I'd like to have that axe at least available to help at Nicholas if the Amica situation demands it, but yes we can move it a bit more to the SE, and well risk the hero warrior to fogbust. At least losing him would give more unit cost reduction.
Another KTB would be 2 or 3 bpt. Very helpful to make the eot74 target, but not nearly enough to shave off another turn of that's what you meant. For production we could send both workers by Jeanne to chop the deer and maybe manage eot73, but there's no way that we have Writing by then.
Thomas makes me sad. I'd really like to send worker F to build a mine instead of the Jeanne cottage, but it seems like those 4 coins could be crucial yet.
t70, nailbiting continues.
At vanrober's - next turn our peace ends, and just in time he will get our first ring tile
The warrior is in the city and so far we have only seen the axe/spear garrison, but if he has prepared something he can totally take Santiago.
He has not been particularly whippy though, andsent deer/deer, and I think he is super honourable. But it feels like he makes an error if he doesn't attack now.
I am spending a turn on the axe again to have axe and spear whippable. I don't know when I will be relaxed about this city. Probably with spear, 2axes, walls and a scout at van's.
uh... I saw that you were logged in with him, did he move anything up
Also Oracle still isn't falling, and I have to take unusual measures. Thomas, which I wanted to whip t68, will now avoid growth for a turn, then grow the turn after to be whipped t72. The reason is that whipping next turn we'd leave hamlet unworked, but growing would cause unhappiness and not lower unit cost either because the capital growing already fixes that.
scratch that, we can whip next turn andwork the hamlet from Nick; Just have to work the mine on the last turn 74. By then the cap should have grown enough to take the hamlet, and in the very worst case we leave the pig unworked.
I'm dying from pain, and jealousy. Pain because that (lighthouse!) fish by Jack's 2nd city is still not within borders. I know he wanted to build GLH there, but still. Jealousy because he can comfortably go and settle pig and gold first ring, and add a second ring fish on top, incredible.
What's lovely is that he is fogbusting for us. He's looking into our empty city, but we have a chariot in range.
I swapped thomas from wheat to plains forest. You're stopping growth anways *shrug*
Alternatively, we could work the grass cottage for 1 coin at the cost of 3 hammers (total not base) into mids.
yeah its a little awkward with Van, going to have to cross our fingers.
Edit:
With the "spare" citizen lifted from the wheat, we could also take one of the Capital's cottages and it takes the cottage from Nick and Nick takes the mine if that makes Oracle micro easier.
Also for the workers near Jeanne, you can send them to the forests SW to chop into the granary when the city has 7 culture (t77 iirc), then they can finish the corn farm in 3 turns.
I walked back on the avoid growth thing, I think we can do without.
Should we just whip Santiago? He's walking up his axe to scout, maybe it helps if we show commitment? But then again we lose a coin, and if it's a unit (could also do wall) it costs an additional one per turn... Could also just show the chariots.
You know what would be hilarious? Him pillaging our road in neutral territory, cutting off copper. That btw is a reason why OB might have been bad - he doesn't yet know of our copper drama, nor does he have contact with Amica. God this map has a way of torturing me...
And same as you, this turn I was looking at the gigantic blob of land that Gavagai in all likelihood has all to himself...
t71, where Ginger rightfully asks some questions, and teaches me a trick:
Yeah what is this? The thing is just that I'm super spooked about vanrober being so close and dangerous and us being so unable to reinforce. Really I feel that he's making an error by not attacking. So I wanted to have the spear whippable if he came with chariots, axe if he came with an axe group, and walls as follow up (just spent 1 hammer). All of these will doubtlessly get finished. Thankfully with every passing turn we scout better, get closer to new units, whips available, and most importantly recovering our first ring, so I'm trying to relax and queued the granary back.
Several things happening here:
Ginger noticed that Amica is building a weird road SW of the wine by Expeditus. I'm thinking hard to find another purpose for it other than attacking Expy.
Ginger proposed postponing the chop at the capital, to not randomly burn forests I assume. He might be right, but I find the option of getting an axe (or spear?) to 33/35 and finishing it t74 pretty alluring. Santiago could do well with a second axe, Amica might be plotting (see above), and if he isn't we could try to get enough axes and storm High Knob, leveraging our great vision.
I made a plan for the workers after they finish their chops. Pretty much hate it, the first mine for mids comes only t77. The next one is due t79. Until then, work cottages and if possible plains forests? Roading the hill would allow us to efficiently plant blue dot on turn 78.
The worker down south at Jeanne will finish the cottage t73. The plan to have him prechop before the border pop is pretty clever, but what does he do in the 3 turns until t77? The best that I can come up with is finishing that riverless cottage NW ofhis current position, but it isn't great .
Ginger taught me that by whipping the granary at Expeditus 2->1 instead of 3->2 next turn we will save 2 food, which with the granary makes up for the 4 hammers lost to not working the mine. Together with starting the whip timer a turn earlier it seems worth it. It made no difference in maintenance, and since Ginger asked in game, also none for unit cost. That formula is easy: just 0.24 * total population plus an offset (7 at emperor). So for checking if a whip would give extra unit cost you can just sum up population before and after the whip and check if the product with 0.24 crosses an integer threshold
Amica keeps spending all their EP on us. We will not be able to stop research visibility, in fact they'll get it next turn. The question then is, do we want to keep spending on them, to at least prevent city visibility (would be horrible at Expeditus), and maybe deny research visibility when they make a contact and change the EP target, or get Gav's graphs? I don't think these would be of any practical use right now beyond satisfying our curiosity, so I changed it back to 100% Amica
A few more turns of nervous nail biting on the Oraclius
About Amica’s weird road, it’s not efficient attack vector either, so I’m not sure if that’s a satisfactory explanation. Also we should try to play before Amica on t73/74 so we can pull our workers out of the way when peace expires.
I’m of half a mind to just declare and send another peace offer. The more turns we scrape together against Washington EXP/CHA, the better chance we have.
If Amica gets research via and we can’t stop it then swap to Gav, curiosity is strategic, not just academic. It’s a long way to the city via threshold and we can see to Amica later after we get some courts up
(September 14th, 2022, 16:49)Ginger() Wrote: I’m of half a mind to just declare and send another peace offer. The more turns we scrape together against Washington EXP/CHA, the better chance we have.
This should be considered yes. Takes away the option of ambushing High Knob, and we don't want to look desperate, but we don't want to trade with them, and you're correct about the rest as well. Particularly helpful for settling blue dot. If we get Oracle we could even consider a round of caste.
(September 14th, 2022, 16:49)Ginger() Wrote: Also we should try to play before Amica on t73/74 so we can pull our workers out of the way when peace expires.
Trouble is they'll probably play 72/3 double. We could try to play 73/74 double in turn, or PM them that we want to preserve the current turn split as peace runs out. In light of recent events they might want to avoid trouble with that. We can't really claim a good reason though, so probably shouldn't because integrity.
If we play 73/74 double we can't war-peace t74, but I think it's still worth it. The best turn to war peace in fact would be 77. 78 we want to found blue dot. Could put a chariot in range of the High Knob corn that might still have a worker on it, in order to give more incentive.
Meanwhile, already in peace we have bad luck with Amica:
One turn before we claim it with holy city culture the borders pop and they get the peak for 2 turns. I'm not opposed to them looking into Nick; they'll see 2 axes there which should be enough to convince them that we can defend. But they'll also see the lake, which is our big tactical liability and which I suspect they had not scouted yet. Well at least they don't get to see all of the atrociousness that it is. Also they probably don't know that Expeditus is our copper site, although they might suspect it because why else would we build a stupid desertrice city.
It also means that we will never the 2 peaks W of the lakes for a peek in their city, but at least t74 we'll have the hill 2N of High Knob, and the peak back under control.
Jack offered OB, which I took sure enough.
I sent the scout north nevertheless, as I want to know what's around the banana, and in the process failed to follow my own counterintuitive instructions for maximum vision.
Demos show us as a commerce monster
At 100% with 3 arrow boni and 4KTB sources . Together with crop yield it's looking pretty terrible. In our defense I can only say that we have whipped quite a lot lately. We're tied with Mjmd for third most whippy team, and that's considering that we were last to start and hAvE nO lUxuRiEs .
Also top 5 cities shows Stonhenge and Great Lighthouse in the same city, so that should be superdeath of 4 cities? Makes sense. Hopefully he isn't contesting mids as well, if he has stone.
I decided to spend 4 EP on Amica one last time, as they might switch off, having achieved tech vision. If they keep spending we can change to Gav, or you can also just overrule me.
I refuse to clock game, so hit enter, but I'll try to play before Amica next turn in order to keep the workers safe. IF you get the chance before please go ahead.
Thomas going Hindu is awesome. My first instinct was to whip a temple for OF (or even a granary for more efficient whip cycles and later use), but it looks like we'll need a spear to found blue dot, together with the new axe from the cap (would have preferred to send it to Santiago but alas).
Looks like last turn I messed up micro at the cap. It was supposed to get its max food surplus of 11 this turn and grow straight through to 6, but there was 1 food less in the foodbox than expected. This will have us leave one cottage unworked next turn, but it should still be sufferable.
I think the best job for F next turn is in fact the dry grassland cottage. Jeanne is growing soon and until the border pop it has no good tiles. Working the cottage is at least an investment into the fututre.
If the Capital needs one more food, it can take the FP from Thomas for a turn
Also if by blue dot you mean in Amica's face, we should wait until we have a culture generation method ready (caste spurt, missionary). All in all not sure I like settling that city right away because it feels liable to get whacked and we're still in the snowball phase where we dont want to expend resources on tactical moves.
Edit: I logged in, but didn't change it, you can change it next turn if you want to (swap the FP and grassland cottages between the two cities)
.
. Together with crop yield it's looking pretty terrible. In our defense I can only say that we have whipped quite a lot lately. We're tied with Mjmd for third most whippy team, and that's considering that we were last to start and hAvE nO lUxuRiEs 
.