Moonraker

[FiveRings]

"F" is the green dot in my dotmap. I don't like it purely because it loses a load of tiles between our cap and itself while also overlapping copper city (white dot) more than half. For that reason, I would rather settle "Silver" (1N of "F").



I think we are rushing... I know my vote goes toward a war

W, the last two paragraphs are from Cam's #58, just to make sure what we are talking about. I'd settle E and then your purple dot first as they provide more commerce which seems to be our priority - or at least 2nd priority , the 1st being war prep. With Catphants we don't need the copper for the time being, I think.

 

[woopdeedoo]

I would seriously rather settle (in the following order): White > Purple > "E" > Silver.

Cam, have you got any opinions?

 

[Cam_H]

Hiya!

Sorry - I thought you two would roll over your turnsets by the time I got back from my trip away! (For the record: woop is up, 5R on deck).

Cam, have you got any opinions?

Personally - I'd settle "E" but bang out a Fishing Boat to grab the Fish there and Farm the Floodplains for the time being. This city can be 'whip central' for a little while - maybe four War Elephants or Catapults to our overall target of 20+ advanced units? Certainly in time this city could make a nice commerce site - but for now in the words of Dinosaur Jr - "feel the pain"!

"F" / "Green" is nice but not great due to lack of food. It'll pick up two riverside Grasslands that can be Farmed to push things along a bit, but until Civil Service, it'll struggle to be too influential. I'd probably go for it. I personally feel that this city needs the -kick from the two riverside Grassland tiles.

Generally the south west is tough ... on the face of it, it looks OK, but you struggle to find any >2 tiles that aren't already covered by another city. I'm happy enough to go along with what woopdeedoo's proposing, but I'm very split on; (a.) we don't settle the south west and focus on war (with some concern that all of a sudden find that 'someone' has grabbed our land), versus (b.) too much time producing costly Settlers and setting up even more costly cities that are 'pretty marginal'.

For my money ... definitely "E", possibly "F" / "Green" and just spawnbust the south. Maybe cancel open borders with Germany to stop that Galley from creeping around our turf in case it's got a Settler on board. I'm very relaxed between 'Sailing now' or 'Currency now'.

I don't feel that we're too late to begin preparations for a Catapult and War Elephant based invasion of China - but we must be mindful to get out those units 'responsibly and quickly' ... so we have to find an optimal balance between chops, whip-regrow, and natural production of units.

 

[woopdeedoo]

If we settle "F", the the White spot for gold and FPs will be super crummy instead of mildly meh. At the same time, a whole bunch (2 rows) of tiles will be lost between the capitol and "F" city. Although these tiles are useless pre-CS, they would be handy once we get CS teched and can chain irrigate. That is why I am strongly voting for "Silver" instead of "F". Since both Cam and FR vote for the "E" spot, I will send the settler in that direction and get that done.

On tech, I say switch to Currency. We need $$$.

 

[Cam_H]

Certainly "E" is the 'shining light' of the future settlement options i.m.h.o. As per before, we need around the Copper site - and if we wait for Civil Service and chain-irrigating to bolster 'Silver', we may well have delayed our invasion of the Chinese to an unacceptable point by building a fairly expensive Settler to create a weak and costly city in the short term. I feel that our priority is to get out that SoD. Just my 2¢ that you can accept or reject as you see fit.

I'm happy enough to go with Currency if you want.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Certainly "E" is the 'shining light' of the future settlement options i.m.h.o. As per before, we need around the Copper site - and if we wait for Civil Service and chain-irrigating to bolster 'Silver', we may well have delayed our invasion of the Chinese to an unacceptable point by building a fairly expensive Settler to create a weak and costly city in the short term. I feel that our priority is to get out that SoD. Just my 2¢ that you can accept or reject as you see fit.

I agree. I am going to cancel the settler that I saw queued in one of the cities. Settle "E", build an army as best I can. Tech currency. Since that is all I will really be able to do, I don't see what more detail there needs to go into this PPP. BTW, 10 or 15 turns? I think it's 10?

 

[Cam_H]

I'm happy with 15, but whatever you're comfortable with. Best of luck!

 

[woopdeedoo]

I'm happy with 15, but whatever you're comfortable with. Best of luck!

Ok, I will play in a couple of hours.

 

[Cam_H]

woopdeedoo,

I'm not sure if you've played yet or not, but you've given me more time to change my mind!

Personally I still feel "E" is the way to go next because it's very whippable, but I can be swayed into getting out that Prague Settler (eventually) and founding "White" if you want ... it's still a 'marginal' city for us that's going to take a bit of time to come good and add cost to our empire, but I can see its value if we stick a Mine on the Gold and Farm up two of the riverside Grasslands. On the plus side, it will be another blocker in case Mao decided to cross our 'wall of culture' with a Settler party, and should be able to more or less pay for itself while working the Gold Mine.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Hi Guys

Sorry, had all kinds of drama to take care of this weekend and couldn't play yet. I will do so shortly.

 

[woopdeedoo]

So I played. Fairly uneventful. I got Currency and Sailing in, TGL was built on the turn Sailing came in. MZ is building Wonder after Wonder, his cities will be nice once they belong to us I have set tech to IW @ 0%. E has been settled. I have also pre-roaded for "white" spot. Some pics:

Our army:

Our Power:

Our Cultural influence:

After we got Currency, I checked what Bizzy would give us:

I have not taken it.

 

[Cam_H]

Great to see that army build up.

I'd move troops to 'the front' immediately - consolidate them in Steel Jaw Guy. We don't want to delay our invasion due to our troops loitering in far-away cities.

Also encouraging to see a bit of whipping and chopping in Steel Jaw Guy and Monte Carlo ... we need to keep going with it.

I'd work the food tiles more in Prague and Vienna. I'm a big fan of maturing Cottages, but the invasion force is the priority now, so Prague could go back to the Cows and Clams. One or two more rounds of whips and we'll be good to strike I suggest - and that's where we can turn our focus again to science - but with so much cash in the bank we can certainly get back to a more balanced approach (see below re. suggestion on tech').

One turn of moving the citizen off the Vienna Gold Mine and onto the riverside Farmed Grassland will get that population up quicker.

We have a Warrior near Monte Carlo in a forest that can make his way across to Bibracte for city garrison duties. The city requires a thematic 're-name'! For now I'd Farm that other Floodplains for better whip-regrow. I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be better to take that Worker who's on the Bibracte Stone and complete the road network between the core empire and Bibracte instead (that is continuing diagonally across the Floodplains) so our units can move more quickly to 'the front'. I'm not sure if we really require Stone for anything too immediately (I assume we're not going for The Hanging Gardens, and the tile yield isn't as good as 'say' that riverside Plains Hill getting a Mine anyway).

I'd use the Chariot sitting on Vienna's Gold Mine to do some recon' on China. Just for the record - Guangzhou was the city that landed The Parthenon (you can zoom in and see it). It'd be nice to see what's sitting in Shanghai (3 Archers? 5 Archers + Axe? 5 Archers + Axe + Spear?).

That Prague Worker building a Farm on the riverside Plains could arguably build a Cottage there instead (in light of the city's considerable food haul) - Plains Farms are typically very ordinary tiles until Biology. That tile can't chain-irrigate to anywhere once we get Civil Service either. Better yet, get the Worker to chop that last Forest in Prague's BFC.

Thoughts on science? I was considering the value of going up the 'artistic' line toward Literature. We've got a bit of leeway in terms of happiness due to Charismatic + Stonehenge + 3 x happy resources, so arguably don't need to bee-line Monarchy / Hereditary Rule. Seeing Bismark's reluctant to trade Alphabet, I guess there's a case that we should self-research it.

Good stuff - over to FiveRings for a PPP!

 

[FiveRings]

Looks like a lot of progress, thanks W!

I'll download the save and look at it in the evening. Cam has practically covered most of unit actions, so I'll look basically at the building and tech part.

 

[woopdeedoo]

The main reason I slotted IW in is because of our UU. I'm curious to see what they can do. Also, our UB+Barracks means lotsa promo's right out the gate so once we have a sufficient force in place, it may be worth our time to build them there buildings for future conflicts...

 

[Cam_H]

Looks like a lot of progress, thanks W!

I'll download the save and look at it in the evening. Cam has practically covered most of unit actions, so I'll look basically at the building and tech part.

Yes - good progress.

Please feel free to review the unit actions for yourselves! For instance, that road that I'm proposing from Bibracte to our core road network may well be a severe waste of Worker turns in your view. I'm happy to consider all sensible options.

The main reason I slotted IW in is because of our UU. I'm curious to see what they can do. Also, our UB+Barracks means lotsa promo's right out the gate so once we have a sufficient force in place, it may be worth our time to build them there buildings for future conflicts...

Yeah ... err ... maybe ...

I do acknowledge the +50% on connecting the Stone for Duns, but it'd take an awfully compelling argument to sway me on the value of the Guerrilla promotions in light of this map. Still - I can be swayed!

b.t.w. - I'd ignore that deal with Germany. We can't get a 2/3/4-for-1/2 until we get our hands on Alphabet and/or China/England gets their hands on it. Nonetheless, thanks for at least raising it as an option.

 

[woopdeedoo]

b.t.w. - I'd ignore that deal with Germany. We can't get a 2/3/4-for-1/2 until we get our hands on Alphabet and/or China/England gets their hands on it. Nonetheless, thanks for at least raising it as an option.

I agree. It is a bleh trade...

 

[woopdeedoo]

WRT roading the new city, I already roaded to white spot so I have no issue with getting the latest city connected. It needs to get done anyways so may as well get to it.

 

[FiveRings]

Well, I wonder how you did it, W! The army build-up is really impressive while the whipping seems to have been really sparing! But we do have to beef up the army a lot. We need the recon, too, as already noted by Cam. I think we'll need to conquer at least 4 Chinese cities, keeping the three with wonders and the shrine, and razing the one in the Southeast. If everything goes well, we can get Monarchy from Mao while leaving him exiled in the far Northeast city of his.
So, techwise, I agree with Cam on dropping IW - I have never been impressed by the CWs with their gueriila in combination with the 10% city atack- and going Alpha-Lit.
I'd suggest, though, to keep the research at the rate that is barely positive, while shifting worktiles from cottages to food (doing some MM to that aim).
It might not be a bad idea to get one of Mao's wines for one of our fishes - he's ready to trade it, at least till we get to war.
I am also inclined to switch Bibracte's production from Axe to Cat. I think I understand W's rationale with that archer close by, but I think the latter is better to be dealt with two of our chariots, when the moment comes: it has a lot of drill promotions and the chars are immune to them. This means getting one of the four chars closer, sending the medic char to the stacking place, ie the Jaws (after some recon in the Southern China), while the other might recon Northern China and get back to strengthen the army.
I guess we'll have a clearer picture of how many cats and phants we need after the recon. I'd think about 15 cats and 12 phants at the min (we might need more if Mao has gone spears; pls note that Beijing has walls the same could apply to the other two important cities, and in the latter case we might need additonally some 6-7 cats and 3-4 phants.)
I guess I'll be doing something like 10-ish turns and will stop after doing the recon, so we can discuss the situation before Cam's turnset.
I agree on keeping currency for double -triple trading.
I'll use the workers for farming-chopping. The road from Bibracte towards the Jaws will come in when wood and crop is out.
That's about it.
I'll play tomorrow evening, I hope, so, please, don't hesitate to suggest corrections and improvements.

 

[Cam_H]

My main concern is if Mao could be on the brink of Feudalism and if we take too long to strike, we'll be running in to Protective Longbows. He's already got Monarchy (he's in Hereditary Rule) and there's an excellent probability that he's got Writing, so he's in likelihood capable of researching Feudalism now.

A Catapult and War Elephant army is well capable of decimating just about anything pre-Gunpowder, but nonetheless, I'd prefer to be fighting Archers than Longbows.

Best of luck!

 

[FiveRings]

My main concern is if Mao could be on the brink of Feudalism and if we take too long to strike, we'll be running in to Protective Longbows. He's already got Monarchy (he's in Hereditary Rule) and there's an excellent probability that he's got Writing, so he's in likelihood capable of researching Feudalism now.

A Catapult and War Elephant army is well capable of decimating just about anything pre-Gunpowder, but nonetheless, I'd prefer to be fighting Archers than Longbows.

Best of luck!

Mine, too. Me, too.
If both of you insist, I'd be willing to oblige and (1) after getting 20 advanced units in the Jaws, not counting chariots of course, I'll open them, urh, invade Mao. If this comes before my 10th turn, of course. (2) Recon only the Western part of China.

I am waiting for your OK.