[PB58] Tarkeel and Amicalola's rule through fear

[Amicalola]

So we're obviously looking very good right now, as long as a coalition doesn't form against us. I'm personally very happy with the timing, as I will be back tonight, so I get to be properly here during the reconstruction.

For the Engineer -> GA vs. Corp debate, we had a long chat about it last night. I think it's fair to say that I am leaning GA, and Tarkeel is leaning MiningInc. (but neither us feels super strongly in one direction). There are a lot of pros and cons to both. To be honest, we're in a great position regardless of which we end up choosing, so testing Corporations in CtH might win for the fun/helpful factor. I've actually never played with them before even in SP, so I have to admit I am curious...

[Mjmd]

I feel like there should be some kind of "DO IT" meme here.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 209 (1490 AD)
Economics came in this turn and our GNP dropped some as we started researching virgin technologies again, first Corporation. SD is set to finish SteamPower in two turns, which will give us a boost by waiting. Jowy and MrC will both finish Rifling next turn, which means rifles for one and cavalry for the other. Superdeath finally built the Heroic Epic in 1420 (T202), I guess he might not have had a sufficiently promoted unit to build it earlier?

Jowy offered a horse/copper/iron deal, which I take is his way of asking for assistance against Superdeath. I had planned to stay out of that fight, and was going to offer a fish back to signify "I won't help, but I won't attack either". Then i found out where MrC's main stack was heading:


If he's going to strike Jowy in the rear, we might have to get in on the action and capture Ruff's former lands, and I don't like to break promises, so I'll stay silent for now.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 210 (1500 AD)
There is peace in the world! The turn-pace rejoices! SD and Jowy signed peace, and SD revolted (w/anarchy) into mercantilism. Did someone ask him why he hadn't done so? :P We send fish to Jowy and offer silver for dyes to MrC.

We're trying for a nice mixture of more cannons and banks and universities in preparation for WallStreet and Oxford. The downside of having many good cities is that none of them are truly great, so it does take some more time to build these. The selected cities are the core cities of Coruscant, Kessel and Mon Calamari, and the lesser trio of Corulag, Alderaan, Kashyyyk.

Corporation will come in next turn, so let's pause for a moment for another counterfactual: Consider the case where CreCon is available at Steel (as per my suggestion in the CtH thread). As everybody knows Steel (and has for some time) they will have execs available to spread it as soon as we found the HQ. Would we still want to do it? Answers on a postcard please.

We have more or less concluded that we are going to found MinInc, and will probably go for Railroads before AssemblyLine line, partly to use the corporation to boost production of factories but also because we badly need a better logistics backbone for our empire.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 211-213 (1515 AD)
Meat is back on the menu! The draft has been reinstated across the fishing villages, converting coast into rifles. We're likely to be drafting three cities per turn for a while now to get some more defenses. We've re-founded Tatooine on the old ruins. Meanwhile, here's an overview of upcoming projects:

T214: Hagia Sophia in Coruscant
T215: Steam Power and Statue of Liberty in Kessel
T218: Coruscant births new GP
T220(?): Railroads

We're also planning some more national wonders:
Wall Street in Coruscant
Iron Works in Corellia
Oxford in Bothawui

Jowy neglected to play a double, but I couldn't spot any trouble...

Edit: Amica scrounged up the necessary hammer (singular) to speed up SoL by one turn.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 214-215 (1525 AD)
With SteamPower comes coal, which is located at the original city settler locations, as well as three border islands. I'm not sure how fair those border island placements are though; two of them are on my borders (yet I control none of them) and none on Ruff's. Kessel completes the Statue of Liberty, and over 10 cities grow. Demographics before and after:

We're currently prioritizing hammers from the specialists, but we can get Railroads in 5 turns @50% (breakeven), or in 4 @60%. We fear that Superdeath has a great engineer tucked away, but we don't think so, but it does open up a new question: If we both research Railroads at the same turn and have an engineer handy, who gets to found MinInc? I believe this is something that hasn't come up before, but my suggestion (in the unlikely event it happens) is that the lurkers flip a coin for us. It wouldn't be fair to let the one to play the turn first get it.

Here are some overview shots, as it's been a while:




Defensively, we're up to 44 rifles, 23 cannons and 18 cavalry

[civac2]

Crazy production numbers.

[Tarkeel]

We've focused on production for a long time, and with AP buildings almost everywhere (still being built in some new holdings) and two free specialists yielding 2 hammers each in most cities, it sure adds up. Just wait til we get MinInc spread and (cheap) factories built! It might be time to start moving some specialists to science, although I think our GNP is crazier; that's our 0% rate vs Jowy burning with known-tech-bonus. We've yet to build any universities, but then neither has Jowy, only getting Education last turn.

Edit: It's also less than 50 turns since our cropyield was below 400!

[Tarkeel]

In the end, I did hire some extra scientists, so we only need a few hundred beakers extra to cut it down to 4 turns.

We fear that Superdeath has a great engineer tucked away, but we don't think so, but it does open up a new question: If we both research Railroads at the same turn and have an engineer handy, who gets to found MinInc? I believe this is something that hasn't come up before, but my suggestion (in the unlikely event it happens) is that the lurkers flip a coin for us. It wouldn't be fair to let the one to play the turn first get it.

Obviously this isn't an issue, as Superdeath doesn't have Constitution, let alone Corporation, so he can't found it. He can't even benefit from the exec as he's running mercantilism (as is MrCairo). It opens up the question of spreading it to Jowy though, who can benefit and is looking for round 2 with Superdeath.



While reasigning cities for levees, I noticed we'd made an unforced error in the placement of Rendili: It should have gone NE on the river bend. Yes, grasshills are great for us, but a levee would have been even better, and it could have gotten some other nice tiles too. It's not like Bothawui wants to share that lake with a non-lighthouse city.

[Mjmd]

Congrats on Statue. First game its been built in a while so that is exciting.

@Rendili one of those muscle memory type situations. I mean how many games get to Levees where its relevant. Playing single player I always used to try to maximize getting levee cities until playing multiplayer I realized I was giving up on extra commerce for 150+ turns (depending on when settled). Can still make sense with resource placement, but I think we have just been conditioned against and then this situation comes up where it burns ya.