[Spoilers]C6PBEM23: Krill sidles yonder, and probably fails

[Krill]

T110

Interesting developments.




greenline, despite having not a single holy site in his empire, accepted Hildegard. With her taken off the table, TAD will be first in line for the next GS but I will be close to a lock on the last GS: The healer. More on that later:

I'm still a little shocked that greenline didn't reject the next GS again. Maybe he finaly realised that just just want to maximise your points and take every single one GP you can get? Even then, this is a blow for TAD, that's an easy 10 bpt that he just lost.





The last GS has the passive ability to heal units 20hp/turn, which is great if I need to fight, well, anyone. I'd accept him in a heartbeat, but the active is also pretty good: It could give me a leg up on Square Rigging if I need it because I can get every other eureka:

• Astronomy: Build a uni in Long. After the Armoury, there is little else to do except units.
  
• Printing: build the unit in MH as well. Not a problem given that's a solid production city.
  
• Banking: Guilds is a 6 turn vicic without the inspiration, and I have to take it on a straight line after Exploration anyway.
  
• Gunpowder: Build an Armoury: Armoury in hand, due around SoT116 in Long
  
• Metal Casting: Own two crossbowmen: easy gold upgrade by the time I need it as I have three archers sitting around.
  
• Siege tactics: own two trebs. Expensive, 400 production with no card doubler. I might roll the dice between this and SQ. I might not if I follow through on any offensive plans against greenline as I would need two trebs for that.
  
• Square Rigging: Only boostable in a war with greenline or an incredibly looking barb camp spawn.

Hence that GS is useful in pretty much any scenario, and a strong reason for me to quickly through down at least the library in MH ASAP.





Here's the larger update.

I decided against the Maritime Industries/build galleys for upgrade plan. It doesn't make sense: Ponytail is a 20 production/turn city, and I've beelined Exploration which holds PRess Gangs. If I need a boat in the west I will build a caravel in 6 turns, and the benefit of staying in Veterancy for the next couple of turns cannot be understated:

• Ponytail will complete the encampment start of next turn for suzerainity of Zanzibar and is then essentially free to build...whatever, including a possible barracks, builder, trebuchet, a battering ram (for upgrade!)
  
  
• Long will finish the stables with no overflow, using the Veterancy bonus to "maximise" production of minimal tiles. This allows MH to work maximum production this turn, and next turn give all the production tiels back to Long to push out as much as possible into the Armoury before I lose Veterancy on T113.
  
  
• Mullet is 75 production from finishing the lighthouse. Growth is in 4 (I'm butchering MH and Long to do it, except they really aren't, giving every tile that gives housing to Mullet). Mullet would finish the lighthouse in 5 with veterancy, (at 15.6 adjust production per turn it slips to 6 turns once I drop veterancy). I will have to eat one turn of poor growth at size 6, but on that turn I can hand back the relevant tiles and pick up the production tiles and finish the lighthouse anyway, then Amani establishes and it can blitz through to size 10 at around 20 food per turn.
  
  
• Lumberjack is crashing into a housing cap I thought I could circumvent but the trader is bring in so much food I've hit it sooner than I thought. However, I've swapped back to the granary (poor choice, could have it completed already for the extra food if I had continued on it rather than the Commercial district. Oh well). it will complete in 5 turns along with growth to size 5 and the housing cap will be adjusted to support the continued growth. At that point I will have enough population to actually finish the aqueduct in a timely fashion for further growth, after the commercial district.

This just fits together well, it almost feels like I'm back playing civ 3 and micro'ing tiles to get around corruption and two turn granary growth on alternating 7/3 and 6/4 growth cycles, with a goal in mind. The MI plan was chasing two rabbits (like Whosit with his wonder builds then failing in a legion "rush" and was about gathering tools I don't actually need. At this point I don't need tools anymore, I need goals.

I'm getting to the point where I need to start gearing up for (a) war, but I still need to pour the gold into Walrus to buy tiles, and I need four builders from Ponytail (one for Walrus work boats and two uber Liang fisheries, one for the great wall project and a single forest chop into the Walrus Harbour, one to mine the area around Mullet, and one to chop and farm the marshes and camp the game, with spare charges used to lumber mill at Lumberjack.

That's slightly over 1,000 gold for four builders, and then another 550 gold to buy all the needed tiles then another 300 for the wanted tiles, the two Liang fisheries (6 and 5 food tiles respectively, shared with Walrus). It's alot, but with Cartography (no beelined) and without any other city reaching size 10, Walrus being settled and growing like a weed due to a trade route, Exploration +10% gold, and having one spare trade route available in 5 or so turns I expect to get there before T125. The greatest challenge is micromanaging for efficiency.

[Krill]

Era points for Renaissance Dark/Normal/Golden Age

Need 27 era points for GA, 13 for normal (as of T110)

Unique tile improvement: 4 (trivial)
Unique unit: 4 (finish Machinery, build Crouching Tiger, trivial)
snow city: 1 (planned T115)
tier 2 government: 2/3 (definite 2, TAD is in Monarchy)
First iron unit: 1 (trivial)
First Ren era tech: 1/2 (expect 1, but I get there SoT112, Whosit needs to hurry up if he plans to upgrade two galleys to finish off Exploration)
First ren era civic: 1/2 (expect 1, Whosit must be almost there, but I wonder how closely he thinks he is being followed when I finished two civics close together)
Circumnavigation: 5 (I doubt anyone will beat me to this)
Size 15 city: 1/2 (Use MH, chop the two marshes into MH should give me most of sizes 13 and 14. I need 739 food though, so I need to chop the marshes sooner rather than later and set up the farm triangle to help out, and possibly a bit of Lilja as well. The race is with TADs' capital at size 12 already so I'm behind)
Great scientist: 1
Great admiral 1: 1
Great admiral 2: 1

=23.

I can eat a gold cost and buy each of those great people when I'm about to complete them (to minimise the cost) and that would give me an extra 2 era points per great person, but I doubt I would need to: I am about to research a ton of techs from teh rennaissance era and each should give +1. That would get me to 29 if I did that with all three I know I can get, so I can get the golden age. With any luck I might be the first to a Ren era tech and size 15 city.

I do not care about the dedications. Hic Sunt Dracones is worthless as I'm stuck in a box, I'm not using foreign trade routes as the food with the Magnus set up is superior for Yongle, and I have no religion so EofE is even worse than HSD. Monumentality is the only sane option, and this is mostly to save card swapping, and more importantly: Loyalty pressure on greenline at Urtin Duu.

[Krill]

T111

A bit of a laugh for you, if you aren't reading Whosits thread.

At the start of this turn I completed the encampment at Ponytail and the envoy appeared in Zanzibar, as per normal quest completion. But I'm not suzerrain, so Whosit must have done something. I go, check, and see we are tied at 7 envoys. So on his T111 he placed an envoy (or he completed a quest this turn, but I doubt it).

I think what happened was that T109 I completed Mercenaries and placed the envoy, T110 Whosit didn't place a spare envoy, so I think he researched a civic which gave an envoy (I can confirm that he did research a civic his SoT111 after reviewin the saves). I know that on my T110 he had 45 civic score which means he had 15 civics: Drama and Poetry (theatre district), not Recorded History, not Theology and everything up to Exploration but not Naval Tradition (because why would he with one self settled coastal city).

On my T111 he has a civic score of 48. He has not teched Exploration (can see from teh civic tree), and Theology is 96 culture with a 38 culture inspiration. He makes 74 culture per turn, so it's a trivial one turn worth of research, unlike Naval Tradition. So I reckon he took a turn off Exploration for Theology to try and take back suzerainity. Shame at the delay Also he burnt about 1,000 gold on something?

OTOH, he will get the envoy GM on his T113 and that will get him suzerainity back, but this is a nice little poke in the eye. I can have Theology done SoT116 so I can give him another little kick then. Oh, and what to do with these two upgraded caravels I have nothing else to do with...?

[Krill]

Turn 112

Whosit beat me to first Renaissance tech by turn order, but he took Gunpowder. Impressive choice, telegraph much? Beelining Gunpowder when there is no niter being accumulated shows someone is very much set on what they want. It doesn't matter, he still has two sources he can settle for.

On the plus side, he has no defence against caravels and just the one coastal city on the Antarctic ocean (and he just bought tiles for the turtle...cute). And he has not finished Exploration yet, so at best he is 1.5 turns ahead of me on getting into Merchant Republic. I'll take that given the variance in the starts.

TAD has got his science rate up to about the same level as mine without the GA Free Inquiry effect. I'm just thankful he missed Hildegard or he'd basically be in a position to stay ahead of me in science for ever.

I've reconsidered the guv'nor options, and I'm going to promote Liang to Fisheries and then move her to Walrus (and building a baracks and granary to mitigate the housing loss), and promote Amani to Emissary which pushes Urtin Duu into disloyalty. I'm going for the culture flip.

[Krill]

Turn 113

All set for Exploration SoT114, Whosit re-suzerained Zanzibar with the GM envoy and I will neutralise on T116. Meanwhile Whosit has settled for niter, and I circumnavigated the world (first, for that tasty +5 era points).







Burmese is a weak point, and I'm close to being able to make an alliance...

[Krill]

Question for lurkers: I've had a bad day at work but I'm still doing a decent t114 update. It will likely be written by grumpy Krill. Are there any questions you would like grumpy Krill to answer or would you rather wait for a tamer version, which might not appear before the weekend?

[Krill]

T114

OK, grumpy Krill can stay in his cage.




Got Exploration, and the policy cards are:

• Conscription: Worth 7gpt, no barb combat, and not building any units for the next two turns
  
• Naval Infrastructure: No brainer, worth 14gpt and 14bpt.
  
• Urban Planning: 5 production/turn for this turn, 6 next turn.
  
• Merchant Confederation: 9gpt
  
• Charismatic Leader: Brings forward double envoys into Zanzibar to T123 (Colonial Offices and Diplomatic league do literally nothing).
  
• Caravansaries: Worth 8gpt.
  

I considered alternate wild cards, but the GS card might push me ahead of TAD as I think he is running the card as well (Don't want him to drop it), and I would prefer the last medieval GS. The writer card is a long shot plan for me. The GG card is literally wasting a slot, and the Republican Legacy card only puts one city to +5, otherwise it has no effect for the next two turns. The Admiral card is superfluous.

Every city finishes a building this turn, except Long with the Armoury next turn. I've almost run out of tiles to work in these cities, but that isn't exactly a problem now, but will be in the future. I'll swap into Serfdom on T116 and buy builders on T116 and T117, and swap out of Serfdom for Land Surveyors with about 100g in the bank I will have to use it again in the future, but I will be able to buy the two fish tiles at Walrus and the 6 food fishery tile. Theology SoT116, Recorded History SoT117, Civil Service SoT119. MH will go straight onto a trader for Walrus, Mullet will go for a monument (probably) simply because I will need it to take a couple more tiles which are still relatively cheap, Ponytail is on a granary. Then from T120 I can have Mass Production and build Seaports with Veterancy, or I can ignore that path and just go for the military. I still work out options. I think I'm going for Seaports, I need the production in at least MH.

On a note that lurkers who have been bothered to read this far will probably like, I'm declaring war on Whosit next turn.

[Krill]

Also there is a potential bug as no cities seem to be getting a production bonus on districts of any kind. I'll check again next turn.

[Krill]

Turn 115

I'll preface this quick point for lurkers to think about, and start with questions: Who wins this game? How does each player lose?

The short version of the answer is that greenline probably can't win at all, Chev needs to find available land, TAD needs to forcibly spread his religion westwards around the globe to finish off Whosit last, and Whosit needs to kill everyone before they outscale him. I need to eat greenline then outscale everyone, then eat Whosit with an era tech lead. Chev and greenline lose by being eaten by Whosit, I lose by doing nothing, and TAD loses if Whosit successfully executes (what should be) his plan.




Why do I lose by doing nothing? Because Whosit is sending 4 trade routes to Monks Halo and he is making 73g, 4h, 8b and 4c from them. If I declare war, I nuke those routes and he drops to about 75bpt, 75cpt and about 80gpt (based off different turn gold amounts). I can interdict any trade to TAD, and greenline isn't worth much (and I have asked for OB). The war dec alone will wreck his economy. And there is literally zero economic cost to me, all my trade routes are internal and gold generation comes from population.

How much damage does that do to his war machine? He need has one niter hooked and needs to settle another city for his second. He has one coastal city, and needs to go back for Cartography (and he doesn't have 2 harbours and can't even place one at his new niter city because he placed a commercial district!) Does he try for the eureka on Square Rigging? Does he build muskets? Does he risk me razing his city if he doesn't find a way to build a viable defence? Now he has something else to focus on, rather than overland conquest, and that delays him executing any plan.

He has control of Zanzibar, but for how long can he maintain that? Meanwhile Chev can try and get back up to speed. Can he do anything with greenline diplomatically? Doubtful given the previous invasion. What does Whosit do in this situation?

I've chipped the walls at Burmese and will pillage the harbour next turn (I will swap into Raid for the extra yields! The civics have lined up perfectly). I'll pillage the turtles as well, but might do that on T117 not T116 (it's only health and taking the amenity from Whosit might not be the most important action on T116). I'm considering a ploy to use Press Gangs and spam out four quadriemes over two turns from MH and Long. 4 seems OTT though, but I could easily get three out, upgrade two and keep the third in reserve. Maybe Whosit thinks of that, and tries to put a defence in place? And that's fine because he isn't expanding via military.




I expect this to be rejected, but Chev will know to think about a military alliance. That's another +5 against Whosit.




Chev will almost certainly take Leif simply to have a scouting unit. I really hope so, because then we can share the next two Great Admirals and they are both decent: Zheng He gives the trade route and trader, Rajendra gives the permentant +3 strength boost. I'd prefer the trader but I'm not complaining at the strength increase. Himerios can stick around a while the second can be used immediately for the main effect.

Theoretically between all these I can get caravels to 55+5+5+3=68, same for the ranged strength of frigrates which makes Burmese a very unsafe location for Whosit, and if I can keep chip damage up on Burmese he may never get anything beyond ancient walls. Whosit could quite easily be kept disorganised by this approach.




Also, here is the nice little city of Walrus (This hairstyle theme is somehow not compeltely worthless). Judge it however you will, but it can work for me.

[Krill]

Turn 116

Easy turn except when it wasn't.




Peace with Zanzibar. Now Whosit can take Naval Tradition for the extra envoy, otherwise we are equal and will essentially remain so except when we both finish our two envoys. If he completes his before T123 and he takes Naval tradition he will remain ahead of me for the next 40 turns, or at least until the next era when the quests come through.

If I had kept the horseman at Long I could have nabbed a three charge builder. Oh well.





Pillaging the harbour will get me 414 gold, 620 with Raid. That's enough to justify Land Surveyors in addition to Serfdom and buy most of the relevant tiles at Walrus and Ponytail. I decided to buy the Liang fishery tiles because I do not want to push greenline at this point, so the guv title will probably go there. Both builders will be purchased, one for the capital mines and the other for the Walrus fishing boats.





Chev took Leif, and is scouting eastwards with a galley. He will find TAD easily enough. Chev is also going to reach the next great admiral ahead of me, even if I build a shipyard. I'm considering if I really want to push for the +3 strength or take the extra trade route. Chev would want the trade route so he would noot contest me for this great admiral if I push for it.





Whosit took Bastions He then proceeded to take a chunk out of a caravel. Not enough to be a worry but enough to take the quick turtle heal and finish the harbour pillage next turn. Then I'll retreat to heal and then come back. I'll take the policy card use though, there was no way I was going to really threaten the city even without Burmese. Keep on stretching Whosit, see if he breaks.





Given I cannot rely on Zanzibar, I need to change up how I am managing the amenity situation. With the bought tiles I can get every city to size 10 quickly enough with food and housing, but I don't think I have the amenities to get each city there, hence I need to reconsider the governer options, and policy cards (Republican Legacy and Retainers alone would resolve the issues, but I don't want to, nor will I truly consider, giving up all military card options as I need to be able to use both professional army and retinues together for upgrade purposes).