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

[OT4E]

Man, if you feel too much of cow, make settler and share it into another city. You are imp. Otherwise not using tier 6 tiles or tier 5 tiles in honor to grow cottages or whatever is bad micro.

[Coeurva]

Alright, I concede the point. No more cottages over 5/6 fh tiles no matter what, no matter if only for a turn, no matter whatever argument I delude myself into. Except I'm working a grass cottage in the next screenshot, because I didn't swap to cow apparently (great) -- 8 + 12hpt *5t + 27 still builds the library on time, though. Will correct cow next turn. Hope the 1f 3h won't matter.

T75

Savant's chariot cannot enter the city or capture the worker, due to hills and the chariots blocking the sole flatland approach. If I'm wrong and it can, I shouldn't be wasting anyone's time, frankly.

If he declares and moves onto either hill, kill the chariot with the spear. If he moves east, send spear back into Ignis. He probably won't attack if he didn't do so vs. the single chariot in Ignis previously.

Capital hpt is 8 with copper, don't know why I thought 9, probably was too tired at 1am, so whatever I wrote is useless. Ignis works the hamlet again, which delays Academy by 2t, but it's alright. We need size4 for whales anyway. Config is rice/clams/cows (well... if I wasn't stupid)/copper/fp cottage, making 8gpt at 0% (in reality, 10 gpt due to grass cottage over cow). Worker actions: one into gforh, two for camp, one to partial-cottage en route.

Unit supply is only 3gpt, so it's not only their location that's the problem, the units themselves cost too much (9 gpt, same for civic upkeep).

Gain 4pop next turn (capital, city2, city4, city5 grow). Savant has two settlers (double-whipped one at Harmondale too, will probably go west to claim corn + 4f seafood).

No CML peace offers this turn; will move in 5 axes (with a spear for cover; CML teched sth Ancient, probably AH) on next turn, then attack Atlantic City on T77 with two Shock chariots + 5 axes. Press on towards CML's capital or not? Most of its seen improvements are on the far side from us and it's size5, there's probably nothing to pillage north or east of city.

Demos: MFG 33 best 38 rank #7, CY 81 best 82 rank #2, GNP 25 best 61 worst 21 (Ventessel dying) rank #8. Gavagai's cap is size5 (settler whip?). Other top5 cities are 7, 8 (Krill), 7, 6 (Savant). One of the 7s is probably Joey.

[Bacchus]

Firstly, my fuck-up comment was on a higher level -- we knew capital will have to spend pop-turns growing cottages and we should have ensured that we have alternatives to keep high-yield tiles utilized. Or as OT4e said, shoulda thought about how we plant cities.

On the lower level question of hammers vs commerce, I understand your logic and if you convinced yourself that it arrives at an answer, you should go for it. I don't think you are missing any important point, but I don't have the time to work through the numbers.

[chumchu]

I also think that there is logic in your argument but finding yourself in the position you are in is an indication of something being suboptimal. It might be too late to change that now. I think the logic is incomplete as there are other matters to consider except getting alphabet asap. The general point I want to make is that you could benefit from sacrificing some efficiency for more redundancy as there is a lot of uncertainty.

[Coeurva]

On the lower level question of hammers vs commerce, I understand your logic and if you convinced yourself that it arrives at an answer, you should go for it. I don't think you are missing any important point, but I don't have the time to work through the numbers.

Well, if three players with more knowledge than me plainly state in unison that what I'm doing is awful micro (or, in your case, a forced effect of bad macro), it's probably wise to reconsider these convictions.

I don't see where else we could have placed our cities without eschewing food resources.

Westward actually does overlap two 5fh tiles from Rhapsody, which motivated its settlement, along with the 10 commerce/turn it provides (directly via furs + trade route, indirectly via whale boat). Perhaps we could have built another settler, but filler cities overlapping copper/cows would need to take the sole food resource from Sicil/Vermin, or get no food at all, and would also not bring in meaningful commerce, possibly making the problem worse.

I also think that there is logic in your argument but finding yourself in the position you are in is an indication of something being suboptimal. It might be too late to change that now.

The war with CML bound most of our units in the south, forcing Rhapsody to produce a chariot, and our sole northern axe to defend Sicil against the 1/500 barb warrior spawn, which allowed the other barb warriors to pillage the rice farm unhindered. Then Savant's chariot showed up just 1t too early, inducing a chariot whip at Rhapsody and one at Ignis to avoid coin-flip odds of getting a city razed. If neither of those events had happened, or if we hadn't decided to attack CML, we'd have a size7 capital at this point and wouldn't have to choose in the first place.

Maintenance costs would still be high; maybe we should have gone for five cities instead 20t ago and built an extra worker in place of the second settler. That would probably have delayed our island city in the north-west, though.

I think the logic is incomplete as there are other matters to consider except getting alphabet asap.

Yeah, but I don't think the capital can help with these matters right now. Settlers/workers would also delay growth (thus we'll produce them elsewhere). Savant may get more aggressive soon, having scouted and seen empty cities all around, so we'll need to produce a few more units in the north, but Sicil seems better-suited to focus on production, since it doesn't have to mind the Academy.

I do disagree about Alphabet, it's of the highest priority, because Alphabet alone can fuel Currency (cottages take too long, current GNP without research builds gets us nowhere). Wealth builds aside, Currency should add about 20 free commerce per turn from trade routes, if we add another island city on the turn we research it. That'll pay back its 400b cost quite fast.

That said, I'm trying to keep other stuff in mind to fix the economy -- such as improving those furs and whales, for much more immediate commerce than cottages. Furs will get worked from T77 onward, when Westward hits size2; whales hopefully from ~T81 -- maybe even chop the fur forest to get that faster. The silver at Ignis also needs improvement, but that can't be done while Savant's chariot still threatens our cities, and we must balance it against the need for an Academy as well. There's a worker I'm partial-cottage shuffling towards this task, with a contingency plan to move him towards Sicil instead.

I'm considering to push for Cahokia. We have 6 axes, 2 chariots and 1 spear and can whip two more chariots if necessary, or slow-build them (but I'm thinking whip, full sledgehammer approach here). CML had ~54,000 soldiers last turn (guessing from graphs), and 24,000 of those are still tied up inside Atlantic City, which is useless to both of us before it grows, and we can probably destroy these units soon. ~15,000 soldiers are from tech/pop. Sheer numbers might carry it, or at least give us a chance to pillage and get some returns on our units.

EDIT: The problem is attacking across the river, though. If we can avoid the river, our chances improve dramatically. I've simmed 6 axes, 4 chariots, 1 spear vs. 3 axes, 1 spear (40% defense, hill). River odds: ~30%. Non-river odds: ~70%.

Probably need more chariots, about 8 of them in total, and not move in before that. I suppose there's something for the capital to do after all, since Vermin doesn't produce all of these... Difficult choice, though, since if this doesn't kill CML, we'll be running around with high unit maintenance again.

The general point I want to make is that you could benefit from sacrificing some efficiency for more redundancy as there is a lot of uncertainty.

Yeah, certainly. If the extra gold from x turns of cottages over hammers fuel an extra turn of research, they pay off >30b; but if they don't, we waste 25 hammers. It's difficult to assess this, so emphasizing production is the safer play.

[Bacchus]

Well, if three players with more knowledge than me plainly state in unison that what I'm doing is awful micro (or, in your case, a forced effect of bad macro), it's probably wise to reconsider these convictions.

It's just that forgoing high-yield tiles always raises eyebrows. Does not at all mean that you are wrong. I think you may well be right and you should have the confidence to follow your judgement. Speaking for myself, I'm a pretty poor civ player, so you should definitely feel free to overrule my advice.

I think there are plenty of reasons why just at the moment hammers are worth so little: we have enough units and are already stretched on maintenance, we are researching a really key tech with a fat pay-off, lay of the land was such that these tiles can't be utilized. Sometimes a collection of special conditions means an optimal decision is left-field. But if you can't more-or-less guarantee the gain in alphabet research, then I wouldn't take the gamble.

CML's capital is probably too bold and costly in terms of gold to pursue at the moment. What's Savant's power graph like? He may have seen all these empty cities and started to get ideas.

[Coeurva]

Savant added another 4,000 soldiers (chariot or spear). He's at 75,000 to our 99,000 now. He'll know that we're more alert of him; let's flash a few units at him so that he doesn't try. Harmondale's defenses still seem to consist of one warrior, but he could always keep something in the fog, as he knows we have that warrior that can see inside the city, but no further.

Hammers are still worth a lot at other cities -- if Rhapsody could produce that whaling boat, I'd be all over that, for example (which is another reason for Westward to use the horse). Sicil's library picks up another 5fh tile (plains sheep), Lifeblood's library another 4f tile (after boat), Vermin can build a few units to impress Savant.

And what, do I look like a decent civ player, moving workers onto an oasis tile, wrecking our GNP, and finishing the capital's granary on T74? I'm thankful for the advice, and seem to recall that our best decisions were mostly your ideas (Sicil before Ignis; double whammy in the south; go for islands early....). Don't want to imagine our dotmap if I had followed my own judgment there, for instance.

But flattery gets us nowhere, unlike foodhammers. Let's focus on those (and maybe commerce as well). Over the next two turns, we'll gain a whole lot of them, I promise.

About everything on those cottage/hammers that I could say has been said now, fortunately. I can't give the guarantee and therefore, we'll play it safe.

[Coeurva]

T76.

Received another two CML peace offers; declined both. Perhaps these are meant as a threat, along the lines of "raze this city, and there will never be peace".

Actually, I suggest that we kill all but one of the axes inside and cut the road, but still only blockade the city so that reinforcements cannot enter. It doesn't help him anyway (it actually hurts him via maintenance), and in ruins it won't help us either. Whatever single unit he might then whip on hitting size2 can be countered with precision. Our units cost 3gpt in hostile lands, but if we can keep cultural control of that forest 21 of Vermin and pillage CML's neutral roads, we don't even need to place them there.

I've whipped off the grass mine for a chariot in Vermin; we regrow onto it @size4 next turn anyway and can now preserve a pre-chopped forest, thanks to overflow into an IMP settler. (Could also chop a worker here right after, although size5 is better for Vermin.) The main reason, though, was that we can raze Atlantic City on the next turn, and I think we should. This gives us a chance to exploit CML's axes for XP and gain a Sentry chariot (our other two chariots in the south are C1+Shock).

Pop growth generally has a soothing effect on unit maintenance (dropped by 2gpt; I think the formula for free units is 0.24 * pop + c where c=8 on Monarch); whips shall be avoided for a while; I don't feel constrained for worker labour anymore.

Savant founded his sixth city (Vertigo), but I think he's having a bit of GNP trouble himself, judging by the graphs (it dropped a notch below even ours for 1t). We've surpassed him by a decent margin of Crop Yield for now, although his new cities may correct that soon enough, and Sprpigal still has a crab to hook up. I'm sure I've mentioned it, but that city is a potential whip engine with barracks inside and three food resources on a 3f center; we need to be careful.

Some vision on Savant's units: chariot moved 99, out of harm's way (two chariots kill one chariot at 96% odds, although I'm not sure I would have attacked); one axe ("Atlas") spotted 3 of Harmondale (alerting me slightly); one promotable spear inside Harmondale.

At the capital, I'm working the oasis over a grass cottage now, because this speeds up growth by 1t; we'll hit size7 on T78, and the happiness resources we're about to add can keep up with growth all the way to size10.


Economy sucks, etc. Next turn at least adds furs.

The oasis actually pushed us to 91 food. MFG is tightly packed around the 35h range; 33 would place us at rank #6 instead.

Graphs: no change in soldiers from Savant (except pop), but CML added 4,000, likely a spear to defend Cuckhokia with, in addition to what I assume is 1-2 axes right now. Still thinking that we should at least check what he has -- maybe using that prospective Sentry chariot.

We're a few turns from research vision on CML, I think. Might shuffle EP back onto Savant soon (he still keeps them all on Gavagai).

[Coeurva]

T77.

First, the in-game stuff. We've captured and razed Atlantic City... after another misclick. For some reason the game just kept re-selecting the entire stack of 2 chariots + 1 worker even after I deselected that multiple times, and not wanting to leave a worker exposed under a 2.8 str chariot, I had to go all-in. Here's combat; all his axes had ~10% fortify iirc, and were on a hill.

Code:

Shock chariot vs. axe 95.5% WIN
3.5 str shock chariot vs. axe 81.7% LOSE
Shock axe vs. axe 50.0% WIN
unpromoted axe vs. axe 21.0% WIN
unpromoted axe vs. 1.4 str axe 99.7% WIN

Pretty good haul. I'd have preferred to lose the axe and not the chariot, but after coin-flipping our shock axe I shouldn't complain about taking gambles Pertinently, the shock axe is at 10XP now and thus gets placed on the Red List, for the sake of the Heroic Epic.

Vermin's chariot suffered from the same unresponsive stack-selecting interface nonsense, due to which it couldn't attack on this turn (was stacked with axe and moved onto a hill), but in retrospect, I can actually live with that, because Rival Worst CML has only 39,000 soldiers now and a healthy chariot will help.

I made lemonades of the mismoved worker by roading 22 of Vermin, summoning the other worker we had available to do the same -- we should gain vision on CML's resources next turn. We'll need to improve the plains copper a.s.a.p. anyway, now that it's within our borders.

Barb axe coming in from the Hammerhead peninsula in the west (the one with dry rice), so I've turned one of the northern chariots around to deal with it.

Now making 17gpt at 0% research. Using two workers to cottage at Sicil, to time with growth. Savant's graphs show another 6,000 soldiers increase, which might have been the axe we spotted on the last turn. His chariot is retreating into Harmondale, it seems.

Next turn, we whip off a grass mine for a galley at Whitehall. Can explore a bit before it's needed for settler transit.

[Coeurva]

We've also received a PM from Tectomoc (CML's friend), who is apparently playing the turns for CML, which we knew since he posted about it in the tech thread. He's also been making all the decisions for some time, which we didn't know -- and, according to him, he didn't sign up for.

He wants to get out of this game, and said he wanted to retire to AI. I've asked him not to do that, since it would only force a reload and not solve the problem. Instead, I've told him that he should make a post in the tech thread, and say that he's looking for a substitute player.

Hope this gets resolved somehow, but we might be looking at a pause here.

EDIT: Mardoc, regarding whether the players would be okay with a spoiler lurker joining in: I actually wouldn't be okay with that. But given that it will probably be the only way not to see this game killed, I suppose I'll have to accept it in the end, anyway.