GeneralKilCavalry and thestick talk it out

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Lots of diplo going on. Cairo seems amenable to eventually turning against SD. Raskol/TBW have calmed hostilities

[thestick]

T148 Report

Raskol/TBW are calming hostilities, even though they're still at war? What's going on diplomatically? Can we get a dogpile on SD, or are we still holding onto the NAP with SD and planning on attacking Cairo?

Anyway, domestically, we're building research infrastructure (Libraries, anyone?) in the core, and more supplemental military in the periphery. There's no way we're winning this thing in the short term (though we obviously lose if SD attacks), so we'll have to start settling in for a longer game, I guess. Any plans for the National Epic?

   

We're going to get a Great Merchant out of Lodi, and I'm not sure how we're going to get another GP for the two-man Golden Age. Ordinarily the Economics Merchant would be a good idea since we have a monopoly on Banking, but that won't help us immediately. I guess we have to lean on the National Epic. Still think we should build ToA for a priest/shrine in the NE city, especially since we're about to unlock Wall Street.

   

Also, we have the bulk of our army near the Cairo border at Ulm, why is that?

   

Tech-wise, Cairo hit Gunpowder and traded it around. SD also nabbed the Music Great Artist.

   

I still say after Optics, we should go for Gunpowder -> Nationalism (drafted muskets) and draft like crazy. That should reduce the threat of SD's knights. Then, if we think we can organize a dogpile, go Military Tradition (cuirssairs). Otherwise, we could faff around with Education -> Liberalism and try to hit Astronomy or Printing Press or something.

It's probably a moot point, of course. SD's Crop Yield is peeling away from the pack. Raskol's warring has dragged him down to third place, meaning that we're SD's main competition. All SD has to do is put two and two together, and realize that if he attacks us in force now, that's pretty much game. Raskol won't be able to build enough Pikes/Muskets to stop a dedicated Knight swarm. At least the Soldiers graph has pretty much flatlined... so SD's probably not attacking now.

   

   

[thestick]

I got a PM from SD.

Cant seem to get a pm thru to GKC, curious about a t170 NAP with him. If he is just ignoring the pm's... i mean thats fine, but a tad rude

for a t200 NAP i agree to only trade techs between our 2 nations if that helps. Of course this could all be just feeble messages sent to the future winner of pb48 due to certain circumstances. Take your pick, would love to hear even a "hey, not interested in an extended NAP right now.. Try again later!" ect ect  


Happy civving!

I have absolutely no idea what the 'certain circumstances' are referring to. The impending Raskol/TBW/Cairo dogpile? Looks like SD is getting desperate.
Thoughts? Do we think Raskol/TBW can counter SD well enough on their own, so we can just free-ride? Or should we build up military, forcing SD to defend against us? Personally inclined towards taking a NAP and trying to outbuild SD/tech up to an edge and attack Cairo, since we have a smaller army and are down Gunpowder re: SD so a war would not be in our best interests, but I'm a peacenik at heart.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I’ve seen SD’s knight stack and it is a bit scary - TBW was complaining to me about it. The goal right now is to get everyone allied against SD, keeping him out of tech trading. I’m not sure how to best respond to him right now.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Privateers next turn. Going to start ferrying over more and more settlers to the island chain, this was slowed down due to stupid barb galley destroying mine.

I think that we're basically the tech lead rn, but as SD integrates the conquered lands, that lead will begin to slip. OB with cairo, cancelling with SD seems like a possible way to damage his economy.

I think realigning TBW/Raskol in a bloc against SD saved this game from being an immediate SD win.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

FWIW we got a free silver. Woo hoo? Otherwise, did some shuffling of tiles to max commerce, Capital will be able to grow a bit with the long-overdue lighthouse.

If tech trading were not enabled, I would concede to SD/OH. Otherwise, there's still a hope.

Education in 10 turns -> merchant in 5. Can then bulb economics and finish it off, giving another merchant, denying SD a valuable bulb option with liberalism (if we even manage to beat him to that). Depending how SD/OH take this golden age, we could still end up getting first to liberalism. A wealth build in the capital can cut down the tech time by a turn. 

Where do you think we should build national epic for a great scientist pump? Toulon could run two scientists, get national epic, that's 14GPP/turn. 26 turns for a great scientist?

[thestick]

Not up to date and heading to bed, but first impressions:

I think we shouldn't build the NE in Toulon, since we want to do Caste System shenanigans in a GE, and taking off mature cottages to do that seems suboptimal. Gut says Ulm, with its three food resources and unmature cottages for a lower opportunity cost of running specialists. Or if that's too front line, maybe Austerlitz?

Of course, this assumes that the game will continue...

We have anything lined up for the T160 trades? Any Caravels looking for more islands?

Why are we going for Education? For a Liberalism run? Definitely have lost my sense for the game, and how much time we have before SD's monster empire techs up and becomes unbeatable.

[thestick]

T157 Report

Thanks to the magic of diplomacy and tech trading, this game keeps chugging along.

In foreign news, SD declared on TBW, Raskol declared on SD. Hopefully they'll keep him busy enough that we can eek out something.

   

SD has the tech lead, but hopefully with the magic of tech trading we can trade for Philosophy (and maybe Gunpowder?) and take Liberalism from him. Probably go into Nationalism. Then we bulb Economics with the GM to replace himself, and use the Taj age to go into Free Market for an extra 2-3 commerce in every city, plus Nationalism for defense.

   

Not much has happened in 10 turns domestically. Still building up and settling in for the long haul.

   

Slowly colonizing the island.

   

Think we should build the National Epic in Ulm. Two food resources, no GP points, and no mature cottages, lowering the opportunity cost for growth. Plus if we want to farm over a mature cottage, we can irrigate this place like crazy. We can build temporary Workshops to complete the NE, then just slow-grow on Scientists and cottages. Then when the Taj GA comes in, swap to Caste System to force out a GS, then pair it with the Economics GM for the two-man GA. Then rush Steel (drafted muskets + cannons) or cavs and conquer Cairo, or pile on to SD. (Thinking cavs, due to the inbuild defenders advantage plus musketeers, but that might be too far).

   

Militarily, we are banking that SD has his hands full with Raskol and TBW. And hoping to free ride off of their efforts.
   

Demos. Besides crop yield and GNP, everything stinks. SD's production edge is just obscene.
   

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Liberalism in 6 turns. We grab printing press, research economics in 2 turns after to deny great merchant.

[thestick]

T164 Report

Why Printing Press? For the commerce bonus, or for a Rifling target? Still toying with Lib into Nationalism -> Economics (GM bulbs himself, plus Free Market) -> Gunpowder -> Music -> Military Tradition. Then mass upgrade knights -> cuirssairs and pile on to SD.

Any chance we can get Gunpowder off of Cairo?

Anyway, building up knights in the core. Still haven't started working on (expensive) Universities.

   

Raskol has been slowly wearing SD down. We now border Raskol to the north.

   

We settled Neapolis lately, and there's a bit more land bleeding out of the fog there. 

   

Tech-wise, we're saving up for Liberalism, and since no one else has Education, unless SD has a bunch of Great Scientists saved up for bulbing that we've missed, we should have it in the bag.

   

Demos. Due to SD and Raskol's warring, we've climbed up to 1st in GNP (at 0%, no less) and Crop Yield. If we can play the diplo/geopolitics so that SD and Raskol don't dogpile on us when they realize that we've snuck up to a narrow lead, we have a shot here.

   

The big paranoid danger, of course, is that Raskol/SD wheel their armies south and try to knock us down a peg. SD has already shown that he's willing to backstab (see his earlier planned stab of Raskol), and relations with Raskol seem to have been basically nonexistent this game. We may end up having to fight off the Coalition armies after all...