[SPOILERS] Louis of Aztecs - One of those industrious

[plako]

Now after teching and building the harbor in my capital I started to wonder if Custom's house would be worthwhile building. At the moment it would be worth ~10 commerce (~7 in case I give up Bureacracy) and, if I keep Free Market after corporation value would be ~15 commerce. I'll have good multipliers for gold (100%) and science (100% this will soon be 200%) That basically means the true value would be ~25 gold/beakers now. I probably have stumbled upon in a case where building it is well worth it. At least high tech costs and presumably a long game ahead of us makes it a decent alternative.

I've also built couple of spies and parked them on Slowcheetach's border city. Too bad now he doesn't have any good steal candidates anymore. Astronomy is quite expensive and taking Gunpowder feels foolish when I've over 40% bonus from "arrows" and known tech bonuses. I guess I could use also EP slider to enable Astro steal. This is also ideal bonuswise since I wouldn't have even the normal 20% "arrow bonus" for reseraching Astro. I've already invested ~1200 EPs on Cheetach. I probably tech to Nationalism during this golden age and as a last switch convert to Nationhood to make this work. Espionage economy combined with hammer economy feels quite powerful in this game. Too bad both Democracy and Communism feel a big detours to me. I guess I need to focus on cribbling my biggest hammer economy competitors before they really start to invest on espionage infra.

Please ask, if you want to know something game related. Otherwise I'll just continue these random and irregular ramblings

[Ceiliazul]

Please ask, if you want to know something game related. Otherwise I'll just continue these random and irregular ramblings

What's your plan for the next 20 turns?

[plako]

I don't have plans that far out . Short term I'll convert to Caste+Pacifism next turn and try to generate ~3 Great Persons more. I'll go for stealing the Astro from Cheetach so my goal is to get Nationalism within next 5T with normal research and then run 1-2 turns of EP slider while in Nationhood civic. I'll also grab Engineering and Gunpowder probably right after Nationalism. I've plenty of cities to use for Drafting so that will definately be done. It also gives me option to stay in Caste although my new cities would really benefit from a bit of slaving.

I've also also some half a dozen decent filler city sites to settle. They all fall in the category of Fishing villages, but they've food and coast to work while growing to draftable size so definately wortwhile investments in Free Market.

[plako]

Almost forget. I've also universities under construction and depending on when I decide to whip them can start Oxford University in 2-4T. I'll probably be on Nationhood so it won't be quite as powerful as it could, but still a worthwhile build.

[plako]

Plans have yet again changed. Cheetach attacked Pindicooter that is obvivously very good news. I'll try to grap also Constitution during this GA. That would enable me to adopt also Representation during this Golden age making me civic wise happy for a very long time.

[novice]

What are your target civics at the end of the GA? Do you have Paya?

[plako]

No Paya.

Probably: Representation - Nationhood - Caste - Free Market - Organized Religion, but as always I might change my mind several time before converting my civics. I'm currently running Pasifism+Caste and will get 3 more Great Person during this Golden Age. 1st comes from Capital that has pretty high chance of being Artist (will be spared for Golden age), but if it is Merchant I'll probably bulb towards Constitution. It is not as good as trade mission, but I've lots of population and in this case early beakers would be good. They would enable me to concerntrate on something else than building wealth/science that I'm currently doing a lot. I've a minor chance for Engineer too and then could focus on getting Democracy and SoL.

[plako]

3T to Constitution without a bulb. I got Great Artist that will be spared. Next Great Person comes at the end of this turn. Pretty good chance of it being a Merchant, but it is a very mixed pool having minor chances of being everything else but Prophet. Still not sure I'll use potential Merchant to bulb though. Trade mission to cheetach capital would probably be worth 2700 gold, bulb ~1600 beakers.

[plako]

Sorry about the lacking reports. There is overwhelming amount of things to do, screenshots to take and info to share. It seems I can't decide what to tell and eventually end up not posting much.

I got Merchant and decided to go for bulbing Constitution (~1500 beakers) despite of more profitable trade mission. Mission would just take few turns to finish and there is always a risk that Cheetach sinks my Merchant ship that would be a huge loss. This also lets me convert civics next turn in case I want it and more importantly gives me Astronomy sooner.

I've given some more thought about espionage and if using EP slider is worth it. It is very good option as long as there is no counter espionage mission active and naturally you had to have something worthwhile to steal. I don't think I can trust both of these being true all the time, so relying totally on espionage and not teching is really not an option. I probably still want to invest on EP infra i.e. build at least few Jails. This provides slider independent source of EP and run spy specialists as alternative for Scientists. I'll build some spies and send them to my biggest rivals to be prepared to steal and run counter espionage missions upon need.

Too bad counter espionage mission is broken in unfun way. In case the turn it wears off I don't manage to fire it again there is a window to run missions. This would require you to log in early in the turn to fire it again or alternatively be ready to take advantage of someone else not firing it early. In war this is bad for the player being last in turn order. There are fair ways to sort this out, but they would require someone logging in twice per turn and that is something that should be avoided at all costs. One could also suggest that Espionage missions are not allowed during the turn counter espionage mission wears off. However this is not fair to the one, that would like to use the mission no matter the costs. I also don't want to take espionage under discussion and suggest now anything publicly, since it would obvivously affect how may opponents would play and could potentially even jeopardize my Astro steal plan. e.g. I see cheetach's builds and so far I haven't seen him building any spies.

[plako]

One other info bit showing my noobines . I've just 17 workers for 32 cities. I definately could use few more, but since quite a few of my cities are either captured or having lots of water tiles, this amount seems to be somewhat sufficient.