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

[Cornflakes]

Oh, and for those not paying careful attention ... I think Commodore has pretty much checked out (like, a couple months ago maybe??). He's been playing turns in roughly 5 minutes with 20 cities, and he's made comments in other threads hinting this as well.

[Cornflakes]

First time since Commodore infiltrated us ~T50 that his ratio with us has been 100%. He currently has about 5k EP invested against us, but I'll try to maintain constant CE against him (unless the spy I try to use gets caught). I caught one of his spies snooping around in Postos this turn

That 214EPpt is without the slider ... and as you'll see in a moment this has special significance!







I had 2 spies lined up to steal this turn at 50% stationary. One got caught in a 94% attempt at Steam, but the 2nd succeeded. I then decided to use my 20% stationary spy to go ahead and steal Corporation this turn even though it was a bit more expensive. Notice how Steam cost less than 1500EP ... that's 8 turn at our current 0%! Meaning that we can steal tech from 2metra about as quickly as he can research tech, without even investing any of our "real" economy! I expect he'll CE us soon though since we've now lifted RP, Rifling, Steam, and Corporation off him for about 14,000 beakers.




Bigger got smart and CE'ed me before I had a chance to steal Physics So I have to wait 10 turns here and hope that he leaves a gap or his next CE spy gets caught en route. In the mean time I'll spread Confu around and line up a few spies in preparation.




Steam revealed Coal ... AND ... :banghead ... who placed strategic resources this game. Seriously, no Coal at all in my starting sphere of influence? ... ok, that initial reaction was a bit of an over reaction. But still ...




At least coal popped up somewhere semi-safe, under a mine, with workers near to finish the road next turn.




Bigger noticed ... Note the name on his city there I renamed the worker to LOL. I wonder what he's thinking?




Caught wind of 2metra's navy. His snail of a navy's not going to do much actual harm, but it might at least cause some worry.




Demos for T231. This is at 100% research. I decided to wait 1 turn before popping the GA. I want to mace certain that I can lock down Fascism in 7 turns, and right now Assembly Line + Fascism is 12-T at full burn. Setting all cities to Research brings this down to 8, and GA commerce/hammers would push this down to 7, but I'll wait a turn and put 880b in this turn so I have a little leeway to not. I may even wait 1-turn longer. Probably not though.

[Cornflakes]

Popped the GA. It was good that I decided to wait a turn. We can comfortably do Assembly Line (4) + Fascism (2-3) in 7 turns without building Research anywhere or starving on Scientists all around. I considered gunning everything for research, but we have so much infrastructure to put up that I decided not to.




I'm going to construct Westpoint here. This will put it on level with Porcupine, and with Theocracy it'll pump 9XP land units. I've been testing Commodore to see what he wants for Stone. His price is Communism, but I was putting it off until ready to pump out Oxford at the same time. The final universities complete in 2-turns and then i'll construct Oxford in GS by the time the GA ends.

After Westpoint I'm going to build Pentagon in Blimp (or if I complete Assembly Line before West Point I'll swap over to Pentagon first). With IND I'll be over 180hpt on Pentagon! It's pretty much guaranteed, and it'll bump Blimp and Porcupine over the 3rd promo threshold for land units

The Fascist GG will likely settle in our next highest hammer city, to be combined with the next GG that we generate for another 3-promo unit pump. I considered stacking all the XP in one city (Porcupine since it already has 2GG's) but I couldn't get over the 26XP threshold for Commando so I decided to split it up. Amphibious and CR3 tanks FTW!

[Cornflakes]

I'm right at the point now where I'm thinking that another 15-turns and we'll be invincible ... and you know what that means. Dogpile time again. Fortunately we're #2 scorewise by a decent margin, so the others might not recognize the threat.

We have about 20 draftable cities, and map size allows 4/turn so it's 5-turns for a full cycle.

[Qgqqqqq]

This time you won't have me screwing the dogpile prep
Did Bigger declare war for the northern hit?
Where's Commodore tech-wise?
Have we filled out those cities?
Why do you think we'll be invincible? Just too strong to break, or absorbed Krill by then?

[Cornflakes]

We'll have a rail network and a stack of 20 infantry and 30 cannon that can reach any front in 2 turns.

[Cornflakes]

Have we filled out those cities?

Not sure exactly what you're referring to. I've filled all good city sites around AT's pond. The ice plant with a few lighthouse-able lakes gets settled next turn. I'm progressing close to or above 10% own culture in AT's spoils for the drafting threshold. AT's cities are filled out nicely to size >=7

Where's Commodore tech-wise?

I'll answer this with the tech screen. I took this at 1am and was in no mood to decipher it at that time and I have class in -2 minutes

[Cornflakes]

ummm ... YIKES




Good new is that I took another look at that tech screen and realized that Bigger is down Rifling, Military Science, and Military Tradition, and Steam. This means no Cavalry, no Rifles, no Curassiers! The best units he can produce are Musketeers and Knights and Cannon. Not too scary in the age of invading against Infantry, Cavalry, and Cannon on my end. He could raze Paradigm and probably the 2 lake cities west of Paradigm, and everything across the water before we could gather enough troops ... but he couldn't do any real damage to our core.

I sent more Cannon towards the west so we now have about 10 in the area, plus about 10 Knights, 3 Cavalry, and a few Curassier. I have enough units that he'll have to lay siege, so even if he was to beeline war next turn I'd have Infantry rolling out of Blimp @ 1/turn, plus about .8/turn from Paradigm. In 5 turns from now I'll be revolted back into Nationhood and can draft 4 Infantry/turn from then, so really we're only vulnerable for another dozen turns.

Bigger completed Statue of Liberty this turn. With Rep and 30 cities it's quite powerful. I'm hoping to sneak and Ice attack still at some point in the future to raze his Capital.




Welcome Hail into the world ... although the name isn't correct in the picture It has 4 lighthouse-able lakes so it can easily be added into the draft rotation. Plus it can work a couple mines and a WS for production. It's no star of the show but it certainly pays for itself, expecialy without distance maintenance.

[Cornflakes]

Blimp! 3-turning West Point, just in time to start Pentagon when Assembly Line comes in!

[thestick]

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