[SPOILERS] Smackdown Game Thread

[Ichabod]

What are our next expansion prospects? I think Rome needs some new cities soon (I'm guessing we are building wealth to fund construction asap). If we don't have the military to settle cities near our enemies, those two coastal sites NW of Tortilla Soup could be good, I think (GLh, financial coast).

RMoG got anotehr GEng, right? Any guesses? I'm guessing they go for MoM or AP.

[SevenSpirits]

What are our next expansion prospects? I think Rome needs some new cities soon (I'm guessing we are building wealth to fund construction asap). If we don't have the military to settle cities near our enemies, those two coastal sites NW of Tortilla Soup could be good, I think (GLh, financial coast).

RMoG got anotehr GEng, right? Any guesses? I'm guessing they go for MoM or AP.

I was just thinking about this.

So, I would actually prefer to found more Sumerian cities right now - here's why: The last Sumerian city we founded cost 5g in increased upkeep, immediately produced 5g from 4 trade routes and city tile, and reduced unit costs by 1 (not counting that it further reduced unit costs by 1 for losing the settler unit). So immediate net effect on our economy is +1gpt. We are running about 90% science in Rome right now, i.e. not 100%, so additional gold translates to maybe 1.3b each.

Meanwhile additional Roman cities cost more because Rome is not ORG, maybe 8gpt. The city is immediately worth 5 commerce, but it's being run as beakers, so it's worth 4g or less. So overall the Sumerian cities are worth quite a bit more to us right now: I won't say we don't want more Roman cities too, but I would like to get 2-3 more Sumerian ones while we get the next Roman one. The Sumerian cities will start being gold-positive very quickly, and the granary + ziggurat + lighthouse if needed are all half-price, so up-front investment is very small.

Yeah, it seems that RMOG got another engineer. I'm pretty fine with that - it's not an academy, and rushing wonders isn't really the greatest use of a GP if you have an IND player on your team. And we don't have marble and haven't seen it anywhere, so we are not exactly competing for MoM or GL right now. Sort of sad to see colossus still not built yet though - we could have stolen it by now if we'd known they were going to be so slow about it.

More later - I need to see if we are going to reload or not due to what I posted in the tech thread. I'll report the turn when that's resolved.

[Ichabod]

Very interesting about Sumeria-Roman city decision. I guess we only want to settle very powerful Roman cities in the next turns, then, rather than settling every "coastal-site-with-a-food-resource" (leaving those for Sumer). That being said, I think the city near RMoG (corn + sheep + bunch of lighthouse lakes) should be Rome's next one, after we have sometime to get a proper defense (1/2 praets?) + settle Sumer cities. Maybe build the Moai there? No seafood, but 5 - 3/1/3 tiles + 2 - 2/1/3 tiles is good enough, I think. And it can be used as a shipbuilder against RMoG.

[SevenSpirits]

Hey, I inadvertently broke the rules. I ended turn with Rome before playing Sumeria, and as Sumeria I did a revolt. The revolt took Sumeria to strike levels of negative gpt because of ongoing gpt trades to Rome. At this point, being in a revolution and not allowed to trade, I was unable to fix the strike. I ended turn to confirm that it would really happen.

If we could get a reload to my last login with Rome, I could fix the problem without any fuss. Reload to last Sumerian login could work too, but we would prefer the Rome one. We didn't do anything random, like combat, on this turn, so that's not at issue.

An alternate solution I am willing to carry out if you prefer not to reload would be to "disappear" the gold that I saved last turn by striking, by proposing a gpt gift from a civ that hasn't ended turn yet to one that has. (Simply, the opposite version of the abusive gpt gifts that we banned.)

Sorry for the inconvenience.

No problem, SevenSpirits. Would you prefer to reload or to make the gold "disappear"?

It would take less work to disappear the gold rather than re-playing, but by shifting the loss of gold 1t later, I think we would gain a small advantage. So I wouldn't promote that option without other teams wanting it. (I don't think the difference is significant or I wouldn't suggest it at all.)

I'm fine with either. If you finished a tech last turn obviously the 1t matters otherwise I don't think I really does much.

(Posting from my phone so not easy to check civstats as to whether you got a tech or not)

Yeah, got a tech, that's why it matters. However, the benefit of the tech for this one turn is incredibly small and probably completely irrelevant.

For the record, let me explain the situation I am talking about in the tech thread.

We got construction on Rome's turn and moved one vulture along roads over a river on Sumeria's turn, afterwards. That is the one benefit we've gotten from getting construction a turn earlier. We didn't get to start any catapults a turn earlier, because Sumeria was in anarchy anyway.

If we go with the in-game gold-disappearing solution, I won't be building catapults on Rome's next turn, just as if we were only just finishing construction this turn. I'm trying to avoid giving any spoiler information about which classical tech we got though (especially because telling other people we have powerful defensive units can be to our advantage), so I didn't mention this detail in the tech thread.

[zakalwe]

Next turn, just move the vulture to where it would have been without the bridge.

You could be giving known tech bonus to someone else though, if you want to be really technical about it.

[SevenSpirits]

t61. I have a big empire overview for you all.

The turn was marked by the anarchy/strike conundrum I talked about above. Here's a screenshot documenting the moment I realized that I had no way to proceed within the rules of the game (which were kind of my fault).


LAM's turnplayer last turn was named "Lewwyn" instead of the usual "Commodore". As you can see, they have given up retaking the city for now, or at least want us to think that they've given up. They also pillaged our fishing nets. Finally, it's time to improve the spices! This can be done next turn. Gems will hopefully be improved soon too. This respite, and the incoming happiness, are what prompted Mackoti to suggest to me to revolt to Judaism this turn.


Btw, we pillaged their fish too. Mackoti moved the galley further south to explore. I think it would be nice to have it back north now, though.


Sumeria, city by city:

OJ will be happy next turn due to improved spices. Then happy after growth due to expiring whip unhappy.


I guess we need some more improved tiles here! In general, we need to be growing back onto more commerce tiles after punishing our citizens so heavily for the war effort.


Unsure about whipping this cat. Maybe we should since this is our one sumerian city with a barracks.


Losing the fish sucks. But at least, spices next turn, and hopefully the bare fish, too. we'll build a lighthouse here, and another workboat, and improve the gems, and it will be a good city.


Planning to grow this city up on the cow/spice/lake, and add coasts until it's time to whip a settler.


The horse city. Since they retreated we may actually skip HBR for now, but we still want some chariots. And this city will have great output.

Rome, city by city:

Soon we will produce an academy for stir fry. I started more missionaries again not just for new cities, but to provide happiness in Sumerian cities.


This one still gets whipped despite being a library/cottage city, because it has limited great tiles, reasonable food surplus, and quite a few shared tiles. And we do need some whip production in Rome.


Wonderful city, very slow growth. Likely won't be whipped, ever. Since it has decent production and is nicely located, I put a barracks here and will start producing some troops on the side. Currently on wealth since it has a chop in that I want to use on a catapult, and I'm going to not build a catapult this turn to simulate not getting Construction until next turn. And because wealth is not terrible value for us right now due to it raising Rome's slider.


Really lovely city that has more food than it can reasonably use for whipping alone, so I hired some scientists to work on our third GP. Probably this one will be for a golden age.


A bit stunted as it was caught up in the LAM attack and had to spit out an archer and a galley on short notice. Plan is to produce another galley, then a library, and become a commerce city.

Some general info. Hey look, 2 cities in the top 5!

Would like to settle 3S or 4S of Stir Fry, on one of the coastal hills. On the other hand, we already have one jungle hellhole to deal with. (I mean, it's a hellhole because LAMian troops keep showing up, not because of the jungle.)


We discussed settling here:


And here - nice river city, but backline:


I'm also still interested in settling this "X?" for seafood and dyes. Anyone else? I am a bit worried about defensibility, but maybe with catapults coming in we are past that. The highlighted tile in this picture is one of three tiles where LAM could found a city despite our city on the X. The other two are 2E of the highlighted tile, and 1S of that.


Finally, I want to draw attention to the fact that our road network is coming together. You can see the selected worker roading the most direct path from the Roman northeast to the Sumerian front, and the roads around the highlighted tile are also part of this highway.

[SevenSpirits]

Next turn, just move the vulture to where it would have been without the bridge.

You could be giving known tech bonus to someone else though, if you want to be really technical about it.

Well, check out the second pic above. The vulture who crossed the river did so to land on the spice forest where he's guarding a worker. If we didn't have this option available, I would probably have moved another unit there, which would in turn have some (really minor) ripple effects. So it's not quite that simple.

You're right, we could be giving known tech bonus to someone. I think this solution is good enough though and I'm OK with that. I don't like re-playing turns, since it usually means some notes I wrote to myself in the form of signs will disappear and I'll forget about them. Not to mention the thing where it takes precious time, and slows down the game.

[Ichabod]

What will we get after Horseback Riding? Priesthood seems very profitable, to help keeping Rome at 100% research and enabling new cities. Metal Casting could give us a nice edge against LAM (I'd also really dislike if LAM gets MC before us, i'm positive they'll pester us with trirremes) and maybe try for a Colossus steal (RMoG keeps delaying it, right?).

[SevenSpirits]

I was thinking PH next, then MC, then maybe Meditation/Aesthetics for Paya before heading up Monarchy/Feudalism, or something along those lines.

Possibly with HBR slotted in there, but also possibly without it, since we have catapults and LAM may be realizing that continual unit trades in foreign territory in a multiplayer game aren't great.

[Ichabod]

I was thinking PH next, then MC, then maybe Aesthetics for Paya before heading up Monarchy/Feudalism, or something along those lines.

Possibly with HBR slotted in there, but also possibly without it, since we have catapults and LAM may be realizing that continual unit trades in foreign territory in a multiplayer game aren't great.

Agreed on delaying HR. HAs are good, but they result in big trades of hammers when used, especially since LAM would probably have spears on their stacks if they return.

Medi + PH is what, 1 turn of research? No reason not to get it. Agreed with the otehr choices as well.