[SPOILERS]Acrid Pinot and other Pindicator anagrams

[pindicator]

Turn 122

Time just flies by. A few turns ago it felt like we were chasing Music and wondering when we were going to tech Civil Service. And now we're about to kick off our first golden age.

Finished Philosophy this turn:



That leaves 1 religion left for scooter & ruff to fight over. Who wants to research Divine Right?

We also 3-pop whipped a forge in AWB. It grew to size 4 on the IBT, and next turn we'll whip the zig that's in the city. We already put 1h into it a few turns back, so we could chain whips right before the golden age.


Internationally, everybody is starting to dump EP into us. Everybody who's paying attention to EP that is (*cough* Ichabod *cough*). Scooter is also whipping up a large army. He's gone up about 50k power in units alone. So perhaps he's getting his fleet together? But the problem is we can't figure what he's going to attack with. The scariest thing he can build right now are crossbows and swordsmen. Still, we've whipped a number of longbows and queued in a few more, just to be safe. We're #2 in power and on the opposite side of the map. I hope that's enough of a deterrent.

Ruff finished Machinery himself last turn. Not sure what he's going to follow that up with.

Rego finished Paper last turn. He also swapped out of Caste and back into Slavery - done without creating a great person. So there's a far smaller risk of him bulbing down through Liberalism now. But next turn we're going to have to decide if we're going to race to Liberalism or how we're going to play that.

And we have our golden age next turn. Noble & I hashed out a plan where we will pump out 5 great people from 4 cities during the GA. Now we need to figure out how best to use them. We'll have a better idea of that next turn, after we kick off the golden age and see just how many bpt we'll be playing with. (My guess is we'll be over 400.)

[pindicator]

Turn 123

So a few last minute whips, and then it was time to kick this baby off:



We make right around 400bpt at break even, and pull in over 650 at 100%.
This should give us near 5000 beakers over the next 12 turns. As a reference point, our total beakers researched to date is 9,657.

But wait, there's more. 5 Great People in the next 10 turns. Our first and fifth will come from RUO:



RUO will top 200 GP pts next turn, and will pop a great person at roughly the following odds:
* Artist - 39%
* Scientist - 29%
* Engineer - 26%
* Priest - 6%

The 5th GP, at 600 pts, will come at t133 and should look like this:
* Scientist - 50%
* Artist - 16%
* Engineer - 16%
* Priest - 16%

If we get a priest in the first we probably won't run a priest for the last; we'll probably swap that with more scientists. I think...

Our 2nd GP will come from HT on t128: It will be a scientist



#3 comes from CO on t129. Also a scientist



Then #4 comes from NHL:



(Whoops, I took that screenshot before we swapped all those merchants to scientists!)

82% chance of scientist here. 18% says it's a merchant.


So with these, the plan is simple. We're going to bulb Liberalism.

The next 3 turns are easy: We turn on the beakers for Paper next turn, and then 1-turn Alphabet on t125 and Compass on t126. We need to tech both in order to bulb Liberalism, and we have to stay away from Machinery. After that it depends...

If we get a lucky scientist out of RUO's first GP, then we'll bulb and finish Education on t127; we'll then have a turn of twiddling our thumbs before we bulb and finish Liberalism on t129.

If we don't get a scientist on RUO, then we have 3 turns of unknown. Personally, I think we use that time to tech through Nationalism. We can't get it all in 3t, but we probably can in 4, especially since Alphabet & Compass both can be teched at about 40% apiece (breakeven is 60%). So we'll have about 300g to burn through for teching Nationalism. That should make it a 4t tech, especially since I'm not figuring in cities growing with this. That would give us Nationalism eot130 if we decide to tech it through, and Liberalism comes in on t132. Then we grab Military Tradition with Liberalism, and tech Gunpowder t135. At that point it's war mode and Ichabod is the target.

The question is if we can wait that long for Liberalism.

Head back up to the first screenshot and take a look at what Rego is teching. He just finished Paper last turn and now he's on Compass. Looks like he has the same plan for bulbing Liberalism. He needs Education, Liberalism, and Philosophy -- and if he plans on bulbing Liberalism he'll need Compass and Alphabet too. Can he get all that in 7t? I don't think he can, but we'll see how things look after we tech Compass on t126

That will take up the two guaranteed scientists, and then we have the 80% out of NHL that's likely another scientist. He'll probably bulb Printing Press. If we get lucky and get a scientist out of RUO then he'll likely be used to bulb toward Astronomy -- Machinery -> Optics -> Astronomy is going to be a much needed path soon. And if we get super lucky and bulb 5 scientists in our next 5 great people, then we will save #5 for a scientific method bulb.

There's another potential fly in the ointment...



I hope those crossbows are going somewhere else... Or maybe they can wait until we have cuirs.

[pindicator]

Obligatory Moai-in-a-golden-age screenshot:



Don't worry, it will get bigger.


And demos at 0%



Next turn we'll crank it to 11 and see how high that GNP can go

[NobleHelium]

Hey I realized we forgot to take into account the prereq multiplier when we were comparing scientist vs merchant yield. A 1300 trade mission comes out to about the same as a bulb that way, but we get the bulb immediately and there's no transport hassle.

[pindicator]

Heh, if we were just going to try to tech away I'd say we should take Constitution with Lib

But I'd rather do Mil Tradition and take Representation via the Pyramids.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah. Hey if we don't get an Engineer out of RUO next turn I think we should swap one of NHL's scientists for an engineer.

[pindicator]

Turn 124

We're sailing the northern seas and found Ruff. Ruff's waters aren't made out of money bags like ours are:



I always assumed Salvator was the mainland, but it's an island. I guess that means ruff is a little farther away than I thought.

Out west we ran into a bit of a snag:



This turn SD is completely empty, but we should be ok. For one, it's borders pop end of turn, so if rego wants to attack then he needs to declare before moving and gaining sight on the city. Two, our galley is NW of the city. Now, if he does go for and then then sees our galley but attacks anyway we could really lose a lot - but my bet is he won't do that.

Next turn we'll unload the settler and long bow on top of the hill that rego's skirmisher is on. Unless Rego does declare - in that case we'll just turn the boat around and settle the island north of SR.

This turn we finished Paper, and cranked the slider up to do it. Here's our Bureaucracy + Academy + Golden Age capital cranking out almost 250bpt:



We actually only needed 90% to finish Paper but I wanted to get the screenshots at 100%
Speaking of which, in the spoilers the demos:

And then we hit end of turn and spun the great person wheel at RUO:



A low-odds Scientist!
I would have loved an Engineer as well, but yay for a scientist!

So I think next two turns are teching Alphabet (t125) and Compass (t126), and then we'll bulb and tech Education (t127). Then we have a turn of whatever we like before getting the next Great Scientist end of t128. (Noble just made a good point to me - if we delay Education to t127 then there's a 1-turn gap between when OAT finishes it's forge and when we would start it's university, so maybe we up Education a turn there.)

I'm still inclined to try to tech Nationalism before we bulb Liberalism. Rego is saving gold for a second turn on Compass, and if it takes him 4 turns to research Compass when it takes us 4 turns to research Nationalism, I think we're in a good spot.

[pindicator]

Turn 125

Not much to show for this turn. We decided to put research at 0% and give ourselves some flexibility. Turns out we gained 317g by shutting off research

Next turn we'll bulb Education and finish it off. Then we'll pick up Compass (t126), Alphabet (t127), and get Nationalism in 4t (t131) before bulbing and teching Liberalism (t132).

Turns out it does take Rego 4t to tech Compass. Yeah, I like our odds.

Unless scooter shows up with a dozen cross bows...

[NobleHelium]

So, Taj is really really really expensive without marble. We've talked a bit about how to build it, and we don't have a clue really (other than getting a GE). We might need to start another GA if we want to build it.

[pindicator]

What would you think if i said we could probably get Sci Method from Liberalism on t132... Maybe we just go for that and then pick up Communism?

Edit: it'd be t133 actually, and we'd be betting on one more GS after the next two sure ones at HT and CO