KoS2 - There can be only war

Meerk said:

Things are looking good. I agree about the middle gold site. How much do we prioritize that vs killing Shaka? I can't open the save at the moment, so I am unclear how much defense he has. I guess the question is: are we planning to kill him soon or waiting for cats? I assumed the latter, but Kossin's comments (and the high priority on barracks) left me a bit confused.

If we are planning on killing him with cats, should we put higher priority on making a settler for the gold site?

Actually, maybe the settler should be made at kish after it finishes the granary? In retrospect, that seems like the obvious answer, since kish has a decent food supply and will grow to size 4 before the granary finishes. Presumably we will 2-pop whip the settler.

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Construction is a ways off. Ulundi would be under much better management in our hands

Good point about Kish... I totally didn't check it when I went through the save.

cripp7 said:

got it!

Settle ON the gold for 3gold/cow/copper
Uruk wb>barracks>settler
Eridu barracks>vulture x6

Getting Ulindi will help a lot after moving the capitol there.

Forgot about 1E of the banana to our West

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Looks good. Is there anything that can be done about the river system S of Shaka?

Our of curiosity, why are we settling on the gold instead of 1NW on the plains? It seems to me that that would provide the chance to grab the riverside grass and then set up an irrigation chain to help the city grow a bit. Is it because that takes up a potentially more useful tile?

Blocking value.
Not enough food to work all gold tiles.
The grass tile is in WK's first ring so we won't likely be able to steal it for a long long long time.
Lost tiles east&south otherwise.

Looks good.
I too think we should make the settler Kish.
Wang Kong will suicide his troops on SHaka so that will slow him a little

Yeah Kish should do the settler, didn't think of that either. The river S of Shaka is spotty, either 1S of the 1st mountain by the plains/hill or on the coast. Still going to have mountains in it.
Shaka has 9 archers atm and if WK suicides his troops a few vultures should mop up fine.

I'll play in just a bit

Pre-Turn
move vulture out of eridu to go to barb archer
hit enter

Turn 72
Uruk vulture>barracks goes to Eridu

Turn 73 -
Eridu worker>wb
Vulture attacks barb @73.58% odds and loses!
Worker runs from barb and goes towards Kish
Eridu worker moves to forest to chop
Kish grows to size 3

Turn 74 -
Defeat a barb warrior up north
Eridu worker starts chop while a vulture stands guard
Kish worker moved to plains/hill to start roading to gold
Uruk size 5 barracks overflow to wb

Turn 75
Uruk barracks>wb
barb archer trying to pillage the wheat, vulture makes good of him
Kish worker 1 turn chop stop for settler

Turn 76
Uruk wb>vulture wb goes to fish
Eridu 1 turn chop queue barracks for the chop

Turn 77
hire egg in Uruk
Kish worker starts mine
Eridu switch back to wb

Turn 78
Eridu wb>barracks worker starts farm 2 turns
Woody finds Booty chariot to the East


Turn 79
slider to 70% Alpha in 17
Woody runs into chariot again

Turn 80
Woody dies
Eridu worker finishs farm goes to mine

Turn 81
Uruk vulture>vulture goes towards Kish
Kish granary>settler
clams online

Turn 82
Eridu barracks>vulture
Shaka archer attacks our archer and dies, promote to DII
Kish chop to settler

Turn 83
Kish queued spear for Salad's chariot.

Stop here

Salad has 3 chariots/axe in Pyong

We need to whip some units to hold Kish

Looks like a nice set!

Wow, I had not anticipated that Saladin was west of WK! I was just about certain we were very west but it looks like we're more middleish.
How does this alter everyone's feeling about settling the gold?

A few things... turn the slider to 0% until we can get Alphabet at 100% without dropping the slider.

Uruk... I'd switch the pigs for Fish for more commerce. Also remove the forest hill guy and make him a scientist.

Eridu looks fine I think.

Kish: good news is Sal has an Axe in his stack so it could take him 1 extra turn to attack. Not sure he will wait though... anyone has an idea? I think they're all scripted to attack so the Chariots would wait. In any case... whip spear>archer (whip perhaps) is safest. Not too convinced about a cottage here, we night some mines instead for Eridu/Uruk.

Ulundi: we can probably pull off the archer that's with the Vulture and send it to the gold on a forest (2E of site?) if we still want it. With walls, I think it's safer to wait for Catapults to kill him.
Problem is Boudica might start sending some units to kill our Choke there...
In any case, move the guys that are on the pig to the hill forest next of it for more defense and vision.

What to do with GS? I say we settle him, it's likely to be the best option.

I'd still settle the gold site, but we'll need at least 2 defenders there. With luck, Saladin will keep targeting Kish.

1. kossin
2. mfie
3. Stochastic
4. mjg5591
5. cripp7 - Just played
6. Meerk - UP!
7. The Simple Mind - On deck

cripp7 said:

Pre-Turn

Turn 73 -
Eridu worker>wb
Vulture attacks barb @73.58% odds and loses!
...[SNIP]...
Turn 83
Kish queued spear for Salad's chariot.

Stop here

Salad has 3 chariots/axe in Pyong

Spoiler :

We need to whip some units to hold Kish

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Good steady progress, too bad about the vulture and the barb, oh well.

kossin said:

Wow, I had not anticipated that Saladin was west of WK! I was just about certain we were very west but it looks like we're more middleish.
How does this alter everyone's feeling about settling the gold?

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Neither had I! This should get interesting... It certainly puts back the time line for gold, we’ll need to defend (maybe retake *fingers crossed*) current cities first.

kossin said:

Kish: good news is Sal has an Axe in his stack so it could take him 1 extra turn to attack. Not sure he will wait though... anyone has an idea? I think they're all scripted to attack so the Chariots would wait. In any case... whip spear>archer (whip perhaps) is safest. Not too convinced about a cottage here, we night some mines instead for Eridu/Uruk.

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I don’t really know, a human would certainly see the archer and charge in with the chariots, but I hope the AI will stay stupid. Also maybe there is a chance that Salidin will want to pillage the cows too...

Re the cottage worker, I’d go for some more road building towards Shaka/Gold for faster troop movement, I think our other workers have the mines in hand.

kossin said:

What to do with GS? I say we settle him, it's likely to be the best option.

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If we want to wait for catapults, might it be better to use the Great Scientist to bulb Math to help us along?



Genrally, Saladin's strike force is a bit of a problem... I think we should bit the bullet and whip the spear now for 2 pop, our closest reinforcement is 4 turns away (vulture and 2 archers on choke duty) and I don't think we would be able to take the city back with them without killing off an extra chariot.

So I'd say move the two archers choking SE of Shaka towards Eridu, they'll arrive the same turn as our vulture. Then the Vulture and Archer on choke should probably move towards the river defense to maintain choke.

Here’s a map of what I’m trying to say:


I'd whip the vulture in Eridu, it is only working a forest tile and will be unhappy on growth (2 turns) anyways.

Finally:
I think we should redistribute the spy points. We are still in unfocused spending on Saladin, WK, Shaka and Boudica.

Could we use the sabotage building option to destroy Shaka's walls? I've never actually used it for that, but something to keep in mind. It is relatively inexpensive (248eps on the screen)

Looks good
I still think we should settle gold site, but ofcourse some defenders there
Definetly whip some defenders to withstand the attack. But I think 2 spears is better than archer and spear, because we all ready have an archer and saladin will suicide his axeman on it and then we will have 2 spears for the chariots.
When we've alphabet we could try to convince Wang kong of closing borders with Saladin.
When unhappiness is gone in Uruk (1 turn), we should run antoher scientist there.
The workers near Eridu are mining the grassland hill; isn't the plain hill better, +1h more and we don't need the food now because we've reached our happiness cap there.
After the vulture in Eridu we should produce a settler there for the gold site.

@ above
The AI is this stupid, I'm 90% sure they will not split their stack.
Saladins turn is after us, since human is always first
Shaka has 9 archers or so in the city, so we aren't gonna be able to take it soon. Because a fortified archer even with cult defenses 0 has still winning odds against a vulture.

Ok, I did a test and it turns out you can sabotage walls, base eps cost is 300.

Is it true that archers are better than a vulture when they have no defense other than fortify?
Archer(fortified and city guard)=3 base*1.75 = 5.25
Archer(w. 40% culture as well)=3 base*2.15 =6.3
Vulture=6 base*1.20 (assuming city attack) = 7.2
It looks like the Vulture has the advantage regardless. Please correct my calculations if I've forgotten something!

And I don't think Shaka has the guard promo on any of his archers...

But that is a good point about the challenge of taking out the archers, I think that adds weight to going for construction asap.

Also, I like the idea of going for spearmenX2, good point about the attacking order.

Stochastic said:

If we want to wait for catapults, might it be better to use the Great Scientist to bulb Math to help us along?

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Chances are we can trade for Math with Alphabet. Bulbing Math is a waste of a GS in my books unless you're falling behind in the tech race, which we aren't.

Stochastic said:

So I'd say move the two archers choking SE of Shaka towards Eridu, they'll arrive the same turn as our vulture. Then the Vulture and Archer on choke should probably move towards the river defense to maintain choke.

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We can probably move 2 units from Shaka's choke, but I think 1 should be enough for reinforcement. It's not like they'll get there in time.

Stochastic said:

I'm not sure if Saladin's turn is before or after ours, that will change if we have time to whip a 2nd archer.

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After. Unless the map is wacky (ex. Earth18), the human is always first. The archer 'appears' when you hit end turn anyway.

Stochastic said:

I'd whip the vulture in Eridu, it is only working a forest tile and will be unhappy on growth (2 turns) anyways.

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1-pop whip isn't exactly a way to solve unhappiness...
What we could do though is put 1 turn in a library and then 2-pop whip it for ~20 overflow. Gets us a library and a vulture in 3 turns while taking care of happy problems. It also gets us Ivory sooner for an extra everywhere.

Stochastic said:

Finally:
I think we should redistribute the spy points. We are still in unfocused spending on Saladin, WK, Shaka and Boudica.

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Yes, I've been saying that for what, 3 rounds?

NOTE TO NEXT PLAYER: FOCUS EP ON SOMEONE, BE IT WK OR BARBS, STOP WASTING THEM!

Stochastic said:

Could we use the sabotage building option to destroy Shaka's walls? I've never actually used it for that, but something to keep in mind. It is relatively inexpensive (248eps on the screen)

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Not worth it imo, those EPs could be worth a tech instead or help us see what WK is teching for trade purposes.

mfie said:

But I think 2 spears is better than archer and spear, because we all ready have an archer and saladin will suicide his axeman on it and then we will have 2 spears for the chariots.

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2 spears is better for the chariots, but this is assuming our Archer doesn't die (which he shouldn't I guess).

mfie said:

When we've alphabet we could try to convince Wang kong of closing borders with Saladin.

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Will that be an option? I don't know. In any case, I'd rather get some techs than close borders temporarily.

mfie said:

When unhappiness is gone in Uruk (1 turn), we should run anoher scientist there.

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I'd run the scientist right away rather than that unimproved tile.

mfie said:

The workers near Eridu are mining the grassland hill; isn't the plain hill better, +1h more and we don't need the food now because we've reached our happiness cap there.

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Grass hills provide 3 at 1 cost while plains provide 4 at 2 cost. Ratio is better for grassland hill - but if you need hammers right away, plains is better. grass hill is better here imo.

mfie said:

After the vulture in Eridu we should produce a settler there for the gold site.

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Kish has 1 halfway done... granted it's going to be whipped severely soon though.

Regarding Saladin:
move the worker making a cottage. Saladin will no doubt move to the hill (defense bonus) and the worker can be targeted from there by chariots.

@Stochastic
It'll take a long time before a spy can take down those walls and a lot of vultures to kill all those archers. Catapults would be more cost-effective I believe, although further away.
CR doesn't work quite this way, it actually subtracts from the defender instead so...

CGI vs CR1: 3*(1+.25+.4+.2+.2-.2) vs 6 = 6.45 vs 6
I'd expect most of his archers to get C1 now instead so odds are a bit better but we're still under 50%.

2 spears is better for the chariots, but this is assuming our Archer doesn't die (which he shouldn't I guess).

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An archer has like 80-90% odds or so against an axeman, so I don't think we need an other one for the axe.

'd run the scientist right away rather than that unimproved tile.

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We have to run the tile anyway next turn since we can only run 2 scientist, so we'll have to do a 2 or 3 pop whip

kossin said:

Not too convinced about a cottage here, we night some mines instead for Eridu/Uruk

Yes, I've been saying that for what, 3 rounds?

NOTE TO NEXT PLAYER: FOCUS EP ON SOMEONE, BE IT WK OR BARBS, STOP WASTING THEM!

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Ahhh, that was my bad on that! Sorry about that guys.

mfie said:

An archer has like 80-90% odds or so against an axeman, so I don't think we need an other one for the axe.

We have to run the tile anyway next turn since we can only run 2 scientist, so we'll have to do a 2 or 3 pop whip

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Things is he'll send more units as time goes by. Archer is more versatile in general, even more so since we're protective.

We don't want to whip Uruk before we get the GS... after that though it's free game.

Unfortunately, I have a one-night house guest this evening, so will be unlikely to get my turn in. So, most likely it will be tomorrow evening.

In any case, it seems like we have a fair bit to discuss still.

What to do about Shaka? I think there are two questions.
Do we pull troops away from the choke, or just hold them there?
Prior to the discovery of Saladin's troops, we had been planning to take Ulundi somewhat soon. Are we still planning that?

I am disinclined to pull units away from the choke since they won't be of immediate benefit in defense.

My proposal would be to continue to build up our stock of vultures, keeping most of the new ones in Kish. Meanwhile, maybe improve roads heading towards Ulundi to accelerate our ability to bring these reinforcements to bear.


Do we expand to gold site soon, or delay?

My inclination is to delay somewhat, until Saladin's stack is dealt with.

I should say, I have not seen the whole map. I don't know if Saladin has another hostile neighbor that might distract him in the mean time.

I think we should keep the choke on Shaka, if we can take him out rather soon. Don't want to see an AI to our east(if there is one, we need to scout that way) getting rather big.

About gold site. I think settle soon as Saladin's stack dealt with. Them gold could help us out for expansion after killing Shaka. Hopefully he has another AI he is at war with closer to him.

Keep the choke on, we can't kill him without heavy losses right now... we'll need catapults or a way to lure his archers out of Ulundi.

Agree about gold site... and big commerce... with the cow tiles we can work 2 golds for a good amount of expansion/research/troops.

About to take my turns. First thing I am gonna do is set espionage.

Meerk said:

About to take my turns. First thing I am gonna do is set espionage.

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All right, at least someone will remember to do this.

kossin said:

Things is he'll send more units as time goes by. Archer is more versatile in general, even more so since we're protective.

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But right now we have to deal with chariots, and we'll need more than one spearment anyway, at the very least we'll probably want to send one to gold city to help defend that, so I think the spearmen X2 would be the better choice.

Meerk said:

About to take my turns. First thing I am gonna do is set espionage.

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Good luck with Saladin!