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

[Coeurva]

Ah, I forgot that research/gold modifiers don't apply to building wealth/research. Basic mistake.

I think we can build (and work) at least three more cottages by ~T70. One of them would sit 6 of Lifeblood, though -- technically inside a war zone, at risk of pillaging. The other two would arise from partial improvements around the capital; only one worker will be needed at Ignis for a while, the other can commit to Rhapsody. Ignis is probably not a useful city to cottage in the first place -- frontline, riverless, designed to work specialists.

90%-ish chances of not losing Vermin won't suffice against a player who thinks he'd be no worse off by failing the attack; Vermin is too important as a hub of unit production, to ease the strain on Lifeblood, which doesn't want to whip off cottage pop and lacks natural production. I don't know if CML is that desperate yet, most likely not; but he could reach that point down the line.

I'll stick to defensive operations in the south, though, to preserve our units. I think we should still look for opportunities to attack if he founds a city towards us again, but not get hell-bent on taking it if his defenses look strong enough.

I'm also growing wary of Dark Savant possibly devising attacks on our northwestern cities in the future. Whitehall's second ring will completely cut off the Bay of Harmondale, and since I'm somewhat unwilling to sign open borders with Savant, that could become a point of contention. His threat would also force us to garrison cities not named Ignis, splitting our defenders.

I still wonder what Savant is planning with his apparent turn-split against us and a million log-ins per turn.

I've just noticed that CML has played, report to follow shortly.

[Bacchus]

90%-ish chances of not losing Vermin won't suffice against a player who thinks he'd be no worse off by failing the attack;

I meant 90-ish chances given that he attacks whatever the odds. 10% risk we can carry I can think.

[Coeurva]

T65. Report without pictures, sorry... If you want to see anything in screenshots next turn, just ask.

CML whipped something at his capital. It's size4 now. HIs units are still moving in against ours, with no visible reinforcements. We've dropped to #4 in soldiers; CML should be slightly ahead of us right now. Yeah, he really seems to be whipping axes non-stop, although I'm assuming his capital whip was a settler.

We have horses (everyone has, 66 of capital), but we can't connect them by T67. So we'll just have to hit CML with lots of axes on that turn, one C1, one C1 + Shock. I've whipped Lifeblood for an axetra axe, because I'm not taking any chances that his mini-stack escapes this alive or in any condition to threaten our cities/improvements. Placed our workers to execute the plan; depending on where he moves, he might not even see it coming (last-minute roading).

Savant doesn't have capital horses connected yet. We lack vision on CML's horse tile, and he might have them elsewhere (we have a second horse resource on the western coarse... I mean coast; excellent filler location for when Sicil can afford sharing its corn), but there seems to be no telltale AH increase on his graphs yet.

The tile 4 of Cincinnati's ruins appears to be roaded; I'm expecting him to resettle any turn now. Or he's building a long chariot highway.

Demographics: Tied for #1 in CY (67), #3 in MFG (26, best 30, worst 4 (!)) and #7 in GNP (27, best 40, avg. 32, worst 19).

EDIT: I'd really prefer a 0% chance to lose Vermin under any circumstances, because losing Vermin synonymously means losing Lifeblood and would force Rhapsody into military builds.

[Coeurva]

T66

CML's fifth axe has appeared from the fog, on the sheep tile, along with a worker roading... seems he wants to build a highway through neutral lands. Despite the axe whip in Lifeblood, we're still ranked #4 in soldiers (best 73,000; us 67,000; avg. 60,250; worst 46,000). I suppose CML must have whipped another axe last turn, not a settler. That sure is something. Come T69, we'll have chariots against this carpet of axes.

CY #3, MFG #5, GNP #8. The barracks double-whip has made our demos suffer a bit, but it'll pay back, as total war with CML seems inevitable down the road. Sicil will whip another worker, because we need more of them.

Savant finished Sailing this turn, seeing as we can suddenly trade with him. He has horses at some invisible city, and no other resource of interest to us, nor do we have anything to offer him (cow-for-cow trades would be pointless and only make us look weak). I'll keep Ari around to watch for galleys leaving Harmondale.

A city on the south-eastern sugar hill can pick up second-ring clams in addition to what we could already see.

[Bacchus]

Unfortunately settling sugar hill doesn't give the extra food, but it's very nice mined.

I always think that 0% chances are overkill, long-standing point of contention in production management -- you are more on the Crosby side of things, zero defects! Appropriate for a German, but never play Twilight Struggle.

[Coeurva]

Ordnung muß sein.

I'm not usually a representative zero-percenter and like the slightly broken things and rhymes. In this case I'm swayed by the time commitment: losing ~3 months of play and planning on a 10% chance is more devastating than, say, hitting nothing useful with your Aetherworks Marvel spin twice in a row and moving onto the next game. I should think that one hardens up with more Civ MP experience.

That said, what's presumably happening to Ventessel (namely, total assimilation by Krill) does make me careful here. In fact if Ventessel is as doomed as I surmise, then it's likely JR4/Ref are jumping in on him just so Krill doesn't double his size, and I'm still wondering why dtay won't show up to claim Henge, the only explanation being that he can't see inside Utica or Constantinople (or Cuckicuck and Cuckstanticuckcuck, whatever). I mean, the guy must be leaving his ulterior cities virtually empty. (So are we, and given Savant's Sailing research, I think he might already be getting... uh, savvy about that. I continue to be impressed by his play. By the way, he has spiked in CY and equalized with ours for what I presume is #2 CY right now.)

Quite simply, whether we'll actually need some more units in the short term (by which I mean the next 5t) depends on what CML does on his next turn, and how many units we can annihilate as a result of that, which could range anywhere from zero to five. This will also decide what the chop goes into; the granary in Lifeblood is my preferred option due to sustainability -- the possible returns on a chopped unit will expire soon enough, unless said return is exactly not losing a city.

The dilemma we're presenting him with is not purely tactical, but also economical. If he waits around, our defenses only get stronger and will include chariots, and his axe whipping will have achieved little on the battlefield and nuked his economy (you should see his graphs, they've all been flat or worse for 10t except for Electricity, because he whips off every pop he grows into axes, or so it appears). But if he does move in immediately, he risks a counterattack on his rather disorganized forces.

Aside: when I was in Lithuania, I learned of a folk song that told of Germans doing what they do best (diacritics omitted). As can be learned from any Lithuanian folk song, their onomatopoeia always replicate the act more closely than any other language could describe.

Vokieciai atejo, (The Germans came around,)
Karas prasidejo, (They started a war,)
Ruksum fuksum, ruksum fuksum --
Karas prasidejo.

"Ruksum fuksum" could be a play on German "ruck-zuck" (probably best translated as "stante pede") and the infernal tendency of this language to append the syllable "en" to every word. But in any case, I dearly love it and have petitioned to raise it to the national motto, or at least to the tagline decorating the Bundestag, unfortuntately without success.

[Bacchus]

I can't wait

[Coeurva]

The game has begun to run so slowly on my computer that moving a worker takes an excruciating half-minute to process. Could be my decrepit laptop, could be my decrepit connection... But, finally, here's T67. Had to get the turn tonight, since it would have rolled otherwise... Edit: Or the host just happens to go down overnight right now. That works, too... (if I had known...)

No screenshots once again, but I'll try to make this both quick and illustrative:

CML has moved his two warriors 9 (onto copper forest), from where they'll probably move through the jungle and vaguely northward. I guess he wants to scout our lands. Vermin builds a C1 spear (partially or completely, I'll see about it), which is all we need to defend against two chariots (CML has gained a tech, probably AH, graphs will confirm next turn). He didn't move the axes on the hill, just added the third axe to the pile, and will probably add the fourth one afterwards. (The fifth one is on the "Homogenic" tile, as before.) All the better. We'll also need a chariot so that we can actually perform a sally, but that's it for now. Vermin can 3t these things without whipping; the only problem is that CML will see them before they can hit that hill, as he's first in turn order.

Keeping with this game's pertinently telepathic sense of humour, we would have gotten 90% odds on all of his axes if they had moved into range.

Also, CML is probably not tilting as such: he's clearly retained some caution, as he isn't running blindly against our cities, and seems to be rethinking his plans (took him much longer to play this turn than before), now that he's seen our defenses. Wonder if he'll build a settler soon; he's still on three cities.

Rhapsody will put hammers into a granary and worker, maybe a chariot, depends on where CML moves. Sicil also builds a chariot after the current worker, we can use one anyway. Savant is keeping one warrior for garrison inside Harmondale; I'm actually pondering a possible naval strike down the line, but only if he's tied up in war with Gavagai, otherwise it's a death-wish. Whitehall gains a library soon; we could actually use that city to produce the GSci instead, with only 1t of delay, but I'd rather use it to 1-whip a galley for X8. Or perhaps X7 if CML really sends all his units through the jungle on a 8t march, which would be simultaneously silly and kind of effective.

The forest chop went into a granary for Lifeblood.

Demos: Suddenly #2 in soldiers at 69,000 (only 2,000 more, from barracks), and #1 looks like it's CML (yeah; he didn't whip anything on this turn, though). A battle seems to have occurred in what I still presume is a Krill-Ventessel war (JR4 & Ref jumping in is impossible, since Vent's other neighbour is actually GermanJoey, I misremembered that).

We'll add cottages on T69, T70, T71 and T72 if everything goes right, by the way. Trying to get that right.

Demographics: #3 in both MFG (29/best 33) and CY (65/69, I think?); we're still doing alright, I think. Sailing should be in by T72; completion of libraries coincides nicely with the switch back to 100% research. Any conclusion on your part re: Alpha or Maths? -- Graphs: Savant is trailing a bit in Crop Yield again, but likely to pull another surge, and has evidently hooked up his whales.

Also, we have ivory on that eastern jungled peninsula, but that was only half a secret, as we've long since known that Savant had ivory there. Still, it's an argument in favour of Maths.

[Bacchus]

I think Maths is better at the end of the day, we don't yet have anyone to sign open borders with, alas.

[Bacchus]

Also, sometimes running the game in windowed mode helps with performance.