[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[Amicalola]

I'm trying to figure out if I have encountered a bug or just messed up something simple:




Last turn I whipped a catapult at 4/50 and also put a chop into the city.  This should have put me at 98/50, when you count the 4hpt the city is naturally pulling.  I was then planning on one-turning another catapult with the 48h overflow.  But I have only 28h overflow.

I can't think of any scenario where I only get 28h overflow.  That means the chop only gave me 10 hammers?  There's no scenario where a chop gives so little.  I tried to recreate in single player and it came out right, so I'm not sure what to do here.  I mean, I probably play on because it isn't game-breaking, but it is still very odd and now I have to figure out the production here all over again.

Doesn't that mean the chop gave you zero hammers? Could you have possibly put the chop into another BFC city by mistake? Otherwise, I'm not sure either.

Edit: Nvm, you have Mathematics. No idea!

[pindicator]

No, the chop have gave me TEN hammers, which makes no sense!

T118: 4h natural production
T119: Whip 2 pop for 60h. Chop for 30h(?). 4h production. That all should add up to 98h and 48h overflow. But it added up to 28 instead!

[pindicator]

Okay, here's a thought: when I set my worker to chop the forest it was outside of Catan's culture. Catan only popped borders the turn before the chop finished. Maybe there's some kind of bug with the hammers the chop is worth being set at the time the chop is initiated? Of course I tested in single player and the result was 48h again, but maybe there's some quirk to MP code?

In any case I'm stretching. I'm going to play on and just accept my 20h loss (unless Charriu knows some magic spell to cast). But it is just vexing me, because I want the answer to be that I messed up somehow. Yet I cannot find a way where the city has 78/50h at the end of last turn.

WIll finish my turn shortly, I'm just finishing up making dinner

[RefSteel]

I think I've got it. This is just based on looking at your screenshots, but my guess is the actual timing looked something like this:

T115: 4h natural production into Cat (Carnegie Public Library waiting in queue with 66h(? I think?) invested so far)
T116: Whip 2 pop for 60h, add 4h natural production, complete chop for 30h (or chop happens T117?), for a total of 98h, completes Cat with 48 overflow
T117: 48h overflow + 4h natural production completes Carnegie Public Library with 28 overflow
T118: 28 overflow received (correctly, though perhaps you wanted to queue another cat ahead of the library last turn) for the next (cat) build

[EDIT: Also possible the public library was built with a chop on T116, and the cat only whipped T117, but it seems less likely that you'd have forgotten doing that kind of queue juggling, whereas having the second cat behind the public library instead of in front and missing it on T117 seems much more likely.]

[El Grillo]

Impressive detective work! That also lines up with the GPP counter showing what appears to be one turn of the CPL's contribution.

[pindicator]

RefSteel, you're a genius




Also, you think the hint that there was no catapult to move out of the city would have clued me in...

Oh man, where is it at?

I'm

dumb

There it is

[Zed-F]

Not necessarily terrible, you wanted that library eventually, right? (Second cat first might have been preferable, of course)

[pindicator]

119

You know what caused my confusion? We've been managing a turn a day for over a week now! With this torrid pace it's no wonder I can't mentally keep atop of things.

Last turn Cornflakes offered me a suggestion:




I didn't respond right away and I don't think I'm going to take him up on this. I feel like if we both were to double up on superdeath in 10 turns then he would simply pick the person who he wants to defend against and let the other get all the winnings. And with him being more likely to see me as a betrayer, I'm worried he would just push against me.

Also, we did get vision on what the front between Cornflakes and Superdeath is like:




Note that trireme, so Cornflakes is the second person to get to Metal Casting. Which means if we ever go to war then I'm going to lose any sea battle.

But I think I would rather just let them sit at this standoff and not affect the balance either way. To that end I did not give Cornflakes Open Borders (although I need to check his relations; if he has OB with several people already then we won't be giving him any commerce to add our own). I also warned Superdeath that he is going to be attacked in 9 turns. At least, I tried to.

My plan is still to go after Bing




Red dots are locations for his cities. I would strike Corihuayrachina first and then continue northwest towards his capital. Mjmd probably picks up the northeastern cities along the coast. I could move straight north instead but this would give Bing more time to rally together defenders out of his strongest cities. But if I am convinced he cannot stand up against my units then perhaps I should still move to deny Mjmd the most.

Unfortunately there is no staging tile where we can strike from the fog, so Bing will get a couple turns warning before we attack the first city. But my plan is to move my stack onto the Rice on t125 (that might be a little optimistic) and then push in on 126. Right now he's showing 4 axes and a warrior for defense, and he's just finished Masonry so we have to expect walls. I could try to hit with some chariots and take the city on the first turn - but it's probably better to go slow and save the hitters, using the catapults to grind his stack down.

Current troop count:




One of those 9 catapults is out of Clank! and too far away to make it to the rice tile in time. The catapults out of Clank! and Libertalia will probably just stay in the east for defense there. We'll have about 6-8 axes and a couple spears to throw in, in addition to whatever we can make out of Elephants and Horse Archers. Distance and travel time are going to be the biggest factors, so I'm swapping everything off the catapults they are building right now to elephants or horse archers, and then thsoe catapults will be finished after to come up as a second wave. More important that we have some quality units in the stack when it launches. Though I suppose we could get by with just catapults considering what we'll likely be going up against.

I was going to go into how I'm planning on changing my cities over for war production, but I think we're getting long enough on this post and so I'll save that for a future one:

[pindicator]

120

We didn't get to be first to Construction by much; Cornflakes and Superdeath are both showing catapults this turn. Cornflakes intentionally flashing his newly minuted 'pult on my eastern border, while Superdeath has drawn down his large stack on his border with Cornflakes and started bringing up his own cat stack. Superdeath also asked me for a Copper for Copper deal, which I didn't respond to. I'm just going to sit out the inevitable Cornflakes - Superdeath sequel in 8 turns and focus on my own goals.




Using the last of my forests to aid this war effort. I was debating about whipping for the longest time. Our cities are starting to get to the size and worker ability to get to a comfortable hpt and just manually pump out units.




Eldritch Horror is managing to outpace my whipping and is at risk of becoming a productive city. In fact, I want to mine two more hills and then let it pump out a solid 15hpt to 4-turn elephants and the like. Eventually, when we get the elephant back, we can reach 20hpt here easily.

But we're not quite ready to stabilize the size here yet. I really didn't want to whip this city but I think I must: timing is very important, especially as our neighbors are also getting catapults. They undoubtably will be following me to HBR next and our tech edge isn't going to count for much unless we use it now. In other words: Bing is going to be eaten and I want to be the one to do the eating.

So we will do one final round of planned whips over the next few turns. Then we will work to stabilize some of these cities at a good production level:




Sushi Go is another good example: it will give cottages to neighboring cities and then swap all that population over to grassland mines - once those mines are built. At size 11 we'll be bringing in 21hpt. But we still need to whip that elephant next turn.

Wingspan, Libertalia, Dominion, and Azul all have similar plans set up - but it will take time to get there. And we need the units now.




Calendar is the next goal, to hook up more happiness. Then Metal Casting & CoL for forges and courthouses. If all goes to plan we'll be building infrastructure as we bring the new conquests online in 15-20 turns.

[pindicator]

121

Blood is in the water.




I still do not like the idea of attacking Superdeath at this time. Despite helping Cornflakes, I'm not convinced that I can get a good split of Superdeath's land. His capital and the southern peninsula of his are more easily accessible to Cornflakes, while I will likely pick up 2-3 cities in the east. It's impossible to know how this would play out or where Superdeath would commit more of his forces. But I like the idea of Cornflakes and Superdeath butting heads for some time instead.

I don't like the idea of Mjmd coming in from the north and taking Bing, cutting off all my expansion except into Superdeath (or Mjmd).

(The Adopt Paganism is a nice touch. No way someone hits accept to a deal like that. I'll have to start using it in my proposals.)

I haven't been replying to many of these offers, but I did respond with a Fish for Fish to Mjmd here. I want to emphasize we should keep a friendly border, but I have to admit: his idea of a peaceful border with me so far has been to make unreasonable demands of my resources and threaten to encircle me. I really am rethinking this idea of being peaceful with him. At the very minimum I need to build a scout and start keeping eyes on his side of the border.

Why isn't he going for Sucksatciv instead?




SaC picked up Alphabet this turn and we can now confirm just how badly his tech path and development have gone. I think the turn I show my hand to Mjmd I'm going to propose he go after SaC.

Whipped a bunch of core cities for hopefully the last time. I did hold off whipping Eldritch and am going to try and get that city up to 15hpt with a pair of mines instead. This is always the painful part of a campaign: committing to whipping down cities in aims of a war goal.

4 turns until we're at the staging tile and insight of Bing.