[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Coeurva]

...dtay is on a turn-split with Yuri right now, isn't he.

I think we can use our scout boat to contact him right after Gavagai. We might want to build a few swords in the south even sooner than expected.

[Coeurva]

I'm the worst at guessing turn-splits from CivStats, but I'd like to have a few swords in reserve nonetheless, just in case dtay does attack; I'll keep that in mind.

T95


Westward Ho! 2-whips the library next turn and regrows to size3; reclaimed horses to reach exactly 23h here. We have two workers in the area who will move onto the jungled hill on T97, to finish the mine on T101; Rhapsody builds another settler (4t) and grows. There might be an alternative that uses four workers instead, which would work well with growing Lifeblood and Sicil asap, but might cost us some earlier worker labour on the islands.

Looking at Sicil and Whitehall, I find forges especially attractive now (even more for the happiness than the modifier), but Savant still being the presumable Rival Best in soldiers at 174,000 (us: 176,000) makes me consider HBR or Maths -> Construction first. Could just be that he fears Gavagai... Still a difficult choice.

I've tried a compromise on our galley move: I loaded a chariot from Styx onto it, as well as the worker that had pre-chopped the horses (we will prefer clams for the size2 tile at Styx, so no worker needed on that island right now). Moved 77 and unloaded them inside X10, then headed 11 (iirc) with the galley. Covered the worker with the archer and left chariot inside X10; should have been the other way around. We've revealed that the tile 1 of gold is a jungled hill. Could scout more with the galley next turn, but I think we need to turn it back now, or the settler will stand idle for too long.

I think that the GGen 4-move galley was among the best ideas we've had so far; I feel that it's worth far more than two 2-move galleys.

Managed to grab vision on Savant's rice city I mentioned last turn. It's not actually on the mainland, but rather an island city (his X8), named "Mist", defended by a shock spear, and supported by one worker. Across the sea, the Khatunate is using two uncovered workers to improve their gold -- I guess they don't fear Savant's galleys. Near Sorpigal, our Sentry chariot has spotted a single chariot 4 of the city, but couldn't look into the city itself. It has also revealed desert flat marble (what a worthless tile yield, but maybe Savant wants this marble? settling priority has risen) 9 of the dry wheat.

Yuri keeps not adding any soldiers, and has planted his sixth city somewhere. I still want to attack him by T140 (+- 10t). The problem is to force Savant to hold still.

In the end, I've withheld sending a map trade offer to Krill. We can always come back to him if Gavagai blows us off, or if his map plain blows (i.e. reveals nothing about Savant).


CY was ranked #4 before Joey whipped off 2 pop on his turn. I don't think the top MFG is anyone we've met. Savant and JR4 are close to us in Crop Yield, sometimes behind and sometimes ahead. We have ~14% of the world's pop, same as JR4.

Filling out our territory with cities will be interesting; we could plant X13 almost anywhere, but planning should start about now. Top candidates are Jungled Epic, Marbles Denied, and the actual marble plant in the Vacant Sea.

EDIT: Also we should have gone IW -> Myst.

[Bacchus]

I also think we should start building swords anyway, if only to leave us spare capacity and thus flexibility closer to the actual conquest of Russia. Construction opens the Colloseum and second promotion in barracked cities, so I would say get that first. HBR is more of a defense tech, so we can get it closer to the invasion. We don't actually need to build C1+2promo horse archers for Savant to get the point. Hopefully.

Longer term, what do you think about pursuing a minor action around Sorpigal? With a couple of stables and Feudalism we can get C4/C3-Medic HAs that can upgrade into Knights, which at that point will be basically uncounterable. We can also build FlankingII numids even before feudalism, which we can bring some to soften-up top defenders (also great for XP earning). Sorpigal is not really easily reinforceable, and if Savant stuffs it full of military we can proceed straight to the capital instead. We could swap into Feudalism at the beginning of a GA with Numids prebuilt, build/whip about 9-12 of them in the course of the GA and then swap out to Bureau. If this succeeds, we will have Savant as a thorn in our side forever, but we'll knock him out of the bay, and will basically open the path to winning (combined with the absorption of Yuri and settling spree that we are pursuing right now).

[Bacchus]

You know what, I think we should build the filler north of Lifeblood and build Moai there. It has four lighthouseable lakes! It also has two forests to chop. And after just a couple of forts it can actually output naval units into the Vacant bay. For now it can just take Lifeblood's food to grow, whip a lighthouse and sit pretty on these lake tiles. And we might as well do this ASAP, as the city will have high commerce and will be almost immediately profitable.

[Coeurva]

I also think we should start building swords anyway, if only to leave us spare capacity and thus flexibility closer to the actual conquest of Russia. Construction opens the Colloseum and second promotion in barracked cities, so I would say get that first. HBR is more of a defense tech, so we can get it closer to the invasion.

Colosseums at double speed, even, which actually makes them worthwhile as happiness providers. Immensely whippable. If we can just connect gold and gems fast, we might even be able to delay Metal Casting for the next 3pop (meaning we go IW->Maths->Const->Cal->MC from here).

We don't actually need to build C1+2promo horse archers for Savant to get the point. Hopefully.

Small adjustment: We'll need to build just one and stuff him into e.g. Whitehall very demonstrably to make our point. Hopefully.

Longer term, what do you think about pursuing a minor action around Sorpigal? With a couple of stables and Feudalism we can get C4/C3-Medic HAs that can upgrade into Knights, which at that point will be basically uncounterable. We can also build FlankingII numids even before feudalism, which we can bring some to soften-up top defenders (also great for XP earning).

If we can keep up the GNP/MFG advantage and Savant becomes more of a target, teching everything up to Guilds and buying horcher upgrades sounds like a great plan. I'd have to guess about which promotions are best for knights in MP, so I'll rely on your ideas here. Or read dtay's threads.

Sorpigal is not really easily reinforceable, and if Savant stuffs it full of military we can proceed straight to the capital instead.

Here I have a different idea: in that case, we should march onto Harmondale, which might actually be tenable and is under risk of naval assault, so we can rattle our sabers there anyway. I want a spy inside Sorpigal before we take actions here.

We could swap into Feudalism at the beginning of a GA with Numids prebuilt, build/whip about 9-12 of them in the course of the GA and then swap out to Bureau. If this succeeds, we will have Savant as a thorn in our side forever, but we'll knock him out of the bay, and will basically open the path to winning (combined with the absorption of Yuri and settling spree that we are pursuing right now).

If we attack Savant, we must be basically sure to take all cities south of Castle Ironfist and that Gavagai is somewhat-ready (but perhaps not too ready) to attack him -- just capturing Sorpigal is not enough. On the other hand, if we can get 30-40 knights before he has anything to really hit them with, I think we should attack before our advantage would expire.

Considering that we currently surpass him in research rate, but nothing else, I'd rather attack Savant in the longer term. I have the vaguely-inspired but nonetheless firm feeling that the timing of any war with Savant will indeed decide whether we'll open or close the door on our victory.

You know what, I think we should build the filler north of Lifeblood and build Moai there. It has four lighthouseable lakes! It also has two forests to chop. And after just a couple of forts it can actually output naval units into the Vacant bay. For now it can just take Lifeblood's food to grow, whip a lighthouse and sit pretty on these lake tiles. And we might as well do this ASAP, as the city will have high commerce and will be almost immediately profitable.

That's a good idea for a city, just I don't think it should be the very next build, if that's what you meant; but I can definitely see it as X13. X11 brings in new seafood, which trumps growing onto lake tiles and overlap; same goes for X12 (gold). But this city -- in tandem with cottage filler, perhaps -- could indeed become very useful as the interlude to the next settler push (southern marble, Nat'l Epic, both wheats; Nat'l Epic can work silver, so maybe grab that before cottage filler).

I'd like to use the available 30h chop on a lighthouse as the first build at that city, followed by a granary. Need to keep that in mind, but we want Maths anyway.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, I meant filler as X13. Is there food around gold? On this map there is kinda food everywhere, but still rather not found blind.

[Coeurva]

We shall see.

The gold city is actually worthwhile even if it has zero food, just because of what +1 happy (+2 with forge) does to the rest of our empire, even if other cities will have to provide its garrison due to bad local production (includes food). We can use the galley to scout for food immediately before settlement. It pays for itself on every turn of even 50% science (thanks, Currency).

[Bacchus]

Why do you think our war against Savant should be so far-ranging as to guarantee taking everything up to the capital? Taking a single city is nice because you can plan the attack to your heart's content, and Sorpigal is especially conveniently located. So we can achieve this with a fairly small force. Achieving as much as you strive for will require a much, much larger force, and far more costly campaigning. It will also leave Gavagai with more chances for expansion. Basically once we have our super-knights, Savant will be unable to conduct offensive operations on land until at least Steel/Rifling, which we would probably get to first anyway, especially with Sorpigal. The Stygian Sea is a somewhat trickier proposition if Mongolia weren't around -- they will surely jump at the overseas Ethiopian holdings as soon as they have the chance. And that's another reason why I don't want to hit Savant too hard, nor take away Harmondale as a major naval production centre.

[Bacchus]

The city named Mist is actually founded on Stone, looks like these are not always on desert and around weak tiles. Mist also has workers mining a flat plains tile for what must be iron. I look forward to seeing where ours is at.

We are #1 GNP even if we switch off Wealth, and Savant has continuing severe GNP problems, he is tied with Yuri of all people. Castle Ironfist still has no Library.

[Coeurva]

Nice catch on Mist. The tile yield of that plains is 120 which should have tipped me off in the first place. That's a lot of iron, I agree that IW will do good for our MFG as well, and we can look forward to it.

T96 short report: Decided on the T100 gems mine worker plan. It takes three workers and some idle movement (and we lost one turn on a road on that hill, because I'm bad and forgot about the tile 3 of Rhapsody counting as a river crossing), but if we whip the galley at Ignis, we don't need to finish the second mine right now anyway. The worker currently under production at Rhapsody will cottage west of the city nonsense, he'll be the fourth guy mining on T100 to finish the thing in 1t (river connects resource afterwards).

Left a bunch of signs so I can just go through the motions on the next turn, avoiding such nonsense. Scout boat has a decision to make, east towards Savant in hope of finding some more city sites (we can see two more borders, and he has just founded his tenth city), or turn west again to avoid cul-de-sacs on the way to Gavagai?

The Khatunate has teched Currency (sudden gpt spike) and is now ripping us off with OB, somehow (-3 Import/Export), but I don't care that much about the latter. Their island front with Savant is even wider than I'd expected.

About the Sorpigal attack and why I'd rather conduct a larger if costlier offensive: if it's hard to defend for Savant, it will also be hard to defend for us. We might have superior unit quality at that point, but if you include Sicil, he will have a front of five cities to strike at, dividing our forces further. He also builds more units than anyone else, and our border in the south will become similarly wide if we actually devour Yuri's cities. I want Savant to be weakened so that he can't retribute because of Gavagai's threat, but stay strong enough to turtle up against both of us. All that said, if you think we're going to succeed, I'll try to follow through.