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

[Cornflakes]

Not hearing any objections, and deeming this to be a fair trade I accepted:







Crunching the numbers. Estimated 1680 EP required to steal Rifling (worth 3864 beakers) Currently have 1250 making >1100 this turn.

This turn I made civics swap. I forgot about one other REALLY important point about the Merc -> State Property swap ... Foreign Trade Routes We're making 6+ commerce per route in many of our big cities (which get the best routes) and nearly all of our routes are >2C. We probably gained over 200 TR commerce from the swap, which nicely balances out what we lost from the Rep + Merc specs. Before/after pictures from the civics swap in spoilers.

Before

After

These guys were sent off before the whole DoW diplo, and their chop mission is very forward-looking ... in hopes that Bigger will either not notice the chop or forget about it by the time Tanks are rolling around.




Moai in GA




Tech Adviser. In Military tech Bigger is down Military Science, Military Tradition, and Rifling. He is up Corporation (which I can easily steal from 2metra, but will wait until the last minute due to Great Lighthouse) and Democracy ... and the irrelevant Divine Right.

[Cornflakes]

After stealing Rifling I'm going to do a round of drafting all around, with the intent to invade Krill in about 5 turns. I want to hit Krill with Cavalry before he has a chance to draft many more Rifles, but I'm worried that Commodore, Bigger, or 2metra will hit my back side so the rifles are primarily for defense because of their +25% vs. Mounted bonus. I'll send the now-obsolete muskets against Krill and let him mow those down with his Cannon.

[Qgqqqqq]

Why HR?
What units do we have versus him?

[Cornflakes]

He has roughly 25 muskets, 20 Grenadiers, 15 Cannon, and 4 rifles ATM. I'm going to time my strike to try and catch his Grenadiers by surprise with my Cavalry. My plan is to upgrade about 15 knights @ 100g/each. I know upgrades are generally considered but I think this is the best.

HR because Rep isn't worth anything when we aren't running specs. Ultimately I want to run Police State. I kept OrgRel because we'll have to ability for another GA in about 6 turns. At the end of that GA we can swap to Theocracy, but until then I want to throw up as much infrastructure as possible.

You know? After writing this I'm thinking that the cavalry upgrades and immediate war vs. Krill are not not the right move, and I should hold off the attack for Infantry which should come in about 20 turns. I want to be building as much infrastructure as possible while in OrgRel, and hold of on Drafts/unit builds until back in Theocracy. We'll see.

[Cornflakes]

No thanks.




Cheaper than expected due to better ratio from the extra 1.2k EP invested




Confu Shrine for the win! Buddha also brings in ~25gpt base ATM, with missionaries spreading to at least one city per turn. This was part of the motivation for staying in OrgRel until after the next GA. Between the 2 shrines and +100% modifiers we're making about 140gpt from shrines. Our breakeven rate is currently 60%, although this is somewhat skewed by the GA still.




Another GP next turn. Pork Chop will follow probably 5 turns later. I may delay the GA, but probably not.

Random fact: Bigger is going for Physics, getting it in 6 turns. We could race him again by bending the power of our empire ... but every non-military tech he goes for is so much extra time we have to run wild once we hit Infantry.

[Cornflakes]

Tech trading and espionage allow one to invest significantly in military without falling too far behind.

[Cornflakes]

The current turn is T227. Here are the demos now that the GA has ended.




We have solidly regained 2nd place. This is at 0% research, although this is somewhat irrelevant because our nationwide gold multiplier might actually be greater than our science multiplier. I have a total of 2 Universities ATM and no libraries outside our original core. I am pumping missionaries and converting about 2 cities per turn to our religions. Confu is up to 50 cities and Buddha almost 30 (helped by Commodore).

Saving gold now, and will do so until I fire the next GA. I popped a GProphet from Volcano to go along with our GSpy, which is great because the GP pool in Pork Chop is only scientists and artists, next GP due in 3 turns. I want to wait until I steal Steam from 2metra before popping the GA though (probably will happen in about 6-8 turns) and until then I'll also construct as many research multipliers as possible. At that time I'll likely configure for max beaker output in the GA and blast through Industrialism Assembly Line + Fascism to end the GA in Police State and my final end-game civics. Then I polish off the Factories with GA-hammers and conquer the world

[Cornflakes]

Oh, and I traded Military Tradition to Jowy this turn for 50gpt. This brings us to +480gpt at 0% with ~2200g in the bank. In the 6-8 turns I estimate it to take 2metra to finish Steam we'll be up over 5k gold. Full burn is about -400gpt.

[Cornflakes]

(why do I always call Assembly Line as Industrialism? Were Factories unlocked at Industrialism in Civ 2 or 3?)

[Cornflakes]

Efficiency: fitting the most information into a single screenshot. Bigger built the Kremlin. I did not contest him. I did not have stone, so even though I beat Bigger to Communism by a turn or two I decided against trying to race him ... I guess we'll see if this was a good decision. Kremlin was an 8-turn build for me at Blimp without Stone, so I think I could have made it. (EDIT: I looked back through screenshots and we got Comm EOT 219, so construction could have begun T220 finishing EOT227 ... so coin flip with Bigger). My biggest reason for not trying for Kremlin is that I'm not planning to use either Slavery or UniSufferage civics. Bigger is SPI so he can cycle in/out as he pleases. This is the time in the game where SPI really shines! It's probably the strongest late-game trait.

Speaking of Blimp ...




Check out this beauty! We also popped iron here this turn ... several ages too late as iron is now virtually obsolete and we already claimed a source from AT. But the extra production landed in the right place

Steam Power (and Coal) will boost us another +50%. I'm going to grow into all 4 Engineer spec slots.