The Pen vs The Sword (Gandhi of NA)

[mackoti]

Sorry , was my bad when i read i belived you sayed 250k from now.Then yes a cultural victory might compete to a space race.

[The Black Sword]

This is a bit ridiculuous ... notice anything missing in this picture?



Yeah, my soon to be 50 city empire doesn't have a single natural source of coal. There's one source on my continent, sitting by GJ's capital.

I don't what to do here, I didn't even think to check for coal last turn. I assumed I'd have multiple sources, having taken over the territory of two separate players. I've been setting myself up for a big golden age to bring factories online, there's no way to get a source myself in time for that plan. I could loan some off someone else, but the price would be through the roof and then what's to stop them cutting me off once I put all the hammers into the factories? Then we have the secondary problem of trying to win a me vs the world culture victory without any power until plastics or fission. The only safe source of coal would be GJs, even if I went and captured some elsewhere there's no way I could hold something so isolated from BGN and Old Tourist.

[flugauto]

That sucks. Who has coal to buy from?

[The Black Sword]

At the moment, only the Old Tourists have Steam Power and they have 2 sources of coal in the trading screen. From the small sample of other continents I have view of, 1 coal per continent appears to be the norm, so I doubt any minor powers will have a second source and I still wouldn't like to rely on that.

Possible options:

Loan:
Too unreliable and expensive.

Invade GJ:
Sure, I might end up with coal in the end, but I suspect I'll be out of the game. He has low power at the minute and he's down a bit in military techs. But he can pick up Rifling/Steel/Mil Trad in no time now, before I build an army. On land, Infantry are the best tech advantage I can get, the next two movers are tanks, at which stage I might as well just go another route. Controlling the seas might work, he has a lot of coastal cities and I could cut his empire in two. But it still takes a while to get Combustion and Artillery and then I need to wear him down and take his cities. He could probably keep his stack inland, so I can't actually keep any coastal cities without a huge effort. I was estimating maybe 80t left in the game remember, so any attack needs to get conquered cities up and producing ASAP to be worth it. I could see myself building a navy at artillery and using it against GJ if the opportunity is there, but depending on this strategy is far too risky.

Invade Cheater Hater:
He has Rifling already. We have similar problems as GJ above but it would be a bit easier. Ignoring the fact it's still likely to be more trouble than it's worth, there's still one major problem. The coal is sitting on the edge of that continent, about as far from my core as could be. It would be trivial for BGN or Old Tourist to disconnect this with planes in any real war with me.

Invade Others:
WLP is a worse scenario than invading GJ IMO. Dtay might have coal somewhere but I doubt he's a viable target either. No other neighbours have visible coal.

Nuclear Plants at Fission:
I guess this is the default plan for the anti-fossil fuel brigade. I did not plan on picking up this tech originally. Nukes in general seem to be equivalent to guided missiles in cost-effectiveness. ICBMs have a range advantage but that doesn't matter so much if I'm defending. So I didn't think Fission was worth the cost of picking up. This plan has a 19k tech price tag as well as a 250h cost per city. It also requires me to go all the way through Electricity first, significantly delaying bring power and modern military units on line. We also have the possibility of nuclear meltdowns. On the bright side, no coal means an extra 4 health per city.

Three Gorges Dam and Plastics
I think this might be the best of a bad bunch of options. Almost all of my cities are on the one continent. I think I have about 4 cities off continent where I'd like power, one of which can build itself a Hydro plant. The others will have to console themselves with Drydocks for ship-building. Plastics is a 24k tech and then the Dam is 1750h. So, 20k raw beakers or 10k raw hammers. In total 47 Nuclear Plants, I have about 40 mainland cities. There's still a massive(even longer) delay in power coming online but at least this option is cost-effective and I want all the techs along the way. Assuming BGN was not similarly screwed over, I should win the race easily if I want it. To someone who already has power, I doubt Plastics is an appealing tech. I can have all the factories built beforehand and I can save my last golden age, and possible lucky engineer to get the wonder up ASAP.

[Ceiliazul]

Are we talking about coal, or oil?

[The Black Sword]

Coal.

I'm putting off Sci Meth as long as I can to keep my Monastery bonuses. If something has been done to the oil distribution too, I'll be the last to know!

[Ceiliazul]

Let's assume you have oil cuz... the empires. How much would lack of coal limit you in that case?

[The Black Sword]

Assuming I land 3 Gorges, I reckon I'm looking at maybe a 30t delay in Power in my cities. Maybe call that 20t since I can invest in other things(though part of the problem is that there aren't many other things left at this stage) and don't have to deal with the health stuff. That's 20t of me only getting 75% of my total hammers, and I was planning to be in a GA for most of that time too.

The tech path also becomes really inflexible. I had been planning on getting military techs after Assembly Line, so I could take advantage of opportunities. Instead, I think I really need to beeline Plastics, which will delay Radio(delays the Eiffel Tower too) and Artillery. I will probably get Industrialism a bit quicker to be fair.

[The Black Sword]

Finally, another one of my predictions comes true ...

dtay - Mao of Ethiopia: My neighbour, obviously. Peaceful co-existence doubtful.

Politest war declaration I've ever had I think. I had a caravel sitting beside this stack of ships, watching them. He's still sitting unharassed in the middle of dtay's territory. So, I politely offered peace for the island:



No point in fighting him while he has the stronger navy. Hopefully no point in him continuing to attack me. I even continued moving forces toward Gavagai. If I get peace with dtay, I declare next turn. I upgraded the muskets to rifles, since muskets would just be xp for his cavs and 110g for a rifle is a nice deal.

I can't really decide whether I made a mistake in this defense or not. I could have left 10 Cuirs on the island, but that would have left me light elsewhere and he'd still have the naval advantage. Hopefully I can come back in 10t with a fleet of my own and Infantry and take this back. If dtay has access to coal and ironclads though, I guess I'm screwed for a while. Annoyingly nothing upgrades to Battleships either, so I might be forced to get Artillery and delay Plastics if we get in an arms race. We'll see.

In happier news, Fort Tahn dodged it's Prophet roll(got the artists) and it's back to building 10xp Cavs:


Here's Basilisk Caves, which will starve once next turn:


and Hornshark, which will starve the turn after:


Then we'll revolt out of Pacifism.

[flugauto]

Politest war declaration I've ever had I think. I had a caravel sitting beside this stack of ships, watching them. He's still sitting unharassed in the middle of dtay's territory. So, I politely offered peace for the island:

Just in case...

Other:
* No city gifting or trading