[SPOILERS] Fire and Blood: Nyles Standish and Zalson watch the world burn

[NylesStandish]

Sorry again for the continued sluggishness in playing and reporting. Thanks for staying on top of things and asking for a pause, even though I ended up being able to play the turn anyway.

Does this mod change something about how granaries work? Wouldn't we want to grow while building it, then take advantage of have some food storing while we're growing to the next site? So, wouldn't it be more advantageous to build it now (in 3T) and add in, what, 10 food into the box when we grow to 4?

(EDIT: I see now that you were trying not to grow unhappy).

Granaries work the same as base BTS; they save half of the food after growth. The granary doesn't actually do anything until you grow, though. When I made that post Volantis was 6 turns away from growth; so the archer and the granary take 5 turns combined. We save half of the 26 food in the food box when we grow to size 4 whether the granary is made 1 turn before growth or 3 turns before growth; in this case building the granary first has the disadvantage of not having the archer as quickly, and I was still in full "pindicator is going to try to kill us again" mode at the time.

Notably, you do have to make sure the granary is built before you grow, not on the same turn. This is because the growth occurs before production in the interturn, so if they finish on the same turn the city grows to the next size without a granary and you don't save half of the food box.

Settling on the silk seems like an fine choice. Let's just chop the silk before we settle -- although settling the horses might be better? We do get to work the clams right way. Then we can chop the silk into a granary for that city.

This is definitely site priority 1.

Definitely agree that this site is first priority, not entirely sure which one to settle. Now that I think of it, the silk might not be so bad. Since financial doesn't give bonuses on river tiles in this mod, a commerce bonus tile like the silks is effectively an unnerfed river tile, which means a cottage there makes 3 commerce/turn immediately, and a total of 6 commerce/turn for the town before late game bonuses. That's still just 1 commerce/turn more than a regular cottage for us, though. The early bonus does give us an extra 2 commerce/turn over a regular cottage for the first 10 turns, then it goes down to 1cpt the rest of the game.

Can we cut the road to Alison, take Alison, and then sue for peace? Or go burn the mine down at No Action?

He's at 3 cities again, right?

I think we press our advantage of warriors/no archers until he is able to get some axes. Then we reconsider? These granaries should help our crop yield significantly.

Let's grow to our happy caps and get out several workers/settlers and then see where we are?

Excellent turn-set, considering the RL difficulties and the position we're in. I'd say, "I'll take a look tonight" but we know how that's gone in the past.

If we take out the copper mine or prevent it from being built, we will never have to worry about axes or spears and we pretty much have it in the bag.

He's still at just the 2 cities, though, AFAIK.

Any way, what are our actions this turn?:



T66

Invasion force:
Burn roads to Alison. Move soldiers south.

Valyria: keep building granary (switch to high 3 hammer tile?)
Volanits: finish granary: start worker
Tyrosh: switch to deer.
King's Landing: keep on keeping on.


Scout: keep moving east?

Titles to improve:

Valyria cow
Volantis Cow
Volantis Fur
vaylria river
Chop Silk forest

Was able to move onto the road to Alison T66.




Valyria fills up its foodbox with no overflow this turn, so I turned on avoid growth so that the granary will complete before growing. I could have switched to a 3 hammer tile like you suggested, but we get more food overflow this way which will speed up subsequent growths.




Volantis is just putting some hammers into an emergency axe while waiting to grow.




T67 I have a curiosity about what he's got in No Action. Turns out it's just 2 warriors and a workboat. It might be better to take it before Alison. It's much easier since there's no cultural defense yet and no hills, compared to +40% and a hill in Alison. An axe gets 99.9% odds against those warriors.

We're not blocking the roads and haven't pillaged any, but the axe on the sheep can move down to block the road and aid in the attack on No Action next turn. We might be able to take it before he even has borders pop on that copper, certainly before any mine is complete. If he tries to move any warriors from Alison to defend, we can mop them up out in the open when they end their turn on the road between the cities.

I put a turn into a settler at Volantis instead of a worker; the next worker will be built at Valyria. Chop from the silk forest should go into the settler. My decision to build that settler instead of the worker was partially influenced by the fact that OT4E and Pindicator have both founded cities recently ("NeverPlantOnCow" and "Orandad", respectively). Pindicator is a city up on us and OT4E is up by 3 cities.




Turn 68 and dcodea builds... a worker and a settler? He's going to have to take some warriors from Alison to secure that new city, wherever he puts it, which would make our job of taking all his shit that much easier. If we leave that new city alone until it grows, that's a settler we don't have to build. We could just leave Alison for a while and let him found some cities for us so we can save on settlers.

Certainly he doesn't think he can take back King's Landing and refound again? I hope he does; we can whip an archer or get reinforcements there before his warriors do, and he'd have to take 2 or 3 from the city to have any reasonable chance against old man Walder Frey, let alone any other units we can cram in there.

As for the extra worker, it seems he was banking on us not going south, and that he would be able to hold out with mass warriors in Alison long enough for him to hook up the copper.

Also, I'd wager we can currently see every unit of dcodea's (except the scout) in the above screenshot.

[Zalson]

No problems from me on playing/not playing. Booting with the emulator and mod is a pain -- but sometimes I'm curious. Also, reporting is a huge time sink. If I can take that responsibility, maybe that helps us both move on the same page?

If you need anything, just ask.

We killed something this turn, yes? ... Or I just don't understand how score works in CivStats.

Turn 68 and dcodea builds... a worker and a settler? He's going to have to take some warriors from Alison to secure that new city, wherever he puts it, which would make our job of taking all his shit that much easier. If we leave that new city alone until it grows, that's a settler we don't have to build. We could just leave Alison for a while and let him found some cities for us so we can save on settlers.

Certainly he doesn't think he can take back King's Landing and refound again? I hope he does; we can whip an archer or get reinforcements there before his warriors do, and he'd have to take 2 or 3 from the city to have any reasonable chance against old man Walder Frey, let alone any other units we can cram in there.

I completely agree with this plan. let's let that settler run off into the breeze, found a city, and then we'll chase it down and kill it. Let's hit no action first. We can probably just do it with one axe? Although, considering what happened last time...

Good luck.

[Krill]

Granaries save up to half of the food box. If you finished a granary at size 3 with the food box at 25/26, and made 8 surplus fpt, when you ended turn you would have 15 food in the box. The granary would save the 8 food you made that turn and you would overflow 7 food for a total of 15. They do not automatically save half the food box.

[NylesStandish]

No problems from me on playing/not playing. Booting with the emulator and mod is a pain -- but sometimes I'm curious. Also, reporting is a huge time sink. If I can take that responsibility, maybe that helps us both move on the same page?

I'd like that. Report to your heart's content, and I'll fill in any blanks.

We killed something this turn, yes? ... Or I just don't understand how score works in CivStats.

You are correct, we took a city:







No Action's granary survived and should be very easy to hold against just warriors.. The 58 gold will help power us through research for a few turns and help us catch up to the others in score somewhat.

Also, the settler is just staying put in Alison.




Plains cow pastured at Valyria, furs camped, to be roaded next turn.




Not shown: Barbarian Warrior inbound from north of Valyria. Shouldn't cause too much trouble.

[NylesStandish]

Granaries save up to half of the food box. If you finished a granary at size 3 with the food box at 25/26, and made 8 surplus fpt, when you ended turn you would have 15 food in the box. The granary would save the 8 food you made that turn and you would overflow 7 food for a total of 15. They do not automatically save half the food box.

This post confused me for a second, then I checked out CivFanatics and I get it now:

Conclusions:

Each turn, the Granary stores in its "inner storage" the same amount of food that was havested by the city as surplus, up to half the food needed to grow up a population
Example: if you have a +2 food surplus in a city in a city size 6, each turn the granary will store 2 additional food up to a maximum of 16.
When a city grows a population, all the food stored on the granary is added to the city's food bar. That food, however, is not subtracted from the granary.
Example: if you have 15 food stoted on a granary, and the city grows from 5 to 6 population, 15 food will be added to city, and granary will stay with 15 food.
Whipping population (by slavery) does not change the city's food bar, nor the granary's inner storage.
Whipping effect is not affected by the presence of a granary. The good thing about having a granary when using whip is because city grows faster that way, thus you recover faster to original population. But Granary and whip have completely independent mechanics, one does not affect or is affected by the other.
You cannot grow 2 population in a single turn, no matter how much surplus (or overflow) food you have.

Thanks Krill, it'd have taken me ages to notice this if mechanic you hadn't pointed it out.

[Zalson]

I'll try to pop in later today then. My goal will be to take a record of what we're building and where. I'll also check diplo.

Anything completing anytime soon that I should be aware of.

EDIT: Now I remember you posted the city overview....

[GermanJoey]

This post confused me for a second, then I checked out CivFanatics and I get it now:

Thanks Krill, it'd have taken me ages to notice this if mechanic you hadn't pointed it out.

Just remember that only finished granaries store food, which means that it doesn't store food the turn it completes its production!

[Zalson]

Okay, I am all ready to get into the game and report. If only dcodea would play his turn...



Oh. Nice.



Oh. Not nice.



Try 2 failed, too. Try 3 as well. Trying one more time.

Boot CIV. Reboot with mod.

This time I crossed my fingers. It worked.




Valyria: kept everything as is.



Volantis: kept everything as is.



Tyrosh: switched over to the deer so we can grow onto cow and copper. We also save all that food. Hooray.



King's landing: Creating a monument to our late king, Aegon the Conqueror.



No Action: Out of resistance next turn. I think the name should be ... Harrenhall? Dragonstone? Thoughts? I'll let you confirm.

The situation outside Alison:



I think we should move Sandor on to the sheep. Let's starve Alison to stop him from getting more ... warriors? This might be a terrible idea.

Confirmed that decode is down to 1 city, 6 warriors, 1 settler. We're really, really going to need to kill him in one turn otherwise he's going to hang around. We've got 3 axes available next turn, plus 2 spears. Maybe we see how the first axe does and -- if it's a win -- we commit? I don't like it but we do need to get lucky. Otherwise the sheer number of warriors is going to make this a pain.

Sailing is next: for easier empire management? I think writing would be more valuable (on the way to code of laws?) Maybe iron working for a jag? or some of the religious techs?

The issue, of course, is our GNP.

Need names for 2 archers, 1 axe, 1 worker, 1 spear. Assistance from the lurkers, pls?

The barb warrior retreated.

We have 4 workers without any actions and we desperately need to improve GNP/more workers. I suggest we use the worker in Valyria to cottage something -- and then chop out a worker or two next turn.

The workers near Volantis: 1 should help Aegor chop the silk. The other should move to the cow and pasture it, accompanied by a spear and an archer. Let me know if you think we should do something else.

Did I miss another worker? I was so excited to get in that I think this breathlessness is in this report. I would log back in and make all these changes and confirm my questions but I fear -- fear! -- the login process.

Relevant Graphs in spoilers. We're #1 in soldiers

What an interesting city name. Is this cheekiness given a wink and a nod?



Lurkers: what screenshots and posts would you find useful for helping you follow the game?

Nyles, I think you should continue to play until we finish the war. Please let me know if you’d like me to do otherwise this turn.

[NylesStandish]

Great that you're finally able to log in.

I like Dragonstone as a replacement name for No Action.




I moved the axe onto the hill with the spearman for protection, without having read your suggested move (played the turn first thing in the morning without having checked RB). It would have been slightly, better than what I did, although we can't really stop him from producting 1 warrior every 3 turns at least without blanketing most of his BFC.

The spear north of No Action Dragonstone was moved to the corn tile to cover the axe. The axes don't need protection in their current state, but should one of dcodea's warriors do enough damage on defense they could be vulnerable to counterattack. If I had known we wouldn't have faced any chariots I'd have sent more axes and we'd probably be done with dcodea by now.

The axe in Dragonstone is injured and needs to recuperate for a couple of turns before reentering the fray.

I chose sailing for the whales, mainly. Afterwards, probably writing. Metal Casting is an option, as well. Colossus would be killer combined with financial and we've got a decent amount of water tiles on this map.

Jaguars are crap in most situations IMO, especially with the bonuse Archers have against swords. Jags get just slightly better odds against archers than axes and are less versatile. Their big advantage is more easily getting Woodsman II units. So, we'd be able to move through wooded areas more quickly, but I'm not too crazy about them. We may yet find some use for them, and we'll need Iron Working eventually anyway, but I don't think they're good enough to move them up the queue just yet.

Sent a worker to help Aegor chop the silk, the other put a turn into chopping the fur. We want to keep the forest there long term, but there may be some emergency situation where we need those extra hammers. Next turn I think I'll move him to pasture the cows in Volantis. I think we can do with just one spear covering him. I want to keep the worker covered even though doubt Pindicator will pick a fight again over a single worker. On the off chance that he attacks while the worker is in the process of pasturing, the Archers will be more easily picked off in the open do more good by staying in the city.

Last to play again; will play soon and report.

[Zalson]

The only use I could see for Jags would be a strike on OT4E's empty frontier cities. However, the more I think about it, the more that seems a losing proposition. We don't really benefit.

So, the one thing I that I'm realizing, even looking at dcodea's land, is that we are serverly worker limited. While we have lots of great tiles to grow on, our economy stinks because we have 1 cottage -- which we can't even work. So, while our GNP is just 1/2 that of the leader, that gap will grow unless we can close it.

I think what I'm trying to say is let's find a way to double our workers in the next 5 turns. 8 isn't enough, but its better than 4. I'll see what I can do to help on that front.

The other error I think we've made is not selling out whole hog on attacking dcodea. We've only got once city building an attack unit. I'm also torn because of the value presented by the monuments we're building. Maybe we switch everything (Tyrosh/King's Landing) into axes this turn and whip next turn? Then we can get enough firepower to take out dcodea in 5 turns?

I'll see if I can figure out a way we can do that.