[PB60] Amicalola and Vanrober: Gone' Fishing!

[Amicalola]

T111-115

It's 1AD! These have been a slow five turns, and we haven't done a whole lot. Mostly just whipping forges and saving gold, as Vanrober mentioned. And screwing up micro plans with silly misclicks.  The plan is to skip Calendar, and head straight for Optics ASAP. We don't think we need the happiness yet, and the circumnavigation is worth more than the tile yields. Then we'll backfill Calendar when the others have hopefully got us some KtB.

Here are the demos. 



We think everyone except GKC has Currency now, and Lazteuq in particular has had a crazy GNP spike. We aren't really sure how he recovered his crashed economy, but whatever he did was very effective; something to do with Rep specialists? We think the crazy-high 330 figure is Lazteuq/Civac on Iron Working, since we saw this worker here. 

[vanrober]

Turn 119

We have fallen a bit too much in the post count and that battle i woudnt like to lose it xD.

So we have eben making forges and courthouses right now, and we finally got 11 forges down and 5 courthouses already. In 2 turns all the granaries but herring will be done (that city is pure crap).



The plan of settling in GKC's face has become a bit more risky, he peaced with jowy and has 9 praets in that part. Also we saw a settler some turns ago but never seen again so maybe he is making some fillers with less cost than the city we want to build. But yeah we now have to purely defend from him since he is not busy with jowy anymore. 

we are bringing some triremes in case he wants to declare war to us, and taking his nets, he has not MC as far as we know.

But the real new is that we have a 22gpt shrine going on. Next turn it will be moai too, so really nice. We think around turn 130 we will be in no more whiping mode and going crazy of gold. Cothons are nice but they are really costly and they barely will give us 2 or 3gpt one they done, untill we hit high populations so its nice but not that much. Probably we will slowbuildthem in some cities but probably not even in all of them.

   

Also, the huge GNP spike was SD instead of lazteuq, he was getting masonry (he has alphabet and its easy to see what he is getting) with tons of KTB and also working tons of wealth builds. After that everything get a bit normalized, although we think SD is still working wealth.

[Tarkeel]

In 2 turns all the granaries but herring will be done (that city is pure crap).

Is it a Red Herring?

Cothons are nice but they are really costly and they barely will give us 2 or 3gpt one they done, untill we hit high populations so its nice but not that much. Probably we will slowbuildthem in some cities but probably not even in all of them.

There's a reason Carthage is usually paired with Mao; Harbors are usually pretty expensive for what they give, and Cothons (while great) are even costlier.

[Amicalola]

T116-120

I have slacked on the reporting recently, so as penance here's a big one. As vanrober alluded to, it's just been another five turns of whipping buildings for us, mostly forges and courthouses. The last buildings we will whip are libraries in most cities, before we will finally grow them properly. Something I really like about this is it makes us look weaker than we (long-term) are, by keeping our population low. It's something Tarkeel and I benefited from in PB58, that I'm trying to replicate. Of course, it makes us look weaker short-term because we are weaker, so maybe it's a bad strategy.



Tuna has gone from 'meh' to amazing in two turns, after the shrine finished T119, and Moai finished this turn. We're going to build the Great Wall here next (hopefully), basically purely for the GPP. This is going to be our wonder / GPP city for the rest of the game, so I'd rather start stacking points up quickly. 



Here's our demos at 0% science, after this turn's whips. They improved a lot this turn, because we connected our last two fish at Perch and Barramundi. I was really confused by us being 1st in power, before I remembered that Moai gives a boatload of it. I wouldn't expect these these to improve much over the next 20 turns; too much whipping. I'm trying not to work coast until the growth period starts, for example, because it makes the whips less efficient. 

Cothons are nice but they are really costly and they barely will give us 2 or 3gpt one they done, untill we hit high populations so its nice but not that much. Probably we will slowbuildthem in some cities but probably not even in all of them.

There's a reason Carthage is usually paired with Mao; Harbors are usually pretty expensive for what they give, and Cothons (while great) are even costlier.

I see your point for sure, we considered Mao until I got it into my head to try something new. But FWIW, if I could go back and do my pick again, I'd prefer Lieu-Ye to Mao here, even with Carthage. Basically every city needs a lighthouse+courthouse, and the civic maintenance reduction has been huge on emperor. Protective is also working out great so far. Until very recently, our city maintenance outweighed our total commerce from tiles; trade routes have been carrying us insanely hard. I think it's a combination of it being very strong on this map (~3-4 readily accessible islands), as well as gelling with my playstyle well. I can't whip away trade routes!



Internationally, Mjmd built Mausoleum of Maussollos, adding to his enormous collection of wonders. He's really scary long-term, but we won't be too shabby ourselves, and are also desperately trying to stall until the late-game. We exchanged fish-for-fish last turn, and we definitely don't want to fight him in the near future. Meanwhile, our gems seem to have placated Superdeath, so I'm not quite as on-edge about the south anymore. In the north, a future partition of GKC between Mjmd, Jowy, and us sounds mighty appealing... 



Speaking of GKC, we found his settler this turn, and it's still in Mediolanum. So we think he might be waiting for Currency(?) to settle somewhere. His 8 praets are holed up in Circei; we'd need about 3 crossbowmen and 3 axemen to feel properly safe. 

[Amicalola]

T121-122

We're finally breakeven at 50% science! So we've hatched a plan to ruin that immediately.   We're going to offer GKC gold per turn next turn, when he sees our settler moving towards the site. We haven't decided the exact amount, but it's somewhere between 10-15 gpt. With a struggling economy, we're hoping he'll take the bribe. We're still sending crossbowmen though, in case he doesn't. If GKC doesn't move his settler this turn, we should settle the city.

We're also considering asking SD for a loan next turn, which should get us to Optics one turn faster. If we ask for 200 gold, for 25 gpt, getting circumnavigation 1 turn sooner would pay the difference for us. The payment would also virtually guarantee no attack from that angle in the next 10 turns. Finally it would hopefully improve relations further. We'll see if SD can be tempted by 50 gold...

[Amicalola]

T123-125

We get the Great Wall in two turns, and Optics in three. Mjmd and Jowy are both in Golden Ages now, so our demos have shriveled back into the pack and you don't get to see them. Optics will be worth 51 base commerce per turn though, which should help our research considerably. Mjmd has the opportunity to chain GAs with Mausoleum now, so he's back with the leaders again. Right now, I think everyone except GKC is still a contender, but some people are more favoured than others. I would currently rank the six of us this way: Jowy->Mjmd->Lazteuq=Us->Superdeath--->GKC. I might do a proper opponent overview soon, now that everyone's gameplans are starting to take form. 


My biggest regret is leaving that spice un-farmed for 100 turns.


GKC took our money, so we decided to settle Bass. 



We think he'll honour the bribe, but even if he doesn't want to, GKC has bigger things to worry about.


Yeah, Jowy has berserkers.  We think GKC might not be the aggressor in their next war... 

Bass

is apparently the most important cultured fish in the Mediterranean. Despite being fished in huge quantities per year, they don't seem in any danger, due to having no other destructive predators. They themselves primarily eat prawns, crabs, and other small fish.

[vanrober]

how the hell did i forgot to put that fish on my list!!!

I eat a lot of it and its really nice. I love it. Its about 6-7€/kg so pretty cheap for us!

[El Grillo]

I’m so envious of how affordable seafood is for you, my local supermarket sells Chilean sea bass at $36/lb

[Amicalola]

Here we just straight-up can't buy Bass. It's another fish on the list I've never tried.

[vanrober]

I’m so envious of how affordable seafood is for you, my local supermarket sells Chilean sea bass at $36/lb

I mean. Im on the Mediterranean sea. That might make sense i guess. Not sure abojt the chilean since i didnt try maybe is better on quality?

But the real fact is that you should compare our life with yours. Some days ago i was talking with Kaiser about the average salary in some european countries and we saw that sapniards had up to 800€ less than other european contries, like Germany or France. With 800€ more per month i guess you can afford to pay more for fish hehehe