[Spoilers] Adrien and Mardoc relax and play civ

[AdrienIer]

I suppose a few extra axes may work better than just enough chariots, which would argue for the city which will pay back sooner.

Exactly

[Mardoc]

Played the turn. Settler's headed to the southern site, should have our sixth city in two turns. The other benefit to going there is it can steal the sheep and silver tiles for more efficiency.

Whipped the granary in the capital. I think after this we should probably grow on units. Both the sheep and furs have workers fixing them up, plus we have a new mine, so there won't be a tile shortage any more.

Triceratops is painfully working a mine instead of the sheep: 2 stacked whip unhappy is part of the reason, the other half is getting the archer out in two turns instead of three; I'm paranoid. After growing to the happy cap, I think maybe we could use another worker or two from here.

Stegosaurus will finish its monument next turn, after which I think we'll grow on an archer. With the granary finally in place, and worker support, we really ought to be able to get this city to the happy cap. Planning to put up some cottages to its north, to share with the capital and help us limp to currency.

Diplodocus will be growing, and I put an archer in queue. I want to swap back to the Monument to collect the chop, but have that archer ready for emergency whip if needed.

Apatosaurus continues to slowbuild its granary; finally have the deer improved so it's growing a little faster now. We may be able to pull a chop here too, in which case I think it should probably go into the granary - although it's also somewhat vulnerable, so maybe could use a monument as well/instead?

Jowy's done nothing new, but I'm worried about him anyway. Still on three cities, so he's probably putting effort into an army - although the Power graph doesn't really support that yet.

[AdrienIer]

Monument in Apa can be whipped next no ? So we get almost instant use of the granary

[Mardoc]

Monument in Apa can be whipped next no ? So we get almost instant use of the granary

Yeah. Basically granary first is better for anything except if Jowy invades in the exact period where we would have had culture but don't. Which will be like a five turn window at most.

Really, if we can manage the next 10-15 turns without losing anything expensive to Jowy, we should be home free. Six cities to three shouldn't be much of a contest, even with Agg on his side. Just need the time to get that last one settled and them all grown up.

[AdrienIer]

Good. How long till we get copper ? And how long after that until the first axe ?

[Mardoc]

One more turn for the archer to be produced. Three turns for it to walk to the copper. We need six worker-turns to mine + road; I can definitely get two workers and maybe three to the task - 2 or 3 more turns. Then 1 turn to start an axe, 1 turn to whip to completion.

Total of 8 or 9 turns. Which assumes Jowy doesn't interfere. He doesn't have anything in vision that could stop us, and distance-wise, he's got at least two turns to walk from the fog to us...three turns from his closest city. Realistically he could have a Vulture produced any turn now and start it walking.

When I look at it that way, I want to finish the archer in Diplodocus next turn - probably by stealing the chop that would otherwise go to the monument. That will shave off two turns from the walking time, cutting our axe ETA to 6 or 7 turns. Much more likely to finish before Jowy can interfere. Plus, if he does show up with a Vulture or two, we'll want the extra archer anyway. More units in the area, less culture, but we're still early enough and small enough that 2 units at 0% culture is probably more effective than 1 unit at 20%. (or 3 @ 0% instead of 2 @ 20%, point still holds I think).

Our backlines copper will be in culture in 11 turns, and the time to get it hooked is variable depending on how careful we are with our worker micro between now and then.

[Mardoc]

And...you can throw away all that analysis




I put the chop to complete the archer, and also whipped it so we should have enough overflow to get a 2nd archer next turn. Which will be enough to make this a nailbiter instead of a nemesis: + 100% on archers for city + hill + tile defense, and a first strike, but Jowy's Vultures are Str 6 with combat I and probably Cover (not yet promoted).

Meanwhile, the barbs have reminded us they're not dead.



I pulled the warrior from Tyrannosaurus toward Apatosaurus to buy us a turn if Jowy sends his northern vulture that way instead of this - would be enough to get the archer from Triceratops to Apato. But that leaves us uncovered against the barb; we have a little time to correct that but not much.

All in all: Gah! If Jowy weren't Agg, or weren't Sumeria, we could definitely stop him cold.

Also, Commodore, if we lose to this, I'm blaming you for unequal copper distribution. If Jowy had to settle for his copper, we'd have had 5-10 more turns before seeing Vultures. If we had ours somewhere definitely first-ring in an expansion city, we could be whipping axes instead of archers and be secure that way as well.

[AdrienIer]

I suppose the argument would be that we should have put our copper city 1NW and not get the silver. It still sucks.

It will all fall to dice rolls if Jowy goes for it.

[Mardoc]

I suppose the argument would be that we should have put our copper city 1NW and not get the silver. It still sucks.

Well, maybe if we had Bronze Working before we settled the city, we could have settled a city for just copper and deer, no silver. Hard to feel it's our fault for settling that city before we even saw copper, though - and once it was settled, there's nowhere else we could put a city for the copper.

Maybe, just maybe we can feel a little guilty for not rushing the Monument sooner.

It will all fall to dice rolls if Jowy goes for it.

Yeah. We roll a little better than average, and we end up with full-fortified healed city garrison archers by the time he can reinforce. We don't...we lose the city.

[The Black Sword]

Perhaps the forward cities toward Sumeria could have been delayed slightly while neither strat resource was hooked? Could have settled the horse/deer for city 4 or 5 instead.