Aye; I see it now; I think it really was just that it was too late at night and I wasn't reading clearly. Thanks for reposting it for me!
On balance, I think if we want to plant that sheep/silver city on the marked tile, you're right that we need to plant a city on the hill as well. Also we would have to plant both cities soon, get at least one spear into each, and tech Mysticism at least by the turn before the hill city grows. The entire front will be heavily militarized (on both sides) until the end of the game or until someone breaks through, but this would be true anyway. The map really gives us no good options down there. (Welllll ... no good peaceful options at least, and GJ is likely to defend Seven Mysteries soon and adequately.) More detailed thoguhts later....
- A thoguht is probably a rare form of cybernetic spectral manifestation, and much more interesting than my thoughts about city placement, so a typo in my previous post may have led to terrible disappointment. My apologies for raising expectations like that!
- GJ didn't (necessarily) plant any more aggressively toward us than we did toward dtay. If the spacings between our capitals are the same (not guaranteed) then a plant on Sentry Hill would be one tile further from our cap than Seven Mysteries is from his. But the truth is .... that doesn't really matter. This is an MP game of Civ. "Fair" is defined as "what a given player can get away with." GJ isn't going to be counting tiles and saying, "Oh my gosh that city is one tile closer to the center line than mine! TILLLLLLLLLLLTTTT!!!!!1!!" He's going to be saying, "Argh, the stole that copper from Seven Mysteries and planted three tiles away - and my front city's on flatland! I'd better use the terrain and my civ's strengths to overcome or overturn that!" So the question is, will it cost us too much to make him lean toward "overcome" by making the hill city too prickly to attack?
- It's on a hill, as you note. +25% defense for our non-mounted units in the city. This only matters if we have enough non-mounted units in the city to hold it though.
- If GJ whipped a monument or barracks this turn, he'll control tiles (e.g. the copper) in the city's first ring for a significant amount of time after we plant it.
- Seven Mysteries appears to have no road connection going anywhere. That will change in time, but right now it looks pretty exposed.
- As mentioned before, there's an all-hills approach to our potential hill city from the south, which will allow GJ to move a stack of slow-movers up to the city in relative safety.
- GermanJoey will have continuous vision on our city center, including the garrison there, from tiles in his first ring. We would have the same on Seven Mysteries if the border holds long enough, but only after the forest north of Seven Mysteries is chopped (by him). He might decide to do this soon though just because otherwise we'd have a hills+forest route to his city for our slow-movers, while his city is on flat ground. Note all of this also applies to a city 1E of the corn once each of the cities gets its first border pop.
- As mentioned previously, we'll need Myst if we want borders to pop in that hill city any time soon. Even if we do tech Myst by the turn before our city grows to size 2, GJ will have a head start on culture - a big one if he just whipped a barracks or monument in Seven Mysteries on T46. This also means...
- If we want to plant the sheep/silver city and the hill city, and don't want GJ to be able to fork them from inside his territory, we may need to plant both of them soon. Note that even then he'll be able to move a stack of fast-movers onto that tile on the first turn of the war, playing after us so any whips we do won't have a chance to complete before his first attack, giving us just one turn to hit his stack and/or defend both cities with just the units we already have in the area.
- In particular, by the time we plant the sheep/silver city, we'll probably need at least a spear in each of the two cities, to protect us from an alpha strike with a small number of chariots. As the game progresses, we'll need more - as will he. It will be a heavily militarized border unless and until someone breaks through.
- The sheep/silver city is on flatland, but is also less accessible to GJ than the hill city when/if we control the tile 2N of Seven Mysteries. We'll at least have a turn of warning for any attack on sheep city (until he gets Engineering) - but his fast-movers will be able to alpha-strike the hill city out of the fog from the moment we plant it if he roads NW of Seven Mysteries.
- If GJ pursues an early religion and lands it in Seven Mysteries (the most likely place even if he settles another city between now and then) that city will control its entire BFC - including the copper in our potential hill city's first ring - until the capture of the city or the end of the game, whichever comes first. It'll also control its whole third ring until several turns after the hill city pops borders, and will probably never lose control of third-ring tiles that are second-ring for our city. It will also have very good cultural defenses, nearly making up for the flatland plant. I don't think any religions have been founded yet, but it's probably worth checking the event log so we'll know what's still available.
- The main thing is: Although we don't strictly need to plant a city on that hill, we absolutely need to prevent GJ from planting a city there. And the main problem is that because of the lay of the land, there aren't a lot of good options for doing so (soon) except for planting there ourselves. (That ... or hoping GJ plants his next two or three cities to his south, where he (maybe) has no food within at least four tiles of his capital apart from something like our lonely sheep, but (maybe) has to come up with a decent border toward his own southern neighbor. Not at all the sort of thing we can count on in any case....)
Finally Ventessel played his turn. I managed to play before Joey this turn, so that he doesn`t have to move his worker away from the silver. I can certainly understand why he built Seven Mysteries where he did! Btw, he now has a size SEVEN city.
Our silver mine is done, and Toregene is founded. It made wonders for our tech rate, though sadly the third city doesn`t have a trade route yet (I hoped it would). Our workers completed the horse pasture, they could make a road in order to connect the horses next turn. Toregene started on a warrior. We could switch to a barracks, as we`re going to need the vision from culture as well as the XP of course. That grass forest to the east is very annoying for us as a barb could spawn there any moment. Even Borte`s expanded borders won`t give us vision on that tile. Toregene revealed some jungle horses, as well as at least another tile down SE.
Okay, the scouting warrior should give us more information next turn. I agree that our first priority is to make 100 % sure that Joey doesn`t get that forward hill plant. If it means us planting a bit more defensively, then so be it. We were planning to build that city E of the river anyway. The point about us planting on that hill with corn in its first ring militarizing the border is a very good one I think. I hope our SW is a peninsula, so that Joey doesn`t have access to the area from two sides.
So, I logged in to the game in order to find out whether any religions have been founded yet. Hinduism was the first to fall, a few turns ago. Also, Joey is in slavery, not a big surprise.
Thinking about our tech path, I feel that sailing is a good candidate for our next tech. It gives us the option of harvesting those whales. Another luxury is very welcome, of course. We also get the possibility of making lighthouses and allows trading on water. How about going for masonry or writing after that? Maybe we can just ignore the lower part of the tech tree for now.
- Toregene's warrior will upgrade to a spear in the queue on the interturn after we road the furs. (It will also get a trade route for the first time the following turn.) This isn't bat at all - just be aware that what looks like a warrior there is actually a spear.
- Note our border city (or cities) with GJ will be militarized no matter where we place it/them unless we create a wide DMZ, e.g. by planting terrible-in-the-short-term cities 2E of the corn and 2E of the sheep.
- The site of city 4 should probably affect worker actions as soon as next turn (although exactly one of the three workers around Borte should move to the furs no matter what, I think).
Oh ... and our southwest definitely isn't a peninsula - the water 2W of our Warrior down there is clearly a one-tile lake - but it's possible that there's a peak or two to block off the southern route to it the way a couple of peaks block off (our) southern route to dtay's southwest.
And if I'm reading the city correctly, GJ still doesn't have a source of culture in Seven Mysteries: I think he whipped a Protective Granary.
You`re right about our SW not being a peninsula. It looks like it opens up a bit down there. Next turn we`ll see if there are more seafood to be found nearby. I think it will be! Joey whipped his capital this turn. Oh, and we got his graphs this turn. I took a few screenshots of his graphs. If you want them all I can log back in and grab the rest.
It was no fun to whip away the silver mine in Muqa, but getting that work boat out quickly is very important. And we`ll work that silver next turn anyway.
And then it`s our workers. I moved one worker to the furs, the second is connecting the horses and the third I moved 2N of Borte. It`s very well placed there, as it can build a road towards our corn+pigs site to our NW. It could also chop the forest or even help with a flood plains cottage when pottery is done. Also, I agree that we need to build an axe in Borte. It should probably accompany our settler to the NW.
The GNP graph would be interesting and it would be valuable to see Power. Also, could we get another look at the map on the dtay front? I feel like we swapped over to obsessing about GermanJoey and have been largely sleeping on dtay. (We can wait to go back to obsessing about Krill until after we get Sailing though!)
An axe would kind of be wasted in the NW, I think. Once we plant that city, there won't be many places left for barbs to spawn, and even if they do, they're barbs, which means they're slow and dumb and never take the second half of a turn split (so our production always happens before they move or attack.) I won't feel secure about Muqa until we get a sentry out or an axe into the city - and preferably both. No, it doesn't look like dtay's coming after us (at least right away) but when we do build an axe, we should find a way to get it closer to our front lines.
(June 15th, 2017, 05:22)RefSteel Wrote: The GNP graph would be interesting and it would be valuable to see Power. Also, could we get another look at the map on the dtay front? I feel like we swapped over to obsessing about GermanJoey and have been largely sleeping on dtay. (We can wait to go back to obsessing about Krill until after we get Sailing though!)
An axe would kind of be wasted in the NW, I think. Once we plant that city, there won't be many places left for barbs to spawn, and even if they do, they're barbs, which means they're slow and dumb and never take the second half of a turn split (so our production always happens before they move or attack.) I won't feel secure about Muqa until we get a sentry out or an axe into the city - and preferably both. No, it doesn't look like dtay's coming after us (at least right away) but when we do build an axe, we should find a way to get it closer to our front lines.
As requested, here are the relevant screenshots. We should still keep an eye on dtay, as he has those nasty agg impis running around.
I normally play on higher difficulty levels than monarch, where barbarians are more of a hindrance than here. Okay, let`s move the axe towards Muqa to prevent any potential catastrophe there. But we need another unit to accompany the settler. Should we move the scouting warrior back a bit in order to act as a barbarian spawn buster or military police unit?
On dtay's region: Great heavens, he got another forest growth nearby! No sign of anything else peculiar (like a missing forest) though.
On the graphs: Nothing terribly threatening yet, though dtay might have gotten an Impi a few turns ago. Interpretting the rest will take time. (Not to be done at 4AM!)
On the axe: Actually, getting it up to Muqa isn't that urgent, because Muqa will produce an axe of its own by the time the one from Borte would arrive. I think it does make sense to bring the SW scouting warrior back toward home once we feel we have a good enough scouting report on that region (since it sounds like our next city is going NW?) but in the meantime the warrior from Borte can move out next turn once the silver is connected, with Borte's axe then due in two turns.
Oh - a small trick I forgot to mention: Muqa should have 1h still invested in a spear right now. In the unlikely event it ends up mattering, we can add one more turn to the time before that hammer decays away by putting it right behind the Work Boat in the build queue (so ahead of the axe) this turn - even though we'll still swap to the axe next turn when the Workboat is actually complete. This is obviously not a big deal though, and unlikely to matter at all really.
