[PB78] Dreylin boldly goes

[Dreylin]

T100 - Yay!

I'm going to split this into 3 posts:

• This one will be a short commentary on current affairs.
  
• Next will be the city review and current plans.
  
• Finally an array of overview statistics and meta commentary on how hosed I am.
  

A short commentary on current affairs:


I considered just leaving this without comment, but I did try sending Thrawn some diplo: firstly a Pig/Pig and then asked him for Gold - trying to ask him to step back and leave me New Vegas. I landed 2 HAs to show intent, but that's basically all I have available right now; it'll take me ~10t to assemble a force to take it.

Oh and the spice on the cake is Gavagai culture at Diamond City.

[Dreylin]

T100 - City overview

Kirk


Prepping for the Pyramids run; Workers are in place for chops and Kirk will swap 1 more Mine in from Uhura and then the new Mine for 20 base hpt or 35hpt after multipliers. Should be a 6t build and complete EoT 108.

Spock


Quarry finishes to grab the overflow from the Kirk Worker to kick off Pyramids. Spock itself is working commerce tiles - the Hamlet in the North goes back to Scott when that city grows, but I need to squeeze every cent so am working the lake right now. Post-pic I actually turned on Avoid Growth and moved the Pigs to a Mine. Units here are to support a potential attack on Little Lamplight or founding the local filler city - see Settler.

Staying in the South, here is Scott:


Scott is regrowing after whipping the Lighthouse, but is the key economic city in the empire. Plenty of grasslands to cottage when I get some space in the happy cap. It continues the vital job of pumping out Missionaries to support OrgRel production boosts empire-wide.

A pit-stop on the way North, Uhura:


Uhura is my military pump for the NE and has recently added a Stable, but right now has had to trade a bunch of production tiles to Kirk and pick up what Cottages it can. Kirk will hand off the Corn as well and I may push a Settler out of here for the NE.

And reaching the North, here's McCoy:


Paused the Horse Archer pump to put out a pair of Galleys. McCoy really wants the Windmill out from under the Oromo, but that is off the cards in the short term as I work out New Vegas. Props to the Railway Mines in the SE for their contribution.

Sulu:


Grows like a weed and has been 2-pop whipping in infrastructure - the extra hammer from the Farm will let it do that for the Library next turn as it grows. After that we'll slow-build Walls with the Stone online and concentrate on growing. Possible Moai location if I can't secure an island ... and can scrape some production into the city!

Northeast cities come as a pair; Chekov:


and Chapel:


They have been on alternating 2-pop whip cycles to get the infrastructure in place and trading the Oasis between them. Both desperately need Worker turns, which will come as the Pyramids chops complete.

Finally Pike:


The runt filler, and will continue to be until we can wrestle some culture control from Superdeath. Will take 3rd-ring support from Chekov & Chapel to gain the Clams, but at least the coastal forests should be regained shortly. Probably destined to help Scott grow cottages and build some MP - and maybe navy.

NB: it's late and I need to sleep, so assorted disaster pics and maudlin ramblings will have to wait until tomorrow.

[Dreylin]

T100 - Part 3, the hosening.

We'll start with my main challenge:


Economy in the toilet and limping my way to currency to (hopefully) fix it. I've essentially put expansion on hold as a result, though you'll have seen a Settler or 2 queued in anticipation (though they also have a habit of dropping out of the queues before they start). The easiest way to fix this would be an intercontinental city with multiple precious metal resources to work, but we've already covered the challenges with that and I'm not going to turn this post into an extended what-if or map critique, because that gets us nowhere - especially because I really love about 95% of what this map has done.

So why am I building the pyramids instead of a half-dozen Horse Archers to liberate an island. Well simply put, it's going to take more than a treasure island to move me up from last place in this game - and that's absolutely where I am despite indications to the contrary. I have to find future benefit, not just a catch-up - because while I'm "catching-up", the field is moving further ahead. So Pyramids and actually making an effort to leverage SPI to make the most of it.

Why do I think I'm last? Simply put, everyone else can afford to continue expanding, while I cannot. Let's take a glance at the tech tree for one illustration:


I have a pretty good idea of who each of these represents:

Magic Science: Metal Casting & Iron Working - key economy driver: Great Lighthouse & Colossus
Superdeath: Meditation, Priesthood, Monarchy, (Feudalism) & Calendar - key economic driver: Ziggurats
Thrawn: Currency (& Code of Laws) - key economic driver: see left
Gavagai: I think he has Maths.

There's definitely an argument that Gavagai is in a worse position than I am given that my cities 6-9 are more developed than his cities 5-8, but then he has something I don't currently:


To be fair, Sulu will get access to the work the near Gold at New Vegas shortly, but would certainly lose it if Thrawn takes the city.

Ahem, moving on to an area I do feel free to rant about:


One single domestic spread of Hinduism and this would look a lot different. Unfortunately it seems like the majority of the 7% of the world's Hindus are somewhere abroad - probably ~3 cities judging by Influence numbers. As previously observed, the only 2 natural spreads within my borders have been the arrival of Buddhism, with Missionaries handling all the Judaism spreads. Spock will receive from the next Missionary, but I will probably leave Uhura open to maybe get Confucianism - at least until I can access Theocracy down the line.

Speaking of builds:


Nothing too unusual here, although I need to decrease the Mine percentage and increase the Cottage/Hamlet/Village percent. Most of the chopped tiles at kirk will be converted to Cottages though, so improvements will be seen.

I have this as well, though there's not much additional info:


One more thing it's worth noting about the worldwide situation, no-one has switched up their Civics or adopted a religion, and this circles back to the only Great Person generated so far has been Gavagai's Stonehenge Prophet, so no-one has kicked off a Golden Age yet. (I'm guessing that Gavagai has probably settled his Prophet, not having a Religion to Shrine and being generated too early to be worth a Golden Age.)

Magic Science and Superdeath should both get their first Great People fairly shortly from their Wonders. It will be interesting to see if Superdeath chooses to Shrine his religion, or runs the Golden Age. I think he's probably chasing MoM so would expect the GA, but he may be working on a second Great person for that. Magic's tech spread suggests he's not ready for a Golden Age yet either, but he has a far higher economic capacity and could probably quickly get access to make it worthwhile.

I think this is going to be a long game.

[Tarkeel]

I think this is going to be a long game.

I think five-player games are either pretty short and brutal (when one player can leverage a decisive advantage) or long and grueling (when things are more balanced). There's just less angles available to attack.

[Dreylin]

T100 - Part 4, the Thrawn Addendum

Logged in to have a look at a couple of things for the overview write-up, and was greeted by this succession of offers:


I've stared at them for a few hours now trying to work out what they mean - side note I dislike the opaque signaling we have settled on as diplo mostly because it's hard to parse who is "giving" and who is "receiving". I finally figured this one out when I edited out the extraneous cities on my side and distilled the message.

Sheep/Gold/7 is Diamond City. (7 pop)
Fish/Gold/4 is New Vegas. (4 pop)

I don't have any of these resources hooked, so the only indications here are which side the population is sitting. So is Thrawn saying he will go to war with Gavagai to "give" me Diamond City if I "give" him New Vegas, or is the pop on the side of who receives the city? I want to believe the latter, because I want/need New Vegas, but I think it may be more reasonable to assume that this means he's willing to help me get Diamond city if I let him have New Vegas.

Ugh. 


I think that I'm going to reply with:

1. Pig/Iron/War with MS - Pig/Copper/War with MS

This to show that we are still allies, and that our mutual goal is to hit Magic Science. (we definitely need to add a clock on this, but I'll circle back to that once we get the rest resolved.)

Actually on second thought I want to separate the Pig/Pig to first make it clear I have no intention to fight him, so:

1. Pig - Pig

2. Iron/War with MS - Copper/War with MS

3. Fish/Gold/4 - War with Gavagai

The message here is (supposed to be) you give me New Vegas and I will join you in a war with Gavagai. Which I think is the opposite of what he is proposing.

My biggest problem with ceding New Vegas to him is the proximity to Sulu; I'll get access to the Gold for 10-15turns, but then we're going to clash on borders and it'll be far too easy for us to boat each other. I don't think he has settled the far side yet, so has a much better chance to plant for defense.

Of course no way to convey that in our paradigm. 

[Dreylin]

I think this is going to be a long game.

I think five-player games are either pretty short and brutal (when one player can leverage a decisive advantage) or long and grueling (when things are more balanced). There's just less angles available to attack.

I dunno, in some ways this map has given us a lot of different ways to attack in that we all border each other on multiple different fronts. Superdeath I have a land border to the Southeast, a marine border to the East and another land border in the NE. Magic Science I have a marine border and a land border to the West and we will have a SW land border once the Maceman is removed. Thrawn I don't directly border yet, but in addition to the potenital New Vegas debacle, I will have a North and a West land border. Oh, and Gavagai & I will probably end up bordering each other on both the North and South ends of our empire.

I think the decisive attacks will not come with Knights, but with Galleons and everything before that will be skirmishes with little progress.

Circling back to the proposed Magic Science dogpile; everyone indicated willingness & intent, but since then have predominantly continued to expand and pursue our own goals with no sense of urgency or timing on the attack. I can definitely claim Little Lamplight, but unless someone is distracting on another front, I will get beaten back pretty fast. So we need to start coordinating a time for the attack, but only Thrawn currently has Currency.

[scooter]

Nice updates. Would request a zoomed-out full empire shot too at some point just to see how it looks broadly.

[Dreylin]

T101 - Retreating (again)

No diplo from Thrawn, but he's jiggled his troops to cover the bases:


So a) I'm not in a position to fight him over it right now, and b) Sulu's borders expand in 3t and I'll get to work the Gold for 15+ turns anyway, which is the most important goal here. So I'm retreating. Galley moves South through Sulu and we're positioning for the attack on Magic Science.

I send Thrawn Pig/Pig, and then suggest attacking Magic t115. We'll see how he responds to that.

Superdeath diplo at start turn offered Pig/Pig and the Open Borders. It's time to accept to get the extra 2 trade routes. I can't start scouting him immediately, but will get something going in a couple of turns. Wait, I'm only getting 1 route from him, I could have sworn pbspy implied he'd flipped 2 islands ... ooooohhhhh, /that/ must have been the city that Magic sniped from him!

Meanwhile Kirk is ready to go:


I may not be planning too far ahead, nor have the micro skillz I used to, but this is a thing of beauty: 50h overflow and immediate regrowth and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.   Chops will start coming in immediately because at this point converting them to cash at a 1.75 multiplier may even be better than landing Pyramids....

And for scooter, does this work as an overview shot?


It seems like a decent compromise between visibility and readability, but I see it doesn't have a great view of the South, so I can grab that if there's interest?

Also, sorry about the note spam, I try to clean them up regularly, but it's how I do most of my micro planning at the moment. I know that no-one is working on the mods anymore, but it would be amazing if we could get a toggle on them like the BUG dotmap.

[Tarkeel]

Also, sorry about the note spam, I try to clean them up regularly, but it's how I do most of my micro planning at the moment. I know that no-one is working on the mods anymore, but it would be amazing if we could get a toggle on them like the BUG dotmap.

My understanding is that the notes are implemented in such a way that it's hard to access from a mod, but I haven't looked too closely at it.

[Dreylin]

T102 -

Quick update; Thrawn mirrored back t115 to attack Magic, so that's on the cards. OTOH, Magic now has an Immortal stationed on the lookout hill across the straight. It doesn't actually give him more warning than his borders do, but does show he's paying attention.

Pyramids are due to complete EoT 106.

My understanding is that the notes are implemented in such a way that it's hard to access from a mod, but I haven't looked too closely at it.

I figured it must be pretty buried if no-one has implemented a toggle before.