[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[ljubljana]

well, i ran a sim in which i pivoted our entire civ to spamming military, including settling an unbelievably crappy fourth city on the copper that literally has no purpose other than to enable this rush. here is the rough size of the pile of units we could get in the third city 10 turns from now (with perhaps 1 or 2 of these instead being ikhandas for shock/cover on the impi)



5 chariots + 5 impi and plenty more to come over the next few turns. hooooly crap, maybe we COULD just eat ginger whole ok this merits serious consideration. do we think the position we could get to by eating gingac (7 cities but high maintenance costs and one extremely crappy) would actually be better than if we dump all these hammers into eco and expansion instead?

either way, i definitely want to think through this turn and hopefully wait and see what they do with the settler and their scout by our other cities. if they had perfect information they should absolutely be backing the fuck off right now; if they spy all 4 of our workers and a hooked up horse i think there is some chance this settler just turns around and leaves

[williams482]

How much does it kill the rush to settle copper city one tile west so it's not complete garbage forever? I can't say I'm thrilled by settling an awful city in hopes of picking up a bunch of strong but extremely costly and difficult to defend cities.

I'm also skeptical of how effective this rush will actually be. We will destroy this upcoming new plant, and we have a decent shot at more, but all Ginger needs to prevent outright conquest on a reasonable timeframe is Archery tech, Slavery civic, and a bit of foresight.

Maybe this violates the Maxim of Whole-Assing, but I'm more intrigued by a more limited, targeted buildup and attack aimed at destroying that city and becoming an obviously spiky Zulu civ, then leveraging that into better/safer aggressive settlements. You'll obviously destroy your diplo with Ginger, but you'll set them back considerably. Further, the only world in which Ginger can credibly damage your civ in the near term is one where Ginger gets spiky enough fast enough to make a full fledged assault an outright disaster.

[ljubljana]

hmmmm well, i don't think the cities would be that hard to defend - they're far from our core but probably 20 unroaded tiles from anyone ELSE's. and i worry that with a targeted strike, we will be ending ginger's game without killing them, and they'll just spend the rest of existence ramming whipped chariots into the city until the investment isn't worth it. but point taken about odds of success of conquering them whole.... this stack could run over as many as 4 or 5 archers in their capital i think, but we know they have a granary already and a strong fold supply - they could honestly have more than that when we get there and repel us anyways.

re copper city we could go 1W, but it delays copper hookup by i think 5 turns - enough so all or almost all the impi in all initial wave would turn into chariots, and we'd be two chops short of where we are here as well which would cost one unit. but as you can see we still have forests and could spam more. i don't think it would completely destroy our chance of success but it would mess w our timings and make us take losses, esp if they get a spear in their new city in time...

edit: one more thought: if these buttheads step their warrior onto our road with seeming intent to pillage, i'm gonna send a demand for that third city and move up a chariot. hopefully that will send a sufficiently clear message

[aetryn]

I have to imagine Ginger wouldn't have planted there without a plan to defend it. Remember he can chop his own troops also, and he's Charismatic so will have plenty of happiness to whip with in his other cities. I would assume he can have a spear and probably a spear/axe combo in the border city by the time the 10 turns of enforced peace are up.

The opportunity cost of attacking Ginger is growing your cities and settling the border with GT (and starting to settle south), and it benefits Ginger's other neighbors who will claim their border region with him without them having to do any of the work. Remember that moving your army outside your borders will cost you maintenance, so you may not have much research while the war is ongoing. Also, yeah, crippling Ginger (and taking his copper city would be pretty crippling) means you probably never get peace with him, which means you have troops tied up on that border for a very long time. On the other hand, this is early enough that war hasn't become utterly ruinous like it will be once catapults come on the scene. Given the size of the game, I'd probably aim for a more permanent detente with Ginger and see if we could build a good diplomatic relationship and maybe conquer our other neighbors rather than going in now, simply because India and America will race out past us in econ if we divert to war, but I'm not entirely sure that's the right call.

[ljubljana]

right, i think that's basically where my thinking is at right now too... i wouldn't be shocked if ginger gets an axe/spear pair in the city in the next 10 turns (although they have yet to actually plant there so maybe they will run away) but according to vodka we'd have odds against that with 5 chariots, so idk if that's sufficient to hold the border city against a really dedicated assault. but if you're saying that your civ4 experience suggests that by the time we get to the capital they'll have sufficient mass that we can't realistically crack it with 10-15 units, that doesn't shock me and seems like a compelling reason to exercise forbearance

if we stick to the econ route, my plan is to tech archery to defend against spear from ginger, then pottery while we settle the GT border spot and then start working down to the gold. thoughts on that? i'd love to go to pottery next but if we're showing chariots of course ginger will build a spear, and it seems less destructive to tech archery than to delay the crazy GT border spot

i will say i expect ginger to be a huge threat in the midgame and would love a chance to hurt them....but i guess not so badly that they give up and commit their game to trying to michizure us, and i'm not reeeeally sure i understand how to toe that line. one hopes at least that with sufficiently many impis (the more i think about this knight-spam meta the better this unit seems), they will be a directer threat to a different neighbor and let us eat GT in peace if they fall behind on tech

i also like that civac is peaceably chilling w me in commodore's PB76 thread while i literally slaver over their civilization in this thread lol

[aetryn]

right, i think that's basically where my thinking is at right now too... i wouldn't be shocked if ginger gets an axe/spear pair in the city in the next 10 turns (although they have yet to actually plant there so maybe they will run away) but according to vodka we'd have odds against that with 5 chariots, so idk if that's sufficient to hold the border city against a really dedicated assault. but if you're saying that your civ4 experience suggests that by the time we get to the capital they'll have sufficient mass that we can't realistically crack it with 10-15 units, that doesn't shock me and seems like a compelling reason to exercise forbearance

if we stick to the econ route, my plan is to tech archery to defend against spear from ginger, then pottery while we settle the GT border spot and then start working down to the gold. thoughts on that? i'd love to go to pottery next but if we're showing chariots of course ginger will build a spear, and it seems better to tech archery than to delay the crazy GT border spot

i will say i expect ginger to be a huge threat in the midgame and would love a chance to hurt them....but i guess not so badly that they give up and commit their game to trying to michizure us, and i'm not reeeeally sure i understand how to toe that line. one hopes at least that with sufficiently many impis (the more i think about this knight-spam meta the better this unit seems), they will be a directer threat to a different neighbor and let us eat GT in peace if they fall behind on tech

Re: what does Ginger do if we leave him alone:I would love to know who Ginger's other neighbors are. Charismatic is an early game econ trait (extra happy/whipping when the number of happy is small) and a late game military trait when you have military cities cranking out 4+ promotion units, midgame is perhaps its worst time. And Expansive is an early game tempo trait. Janissaries aren't nothing but Muskets have a fairly short shelf life anyway so... I don't know, I'm more scared of Ginger as a player in the midgame than his combo. Or I'm most worried about them getting out to a really fast expansion start and parleying that into either an attack before the game hits catapults or a lead reaching Guilds and the Knight era. It'd be really bad if he, say, ate Rickety with either of those attacks. On the other hand, we want to see America disrupted, even at the cost of Ginger gaining some land. We suspect his southern neighbor is Dreylin, who has a slightly more longterm leader (ORG is a long-term trait, EXP is definitely not) - I have no problem with letting those two tangle with each other, assuming they're even close enough to make a war realistic. Unfortunately we don't yet know who is to the east of him and probably won't in 10 turns.  But basically right now we'd be attacking into his strongest period - when EXP is doing work and CHA whipping happy is most important. 

The other question is whether we can establish friendly relations at all. If they settle 1E of the copper, that's a pretty benign border and we probably don't end up with a lot of tension. If they settle ON the copper it's a little messier. They will probably have the cultural advantage with their cheap monuments for a while at least.

I agree that hooking the copper is painful enough that if you go the econ route teching Archery makes sense, and yes, I'd definitely like us to get that nice spot near GT.

Sorry if this wasn't super conclusive or anything, just putting down my thoughts. I'm kind of instinctively against attacking here because I love the snowball and I fear getting bogged down, but it could be the right call.

[ljubljana]

right, yeah i am mostly worried Ginger will lead the pack in research by having cities all at size 10 while the rest of us are happy-capped at size 6, then parlaying into knights. and re cultural advantage, i was already planning to whip a library in Kirishima for the first Great Scientist in the not too distant future, so hopefully that will help us catch up. or we could just chop a monument now.... it doesn't really matter how much of a cultural advantage they Should Theoretically Have with their cheap monuments if we just chop ours out like two turns after they found their city lol.

omg don't apologize - thank you for your thoughts!

btw, even though we're warpeaced i'm still vaguely trying to abide by our earlier turnsplit by playing after ginger while the situation is still tense enough that war could erupt again in 10t. do yall think that's correct or is it over the line into clock games? in addition to possibly being correct from a rules standpoint it's also pretty clearly in our strategic interest to do so, which is why i ask...

[aetryn]

right, yeah i am mostly worried Ginger will lead the pack in research by having cities all at size 10 while the rest of us are happy-capped at size 6, then parlaying into knights. and re cultural advantage, i was already planning to whip a library in Kirishima for the first Great Scientist in the not too distant future, so hopefully that will help us catch up. or we could just chop a monument now.... it doesn't really matter how much of a cultural advantage they Should Theoretically Have with their cheap monuments if we just chop ours out like two turns after they found their city lol.

omg don't apologize - thank you for your thoughts!

btw, even though we're warpeaced i'm still vaguely trying to abide by our earlier turnsplit by playing after ginger while the situation is still tense enough that war could erupt again in 10t. do yall think that's correct or is it over the line into clock games? in addition to possibly being correct from a rules standpoint it's also pretty clearly in our strategic interest to do so, which is why i ask...

In my opinion it's only clock games if you're clearly holding up the turn in doing so. I think it's pretty unnecessary with enforced peace and no non-military reason to worry about turn order, but I don't think it's a problem to do it.

[ljubljana]

Turn 47 - Zululand

ok forces of moderation, you guys win (provisionally for now)



looks like they plan to settle ON the copper and start chopping.... what, an axe? a spear? yikes, glad our growth curve does not have to endure that. looks like they are not anywhere close to hooking this up to the rest of their cities which is very nice to see.

i AM going to do the double turn this time but GT logged in just as i was signing off. i will let them play first since that's the order we've been going in for a minute now

been simming pretty obsessively and gosh, i just freaking keep running out of worker labor :| i can't believe this but we're going to need another wave of workers soon lol

archery tech looks ok though - it's tight but pottery comes in on the very turn we run out of stuff to chop at kirishima

[ljubljana]

Turn 48 - Zululand

Log back in to the following cute little party:



Haruko in the south spots something interesting - wet water! Perhaps Rome and those other fisherfolk lie this way?



In the west:



What is that worker doing way out in the middle of nowhere? You'll see

Still no sign of the GT warrior that was headed this way. I think next turn or soon thereafter we will finally be able to free up Natsuko to start looking for other nerds in the NW. In 2t we will produce both the settler and chariot escort to start making a play for this land. However:



Ugh, GT has a real unit. Well, a real unit or Wheel tech anyways. We are now 7th in soldier count and I'm a little nervous - in addition to the natural archers we'll need in our border plants, this might not be the only early chariot I go for, grotesque though I may find it to be to burden our snowball with even more military.



Fuyuko is Free For Real from Gingering duty and is going to start looking for Ginger's eastern neighbor. You can see that Thabo the warrior is headed on a little scouting mission of his own, to defog a few plains tiles on the future Ottoman border that could in theory contain dotmap-significant food. Not sure yet if I will send him back home after or continue SE towards presumptively-Dreylin - proooobably the former but I could be convinced.

Kirishima finishes the wheat and swaps onto it for a turn, which speeds up growth to next turn. And yes, it is about to start getting the shit chopped out of it. I increasingly want to attempt to beat these guys to a monument if they do settle on the copper, to gain control of that very strategically significant hill, but I think we'd have to, like, whip it or something to beat a CHA monument if they do indeed chop into it as I imagine is likely. It depends on if their worker moves onto the sheep or not next turn, which means NOTE TO SELF: Fuyuko must move north next turn to see if they're chopping, which I think biases the entire direction of her scouting in favor of going north around Ginger instead of south...

Anyways, let's try a bluff. I decide that we have not made our displeasure at Gingac for their apparent plan to drop a city 4 tiles from us sufficiently clear:



This is about as crystalline a message as I can send this early, I think - that city is too close and if you plant it, it will guarantee future conflict. I don't know that I'll follow through on that, at least not immediately, for the reasons discussed above. But I know civac in particular is known for being a little risk-averse, and if a sprinkling of bullying could make them at least consider pulling back to a less forward spot, I'm by no means above doing so They will get graphs on us in I think 2 turns, at which point this kind of thing will lose much of its impact, sooo may as well lean into it now lol