[SPOILERS] LogicalTautology is Pindicator's DD

[NobleHelium]

I take responsibility for that, I brushed pindicator off when he suggested that we should be building Oracle instead of trying to tech Currency. It's been ages since I'd built anything cheaper than MoM without a multiplier and I had forgotten just how cheap the early wonders are. We could have done it much more neatly and earlier if we had considered it sooner.

I also told pindicator that his image cropping was quite Gasparian but didn't think it was that obvious if you didn't know what to look for.

[pindicator]

Holy shit




Red circles are chopped trees. So what - he's 1 turn away?

He's saving gold on Masonry for the 2nd straight turn, and at 8t he's obviously really close to finishing it. Is he really planning on doing the jerk move of using Oracle to get Construction!??? To do what - throw his own game for the only goal of ruining ours? Why care about the other 3 people teching away?

God I love playing games next to the human Monteczuma.

[Qgqqqqq]

Hang on, I thought you'd landed Oracle already?

[pindicator]

Hang on, I thought you'd landed Oracle already?

Noble and I are taking way too long going over the turn, but we are finishing Oracle this turn.

[pindicator]

So back 4 turns ago when I wrote this...

Turn 079

So I was thinking Commodore was going for Stonehenge on the border just like we were (and at the exact same time), but then I opened this turn and discover he's still teching. Polytheism, 2 turns total to tech. Plus, the forest and the worker are still there and they have been both there for 3 turns now. So he isn't chopping chopping now, and his teching indicates he isn't necessarily going for Stonehenge.

Really what I should have been writing is -- if Commodore isn't chopping Stonehenge, then of course he's chopping Oracle. And chopping out Oracle makes a lot of sense on the border - it's a one-off wonder, and afterwords it's just culture and GP points. Culture makes sense on a contested border. At least it did, until I beat him to it with Stonehenge. And with his production Currency makes a whole lot of sense -- which has a lot to do why I'm so surprised he's appearing to go for Construction and war escalation.

So when we realized that, this prompted the question "How fast can we build the Oracle?". First part was easy: at 100% we were just shy of 1-turning Priesthood. So swap over to a coast tile and that took care of that. Then we also moved all our workers in range to forests -- this was why the ivory hook up is delayed.

Turn 80...




Turn 82...




This puts us to 120 hammers into the wonder. And this turn, we get to sacrifice 3 citizens to finish the job:







Yay!

[NobleHelium]

I'm taking bets on what Commodore says to Pindicator when he sends the next save, by the way.

[pindicator]

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been having a rough week and get to the turn pretty late in the day. I'm pretty sure I'm not giving the game the amount of time Noble wants, but I'm short of time to give.

Anyway, Currency is a huge difference maker. Before grabbing it with Oracle, we were making 25gpt at 0%, had -49 in expenses, and breakeven was just above 30%, around 24bpt. After Currency those numbers shoot up: 33gpt at 0% and breakeven is now just above 40%, about 32bpt. We've effectively jumped our research rate by 33% with a single tech. Just as big over the next 10 turns will be getting techs that up our happy cap and hook-up high commerce resources like wines, dyes, and silk.

Expansion is now back on the table - it was halted to keep us from grinding our economy entirely into the dirt, but immediately after whipping out Oracle, Pelican went back to it's settler, and the eta for completion is t88. This settler is headed for the eastern island to get our 2nd intercontinental trade route and an additional 8 commerce just for planting. Economically, it's a free city, as it will pull in about as much as it costs due to giving every other city a second 2cpt trade route. The settler will land on t91 and plant on 92, between the crab and sheep.

Leon's is growing on an archer -- the library it had been slow building was scrapped because new cities mean new units needed to safeguard and keep happy those cities -- and will whip out a settler at size 6. This city will go south towards Yuri to establish a front. We won't be able to grab the city marked 'G'; Yuris has already grabbed a spot near enough to there to make G not worthwhile. So we're planting D and making that our southern front, at least for now. Yuris is running barebones military, so the best move there may be to not antagonize him until we're ready to move south with horse archers or knights. In any case, that city will be 3-pop whipped out of Leon's on turn 88 and found on t90.

The third spot we want to grab is the eventual moai location, north of our copper. Coalition is busy building work boats for our island cities. It finished the first this last turn (85), will finish the lighthouse it had started long ago on turn 88, have a work boat chopped out turn 89, and then finally whip out a settler sometime in the t92-94 range. The details depend more on how much overflow we want to try out of the whip. (Considering how poor our natural production is right now, these whip overflows are just as big a reason to whip as finishing the original build.)

We're about to hit a big economic growth period. Just as important as grabbing the Currency prize, we hooked up the ivory at Stormbreaker t84 giving a much-needed boost to happiness. The amount of whipping we had to do to hold off Commodore had been very detrimental to some cities; poor Breakside was sporting 24 turns of whip anger at one point and only happy at size 2. It's growing again, now at size 4. But even more important, our core commerce cities -- Pelican, Amnesia, Leon's, and Coalition -- can grow larger and work more cottages. Wines hook-up has a tentative eta of 92, but that may be sped up a turn depending on what else workers need to do in the area. After that we're hoping to blaze through Calendar (8t at breakeven right now, hopefully that can drop to 7t as we grow), and by the time Calendar is finished we want a 4th city, south of Coalition to get the silk. I'm not sure where this settler is coming from yet.

Of course this all means we need more workers. Breakside will be starting one as soon as it's archer finishes. Amnesia has been growing on an archer to its happy cap but I think it starts one next turn as well. Pelican needs to grow to happy cap after it's settler finishes but it may need to also chip in. Ecliptic is finishing an axe in 2t, it may join in as well.

My goal is to get all 4 of these cities planted and all 3 of the luxury resources (wine, dye, silk) hooked up by turn 100, 15 turns away.

After that there are some important goals that we need to meet, but aren't quite as important as growing the happy cap. Production is abysmal empire-wide; we have one city that can hit 10hpt right now, and most are 6 or less. We desperately need the Moai city going for this reason - it will have both horses and copper to work - but the real solution here is going to be workshops and/or watermills. So Metal Casting is pretty high on the priority list, and then either Code of Laws or Machinery later on.

Also, we can't forget about our neighbor to the west. If Commodore decides he's trying to fake us out by saving gold on one thing (Currency currently) then burning on another (Construction, perhaps), we would have to swap to Construction ourselves and start whipping catapults. Regardless we want Construction rather soon to deal with any real stacks of incoming attackers.

[pindicator]

Turn 089

Monarchy finished this last turn and Calendar is about 8t out. That may change as we start planting cities. First off is down south where our settler moved to location D:




Second settler came out of Pelican and moved to the Gold Mine this turn




Wine hookup is due in 2t. Started a couple of workers in Breakside and Eclipse.

Oh, and this happened

[spacetyrantxenu]

Wine hookup is due in 2t.

This is obvious misdirection. We all know you don't serve wine in your breweries. This has to be some incredible new resource, like hot wings.

[pindicator]

All spirits are welcome in my establishments, as long as they are good ones!

But I agree; that's clearly barley wine we've unlocked the technology for.