[68] Miguelito's famous last words, and Amicalola's sighs

[Miguelito]

Nah, that's an old sign of mine. Maybe he sends them to the inner sea?

[Miguelito]

Commodore's retreating. We built some samurai that otherwise we would have finished a bit later, and we both lost 4 boats (but we have promoted survivors. Also I think a big argument in favour of theocracy, despite our samurai and knights already getting born with 5XP, are promoted triremes)

We also grabbed music. Maybe we could have waited for after Guilds, but yuri is researching Lit already. My current end goal on the tech tree is MT, so I felt it was justified.
Next up is feudalism-guilds.
After that there are 

• Banking for Merc during the 2nd GA
  
• Engineering for better defensive flexibility and speedy preparation of attacks
  
• Compass-Optics. Harbours are much better than theaqueducts that we've built, and caravels are evidently crucial
  
• philo bulb - Nat-MT-gunpowder - I don't think we want to draft, so it's reallyall abouut the cuirassiers. Which might be a bit much beaker cost, so clear other stuff first. If we keep churning out scientists, rather go on a bulb path to Lib?
  

[Magic Science]

So, you have a Great Artist now? .

[Miguelito]

We do, and I found out he can't really bulb anything useful, because he hires will the way through the religious line . He might come in handy If we make a Roman campaign, but just as likely he may just get GA'd

[Mjmd]

You know you can do a mix of units? You don't have to do all knights or all samurai 

So you decided to do mostly Samurai? Any thoughts to share on why? I mean other than the nifty graphic model.

[Miguelito]

You know you can do a mix of units? You don't have to do all knights or all samurai 

So you decided to do mostly Samurai? Any thoughts to share on why? I mean other than the nifty graphic model.

have we? I think we rather agreed that it's a good enough build to not have to full steam to guilds, and to allow the diversion to music (Amica, am I missing something or is Music the only tech that we actually researched during GA? That sounds sad). But we go guilds now, and will certainly build knights. Samurai are a pretty bland UU, but still the most modern unit anyone can field atm, and we have a bunch already.
Thoth and yuri had a clash, of which we only observed the power graph dips. I'm sending some units that way, but having to defend against Comm we can't really commit enough to pose a credible threat.
More Light produced an artist at low odds, so we now have two of them. I would have preferred any other result, but we'll just have to use him for GA with the next bad roll. GM and GS would offer useful bulbs. I don't think we even really want an engineer anymore.
Here's a nice GA shot:



Post GA empire. We stayed in caste, which is nice with our 7 workshops that are all getting worked, but otoh we're running out of useful tiles. That's not so bad with Parthenon, but still uncomfortable at times.



I feel we are doing pretty well, but I don't see yet how we force a decision here, outside of teching less sluggish than the other players and dragging it out foranother 50 or 100 turns.

[Miguelito]

yeah, I fear we don't have the numbers to defeat this and keep safe from Commodore and hold against yuri's opportunistic strike yet .... anytime soon?
also of note, our start is uniquely bad in that both approaches towards enemy capitals make attacking over a river near inevitable. Of course we chose the start, and fwiw I consider it a big success.

[Miguelito]

sweet knightoneturning capital:


our saving rate is going down significantly, at only +48 after the last turn; not long ago it was 85. We didn't build that many units, not sure why that is. But it makes markets/grocesrs more attractive. Either would give the capital +13.x gold while saving. But at the same time, I don't want to waste sweet HE hammers . Anyways, we don't have any Grocer ressources, else they would be very attractive. Still I feel tmepted to queue a market in Hastur at least.
Otoh, we can also keep building up thestack, send it against a target (most likely Thoth, Comm has just too many catapults, and if after that the game still continues we'll have reduced our unit maintenance and can tech in earnest again.



We're losing the magic hill with vision on Commodore's capital Should have build Sistine here to win that battle. or ToA, or atleast Stonehenge (but what we actually want are scientist GPP....)


yuri apparently spent a recently born engineer on bulbing engineering. Better than him getting his own knights first.

[Qgqqqqq]

Amy chance of an overview update? Where do you see the game at and your place in it?

[Miguelito]

If you don't mind a picture dump?
































I missed how yurisomhow lost a minor city, curious.



The game is in the predictable stalemate - nobody can walk into the other people's catapult stacks, and so we keep building up our stacks mostly peacefully. Of course we have enough to conquer Rome, but I'm hesitant to trust that we could also handle Commodore's juge stack and a yuri intervention into our campaign. At least the great artist would make it a bit more manageable. Also Engineering will help with defensive/offensive flexibility.
So we are clearly leading, but can't attack yet. Huge caste cities (of course the slavers have an amount of Mfg that doesn't show in demos that we lack), the bureacracy monopole as well as the wonders and national wonders are carrying us.
I've decided against more economic buildings (we have 0 of market/grocer/courthouse) and to keep adding power instead, in order to hopefully get to a state where we feel safe to attack the Romans. If that doesn't work Brute keeps working scientists in order to bulb ahead.