SGOTM 09 - Murky Waters

[ZPV]

@Gnejs: wait for the FF worker to be done before revolting to Confu, I think. No comments on the rest until I look at the save again.

 

[jesusin]

Do any of you know the mechanic for choking a city's water tiles with sea units? (Making the tiles unavailable to the city) I think we might be able to choke Atlantis into oblivion with just a couple of Triremes, as it is looking too expensive to capture. It's not really a threat if it can't work any tiles.

Put Trirreme around (not necessarily too close. Press "blockade". That's all.

By the way, they say that provides money, but I've never noticed.

 

[Gnejs]

@Gnejs: wait for the FF worker to be done before revolting to Confu, I think. No comments on the rest until I look at the save again.

Good point. PPP updated.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Fortified= 25%
GuerII= 50%
CDII = 45%
Hill= 25%
Archhill= 25%
ArchCity= 50%
Culture= 150%
MaceCRIII= -75%
SeaAttack= 25%
Total =320%

Defending Archer = 3*4.2=12.6 3 maces needed
After airship 12.6*.84=10.854 2 maces needed

 

[jesusin]

PPP T49-T54

...

Other Marble worker cottages in place (5t) ensuring that MW gets the chop

...

Stopping points:
Alpha completed
Threatening barb actions
Unusual discoveries

I'd prefer immediate sheep pasture with 2 wor.

Probably a stop T51, after having looked E and W may be a good idea.

 

[ZPV]

If you finish a granary with more than 50% in the box, extra food is worth exactly nothing. Work hammer tiles or specialists instead until the granary finishes. After the next growth you have the same amount of food, if you finished with 50% or 100%-1.

Well, extra food does still bring the new citizen into existance earlier.
Also, I think food goes into the granary before growth happens, so the extra food can help to some extent.
To take jesusin's example, a city on 12/24 food making 10fpt, Granary done in 1t.

       no food 1t                                          keep growing 
                   12/24                                                 22/24
                   22/24                       32/24 + 10 food in the granary -> 18/26
     32/24 + 12 food in the granary -> 20/26                 28/26-> growth

 

[Gnejs]

I'd prefer immediate sheep pasture with 2 wor.

Probably a stop T51, after having looked E and W may be a good idea.

After considering the worker actions, I agree with you. This variation lets us complete the pasture and roads before the barb archer can arrive.

I intend to stop if there is anything discovered that leads to an immediate change of plans. But the only change of plans I can imagine is making sure that we can whip a galley in FF at the earliest possible opportunity, and this we may be able to do anyway.

 

[Erkon]

...Would this sequence work:

FF: worker-settler-granary-triremes
MW: granary-maces
Research: Alpha-MC or MC-Alpha?
...

Looks good. There's no hurry to build granary in FF as long as we're building workers/settlers there. I presume FF will toggle between settler/worker and triremes/galleys to match whip-regrowth.

The sharing of tiles between the four cities will be a bit of a headache though

Alpha goes first, since you can't build triremes without sailing, yes?

So, what is the timing of events? JesusinJoy will expand on ~T59, which is a bit early since we won't have a trireme ready for it. So perhaps you should complete the granary before the settler? That would gains us a few turns of whip unhappiness.

EDIT: Oh my what a lot of posts since I started this one! Got to re-check...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Gnejs: PPP looks fine.

Two (+2) comments:
1. I would airship 8W as per klarius. It's on a hill, whereas 8W1S is not, so it won't see over any hills in its view range.
2. I would cottage Murky NW, not Marble NE. We want Marble working MW's two grass cottages for max growth, don't we? The plains cottages would come last, I would think.
EDIT: 3. No need to be rigid about your intercity MM. You may want to juggle whether MW or Marble gets a corn on any given turn.
EDIT: 4. Planning to move the scout 1 plains tile at a time to keep it alive? (I would, but I'm conservative with scouts.)

When are you planning to play?

 

[klarius]

Defending Archer = 3*4.2=12.6 3 maces needed
After airship 12.6*.84=10.854 2 maces needed

For what probability? We should have at least 95% to win the whole battle. Did you consider the first strike of the archer?
Getting several CR3 maces will take a lot of fights.

 

[klarius]

I would consider to send phalanx and missionary to the southern Hammi city. The phalanx doesn't need to go all the way just to get him safely there and can then return or wait for a settler. Currently we are still under 3 cities per civ according to my calculation, so no immediate danger for marble.
If we want to spread confu is another question, but the missionary could at least scout a bit (one view and then rebase will not show all of Hammi's land.

 

[Gnejs]

@Gnejs: PPP looks fine.

Two (+2) comments:
1. I would airship 8W as per klarius. It's on a hill, whereas 8W1S is not, so it won't see over any hills in its view range.
2. I would cottage Murky NW, not Marble NE. We want Marble working MW's two grass cottages for max growth, don't we? The plains cottages would come last, I would think.
EDIT: 3. No need to be rigid about your intercity MM. You may want to juggle whether MW or Marble gets a corn on any given turn.
EDIT: 4. Planning to move the scout 1 plains tile at a time to keep it alive? (I would, but I'm conservative with scouts.)

When are you planning to play?

1. Good point, I hadn't noticed that.
2. Ok. Chop comes in one turn later, but grass is good.
3. Certainly
4. Not sure. Probably I will walk the plank anyway, to Erkons glee.

Planning to play tomorrow night if all is settled by then.

 

[Gnejs]

I would consider to send phalanx and missionary to the southern Hammi city. The phalanx doesn't need to go all the way just to get him safely there and can then return or wait for a settler. Currently we are still under 3 cities per civ according to my calculation, so no immediate danger for marble.
If we want to spread confu is another question, but the missionary could at least scout a bit (one view and then rebase will not show all of Hammi's land.

I would feel a little uncomfortable sending our only "real" defender out of our borders. I would at least wait until after Marble culture expansion and the recon mission before starting such a journey.

 

[Erkon]

Comments to PPP:

Swap to worker in Marble once you reach pop2 (and the windmill is complete). You can rush the worker and use the overflow to complete the granary before pop1@50%. We're not in a hurry to get a granary, but we need more worker turns.

I suggest you let FF grow to pop5 before rushing the granary, so that FF can build a settler at pop3.

Why not send the miss to Hammurabi? There shouldn't be a problem to reach his closest city if you swap the western recon with the island recon with the airship. Then we will see into Hammurabi's cites once we start the war?

 

[Erkon]

The miss doesn't need an escort! Puah pah pah pah pah

And I really like 3E1S for our next city. Doesn't matter that there's no food. It's a strategic city that will enable us to settle the coast.

 

[FiveAces]

Also remember that the airship recon will prevent barbs from spawning and reveal those already there, so might generate a stopping point.

I am guessing Gyaanthar gave hammy some good land as his bowman will frustrate teams without maces.

Also depending on how good Hammy's land is we might need to factor in when he is going to get longbows into when we attack due to quick speed.

Isn't there a limit to how much exp a unit can gain from barb combat?

PPP looking ok.

 

[Gnejs]

Ok, ok. The miss will go to Hammy. (I hadn't realized how close his cities are...)

As for FF, I will do whatever works out best considering the sharing of tiles with MW.

It used to be 10 XP from barb combat in Vanilla and Warlords. Have no idea if this was changed for BTS.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Marble culture expands this turn!

No point in growing FF to pop5 first, imo. The poprush will be late as it is, considering the upcoming galley poprush. Better to grow right after, putting food into the granary, with the couple hammers into the library or galley, if we already have Sailing. When MMing this, bear in mind that food that accumukates during the turn you poprush it does NOT count as going into the granary, so on that turn, you might even give both corns to MW!

Airship 8W before East is fine with me. Just don't forget east before rebasing, please.

 

[klarius]

Put Trirreme around (not necessarily too close. Press "blockade". That's all.

In fact, you need one trireme (or galley, but that will be killed by returning galleys) adjacent to the island to completely block all workable tiles.

 

[LowtherCastle]

In fact, you need one trireme (or galley, but that will be killed by returning galleys) adjacent to the island to completely block all workable tiles.

You're saying one and only one, right? Wow! What an incredibly overpowered feature. That means we can potentially solve all our problems with only 2 triremes. One to pick off their galleys (hopefully they only arrive one at a time) and then recover in our newly enculturated ocean tiles and one to blockade so they can't replenish them quickly. But that also means we'll starve the living bejesus out of Atlantis, doesn't it? Ouch. I was looking forward to capturing pop31 Atlantis with paras and poprushing Moai Statues-lh.

This again argues for 3e1s, because then we can settle Rice as soon as the 2 triremes arrive from FF. Got an alternative solution, jesusin???

But we wouldn't need 3e1s until the second trireme is leaving the FF port. Sounds to me like we have the beginnings of a strategy. Research Alpha(+Sailing)-Currency-MC. REX East Island and something to the west. Begin any preps for introducing Hammi to the Stone Age so he can carve himself an epitaph. REX the southeastern coast when MC comes in.

@Gnejs: My preference would be that you play two turns, airscouting 8W and East Island, then pause before revolting to Confucianism. I'm not sure we even want to build the mace in MW right now. Maybe we'll want a settler instead or who knows what. And maybe not even delay the settler (or two) with the revolt. Hopefully those 2 scouting missions will clarify our REX plans.

EDIT: One more detail, Gnejs. I think we should send the scout back around, southeasterly and then northeasterly, to defog those remaining tiles around the cows and wines. That might well be our best place to settle next and the airship 8W will miss it.