[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[Ginger()]

(Do we get this turn's production in gold if I stay on Pyramids?  I guess I should make sure something is queued after to be sure.)

I think it turns into overflow for next turn, it isn’t lost that’s what I know

[pindicator]

078

The plan was always to emphasize building cottages after The Pyramids was built. I just didn't think we'd be starting so soon...




3 workers are building cottages at the capital; 2 more will be setting cottages down at Eldritch Horror; and finally, one of the choppers now heads east to set down roads for our next city. Hopefully Cornflakes doesn't beat us to that as well...

Capital was switched to stop working all the mines, and now is working all the cottages it can. Screenshot was forgotten, but the hamlets and the new cottage are being worked, along with the lake and 2 riverside grass mines.

Now that we have 360 gold, it's time to turn on the tech and show our true demo colors:




Feel pretty confident we'll have our own religion in a few turns.

[pindicator]

080

This is what happens when you average half a day to play your turn:




Also if your neighbors smell weakness.

This is our most distant city and the expenses were predictably steep. We are riding close to 0% again now.




Naturally, I whipped another settler this turn. However I am reconsidering where he goes. Originally I was going to reach far north to grab a contended spot by Mjmd. However, I'm wondering if we should grab the horse filler spot now instead. Either way, we will likely need to delay founding the city until closer to t90 just to keep ourselves from going bankrupt.




I wonder how much Cornflakes is paying for his army. It's #1 by a large margin.

[pindicator]

081

Cornflakes took a city and peace, bumping us down to #3 in food. Then he revolted into Representation.

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but Superdeath is the 2nd player to reach Writing. It was highly supicious with the GNP spike he's had the last few turns, but seeing his scout inside Bing's territory was the final clue I needed. Unfortunately this means we'll have more cultural pressure in EH unless we can get our Library built there first.

Hitru and I are trying to figure out how to afford planting our 9th city, and it might need to wait a few turns. We have enough gold for 3 more turns of burn - 2 more after this turn. This might barely get us to Writing, or we may be a few beakers short. So going into the negative a few turns isn't an option as we won't have any reserves left.

Good news was that we did in fact get our own religion at end of turn, landing in Dominion:

[Zed-F]

Since you didn't get 'Mids, what do you need to get a leg up in the game economically?

[pindicator]

Simple answer: Working more tiles than my opponents.

[pindicator]

082

Non-cheeky answer:  Continually looking for more ways to turn hammers into beakers.




First off, we are popping borders at the last possible moment.  EH had borders pop a few turns ago, but we're about to lose control of the elephant tile anyway as SD has started putting in more culture per turn.  My guess is he made a library a priority there to gain control of that ivory tile.  I'm going to be looking at triple whipping a library at EH as soon as I'm able to in an attempt to fight back.

Workers continue to lay down cottages.  You can see the work so far, and that we just finished two new cottages at Eldritch Horror and the plains tile for the capital.  Normally this plains tile would be a low priority, but it's one of the few tiles that another city can help grow for the capital.  Also, Sushi Go was in need of a new tile improvement, so this fell together nicely.

The red circles indicate where I've done some creative tile assignment.  Next turn we need to pull science down to 90% as expenses are just a little too high to maintain a one-turn Writing at 100%.  I took cities already at the happy cap -- Wingspan and Eldritch Horror -- and moved their deer citizens to work the lake tiles instead and pull in more commerce.  Now we'll hit Writing in one turn next turn even at 90%.  We might even have enough in the tank to still plant the Sheep City on schedule and not go bankrupt.  Might have to delay Sheep a turn or two to keep that from happening.

In the north, we've got our two workers preparing a road for our 9th city.  Settler is moving up into place; at end of turn borders popped at both Sushi Go and Gloomhaven, so we will be able to stay within borders (and save money) as we approach the Sheep City location.  (Next board game to name it after is .... ?)

Demos are looking fairer; crop yield is a lot closer if I'm working the bonus tiles instead of lakes.




Our plan right now is to build Oracle in the capital and use it to grab Monarchy.  Normally this kind of play would be considered low ambition, but our science rate is in a bad way as we continue to grab the few contested spots available to us.  Monarchy is circled because we need to get into HR sooner rather than later in order to grow onto more cottages and get the economy back on track.

Libraries will be going up in Wingspan, Eldritch Horror, and Dominion, and after that it is 13 turns for the first great person to be born (probably closer to 10 if we do it at the capital, but I want the second great person to be my shrine).  Although if we are still riding close to +0 gold at 0% and our cities pushing up against the happy cap then I might eat the turns of anarchy and revolt into HR/OR and Judaism without the golden age: we aren't really losing out on commerce or food in that situation.

On top of this, I can't lose sight of the power graph...




When people run out of things to build, they tend to build military.

[pindicator]

083

Another wonder falls, and we're now certain that Mjmd was the person who teched Sailing.  He must be making better use of coastal cities than we are.





Workers to their chopping stations.




Normally I like to time all my forest chops to come in on the very last turn of the build, because the loss of the forest is pretty big in my eyes.  I'd prefer to keep the production potential for a later project if another player were to pilfer our prize.  However, here we have another consideration: what to do after we land Oracle.  Odds are good we land the wonder; we know we were first to Priesthood and at the time we had teched Poly there was only Bing with that tech (and Superdeath is still the only other player with Meditation).  So I'm going to chop the grass forest SW of the capital next turn with the pair of workers coming back in from the west.  Those workers are then going to spend turns 85 & 86 building roads to the wine resource, and hopefully will be right in position to start improving the wine when we land the Oracle and pick up Monarchy.

If everything goes to plan.

We had to keep the Wingspan and Eldritch Horror working their lake tiles this turn again, as we barely squeaked out Writing at 90%.  But now I belive we will be putting down our UB in many cities:




Also will start a Public Library in Eldritch Horror, which got a religion spread after the turn ended.




Eldritch Horror will triple whip its library, and lean on the +9fpt to regrow quickly. With the wines online we'll be able to get back to size 5 as the wine is improved and start hiring 2 scientist specialists. 12 turns after hiring the scientists we'll have a great scientist for a golden age and civic swaps. By turn 100 if my math is right.

[pindicator]

084

Turns out Clank! was very well-named:




Cornflakes sends me a demand to declare war on Mjmd and then shows up with his stack. Is this him saying I must declare war on Mjmd or he will attack me? But then if I accept what is keeping Cornflakes to hold up any bargain that he won't attack me and send me to the wrong end of the 2-vs-1.

Sadly I'm just a few turns away from getting the needed units in place for this stack: even with 2 axes, a spear, and walls I would feel reasonably comfortable in telling him to suck eggs and that he can waste his troops against my walls if he so chooses. Instead I must scramble: Libertalia no longer gets its granary and instead is forced to start another spear. We move up the axe from Libertalia. We make some desperate diplo pleas to try to muddy the waters and buy time:

To Cornflakes:



To Mjmd:



Mjmd will see his first, so that if he accepts then Cornflakes will come to his next turn with both us at war with him. I'm hoping that's enough to cause him to pause and keep his stack back a few turns. If Mjmd declines, then I hope Cornflakes' intentions against Mjmd are earnest and then he will accept my offer and again I should be safe at Clank!

If both are declined and then he advances on Clank! -- what I suspect will happen -- then we likely will abandon Clank! and fall back to Liberatlia. By the time he gets to Libertalia it will be walled and we will have 5 units there; we should be safe. I will make sure Clank! does not grow to size 2 so that it gets auto-razed.

Unfortunately I had to alter my worker micro to get another unit out of Libertalia




The two western workers chopped their forest into Wingspan as planned; workers A & F chopped their forests as planned. But worker G moved to finish the chop at Libertalia so that city can 2-turn it's spear. We even have the option of whipping next turn and finishing 2 units on successive turns, should we need it. But now to get Oracle on time we need to move all 3 workers (E, G, & H) onto the last forest next turn so that it can finish the chop on 86; or we need to accept a delay in the Oracle (and another turn of working mines over cottages).

All the plans of a fast Winery hookup and growing cities immediately another pop can be shelved.

With the extra units and various war declaration offers flying around, I did not move my settler in the north into position to claim the sheep city. I'm afraid that will bankrupt me; also, it may just end up being a Clank! replacement.




Lets see what happens.

[pindicator]

086

I don't know if I've had a more stressful set of peace-time turns as these past ones. Between trying to not go bankrupt while still expanding, not understanding what the AI diplo messages I receive mean, and throwing out worker plans at the last minute because I think my neighbor is menacing me ... only for him to disappear the next turn like nothing is an issue.

In any case, let's not bury the lead any deeper:







The Oracle was chopped to completion and we grabbed Monarchy, as planned. Bonus: I forgot CtH moved Serfdom to Monarchy. When we get our golden age we might very well take advantage of that, even if it's just a few extra commerce on our farms.


As I said before, diplomacy in this game is head-scratching at best and mind-numbingly frustrating at worst. After Cornflakes' seemingly demand to attack Mjmd he followed up with ... nothing? The army backed off and we were given the turns we needed to move up troops. I feel confident now that we're going to be fine in Clank! Next turn we'll finish our chop and depending how safe I feel I might even chop into the granary instead of walls.

At the same time, last turn we offered Mjmd Fish for Fish and moved our settler up against his border. This turn I was met with what I could only decide was a demand not to settle the site:




Sorry Mjmd, I wasn't asking.

Annoyingly, the screenshot I swore I take does not seem to exist. (Neither does the other screenshot I took showing my Great Person at Eldritch Horror.) So here is a picture that has Citadels in it taken at the end of the turn:




We have a spear and axe there, and Walls are going up first and working the plains mine to get them built quickly. This is also because I had to pull one of the workers away so I won't have the Sheep hooked up for 3 more turns.

The workers in the screenshot are my best attempt at salvaging my Winery plan. The two workers by the wines and the third pictured above Wingspan will all work to hook that winery up by turn 89. A few cities might need to utilize Avoid Growth for a turn, but now is the time to grow upwards.

And yes, that is -9gpt at 0% science. Don't worry, it is under control. Next turn our capital will move off of its mines and back onto cottages and we will start growing our commerce. All our workers are going to be building cottages - Azul, Wingspan, Dominion, and Sushi Go all have some cottageable lands. (EH too, but it will be stuck on scientist duty.) Also why I spent so long on this turn and last: I have been double and triple checking that I won't go bankrupt by founding Citadels. This is the last city we can possibly found to claim new territory: there are only 2 infill spots left to the east of the capital. Possibly 3, but I'd rather not piss off Mjmd any more.




This is hopefully the low point of our economy. I think we can get Math in the early 100s and Currency by the end of our Golden Age.