[SPOILERS]Acrid Pinot and other Pindicator anagrams

[pindicator]

Looked at the game, and my solution is to start on galleys this turn. T+1 we'll swap select cities over to caravels. T+2 we whip those caravels. T+3 we overflow to finish galleons. In the cities that we don't swap to caravels we just whip galleons on T+2

We can potentially get 7 galleons & 3 caravels in the water on T+4. If scooter gives us peace, we'll then have our transport ready for any future attack. If not, that's enough to push back his 4 galleons.

Since we're also pressed for teching gunpowder, I don't think upgrading is an option at this time. But we could have 3 other galleys available if we want to upgrade later.

[pindicator]

Turn 134

I think this tells the story pretty well:



We also drafted 3 maces: in RUO, HT, and CO. Some of this is being overly cautious, but I'd rather have a city to wear off anger in than not have one. Especially since that whole "pyrrhic victory" thing didn't turn out so hot.

We ended up getting 9 turns of golden age, followed by 3 turns of war. We've lost 17 pop over the last 3 turns, from drafting and losing Car Mod. And we're going to lose a lot more before it's over -- there are still 7 galleons to be whipped in after we get Astronomy.

A parting shot of our Moai + Colossos + Golden Age wonder of a city:

[Qgqqqqq]

*Sob* that really is a beautiful city.

Only better ones I can think of is mardocs heron throne city in '16 and the capitals in '44.

[NobleHelium]

ASTRO ISLAND ALERT: Northwest of NHL, we got vision over a workable ocean at EOT with Optics.

[NobleHelium]

I'll probably be online for a bit if scooter plays his turn.

[pindicator]

Nothing like being roughed up some to cause a little reflection...

First of all, kudos to scooter.  As much as I want to whip my empire to the ground and spend every last energy to destroy his game, really he did the best thing he could here.  He got a quick clean war from ruff, scored some cities for cheap, and then used his naval advantage to harass me as I was running away in tech.  He's wisely using this time to build up his infrastructure, I suspect, as his soldier count isn't really going up since the war began.  This is just a war to slow us down and it's succeeded initially.  It's probably too early to say how much it's slowed us down, but even in making us take Liberalism before we wanted to, it was a victory for him.

Second, it's a little too early to say with any certainty, but I'm starting to suspect that a fantastic early game was marred by poor a strategic plan once we got to the GA.  Delaying astronomy was a mistake; astronomy and naval techs are The One Right Play on this map (more on this later), and we're suffering now for neglecting it.  If we would have had three more turns then the repercussions wouldn't have nearly been as painful - we would have had gunpowder and would have been able to take out his crossbows far more easier - but we still would have been rushing to Astronomy to get galleons in the water and prevent him from being able to threaten practically every city we have.

I don't think I realized the risk in the chosen tech path until we were declared on.

Still, our tech lead is pretty large.  I'll have some charts up tonight - but we're sitting on double the beakers of every civ besides scooter.  And when I factor in Liberalism and Astronomy it comes out to about a 10k beaker lead on scooter and 15k beaker lead on every one else.

The bad news is that scooter's war is going to kill the GNP as I whip the civ silly to get out galleons and draft maces - maces! - to fend off his xbows.  With Rego now hitting his golden age, i expect him to grab some Great Scientists and put a dent in my lead as well.  And there definitely will be some catching up; on the turn i played last night we were down to 4th in GNP, 3rd in mfg.  Next turn when Astronomy is picked as a free tech from Liberalism and kill the GNP some more.

But Rego may be making the same mistake I have: so far he hasn't teched Astronomy.  So if scooter gives peace, I'm going to look at taking the drafted units from defending and do the same thing to Rego during his GA that scooter did to me in mine.


Okay, now the map.

I'm starting to realize Commodore was given an impossible set of conditions for this map.  Balance it for 5 people.  Make the map like pbem17 (an island map) but don't make it so Astronomy is the one right choice (basically, not an island map).  I think any time you have a map that has as many islands as this one, and as much coastline around the starting areas, then Astronomy is going to be The One Right Choice.  Especially when all the strategic resources are on the coastline.

Now, there are other map fairness issues apart from this that I've already whined about.  And several others that I haven't mentioned in thread.  But the main idea of not making Astronomy uber-alls while also being like the pbem17 map was a contradiction that I didn't think through. Really, any map where boats are the only way to move units between the majority of your cities means Astronomy and naval techs are going to take priority.

So for the rest of the game, our focus needs to be on any tech that helps us control the seas.  And that probably means we don't beeline communism:  instead it's better to pick up Chemistry for Frigates, Physics for airships, while still picking up economic techs and aiming for rifles as well.  Because the only way to have mobility on this map is to be able to shuttle troops over the water.  And if you can control the water, then you can render your opponent helpless.  Just like scooter is doing to us despite our large beaker lead.

[novice]

PBEM17 was different in that it was a diplo game, so you could NAP your way through the age of Astronomy.

[pindicator]

PBEM17 was different in that it was a diplo game, so you could NAP your way through the age of Astronomy.

Yeah, and there's definitely props to scooter for not letting me do exactly that. Which is funny b/c he's the only opponent that doesn't border me. But i meant more that i was asking for a game with islandd and large coastlines that wouldn't be dominated by naval units. That's not going to happen - the strength of naval units from galleons on up is their increased mobility over land units.

[Commodore]

I believe Admiral Akbar has a good evaluation of the Colossus here. I'd note that despite NAPs et all, Colossus-delaying-Astro didn't work out great for Rego.

[pindicator]

I believe Admiral Akbar has a good evaluation of the Colossus here. I'd note that despite NAPs et all, Colossus-delaying-Astro didn't work out great for Rego.

Well, Colossus was never the gameplan, just a nice pickup along the way. I was in the mindset that i was racing rego to Liberalism and had wanted to grab Mil Trad with that, but the next tech goal after cuirs was always going to be Astronomy. Once rego teched machinery and was no longer in a position to bulb Liberalism i should have reassessed.