SGOTM 23 - Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

Report for turns 102 and 103:

T102:
Execute plan, plus moved healed axe in St. Pete to forest hill NW of Moscow.
Note that Joao is +5 diplo. What is the number for friendly?
Steal English warrior on fur hill.

IBT:
Nottingham produces sword and moves axe SE out of city toward Ruby Bay and worker.
2 spears move 2E out of Moscow.
Russian spear approaches Vlad.
Yaro does not add defender

T103: Capture Yaro with loss of a chariot. It has granary and monument, but is not connected to our empire.

Notes for Discussion

Where do our spy points go now?

Lyon must build a chariot in 5 turns or lose hammers.

More consequentially, suggestion for English theater:
Kill axe with unpromoted (the promoted one does better against the Not archer, and we need to badly wound the archer before our axes can take out the sword) chariot(s), and leave the wounded chariot, hoping the sword attacks it. Similarly, put newly captured English worker in jeopardy by not moving him, while moving the axe that captured him SSE from Not. If none of that draws him out, then we may have to delay capturing Not, perhaps until the HA in Paris heals and/or we can bring a cat to bear.

The more I get back into the game, the more critical a fast capture of Moscow seems. In addition to taking Yaro, we also captured 2 workers and killed a stray chariot. Our two mounted units NE of Yaro may be in jeopardy -- a calculated risk to capture a worker and learn more of the map. If the two spears continue eastward, then Moscow will be vulnerable if we can get two cats there.

Save from Central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0300_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Nice work, CP!

The situation certainly is interesting.

It looks as though those 2 Spearmen at 2 E of Moscow won't be able to attack our mounted Units on Stalin's turn.

In fact, none of Stalin's currently-visible Units can reach the 2 mounted Units at 1 NE of Yaroslavl' (although our mounted Units there could get attacked by mounted Units from the City to the east of Moscow, as long as Stalin doesn't learn Construction for the ability to cross Rivers via bridges, his 1-movement-point Units cannot reach us).

(The Great Wall's positioning tells us that there is a City that must be 4 E of Moscow.)

The most dangerous situation seems to be that we have 1 wounded Unit inside of Yaroslavl', and everyone has moved, so we can't reinforce the City this turn.

The only visible threat is an Archer, but there's also a City to the south east that could hold mounted troops which could also help attack Yaroslavl'.


Our troops are out of position to be able to capture another City, so it really comes down to a decision between a Cease Fire this turn or next turn.

Cease Firing next turn would allow us to scare away the Worker who is Chopping the Forest at 1 NE + 1 N of Yaroslavl' and may allow us to kill off the Archer at 1 SE of Yaroslavl' if it doesn't run away. If we do Cease Fire, at least the Archer wouldn't easily be able to get to Moscow, as it's on the wrong side of Yaroslavl'.

The Spearmen are likely to reinforce Moscow, and even if they didn't, we aren't anywhere close to being able to capture Moscow.

The Workers certainly wouldn't stay in range of our mounted Units and I don't see anywhere where our Woodsmen Axemen could capture Stalin's Workers.

So, we could stay at war for a turn to save a Forest (a different one might end up getting Chopped in its place anyway), but perhaps not accomplish anything else.


I think that I'd lean toward taking a Cease Fire with Stalin this turn, then do our best to bribe Mehmed and Stalin out of a war with each other (if they have about equal Power, we could bribe either of them, otherwise we'll likely only be able to bribe Stalin).


The key to taking a Cease Fire is not trying to negotiate at all during a diplomatic discussion; any negotation attempt converts the Cease Fire option into a Peace Treaty, and it would be very problematic for our game to take a Peace Treaty with Stalin.




I'll have to go back to a test game and play around for a little while to see about Espionage Points, to figure out how many we'll need.

I'll also try to figure out what it takes to get Joao to Friendly; I think that each AI is consistent in their Attitude toward the human player from game to game, with the Scoreboard ranking being the most variable factor.


In England, if we want to leave our Worker on the Fur, we could Chop for a turn.

Sure, moving the Woody II Axeman by Churchill 1 S G For > 1 SW G For (1 SE + 1 S of Nottingham and 1 W of the Fish) could be a good location, making Churchill not feel that his Axeman is being threatened and also make him feel that he can capture and keep the Worker.

I'm a bit more interested as to why the Axeman left the City.
i. Was it to Pillage our Gems Mine?
ii. Was it to attack Ruby Bay (which I thought an AI wouldn't do if we left it undefended, but maybe an AI will react differently to a City on their Cultural Borders?)?
iii. Is it going for our Worker at 1 N of Ruby Bay due to that Worker being adjacent to Churchill's Cultural Borders?
iv. Or, could it be that when a Horse Archer started defending York, Churchill "saw" the City (instead of the City being "invisible" with no Unit defending it just like how Orleans seemed to be "invisible" to Frederick when we left it defenceless), such that only by us having a Unit inside of York did he decide to come after York?


Attacking Nottingham 2 turns from now when we have +2 Chariots to throw into the fray seems like our best play in the short term.

I do have a minor concern that if we kill that Axeman, there will be 2 Units of ours within Churchill's big fat cross, so he might not send his Swordsman out to recapture the Worker, since BtS AIs like to have the same number of City Defenders as there are enemy non-siege Units within their big fat cross.

What if we simply use the Worker bait at 2 E of Nottingham by Chopping the Fur, we leave our Worker at 1 N of Ruby Bay by Mining and STOPPING, and then leave our Axeman 7, Chariots 16, 15, and 17, and Horse Archer 12 unmoved? If Churchill's Axeman comes to our Gems Mine, it will be easier to kill him, and we'll be unlikely to change whatever event caused him to send his Axeman out by not moving our troops (other than moving Axeman 3 Woodsman II).



Some micro decisions could be altered slightly:
I'd suggest that Hamburg steal the Fish from Cologne
Hamburg works: Sheep and Fish
Cologne works: Sheep and 1 NW G Riv For (NOT the 1 NE G For that is 1 S of the Fish, as Hamburg needs to have "stolen" the Forest that is 1 NE of Cologne and 1 SW + 1 W of Hamburg in order for Hamburg to get the Chop into Hamburg's Granary this turn)

Also, Ruby Bay seems to have +1 G For in its big fat cross (we must have stolen it from Churchill), so I'd switch the G Riv to a G For in Ruby Bay
Ruby Bay works: Fish, 1 E Gems Mine, and 1 NE G For


We could trade:
Sugar from Mao <-> Clam


It looks as though Mehmed won't make Peace with Stalin "You'll have to contact them."

So, if we were to Cease Fire this turn, we'd need to first Cease Fire with Stalin (putting nothing else on the trading table) and only after our Units have teleported, we could make a trade to Stalin.

So, after the Cease Fire, and our Units have teleported out of Russian territory, we could ask Stalin to "Make Peace With" Mehmed in exchange for a tech or two. I'd probably suggest Code of Laws and Calendar, with him possibly building Courthouses for us and maybe building MoM for us. We wouldn't want to overpay him, though, since Stalin is Hatty's Worst Enemy, so Stalin will make Peace with Mehmed for just Code of Laws (after the Cease Fire, of course), I think that we'd take that deal. If Stalin wants Code of Laws, Calendar, and something else, I'd throw in Aesthetics, which is a bit of a risk as he could actually use Aesthetics to bribe Kublai against us if Kublai were to learn Writing (Stalin couldn't trade either Code of Laws or Calendar to Kublai even if Kublai learned Writing, due to the other pre-requisite techs of Code of Laws and Calendar).



For Lyons, I was thinking:
complete the Worker
build a Lighthouse for a turn
build another Worker
2-pop-whip the Worker
complete the Lighthouse
build the Chariot while we regrow



For our Galleys, we could have 2 Catapults unloading inside of St. Pete's on T106 with full movement points...
To make that happen, we need our Galleys to get into position on T104 so that they will be in full Galley-chain position with all of their movement points available to them on T105.

T103
Galley 3 remains at 1 SW + 1 S of Argent on the Fish
Galley 4 moves 2 W to 1 NW of Hamburg
Axe 8 in Hamburg moves 1 E G Sheep > 1 NE Galley 1
Galley 1 (with Axe 8 aboard) moves NE > E to the Fish (2 W of St. Pete's)
Galley 5 moves 1 W < 1 SW (to 1 NE + 1 E of Hamburg, essentially taking over Galley 1's relative position in the Galley chain)

T104
Axe 8 (on Galley 1 at 2 W of St. Pete's) Unloads from the sea 1 SE to the G Riv For at 1 SW of St. Pete's
Galley 1 moves 1 W (to 3 W of St. Pete's and 1 W of the Fish)
Galley 5 (at 1 NE + 1 E of Hamburg) moves 1 W (to 1 NE of Hamburg)

T105
Then, we'll have 4 Galleys in position to chain 2 squares worth of movement points each for our Argent Catapult and our Cologne Catapult. The Catapults won't have any movement points available to them

T106 The last Galley in the chain, Galley 1, can move into St. Pete's and unload the two Catapults inside of St. Pete's with the two Catapults having their full movement points available to them, allowing us to redeclare war on Stalin and start the advance on Moscow



Since Mehmed hasn't switched Civics, I'd suggest that we gift him Philosophy this turn.

Similarly, since Fredercik hasn't switched Civics, I'd suggest that we sell him Philosophy for 10 Gold this turn.

We also need to gift Construction to Joao this turn (but do not Open Borders with Joao)


Cease Firing with Stalin will thus give him the end of our T103, the end of our T104, and the end of our T105 to go back to building peaceful build items instead of Military Units.



Testing Answers
These numbers use a test game with Hatty's capital in the correct location but with us having earned less EPs than in the real game, so the Espionage Costs of the real game should be about the same or even cheaper.

Without a Trade Route to us inside of Jackpot and without Christianity in Jackpot:
Civil Service 376 EPs
Literature 94 EPs
Music 282 EPs

Without a Trade Route to us inside of Jackpot and with Christianity in Jackpot:
Civil Service 304 EPs
Literature 76 EPs
Music 228 EPs
We should probably thus aim for this amount of EPs against Hatty:
304 + 76 + 228 = 608 EPs

With a Trade Route to us inside of Jackpot and without Christianity in Jackpot:
Civil Service 287 EPs
Literature 71 EPs
Music 215 EPs

With a Trade Route to us inside of Jackpot and with Christianity in Jackpot:
Civil Service 233 EPs
Literature 58 EPs
Music 174 EPs

Ideally, though, we'll only need to spend:
233 + 58 + 174 = 465 EPs on Hatty


With Joao being at about the middle of the Scoreboard and us being at the top of the Scoreboard, we had to get him to a net +11 Diplo attitude toward us for him to become Friendly toward us

What's nice, though, is that Churchill's Culture in York doesn't seem to come into play--it's the ratio between our Culture and Joao's Culture that matters, so we can get the full 50% Culture discount against Joao

York in Joao:
Without a Trade Route to our City and without Christianity in York:
Without Christianity in York:
Metal Casting 181 EPs

Without a Trade Route to our City and with Christianity in York:
Metal Casting 181 EPs

Since he shares our State Religion, we don't get a discount for it

With a Trade Route to our City (which may or may not work by Opening Borders with Joao), with or without Christianity, the cost is:
Metal Casting 141 EPs

I don't think that saving 40 EPs will be worth the headache of Joao sending out Scouts and meeting the rest of the AIs, allowing them to piggyback off of his research, possibly trade techs from him (such as Monarchy), and possibly messing up the diplomatic situation.

At least we know that we don't need to put Christianity in York.


So, if we target 608 EPs on Hatty and 200 EPs on Joao, we need another 90 EPs on Hatty and another 89 EPs on Joao

We make 192 EPs per turn... if we divide that amount equally amongst them, then that'll be 96 EPs on each of them, which is about what we wanted to spend on them.

So, we could go Weight 1 on Hatty and Weight 1 on Joao at a 100% Espionage Rate on T103.

Meanwhile, in Russia, we've lost visibility of Yekaterinburg and we're 1 EP away from losing visibility on Moscow.

So, on T104, we could switch to 100% Gold Rate (until we steal Civil Service and can get a 20% discount on self-teching Paper)
We'd also go Weight 1 on Stalin, Weight 0 on Hatty, and Weight 0 on Joao at least for a turn, to ensure that we can keep an eye on what happens in Moscow


Also, we could start to build an Archer in Ruby Bay in case we want to whip it next turn.


Galley 6 (1 SE + 1 E of Oporto) can also move 1 S Fish > 1 N, to reveal Hatty's 5th City

Hatty hasn't started to build any Wonders yet.


I looks like only one of our Units earned a Promotion, and it's probably pretty obvious that HA 11 (in Yaroslavl') should take Combat I.


If Athens switches a P Riv Cottage -> PH Mine, we can complete the Lighthouse in 2 turns instead of in 3 turns. Say, switching the northernmost Cottage, which would be the most likely Pillage target of Frederick's if we have to lose any Cottages to Pillaging during a future war.


Chariot 9 (1 SW of Hatty's City of Thebes) need not go into Thebes, since our Espionage Points will reveal the area around Thebes next turn, allowing us +1 turn of exploration by moving 1 SE PH Road Mine and then heading to the PH Jungle square at 3 S of Memphis, to explore that southern Desert pathway.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Well Done CP.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Suggested PPP
T103, 300 BC

Hamburg steals Fish from Cologne
Hamburg works: Sheep and 2 W Fish

Cologne works: Sheep and 1 NW G For

Ruby Bay switches G Riv -> G For
Ruby Bay works: Fish, 1 E Gems, and 1 NE G For

Ruby Bay builds Archer

Spoiler :

An Archer would defend Ruby Bay with a Strength of 3 * 2.2 = 6.6, compared to a Chariot that would defend with a Strength of 4, due to Chariots not getting defensive bonuses

Athens switches 1 N P Riv -> 1 S PH Mine
Athens works Clam, Cottage, Cottage, and Mine

Worker 4 (1 N of Ruby Bay) Mine and STOP
Worker 8 confirms that the Chop will go to Hamburg (not to Cologne) and then Chops the G For into Hamburg's Granary
Worker 0 (at 2 E of Nottingham) Select him and press Ctrl + 0 (zero)
Worker 0 Chop the Fur

Trade:
Cease Fire with Stalin (nothing else on the diplo table)

Confirm that our Units got teleported out of Stalin's Culture

Trade:
"Peace with Mehmed" from Stalin <-> Code of Laws (plus Calendar, if needed; plus Aesthetics, if needed)

Trade:
10 Gold from Frederick <-> Philosophy

Trade:
Gift Philosophy to Mehmed

Trade:
Gift Construction to Joao (do not Open Borders with Joao)

Trade:
Sugar from Mao <-> Clam

100% Espionage
Espionage Weighting:
Hatty 1, Joao 1


Axe 3 (2 E of Nottingham) moves 1 S G For > 1 SW G For (1 W of the unnetted Fish)


Galley 6 (1 SE + 1 E of Oporto) moves 1 S Fish > 1 N

Chariot 9 (1 SW of Thebes) moves 1 SE PH Mine Road > 1 SW PH Mine Road

Galley 7 can just stay inside of Lyons

Axe 8 (in Hamburg) moves 1 E G Sheep > 1 NE Galley 1
Galley 1 (with Axe 8 aboard) sails NE > E to St. Pete's Fish

Galley 5 (on St. Pete's Fish) sails SW > W (to 1 NE of Hamburg's Sheep)

Galley 4 (1 NE of Hamburg) sails 2 W to 1 NW of Hamburg

Axe 7, Chariot 16, Chariot 16, and Chariot 17 stay on the G Riv Road at 1 SE of Ruby Bay

HA 12 stays inside of York


T104

Paris completes Catapult -> builds Courthouse

York completes Chariot -> Spy


Paris steals Orleans' Cow

Spoiler :

while Orleans is busy putting overflow Hammers into its Settler

Paris works: Wheat, Deer, Fur, Copper, Cow, Cottage, G For, and G For

Orleans works: Fish, Iron, and GH Mine

Lyons builds Lighthouse

London switches Horse -> Fur
London works: Fish, Fur, and 2 Scientists (we must have both Scientists hired!)

York steals Horse
York works: Fish, Horse, and Stone

Argent builds Catapult

Hamburg 1-pop-whips its Granary
Hamburg works: G Sheep


Worker 1 (2 N of Lyons) move 1 W G Riv and Cottage
Worker 3 move 1 SE GH For to the Resort sign
Worker 4 (1 N of Ruby Bay) will need to figure out what to do based on what Churchill does
Worker 5 (1 NE of York) move SE > E > E to G Riv For Road at 1 N of London and Chop
Worker 6 (1 NE of York) move SE > E > E to G Riv For Road at 1 N of London and Chop
Worker 7 (1 SE of Argent) Road GH Iron
Worker 8 moves 2 W to the G Riv For at 1 NW of Cologne (1 E of the Fish)


0% Espionage
Espionage Weighting:
Stalin 1, Hatty 0, Joao 0

HA 11 (in Yaroslavl') promotes to Combat I

 

[Cactus Pete]

"The only visible threat is an Archer, but there's also a City to the south east that could hold mounted troops which could also help attack Yaroslavl'." That archer moved through Yaro last IBT, so he's heading to the Russian city to the SE.

We could re-take Yaro if Stalin counterattacks, but I agree that a cease fire is desirable now.

Like the PPP (including not attacking English axe this turn) and will play when able.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Report Turns 103-104:

T103: Execute plan

IBT:
Fred adopts Pacifism
Mehmed adopts Pacifism and Caste
Worker stolen by English Sword
English axe moves onto forest 1E of our gem miner
2 spears move back into Moscow

T104: Advance on Nottingham

For Discussion:

Does warrior 1 need to pillage the road relic?
Wondering if one or both of workers 5 & 6 shouldn't be moved onto forest SW of Not to road tile in anticipation of exiting surviving units from England quickly.
Wondering if we shouldn't delay proposed lighthouse in Lyon in order to finish units with hammers already invested.

Save from Central:http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0275_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Great work, CP!

Mehmed adopts Pacifism and Caste

Great news.

Fred adopts Pacifism

That's all right, too.

English axe moves onto forest 1E of our gem miner

Ugh, I was hoping that he'd move to the GH square, not another Forest. I'll have to take a closer look as to what's going on... ahh, it seems that you've dealt with the situation already.

Does warrior 1 need to pillage the road relic?

No, let's leave the Road. Improvements get Pillaged first (which includes Ruins) and then Routes get Pillaged (Roads/Railroads), so we don't have to Pillage both of them. We will have to move off of the square (1 E GH For, in the opposite direction of the Worker) in order to even have a chance for a Forest to grow there (a Forest won't grow when a Unit is standing on the target square). These moves were more for fun than anything, but we had equal spawn-busting coverage, so it seemed like a situation of "why not?"

Wondering if one or both of workers 5 & 6 shouldn't be moved onto forest SW of Not to road tile in anticipation of exiting surviving units from England quickly.

We're on a strict timeline for our London Great Person, which includes getting the Forest at 1 N of London completed Chopping on T104 (courtesy of JJ's calculations), to get our Courthouse there, so that we can have 3 Specialists hired there on T105.

If we choose to delay the revolt into Bureaucracy until after we launch our Golden Age, then every turn saved on earning that Great Person matters.

Wondering if we shouldn't delay proposed lighthouse in Lyon in order to finish units with hammers already invested.

The Galley should remain a 2-pop-whipping item (but should keep being the second build item in the build queue) without being whipped for as long as possible, since we don't yet need our southern navy, but when we go after any of Hatty, Joao, or even Frederick with his two south-coast Cities, we'll want to complete our 4-Galley southern navy. For now, it's just two Galleys plus a "potential to 2-pop-whip Galley" that isn't costing us Gold in maintenance, nor is it preventing us from 2-pop-whipping other things in the short term, such as Workers.


Here's sort of an overall rough plan for our Cities:
Paris - grow a lot... possibly help to generate a Great Person, possibly instead whip a Market while under Bureaucracy, or possibly work Cottages if we can get them build quickly enough

XO Cognac - grow as much as we can and hire Merchants during a Golden Age to add Merchant GPP to The Great Lighthouse's GPP that we have already collected

Orleans - build Missionaries for Cities that will hire Specialists during a Golden Age to greatly increase our GPP output via using Pacifism (and finish that Settler, which can be used in Scandinavia)

Lyons - build Workers. The Lighthouse is probably a more important build item than a backwater-built Chariot, with the Lighthouse allowing us to whip more things over time. Think of the Lighthouse as an investment of +2 Hammers per turn for a cost of only 30 base Hammers. It pays itself off quickly

London - Generate our 2nd Great Person. We can complete the Courthouse in 2 turns' time precisely: 44 H + 8 H = 52 H; 52 + 8 + 60 (from a Chop) = 120 / 120. The Courthouse lets us hire a 3rd Specialist (a Spy Specialist)

York - Whip a Spy, get 2 Chops into a Settler, 1-pop-whip the Settler, then whip whatever we can (another Spy? Axemen/Chariots?) with the remaining 1-pop-whip options before we settle a replacement City for Nottingham (1 S of the TunH sheep), then gift the City to Joao with Spies inside of it

Argent - build Catapults, and at some point a Courthouse and a Lighthouse, with an emphasis on Catapults. Note that the timing of when our Galleys are available may dictate the whipping cycles here

Hamburg - We'll have 17 H overflowing from the Granary, so we can aim to 1-pop-whip a Catapult after several turns

Cologne - Granary and then troops, possibly a War Elephant or something

Ruby Bay - We probably won't need that Archer for a long time, so we can just leave it in the build queue; it was more of a bet-hedging against what that Axeman might do

Athens - Finish Lighthouse, finish Granary, then probably start building Moai Statues and growing the City

Ivory Coast - Whip a Spy, slow-build a Work Boat, then at some point get a second Work Boat, a Lighthouse, and a Granary, with some of them being built via whipping

Gold Coast - We'll need to whip the Work Boat this turn otherwise we'll just lose the population points, while we stagnate at Size 1 while working the Gold Mine. If we complete our Lighthouse, we can grow to Size 2 in 4 turns instead of 5 turns once our Cultural Borders expand, meaning 1 less turn where we aren't working the Gold Mine

St. Pete's--hopefully, not shrink so that we don't lose population points, or if we're going to lose population points, we'll probably whip a Monastery or a Library to help with expanding our Cultural Borders faster; I'd prefer not to whip here at all if possible, but we'll whip a Cultural Building if we need to whip something

Jackpot - We're just waiting for the Christian Missionary from Orleans to arrive and spread itself on T105. I'll have to double-check when our Spies started earning their Stationary Bonus, but if they will have their full Stationary Bonus by T105, we can start stealing techs from Hatty (it'll be a fun learning experience for you)

Rostov - If necessary, a Military Unit, otherwise a Courthouse and then The Forbidden Palace

Yaroslavl' - Whipped troops


I'll try to throw together a PPP soon.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Ditto the Great Work CP.

Islam has spread to Ruby Bay.

Lyons could finish a chariot this turn which could go to Paris as MP and freeing the Horse Archer to go to the Russian front.

If Argent 1-pop whips a Catapult on T105 the overflow will be enough to finish the Lighthouse on T106.

Dhoom, I believe you meant whip a spy in Ivory Coast not why a spy

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I wonder what Stalin's Spearman is doing at 1 SW of Vlad?

We'll just have to keep an eye out for it, I suppose.

Stalin doesn't trust us enough to Open Borders with us (would you, in his shoes?), and I don't think that it's worth trying to get Open Borders with him, as we'd have to anger Hatty to do it, since Hatty feels that Stalin is her Worst Enemy.

If anything, we should stay focused on how to handle Moscow. I could care less about exploration with Chariots at this point--we will have plenty of game turns later for exploration.

The trickiest part will be sending in only a few Units when we send in our Catapults--it will be a mistake to throw in everyone at once. If we want Stalin to potentially empty Moscow of defenders, we need to ensure that we only have the same number of NON-SIEGE Units in his big fat cross as we'd like to see defending the City, within reason. I.e. If we have 8 non-siege Units in his big fat cross, don't expect any of his Units to leave Moscow--some might, depending upon their Mission Type, but probably no less than 6 Units would defend Moscow (that's typical BtS behaviour). If we were to, say, send in a Woodsman II Axeman and a Horse Archer to defend our Catapults, possibly throwing in a third Unit for good measure, then Stalin would only feel the need to keep 2 (or 3) Units defending Moscow.

That situation leaves us deciding how best to allocat the rest of our troops--do we just wait patiently? Do we go after the Desert City to the east of Yaroslavl' that has 0 Cultural Defences? Do we move to 1 NE + 1 N of Yaroslavl', then move 2 N of there, thereby forking Yekaterinburg and the City to the north-east of Yaroslavl' but possibly leave our mounted troops in danger of being picked off by Spearmen?


I'm currently thinking:
Axeman 4 (Combat II) and Chariot 18 (No Promotions), both currently in St. Pete's, guard St. Pete's

Axe 8 (on Galley 1 and about to unload) and Chariot 1 (our badly-wounded Medic) guard Rostov

HA 4 (in Rostov, Combat II + Shock) and Axeman 6 (Woodsman II) become our Catapult defenders--HA 4 can keep healing; after healing, using Frederick's Roads, we can move 1 N G Wheat Road > 1 NW G Road > 1 NW G Wheat > 1 NE G Riv For (1 SW + 1 S of St. Pete's) and then we can join an advancing stack of Catapults.

The first Catapults move toward Galleys on T104, they board the Galley chain on T105, then they can move toward Moscow on T106

That timing only gives HA 4 one turn to heal, but I think that we will want to heal for two turns, so Chariot 18 (meant to guard St. Pete's) will probably have to escort the Catapults first, until a healed (or mostly-healed) HA 4 can catch up to the stack and trade off Catapult-defending duty

Probably the safest thing to do is have some of our Yaroslavl' troops go after the 0% Cultural Defences Desert City to the south-east, possibly aborting the plan if there are City Walls there

The idea is that we'd get in a few turns of Bombarding to allow another Catapult from Argent to arrive, then time our forces that converge on Moscow to arrive on the turn when 3 Catapults can suicide-attack Moscow

For Yaroslavl', then, since we won't be going northward, perhaps we'd leave Axe 5 (Woodsman III) defending Yaroslavl', along with Chariot 8 (Combat III and which needs healing)

That would leave Zhuge healing in Rostov, and these Units at Yaroslavl' free to go after the Desert City when our Catapults are ready to head toward Moscow on T106:
HA 10, HA 8, HA 11, Chariot 6, and Chariot 5

That's not a lot of Units, so we can wait until T106, move 1 SE P Road out of Yaroslavl' with 1 mounted Unit, move 1 E P Road to see what's in that Desert City, and if we don't like what we see, we can move back 1 W and then have our Woodsman III Unit and a couple of other Units defend our out-of-movement-point Units at 1 SE of Yaroslavl' while the others just wait patiently inside of Yaroslavl'. Otherwise, we'd send in those 5 Units out of Yaroslavl' along the Road on T106, being able to attack on T106.


It looks like you've got the Nottingham situation under control. We may see Churchill disbanding his Worker; if that situation happens, so be it. It's not worth a just-under-10%-odds-of-winning attack by our Woodsman II Axeman on Churchill's Swordsman to try to earn a Worker; we can find other ways to get Workers. But, if Churchill doesn't disband his Worker, probably the best thing that we can do is try to leave it space to move where it won't be threatened by our Units (which might be impossible to do, so maybe we can't do anything about it). In the interests of keeping that Worker alive, our best bet may be to take a Cease Fire with Churchill after we raze Nottingham, if he'll talk with us then (he won't talk with us yet, but he'll be more willing to talk as time passes). Anyway, we can decide next turn. 7 Units versus 1 whipped defender and 1 Archer should be doable, right? With any luck, Churchill will leave his Galley in Nottingham and we can sink the Galley when we raze Nottingham.


Joao has gone for Feudalism and Hatty has gone for Nationalism; both are good for us, as we'll need Feudalism and Nationalism will be nice to have.


Hatty has no Roads to the east of Thebes, so that Barbarian Culture is probably stopping her from REXing. I'm content to keep ignoring the Barbarian stuff.


Oddly, Frederick didn't leave 2 Units guarding his new City of Essen. That's a rare thing to have happen--newly-built AI Cities are supposed to keep 2 City Defenders in them for 2 turns' time. Perhaps he's got an Archer "on the way." Regardless, her has quite a stack around Athens. So, I think that if Frederick does ask for a tech, we should just give it to him. It's going to be a while before we'll be ready to attack him again, and his Roads are proving to be quite useful.


Kublai has learned Writing, and he will declare upon the request of someone toward he is Pleased against anyone toward whom he is Pleased or lower. Basically, if he likes someone, he'll be willing to accept a tech to declare war on just about anyone but the closest of his friends. Theoretically, either Stalin or Mehmed could bribe Kublai into a war, but we can't bribe Kublai because Kublai is Annoyed toward us, and we don't have a way to get him up to being Pleased toward us easily.

Let me know if you see any flaws while I try to work on a PPP.

Islam has spread to Ruby Bay.

Good eye; I hadn't spotted that fact.

Not every AI has Islam in at least one of their Cities, so we can't lose to an AP Victory vote. Later, we can build Missionaries out of Ruby Bay.

If Argent 1-pop whips a Catapult on T105 the overflow will be enough to finish the Lighthouse on T106.

Thanks for working out the math, there. I'm too focused on the short-term planning to be able to sit down and do that kind of math.

I believe you meant whip a spy in Ivory Coast not why a spy

Corrected, thanks!


Our Spies arrived at the Jackpot location on T99, 400 BC. That means these turns are needed to get our 50% Stationary Bonus:
100, 101, 102, 103, and 104

So, on T105, we should be able to steal techs.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Lyons could finish a chariot this turn which could go to Paris as MP and freeing the Horse Archer to go to the Russian front." Sounds good to me.

Please explain basic plan to move units from Argent to front. The galley parked near there would be useful to move units from England. Does it need to be there to move cats?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Here's how it works:
T104 Galley 4 (at 1 W of Hamburg) moves 1 N (to 1 NW of Hamburg and 1 NE of the Fish)

T104 Catapult 2 (from Argent) moves 1 SW out of Argent
T105 Catapult 2 moves 1 S onto Galley 3
T105 Galley 3 (with Catapult 2 aboard) moves 2 SE to meet up with Galley 4 at 1 NW of Hamburg (1 NE of the Fish)
T105 Catapult 2 transfers from Galley 3 to Galley 4

T104 Cologne Cat moves 1 E G Road > 1 NE G Riv Sheep Road (not getting on a Galley on T104)
T105 Cologne Cat moves 1 NE into Hamburg > Galley 5 (at 1 NE of Hamburg)

T105 Galley 4 (with Argent Catapult 2 aboard) moves 2 E to 1 NE of Hamburg to meet up with Galley 5

T105 Argent Catapult 2 transfers to Galley 5 at 1 NW of Hamburg (1 NE of the Fish)
T105 Galley 5 has both Cats aboard and sails 1 NE > 1 E to 3 W of St. Pete's, to meet up with Galley 1

T105 Both Cats transfer to Galley 1
T105 Galley 1 sails 2 E to 1 W of St. Pete's
T106 Galley 1 sails into St. Pete's while the Catapults still have full movement points available to them and the Catapults unload inside of St. Pete's and then we declare war on Stalin. Then, we move our Catapults 1 SE out of St. Pete's into Russian Culture on T106

T107 Two Cats, Axeman 6 (Woodsman II), and Chariot 18 move adjacent to Moscow
T108 Two Cats start Bombarding Moscow
T108 HA 4 replaces Chariot 18 in our intentionally-small stack of Catapult defenders


Suggested PPP

T104, 275 BC

EDIT: Espionage Rate 0% (Gold Rate 100%)

EDIT: Diplo Policy change: If Frederick asks for a tech other than Horseback Riding or Monarchy, give it to him (don't give him Horseback Riding or Monarchy, though)

Paris switches G For -> G Farm
Paris works: Wheat, Deer, Fur, Copper, Cow, Cottage, Farm, and G For (wow, that's a mouthful)

Lyons builds a Lighthouse

Spoiler :

With 3 excess Happiness, with 2 troops leaving Paris, and with 1 Whipping Unhappiness about to wear off, we'll have 2 Happiness points to grow into. So, we don't really need the Lyons Chariot for Happiness in Paris just yet. I'd really like to see us completing that Lighthouse in Lyons so that we can sooner start whipping the better build items, such as War Elephants or Catpults, or at least get more Workers in the short term. Don't worry about losing Hammers; we won't lose any Hammers in the Chariot... Lighthouse, Worker, Worker, Lighthouse, Chariot... 5 turns and only 4 turns allowed, but the last turn will have the Chariot as the second build item in the queue, so it's really 4 turns. Worry not, we'll get our Chariot in time not to lose Hammers.

Ruby Bay builds Granary (we can leave the Archer in the build queue after the Granary)

Ruby Bay switches G Riv -> G For (pesky Churchill Axeman!)
Ruby Bay works Fish, 1 E Gems, and G For

Gold Coast 1-pop-whips Work Boat

Gold Coast works: 1 E Gold

Worker 5 (1 NE of York) move SE > E > E to G Riv For Road at 1 N of London and Chop (for London's must-have-ASAP Courthouse)
Worker 6 (1 NE of York) move SE > E > E to G Riv For Road at 1 N of London and Chop

Trade:
Adopt Hereditary Rule and Pacifism from Joao <-> Theology (do not Open Borders with Joao)

Christian Missionary (in Orleans) heads SW along the Road to the G Riv Road Farm at 1 SW of Paris, on his way to spreading in Jackpot

Cat 1 (in Paris) heads north-east along the Roads toward Cologne

HA 9 (in Paris) heads north-east along the Roads toward Cologne

Axe 6 (2 N of Rostov) moves 1 NW G Riv For > 1 N G Riv For (to 1 SW + 1 S of St. Pete's)

Worker at 2 N of Rostov: Click on the yellow-coloured name of "Worker" and rename him to "Worker 10," so that we can keep track of which Worker is which, thanks

Worker 10 (2 N of Rostov) moves to the P For at 2 S of Rostov to start pre-Chopping for The Forbidden Palace

HA 4 and Zhuge stay in Rostov

Axe 4 and Chariot 18 stay in St. Pete's

Galley 4 (1 W of Hamburg) moves 1 N (to 1 NW of Hamburg) and Skips his turn

Cologne Cat moves 1 E G Road > 1 NE G Riv Sheep Road

Galley 3 stays on Argent's Fish

Galley 5 (1 NE of Hamburg's Sheep) moves 1 W (to 1 NE of Hamburg) and Skips his turn

Axe 8 (on Galley 1 at 2 W of St. Pete's) unloads from the sea 1 SE G Riv For (1 SW of St. Pete's)

Galley 1 (at 2 W of St. Pete's) moves 1 W to 3 W of St. Pete's and 4 N of Munich

Warrior 1 (in Scandinavia) moves 1 E GH For, away from the Worker

Worker in Yaroslavl' (let's name him Worker 11) moves 2 SW to the Plains square and Roads (let's make it easier for our troops to move around)

The Units in Yaroslavl' can just stay there

Spy 003 (in York) fortifies in York

Galley 2 (in York) moves 1 S > 1 SE (to be able to help with shuttling surviving troops from Nottingham to the mainland)

Galley 7 (in Lyons) I suppose that we can have him head eastward through Essen, to see if he might end up being of help that way, since we're unlikely to declare war on either Joao or Hatty in the short term

New Worker in Lyons (rename him to Worker 12) can move 1 NW G Riv Farm > 1 N G Riv and can help with Cottaging

Chariot 9 can move to the PH Jungle at 3 S of Memphis

Cat 2 (in Argent) moves 1 SW TunH to 1 N of Argent's Fish (Cat 2 does not move 1 SE GH Iron)

Double-check: Espionage Rate 0% (Gold Rate 100%)

T105

Hamburg completes Granary -> Catapult

Athens completes Lighthouse -> Granary


Paris switches Cow -> G For

XO Cognac works: Fish, Cow, and 3 Coast squares

Spoiler :

We'll lose access to the Stone and to the Horse Resources when we gift Jackpot to Hatty

Orleans steals Cow
Orleans works: Fish, Cow, and Iron

Orleans builds Christian Missionary (to be 2-pop-whipped next turn to get us 2 more Missionaries)

Lyons builds Worker (to be 2-pop-whipped next turn)

Argent 1-pop-whips Catapult
Argent works: Fish, Deer, and Deer

Ruby Bay switches G For -> 1 N Gems Mine
Ruby Bay works Fish, 1 E Gems, and 1 N Gems

Ivory Coast 1-pop-whips Spy

Worker 2 (1 E of Gold Coast) Roads PH Riv Gold Mine

Spoiler :

We don't generally need to Road Resources that are on a River, but we'll need a Road for the second Gold Resource later and we have time to kill while we first build a Road toward the northern Incense

Worker 3 (at the Resort) Chops out a log cabin
Worker 5 (1 N of London) finishes the Chop into London's Courthouse
Worker 6 (1 N of London) moves to the G For Road at 1 SE of York and Chops
Worker 8 (1 NW of Cologne) Chop the G For for Cologne's Granary
Worker 9 (1 SW of Paris) move 1 E G Riv (1 S of Paris) and Cottage
Worker 10 (2 S of Rostov) starts Roading the P For (for a possible path to Mehmed and to help with Chopping the Forest later)

Good luck with the Nottingham razing!

Axe 6 (1 SW + 1 S of St. Pete's) moves 1 N G Riv For > 1 NE St. Pete's

Galley 2 (1 SE + 1 S of York) moves 2 E to 1 SW of London

Chariot 9 can explore the Desert pathway to the east

Christian Missionary 2 (at 1 SW of Paris) moves along the Roads into Jackpot and spreads in Jackpot

If Christianity spread inside of Jackpot, trade with Hatty:
Gift the City of Jackpot

Select a Spy inside of Jackpot (such as Spy 005) and click on the last icon that is called Perform Espionage Mission

For Choose Espionage Mission, select:
Steal Technology

If Civil Service shows up with an EP number of about 304 or less, i.e. "Civil Service (304 )" we should have a chance to get 3 techs from Hatty.

Choose Civil Service.

If we did not successfully steal Civil Service, repeat the same procedure with our Spies until we steal Civil Service.

Once we have Civil Service, repeat the same procedure of Steal Technology, but this time take Literature, followed by Music if we have enough successful Spies.


*** I have attached a test saved game to give you a feel for what Tech Stealing Espionage Missions are like.


Chariot 5 (1 SE + 1 S of Yaroslavl') moves back into Yaroslavl' to wait with the rest of the troops there--if all goes as planned with our Catapults, those troops will head out to the Desert City to the east on T106

Chariot 1 (Medic I) moves to Rostov and Heals

Cat 1 (2 NE of Paris) heads toward Cologne

HA 9 (1 SE of Orleans) heads into Cologne

Galley 6 (1 NW of Alexandria) sails into Alexandria and unloads the two Spies inside of Alexandria
Spy 2 could move 2 S toward the western Stone, leaving the Stone a bit south of there for the Spy from Ivory Coast
Spy 4 could move 1 S > 1 SE toward the eastern Stone

Spoiler :

Moving in slightly different directions means that the Spies won't end the turn on the same square as each other in enemy territory. Multiple Spies on the same square as each other in enemy territory increases the chances of Spies auto-dying--think of one Spy's lie contradicting the other Spy's lie

Galley 6 (once empty) can move north-east in the general direction of Athens

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Something for us to think about:
Next turn, we should be able to switch Civics into Bureaucracy. Doing so would cost us 1 turn of Anarchy, which means all of our Cities not growing. Is the switch worth it? I'm probably going to suggest "no, it's not worth it," as we have a lot of Cities that can grow instead of getting about an extra 10 Commerce and 5 Hammers per turn out of Paris at the cost of empire-wide Anarchy.

That delay would mean waiting 5 more turns so that we can launch our Golden Age and switch into Bureaucracy without a turn of Anarchy, since our Great Person is due in 7 turns from now (6 turns from next turn), but hiring a Spy Specialist from a Courthouse lets us get that Great Person in 1 less turn.

It also means that we're going to launch our Golden Age after 6 turns of generating GPP, so getting our Great Person at the end of T110 and launching our Golden Age on T111.

With any luck, we'll still have some population points remaining St. Pete's, allowing for possible Specialist-hiring out of:
St. Pete's
XO Cognac
London
MAYBE Paris (it'll be easier to tell later if we will be better off generating a Great Person or just staying focused on working our Cottages)

 

[Cactus Pete]

Report for turns 104 & 105: Got Not, but glad switching to Bureau is not a priority

104: Execute plan. Note that galley 2 in York could only move 1S (as had already moved into York on 104

IBT:
GSc born in Egypt
Hat adopts Bureau and Univ Suff and founds Elephantine SE of Gold Coast
Nottingham produces another sword (worst case?) and moves worker and old sword SW

T105:
Execute plan with flaw -- move missionary 1S of Paris, thinking he was a worker, so can't spread Christianity until next turn
Take Not with loss of only a chariot and an axe
Note Russian worker building road on incense
No instructions for chariot 13 of Axe 8 or warrior, so haven't moved. Inclined to go ahead with such in future if that's acceptable.
Church won't negotiate peace now that Not is ours. Guess we are no threat to Vlad.

Getting way too late.

Save from Central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0250_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Church won't negotiate peace now that Not is ours.

I guess that we're just going to have to lose it to Churchill and capture it again so that we can raze it.

No instructions for chariot 13 of Axe 8 or warrior, so haven't moved. Inclined to go ahead with such in future if that's acceptable.

In general, I wasn't specifying Unit movements because I hadn't figured them out or I forgot to mention them. It's hard to know which is which.

In some cases, it may not matter, but in other cases, such as for Galley chaining, it's hard to see what to suggest until we get to that turn.

It's also hard for someone else reviewing a PPP to see what's going on in a PPP if we plan it out too many moves in advance.

With a deadline fast approaching, and no word yet on an extension, I'm not sure what the best answer will be.

If we have a plan and we miscommunicate, changes in the plan might not matter at all (delaying when a troop gets to a fight late where we ended up getting lucky and not needing that troop to win the battle) or they might be costly (delaying our 2nd Great Person).

As an example, Chariot 19, which has moved into Ruby Bay, will be out of the second fight for Nottingham, but we should have enough troops to retake the City without Chariot 19, so it shouldn't matter that he's not available for the fight and maybe he can be ready to get into the next mainland fight 1 turn sooner.

If we did not have a deadline looming, I'd probably suggest holding off when uncertain about doing something, but with the deadline looming, I suppose that if something is obvious, we do it, but if something's not clear, it's safer to avoid performing an action and get an answer from others, especially if we're on the turn where we were going to stop play anyway.

I can't say that it's going to a lot of fun to play with a deadline looming (call that a gentle nudge saying that we'd really have a much more enjoyable time with this game with an extension), so we'll just have to keep our heads cool, expect some things not to go quite according to plan, and be ready to quickly adapt.

If we rush too much, we can potentially add turns to our end game, essentially gaining
nothing by having rushed except for getting/having more turns to have to play. For example, every time that a Unit is delayed, we potentially delay all future battles, both by not arriving at the next battle sooner and indirectly by further delaying future battles by the nature of fighting them later meaning needing to wait for even more troops to arrive on scene due to the AI having had time to whip even more defenders (generally, delays favour the defender, since you need 2 to 3 attacking troops to take out 1 additional defender). Civ 4 is a punishing game when we spend more turns to do the same thing that could have been done in less turns' time, but we have to balance that fact against an impending deadline.

Church won't negotiate peace now that Not is ours.

That's probably for the best, as then we can re-fight for Nottingham, and I'd argue that we'd Cease Fire instead of take Peace Treaties as our default method of dealing with AIs--it's easy enough to get their Gold after a war without being locked out of fighting that AI for 10 turns.


I'm not sure what the best answer is, but maybe I'll put out another short PPP and play it myself, and then try to get another plan up after that for you to play.

EDIT: With no one available to review the plan, I haven't been able to play. We may have to abandon this rule in the last 5 days of the month, but I'd rather not throw caution to the wind just yet--we still have a lot of concurrent items that we need to make sure all go according to plan--once we're in our Golden Age, the turns may go a bit faster. So, with no one to approve the plan for me to play, you'll just have to play it.

Getting way too late.

Thank you for your continued sacrifices!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Note Russian worker building road on incense

Thanks for noting that point. If we can take both the City and the Worker, we will. If we can't take the City, we can at least get the Worker.


It's probably worth delaying Argent's Lighthouse just a bit longer in order to get 1 more Cat out.


Yaroslavl' is going to shrink when it comes out of City Revolt, but at least we'll still have enough population points to 2-pop-whip its War Elephant.


We've kept Jackpot an extra turn, and we won't need Civil Service until we're ready to go to 100% Science on Paper (which could have been this turn but doesn't have to be that soon), so let's just keep Jackpot long enough to grow to Size 2 (T107) and complete a whipped build item (T108). The City is at least making us a bit more than it's costing us thanks to it being coastal.

That means that we can use the Missionary that Orleans whips on T106 (completed on T107 and arriving in Jackpot on T108) to spread Christianity into Jackpot.

That leaves our Missionary 2 to spread in XO Cognac on T106, to help with collecting GPP from Pacifism already. EDIT: Never mind... let's still spread in Jackpot so that our next Missionary can spread in St. Pete's

It also means that we can recapture Jackpot later, whereas Hatty does NOT seem to be growing Macau to Size 2 and seems to prefer to hire an Artist Specialist there. I'm not sure whether she'd choose to hire an Artist Specialist in Jackpot and also not grow Jackpot, so this way, we ensure that we can later recapture Jackpot.


The Worker micro around Paris will be tricky to try to minimize the number of Worker turns lost, while also maximizing the amount of Cottages that get built. We may have to have some Workers build partial Cottages, STOP, and then move on to other squares, to allow later-arriving Workers to have actions to perform (completing said Cottages).


With the delay of Bureaucracy until we have our Golden Age, Paris might as well slow-build its Courthouse to completion.


Stalin is about to get Construction. Catapults can be annoying, but are generally less annoying than Spearmen or Swordsmen defending his Cities. Let's hope that he won't be able to field War Elephants.


I'm not sure what to do with our southern navy. Galley 7 can at least reveal Germany's 3rd City next turn. After that... maybe we just head eastward and see how far we can get? We aren't going to be building too many troops in our core Cities for the next little while, and while the Lyons-build Chariot could theoretically head eastward along the Road and then Galley-chain its way further eastward, we'll probably need it for a Military Police Unit in Paris. I don't have a great answer at this point. Hatty is going for Nationalism (great) but is going to get there slower now (thanks to reducing her Science Rate) which is not so great.

Eventually, we'll have had enough of Joao and Hatty and will likely take them down, but when exactly that will be is hard to say. Maybe just before Hatty will learn Nationalism, we should be ready to take her down? That's somewhere between roughly 12 to 25 turns from now, depending upon how slowly or quickly she researches.


Darius is in war mode and is either preparing a war or is fighting the one unmet AI.


PPP

T105, 250 BC
Paris switches G For -> Cottage

Athens switchces P Riv Cot -> PH Mine

Spoiler :

after 2 turns, we'll be working at least 1 Food Resource, and soon probably more of them, so let's get our Hammers now

Ivory Coast switches unnetted Fish -> Ivory

St. Pete builds Jewish Monastery

Spoiler :

We're going to need a source of Culture here and unless we want to slip into Caste System for a turn of Anarchy, a Monastery is probably our best hope.

Axe 8 heads toward Rostov

Warrior 1 is fine where is now, acting as a spawn-buster on the GH For at 1 W of the GH Deer For

Worker 10 builds Road at 2 S of Rostov (the route to Mehmed and a Road on a Forest that we'll Chop into The Forbidden Palace)

Axe 3 (in captured Nottingham) moves 1 E TunH Sheep to abandon poor Chariot 16 to the ravages of Churchill's Swordsman, while positioning himself to either scare the Worker into going into Nottingham or moving to a square where it wouldn't be under threat and thus might be capturable on the following turn if Axe 3 (Woody II) survives--I imagine that Axe 3 will be the primary attacker for razing Nottingham

Chariots 15 and 17 stay at 1 SW of Nottingham to help with recapturing Nottingham from Churchill's Swordsman next turn

Work Boat 7 (in Gold Coast) can move to 1 W of Gold Coast and wait there until our Cultural Borders expand over top of the Fish Resource

Galley 2 heads eastward toward London

Chariot 13 can move 1 SE G Road out of Orleans and then head toward Cologne--the Road gets us from Orleans to Cologne faster

We will leave Nottingham defended only by a wounded Chariot, to try to get Churchill to recapture Nottingham from us. With only 1 population point in the City, he can't immediately cold-whip a Military Unit like BtS AIs would otherwise do when recapturing a City of theirs that is larger in City Size

Worker 9 STOPS


T106

Orleans 2-pop-whips Missionary

Spoiler :

we'll overflow into another Missionary, but we can keep the Settler in the build queue for now to keep from losing Hammers in the Settler

Lyons 2-pop-whips the Worker and alters the build queue so that our Galley is second in the list of build items

London hires a Spy Specialist
London works: Fish, Fur, 2 Sci, and 1 Spy

Argent builds Catapult

Jackpot builds Chariot


Worker 1 moves 1 SW G Riv, Cottages, and STOPS
Worker 12 moves 1 SW G Riv, Cottages, and STOPS
Worker 4 Road the 2nd Gems Mine at 1 N of Ruby Bay
Worker 5 Chops at 1 E of York (with good timing, we can possibly Chop both Forests on the same turn as each other, so that we minimize the amount of turns spent stagnating York)
Worker 7 move 1 E GH For (we can plan to have 3 Roads for Argent-built Units to walk along, allowing Units to move SE > E > E > SE onto a Galley. For now, Units will move SE > E > SE onto a Galley)
Worker 9 moves 1 NW (1 W of Paris), Cottages and STOPS
Worker 11 moves 1 W (to 1 SE + 1 E of Rostov) and builds a Road

Christian Missionary 2 spreads in Jackpot


With any luck, Churchill recaptured Nottingham

If he didn't capture Nottingham, we'll be in a pickle, as we have 4 Cities in England and they're expensive, creating a drain on our economy. I don't know what the best answer will be... gifting York to Mehmed? It's too expensive for us to keep Nottingham ourselves

We capture and raze Nottingham

Units that weren't needed in the Nottingham fight look for opportunities to help out in capturing the Worker or for getting onto a Galley and back onto the mainland as quickly as possible, to get involved in other fights

Galley 2 moves into London

Northern Galley chain:
Galley 4 can move 2 N to set up a chain between Argent and St. Pete's

Galley 3 will have to backtrack to pick up Catapult 1, who is taking the seaside tour

HA 9 can move through Germany toward Russia via Roads

Galley 1 moves into St. Pete's and unloads 2 Catapults there
After the 2 Catapults have been unloaded inside of St. Pete's, an empty Galley 1 can sail back 1 W

Galley 5 can remain at 3 W of St. Pete's

Catapult 1 moves 1 NE G Riv For (1 NW of Cologne)--it will board Galley 3 on T107

New Catapult from Argent moves 1 SE GH Iron Road > 1 E GH For


War on Russia! Declare war on Stalin (don't ask him for anything, as we don't want 10 turns of BtS-enforced Peace by asking him for something and him accepting our Demand--just declare war)

Maybe we can bait some Spearmen to come at St. Pete's by only leaving a Chariot in there, so maybe:
Axe 6 (Woodsman II) moves 1 E G For out of St. Pete's
Axe 4 (Combat II) and the two Cats move 1 SE G For Road out of St. Pete's

Mounted troops from Yaroslavl' try to capture either the Desert City or the Worker to the south-east of Yaroslavl'

HA 4 can leave Rostov to move to 3 N of Rostov, allowing it to join Axe 6 and our two Cats at 1 NW of Moscow on T107, ahead of schedule

Axe 8 keeps making his way toward Rostov unless we see a chance to go after Stalin's Spearmen

Galley 6 can move 1 NE for now and we can think about whether to explore eastward or to be prepared to shuttle Units between our core area and Egypt at a moment's notice

The new Spy from Ivory Coast can head to the south-west Ivory, while the other 2 Spies arrive on their respective northern Stone Resources

Chariot 9 (to the south of Memphis) keeps exploring the Desert path

We should bribe Mehmed into war with Stalin after we declare war on Stalin. I don't know what it would take, but I'd put a priority order on:
Aesthetics
Theology
Both of Aesthetics and Theology

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Overall themes

Churchill
Nottingham needs to be razed. We replace it with a City 1 SE of where Nottingham is located.

There are just too many reasons:
1. It's in City Revolt now, so it's costing us Colonial Maintenance in all of our other English Cities
2. It's at Size 1 with no infrastructure, and will be in City Revolt for 3 turns, so it won't be any larger than a resettled City, and it won't grow any faster than a resettled City as long as we'll be able to get a Work Boat for the resettled City (which could be Chopped out of Ruby Bay using the G For at 1 NE of Ruby Bay once we're done Roading our second Gems Mine at Ruby Bay)
3. If we'd wanted to keep it, we should have captured and kept the City a long time ago; to make up for not having captured it back then, we'll need another Food Resource (the second Fish that we'll get by resettling the City 1 SE of where it was placed) to make up for lost time not having owned the City via growing the City faster each turn
4. We can't have 4 Cities in England and we're not ready to give up York, so we need a period of time where we have no City in north-east England while we finish Chopping and Whipping York in preparation for gifting away York to Joao


After Nottingham has been razed, we will Cease Fire with Churchill.

If, for some reason, Churchill's Swordsman cannot capture Nottingham with our wounded Chariot defending, we'll have to find an alternate way to raze the City, such as Cease Firing (no Peace Treaty) with Churchill, gifting him Nottingham, then redeclaring war and razing Nottingham.

We will eventually need to found another City or capture a junky City that we don't want to keep and let Churchill have it, to keep him alive. With a deadline looming and less turns to properly plan warring alongside of our other goals, the reality is Joao may or may not ever get attacked, leaving Churchill as our only easy route to an Apostolic Palace Victory, so Churchill must stay alive.

We want to resettle Vlad at 1 SW of where it is located, meaning Churchill will need another City and we won't be able to raze Vlad until a future war, when we have a Settler ready to resettle the City.


Stalin
Siege Units are key here, with him not counting them as attacking Units, since they cannot kill his City Defenders in BtS. An AI will feel safe that their City cannot be captured if we send in 2 non-siege Units and a stack of 10 Catapults if the AI has 3 or more defenders in the City, and that logic holds true for almost all Units (except for Tanks or highly-promoted Units with multiple attacks per turn). The BtS AIs are programmed to take advantage of us in this way by guarding a threatened City by a number of defenders equal to the number of non-siege invaders.

So, we bring in 2 stack defenders (Woodsman II Axeman and Combat II + Shock Horse Archer) and Catapults and start Bombarding Moscow. City Walls make Bombarding relatively inefficient, but it's what we've got to work with. With few attacking Units in his big fat cross, we can hope that Stalin will send our troops to try to recapture one of his Cities or to do something really silly, such as to REX during wartime. If he comes for our captured Cities, we may be able to pick off his troops while we steadily tear down the defences in Moscow.

I imagine that we'll aim to capture Moscow around T111 or so, after having Bombarded for a bit and having 3 Catapults on hand to perform suicide attacks.

Only at the last minute should we send in our other non-siege attacking troops.


Hatty
We'll be gifting her Jackpot after our Christian Missionary 3 (yet to be whipped out of Orleans) spreads into Jackpot and after Jackpot has whipped and completed a Chariot, meaning that Jackpot will have grown to Size 2 at least once and thus the City won't get auto-razed when we capture it later.

We won't be in a position to go to war with Hatty anytime soon, so she'll just keep the two Cities near to Paris. There's a small chance that she'll try to gift Jackpot back to us after 4 turns of gifting it to her (a hard-coded number of turns) with our Culture mostly surrounding the City, which would come up as a trading offer of her gifting us Jackpot, so we'd obviously accept such a gift. Realistically, though, she'll hire an Artist Specialist there (which isn't such a bad thing--it gives her +4 Flasks per turn) to push back our Culture, so we'll just capture the City later. With her in Caste System, she can't whip City Defenders, so we won't mind if she instead grows the City while working the Fish Resource.

We will steal Civil Service, then try for Literature, then try for Music, stealing them from Jackpot on the turn that we gift her the City (I think that T108 is our current target turn to gift her Jackpot). If we have remaining Spies, we might try to steal her Treasury or we might just be happy that our Spies survived and we can have our Spies walk away, as we'll need some EPs remaining to Sabotage Hatty's Stone Resources.

Stealing techs takes priority over Sabotaging Stone Resources. Once the techs have been stolen, we can see how many EPs remain on Hatty and calculate when will be the best time to Sabotage her Stone Resources.

The goal of Sabotaging Hatty's Stone Resources is to cancel this trade:
Hatty trades Stone <-> Mehmed trades Marble

If we can cancel that trade, we should hopefully be able to get Marble in trade from Mehmed. We'll need to get him up to Pleased toward us, though, so if we haven't gotten him up to Pleased toward us, we'd hold off on the Sabotage Espionage Missions until he is Pleased toward us. Getting him to join a war against Stalin again is one possible way to improve our relationship toward Mehmed. Avoiding trading with Darius is another way to help to improve our relationship toward Mehmed. Once we have our Great People, switching into a State Religion of Islam could be another way to improve our relationship with Mehmed. Failing all of that, we'll just have to build up a big military force and take down his Cities to get a quite-delayed Marble Resource.


Golden Age
The purpose is to generate 3 Great People, although I don't know if we can get that many completed within the span of the Golden Age and we may just have to keep Specialists hired after the Golden Age.

1 Great Scientist would be to Lightbulb part of Education or an alternate 1 Great Merchant would be to perform a Trade Mission to get a large lump sum of Gold (probably in Hatty's capital) to help us self-tech Education.

Education means needing 6 Libraries and 6 Universities, with Oxford University pretty easily completed with Chops and whipping overflow from a University in Paris. The toughest part will be NOT whipping 5 other Cities too hard so that we'll have population points to build Libraries and Universities in them, quite likely without the help of Forges or Organized Religion.

We'll also switch Civics into Bureaucracy during the Golden Age.

As nice as it might be to slip into Organized Religion to help with building Missionaries, I think that we'll just have to stick with Pacifism in order to keep getting Great Person Points so that we can collect another 2 Great People for our second Golden Age. We'll Chop out MoM after razing Nottingham and settling a new City 1 SE of Nottingham, so that MoM can be used for our 2nd Golden Age and hopefully our 3rd Golden Age.

If all goes well, we can steal Nationalism from Hatty, get Marble from a Pleased Mehmed, and find somewhere to Chop out The Taj Mahal for a 3rd Golden Age.

If we get a Golden Age from The Taj Mahal, we should be able to get enough GPP for a 4th Golden Age by using 3 more Great People, to help power us through the last bit of teching.


Warring
Stalin is running out of Cities, so we'll probably have to keep fighting whoever is located to the east of him. We'll eventually also have to capture Istanbul, but theoretically, we could do so near the end of the game, since Mehmed's empire is pretty close to some of our Cities. So, after Stalin, our primary push should be to capture Cities from whoever is to the east of Stalin, ever pushing our way toward the Orient.

Unfortunately, we have yet to reach "critical mass" with our troops and we keep using up too many troops in our battles, so we haven't been able to earn heavily-promoted Units. So, warring is going to continue to be a pain point for us.


There is a thought that by teching Paper -> Education -> Gunpowder, and by stealing Nationalism, we'll be saved: With Golden Ages planned, we can draft 2-movement-point Musketeers that can pwn the world. Horse Archers and even Knights have Units that counter them (Spearmen and Pikemen). No Unit really counters Musketmen.

So, if we're getting low on real-life time, we'll take a break from warring after mostly dealing with Stalin, grow our empire, get to Gunpowder and steal Nationalism, slip into a Golden Age to be able to switch from Bureaucracy into Nationalism to be able to Draft Musketeers for 5 turns, and then Draft 15 Musketeers before switching back into Bureaucracy.


Building the Railroad itself won't be hard--whip Workers and build Railroad pieces.

 

[Cactus Pete]

So, I should have razed Not?

Will play PPP in a few hours.

As a heads up: I will be out of town and out of contact all day on both Monday and Tuesday. Joe, can you help keep it going then?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

So, I should have razed Not?

Yes, that was what we'd planned, but worry not. We'll make it work the second time around.


Thinking about it some more... we should stick with using Christian Missionary 2 in Jackpot. Christian Missionary 3 should head to St. Pete's, as we really need Culture and Christianity there and it will take a while for a later-built Missionary to arrive there.

 

[Cactus Pete]

SORRY, ALREADY PLAYED AND USED MISSIONARY AS PLANNED.

We have other problems. REPORT:

T105: Execute plan

IBT:
Sword takes Not, worker to furs
Water supply to York poisoned, so York is unhealthy (for how long?)
KK adopts Confu
Russian settler party shows up 1E of Moscow, with axe and spear
Russian spear threatens warrior near Resort. (Perhaps we should alow him to attack, even at loosing odds.)

T106:
Raze Not without further losses, but no cease fire available
Do not move HA9, suggesting we heal him in our city for at least a turn
Note that Stalin now has four cities, plus Moscow
Attack incense worker and find Orenburg loaded with 11 units.

Best plan I can come up with is to move all our healed units out of Yaro onto the plains road NW of Orenburg, including the chariot holding the worker (which we'd abandon to Stalin). If he doesn't attack or we survive it, then next turn pillage the road and retreat to the forest 1E of Yaro and wait for reinforcements. If we don't do something like that, I would anticipate that his stack will move onto that forest next turn. (I should have advanced on worker before I moved HA4 and axe8.) Can someone test what Stalin is likely to do?

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0225_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Nicely done! Don't worry, we'll get through the challenges ahead of us.

move all our healed units out of Yaro onto the plains road NW of Orenburg

Please don't do that.

Perhaps we should alow him to attack, even at loosing odds.

Every battle that we lose means Stalin not talking to us for an even longer period of time, so even more turns where we'll have to face his army. I'd rather not fight losing battles that are completely avoidable.


Skip turn instead of Sentry
Sentry was a very poorly-programmed Unit action, and it doesn't really work in a useful way, so I suggest not using it. Our Warrior 1 is on "Sentry" duty and an enemy Spearman is right next to him and our Warrior is just sitting there, not telling us anything. How silly is that situation? I would recommend never using Sentry and instead just taking the extra moment to Skip turn (the Spacebar is a hotkey to Skipping turn because it's an action that is expected to be used a lot).

In this way, we will get the screen visually centered on each Unit, so that we can visually scan the area around the Units that aren't moving on a given turn. Our own eyes are better resources than those of our Units when the programming for the Sentry action is so poor.

Obviously, Warrior 1 can't stay next to Stalin's Spearman and we'll have to retreat westward toward Argent. Chances are that that Spearman is the advance scout for the Settler Party at 2 E of Moscow.



Orenburg (Desert City)
As a general comment on tactics, had Orenburg been lightly-defended with the typical 2 City Defenders, taking the Worker first when we only had 5 attackers might have meant not capturing the City. In this case, taking the Worker worked out better, but in general, Cities first and everything else (battles in the field, Worker steals) only really matter if the Cities can't be captured and held.

Since Cities are the key, we're probably going to have to gift Yaroslavl' to an AI to keep it out of Russian hands (I don't welcome the idea of having to re-fight Stalin for the ownership of Yaroslavl'), but the timing of when we do that may want to wait until we've gotten our War Elephant whipped and completed (our Worker 11 is one turn away from restoring access to Ivory in Yaroslavl').

Plus, Churchill is still not talking to us, so we can't yet Cease Fire with Churchill in order to gift him Yaroslavl'.

Chariot 5 is doomed, but what can we do about it to make him give us the most bang for our buck? I'd say that we move him 1 NE Plains to 1 N of Orenburg. Doing so forces Stalin to split up his troops to go after both Chariot 5 and the captured Worker, leaving less troops to marge on Yaroslavl'.

If it weren't for the troops that could march on Yaroslavl', I'd suggest that we consider stealing the Worker at 2 N of Yaroslavl', but given that impending army of doom marching toward us, I'd say that splitting up our Yaroslavl' forces would be quite foolhardy and we're best off just waiting in Yaroslavl' to see what Stalin does, keeping our troops together in hopes that he splits up his forces in a way that we can better deal with them.

Keeping our troops inside of Yaroslavl' this turn and then reacting to what Stalin does is our best play at the moment, allowing us the freedom to attack split-up Units, to defend (defenders get the advantage when mixed troops are involved), or to gift the City and run away.



Paris
Okay, so we grew a bit faster than expected and grew into Unhappiness, but we need to grow the City and keep growing it, even if we grow into Unhappiness. So, let us keep growing Paris.

Paris will grow Happy next turn when 1 Whipping Unhappiness wears off and we'll build a new Chariot out of Lyons in 2 turns' time, to give us another Happiness in Paris.


Hatty
It seems that Hatty has finally felt that she has enough Culture in Macau to start slowly growing the City.

She is also building an Islamic Misisonary, so there's a hope that she'll spread Islam to our Cities, but she'll likely spread it to her own Cities, first.

We can Road the second Incense for her, hoping that she'll connect it up with another Fort or a Plantation and then be able to trade it to us.



Frederick
I don't know how you managed to bribe him, but it looks like he is going to finish off the Road between Orleans and Cologne.


Moscow and St. Pete's
I don't know what the right level of explanation is supposed to be for a PPP. I'd actually planned to play that turnset if someone had been around to approve the PPP, so I didn't explain inside of the PPP (I mentioned the subject out of the PPP but didn't explain it clearly) why I suggested putting our Axeman 6 (Woodsman II) at 1 E of St. Pete's--it was to try to bait Moscow's Spearmen to come toward St. Pete's.

The thinking is that we'd have our Axemen form a wall on the Forests, forcing any Spearmen that came at the Chariot-defended St. Pete's to walk around our Forest-defending Axemen onto flatland squares. Now, we've left a gap and Spearmen can go straight toward St. Pete's through the gap, allowing them to walk on a Forest instead of the hoped-for flatland. In the end, Stalin might not take the bait, so it may not matter, but if he takes the bait, the Spearmen won't be easy pickings in a Forest.

I didn't explain myself clearly, and I'm sorry for that. But, it's going to be hard to suggest Unit movements of our troops advancing on Moscow until we see what happens next turn, so I won't suggest any such movements until after we've played into the next turn and can figure out what to do, based on whether Stalin takes the bait or not.


England
It seems that the water supply got Poisoned in York. The little punk of a Spy laughed at our Spy (Churchill's Spy didn't get caught by our Spy), and he peed in our water before hightailing it to Vlad. At least that Spy won't be causing any more trouble in England, due to having teleported into Churchill's capital of Vlad.

It works as follows: each turn, 1 Unhealthiness will wear off for the next 8 turns.

So, we'll whip York this turn (to earn us back 1 Healthiness) and we'll avoid completing the Forests next turn (to maintain 1 Healthiness).

What happened to Churchill's Worker? Did it get disbanded? I suppose that we would have seen it if it were to the east of Axeman 3 (Woody II) and if it were to the east, you'd have mentioned it, right?

Ruby Bay has a Chariot in it who could move in advance of the rest of the stack toward London, so that we don't have 4 Units trying to board the Galley all on the same turn as each other.


Mehmed
Trade:
War with Stalin + 10 Gold <-> Aesthetics

I'd suggest that we ask him to attack Moscow (not Orenburg, as AIs need a pretty straight-forward path and Orenburg looks like it might cause pathing issues for Mehmed's Units, what with it being on the opposite side of a body of water).


Southern Navy
No comments from anyone... I suppose that the safest play is to have Galley 6 head toward Lyons. I suppose that Galley 7 can push a bit further eastward, but I'm not sure that he'll play any useful role there, with so many Peaks in the region.



Suggested PPP
T106, 225 BC

Trade:
War with Stalin + 10 Gold <-> Aesthetics

Ask Mehmed to attack Moscow

Paris steals Cow from Orleans

Paris switches Scientist -> Cow
Paris switches G For -> G Riv Farm
Paris works: Wheat, Deer, Fur, Copper, Cow, Farm, Cottage, and Cottage

Orleans works: Fish and Iron

York 1-pop-whips Spy
York works: Fish and Horse

Rostov builds War Elephant (the Courthouse can wait until we put 1 Chop into it and 1-pop-whip it)

EDIT: Chariot 6 (in Yaroslavl') moves 1 SE P Road (0.5 movement) > Pillages the Road (1 movement) > returns to Yaroslavl' (0.5 movement).

Warrior 1 (in Scandinavia) runs 1 W toward Argent

HA 12 (1 E of Ruby Bay) Promotes to Combat I

Chariot 19 (in Ruby Bay) wakes up and moves along the Roads to the G Riv at 1 W of London

Chariot 5 (1 W of Orenburg) abandons the Worker and moves 1 NE P (1 N of Orenburg)

HA 9 (in Cologne) Skips his turn to partially heal inside of a City

Galley 6 heads toward Lyons


T107

XO Cognac completes Courthouse -> Library

Spoiler :

we can't whip this City, so let's not start on Military Units that we'd be tempted to whip; this City will also be one of our University Cities, so we'll eventually need a Library here

York completes Spy -> Work Boat (for New Nottingham)

I imagine that Yaroslavl' will have to build something temporarily due to losing access to Ivory

Orleans builds Christian Missionary

Orleans steals Cow
Orleans works: Fish, Cow, and Iron

Check that Paris hasn't hired any Scientists and instead work all of the improved squares followed by Forests (no change migiht be needed)

Lyons builds Chariot (needed for Paris)

Argent 2-pop-whips Catapult
Argent works: Fish and Deer

Athens switches P Riv Cottage -> Sheep

Jackpot 1-pop-whips Chariot


Worker 1 (1 SE + 1 S of Paris) moves 1 NW to 1 S of Paris, partial Cottages, and STOPS
Worker 2 (1 E of Gold Coast) moves 1 NW P (1 N of Gold Coast) and Roads
Worker 3 (at the Resort) finishes the Chop
Worker 5 (1 E of York) Chops and STOPS at 1 E of York
Worker 6 (1 SE of York) moves along the Roads to 1 SE of Ruby Bay (G Riv Road), partial Farms, and STOPS (we can complete both Chops at York next turn)
Worker 7 (1 SE + 1 E of Argent) builds Road on GH For
Worker 8 (1 NW of Cologne) finishes Chop into Granary
Worker 9 (1 W of Paris) moves 1 NW G Riv (1 SE of Jackpot) and Cottages
Worker 10 (2 S of Rostov) Chops the P Riv Road
Worker 11 completes the P Road at 1 SE + 1 E of Rostov
Yaroslavl' starts building a War Elephant again

Units near St. Pete's remain unmoved, including Axe 8 and HA 4, the Cats and our Axemen, and the Chariot in St. Pete's. Let's figure out what to do after Stalin has had his turn.

New Spy in York Fortifies in York

Chariot 9 (in south-east Egypt) heads back out of the pathway that led to nowhere

Cat 1 (1 NW of Cologne) moves 1 NE onto Galley 3
Galley 3 (with Cat 1 aboard) sails E > NE to 1 NW of Hamburg

Cat 4 (1 SE + 1 E of Argent) moves 1 SE onto Galley 4
Galley 4 (with Cat 4 aboard) sails SE > E to meet up with Galley 5
Cat 4 transfers to Galley 5
Galley 5 (with Cat 4 aboard) sails 2 E to 1 W of St. Pete's

Galley 1 (1 W of St. Pete's) sails back 2 W (to 3 W of St. Pete's)

Spoiler :

This point is very important to note. Notice how we did not chain the Catapult using Galley 1? That's because the Catapult is just as useful out at sea as it is inside of a City on the turn that it has been Galley-chaining, as it has 0 movement points remaining to it. We have other Units that will need transporting, so Galley 1 is better used to speed up the collection of those additional Units instead of babying the Catapult to unload it with 0 movement points inside of St. Pete's. Galleys in a chain will trade positions relative to each other if the chain is being used at its peak efficiency level, like we're trying to do here.

Warrior 1 (in Scandinavia) will probably need to keep running 1 W toward Argent, assuming that the Spearman keeps following him; if the Spearman didn't follow him, he can Skip his turn


Let's hold off on moving Units near Russia (besides our Workers). What we do with our troops over the next couple of turns may prove to be critical, thanks to the nice surprise in Orenburg and the possible finessing of Spearmen out of Moscow heading through the Forest to St. Pete's.


Who will spawn-bust north-east England? I suggest Chariot 15

Chariot 15 (1 E of Ruby Bay) moves 1 NE G For

Axe 3 (razed Nottingham) moves 1 SE G For and if there's no Worker, moves 1 S G For (providing anti-Barb-Galley-spawning coverage)

Chariot 19 can board Galley 2 in London
Galley 2 (with Chariot 19 aboard) sails 2 SE to 1 W of Orleans

HA 12 and Chariot 17 (1 E of Ruby Bay) can move along the Roads to the G Road at 1 W of London

Chariot 13 (1 SE of Berlin) makes its way along Roads toward Russia (feel free to make note of what's in Munich as we pass by the City, probably ending up at 2 E of Munich (1 NW + 1 N of Rostov)

HA 9 (in Cologne) makes it way along Roads toward Russia

EDIT: Missionary in Orleans heads toward Jackpot (along the Roads to 1 SW of Paris)

Spoiler :

If we can steal Music as soon as possible, then we can have St. Pete's build Culture while hiring Specialist citizens for a turn when the City comes out of City Revolt, so that we can get our Cultural Borders expanding over top of the other 2 Fish Resources.