Team Game - Isolated Pacal (Deity)

[Lain]

Okay, nitey . Just continue tomorrow or whenever you can, I am in no rush to play.

Mutal should whip I guess, probably worth it or just about. Losing 10 commerce from tiles, but Observatory will yield about the same immediately.

"Whip timer" should always be active I feel, i.e: whip at least once every 10 turns everywhere.

 

[Fippy]

Okay i continued a bit, besides Mutal i also whipped May based on your idea that we always want whip timers active.
Even made a micro pic, 4 pop leave for access to watching stars

Spoiler :

Next turn we got CS from Bully as expected, and the peoples of Mutal celebrated their improved baking wares (Corn irrigated)

Spoiler :

Removed Archery ofc.
Aschoki urgently needed some copper, cos he plans war now..

Spoiler :

The fine art of tech for gold milking

Spoiler :

We might get something from Wang & Giggles next turn as well, who are on their way to Guilds.

Farms this way?

Spoiler :

Aschoki puts 4EP into us too, we will not see his tech
Breaks our hearts.

 

[Lain]

So what's the chance of Asoka attacking us ?

Yup, farms for irrigation line look good. Seems like we are pretty much done with economy buildings, whipping went well I think. Only Theatres/Barracks to go and then start on units soon . Timing always feels a bit tricky, but research wise we are doing really well with nice ressource trades for money. Can tech forever with selling maps later etc.

For example I feel we could skip Observatory in Uxmal and have it build a few units instead. Maybe whip a Spy/Explorer for 2 pop here for overflow production (with a chop that's enough for Theatre+Barracks).

Would suggest that we produce Trebs + War Elephants mainly . A few Macemen maybe, but they are more expensive.

 

[dutchfire]

I would say that where possible, Galleons might come first, since we need them anyway and we won't getter better units later (unlike Trebs).

Will we land our stack in allied territory and attack India from there, or are we going to do a D-Day style invasion? This greatly influences the number of Galleons needed.

 

[Fippy]

I would say he plots on Giggles or Willy with almost 100%
Sea attack seems most likely, ways are short thou..maybe 7 galleons for 21 units can be a goal?

Skipping Observatory in Uxmal makes sense yup.
Not sure on Spies (often losing them) or Explorers thou, i usually prefer chariots with visi but we would have to trade for horsies.

Jumbos are good, we want HBR too.
What do we think about Muskies?
Good city defenders, or would we prefer cheaper longbows.

edit, i think in Uxmal we should not be concerned with whip timing thou, would like to cover whipped away tiles from other cities for now?

 

[Lain]

Hm think I'd prefer see invasion too. Otherwise it will be hard to reinforce our first stack. And it can't go in without cannons/rifles, so we would probably end up attacking later than if we just build 3-4 more galleons in the first place.

Would not really build Muskets, maybe one or two. Rather leave behind a Rifle/Elephant combo for city defense. But Longbows, why not

Oke, I guess Uxmal doesn't have to whip so much. Don't have the save in front of me right now, but windmills (even on river) can be whipped away I think. Good for growth and some hammers, but the tile is still not better than a Moai Statues-coast . And cottages that are not hamlets yet (1 or 2 I think) can probably be ignored, not worth it anymore.

I feel more worried about production than commerce right now .

Spies are frustrating I know, I was more thinking about good whip overflow to finish Barracks+Theatre, but maybe not a good idea.

 

[Fippy]

Hmm..starting before Rifles would be good imo, if Asoka has nothing too strong?
We have cannons for the hard attacks. Jumbos are good against Knights.
He will most likely be at war again soon, maybe we can take his coastal cities weakly defended while most of his units are at Giggles or Willy.

I think one advantage of a strong economy likes ours (well for Iso) would be that we can backstab earlier, while still doing fine for teching towards Rifles.

 

[Pedro78]

Hey

Nice progress here!

Opened the save, a few things come to mind:

• I don't see a reason not to whip the Granary in Xukpi right now (could also whip next turn and use avoid growth for 1T, same outcome)
• The northern Caravel can keep going East to get the circumnavigation bonus, but the southern one should rather go into deep sea to gather "map gold"
• I don't see a golden age happening before Rifling, unless we skip the Globe Theatre (need to gather 156gpp, which is 11 turns running 5 specialists)
• The game looks really well-timed for landing with Rifles (could probably land around T175-180 with a decent stack, depending on PP/RP trades, the latter being unlikely). But I don't think any significant invasion can be pulled off before Rifles: the new cities won't be able to contribute by then, so the other ones would have to be whipped hard, which would most likely mean too big a drag on the economy

Anyways, things are looking pretty strong. I'd be glad to take on the next turnset if you will

Edit: btw 7 Galleons seems like a good number imo if we do a single landing. For a double landing ~10 Galleons would probably be required. Might also need some Frigates if Asoka gets some real ships.

 

[Fippy]

Happy to pass you the game now, Pedro.

Xukpi granary was not whipped yet for cottage covering.

We can get HBR +40g from Wang for Guilds, he would only add Archery + 25g so not far from completing it.

 

[Pedro78]

Good point about the cottage. Such attention to detail

The HBR trade seems fine. Would've been even better to trade Optics for HBR with SB (not sure if it was possible) -- when did he start researching it?

I'll play a few turns right now and write-up then.

 

[Pedro78]

Now something really weird just happened.

I traded Guilds for HBR+40g+WorldMap with Wang, who hasn't met Asoka. And this apparently made me hit WFYABTA with Asoka. How is that possible?

 

[sampsa]

I think it's the way it's supposed to work. When Asoka has met YOU, he looks at his trade screen saying "now how did this mofo get HBR, I better hit WFYABTA". His status on meeting Wang does not matter.

 

[Pedro78]

Hmm I think the explanation is actually more simple. Looks like Asoka met Wang in the IBT after I traded with the latter. I still think there must be contact between all three members for WFYABTA to add-up.

I've played 6 turns. Will write-up tomorrow. Gnite

 

[Pedro78]

T142.5-148

Spoiler :

T142
Did the HBR trade with Wang -

Changed a worked hilled village in Lakhama in order to grow 1T quicker. Eventually decided not to work this tile at all, simply because the difference between +5 and +6 food surplus is huge and production is more of a problem than commerce atm.

T143
Voted for Asoka @ AP elections (what else are you gonna do?). +2 diplo bonus. Didn't change much at all.
No micro worth mentioning.

T144
Lakhama grows to size 9. 2whip a Theatre into a Harbor.
CI grows to size 10 and 2whips a Theatre aswell.

T145
Gunpowder.

We circumnavigate -

Southern caravel has already been sent to explore deep sea for map gold. We can now sell the map: we didn't get the movement bonus yet, but player order makes sure that we'll be the ones getting it next turn (human player is always processed first).

Can only trade with Asoka though, as he's the only one with Paper and enough gold to make the map worth selling -

On the same turn, I shamelessly farm a tile marked "ws" near Mayapan, because the latter cruelly lacks food surplus, and it'll be a while before workshops start beating farms production-wise.

T146
I make this trade with Wang -

We need Banking for Rifling and everyone but Pericles has Engineering. The trade is close to balanced (he would add Archery to the deal but not Poly). The only issue is that this will bump the percentage of players who know Banking above his trading threshold, so he might start trading it around, but I still think it was worth it.

T147
Lol

Nopes bruh

Chicken Itza starts on Globe -

T148
Not much to notify except standard pre-whipping in most cities.

Calakmul will def. need a Ball Court at some point because of high food and "unability" to 3whip. Other cities should be fine.

Can rework the fish for gold trade with Pericles for 2 more gpt, but might also lose all of it. Watcha think?

Edit: now that I think of it, we might want a Harbor in Oxhuitza, as it's only ~40h. Will pay for itself pretty quickly.

 

[Lain]

Hey Pedro, great to have you back . Looks nice, we almost tech "too fast". So I think that waiting for Rifles is good.

Might want to send a unit to Ox soon?
Harbor is good I guess.

Hope we can trade for Printing Press at least

Guess we can always switch to "heavy whipping" shortly before Rifling

 

[gramm87]

Interesting thread... I sure do hope to see some atomic bombs later!
PS: not that it would be the best decision.

 

[dutchfire]

Should we start thinking about building up a road network to move our military to its ports of departure? Due SE from Mutal to the Mayapan coast?
Xukpi needs one more road to be hooked up. The current road in the south is not the shortest, but it does not lose any turns so it is fine. One more road needed for Quiriga. But that still takes some time to get productive anyway. Lakhama needs two more roads.
All these roads are not really a priority right now, but if a worker is already on the right tile it might be worth it to do some road building.


What is the status of the Moai plan? Give up on it since we traded away our stone, and Moai is not very impressive anyway? Or do you think we can still make it work prior to our war buildup?

 

[Pedro78]

Should we start thinking about building up a road network to move our military to its ports of departure? Due SE from Mutal to the Mayapan coast?

That's certainly on the to-do-list, but we've got a lot of time left to do that (until Rifling actually). Right now I think it's better to improve the tiles that have to be, there's still a lot to do with workers. Of course it's good to do a part-road on the right tile when it "saves" a worker turn, though.

What is the status of the Moai plan? Give up on it since we traded away our stone, and Moai is not very impressive anyway? Or do you think we can still make it work prior to our war buildup?

I think Moai cannot be worth it pre-invasion, especially as we have plenty of good (or decent) tiles to work in Mutal when it comes to unit-production. After the war (and after we get our stone back) it can be built very quickly (pre-golden-age).

Do you want to play the next turnset?

 

[Fippy]

Not sure if i agree with waiting until Rifling, let's say Asoka declares on Giggles or Willy..
would we not want to backstab him for coastal cities?

We can surely get out ~10 cannons + cleanup units rather easily, Jumbos are not very expensive.
Cannons do all the hard work anyways, and we can cease fire.

 

[Pedro78]

Hmm. If Asoka has not reached anything dangerous by the time we can land a few Cannons, and if he's at war with Giggles, there's no reason not to attack him pre-Rifling, and even to stress a few cities @Steel to get out the necessary Cannons. We could probably take Asoka out completely without teching Rifling, looking at the current situation.

My reasonning when I stated that I didn't see a pre-Rifling invasion happening was that we couldn't get strong unit production for a long time, and I expected Asoka to be stronger (didn't see that he was so far away from Cuirs). But from the current look of things we'll be ready to attack just a few turns after Steel, so there's no reason not to attack earlier if the target is weak.

However now the question is: what AI do we take out after Asoka? If Giggles lacks Rifles when we're done with Asoka, it's definitely a good thing to take him out. Otherwise we should be able to at least take out Willem as he only has 7 cities. The thing is we should not just kill Asoka and go peace-mode (especially if we go for Rifling). The tech situation really favors prolongated war.

But yup Fippy, I think you have a point


Edit: Another thing to consider is where do we want to build Banks. Not needed immediately (should probably build one or two right after the first Rifles are shipped -- basically when we have to lower the slider), but it's still better to plan ahead.