[SPOILERS] Joao "can't think of a fancy thread name" of Persia. yuris125 & Commodore

[Commodore]

Yep, counting tiles I see nine turns until they arive if he absolutely beelines the capital. Erm. Although you really want to kill him a bit further out. Does he have our graphs? If not then a trap might be springable. Bad news is that axes mean copper means spears, so immortalizing him, if we do so, needs to be like lightning.

[Commodore]

-Which, upon further reflection, is still pretty bloody vital. If we settle the stone/sheep site and then pump nothing but immortals, how quickly could we show up at Youobviouslyshall Pass with, say, eleven immortals? We'd need those kinds of numbers at least. Meiz spoken to anyone else in the diplo thread? A coded message or two to his other neighbor(s) might be nice.

[yuris125]

Our Scout will track Meiz's movements, assuming he doesn't die to a damn Lion this turn Settler for the stone/sheep spot will be done in 2 turns, and I really don't want to delay it. Here's to hoping Meiz doesn't go in our direction for just a little while longer...

Meiz said in the diplo thread that he met Slowcheetah (before us), Elkad, Lewwyn, Pindicator and Moogle, in that order. Not sure how to send a coded message though, especially since Slowcheetah doesn't seem to be aggressive, and Lewwyn is probably farther away

11 Immortals are a long way away. Immortals are 30 hammers = 1 pop whip, whipping without Granaries and without overflow isn't going to be effective; even if we start chopping Immortals, 3 Workers aren't going to be enough help. Really, not having whip overflow is going to be the main problem. I will try to come up with a plan, but the gut feeling is it can't be done faster than in 20 turns

I don't see an Immortal rush working here. I think we should get 3-4 Immortals for defence, then settle the dotmap, tech towards Construction, and attack with Cats/Axes/Immortals

[yuris125]

Here's why I don't think an Immortal rush would work



Visby will be getting 7hpt at size 3 (working corn, sheep and PH mine), 10hpt at size 4 (adding GL mine). 10hpt build in Immortal in 3 turns, 3 Immortals in 9 turns. We can whip twice at size 5->3, building 2 more - that's 5, then we will have 2 whip unhappiness and will have to stay at size 3 for a while

Slite will be getting 5hpt at size 2 (working wheat and horses), 7 hpt at size 3 (adding plains forest). Probably this means 2 Immortals in 10 turns. With +4 food at size 2 and +3 food at size 3, we won't be able to whip more than 1 Immortal in 10 turns. So 3 extra Immortals, 8 total

It will take 3 turns to finish the pasture on horses, and 3 turns to finish the PH mine. If we then move the mining Worker to road the tile between horses and the capital, we will have the resource connected in 6 turns from now

The 3rd city will not be connected to the trade network, so will not be able to contribute

All in all, we can have 8 Immortals in 16 turns, by T57. Maybe more if we chop some forests into them, but putting those forests into Immortals will give only 20 hammers, instead of 25 into a Worker or 30 into a Settler. If we absolutely need to do it, we can, but it's wasteful. If we go for chops, 2 Workers can chop 4 forests in 8 turns (4 turns per chop, accounting for the turn it takes to move onto the forest) - that's 80 hammers or 2 extra Immortals

All in all, if we concentrate on it, whip and chop relentlessly, and find some hammers I didn't account for, we can get 10 Immortals to Youshallnot Pass by T60 (19 turns from now). I don't think we will be able to get enough benefits from such a rush. It's too late, Meiz is too far away. His capital will get to +40% cultural defence on T50, so capturing it will be much more difficult. And even if we get his cities, maintenance will kill us

[yuris125]

As a side note, I'm starting to think we should settle Magenta dot before sheep/stone. Sheep/stone doesn't have enough good tiles until we hit Masonry. We're finishing Wheel in 2 turns, Pottery will take another 7, Masonry another 5 or 6. We will build another Settler by that time. Magenta will be a good production city, which is what we lack at the moment

[yuris125]

I can't decide between sheep/stone and the Magenta dot. Magenta seems to be slightly better short-term

Commodore, what do you think? Settler is done, will be ready to move out next turn

Magenta
* Can be founded 1t earlier
* Easier to connect to the route network (tile 1N of the sheep will be roaded to connect the horse, just 1 extra road required)
* Farther from Meiz -> safer

Sheep/stone
* Better long-term spot
* Will provide stone after Masonry

[Commodore]

How soon is Masonry?

[yuris125]

The game shows 8 turns for Pottery and the same for Masonry. With pre-req bonus and overflow factored it, I would estimate 12 turns

[Commodore]

Hum. Magenta dot, kill axe, the Klintehamn rapidly after then.

[yuris125]

OK!

By the way, we got research visibility on Meiz, he's finishing Fishing this turn