Turn Discussion Thread

Do you people not get it? A misclick can very easily be a big deal. We just had a reload because of a seriously bad misclick. Don't take the turns if you're going to be careless.

I agree that these things can be a big deal. The AMAZON mishap was certainly an example of that. My point was that: 1. It was an accident. These things happen. I'm sure Sommerswerd didn't intend to misplace the city, and wouldn't have done so 99.99% of the time. I am sure most people are much more careful playing moves in this game than in their offline games, but accidents happen. 2. The reload eliminated the error, so I'm not going to waste time and energy getting upset about it.

Anyway, what exactly is our aim at the moment? Settle the copper, then what? It seems like we're just drifting with no real plan.

azzaman333 said:

Anyway, what exactly is our aim at the moment? Settle the copper, then what? It seems like we're just drifting with no real plan.

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Well, my suggestion is to REX and aggressively settle all the best spots on Bode before Mavericks get to them. Build workers, settlers, and axes and spears to protect the Bode settlements.

^ That's what I was thinking as well. We know we won't be fighting the Amazons so it makes sense to expand as agressively as possible towards the Mavericks so we're in the better position when the fighting starts.

Irgy said:

Well, my suggestion is to REX and aggressively settle all the best spots on Bode before Mavericks get to them. Build workers, settlers, and axes and spears to protect the Bode settlements.

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I'm much more interested in why are we REXing. What are we trying to achieve from this? Because we don't seem to have any real plan to win.

I thought the plan was to ally with Amazons a primary ally with CDZ and Quatrona as secondary. Leaving Merlot and Mavericks as targets. Once those two are gone I believe we will be looking to the CDZ and Quatrona. I think Domination may be an option.

AlphaShard said:

I thought the plan was to ally with Amazons a primary ally with CDZ and Quatrona as secondary. Leaving Merlot and Mavericks as targets. Once those two are gone I believe we will be looking to the CDZ and Quatrona. I think Domination may be an option.

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That's not a plan.

azzaman333 said:

I'm much more interested in why are we REXing. What are we trying to achieve from this? Because we don't seem to have any real plan to win.

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Why are we REXing? We have two cities. Both are on an island isolated from foreign trade and military invasion until Astronomy. Our opponents are in similar situations. Also, our island lacks strategic military resources. We have located both copper and horses on the adjacent landmass. It is to our long term strategic advantage to build as many cities as feasible while territory remains up for grabs.

REXing allows us to secure those resources and deny them to our opponents, as well as increasing our production capabilities (Bode) and facilitating commerce through cottage cities (Andromeda, or whatever we are calling it now) or foreign trade.

Since no invasion of opponent home islands is possible before Astronomy, we've developed a strong research base and entered into trade alliances to boost our research output to get us to Astronomy/Gunpowder/Steel more quickly.

Given the current state of the game, these seem like reasonable goals.

Trystero said:

Why are we REXing? We have two cities. Both are on an island isolated from foreign trade and military invasion until Astronomy. Our opponents are in similar situations. Also, our island lacks strategic military resources. We have located both copper and horses on the adjacent landmass. It is to our long term strategic advantage to build as many cities as feasible while territory remains up for grabs.

REXing allows us to secure those resources and deny them to our opponents, as well as increasing our production capabilities (Bode) and facilitating commerce through cottage cities (Andromeda, or whatever we are calling it now) or foreign trade.

Since no invasion of opponent home islands is possible before Astronomy, we've developed a strong research base and entered into trade alliances to boost our research output to get us to Astronomy/Gunpowder/Steel more quickly.

Given the current state of the game, these seem like reasonable goals.

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You're missing my point. How does REXing directly help us achieve our victory? Not that I oppose REXing, I'm just aiming to highlight the complete lack of strategic insight into what we're doing. Every single move we make has to have a purpose. Right now, it seems like we're REXing because we have nothing better to do.

I understand your point, but I'm not sure how we are supposed to decide exactly how we are going to win at this point. In chess, for example, every move has a purpose as well. Usually, from the first move you are trying to control the center because this will provide you with better control of the board and more opportunities to trap your opponent and find mate. I am saying we are at the "control the center" phase.

In the more long term we have two opponents outside our alliance as possible first targets. It would behoove us to make sure we can secure as much of their territory as possible so that in the next conflict, within our trading alliance (but not with AMAZON, with whom we have a NAP) we are in a stronger position. That is the long term strategy as far as I understand it.

I would add that claiming copper and the horse would be critical to our victory. Alot better then "nothing better to do".

Trystero said:

I understand your point, but I'm not sure how we are supposed to decide exactly how we are going to win at this point. In chess, for example, every move has a purpose as well. Usually, from the first move you are trying to control the center because this will provide you with better control of the board and more opportunities to trap your opponent and find mate. I am saying we are at the "control the center" phase.

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Interesting analogy, and actually probably it is a pretty solid one. But even in chess openings there is a more distinct type of strategy than control the center. Ruy Lopez opens with some aggressive pieces towards the center but its aims are to control the light squares and use the light squares to go after the opponent. At the same time there are also some of the hypermodern openings which delay controlling the center, instead aiming to push out the opponent who moves in too quickly... I think we can all see the analogy there and it is definitely something we need to be on guard for here.

In the more long term we have two opponents outside our alliance as possible first targets. It would behoove us to make sure we can secure as much of their territory as possible so that in the next conflict, within our trading alliance (but not with AMAZON, with whom we have a NAP) we are in a stronger position. That is the long term strategy as far as I understand it.

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This is a good start. It just needs some more fleshing out.
We definitely want to go after the easy targets, get more land, and then use that advantage to take out the non-AMAZON partners in our coalition. But like Azzaman, we are not talking about the "how" -- he is saying that we need to have a plan as to how we are going to do this.

Since we are all in agreement on attacking a rival, we should be asking (at least) these questions:

1. When do we plan on attacking? (Especially - at what point in the tech tree?)
2. How do we plan on attacking? (With what troops?)
3. Where do we plan on attacking? (Do we go for the coup de gras and take a home island? Or take more of the center?)

The answers to these questions should be driving our city placement, our micro, the units we build, the techs we research.


For example (just an example) if we plan on controlling the center the entire game and denying the center to our opponents, we may consider doing the following:

1. Teching military techs (Metal Casting, Iron Working, Construction, Machinery, Civil Service)
2. Building ancient / classic era (sword, axe, spear) units; triremes & galleys for navy. later on we add in maces, HBR, cats.
3. Take our troops around the center island, razing / capturing cities of civs not in our alliance that are on the center, slowing their development.

I'm more inclined to the following strategy:

1. Teching civic service, construction, and then bee-lining astronomy (with help from bulbs if possible)
2. Building an army mostly of maces & cats, then loading those onto our rushed galleons - perhaps upgrading some galleys if that is quicker than building galleons
3. Invading the home island of a non-coalition team.

I like it because it takes advantage of our Unique Unit, plus we have the possibility of catching a team unawares with their home island. (Think we're the only ones running a token military right now? I don't.). We can even speed up the tech rate of this plan by bringing in AMAZON, having one team rush astronomy while the other picks up the needed military techs.

Now, there are certainly other valid plans too.I know Azzaman talked about researching nukes and nuking people - or using our dikes for a late-game production advantage. That would be a reason to build economically, put as little into units as possible, and then explode for a late-game domination win. I'd love to see other ideas, either here or at the strategy thread (how we're going to win the game) that was started by Azzaman.

Sorry for the wall of text above, but i need to add one more bit.

When we decide our strategy is and how we plan on wiping the other teams off the map , then the other questions get so much easier. When we look at settling a city, all we need to ask is "will this city contribute towards our strategy, or will it suck up hammers & expenses that will slow down our goal?" With picking a tech: "Is this part of our strategy, or helps us get to our goals quicker, or is this just a diversion even if it is good in its own right?" With our builds, our micromanagement, everything.

I hope that helps explain what azzaman is asking for, and why it is so critical we decide on one.

Thank you for making the point much clearer Pindicator.

I certainly do think that grabbing the Pig-Clam-Copper city will add to our strategy. Also the information CDZ gave us saying that Iron was in their center may mean we in fact have Iron as well.

I'm more worried that it means Mavericks may have iron even if we cut them off from copper on Bode.

Re: pindicators strategy comments

I quite like the chess analogy too. To me, we're still in the opening. Ideas like going for nukes seem to me like saying "we plan to win by checkmating on the back rank with two rooks". Admittedly, my own contributions to the general strategy thread are also about as helpful as saying "We should get our pieces in good positions to put pressure on the opponents".

So, firstly, with four teams part of the ETTT, it's fairly clear that the other two are going to be the targets. Due to the geography, it makes much more sense for us to go after Mavericks, as they are our neighbours and we can take their land without creating a spread-out, split up empire.

However, we can't take their homeland until Astronomy. A corollory of that is that they can cause us a great deal of hassle with triremes until at least Optics (and, realistically, until Astronomy as well). CDZ are apparently getting Metal Casting for us so that we're at least on even terms with Maverick triremes for the moment.

So, my suggestions are to:
* Concentrate for now on getting enough of a production base. Specifically enough to win a war with a roughly one-era tech advantage.
* Direct our alliance towards getting Optics and then Astronomy with minimal detouring. With four teams contributing, there's necessarily 4 different tech paths being followed anyway. Only about one and a half teams can really contribute to an Astronomy beeline. The others can concentrate on the economy techs that will help speed up the Astronomy beeline, and the military techs that we'll want to keep ahead in.
* Capture the Maverick home island with Astronomy and a one-era military tech lead. Whether that's macemen and trebs against their longbows or rifles and cannons against their muskets I don't know.
* Settle aggressively, ensure as much as possible that we have an advantageous position, but try as much as possible to avoid open warfare, as it's unavoidable that their capacity to cause us trouble will be high until we reach Astronomy no matter how much of a lead we have on them.

A general observation: With a four-team tech alliance, gold/gem/silver starts for everyone, and our ~1500BC academy, the tech rate is just going to be crazy. I think we may even get to Astronomy before we've fully settled our own island, or at least before it's properly developed.

azzaman333 said:

You're missing my point. How does REXing directly help us achieve our victory? Not that I oppose REXing, I'm just aiming to highlight the complete lack of strategic insight into what we're doing. Every single move we make has to have a purpose. Right now, it seems like we're REXing because we have nothing better to do.

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Where is your contribution to the strategy then?

Maybe this thread should just be about planning short-term turns, and talk about strategy in its own thread here. I've taken a stab at some more big picture type stuff, mostly questions, over there.

Anyone knows if the other teams know about the ASP?

I'd expect not.