[PB57] Pindicator searches for his mascot

[pindicator]

060

Horseback Riding is done.




My latest two cities are real mascots.  Although Keggy the Keg is the unofficial mascot of Dartmouth College, there really isn't an official mascot at this time, so he gets to be in my game:




Staying in the Ivy League schools, Handsome Dan is the mascot of Yale:




Great Person due in 4, and I'm really leaning more towards Theology than before - except there is a problem:  I have no religion spread.  I need to fix that

[pindicator]

064




Next turn we bulb Thoelogy and then start whipping horse archers.  I mostly have buddhism everywhere I want it - just a 1 or 2 cities shy.  I'll swap back in 5 turns and fill them in, which means we need to try and get 2 or 3 rounds of horse archers in between now and then.

Debating who I attack.  A couple turns ago OH offered me Fish for War with Gavagai - undoubtably he saw my very-telegraphed plan (could have gone Writing before HBR for instance).  I offered him the same thing back, but I don't know if I'm going to attack Gavagai for certain.  I really want to hit TBS but he seems to have the highest power.  OH would be a good target except there are no real good approaches.  Gavagai and Cornflakes both kind of make sense in a geography standpoint.  One idea would be to come in from Cornflakes' west since most of his troops must be on the other side of his empire attacking Gav.  The other idea would be to use the horchers to kill the barbarian city first and then continue on towards Gavagai on a route he wouldn't expect (but would likely see coming a few turns off).  And I still like going after the wonder-horder if I can.

I have a couple turns to make my mind up.

[Amicalola]

Naming Theme question; why college football over the NFL(?), or something similar. Is college football a big deal over there, or did you play in college, or something else?

[pindicator]

Oh it's not just football. These mascots are used in all athletic events and even non-athletic gatherings. They're emblematic of the school at large.

On a side note, my alma mater just won the Pac-12 conference basketball tournament for the first time in over 30 years. Yay sports!

[Amicalola]

Ah ok, thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing the RtR Sacrificial Altars in action. I'm also wondering, how are you finding the sequential PB, compared to a simultanious? Would you do it again?

[pindicator]

I guess I better report better because they are action right now! I've got 7 built as of t65, last turn. They're saving me a good chunk of money and I believe I have the current top GNP in the game.

Of course the real power is in the whipping. And I'm just about ready to abuse that. I could have started whipping 2 promo horchers last turn but I wanted to finish the 2 buddhist missionaries before bulbing Theology and revolting to Theocracy.

As for sequential pitboss, I think I would do it again for small games. Anything under 6. Or I suppose 12 if I mentally am good for a 48-hour rotation. The fact that you can log in and look around at any time is nice, better than pbem by half.

[pindicator]

066

Showtime!




The new religion of Christianity landed itself in the east, at Grizz Logger. Now, there is a fair question of "where will your next Great Prophet come from?" - and to that answer I have "any city with a Sacrificial Altar". Thanks for a stupidly broken building, guys! In all honesty, I'm going to put it at WebstUR, because with that being an island city with no production, I'm not sure there's any other thing for that city to build. We'll whip its granary next turn and then after the Sac Altar is whipped it will just sit on 2 priests for a bit. Maybe I should put the lighthouse ahead of that, its a cheap building for me.

Speaking of whipping, after revolting to Theocracy that was the next thing I did:




5 horse archers out of the gate and that catapulted us up to #2 in power. Gav had that unfortunate turn a little bit ago where Cornflakes got his GG. Gav is looking mighty tempting, I must admit.

Trying to decide on tech. I had a thought of building Statue of Zeus at the capital in order to get 10xp horchers - but I'm already thinking that Apostalic Palace is more likely my choice there. But I'm not likely to build anything but units for a time, and so once again: why go for a wonder tech? Math and Currency are probably the smarter choice in that case.

[Brian Shanahan]

Naming Theme question; why college football over the NFL(?), or something similar. Is college football a big deal over there, or did you play in college, or something else?

College sports is a BFD over in the US. Most of the professional sports are structured so that you pretty much have to play for a good college team to be a top professional and pro teams don't have their own academies or other ways to bring through young players (exception being that baseball teams will often have partnerships with smaller teams to bring through younger players especially outside the US but is still heavily dependant on colleges).

[NobleHelium]

Many college teams are much more consistently good than most NFL teams are, because the NFL is set up for parity with a rigid salary cap. College teams can be consistently good if they can consistently attract good players to play for them, and players can play for whichever college they want. So many colleges have a virtuous cycle of good program/coach -> recruit good players -> continue dominant program, whereas NFL teams peak and decline on a regular basis. Only a handful of NFL teams are relatively consistently good due to generationally good coaches and management. It's much cooler to be a fan when you know your team will be great.

[pindicator]

So I'm probably going to capture that barb city in 2-3 turns. Any requests for my next mascot?