RBP3 [Spoilers] Capac of Mali

[Swiss Pauli]

After we capture or raze KB, you mean?

I think we want to keep KB, seeing as it's close our 'natural' border and very defensible because it's shielded by the river. The plan would be:

T0 - Declare war. Army 2N of KB.
T1 - Curries take KB. Workers road 2N of KB, allowing 1 movers to garrison city.

What do you think about also switching to Nationalism, getting a round or two of drafted muskets right at the end of the golden age, and then switching back to Bureaucracy?

I think drafted Muskets are too weak to justify turns in Nationalism. We're in Slavery, so we can whip a couple of Muskets (from Babylon Bridge, for example), and train some at Sirian. Gunpowder is due in 2-3t.

That's an ETA of about T157 for Cuddle to get Rifling. What is our ETA?

Probably a couple of turns ahead of Cuddle: T153-T155. With Maya looking to be a lock for the Economics GM next term, PAT will have plenty of cash to tech through RP, Rifling & Chemsitry.

Can we see if some of our neighbors could send us a few Cuirassiers each to help our attack?

I've asked Babylon to attack Rome should the latter DoW us. No chance of getting units from anyone else, given the border tensions/wars in the north.

We are almost out of room to expand into, which is one of the reasons we're gearing up for war, but I think there's room for one more city in the northwest. What do you think of founding a city NW of the Peak District, on the spices tile? It would pick up the corn, some grassland, and a bunch of desert/peak tiles, but it's another half-decent city for us and I don't think the positioning will bother our allies much.

I think that's an OK spot for a city, and we should settle it when we can spare some workers.

Since we're gearing up for an attack, I'd like to try to figure out what kind of military force Inca has. Based on their position on the power graph relative to ours, I estimate their military rating at around 190K. Does anyone have a link to the iPower values for all the techs, units, and buildings? I don't really want to go fishing around in the XML files for this.

I have the link at home, so I'll post it up later. Babylon is giving us some intel, and we can zoom in to see buildings in revealed cities. Carthage updated that Cuddle will get Nationalism in 2t, so we can expect to face drafted Muskets (but possibly not before we take Kalin's Burgers). Another factor will be the amount of financial support Cuddle gives Inca: our gifting of large amounts of cash to Carthage & Egypt helped them hold their lines, but it remains to be seen whether Cuddle values Inca as much as we value Egypt & Carthage.

[dsplaisted]

I've asked Babylon to attack Rome should the latter DoW us. No chance of getting units from anyone else, given the border tensions/wars in the north.

Are Babylon and Maya sending units north to help there? I really have no idea what's going on there. It looks like we'll have around 15 Cuirassiers to attack with (assuming we upgrade all our Knights), so if we could get 2 Cuirassiers each from a few other civs that would be a significant boost to our forces, and might make a decisive difference.

Babylon is giving us some intel, and we can zoom in to see buildings in revealed cities.

Right now we have visibility on 4 of Inca's 8 cities. Do you know if Babylon is sending a scout through Inca's land to reveal the rest? They have open borders.

we can expect to face drafted Muskets (but possibly not before we take Kalin's Burgers)

They're in Bureaucracy now, and I doubt they'll revolt to Nationalism to draft Muskets unless they expect our attack. They've been eager to stay out of conflict with us the past two times we declared war on them, so I'm not sure what they expect.

I was thinking some more about what civics we want to use. Is it really worth switching to Free Religion? If we're not going to be researching any time soon, the 10% research bonus doesn't get us anything, and so adopting a state religion would give the same happy bonus in general, and we'd be able to use Organized Religion or Theocracy. OrgRel would be nice especially for wonder building in Uberfish, and Theocracy would be great for 5XP catapults.

I'm also not really sure about Police State. We'd lose the happy bonus from REP, and signal to everyone that we're going into war mode. Still, the production boost is quite nice so my misgivings are probably irrational.

Also, if we're not going to be researching, we shouldn't use the Great Scientist we get for an Academy in Sirian, until we start researching again at least.

[Swiss Pauli]

Are Babylon and Maya sending units north to help there? I really have no idea what's going on there. It looks like we'll have around 15 Cuirassiers to attack with (assuming we upgrade all our Knights), so if we could get 2 Cuirassiers each from a few other civs that would be a significant boost to our forces, and might make a decisive difference.

Egypt, England & Carthage are tied up with India & Ottomans. Babylon power is pretty poor, and Maya is on full-bore research & infra mode. I'll ask them whether they can spare any units for us.

Right now we have visibility on 4 of Inca's 8 cities. Do you know if Babylon is sending a scout through Inca's land to reveal the rest? They have open borders.

Babylon has an axe wandering around; last sighted SE of Kiwi Town.

They're in Bureaucracy now, and I doubt they'll revolt to Nationalism to draft Muskets unless they expect our attack. They've been eager to stay out of conflict with us the past two times we declared war on them, so I'm not sure what they expect.

Yeah, I expect them to adopt Nationalism only once we're at war.

I was thinking some more about what civics we want to use. Is it really worth switching to Free Religion? If we're not going to be researching any time soon, the 10% research bonus doesn't get us anything, and so adopting a state religion would give the same happy bonus in general, and we'd be able to use Organized Religion or Theocracy. OrgRel would be nice especially for wonder building in Uberfish, and Theocracy would be great for 5XP catapults.

I was thinking of FR as better-than-NSR until we have a superior option. We're waiting for missionaries from Egypt, so we need to decide where to spread Hinduism (depending on warmongering v building). I think we'll be researching again pretty much when we get our GS* (Sci Meth or Steel) as Carthage should complete Chemistry in around 10-12 turns.

I'm also not really sure about Police State. We'd lose the happy bonus from REP, and signal to everyone that we're going into war mode. Still, the production boost is quite nice so my misgivings are probably irrational.

I'n not so sure either, but it's an option.

Also, if we're not going to be researching, we shouldn't use the Great Scientist we get for an Academy in Sirian, until we start researching again at least.

*One thing we need to do is to hire an engineer in Sticky Fingers in order to shave a turn off Great Person: both it and Uberfish are due in 10t, and as Uberfish has more GPP it will win the tie. We can fire the engineer once Sticky Fingers has the edge, and we just have to accept the pollution.

[dsplaisted]

I think drafted Muskets are too weak to justify turns in Nationalism. We're in Slavery, so we can whip a couple of Muskets (from Babylon Bridge, for example), and train some at Sirian.

I think drafted Muskets only seem weak because of how awesome drafted Rifles are. But I think drafted Muskets are still good and we need to get them. A musket is 80 hammers, or a little over 2 population with a Forge-boosted whip. So drafting a musket for 1 population is much cheaper. Plus, drafting uses a separate anger cooldown than whipping, so we can overlap drafts and whips, and drafting doesn't require 2 turns of production like whipping does.

I think our production (and whipping, if any) needs to be focused on Knights and Catapults. But we need more non-mounted units to attack with and to garrison our conquests. I'd like to get around 9 drafted Muskets: One from Uberfish, 2 from Sticky Fingers, 1 from Blake, 2 from Paint it Brown, 2 from Ruby Tuesday, and 1 from Steel Wheels. That's 720 hammers worth of units, and the opportunity cost of missing out on Bureaucracy for 5 turns is only 60 total hammers in our capital, and 180 gold (we miss 46 gpt from the BUR bonus, but gain back 10 gpt due to reduced civic costs). This seems well worth it.

What do you think? I'm not hugely experienced in multiplayer Civ, but it seems like our forces in 10 turns if we don't do any drafting (about 15 Cuirassiers, 8 Catapults, 3 Maces and 2 Pikes) won't be enough to do more than take Kalin's Burgers if Inca does a decent amount of whipping/drafting.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd like to get around 9 drafted Muskets: One from Uberfish, 2 from Sticky Fingers, 1 from Blake, 2 from Paint it Brown, 2 from Ruby Tuesday, and 1 from Steel Wheels.

That's 3 per draft, and that seems quite a high price, especially for a city as far from the frontlines as Sticky Fingers (which also lacks a barracks, as do Paint It Brown and Uberfish). Blake also needs to get to size 6 to draft.

[dsplaisted]

T133 Espionage

I figured I should start up an Espionage department to prepare for our attack on Inca.

Our Power Rating: 318K
Espionage Ratio vs Inca: 120/111

Production Sabotage / Investigate City costs / Production
JANK Food: 1317 / 611 / 158 hammers
Kiwi Town: n/a / 611 / n/a
Kalin's Burgers: 193 / 567 / 25 hammers
Texas Grill: 255 / 668 / 25 hammers

City Improvements:
JANK Food: Palace, Terrace, Library, Market
Kiwi Town: Terrace, Courthouse
Kalin's Burgers: Terrace, Library
Texas Grill: Terrace, Library, Courthouse

I could well be missing some buildings, so let me know if you see anything I missed.

EDIT: City sizes:
JANK Food: 7
Kiwi Town: 7
Kalin's Burgers: 8
Texas Grill: 6

[Swiss Pauli]

Carthage have confirmed that Gunpowder will only be available on T137, which is rather disappointing.

Inca has moved a longbow out of Kiwi Town towards the FP city, so our plan to get them to split forces is working

Rome has a sentry HA that can see the chariot I was hiding from Inca

[dsplaisted]

Can you talk to / email Krill about whether he thinks we need to do a bunch of drafting for our attack on Inca? He may be a bit biased, but he's got far more experience in Civ MP than either of us do.

[Swiss Pauli]

Yeah, I'll try to dial Krill up about our strategic situation. I'm beginning to wonder whether it's worth attacking at all (but maybe that's due to Gunpowder being several turns later than planned because of Maya going for Economics and Carthage being a slower researcher). Our alternative would be to settle our FP city, artist bomb, pick up Inca's city from a flip, and deal with any consequences from Rome & Inca on defence. We could also settle the Spices under this plan.

I think the happy situation also has an impact on the value of drafting, so I think we could draft as follows (assuming 5 turns in Nationhood):

Sirian - 1 Musket
Steel Wheels - 2 Muskets
Ruby Tuesday - 2 Muskets
Paint It Brown - 1 Musket

[Swiss Pauli]

Bugger:



A knight has been sent north. Hoping the HA will attack Wild rather than pillage, then the Knight can kill the HA.

Looking at Babylon Bridge's growth rate, we can probably draft here as well (though Wild's likely demise leaves us needing a garrison unit). Full report later.