Turn Discussion Thread

[azzaman333]

Yeah, that's probably what happened. I logged-in to check the turn log, Vesta did indeed win the fight with minimal damage, apparently (1.8/2 hp). After some thought, I agree with AlphaShard's plan. With all the hills, we won't see a barb until it's one tile away. Next turn, I think Vesta should move to the copper hill and heal there while defending the worker.

We'd fogbust considerable more tiles if Vesta was on the Jungle hill, and the jungle hill is much better to defend on.

 

[Irgy]

We'd fogbust considerable more tiles if Vesta was on the Jungle hill, and the jungle hill is much better to defend on.

For once, I completely agree with azzaman.

We'll do a much better job of avoiding barbarians by not letting them spawn in the first place than trying to fight them afterwards.

Also, this makes a start at protecting the territory around the pig-clam-clam site which we are likely to want to settle soon.

 

[Trystero]

You mean move back to the hill Vesta was last turn, or the hill 1S of the current location? In either case, my concern is that the worker would have to retreat if a barb approached from the south (or SW), delaying getting the copper hooked up. I agree that where Vesta was last turn is a better fogbusting location, I'm just wondering whether our priority is defending the worker to finish the mine sooner or fogbusting.

 

[AlphaShard]

In fact, weren't we right in the middle of this discussion just as Vesta was moved? Maybe that's the problem, Alphashard was possibly in the process of making the move while we were having the discussion?

I was reading the discussion, I wanted to make sure our Worker would be allowed to work the pig and Copper we have. The Barb warriors, unlike the animals, don't care about the culture borders. I mean besides the fog busting they will walk in and I rather have two protectors there then one. The problem is I don't think we have enough warriros yet to fogbust 100%. Even if we leave Vesta where it was there is still more fog that a Barb warrior can come from.

 

[azzaman333]

Barbarians won't walk into our borders without something triggering it.

 

[AlphaShard]

Barbarians won't walk into our borders without something triggering it.

Really? Then how come I lost a game by being overrun by Barbarians? They had NO problem walking into my borders and never avoided coming in, wrecking my improvements and attacking my cities.

 

[Trystero]

Barbarians won't walk into our borders without something triggering it.

Yes, but it depends what the triggers are in this case. According to this post , one of the triggers is:

Barbs will ALWAYS enter your borders if they can attack one of your units directly (--> watch your Workers!).

The copper Lord Parkin will be improving will be on the border until Arcturus gets it's first border pop. I'll have to check in a test game when that is, but this suggests to me that we either 1) keep Vesta at the copper until the improvement is finished or the border pops, or 2) have the worker retreat if barbs approach (could slow improvement).

I'll have to look at that thread more carefully to see what other conditions trigger barb entry.

 

[AlphaShard]

So your saying that if we take the units away and outside the culture border they won't go into the city even if there is no units in it? That doesn't seem right.

 

[Trystero]

There are other factors that trigger barb entry:

B) NumCities > 3*NumPlayersAlive:
The restrictions for the missions are lifted to

* pillage on the 3rd turn
* attack city on the second turn
* If the barbs have calculated AREAAI_OFFENSIVE for their AreaAI (huge numbers of ATTACK barb units, most likely after random event; normally it's AREAAI_MASSING) they will straight target their chosen city without any such restrictions.

I think this means that if the average number of cities per civ is >3 then the barbs will enter your borders to attack a city if they can reach it in 2 turns, or an improvement if they can reach it in 3 turns. I don't think we've crossed this threshold yet.

Edit: I checked a test game, and Arcturus' borders pop on turn 70.

 

[AlphaShard]

I asked for IW in the trade window. Might as well end turn since were the last to do so?

 

[Trystero]

Did you offer everyone Currency? I couldn't tell when I logged in.

Really the only thing to debate this turn is where to move Vesta. You didn't mention that she has earned a combat promotion. Woodsman I seems a reasonable choice if we aren't going to upgrade to an axe or spear. Otherwise I'd suggest Combat I. We could also delay promotion until we need to decide, or want the extra healing.

Edit: Here is the current situation:

Spoiler :

I suggest moving Vesta 1S to the jungle hill. This isn't the optimal spawnbusting spot (which is 1SE), but puts her adjacent to worker should a barb warrior appear to the south.

 

[azzaman333]

Really? Then how come I lost a game by being overrun by Barbarians? They had NO problem walking into my borders and never avoided coming in, wrecking my improvements and attacking my cities.

Because you don't understand the mechanics behind it.

Yes, but it depends what the triggers are in this case. According to this post , one of the triggers is:



The copper Lord Parkin will be improving will be on the border until Arcturus gets it's first border pop. I'll have to check in a test game when that is, but this suggests to me that we either 1) keep Vesta at the copper until the improvement is finished or the border pops, or 2) have the worker retreat if barbs approach (could slow improvement).

As I understand it, that means the barbarian has to be able to attack the worker that turn.

Also, that's exactly what I meant by something triggering it. So, once the 19th city is built on the world, we have to worry much more about barbarians.

 

[Trystero]

As I understand it, that means the barbarian has to be able to attack the worker that turn.

Yes, that's correct.

One other issue to consider this turn: If we choose a warrior as a first build, those hammers must go into a spearman once the copper is hooked up. This isn't a huge investment (5 hammers total), but if we aren't going to build a spearman relatively soon, we might want to put the hammers into something else

 

[azzaman333]

If we didn't have hunting, we wouldn't have that problem.

However, if we don't build a spearman after the axeman (?) the hammers will start to decay fairly quickly. (after 10 turns of not building it IIRC)

 

[Trystero]

Yeah, if we aren't going to build the spearman right after the axeman we should build whatever that planned second build is going to be rather than a warrior.

So basically we need to decide what we are going to build second first.

 

[Irgy]

If we didn't have hunting, we wouldn't have that problem.

If we had archery (do we have archery yet? I have a feeling we still don't, but you'd think one of the four teams would have researched it) we wouldn't have as much of a problem either, as we could just build an archer in the first place. An archer is worth the extra cost over a warrior for actually being able to win a fight and therefore useful for something other than spawn busting.

Having Hunting but not Archery is just this silly middle ground.

Anyway, given what we've got, I don't see what's wrong with building a spearman. I'd want to build another military unit next in Arcturus, as there's a lot of land we want to take control of. If we have an axeman already then a spearman seems like a good choice.

 

[Trystero]

Yes we have Archery! I think building an archer (before and) after the axeman would be a good idea.

Edit: You can see our relatively current tech situation in the last image of this post.

 

[AlphaShard]

I didn't select any promotions because I know there is a big deal about that, Since we have a Barb issue it would be good to do Woodsman or Strength one.

I was also not certain which tile we wanted to upgrade first (Copper or Pig) I saw arguements for both.

 

[Irgy]

As far as I understand we settled on copper. Not sure if the iron in the centre would change that, but copper helps us get military our sooner, while pigs just help us grow to pointlessly work unimproved tiles. Although, apparently will be able to revolt to HR and Slavery in about four or five turns, so that opens up the possibility of whipping an axeman or archer to consider as well.

 

[azzaman333]

Copper first. Whipping without a granary is inefficient.