Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

Turn 12:

As discussed previously, I move both warrior and slinger in said direction. The scout next to Xian shows the ! now. I do hope that the ! scout is from the south and not the western camp. Next turn, it might be clearer.

Next turn I will need to swap from craftsmanship to Foreign Affairs.

[Sullla]

Turn rolled just as I was about to head to bed so this will be short. Singaboy's instincts were correct and there was a barb camp just to the south of Roma. My warrior can start attacking it next turn. The injured barb scout is right next to Singaboy's Chinese warrior and can also be attacked and likely killed this turn. Probably the biggest news is that Emperor K (Russia) somehow picked up a second city this turn according to score tracking. Their team must have opened with military units from both players and then attacked and captured one of their nearby city states. More posting to come tomorrow.

[Sullla]

Alright, I dashed off that quick post last night in case the turn cycled around quickly to Singaboy. Instead, it hasn't gotten around to him and therefore that whole idea proved to be unnecessary. Just as well. Here's a fuller report from Turn 13:



Singaboy thought that there was a barb camp down to the south of Roma and he was correct! I'm really glad that we found this spot quickly and the Roman warrior will be able to clear the camp before it has a chance to spawn anything too nasty. That's going to take up the next few turns from my warrior, but it shouldn't be an issue with the Discipline +5 strength against barbarians bonus, and this will get my civ the boost for Military Tradition civic plus another 50 gold. The only downside is that this warrior won't be available to help out against the barbs harassing China at the moment. My northern warrior is on its way back though, and I can send that guy off to the west if needed in a few turns. My preference would be to hold that warrior up in the north and guard against the injured barb scout that we know is somewhere up there. We'll have to play this by ear depending on what the barbs do.

The other good news comes in the form of that terrain down there in the south. It's beautiful! There was another 1/3 forested plains hill tile to use for early game production and a rice tile along the coast. This is definitely where the second city should be going, as it won't require builder labor to contribute immediately as a strong producer. I'll establish the city on the plains hill tile for the 2 production center tile, then I can have it work the southern of the two wheat tiles at the capital (3/1 yield after farming), then the 2/2 jungle tile, and then the 1/3 deer resource, which should be the first tile grabbed by the city's tile picker. That would get the city up to 8 production/turn at size 3, and up to 9 production/turn with Urban Planning, excellent stuff for the early game. It will be able to produce military units, builders, a trader, even settlers as needed. Long term utility is a bit low due to the lack of hill tiles, but this is exactly what we need in the early stages of the game.



Off in the west, the injured scout moved next to Singaboy's warrior on flatground. I think that his unit will have enough damage to kill that scout, and I also think we need to take the shot at that unit, even if it delays clearing the barb camp for a bit. We definitely don't want barb scouts roaming about the landscape if we can avoid it. The scout that triggered with the ! last turn looks to have moved a tile southeast, and I'm pretty sure that it's going for the camp my warrior just uncovered. I should be able to clear that camp before it can return. Notice that there's no ! over its head right now, which is kind of weird but perhaps that only shows up for Singaboy since it was his city that was discovered. I can't imagine that there are two barb scouts over there - it has to be the same one. All in all, I'm happy with how we've been handling the barb presence. Singaboy seems to know where and how to send our units after his experience in that first PBEM game.

My capital city grows to size 3 next turn and the builder will be done in 3 turns, not 4 as the interface currently displays.



OK, so here's the bad news for this turn. Emperor K's score (Russia) jumped up by 6 points and it's clear from score tracking that he added another city. There's no way that he could have a settler done that fast, not since his city just grew to size 3 and hasn't dropped back down to size 2. This must be a very early city state capture from Emperor K and TheArchduke. I'm guessing that they both opened with units of some kind and rushed the nearest city state to make this successful early attack. I have to complement them on a job well done, even though this is bad news for our team. The Germany/Russia team is the biggest long term threat and this is exactly what we don't want them to be doing in the early game. I suspect that Germany's +7 strength bonus against city states was a major contributing factor here.

Based on our situation, I don't think we could have pulled off the same move even if we wanted to do so. Cultural Antananarivo is simply too far away to make an attack practical. Industrial Buenos Aires would be very difficult to take with warriors since it's on the coast and can't be surrounded for the sieging effect. Commercial Lisbon is up in the tundra and will serve us better by powering our Commercial districts with extra gold, not to mention it's also on the water and would be tough to surround. Anyway, there's nothing we can do about it and we can only hope it doesn't put their team too far ahead. Maybe their lack of scouting will cause them to get swarmed by barbarians - we can only hope so.

[Singaboy]

China's Turn 13:

The perceived main competition getting a city state that early is indeed bad news We need to develop a strategy how we can counter that Russian German monster in the long run. Remember their cossacks are completely OP units. Let's hope their units all heading for a city state leaves their own cities fully exposed.

If only they have to deal with 3 barb camps at the same time as we do.

Anyway, my hunch so far seems pretty accurate. I am really happy that Sulla has spotted the southern camp (remember the ! scout should be coming from there). The western scout has moved into a trap  
Let's hope that Rome's northern warrior can keep the third scout at bay too. I assume that the ! scout will move south towards its own camp now besieged by Rome. Sulla has a few turns to clear that camp before units will start to spawn. I estimate it would take the scout at least 4-5 turns to head home. Should be sufficient.



It's time to swap policies and I get to Foreign Trade. The slinger moves SW to escort the settler soon. And of course, my warrior attacks the scout. The odds look great and satisfyingly, the scout is defeated in one mere attack. Got to thank Antananarivo for their support here. Let's hope they have some unit in the fog to help attack the barbarian camp, though I doubt it.
In my test games after the fall patch, barbarian spears often attack from their camp. I do hope that both spears will make their attacks against us. This would put both warriors in a much better position to clear the camps. I do hope to clear the western camp as soon as possible to get that envoy for Lisbon and +4 gpt.



As for Rome's second city, I fully agree with its location. I am just wondering whether it can grab a 3rd ring tile when there is a disconnect in between. Does that still work?

I have been thinking about speeding up production etc in the second city to get that second builder out to finish stonehenge and some weird ideas popped up. One of them is to buy a trader, which is easily possible with Foreign Trade done in 5 turns (China is starting to make up for the late start by 60% Inspirations/Eurekas). How about purchasing a trader in the second city the moment it is founded and sending it to Xian. Xian will complete the holy site after its builder and that would give a domestic trade route +2f 1h. This in turn will spur city growth and with it, earlier tile grab and more production.  If Sulla is receptive to this idea, I might do some excel bean counting for the actual detailed benefits.

[Singaboy]

Ok, I did some bean counting and this is what would happen if I purchase a trader (T21) the turn before the second city is founded (T22)

T18: Settler in Xian done, move towards city #2 spot
T22: Settle city #2, starts builder working forest 2/2 tile (total production = 4 due to trader)
T24: Xian builder ready
T25: spices improved, T28 sugar improved
T27: city #2 grows to pop 2, working forest tile and a purchased stone hill (total production = 6)
T29: Holy Site done in Xian
T30: Assuming a cost of 60, Holy Site finished in Xian, city#2 grows to pop 2 working forest tile + stones (total production of 5)
T33: Builder from Xian (2 charges) arrives, builder in city#2 completed as well, first charge
T34/35 Builder Xian charges wonder
T35/36 second builder charges wonder => wonder done
T38: Use last builder charge to quarry stone for Masonry boost

The issue would be how to get the wonder production boost in place on T33. The pantheon will done on T33 thanks to the holy site ready on T29 adding faith per turn. Corvee is definitely in place as craftsmanship will be done on T20 via Rome's builder improvements. China can easily go for 40% in the turns after that before on T29, the holy site will finish state workforce with corvee.

Ok, this looks doable and would push stonehenge to T36.

[Sullla]

Hmmm. Purchasing a trader can be a pretty good use of gold since there are no policies that boost production of traders, and it unlocks the Currency boost plus provides extra food/production to a city. At the same time, I'm not entirely sure that it would be the best use of our money. For Rome, I'm going to want to build four slingers and upgrade them all to archers for use in capturing the Industrial city state (and then hopefully will send most of them off to China to help in capturing the Cultural city state). Four slinger to archer upgrades costs 45 * 4 = 180 gold. That will eat up a lot of our early game gold generation. For China, I'd also lean towards spending gold on simply purchasing another builder. With Monument to the Gods + Corvee policy, we it only takes 5.13 builder charges to produce a wonder - in other words, a 4 charge builder is worth about 78% of a wonder on its own. If we have Autocracy in play as well, it's 4.76 charges per wonder or one builder is 84% of a wonder. We could cash rush a trader... or for the same price, we could get almost the entirety of the Pyramids and set up even more tile improving/chopping/wonder building shenanigans for the future.

Furthermore, I'm not sure that the trader would be all that necessary. Whether we finish Stonehenge on Turn 36 or Turn 39 probably isn't going to make a huge difference. No one else is going to be building the wonder and the only competition for the first religion will be Russia. Even with the Lavra districts, it would be exceedingly difficult to generate 60 Great Prophet points that early. It would also be another thing if the planned second city for China was in a weak spot and needed the help to get going. But that's not the case either - that spot we're looking at it is quite strong on its own, with three cattle, horses, and stone to work. And in a bigger picture sense, only one of our two civs needs to get an early trader for the Currency tech boost. The other one can get it from their teammate, and with all of the wonder stuff that China's going to be doing, I think Rome might be better suited to getting the early trader and then finishing Currency to boost it for China. I was thinking on opening with a trader first out of my second Roman city, since it also has good initial tiles and won't need to open with a builder.

This is all theorycrafting for the moment, and I want to stress that a trader is a pretty good choice for an early purchase. Builders can get the 30% production bonus from Ilkum and therefore buying them is inherently less efficient from a theory perspective. But we have two things that shake up the normal math: China gets an extra charge on all builders, and we want a lot of builder charges ASAP to knock out key wonders. China absolutely must get both Stonehenge and the Pyramids to make our gameplan work in this match. I think that I value landing them more than I value the early trader. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though.

As for Rome's second city, I fully agree with its location. I am just wondering whether it can grab a 3rd ring tile when there is a disconnect in between. Does that still work?

You can't swap tiles between cities if they don't connect together culturally. I will have to spend 55 gold to grab one of the plains tiles in the middle. I think it's worthwhile in this case to get the Roman second city off to a faster start. Another thing we can discuss before making any final purchases.

[Sullla]

We already have another turn ready - that was pretty fast.



Unfortunately the barbarian spear was dug in pretty good on this tile, with the full fortify bonus (+6 strength) and the rough terrain bonus (+3 defense). My warrior only had an advantage of 1 point of strength, but with that barb scout on its way back there was no choice on what to do. I had to attack and hope for a good dice roll. Luckily that was what the game handed back, as my warrior took only 25 damage as compared to 34 for the barbarian spearman. Excellent! According to the combat table I have, my warrior could have done anywhere from 25-37 damage and taken anywhere from 23-35 damage. I rolled well on both parts of the equation. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. I'll see what the combat odds look like next turn and decide whether to attack again or stop to heal. In a worst case scenario, it looks like 2 turns attacking and 1 turn healing will get the job done. Should be enough to finish this camp before the scout makes it back.



My capital city has now grown to size 3 and reached the 9 production/turn mark. The builder is sitting at 34/50 production and will be done in 2 turns at 52/50 production. Then I'll start the settler immediately, with just enough production to get it finished in 8 more turns at 10 production/turn (after the sheep gets improved). So we're looking at the moment at a Turn 16 builder, Turn 20 Craftsmanship completion, Turn 24 settler completion, and Turn 27 for the second city being founded. That's not the fastest ever but the Roman capital is a little slow-starting, while also being a location with great long term potential.



A city state warrior moved next to the barb camp in the west this turn, and that must be the unit that injured the barbarian scout previously. What are you thinking here on how to play this Singaboy? Maybe rest this turn with your Chinese warrior and let the city state unit soften up that barb spear? We should be able to manage it so that your warrior takes the camp and scores the envoy with Lisbon.

Nothing significant in the score tracking at the moment. Pretty much everyone else is just finishing Code of Laws and starting their second civic. We have a significant lead in this regard.

[Singaboy]

I'll play my turn when I get home from work in about 5 hours. The question whether to attack is a tricky one:

Possible sequence:
1.
a: China attacks and causes damage of around 30 (odds are now even),
b: city state attacks and gets spear down to around 40 health
c: China attacks again with odds close to beating the camp alternatively, if spear has health well above 40, heal and let the city state attack again and take the spear out after that

2.
a. China heals
b. city state attacks causing around 25 damage
c. China attacks causing around 35 damage
d. city state attacks possibly taking out the camp

This is really a tough call and a lot depends on the damage caused. At the moment I tend to do an initial attack and then decide to rest a turn later depending on the spear's health remaining

[Singaboy]

Turn 14:

As written previously, the odds for the attack are even, with the spear being on a hill and fortified. I decide to attack and get the better end of the RnG. My warrior takes 32

damage but the barb spear gets hit for 34 damage, leaving it at 66 health.
I do assume that Antananarivo's warrior will attack. It will attack at 30 - 31 and hopefully cause a damage of more than 30, bringing the barb spear to less than 34 health. My attack in the next round would then depend on the previous round. I do not want to end up with the barb spear being almost eliminated by my warrior and the job finished by Antananarivo. Of course, there are other possibilities such as the spear attacking out of the camp (doubtful though).
Let's hope for a good roll of the dice during the IT.




The remainder of the turn is uneventful with the slinger lingering around to be able to cover the settler soon. I position the slinger next to the river in case the northern scout appears yet again.
Pottery will be done when Rome's builder emerges and the research for irrigation should coincide nicely with 3 builder actions. I will need to think about the next technology to research. I assume it is wise to head for masonry as I want to get the pyramids soon after stonehenge. This means mining next after irrigation.

[Sullla]

Turn 15:



First, let's start with the barb camp in the south. I hovered over the combat to show the odds and then attacked. This time I didn't get very lucky, dealing 28 damage and taking 30 damage. Blarg, that was about as unlucky a roll as my roll last turn was lucky. With a +2 strength advantage, my warrior could deal anywhere from 26-39 damage and take 22-33 damage. As you can see, I rolled low and the barb spearman rolled high. It's now about a 50/50 chance for my warrior to kill the barbarian spear next turn. Under normal circumstances, I would just stop and heal for a few turns here and then finish off the camp. The problem is that the barb scout is heading straight for this location, and it's going to arrive in between Turns 17 and 18. I would really, really like to eliminate the barb camp next turn. The good news is that even if my warrior attacks and can't take the camp next turn, he will have 15 XP to qualify for Battlecry promotion, another +7 strength bonus and 50 HP healed back from promoting. So I will likely attack, and then if I fail, heal to get out of the red and get the additional strength. Unfortunately that would also trigger the camp and barb horsemen would likely come pouring out. It's too bad that we don't have just one more turn before this barb scout would arrive. So... let's hope for some good dice luck here next turn to make all of that a moot point.



Meanwhile, the barb scout that Singaboy shot with his slinger a few turns ago has resurfaced in the north. Sinagboy has been almost eerily accurate in predicting the movement of those barb scouts - I'm not entirely sure that he's not using map hacks here. Fortunately my other warrior has been moving back into position to deal with this very threat, and should arrive in time to ward off the barb scout from reaching Roma. I'm planning to move this warrior a tile west next turn, which would let me attack any of the tiles west, northwest, or northeast of Roma. It would also establish a zone of control over those tiles that the barb scout couldn't zip through them. A warrior attack against the barb scout on flat ground will likely kill it; a warrior attack against the barb scout in the hills will redline it down to about 10 HP remaining. Singaboy, do you have time to move your slinger east across the river (again - that poor slinger!) or do you need to start escoring the settler coming out of Xian? You also might do well to hold position on the current tile and be able to attack any of the tiles east of the river, which are also likely places for that barb scout to move. I defer to your judgment on where to position that slinger this turn.



Now this is annoying. The city state warrior did not attack the barb spear, and I think that means waiting and healing this turn is the only realistic choice. We need that city state unit to either move away or attack, not sit there doing nothing on the hill. Stupid Antananarivo!

I finish a builder and Pottery tech next turn. Singaboy also finishes Pottery next turn - it's a kiln convention over here. Rome's next tech path is Irrigation (with the boost about to kick in from the builder) to send the boost over to China followed by Mining. I would love to get three barbarian kills to go on to Bronze Working after that, but we'll see what happens. I will also be working on taking Archery to half completion in the near future so that it can be completed when we're ready to do slinger into archer upgrades in 20-25 turns. Civics progress is a beeline for Political Philosophy ASAP, with Singaboy knocking out the State Workforce boost and Rome about to produce the Craftsmanship boost for the two of us.

Nothing major in terms of score tracking. Woden and TheArchduke still have not finished Code of Laws yet and I'm not sure what's going on there. Perhaps they both moved for a couple of turns at the outset of the game. We both are getting close to having 3 civics done once the Craftsmanship boost hits, so we're opening up a significant lead in that area thanks to the Roman unique ability and the Cultural city state envoy for Singaboy.