[SPOILERS] Yossarian blames Caledorn

[Old Harry]

Is the dogpile cal's fault?

[YossarianLives]

Sounds good, Dogpiles it is. I've also been meaning to use Traffic Jams for awhile, so that will be next.

Question for Plako and / or lurkers about turn order. Do I need to keep playing after Rome? If not, what turn order would I take if / when war breaks out. More details about my question below the fold.

I have two short windows to play, about 15 minutes in the morning before I go to work, and about an hour in the evening after I get home. It would be more convenient for me to play in the evening, but I've been playing mostly in the morning to make sure Rome gets a chance to play before me. This is because my two allies have been playing every turn after Rome, so I'm trying to line up with them. But since we haven't been at war, can I go ahead and just play whenever works better for me, as long as I'm not doing anything that would get me an advantage in an actual war (like double-moving troops to their border or something).

And if I start playing regularly before Rome, then what happens if the defensive pact is triggered? I play before Rome on turn X-1, then Rome DOWs Dinos. On turn X, can I DOW before Rome plays, or do I need to allow them to double-move me, so I can DOW after they play and line myself back up with my allies?

[plako]

I've not very good view on your situation with Rome. In general I would suggest using common sense concerning turn order. No need to take extreme measures with teams you're not at war or not planning to declare next turn.

[Krill]

My advice would be to try to play in the evening, after Rome; you need to get double moved whilst at peace because otherwise you are going to have a bitch of a turn split. (FWIW, defensive pacts really fuck up turn orders).

[YossarianLives]

The turn normally flips in the middle of the day for me, so the evenings are near the start of the turn. Rome usually waits until the middle of the night my time to play, so that means that I have to play in the morning to stay behind them.

This turn, there were only three hours left on the clock, Rome hadn't played, and I was leaving the house. So I had to play in front of them. The turn flipped while I was gone and I'd really like to go ahead and play the next turn now, or else I'll need to play tomorrow morning before work again.

What would be ideal for me is to get the first part of the turn timer, meaning it would be me, then Rome, then my allies EggHeads and Dinos. I can almost always play within the first 6-8 hours of the new turn. But I think that might give my alliance an advantage since we'd be playing both before and after Rome. So then my second most convenient timing would be to keep playing before Rome for now, let them DOW Dinos after I play on whichever turn they finally decide to do so, then let them peacefully double-move me the next turn before I DOW them and enter the second half of the timer with my allies. What is least convenient is continuing to try to squeeze my turns in after Rome plays like I have been doing. Part of the problem is that Rome usually plays with only 5-6 hours left on the clock. The few times that they play themselves in the first 6 hours are great for me, because then I can play after them during my preferred time.

Edit: I guess another thing I could try to do is convince my allies to just stick to the first half of the timer. Both teams log in and out a half dozen times each turn, so it should be simple enough for them to maintain the first half of the timer split. I think they just want to keep the second half for strategic purposes.

[YossarianLives]

Turn 113



Someone got a Great Spy. I'm thinking probably Asterix from TGW. We completed Mono and revolted to Organize Religion.



This is what Rome has in Arretium. It counters our stack of spears and axes pretty well, I'm starting to think maybe it wasn't such a smart idea to flash that at them after all. Then again, we've added a few axes to our stack, and can now start sprinkling in chariots, so hopefully we can still raze the city.



Reloads' settler was whipped, and we'll found the fur city on T115. We should be able to grow and whip the terrace on T121, meaning we'll get fur in our borders T126. Server Problems will whip the missionary next turn, overflow into a temple, then keep on building missionaries to spread the faith.



I forgot to rename Cuzco to Dogpiles. I'll have to do that next turn. I think it grows next turn and we'll whip in the terrace.



City maintenance has been pretty killer, but I think we're doing ok with our GNP right now. Here's the graph:



Suttree's GNP shows why he's the real threat for now. Same with the food graph:



Suttree does say that he has run out of room to expand, so hopefully that starts to level off soon. We have at least five solid cities we can still settle between us and Rome, and then a few filler cities, before we need to start looking west at BowAivo.



Demos still look decent.

[YossarianLives]

Just a quick update tonight.




As you can see, lots of wealth builds everywhere. We're currently losing 8GPT at 30% slider, with CoL due in 5 turns. We'll have to decrease to 20% slider in a couple turns, so I hope that we can finish CoL in 6 turns total. I want to spread Christianity everywhere as quickly as possible, starting with Bad Econ next turn.




I'm trying to figure out a good eastern dotmap. What do you guys think about that? The better sites are further east, but I think I need to start with the cities closest to our core until we find out what Rome is doing and whether we can realistically take them out. In my ideal world, we raze Arretium, EggHeads raze Antium, and Dinos take everything in between for a secure border over here by T140. If that does not happen, we might need to reconsider what a safe border over here will actually look like.

Also, Dinos asked if they could settle N-NW of the marble. Stupidly thinking they meant N-NE, I told them it was fine. I just realized my mistake and emailed them correcting myself and saying their site invalidates our fish site, so we'll see what happens.

Edit: These pictures are from the current turn, T115, btw

Edit 2: With the settling of Traffic Jams this turn, we are now in a 3-way tie with EggHeads and Care Bears for most cities

[Old Harry]

City 1 is still pretty crappy, I'd settle cities 2 and 3 before it. 3 is probably best on the copper, in which case you could shuffle 5 around a bit.

Your ideal world sounds nice. What do you think will really happen?

[YossarianLives]

City 1 is still pretty crappy, I'd settle cities 2 and 3 before it. 3 is probably best on the copper, in which case you could shuffle 5 around a bit.

Thanks for the feedback. I chatted with Cal and he also agreed that City 1 is crap and should be discarded. Here's his dotmap:



We're thinking City 3 would probably be next, but both of us kind of leaned towards settling on the river so it still can share the corn but picks up the plains cow. What're your thoughts about the pros of settling on the copper?

Your ideal world sounds nice. What do you think will really happen?

Well a lot depends on Rome and our allies, tbh. I've never played with any of them so I really have no idea what to expect. Rome has some 30 praets to Dino's 20 axes & 10 cats. Rome has absolutely no economy and are basically out of this game, but they can probably raze a Dino city or two. If Dinos crumble then we will need to keep an eye on this border the rest of the game. But if Dino's can turn around and make them pay for it, while Eggheads and we snipe off backline cities, then maybe we can cripple Rome to the extent that Dinos can move in and attack Rome's core. Maybe the most likely outcome is that neither Rome nor Dinos win decisively, and we'll have to go back to Rome later with a big tech advantage. Praets have a pretty long window of effectiveness, though.

[Old Harry]

I liked 3 and 2 where they were because they pick up all the useful tiles in the area pretty neatly. And wine isn't a bad tile to work, but I can see why 3 would be good where you pointed out too. I don't have a killer argument for keeping it on the copper.

I'd strongly advise against moving 5 off the hill though. Did you know your neighbour has Praets?