[SPOILERS] Cornflakes and Q Eat 'Em for Breakfast!

[Cornflakes]

Railroad IMO. And you meant Assembly Line.

I had a moment to consider the RR/AL alternatives. My purpose in going AL would be to draft out an army to take out first Krill and then Commodore. I think your are correct about going RR first though. That way we can (1) secure our other borders, and (2) set up rail networks to quickly get our draftees into the fray. RR's would mean that we can get units from the east front to the west front in 3 turns rather than 12! Without RR it would be incredibly inefficient to concentrate the draftees in a timeframe quick enough to strike when wanted, so RR is practically a necessity.

Steam Power obsoletes Hagia Sophia, so we need to prioritize that in our high-hammer cities for failgold through the GA. We should average >100 hammers/turn, maybe as high as 150 average. We probably have about 10 turns saving/research to Steam, so that's time for about 1-1.5k gold. Timing is not critical, so we could actually just farm failgold while we wait for someone else to tech it and then employ espionage to steal.

Physics is another option to consider because of the free Scientists, and Biology because of enhanced farms. In fact, the best course may be to set our sights on Physics and then trade for Steam, since GScientist only goes to the first person to research.

[Qgqqqqq]

I don't think we can afford to expect a trade any more, and I don't think that Physics is worth the free GS, we need to be making gains in security/land which means AL/RR.
Besides, I think Bigger will compete for it, and its not worth putting our empire through the works. No, SP as soon as we have enough saved/failed gold to get to RR seems right.

[Cornflakes]

I played most of the turn, took a couple hours off for Volleyball with some friends, and now back to finish up the turn I think I have my cities at their final configuration for the turn, but I'll double check and then put up some pictures.

Expect more in about an hour.

[Cornflakes]

Ok, got distracted so it's a bit more than an hour




You can see here that Communism is 1-turn tech ... this is at 100% though and we don't have enough gold to support another turn of 100%. I was still logged in after unpausing for 2metra when he rolled the turn. He immediately tried to contact me and offer RP + 100g for [...] I knew he was wanting Military Tradition, but I could steal it cheap anyway, so I just hung up the phone without putting anything on the table.

I did some quick research -> wealth adjustments and realized that 1757 was the exact required beakers needed this turn to 1-turn Communism. Also, with the beaker count at 1757 we made -355gpt, which is exactly what we had in the bank This was a bit too close for my comfort, and about this time the phone started ringing again with another offer from 2metra. This time he put RP + 335g on the table. This was my offer to him from last turn, and I'm happy with the price so I put down Military Tradition and we shook on it

This extra cash gave us some flexibility no with our cities. I could dial back some scientists in favor of coasts and get some food in our cities, but nothing is starving down pop yet so I opted for another alternative. I was able to reconfigure Porcupine + Blimp + Doughnut off their research builds and and just beat the required # beakers (1763) ...







Failgold farming is more efficient here than the wealth, so we're earning the +175% Marble/IND/OrgRel as interest on 2metra's gold trade, about +175g gained over running straight Wealth in these cities HS is the current time-critical wonder. I think that the trees around Ulundi would go well into HS in the next couple turns.

Porcupine can only get out 8XP ships and 9XP mounted units without Theocracy, and with the GA hammers a Frigate quickly builds up to max overflow. We're not desperate for Boats/units so I think the it's ok to farm failgold from Porcupine.




Doughnut was put on 2-turn Missionary. We needed the couple extra scientists for a few more beakers to finish Communism so I couldn't get the missionary out this turn. It doesn't really matter though, since it's going to convert one of 2metra's cities for the Espionage benefit and we don't yet have the EP built up to steal Rifling. We'll only need about 1.5k more (or ~2 turns of full burn w/o GA).

Knights at the KEEP KNIGHTS HERE sign are in position to respond to either Bigger or 2metra or Commodore. Don't move them.




Demos from this turn. Note Bigger's decrease of ~50 hammers from last turn to this turn. Does he lose AP/UoS/Minaret value from Monasteries now that their obsolete from SM?

[Cornflakes]

Last piece of news from this turn (that I remember).

...

OIL!!! Oil was revealed with the completion of Scientific Method ... AND ... it looks like Oil is as hard to come by as Horses and Iron

We have no land-based oil within OUR starting region of the map, while all other players have land-based oil. We have one ocean Oil in the highly-contested area near Sheep that currently has 53/46 culture in our favor, but pressed by 3! of 2metra's cities. We have ice Oil adjacent to the Marble city (originally Azza's ZoC) and just outside our borders west of AT's former Marble city, south of BJ and the Bear (AT's ZoC).




Not a secure location with both Bigger ant 2metra pressing in around here. This city's sole purpose was Marble and is not worth defending should it be attacked (We have secured Marble in the AT Annex).




(1) water oil is more difficult to connect and easy to pillage, and (2) control of the tile itself is not even guaranteed because its pressured by 3 of 2metra's cities.




This is our most secure location for Oil. Any city plant here will be garbage anyway, so I plan to settle directly on top to prevent bomber/spy pillaging. Unfortunately it won't be coastal for easiest trade connection, but if we spam roads around it we should be safe from anything except nuclear strike (which is banned).

[Qgqqqqq]

Demos from this turn. Note Bigger's decrease of ~50 hammers from last turn to this turn. Does he lose AP/UoS/Minaret value from Monasteries now that their obsolete from SM?

Yes

Do we have a galley/galleon in Sheep to send it over on?

Gosh, those are hilarious oil locations!
Basically, our most extreme plants are our only options.
I recommend also a fort E of the oil to give a coastal connection (and possibly fort spamming on all the ice/tundra tiles around) to make ABSOLUTELY SURE we can't lose it.

I get the feeling 2metra's gonna lift that site off us soon, which'll be a pity because it was gonna be quite tactically valuable as a airbase.

[Cornflakes]

I logged in quick and confirmed that we snagged the Communism and the GSpy

Other than that, I have visitors this evening so I won't play until tomorrow morning.

[Cornflakes]

I decided to abandon the failgold in the short term. Jail + Intelligence Agency pair generates 24EP/turn per city without running the slider, so with 10 cities we'd get over 300EP/turn after factoring in the current Courthouses without running the slider. This is a significant side-economy or war weapon. Getting these set up 10 turns earlier is worth at least 2k EP, which is equivalent to half the tech steal of Steam Power.

Jails/Intel Agencies were the priority. At least 5 cities will complete one or both in 3 turns, so the plan is to run the slider 4 turns from now to steal Rifling from 2metra.

Regarding our GSpy we have a couple options ... save for GA, Scotland Yard in GS, Infiltrate, Bulb something. I say GA because we can stack another one on about 10 turns after the current one ends and use that one to boost Factory construction. Since he can't get caught I'm going to run him around Commodore's land until he's needed because we don't have OB.

[Cornflakes]

This post has little value except to pass the time in my normal civ-window

2metra and Commodore are the last to play. It's unusual for Commodore to wait, so I'm hoping that his waiting is to declare war on 2metra (2metra rolled last turn and played back-to-back, so if Commodore moves first this turn it would be a double move on his part). About 6-8 turns ago I offered Ivory to Commodore for war vs. 2metra. I really don't care whether he declares war on 2metra or not as long as Commodore doesn't declare war on us.

2metra does have nearly all of his power concentrated north of us (I did the math to add everything up a few turns ago, with little movement since then) so Commodore could have a nice window of opportunity to snipe some border cities. I know that they've conflicted in the past, and I'm pretty sure that 2metra came out of the stalemate slightly ahead.

EDIT: Commodore just played, so the above is confirmed to be the worthless conspiracy theory that it always was.

[Qgqqqqq]

Did he accept? Because he really has.to wardec then..