SGOTM 02 - Fifth Element

[Merum]

Looking at it, I'd probably do some of the following things...

1. Trade Astronomy to KK for Divine Right, WM, and 220g
2. Ask Bismark to attack Phoenician, and the get everything that can limp, walk, or steam over to Niani. I'd be surprised if he has a large force in there.
3. Begin tooling up a cavalry/artillery invasion force for Huayna's little slice of heaven.
4. Start any wars I could between other civs
5. After taking Niani, See if there are enough forces left to raze Tiflis

Random thoughts:
Why are we building a university in our most productive unit building city? We're almost done with science now. I don't think the investment is worthwhile.
Might as well take Gaul, it would be nice to have it 1N, but it's really too late to try to build a city from scratch.
We need some high-hammer unit pumps. GNP and logistics win wars. When we get to Hatty and KK, we're going to need to be a manufacturing machine. Anything that increases hammer production would be a high priority.

KK and Hatty are cautious with each other. Anything we can do to further that would be useful...

 

[Sweetacshon]

Well played!

Do we go for Niani or not? Well it seems to be worth keeping, quarry and farms already built, corn and spices, and two grass hills to mine - a useful prod'n city. The trouble may be troops and speed, we don't have any...sorry, one fast troop, and 3 cats. I don't think MM will counter attack now, so we can afford to strip the cities a little. Just get a scout over there to have a look, and see if Bismark is going to beat us to it... we might have to call him off. He has done his job well, hasn't he? Hopefully we can keep him firing. I love it that he's razing everything!

Don't forget to nab that pike north of Timbu b4 it retreats. Not much can be done diplomatically at the moment, but I notice Hatty will give us chemistry for MT. Worth it?

We should be careful with our cities, we know how the AI loves to stick on specialists, so flip thru MMing every few turns just for a look (you can use the L and R arrow keys to switch between cities quickly) in case the AI has screwed it up. One example is Aryan well under it pop limit and having 2 specialists. Another thing is sticking to the city specialisations, and producing the best buildings possible, ie commerce for the green belt, not units, and not really bothering with commerce/science in unit cities, ie skip the library in Satsuma. Also, courthouses in the conquered cities are a must, we're looking at around 10gpt maintenance on them.

Seed of a war plan:
We are going to need more units for HC (after we polish off MM), but I'm feeling the old feint and thrust might work here. Have a force big enough to hold its own, but not really big enough to do too much damage, go into the hills east of Ollan'tambo or Cuzco, or maybe even raze Andahuylas, wait a few turns for HC to send his reinforcements east, then swan in and drop our real army next to Tiawanku with enough seige units to take it in 1-2 turns. This doesn't look like a bad city, but maybe razing it and heading straight to Cuzco would be easier, while the eastern force, depending on the level of resistance, retreats to our cities, defends the hills, or moves toward Cuzco to speed the process. It shouldn't take long to wipe out the southern coastal cities, and soon enough we could move north.

The blitz needs alot of units, so I suggest daisy chaining galleons across the straight... anyone not familiar with this, check out Peanut's SGOTM1, they used it to great effect.

 

[Merum]

Here's a thought... Take Niani, Let Bismarck Take Phoenician (anod hopefully raze it) and then see if MM will give us tech for peace and sit in Tiflis waiting for us for 10 turns. Then, raze Tiflis.

Love the idea about feinting HC. Ideally, if we could drum up the units for a force to drop on the peninsula, we can cripple him very quickly on the western front.

Trading MT to Hatty for chemistry just... scares me. Maybe it's a good deal, but I wouldn't do it right away, personally. Additionally, we should probably trade any military techs we do trade to both Hatty and KK, in the hopes that we can start a war between them. Parity would grind them both down equally.

 

[Perugia]

You're right, but we can never know what buildings we'll find: We know that every cultrual building will disappear, but i've seen a completely developed city left with just a bank, then you can see which buidings a city has, but you'll never know which buildings you'll actually find.

True, but the question we were answering was which cities to keep and which to raze. Therefore if there are just cultural buildings we will receive no buildings!

So if the city is underdeveloped to begin with and does not help us in any other way eg (lots of population/production, holy city, connects a new resource or has some geographic value) then we should raze it.

A city with marginal population/production or some geographic value might be worth the gamble if it has plenty of buildings to begin with.

If it's worth keeping then you are right it's a gamble as to what buildings we get.

Our cities

Sweetacshon is absolutely right. We must rigidly stick to city specialisation and watch out the the AI stuck on specialists. Madrid is our GP farm (I hope Natiojal Epic will complete soon). Our commerce belt cities should focus on commerce while slowly building scouts/catapults. Our moderate cities and the capital should be building the main battle units.

The time for constructing new buildings is rapidly ending. I would not start any new buildings now unless there is a really really good reason eg markets/banks in the gold/holy places. When selecting builds we must think whether the building is actually going to benefit the empire overall in the next 100 turns or so. In production cities should the hammers go straight into units rather than forge or barracks? If in doubt build units.

In commerce cities would it be better to move a citizen off a hill to a cottage/coast or just cottage/mill the hill rather tha building a university/bank etc? Can we chop our remaining forests and ignore the health implications?

One other point. Not all catapults need to be built in barracks. The suicide ones get a marginal benefit from 4XP but the bombard ones don't benefit unless we can run one of the XP civics.

Civics & Sci rate

Should we be thinking about some civics change any time soon. Once we have replaceable parts we can consider police state to crank out the military.

Towards the end game we should switch into nationalism so we can trade population for riflemen or hopefully infantry. We can drop slavery then if we have not already.

I don't think we have an economic civic at the moment. Slipping one into the next revolution wpould be good.

I now agree with Merum that binary science is no longer working for us. It is a distraction and as we are now running hold/gold cities has marginal effect unless we are going to move loads of citizens around. We should reduce this MM burden ow so we can focus on the war plan, city builds and ongoing optimum tile use.

War Plan

I like the idea of capturing Niani and getting tech for peace with MM (brilliant idea Merum!)

Let's definitely direct Bismarck to Phonecian so we can focus on Niani. Do we all know how to do this? BLubuz have you checked on the old save to see how this works?

The feint is a great idea. We can route our galleons N of HC to build up our feinting force using our OB with KK. I am prety confident HC will throw his spare units at our stack in defensive terrain allowing us to amphibiously drop a stack in the penninsula a few turns later.

Tech

We need to get the military techs for grenadier, riflemen and if we can infantry. Not sure about giving Hatty Mil Trad just yet OTOH grenadiers are a lot better than musketmen.

I think we can upgrade samurai to grenadiers. This will cost a lot so we should mostly build new grenadiers but a upgrades few might be good value where the samurai have city raider promotions as these are not normally availale to grenadiers.

PS sorry about the typos - I have to get back to work now.

 

[BLubmuz]

About address an allied to attack:
Thanx all, yes now i know how it works ... i never see that option, thanx again.

For the other things, I agree, we can revolt to police state (we got Pyramids, to increase unit production and reduce WW).
Barracks are very cheap for us (we are aggressive), then i build them, and forges, too (not only 25% increase production, but double happiness from metals).

And, yes a war is won by logistics and production, as Germans teach in WW2, but first of all USA, when they joined the game.

About chemistry for MT: no doubt, i'll trade it.

Not much more to say, things seem going pretty well.

 

[Doom Train]

Here is a checklist for rest of my turns formed by ideas written so far...

1) Build Calvary in main produciton cities.

2) Trade Astronomy to KK for Divine Right, WM, and 220g. But he ll probably trade it to HC(They are Friendly or close to it i think) all teammates agree on this?

3) Start building and chaining galleons. I like this idea.

4) Capture Niani and direckt Bismarks attention to Phonecian.

5) MT for chemistry. I think we should make this trade.

Anything to add or edit?

I ll probably finish the turnset tonight or tommorow.

 

[Perugia]

Barracks are very cheap for us (we are aggressive), then i build them, and forges, too (not only 25% increase production, but double happiness from metals).

I can still see both these buildings as not essential in some low production / high commerce cities.

@Doom Train

Comments on your checklist.

1) Main production cities should build units, cavalry sounds good with the odd grenadier thrown in. Smaller prod cities should keep on with catapults. Osaka should switch to a cavalry.

2) I'm not sure about the Astronomy deal. I don't think Divine Right leads anywhere, KK's WM is pretty worthless so its basically Astronomy for 220g. Let's make KK and HC spend their beakers on it instead.

3) We do have some galleons so build just the right amount, no more. In SGOTM01 we had too many galleys.

4) Yes please

5) Yes

6) Follwing Merum & Sweetacshon's advice. Be sure cities are not building non-essential buildings. Also MM every few turns to ensure cities citizen placement matches their specialisation.

7) Workers
Are all resources improved?
Are there any unimproved grassland tiles that can be improved to match city specialisation?
Are there forests we can chop that will not damage health?
Are there jungles we can chop to improve health and make the tile useful?
Are roads from main produciton cities to muster points as short as possible?
Are any remaining marginal worked tiles improved eg plains/tundra/desert hill?

 

[Doom Train]

I ve completed my turnset. Niani is ours, MM is dead and we got replacable parts.

Turn 1 : Longbow started in S&T.

Turn 2: HC canceled OB. Good news is our musketman automatically transfered near Djenne. 4 Units attacked from Timbuktu all destroyed. Tokyo completed cat started musket Osaka completed Knight started musket. Bismark razed Gao.

Turn 3: Made a deal with Hatty sheep for banana.

Turn 4: MM attacked Djenne with mace and cat which were destroyed. Caraval defeated barb galley. Pop rushed longbow in S&T pop rushed tao temple in Madrid.

Turn 5: Pop rushed musket in tokyo. Attackers of Djenne left their post. I think Bismark is causing trouble. Mao has established a city in our continent.

Turn 6: Learned military tradition started replacaple Parts. Galleon destroyed barb galley. Kumbi Saleh razed by Bismark. Whipped Christian temple in Kyoto. Timbuktu is ours. It has Academy in it. Traded MT for Chem. Started calvary in Osaka.

Turn 7: Barb longbow attacked from Gaul got destroyed. C. Temple finished in Kyoto started Bank. Sending a Samurai to scout Niani

Turn 8: Attacked MM pike with samurai scout won with no injuries. We have unhappines in most of the cities.

Turn 9: Madrid completed musket starter calvary. Niani has 1 mace 2 long 1 pike 1 cat.

Turn 10hoenican captured by Bismark. Directed his attention towards Tiflis.

Turn 11: Osaka completed calvary started calvary.

Turn 12: Cordoba completed musket started calvary

Turn 13: Got repleacable parts started rifling. Forge completed in toledo started greanidier. Library comp in Djene started courthouse. Captured Niani and demanded constitution for peace he rejeceted so we have no choice. Got incense from hatty (traded deer) and Wine from Mao(Traded sheep).This solved unhappienes problem.

Turn 14: Sent a Scout to Tiflis

Turn 15: Great Merchant(Hanno) born in Kyoto. 1 more coming from Madrid.

Turn 16: Forge completed in santiago.

Turn 17: Razed Tiflis.

Sorry for playing 17 turns i just wanted to destroy MM.

Here is the save.

BrianS(up)
Merum(on deck)
Sweetacshon
Perugia
Blubmuz
Doom Train(resting)

Good luck BrainS

 

[BrianS]

Nice job taking out MM DoomTrain. I've looked over the save, and here are my thoughts.

We're rich with 3159 gold, but are running 0% science with Rifling not due for 21 turns. I will increase science to 100% and rifling will come in 5 at -95GPT. I think we should then switch to Steel for cannon. We can get Steel much quicker than Assembly Line and the cannon are great.

With replaceable parts, we can now start building lumbermills and should do so with a vengeance. I'm switching all workers to this task immediately.

We're running Representation, Bureaucracy, Slavery, Decentralization and Free Religion. Consider changing to Police State, Free Market, and possibly Theocracy (which would require adopting a religion to be of benefit). The question is whether to switch now for increased military production from police state or hold off until war is declared (when lower war weariness will be of more benefit) so Rep can help get rifling/steel asap. Given my findings on military below, I think we should switch to PS and FM now. FM should help with science and PS will let us build our war machine faster.

We do not have a great military... the offensive threats are 4 knights, 3 cavalry, 10 samurai, 4 catapult, and 5 musketman and many of these are required for sentry duty in our cities. Yikes, this is not a war machine. I will build gren and cats until rifling comes in then switch to rifles. As soon as steel comes in, we should emphasize cannon but I don't think that will happen my turn unless we opt for a GA next turn (see below).

Diplomatically, Hatty, KK and Bismarck are all pleased with us, but they are also our strongest rivals in points and power. KK is the strongest on the power curve, with Bismarck not far behind. KK is only cautious towards Hatty and Bismarck, but pleased with HC (which is ironic given his willingness to go to war with HC as discussed below). KK wants MT, Astronomy and Chemistry to go to war with Hatty. We may be able to bargain for less, but this is his asking price. When asked what he wants to go to war with Bismarck, he says that it cannot be done. He will war with HC for just MT.

So should KK war with HC or Hatty? I'm concerned that KK will just muck up our war with HC taking cities we'd rather raze and growing his core empire. I'd rather see him and Hatty go at it. Unfortunately, KK is well positioned for war with KK but is on the opposite side of donut land from Hatty. A false war with Hatty doesn't help us all that much, and that's my main concern with him going to war with Hatty. Also, we have to give him some pretty strong military techs to war with Hatty -- do we really want him to have Astronomy and Chemistry without having to research?

KK also has Constitution, which he will trade for MT. While Constitution, is not critical to us, it gets us closer to Democracy, which we may need if one of the AIs switches to Emancipation. Something to think about, but I'm not crazy about it. I think most of our tech bargains going forward should be tributes to us in exchange for peace treaties.

Madrid will pop a GP next turn. Even chances of GProp, GS and GE. We have a GM sitting in Kyoto. I think we should use the 2 for a GA. We could really use the boost to build our war machine.

Now the big question...when to start war with HC and with what strategy. HC has rifleman, and we are quite weak. I like the feint proposed by Sweetacshon. My plan would be to get some troops in position in the east, then load up our galleons with forces in the west to take the peninsula. I notice that it was suggested to start with Tiwanaku. Why not start with Huamanga? I think we want to leave no culture to our rear to slow down troop movements. In any event, I think it will be 10 turns at least before we pull the trigger.

Finally, I see opportunities to MM our cities for production and will do so.

I will play Wednesday night

 

[Perugia]

Well done Doom_Train. I'm glad you took out MM so we have no distractions for the next set of discussions.

@Brian. I like your wide ranging thoughts. Here is my response.

Science should now be set to 100% for the forseeable future. Research rifling > steel > assembly line. I like the idea of including steel as it will only take 6 or so turns. On top of cannon we would be able to build Ironclads if any AI frigates threaten our coasts.

I like the idea of engineering a Golden Age and it will work well with Police State but we need to be sure our top cities are not going suffer unhappiness after dropping Representation. I have nto seen the save (yet) so can't be sure. OTOH GA will work very well with switching from Representation to Police State. Specialists can be put back to work on tiles where the GA will boost hammers and commerce by +1. We also get more food for growth/pop rushing.

Lumbermills are a good idea but I can't agree that all workers should switch to this immediately. Lumbermills only give 1h whereas mines and watermills give 2h and windmills 1f1h1c. Mines take many less worker turns to get up and running. Also with the GA coming up we should deal with unimproved grasslands as 0h0c tiles don't benefit from the GA and the workers can get there faster and efficiently team up whereas unroaded forests cost 2mps to enter so can't be improved on the turn the worker(s) arrive there wasting worker turns.

More to follow tonight

edit OK I'm back after reading posts BrianS #351 & BLumbuz #352 and looking at the save.

BTW from the score chart I see we are nowhere near in time problems like we were with SGOTM01 and our score is not too bad (even though score does not matter). I think we could have a good finish in SGOTM02. More importantly we can afford to continue our 24/48 turnset timing which is giving us plenty of time to discuss strategy.

Courthouses are a really good idea as we get 100% bonus due to our organised trait. Even at Djenne with its 32 gold shrine income the courthouse (5/90) is more cost effective than bank (16/300). BTW as science is going to move to 100% banks are not a priority but if we are to build any new banks then Djenne should be first on the list as the bank will give us 16 gold from shrine income even when we are at 100% science. Note also that a bank at Djenne is twice as good as a university. OTOH we have loads of gold at the moment so even Djenne could go with units for now.

If we are to change civics there will be 2 turns of anarchy if we change 1 civic but only 3 turns of anarchy to change 2 or 3 civics.

If we go for Theocracy now then we will become Christian again and would not have any conversion anarchy but would have to be prepared to suffer diplomatically. We would also lose the 10% science boost and multiple religion happy faces. I'm not sure 2XP is worth it.

I'd prefer to wait until we have assembly line and we have no need for diplomacy. BTW if any cities have happiness problems a few select missionaries popped from our monasteries (christian in Osaka - not sure about other religions) could be a cheap way of getting happy faces and some more shrine gold.

City MM. I'll leave that to you Brian but I would just sugest that as Madrid is the GP farm and not maxed out it probably can afford not to work its town in favour of the 5 food tile. That +3 extra food will really speed up GP growth.

Incan cities

I suggest Vitcos and Andahuaylas will neither give us much production nor are strategically important and should be razed. We can get some gold by pillaging the cottage 1N & iron mine 2W of Andahuaylas. The other improvements should be kept as they are in the city radii of Cuzco & Djenne. The 4 forests in the area can be chopped for Cuzco & Djenne.

Huamanga can only net us 6 base hammers so I sugest we raze it and employ 2 extra galleons to ship train directly into Tiwanaku. This wil disembark our units closer to the front.

i would keep all the other cities for production. However we should ship some worker gangs over to build watermills in place of some of the farms.

Finally. HC has 3 sources of iron and they are all right on the coast. So we should easily be able to pillage them early on in the war. The one in the N can be taken out by moving a defensive stack onto the adjacent forest by land from mongolia or by sea. The one in the south by landing in the adjacent forest. Both these can then be pillaged by suicide explorers.

Thata all I have time for for now. Good luck.

 

[BrianS]

@Perugia: I agree with your comments about workers and will keep that in mind when switching workers to lumbermills. At this point, we are pretty much working only improved tiles or un-milled forest, so I think in most cases it will make sense to switch to lumbermills.

By the way, after thinking about this, I do see benefit in starting with Tiwanaku. Huamanga will never be a serious threat, and by taking Tiwanaku, we will cut it off. It will be easy to take later, particularly as it's so near our homeland. Taking it now will cost us military we'll want for the main attack.

One thing I didn't look at closely is which cities we want to keep. I don't have the save now, but I seem to recall that Tiwanaku was a pretty decent city and one we might want to keep.

 

[BLubmuz]

Great TS, Doom Train

I agree with your plans, just some opinions:
Usually i build lumbermills in plain/gl forests, and mines or windmills in hills, taking benefit from the forest chop.
Send only a worker in non-roaded forest or hill tiles, this way you'll loose only 1 turn, then road and eventually move there more workers when roaded.

About barracks:
I mean they are useful in military production cities, if those have good production, can build in 1 turn, and is a well spent turn.

I'll wait the war starts before switch to PS.

Good luck Brian.

 

[Merum]

In case anybody is uncertain about this, KK is about to open a whole case of whoopass on somebody. It looks like it was Tiflis. See the screenshot below.

I think it really behooves us to make sure the openee here is not us.

My preferred target for him would be Egypt, then China, then Germany, then Inca, in that order. If we let him get on Inca, I doubt there will be much left over for us.

Initial War targets for us: Tiwanaku, Ollantayambo, and Cuzco. Andahuaylas can be razed, and Vitcos might be marginal, and a game-time decision.

I'd recommend a two-fleet amphibious landing, with spearheads driving toward Tiwanaku and Cuzco. This should come a few turns after a decent feint as far NE as we can make it, to draw defenders off. The remaining units from these attacks can move on Ollantayambo in a pincer move. We'll be up against rifles now, so bring lots of grenadiers and arty.

Let's move with alacrity, gents, before we find ourselves having to fight the brown monster who has had 5,000 years of peace to build his army.

Brian, don't forget to mix some cavalry into your builds. They make great pillagers and strong offensive units.

 

[BrianS]

@Merum: That is one of the most impressive SODs I've seen from an AI. We should definitely keep Mr. Khan pleased with us and find an outlet for his aggression. I will ask him to send the stack to play with our good friend in Egypt.

Thanks all for your very helpful suggestions. I will start playing my turns shortly.

 

[Sweetacshon]

Argh, I wrote out my thoughts last night, and my ISP decided to pack it in. What century is this again? Everything has pretty much been covered, tho. The main points were:

Well done Doom Train - 2 down....heaps to go.

If HC has rifles, then the counter is grenades, and cannons would be nice, but we all know the strength of a stack of cats. I think we should rip through HC asap, use some of our money to upgrade the eastern army to grenades.

OK, so it's frustrating to rewrite stuff, so I'll just say goiod luck, BrianS, be nice to KK.

 

[BrianS]

Plan

1.Get KK to war with Egypt
2.Representation->Police State; Decentralization->Free Market; assuming we do not need happiness from Rep in 5 largest cities
3.Muster troops for battle against Inca
4.Spend a Golden Age gearing for battle
5.Build Gren, Cats, Cav until Rifling comes in. Then build Rifles until Steel comes in. Then build Cannon and Rifles.
6.Start war with HC asap

Inherited Turn 1595:

MM'd cities for production/growth/wealth as appropriate. Increased science slider to 100%. Upon checking happiness levels of 5 largest cities before revolting to Police State, I was at first concerned because they were all at or near happiness limit. Then I saw that this was due to war weariness from the Malinese War (we're still in the turn in which their pathetic civilization was destroyed) and decided we had happiness to spare for PS. Began revolution for Police State and Free Market. This will result in 3 turns of anarchy.

Muster of troops: I decide we need the small troop outside Gaul (2 knights, 1 sam and 1 cat) for our war, so move all but 1 knight towards port of Santiago. The initial assault is not aided by chaining Galleons, as we'll need fully loaded galleons waiting just outside Incan cultural borders, ready to invade as soon as war starts. I think we need 1 more galleon, so will try to fit this in if I can.

KK agrees to war with Egypt for MT and Chemistry. Not great, but better than what he as asking for (which also included Astronomy). It will be interesting to see where KK's awful SOD goes in the next couple turns.

This is a darn interesting map. I just noticed that there is a great city site 2N1W of New Sarai. It would allow us to move ships easily from East New Japan into the Inland Sea. We should keep this in mind for the future.

1598

Oh sh*t. KK doesn't have just 1 SOD near the former Tiflis, he has 2. I hope they're just passing through.




Troop shuffle...waiting out the revolution.
Upgrade a couple sam to gren outside Timbuktu.

1601

Niani comes out of revolution. Still 1 turn of anarchy to go. Shuffle, shuffle troops.

KK's SODs march slowly towards Egypt.

1604

Anarchy is over. Things will pick up again next turn.

And here I stop for the night.

 

[Perugia]

@Brian. Well done for getting in KK to DoW on Hatty that's a real tonic to me!

I'm looking forward to seeing what actually happens. Can we spare a unit to track the 2 SoDs if they go outside our vision?
We need to be prepared to respond should Hatty or KK ask us to help them in the war? Seeing who is winning will help us decide.

I forgot to say that if we were not going with Theocracy we could include serfdom instead of slavery for the same 3 turns of anarchy but it's now too late.
As we are no longer running representation, specialists are no longer as powerful so we should consider removing some. Also you mentioned some residual WW. Bearing these 2 in mind I suggest you quickly whizz through the MM once again (unless this is in hand).
For instance removing a merchant or scientist at Kyoto or Surf n Turf would only cost us one commerce and net 2 food that can go towards growth which we can use for pop rushing now or later for drafting right at the front.

Nice thought about the canal city. We definitely should keep that in mind. BTW as we are short of galleons how about roading down to the Chinese city on our continent and running the ship chain from there as its closer to Incaland.

Finally, if there are any resources we can gift or any other action we can make to improve our diplomacy rating with KK lets do it. We certainly want ot see the 2 SoDs passing right on through.

 

[Merum]

I noticed we had a -2 with KK for razing one of his cities. Tiflis must have been his... I doubt that will ever go away. We definitely should follow those stacks, and keep a close eye on the tide of battle, for picking sides, as Perugia said. It seems likely at this point that KK is going to wipe the map with Hatty. Let's hope he decides to go on a razing bent.

I'm off to Philadephia to start my new job next week, and I don't have my new laptop yet, so if my turn doesn't come up this weekend, I'll be on skip for a week or so.

 

[Perugia]

I'm off to Philadephia to start my new job next week, and I don't have my new laptop yet, so if my turn doesn't come up this weekend, I'll be on skip for a week or so.

You are on deck and Brian is underway so I expect your turn will come up in time.

 

[Merum]

You are on deck and Brian is underway so I expect your turn will come up in time.

Yeah, I figure we'll be OK too, just wanted to put the word out.