[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Fintourist]

Hey quick comment: I just noticed that Ichabod actually logged in at the start of the turn. So he received our dyes-ivory trade normally and just declined it. I totally want to close borders with him now, or at least demand gold for it... It's really weird that he is being unfriendly despite our 16 commerce gift and I can't see him attacking us with weak slow as the neighbor. I think closing OBs and offering them back for 5 gpt is the way to go...

Very fitting avatar..

[Fintourist]

I did following changes:
-I started a lighthouse in France (immediate +1 food because we work whales and possibility to get away with less worker support because working 2/0/2 coast is in some cases only bad, not terrible
- I switched BoP from forge to Missionary, I like forge there very much, but we also really need religion in many of our cities and natural spread lottery has not been kind to us during the last couple of turns. I think that's a quicker way to get +25 % in some relevant city.
- I hired 1 artist in Hastings, if we don't swap to slavery next turn we could run 1 next turn too?

Things left to do:
- decide whether we start builds in Isandlwana & Jamestown (which has quite a bit of overflow) & Endor. Isandlwana could start a forge, Jamestown's options are an axe, forge & library I think. We probably need more axes anyway before our peace with suttree runs out so we might as well already build one in Jamestown. Endor could also start another worker.
- Decide our Ichabod policy. I did not do anything yet..
- We could consider getting HBR or Construction in 2 turns, but my current feeling is that we want to save money for a while, before committing to any tech path. Due to suttree's stack composition we are still doing fine with shock axes. For the future cats are probably the most useful units.

Feel free to override my changes etc. I like EP allocation, did not think more about military unit movements, but for now near Königgratz and when the peace with suttree runs out SW of Hastings is still my hypothesis. I will be available again late in the evening, but if you want to end turn go for it. I think I have said everything that I have in mind currently..

[Old Harry]

- BoP will take 8 turns to build a forge (quicker with the whip) and then gets three extra hammers a turn, meanwhile it could make two and a half missionaries which can start providing extra hammers to other cities. Which is a long way of saying I don't know which is best so I left it on the missionary
- Axe in Jamestown and forge in Issy sound good, what would the worker in Endor do?
- Lets wait for Ichabod to declare on Slow before closing borders
- I think we want construction next, then we show suttree we have a cat and hope that puts him off attacking. I set science to 0% and put us on construction.
- I moved the army NE of Konig, our bowmen could start acumulating fortification in the city but we'd need to know what Suttree is doing with his troops for that. How about a spy in Jamestown?
- I ended turn, feel free to switch Endor to a worker if you are sure

[Fintourist]

Back at home! A bit wasted.. All your decisions are good for me. Just to clarify, it would have been ok if you had disagreed with every one of my suggestions too.. I just wanted to write all my ideas so that you get some food for thought.

I will keep bothering you with Ichabod. I don't honestly think that he realizes that we are gifting 16 commerce per turn to him. I really want to make it clear for Ichabod that we are not dependent on him and his rude behaviour does not need to be tolerated.. However, I also understand the argument that we should just suck it and let him be an ass.. It might well be a better decision, but especially afted couple of drinks Ichabod really pisses me off and I don't like rewarding his arrogant approach while he is not really in position to demand anything from us.

[Old Harry]

Turn 125

Still no religion luck for us.


And I think the only way we're getting our fish and hill back is by force. What will induce m_h to sign peace? We sent another offer to Pindicooter.


The argument for switching back to slavery - we want to whip:
- Gallipoli (some time soon)
- Light Brigade next turn
- Should we whip a barracks in Konig next turn
vs
- run artist in Hastings
- pop borders of Nibru quicker next turn

I made up an order for our missionary work: Issy, Hastings, Jamestown, Light Brigade, Agincourt, Omdurman, Endor, Konig. This depends a bit on how likely we are to keep the peak at Hastings - I think the library in Madrid might have got to 4 cpt, meaning we need third-ring borders there.

Should we promote Molach so he heals quicker? Also we could road the jungle so that the sentry chariot can get a view in Barcelona without giving warning. If we don't road the jungle Suttree will get a turn to react.


Graphs


Demos

[Fintourist]

Ok, made tile assignments, left signs etc. Here are some random empire management comments:
- Slavery next turn sounds good
- Promoting Molach seems good
- The worker W-W of Gallipoli can road the sugar, we would like to get more tiles up for our southern cities, but if suttree attacks König, he might pillage our sugar and it would be nice to have a back-up resource
- Worker micro around König/Nibru: The worker NE of König should put 1 turn into iron mine this turn, next turn 3 workers can finish the mine and the turn after chop barracks for Nibru.
- Sentry chariot could check what's inside Barcelona this turn anyways. After that I think it needs to move towards Hastings. We are going to lose the vision of gems tile there and we really need to maintain that in order to be safe and it can only be done with our sentry chariot
- I'm fine with barracks whip in König. Did not change the build yet though.
- Suttree probably has our research vision now
- Some of the units in Nibru might want to move in a more zone defence type of position
- Medic chariot can probably start moving towards a bit more useful location.

Big Picture stuff:
- It seems GA era has started with dtay pulling the trigger first.. Dtay's HR+Caste+OR+Bureaucracy switch is similar to what I did in PBEM45 and it's surely a good move for him. His flood plains capital is well suited for that.. I'm sure many other civs will follow in the coming turns.
- Our 1st GA is still in a fairly distant future and we will need it to keep up with others, but at least currently we are competitive in all the relevant metrics. Actually our population reached world-leading 8 % for the first time this turn! The question is, how far back will we fall during the next 20 turns and will we manage to bounce back. There is no chance we can race for Liberalism in this game and Guilds-line is surely more attractive for us in the near-term. If we would not have this kind of a central position or expensive history with suttree the situation might be different. Theoretically we want to launch a GA in ~25 turns and then spend 16 turns in golden age, birth a load of GPs, bulb Astronomy etc.
- Mackoti's food graph has a nice slope and thanks to m_h his improvement will continue. His MFG & GNP are not yet at top level, but that will change in the future. We could stop him now and do the favor for the world, but in effect that would only drag us down. Our chance to win this game pretty much is dependent on whether our neighbors allow us to focus on our economy the next 20-35 turns and whether we can absorb suttree without too big investments. After that we have to clash with some of the actual contenders if we want more land or maybe stretch us even further and grab those islands E of Jamestown.. It's still a long way there though..

[Old Harry]

Ah yes, hello Suttree. I count 13 cats, 2 spears and 15 axes (4 combat 1). Our forced peace runs out t129 so he can have his stack planted 1E of Koniggratz on t130. I'd like to road one of our jungles - probably the one 2E of Koniggratz - so that our chariot can pop his head out every turn and see what's happening without Suttree knowing we know. But it's probably too late for that, so we could just move the chariot SE-SW next turn.


We need to build lots of axes - we have 10 by Konig now and one in Cannae (although he's not Shock so not much use) - I think we need 20. There are six bows in theatre and we could move some down from Hastings and Jamestown.

Other things to do:
- Fortify everything we've got in Koniggratz (if he decides to head to Hastings again we'll have warning and can shift)
- Leave two spears in Nibru and move all the other units to Konig
- Switch to slavery this turn - this allows us to
- - Whip Jamestown producing axes this turn and next
- - Whip Hastings producing axes this turn and next
- - Whip the missionary in Dunkirk producing an axe next turn
- - Whip the Barracks in Konig t126 then the bowman t127 allowing an axe to complete t128 and then we chop another axe t129
- Move the bow down from Light Brigade via Hastings
- We could try to get units out of Cannae and Gallipoli but I dunno if they'll get there in time
- chop the barracks in Nibru and then more axes (haven't thought too much about this)

Looks like that only gets us to 16 axes. Is it worth putting the chop into walls in Konig rather than the 16th axe?

Edit: 8 hours left on the clock - I'll do some simming after the pub.

[TheHumanHydra]

:nuke: :nuclear: :explode: :explosion: :rage: What the heck is the code for the guy who blows his top?

This time, guys - assuming we can get enough units in position - can we please not let him get away - just savage him? I want done with this dude - SDE.

[Fintourist]

Superquick response. Slavery next turn might be enough, but change the builds in konig, J H &C so that we can whip cities next turn. I'm once again wasted so I haven't calculated required turns for logistics so if slavery this turn is needed go for it!

[Old Harry]

Brilliant - I'm wasted too! How can we play a turn like this?

From what my sober self calculated if Suttree gets the first half of the turn we need to whip this turn. However if he goes for the second half we get an extra turn of grace. However again if we don't whip this turn we won't be able to whip next turn anyway because we'll complete units and need to dry-whip. So I'm going to make an executive decision and do all the whipping that I laid out earlier.

If it doesn't work out I blame the pub. I don't know why I thought you'd be sober

THH - if he lets us we'll do it, but he's no noob. He's at least tier six...