[Spoilers] Pindicator accepts his fate

[pindicator]

It is a huge time investment, for sure. For me it scratches that itch that civ 4 single player (and later, the RB Epics and Adventures) used to scratch. Lately I've been more focused on crossing off achievements, but I'm getting to the point where most of them ate the time consuming ones. For instance, The Choson One is to play as Korea and own every territory that is Confucian, Shinto, and Buddhist. So the mongol tribes (more or less), China, Japan, all of Southeast Asia, and parts of India, depending on how the Buddhist/Hindu/Sunni situation plays out over there. And then later on you need to watch out for European powers.

The biggest challenge is knocking down Ming. I've read of other players getting lucky with rebels splitting the country up for them, but none of my attempts were ever that lucky. And no matter how buddy buddy they start with you, i found that once I got large enough (usually after gobbling up the Jurchin tribes), Ming would go hostile and rival me. Then attack and overwhelm me with their huge number of troops.

Which was what exactly what happened again this play through, and I said screw it, I'm going to go out in a flaming blaze of debt and glory (like so many pitboss games), took out a crazy number of loans, and managed to actually defeat them without going bankrupt.

After that it was rinse, lather, repeat after paying off the debts. Took a lot of wars, but I think I'll finish them off in 1 or 2 more.

[pindicator]

Game's running again!

Question - is map trading allowed? It's been banned in so many of the games I've played recently that I just assumed it was here. But I can't actually see that stated in the rules.

[pindicator]

Spoke too soon

Edit: On the bright side, all the extra time gave me some time to sim out some different approaches for the next 10 turns, and I think I like where my plans are at now. Short version: I need to get ready to send settlers east in 10 turns

[pindicator]

So I still am waiting to play ... StarDoor played before me last turn, it's potential that he could attack my newest city with the warrior in the area, and he also has already played before me this turn before the reset, so it's possible that he already HAS attacked me this turn ....

I can't complain about Nyles waiting again really.... he does have a worker on our border so technically we should keep the same split here.

I'm going to send a PM to StarDoor in case he doesn't realize he needs to replay this turn.

[oledavy]

If you're bored, we need a replacement in Civ 5 PBEM 5.

Handmade balanced map, chill playing field, you get to lead the civ in question from turn 1 (and pick a different civ if you want...)

I'm just saying....

[pindicator]

Thanks for the offer oledavy, but there's no way I could juggle two games competently right now.

And we finally got the turn done! Played this morning in lieu of breakfast, but it's payday and supposedly the cafe by work does a good breakfast scrabble. Anyway, the turn. No pictures since I played hurried and am updating from my phone, but here are the bullet points:

Turn 076

• OT4E is winning. Check that. He is actually WINNING. He's already landed Stonehenge, conquered half a neighbor, has the highest pop in the game, and now he just finished the Oracle and picked up a medieval tech off of it. Theology is the least scary and most likely result, except no religion was founded in the event window. If he managed something bigger -- say if he managed to tech Metal Casting and just pulled Machinery off the wonder -- then I wonder if myBB has a big enough size to site how much he is winning by. But, I think that is very unlikely. My GNP isn't far off the leader, so I don't think he could have techs that much. More likely we'll see that Christianity is founded next turn.
  
  
• I didn't say it before, but there was a risk that StarDoor's warrior by Perregal was sitting on 2 unused promotions and could have burned my new city. Didn't think that was very likely, and he hadn't burnt any city on his first play through of the turn. Anyway, he just moved the warrior to the coastal hill so he could see inside my new city, no harm in that border.
  
  
• Nyles finished his pasture and immediately ran his units away. Dude didn't even want to make a road, he just sent everything west. Maybe that chariot strike has inserted a bit of fear into him? Either way, I'm paring back the military plans: just one axe out of the capital, and I need to look at if I can change the 2nd axe from Karego-At to an archer and potentially speed up the next settler by a turn.
  
  
• A barbarian warrior is on my gems, but I have an axe at Orandrad to deal with it next turn. I am building a chariot out of Orandrad to help deal with barbs, especially after I get IW and start pushing east. Also, I swapped Andrad off it's chariot build and on to the much needed granary.
  
  

[pindicator]

Turn 077

So no religion founded by OT4E, which means no Theology. I took a closer look at the medieval techs and the only realistic possibilities are he has researched Metal Casting and then grabbed Machinery, or he researched Monarchy and grabbed Feudalism. They both cost the same, but I think I'd lean Metal Casting due to that being a better overall tech than Monarchy. I suppose this also means Colossus is a lost cause, but it's been off the radar since I set on my tech path.



That's the first barbarian to enter our borders. I mopped it up with the axe. Also, that's OT4E's wounded scout who has somehow dodged all the barbs we've been seeing.

Also, I just noticed that I've mispelled Orandrad all this time.

To the south, StarDoor is making me wish I could have kept the axe near Perregal:



It looks like he's going to put that settler between the ivory and the jungle gems, which is a bad city, but one he has to have if he's going to claim those resources. Makes me very happy I pushed hard for Perregal!

Speaking of Perregal, while we wait for Iron Working, the workers there are preparing the way by roading all the important tiles. I crunched the numbers a bit for Iron Working: we're at 135/308 beakers now, and we'll dump 64 in at end of turn. Assuming next turn is the same for beakers and expenses, we're looking at being at 263/308 with 16g left. In other words, I think we're going to come up just short for getting IW at end of t79.

To the west, I had to bring the axe back to Torheven because the city was unhappy without a unit. Torheven really needs worker turns, but between the sugar and lake tiles we can afford to wait here a little. We finished chopping into that granary at Kameber; next turn we'll whip that. And the furs will be connected next turn -- right in time, because Karego-At is growing into unhappiness at end of turn.

(Karego-At needs it's own post, by the way: this city will be making over 20hpt very soon, and potentially can be up near 30 at stagnation. I'm considering if Great Lighthouse might be worth diverting for -- but more likely we're going to want galleys and then to push settlers and units across that narrow sea.)

Finally, I know I just showed demos recently, but we're not done climbing ranks:



#1 crop yield is actually within grasp!

[Commodore]

Worth working some lakes?

[pindicator]

Worth working some lakes?

I don't think we're close enough for lakes to matter. We could work 2 more at Torheven at the cost of 2 food and 1 hammer each turn. Those I can see. Working lake at the capital means delaying the granary there (which has been delayed enough as is). I can not whip the granaries at Atuan and Kameber. And in the end, I'm going to chop the rice at Pallegar before I chop the gems anyway, so ... I don't think it's worth delaying growth elsewhere for those tiles to potentially come online a turn faster.

Now what I can do is finish the worker at Andrad once it hits size 5, and then send that worker over to the jungle, so we have 4 workers chopping out that shit. All those worker turns needed at the jungle will make up for a 1 turn delay with IW.

[pindicator]

No wait, I'm wrong. It is worth it. All we have to do is swap Torheven to lakes and we're right on the line.

I went in game and at 60% we are at -16gpt, which is 31bpt. So (again, assuming no growth in expenses) if we were to go 53b, 53b, 31b that would put us at 301/308. All we have to do is swap Torheven over to work all lakes, and then we're looking at 56b, 55b (projected t78) and then we're sitting at 270/308 with 16g. 60% would be 33b at -15gpt. So right on the line.

This delays Torheven growing to 5 by a turn, but delaying just that town seems worth the tradeoff of getting the rice, gems, and all that stuff a turn quicker.

So I made the switch.