[SPOILERS!] Pericles of Babylon. Kyan, Twinkletoes, Whosit.

[Kyan]

For those of you that dislike translating into English ,I'm sorry for the length of this email...1200+ words was more than I expected to write, but I think it was necessary to explain why I think MT is our best bet right now.

This brings me on to a central theme of this email: What is it that we as a group want, and as individuals, how can we get what we each need from this group.

As a group, we need space to expand into. Some of us, England, Babylon and Myself, have plenty. Others in Carthage and Mali need to start looking at expanding via warfare sooner than that. maya has at least enough space to double in size. Babylon, Maya and myself have to deal with Byz though, and in fact I have 4 neighbours that I need to be prepared to fight off. So how do we reconcile that difference in needs?

First of all, what do we each have in common? We all need to continue to research, some of us to funding and others to do the teching. This isn't going to change even if we are in war, it might even be more important to tech to the next era of units (like we are discussing now). We need each of MT, Rifling and Steel, what we are discussing is the order in which to get them, so it is fair to say that we shouldn't decrease our tech rate until we have them all.

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I know alot of you won't understand the relevance, but this is exactly the mistake that Kaz made in the MTDG. They built a massive army of maces ,upgraded and slaved, threw away a tech lead,and when they lost the attack, they opened the game up to SANCTA. The lesson from that game is simple: do not throw away a tech lead for an attack that isn't needed. We can't use Nationhood until we have established each economy so that it doesn't rely on one Bureaucracy powered academy city. I am perhaps the only one that would benefit from Nationhood due to Spi.

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So, if we go for Rifling, and we cripple our collective tech, what do we get? We get a 110 hammer, 1 move unit that has 25% against mounted units that we can get for 1 pop, but it costs 3 unhapppiness, so really quite limited amounts of drafting are possible if we are going to grow our cities and work those cottages to keep on teching. So we'll have a choice between letting Cuddle catch up in tech, or not drafting lots of rifles, instead building them along with everything else.

However, the MT option gives us this: An early and quick Taj/MoM combo for Mali to go beat the crap out of Inca and still fund/research, and a 100 hammer fastmover that flanks cats, trebs and cannon. Maya and Babylon, you just got a unit that is equal to Byzs' UU. England and Carthage, you just got a unit that will let you have odds on any knight force, and let you expand into Ottomans, and into Frances' land without riskiness because one stack can defend either side of your empires.

Do we need Rifling asap? I don't think we do. I think we want it as fast as we can reasonably get it after MT though, because that brings up the holy mother of god best unit in this era: the Cav. 120 hammers. Nothing gets odds on it until rifles (which I've already demonstrated will cripple CUDDLES tech to draft), it flanks everything until Arty, and has a 60% withdraw chance with F2. This is the unit that we want to be fielding, this is the uni that lets us take what we want, forking CUDDLE cities on the attack and covering as much ground as possible in our over-expanded empires.

The third option is that we aim for a Libbed Steel, which is doable if Maya wanted to bulb Chem, but Cannons aren't that useful for this reason:

They cost 100 hammers,and collateral astack, but the invaders cats are still there. The defender needs both the cannon to cripple the stack, and the units to finishit off. And as cannons are one movers, you need multiple stacks all over the place, and that is not cheap. We are still going to be building the 90 hammer knights, but on top of that we need to build 100 hammer cannons. it is actually better that we get cannons than rifles if you just consider the units, but Rifling is better because of Cavs. Cannons do let us attack though, as CUDDLE can't flank them away, nor can they collateral your stack while cannons defend...welcome back to the SP way of waging warfare. Problem is that C2 knights techincally have odds to survive, and Cataphracts generally win against Cannons, so Cannons are only really useful for Mali and Carthage if they were to push asap, and the rest of us were to sit back.

That is whyI prefer that we go for MT now and then research straight to Rifling afterwards (even using what little we can save up each turn to push Mali that little bit closer to finishing RP).

Now, what are Cuddle doing? What are they researching? They are getting Theo from Portugal, but that will be finished in the next few turns, and leaves open one very scary possibility for their 3 researchers in HRE, Portugal and Ottomans.

HRE: Gunpowder
Portugal: Theo then Nationalism
Ottomans: Education (this fits with their GNP imo)

What is the purpose of this? It gives them drafted muskets, units cheap enough to overwhelm us in numbers if they want to stack attack, or units powerful enough to just leave in a city to clean up against knights after one of us invades. They cat the knight stack (plus the junk underneath it) and flank with their knights, clean up with Muskets and other cheap junk. Meanwhile they then tech MT and get cuirs so that they can flank away cannons if we invade with those (using F2 cuirs).

So here is the plan again, tweaked:

Maya: Drama then Nationalism, overflow gold to Carthage
Carthage: Save gold, then Lib, save overflow
Babylon: Education, then Banking, overflow gold to Carthage
Mali: Constant funder to Babylon,
England: constant funder to Maya
Egypt: Constant funder to Maya

Once Banking is in, change to this:

Maya: Nationalism then Gunpowder, overflow gold to Carthage
Carthage: Lib, as fast as possible (won't be 100%, but doesn't have to be, 700 beakers less than Nat and has to take 1 turn longer)
Babylon: Funder to Mali
Mali: PP
England: constant funder to Maya
Egypt: Constant funder to Maya


Krill

This is most likely how PAT will be going forward.

So, we can skip uni's for now.

We need to GROW as priority one. Whilst also needing 1 more settler and a ton more workers

Fun fun fun!

[Whosit]

Whosit: i want you and the lurkers want you.

Don't suppose you fancy jumping on board as a fulltime player (rather than just advisor) with equal say?

I'll continue to handle diplo and can turn play, that's not a problem, but i'd appreciate your assitance in a big way.

I'm sure the lurkers would support such a move also

Well, if you continue to handle diplo (doing a fine job so far as I can tell--we're not being dogpiled yet ) and play the turns, even if I become a "fulltime player," I wouldn't be doing much different, yes? Anyway, I am aware that I could be doing a bit more to help out. It's been a busy week, but I think I've been relishing my time away from Pitboss a bit too much.

However, I will make an effort to log in more now, and take some pictures, too (which we are lacking). I think for this game my best position is "domestic adviser." You have diplomacy well in hand (more updates would be nice as best you can do it).

I also realize that you have a lot on your plate, too, but if we can find a way to communicate more consistently, that would also be helpful. I know that you read my suggestions, but I don't feel like we've done a good job of communicating lately. As far as I'm concerned, you've got a better grasp of the big picture, so having an idea of our mid- and long-term goals may help me with suggestions. Or not. Who knows.

Anyway, why is you say we don't need Universities? We certainly want them, and we get them cheap! I know that we basically have so much to build and so little time (especially with all the tech trading! ), but I will maintain until the day we die that we need to get as much infrastructure of our own up and running. Sooner or later, we will have to carry our own weight.

Still want Courthouses, too. Keep the peasants in order.

[Kyan]

Well, if you continue to handle diplo (doing a fine job so far as I can tell--we're not being dogpiled yet ) and play the turns, even if I become a "fulltime player," I wouldn't be doing much different, yes? Anyway, I am aware that I could be doing a bit more to help out. It's been a busy week, but I think I've been relishing my time away from Pitboss a bit too much.

However, I will make an effort to log in more now, and take some pictures, too (which we are lacking). I think for this game my best position is "domestic adviser." You have diplomacy well in hand (more updates would be nice as best you can do it).

I also realize that you have a lot on your plate, too, but if we can find a way to communicate more consistently, that would also be helpful. I know that you read my suggestions, but I don't feel like we've done a good job of communicating lately. As far as I'm concerned, you've got a better grasp of the big picture, so having an idea of our mid- and long-term goals may help me with suggestions. Or not. Who knows.

Anyway, why is you say we don't need Universities? We certainly want them, and we get them cheap! I know that we basically have so much to build and so little time (especially with all the tech trading! ), but I will maintain until the day we die that we need to get as much infrastructure of our own up and running. Sooner or later, we will have to carry our own weight.

Still want Courthouses, too. Keep the peasants in order.

Ha i definitely take them on board. Basically, i'm making a promise to keep you in the loop a lot more and let's communicate properly.

Micro management is NOT my forté. I am awful at it.

Diplo wise- we're totally safe as it stands. India are about to send a huge stack to get smashed to smithereens on Egypt. We need to get our economy up to speed. Ruth needs to grow and become a powerhouse.

Next city is probly gonna have to be the sugar, horses site. It's very weak but it's the only way we can get horses and we need them desperately. Pat has guilds now so we want to be able to build knights.

[Whosit]

OK. I'll log in before I go to bed to take a look around.

Bear in mind, that I have a minor case of sleep deprivation, so please look over anything I say to check for .

And I'll also try to do a better job of explaining my suggestions so that maybe you can learn something about micro. Though I still think it's funny that I'm the guy you're learnin' from.

[Whosit]

*I hope that you like text*

OK. I know we've had a lot on our plate, but when I realize that, 115 turns into the game, and our second city still lacks key improvements, my heart dies a little.

You told me that getting our economy into shape is the current objective. OK.

Our costs:

Unit costs: 11
City Maintenance: 28 (18 distance, 10 number)
Civic Upkeep: 20
Inflation: 4 (7%). Gotta love inflation.

Total: 63

Other options for Religious civics: Organized Religion (possibly useful, but higher maintenance), and Pascifism. Probably don't need that.

Genesis: About to finish Taoist Monastery. Yay science boosters, in all shape and form. I'm putting in an executive order for a MARKET next. Yes, Market. And are we giving Marble to someone? So we are . . . .

Anyway, the Market is worth . . . 3 gold. Hmm. Well, we have to start somewhere. Bank would be better when we get access to it.

Exodus: It wouldn't hurt to give the city a Library, except that it would. Just keep mixing Macemen in with LBs. Once it grows to size 7, and the grass mine is done, work that and the still unmined forest plain hills and get a Courthouse here. Yes, Courthouse. It'll save us about 2.25 gold.

Leviticus: Hrm, whipping calcs. Forge makes it a bit trickier than usual. 3 pop now = 112, and 2 = 75. So to get max overflow, we would want to whip the city in 6 turns, on Turn 121.

See, the courthouse costs 120 hammers. We've got 10 invested, so the 3-pop whip could whip it out now. But we'd barely get any overflow (10 + 112 = 122). When does it reach the 2-pop threshold? 120- 75 = 45. We're making 5 hammers per turn, so the closest we can get is 40 hammers invested. Why care about overflow? Mainly because this city has precious few other sources of hammers than whip overflow at the moment.

The courthouse will eventually save us 2.5 gold.

Oh, I see you're chopping a forest . . . Hmm. Forest + math + forge = 37 hammers. It will finish on T117, putting 20 + 37 into Courthouse = 57. Under 2-pop range, and not ideal. I would suggest canceling the chop for now, building that road I want, and chopping the forest AFTER the whip into a Market. Actually, I'm cancelling the chop myself.

Also, that is not the forest we should be chopping, I think. I'd rather chop the forests to the east, by the river, because we can put cottages there (our border with Byzantium is safe, right?). I might want to save that plains forest for a Lumbermill to augment the city's meager hammers.

Numbers: Damn, such a sorry town. Gives us Gold, which is good, but otherwise, pretyt piss poor. Needs Workers, bad. We have 8 workers for 7 towns. On the surface, not bad, but we are spread out, and CORE CITIES ARE STILL UNIMPROVED!

Perhaps Genesis should push out a Worker after the Monastery, instead, and wait on Banking? That might be best. Each city needs to have a Worker nearby, with 2 for the newest ones. We probably need to train 3-4 more Workers RIGHT AWAY.

Anyway, Number's Forge can be whipped on T120 for 3-pop for max Overflow. 55 hammers will be invested. That means 65 hammers left, so 90 hammers input, with 25 left over (and boosted by the Forge!).

I put a sign up. Do not ignore it.

Joshua: Why, why, why are both of our workers building that road to Ruth? Or, rather, why is one doing so? We have a trade connection! Yes, yes, this is coming from me, the road master. Still, Joshua is HORRIBLY underdeveloped. Wait, that's TWO Workers doing the road. Arghh. I am making signs and cancelling worker orders for now. If one can finish the road in one go next turn, then do so, I guess?

Quick note: Went back to Leviticus. Hired two scientists instead of working the cottages. Gets us a Great Scientist in 11 turns (rather than 17 from Numbers). Takes 1 more turn to grow, lose 1 more gold per turn, but science rate is same. I think that this is a good idea. We NEED to keep leveraging our Philo trait. Honestly, we should probably stop whipping Leviticus after the Courthouse.

Ruth: May eventually want to farm over the cottages, but until basic infrastructure is in, not really necessary.

Judges: Ah, Judges. At least you are building the Farm. Your signs are wrong, though. Farm the northwest flood plain, not cottage. That should be job #2. Get food going first and fast.

I seem to have made an error, though. I thought the city had 3 plains hills in range, but only 2. Anyway, the grasslands will get Farmed, too, eventually. I want this to be another hammer dump. Too bad it's on the same side of the empire as Genesis.

I'm seeing a surprisingly few number of good production towns within range. By the way, what of the land between us and Mali? There's a nice pig/corn spot that's still unclaimed. It could work some cottages and run a couple of specialists. Can you bargain for rights to the spot? I marked it with a sign.

Special Note: I'm sending Wyrmsbane on a special mission. I want to scout the land to the north of Leviticus and Therum (byz). Want to see what that river holds and if it's been settled. We might have to make a hammer town out of watermills and workshops, but we need a lot of extra food for that.

Hope you could make sense of all this. I know it's long, but please read it carefully, since I have little instructions and suggestions hidden all over.

Whosit's Domestic Report: While we're not awful, we're hardly self-sufficient. It's going to take a lot of work to get there, but we suffer from overall poor production, making it harder to build key infrastructure. Our defenses are mediocre at best (eastern border far too lightly defended!!) and our cities are under-improved. If anyone launched a serious attack against us, we would be hard-pressed to defend ourselves, even our core. We need a ton of infrastructure, improvements, military, workers, everything.

I would also urge caution with plans to expand further. There's not a ton of stellar spots nearby, and we already have a couple of new unimproved towns, so building more right now might be more than our economy is prepared to absorb. There are some halfway decent places, but they are near Mali or Byzantium. Can we reasonably expect to settle closer to either without provoking war?

Babylon: 2/5 stars. We can do better.

[Whosit]

Diplo wise- we're totally safe as it stands. India are about to send a huge stack to get smashed to smithereens on Egypt. We need to get our economy up to speed. Ruth needs to grow and become a powerhouse.

So, we don't like India? I'll probably need another handy list saying who is our friend, who is neutral, and who wants us dead. What's our relation with SSS? We're kind close to them now, and I recall that they didn't like us very much in the not-too-distant past.

Horse site, yeah, guess we need it. But I also really, really want to find a spot for a production town on our east border. If we have to fight Byzantium, I'd like to be able to produce troops at the front, not the other side of the empire. We need a better Garrison in Leviticus. LBs + Macemen/Pikemen.

[Whosit]

Ahh, quadruple posting (but only 'cuz you're so slow ). Just want to add another homework assignment: A threat assessment of all rival civilizations. That is, how likely they are to attack us, and your perception of how dangerous their military is.

I realized that I need to do a better job of prioritizing what we need to get done. Granted, Exodus will probably be doing little else than military for a long time, but I want to know how much leeway we have to be putting up things like Courthouses, Universities, Markets, and especially Workers.

Another note on cost control: Since our slider is still relatively high (but it looks like it's going to go down unless our funding improves), Courthouses are best since they cut actual costs. Markets and other gold multipliers can let us inch the slider higher the more we build, but they'll never let us get to 100%. We would have had to found a religion and build a Shrine to have a shot at that.

However, since my #1 goal is self-sufficiency, we need to have this basic infrastructure in place. Granted, beaker multipliers are more powerful when the slider is above 50%, and as long as we remain funded, they get priority. Next are Courthouses for reasons mentioned above. However, someday we are going to lose our funders, either through betrayal or them getting killed. So gold multipliers are a third-tier but no less important piece of infrastructure to start building.

Once we learn Banking, Banks are the multiplier building to construct. We have no Market resources to multiply, and we're OK for health with our resources and UB, so Banks with their +50% multipliers are more efficient to build, if costly. Again, most of our cities are either hammer poor or practically hammer-less. And we're starting to move into the era where whip-economics loses some of its luster. 3- and 4-pop whips are doable, but only a couple of our cities have the food to grow back quickly enough from such carnage.

Personally, a switch to Caste System and Pacifism could make sense once we can start running 4+ specialists in our cities, although that will make our unit costs sky-rocket, so perhaps not. Still, a consideration.

I'm under the impression that we are not going to try for any wars of conquest, but we still have to be ready to defend ourselves. Correct me if I'm wrong there. Anyway, just some more thoughts. I think that we can become pretty competitive if we can stop being so backwards. Again, Exodus, second city, still missing major improvements. Less than ideal. I would serious consider tearing down the [strike]cottages[/strike] towns in that city to build either farms or workshops or watermills or something that could eventually bring us more hammers. Once other cottage towns get going, that is.

[Kyan]

So, we don't like India? I'll probably need another handy list saying who is our friend, who is neutral, and who wants us dead. What's our relation with SSS? We're kind close to them now, and I recall that they didn't like us very much in the not-too-distant past.

Horse site, yeah, guess we need it. But I also really, really want to find a spot for a production town on our east border. If we have to fight Byzantium, I'd like to be able to produce troops at the front, not the other side of the empire. We need a better Garrison in Leviticus. LBs + Macemen/Pikemen.

It's not so much we don't like India, it's more that... Nah, i just don't really like India. They are on opposite sides to us and i'm kinda happy for it to stay that way.

INCA:

5/10. We have a 5 turn rolling NAP with them. They have expanded super fast and are paper thin militarily. Mali will likely attack them in the not so distant future. I think they generally trust us.

MAYA:

10/10. I trust them totally and the reverse is true. Unless of course they are fantastic bluffers. Gonna have to just take my word here but these guys will back us up totally if we get into bother. We will do the same for them. Fact. currently sending them marble for their Heroic Epic.
[COLOR="Lime"]
OTTOMANS:[/COLOR]

? / 10. We only met them recently and exchanged greetings. Nothing more. I'll probably send them an email shortly just to make conversation and keep things friendly. They built hanging gardens ages ago. Playing a very good game and are keeping up in score thru their huge land.

HRE:

? / 10. We only met them recently and have never spoken! Unlikely to ever be allies so haven't put the effort in. This games up an insane amount of time with diplo as is.

MALI:

9/10. Our first contact. They will back us to the hilt. Swiss has admitted that we've saved their civ by getting them into appropriate trading groups. Will soon be building MoM and Taj Mahal. Already has pyramids.

CARTHAGE:

7/10. Our allies in PAT. We chat occasionaly. They are very loyal to Krill. Have VERY nice land (blows ours out of the water).

BYZ:

8/10. Byz are an enigma. They were our allies from the start, but they chose to not join PAT and rather join the larger bloc of 'cuddle'. They are aiming to kill Krill then England and various other PAT members before disbanding cuddle and forming a new group of: them, us, maya and india. Main problem there is that if only me and Maya are left of PAT- the others will never disband and start again and they'll be forced to turn on us.

Krill is desperate for us and Maya, together with him, to wipe them out. Economically, they are VERY backwards. Lowest production and food in the game. I've been keeping Krill at bay but i'm probably going to have to choose sides eventually.

INDIA:

3/10. Just got their 8th city. Expanding like mad whilst pretending to be a funder to cuddle. Abusing, superbly, their alliance structure. they currently have an enormous army that they were planning to throw at Krill. Now we have Engineering, im unsure if they'll continue. May gift them to Byz for upgrading but this would be super expensive. We have a 10turn rolling NAP.

EGYPT:

7/10. I find Krill easy to work with. Blunt and honest. I like him and i think we'll work well together going forward. Unpopular amongst other players. His civ is actually not that far developed but being helped out with tech. They are a funder for PAT currently abusing the shrine. He's totally ready and aware of the incoming attack and will easily fend it off. Built oracle and got alphabet putting this whole bloc thing into motion. (which i then quickly shattered and formed them again to my liking )

ENGLAND:

8/10. I like Cyneheard. england and Mali are keen on a triangle with us 3 to last towards the end. IF/when PAT breaks, expect krill/carthage on one side and the rest of us on the other, then likely promptly turning on England. That's obviously massively long term, when it's only us lot left. Yeah, i'm optimistic. Built the great wall and will likely build spiral minaret.

AZTEC:

4 /10. I get on well enough with Ruff outside of this game, but in this game, he has never bothered to reply to any of my diplo. He's a total non-factor here tho with only 4 cities. He has buddhism shrine tho and funds cuddle.

PORTUGAL:

6/10. We've had good relations so far and they helped us get into the hydra initially. Not sure i trust them at all, but friendly enough. Mukha is a nice guy if nothing else.

ROME:

6.5/10. I like sandover and tried to get them into PAT. Unfortunately, they chose cuddle and we've barely spoken since. He conceded Ruth's location to us and has assured us he has no deigns on our land. We have a 10 turn rolling NAP with him.


Yellow = PAT
Lime = CUDDLE

[Kyan]

I'll do a detailed response to your other post after volunteering but i think you're being a wee bit harsh

Please bear in mind that cities have plenty of under-developed tiles, but they all (cept 1 i believe) are working all improved tiles. I'm trying to keep them all up to date as much as possible.

[Whosit]

I'll do a detailed response to your other post after volunteering but i think you're being a wee bit harsh

Maybe, but it's not my job to be nice. It's my job to rip us to shreds and make (hopefully) competent suggestions for improvement. At least, that's my usual approach to self-improvement. Of course, I will concede that our land is mediocre in general, and much of what surrounds is the same. Tons of corn, but none of it has irrigation. Sad. A lot of it is far away, too. But, basically my issue with improvements is that I want our old cities all sorted out so our Workers can mob the new cities, have everything ready long before the cities can grow into them, so they can then go mob even newer cities.

Anyway, thanks for the diplomatic update. It sounds like we can be reasonably secure in our borders for the moment. Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow I'll take another look at things and try to hash out some new city locations (I saw you marked a few, but didn't look at them in detail). The desert to the south kinda sucks since there are still a few nice tiles we haven't grabbed, but anything else will be half good-OK and half worthless. North is kinda sparse. Lots of trees, but few hills, I think, but didn't take a close look.