[Spoiler] PB42: Rusten and mackoti play Krill playing Bismarck of Portugal

[Krill]

Night shifts mean back to back turn, no updates for now as I need to go out the door, but OH declared war on DZ and will take everything over the next 3 or so turns, and he does have Astro.

That means the plan is straightforward: Optics for Carracks, then straight through to Guilds, and we plan to hit OH's core. I think OH has to alphastrike us now, so I'm trying to cover that.

[Krill]

I've been thinking about IND. I'm fairly sure it's actually too weak in it's current form, compared to every other trait.

Hear me out on the reasoning, because I think this game has been a good example of the issues.

• First of all, IND does nothing until you either get MC and finish a forge, at which point you are down a Classical era tech and need to push 240 hammers through it (minus any happy resource doubling). By this point every other trait will have contributed something, even SPI will have saved around 2 turns if not more (Slavery, religion revolt, OR or caste are all potential points of saving turns, and 40 hammer temple for a GP for the first GA or a shrine) and that gives a pretty large window of opportunity for some other player to capitalize on: just look at Elkad. It is fine to pick a late game trait, but it has to be strong come the end game. I'm not arguing that IND is not strong in the late game, just that it probably takes too long to turn on.
  
  
• The second point is that the second copy of the National Wonders aren't as strong as the first copy in 2 ways: They cost more because they have no effective modifiers, and they get put into worse cities than the original National Wonders. Instead of the HE and NE going into the two best cities, even though there is choice about where each one goes, the second copies go into the third and fourth best cities which are by definition weaker. Therefore, even by the end game, IND will not be benefiting to the extent that the sum of the national wonder outputs are essentially doubled.

The first point I don't see as a huge problem, that's what IND is probably best as, a late game trait that leaves a window in the early game to getting rushed. I think how it verges into second point is a problem that will need fixing though.

I reckon that the best solution is two step: All the Industrial National Wonders are changed in cost to be 50% the base cost of the standard national wonder, and because of the way it's coded with a massive production bonus, it will never really cost less than 50% by any appreciable amount: What is a 25% production bonus on a 19000% production bonus after all? This does put a limit on the weakness in step 2 because it will make sure there is always a "cheap" version available to build, rather than paying more for a second version to go into a weaker city.

The second step is that I think the requirements to build those National Wonders (Only the Industrial version) are altered: Heroic Epic loses the level 4 unit requirement, National Epic is brought forward to Aesthetics, Oxford/Wall Street/Iron Works etc lose the civ wide university requirement (still required in the specific city though).

What this does is it shortens the window of opportunity where IND is essentially worthless. Maybe by T150 IND is starting to look powerful: It should be if it's doing nothing for the first 100 turns. It makes IND usable in the mid game because NE and HE are the two main National Wonders that power IND into the Renaissance era National Wonders, where IND starts to really pay back. If the NE and NW aren't available, then IND is way too weak to function. The other stuff, the changes to the later National Wonders I am less sure about, but I think it's worth discussing: it may be that just removing the requirement for all of the base buildings is enough of a cost saving to buff IND, but at the same time, I then have to wonder about the benefit of pushing for the second National Wonder if it has to go into a weaker city if it's going to cost the same anyway. Maybe I'm just sleep deprived after getting 6 hours sleep in the past 48 hours. I dunno.

[Krill]

Turn 146 and T147.

Double turn played yesterday. Forgot to take demographics T146 (or maybe it just didn't take).




So...yeah, OH has galleons. and CKN, and swords, and a few trebs, and he has position, which is like saying "I need a good 5 turns after building everything just to get it where I need it". OH took this city on T147. And I think he took the other core city, leaving just the capital.

I am running the scout on this island down to check it out.





OT4E must be pissed. Gav starting his golden age and he is stuck pushing out an Artist to just hold his front cities borders, and it looks like they have cities minimum distance from each other on flatland?! That can't be stable.





SW needs a forge. There is a very real chance I need to sacrifice great people production and push out boats here: I have no other coastal cities south of this, only the island cities. I'm going to need to push out Carracks constantly to hold the ocean against OH when it comes to war and I'm now convinced that it's going to be war because I can't safely attack Lewwyn and defend against OH that effectively, so might as well just go for OH and take everything from him. Worst case scenario is probably losing the Hindu shrine to a raze but keeping the Buddhist shrine. I could steal a tile from WB and push SW up to 25 base hpt, 2 turn Carracks. Something I'm mulling over.





I think I'm getting the Artist out just in time, and this is exactly why I didn't want to leave the gpp in the city. I can trigger an emergency GA on T151 if I need to





I swear this was luck and not micro. I need to move some Xbows over here, it needs a good 6 units sitting in it (yes I'm paranoid, but 2 galleons could come sailing over from superjm even if OH has no way of getting galleons here without me seeing them.





As ridiculous as the crop yield is becoming, I'm now starting to put plans into place to gaurd against that potential pivot to start razing my coast. Firstly, I don't have anything useful over there until SW on the end peninsula. Seconly, I'm changing tech path: I'm going to rush to Knights. The best defense is a good offense etc. Also, knights are what destroy his CKN if he lands, and if he can't land and make headway, all that OH does it piss me off and then I start opening him up to invasion from Cairo. I also checked that I believe there are at least 3 players in Vassalage, and I believe superjm and superdeath have longbows which would push Feudalism to a 1.5 modifier (and Guilds will be the same as well shortly). I could get either Optics eot148 with nothing left for a T153 Feudalism or Feudalism eot150 and, I believe, Guilds eot151 if 5 other players have it (superjm has Guilds from tile yields, OT4E has no visible workshops in his entire empire, Gav does not yet have Guilds, so this is not that likely) or Guilds eot152 if not.

[Krill]

Turn 148

Slight screw up on my part, I had graphs of Cairo and lost them as he put more EP against me, I believe to keep research visibility. I am one turn from getting research visibility on OT4E, and also getting graphs on superdeath, so I'm going to grab both of those and then drop all my EP onto Cairo until I get tech visibility, and then I will keep a buffer of 10EP above that needed for graphs (so half a turns EP generation). The reasoning is this: once DZ dies I have graphs on everyone, and will have tech visibility on OT4E and OH. I could try for city visibility on OH, but that would be really aggressive, and I am not willing to do that before I have units in place and a decent power rating (so I can actually defend if I piss him off). That leaves superjm and Gav for research visibility, as superdeath is irrelevant to me except for his ability to keep OH honest and Lewwyn is backward. Neither of those are particularly relevant to me at this point, as superjm is trying his best to tech to the future and not put up a defense, and Gav is a long way away, all that really matters is his route to Frigates. Knowing the relationship (ie power graph) between Cairo and Gav, and Cairo and OH is much more important than that research visibility, so maintaining that is more important and gets the first share of EP.





Looks like OH has put the kibosh on DZ good and proper, and now it is back to consolidation rather than moving onwards, at least for a few turns whilst his pop regrows. That's the only window I need to get a decent defense in play, so I'm a bit more comfortable, but I'm not taking my eye off the ball completely. Still planning for build up and hitting OH first.





2 points of relevance: OT4E has Feud as we know, but he is moving his longbows down to the Gav front. It suggests he is not about to rush superjm off the map with knights, but might do in the near future. And Gav also lacks Guilds: golden age and caste production level workshops. But I have an easy way to check on his speed to Guilds. OTOH, I just can't find any workshops in OT4Es lands, which is bizarre for and RtR mod game, which is why I'm valuing research visibility on OT4E.





I know this doesn't show it, but Cairo was around superjm's level of power, which makes him a target. But something I've not shown: superjm has Guilds. For the love of god, man, you're SPI and have forges down: go into PS and builds some fucking units! Just get a response stack of knights and a couple of longbows/xbows and cats. We're all going to follow OH's lead and start building massive armies.





Slight change from this screenshot, running wealth in ITM and LBJ for a turn or two, to time the HA builds into knights. But I've checked again: this turn we make 570 base bpt, and Feud is known by 5 players: it has a 1.5 modifier (0.2 from Monarchy, .06 from each player), so it costs 750 base beakers. If Guilds is known by 2 players on T151, that should be a base cost of 1245-ish, give or take rounding beakers. With this turn saving gold I think we are good for Feud eot150 and Guilds eot152. If Guilds were known by 4 it is still a 4 turn tech, just out of reach, but I will have gold left over. If it is known by 5 players, then eot151 is just about possible if I pushed really hard. But I'm not going to, eot152 is fine.





I'm depressing MFG at the moment to grow a couple of cities a bit more before Guilds comes in...and OT4E has only just overtaken us in MFG, whilst in a golden age.

[Krill]

Two quick turn updates.

T149




We know superjm has Guilds due to workshop output, but why doesn't he have longbows in his front city?





Gav has Guilds. Gav has Guilds and OT4E doesn't even have any workshops down?! Or other production cities. OT4E is turning into a speed bump.





OH is pushing for DZ, and I reckon these are teh final troops to push for the capital.





Superdeath built the GLH and did fuck all with it.





I see 4 players with economies that can build units. Or rather, OH has an army but isn't really adding to it, depending on what happens at Earth he may take a while to stack up again by which point Gav and myself will have overtaken him in power.





T150 I can get the scout into Earth and have a look around.





Depending on how the attack on Earth goes, I'm going to have either curtail the build up in the lower half of the cities, so I have units to defend against an onslaught of CKN, or I'm going to push ahead and build two massive SoD to push down through to OH's capital whilst Carracks and privateers hold the western ocean.

[Krill]

Turn 150

Traditional turn for a state of the union. You aren't getting that.




I interrupted OH playing the turn, so this is not the before picture, but after some collateral has been used (CKN or trebs I don't know). I count 2 Xbows, 7 axes, 2 archers, 4 warriors and a catapult. 16 units to defend with.





OH has a minimum of 12 CKN, 3 swords and 3 chariots to attack with, potentially plus the galleon (and a galley hidden in the fog we later see). So we know that OH has enough units to take the city.





Which he does, in good time, using the chariots to kill the final few warriors. He lost a few swords, Xbows and siege units in this war, and he needs to heal and reposition to threaten me. I'm not that concerned about him attacking in the next 5 turns now, he needs to move units, heal them (about 3-4 turns combined), load them on boats and position to attack (another 2-4 turns). By then I'll have Guilds and a good chunk of knights, enough to only lose a few peripheral cities to an amphibious invasion, nothing core.





GP roll at eot.





OT4E doesn't have Guilds...so I'm slowing tech to not finish Feud this turn. Next turn I can research at 100% to finish Feudalism and should be able to finish Guilds eot152 with 3 people knowing it. I'm hoping to have about 150 gold left in the bank, but that's a guess. Gav got an 18 score increase in the middle of the turn, so he either bulbed Gunpower with a GE that just popped or he took Astro, I expect Astro. Max tech is now 615bpt, close to the end of GA figures. Compass and Optics combined come to around 180% of the science slider, so Optics eot157 should be easy.

[Dreylin]

Does the outcome of the Great Person roll at AC make any difference, or will it be consumed in GA2 regardless?

[Krill]

We got a GE. I'm considering options tbh, the tech pace has never been swift and it isn't speeding up. I'm hesitant to burn the second golden age to revolt into Merc and build up a tech lead. We have an artist in hand and AC can make another GP in 13 turns. The main point of the GA has to be to build up and take someone's land but that isn't straight forward: OH has inland to capture, Lewwyn has shit land, and attacking superjm leaves to west open to OH.

[Krill]

My understanding is that due to the number of cities if is 2 turns to revolt into Merc, and 3 turns to revolt into Merc and Vassalage. With that in mind I'm not sure it makes sense to delay the golden age significantly, but I was planning to wait for the next GP anyway.

If you take the list output from a single turn, it is around 500 hammers, plus a further 250 gold. Ignore the culture, food and good, Merc would pay back around 100 gold per turn. Given at best 3 turns of lost output, that is probably 25 turns to catch up.

GA is better, but I have to start laying down plans.

[Krill]

I've not forgotten this game. Just mulling over options.

Also wondering what OH does next. He has been healing his stack this turn, and tbh it isn't that impressive. I just don't...quite...have the coastal production to say it's irrelevant.