussed most of this previously, it really helps to see it all at once. I fuly endorse setting sub-goals, and I love hope we pivot from abandoned Pearl Harbor strike to maybe chopping out Oracle. Some might sniff at using it on Monarchy, but it's probably our best bet to deal with happy. After thinking some more about it, I think we should go OrgRel in order to spread some missionaries out, and switch to Hinduism at a later date (probably during GA).

[Lewwyn]

If I were you I would be whipping settlers and sending them north of AT solo, war units can trail behind them, Noble can't attack with enforced peace so basically you're in a race for the land. As long as you have enough units in a city to make it unprofitable to attack you'll be okay. Oracle is a fine chop out, but I think your 10 goal should be 3 settlers.

[Amicalola]

Our 10 goal also includes 3 settlers

Edit: Although, these ones are not going north of Noble. We have 3 other sites that are all too important, short term speaking. The next wave head north. Depending on how greedy we feel, I might try to grab that Pink-site with city 7 (also if Noble hasn't yet).

The goal is to have something between 3-4 settlers out before the anarchy turn. I think 4 is doable, but 3 may be better if we have better things to produce. Also we might not have enough workers to improve the 4th city optimally. Finally we might not have enough units to defend. The latter two issues with 4 are the downside of going Oracle, I guess, but I think it is easily worth it.

Edit Edit: it is worth noting Ruff's borders to the North; we are competing with him for this land as well, not just Noble for AT's. Ruff is much slower, but Noble has better spots closer to him, so I'm not sure who of them will be faster.

Edit Edit Edit: I guess we could grab the north-most Pink-site if we delay the silver island. We have trade route with Lazteuq, and HR will solve much of our happiness problem. That may or may not be worth it. Hmm....

[Amicalola]

What's that? The last time I posted micro it wasn't illegible enough? Well, allow me to present, 'Dinosaur Amica's Oracle Micro':



Wait, you can't read this? Well, I guess that's understandable, I'm not sure I can either.  But let me try to translate. 

Here is an overview shot:



We have 2 settlers on the map right now, which will settle Red Dot on T65, and Green Dot on T66. The top row of the micro was trying to decide which of 4 potential plans to build Oracle was best, and I decided on the 4th one which builds the Oracle in Red Dot a turn earlier (T71) but requires a whipped worker in the capital. The reason I think that's worth it, is because of the second row of columns. These ones involve me trying to figure out plans for 2 more settlers in Anise and Basil, and by choosing the final two, we get 2 more settlers on... also T71. This way, they can move during the anarchy of our double-conversion (ouch) and each settle on T73, neatly after the anarchy. Basil's settler will head for the island and claim silver, while Anise's will claim White Dot by the sheep, and hopefully pave the way for us to nab the Pink-site as well to its' east.

[Amicalola]

[superdeath]

What are we bulbing?

[Amicalola]

I made a misclick that means we might not be bulbing anything. I wasn't sure if it warranted a reload though, and I didn't want to be that person. But basically, if Ruff has a chariot in his city this turn, instead of attacking into an axe+spear like I'd intended, he could attack just into an axe with odds to take the city. So now I am paranoidly checking PBSpy every 2 minutes.

But if he doesn't do that, I am going to bulb monarchy to double revolt into OR and HR, plus improve the wines.