[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[spacetyrantxenu]

That shrine is just obscene. At some point you have to give up your nonprofit status and pay your taxes! What does F7 say the Hindu market share is?

[Old Harry]

We certainly picked the right shrine to steal


25% of the world is Hindu, with 143 cities.

Don't worry though, 100% of that shrine income is being used for the greater glory of Azteca.

[Old Harry]

Turn 246

Dtay has a Transport in one of TBS's cities, I wonder if he's doing some spying? In other news TBS moved his Destroyers NW. Either he's going to threaten our north coast or he's sending them to protect Basilisk Caves on turn 250. Our 9-Destroyer expeditionary force can't get there until t251 and our main fleet wouldn't be there until t257 (if we were planning to send it, which we aren't). So that makes it more important to take his economy down quicker... So we got rid of another 28 tile improvements .


Demos and power.

I didn't end turn, in case there was anything you want to check. If you don't I can do it tomorrow morning.

[Fintourist]

I didn't end turn, in case there was anything you want to check. If you don't I can do it tomorrow morning.

I'll be at work until very late evening so I don't get to log in this turn I think we have covered the big picture moves for this and next turn - you just need to execute everything perfectly

[quote='Old Harry' pid='545136' dateline='1433375778']
Our 9-Destroyer expeditionary force can't get there until t251 and our main fleet wouldn't be there until t257 (if we were planning to send it, which we aren't).

Mmmm. We don't want to send it, that's for sure, but I'm still not sure whether we have to.. When are we planning to send our main fleet home if we don't head for Basilisk, next turn? In 2 turns? I think updating our own victory date & TBS's should be done before that. As said I won't manage to log in this turn during our half, but I'll try to update the analysis as soon as possible.

[Old Harry]

Well there are still a lot of towns in the western end of TBS's empire that could get bombed if we don't have to worry about a big defensive fleet... It depends what he does when we start moving back west in a couple of turns.

[Old Harry]

I ended turn. It looks like BGN finished computers with 4 gold to spare last turn. I wonder if he's got enough Great Engineers on ice to snipe the Internet? He's got two turns to do it... The GNP graph says we're neck-and-neck, although we're ahead Supercomputers and Rocketry and he's got a lot of newly-conquered territory coming online.


Wesmere is the city we'll hit next turn - lots of towns to bombard - then we'll probably head back west. Note the damage done to New Silverhead over the last couple of turns .


Finally I was a bit stumped on what to spend our EPs on. BGN can outproduce us, so there's no point getting into a race with him. We have visibility on most of TBS' cities already so putting more in there would be a waste. So we decided to invest in Dtay with the aim of stealing Liberalism so that we can run Free Religion from the start of our last golden age without wasting valuable beakers. Boatloads of spies are on their way to Regatha to start building the discount over the next few turns.

[Old Harry]

Turn 247

Bad news for tech stealing from dtay - he's launched a full-on espionage economy. Hopefully we can get Lib from him before he points his EPs at us... Thus far 13703 EPs have gone into TBS and his ratios with everyone else look pretty normal.


TBS shot down a couple of our planes then ran some bombing raids but our Infantry already recovered. His fleet is heading up to defend Basilisk Caves. He's going for Democracy now, is that for Emancipation to try to hurt our happiness or US to rush buy stuff?

Gertie pops its Prophet/Engy/Spy this turn so we can launch our golden age whenever we want. We were thinking it would wait until we're building spaceship parts. TBS is guarding his coast fairly well, but we do have a chance of sniping the MoM for a turn to launch a 12-turn GA... I'm pondering sending our fleet back earlier than previously planned. It might even draw his big fleet back from Basilisk Caves, allowing our smaller strike force to do some damage there.

Before bombing TBS was at +2600 gpt (at 100% gold) with 1092 gold in the bank. and after knocking six towns down to hamlets he's down to +2571 gpt. So bombing is nice, but I think capturing the MoM is a much bigger deal... In the end I moved our fleet back west. Urithiru is the target.


The Internet finishes this turn too. Fingers crossed. Next turn I think we can draft Kipple, Twinkle and spike.

Demos, espionage and power

[Fintourist]

Quickly here instead of chat:

- Would you have an updated screenshot of Basilisk Cave? I guess it's time to update our victory date forecasts so that we know what kind of measures are required for slowing TBS
- The above being said, MoM-move indeed sounds attractive at this point if we can pull it off. I'm skeptical reg TBS allowing it
- Democracy should be for Uni Suffrage. Quick culture buildings in Basilisk must be on TBS agenda
- What's our full burnage rate (gold?). After this turn we have 16 700 gold saved, can we get rid of that in ~12 turns If not, running 10-30 % research this turn isn't that wasteful

If it looks probable that TBS can get the culture victory before our space date, what's your level of civ burnage?
1. Lots of energy: We mobilize every single unit we have and march to TBS core and burn a culture city if needed
2. Some energy: We keep maximizing the damage we can do to TBS without committing to a full attack - we head to Basilisk Cave area and bring more ships in if needed
3. Fuck it - 250 turns is enough: Enough energy for some bombarding / MoM-move, but if culture victory is faster, so be it, gg.

[Old Harry]

We lost sight on BC this turn, I thought getting the EPs to steal Lib was more urgent than tracking the end date, but we could switch EPs back to TBS if he hasn't played yet.

Our max burn is -1800 gpt with a lot of wealth builds, so we'll easily get through our reserves.

I think I'll have plenty of energy for a culture kill, the question is how much BGN participates/takes advantage... He's back to being score leader, but is behind on techs, so does he leave us to deal with TBS or does he get involved too? If we send all our units to stop TBS that leaves us wide open to BGN. His transports are poised two/three turns from our shores, my fear is that the second we stop TBS they roll into our waters and unload 30-40 commando units.

BTW we have 3-4 fighters and 1 bomber that can hit Elensefar at the moment, winning a few more air combats should get us some more that can take the range promo. If we're going to have to go all out to kill a culture city that's the one we should plan for. And do we try to use the MoM-steal as a foothold to further hurt TBS or just as a springboard for ourselves?

[Old Harry]

Turn 248

We got a Great Engineer and we won the Internet so it's full steam ahead on research. Here's an example of a city that's pre-workshopped for when Composites comes in.


This turn TBS lost three fighters and shot down one of ours, I did some more sky-pillaging and put our boats in range of Sablestone and Arcanclave. We'll be able to hit one of them in a couple of turns, but they're so packed full of stuff that I don't hold a lot of hope of breaking through. We're becoming more pessimistic about stopping TBS's culture attempt before our spaceship arrives, one of our best hopes is that this 80% Artist turns out to be something else.


We got an unashamedly self-referential event - do we want +1 Happy everywhere, +3 beakers from Universities or 500-630 gold?
- I think the happy is going to be most useful if we're staying at war with TBS. Right now we have WW of 154, translating to 2-3 unhappy faces in our bigger cities. None of them are unhappy at the moment, but its very close in most of our big cities.
- We only have about ten Universities, so that's ~60 BPT.
- 500 extra gold gets us approx 1000 beakers, but not for about ten turns when our current stack of cash runs out.
In the end I went for the happy option - one unhappy face in Alfie is close to 20 BPT and we're very likely to need to do some more fighting .


Carrot is three turns from completing Apollo - one of the farms will become a workshop next turn to supply the extra hammers. So now we need to get some overflow ready for building the Docking Bay and five Thrusters.


Demos and power.