[SPOILERS] Dazedroyalty - Brennus of Mongolia

[dazedroyalty]

Gotta love Heroic Epic overflow:




OH S**T! I just realized I played too quickly. NAtional Epic is supposed to go in Dua, not Satu! WHY DID I PLAY THIS TURN AFTER COMING HOME ON FRIDAY NIGHT?!?!?

[Shoot the Moon]

You wanted fail gold, right? :neenernee

[dazedroyalty]

You wanted fail gold, right? :neenernee

Y'know, that's actually not bad because the overflow from the catapult into another military unit was SO high that I'd have lost most of the hammers anyways. (100 hammers would have gone into the next military unit build... but the most expensive unit I can build is 34 hammers!)

[NobleHelium]

I don't think anyone has ever built the HE and the NE in the same city.

[dazedroyalty]

Well, this was a fun turn. Sorry no pictures. But what happened? When I hit end turn:

-Got Free Great Artists from Music
-Birthed a scientist from my Great Library/double Rep scientists city
-Finished Great Wall in 1T (from Heroic Epic overflow, 13 hammers chop and hooking up stone)
-Got 32 gold from failgold on Great Wall because I had spent 1 turn on it in Dua, but built it in Satu, which is enough to fund another turn at 100% research.

[dazedroyalty]

I settled my third city (again) and used a Great Artist to bomb it immediately. Take that Krill! Unfortunately, he's had his in play longer so I didn't immediately gain all the tiles I want, but I will control my BFC. I'm nervous about Krill's cultural efforts. If I invest heavily in military to stop him I leave myself exposed to Cyneheard. If I leave him alone, he can win cultural victory pretty easy.

I teched Currency last turn so I started a Marketplace. I need to work some merchants! I'm at 0 gold while running 0% science. That's break even which is better than being in the red. But I need to make some cash somehow.

Cyneheard and I were chatting abotu the Great Wall thing (that was a genuine mistake. I definitely didn't remember it being banned) and he said he feels he's out of the running barring krill and i banging heads hard. That makes me nervous for a couple of reasons. 1) Cyneheard doesn't seem like someone to fade off silently, so he'll go out with a bang which could seriously hurt me. I can stop a full on attack if necessary, but not without incurring serious pain. 2) The idea of having to play on Krill's level is overwhelming. I enjoy the banter thread and talking big, but the truth is my position in this game surprises me. I expected to beat by all three of them. Scooter's only out because of his crazy opening and cyneheard focusing on him. Cyneheard taking SCooter's city was a weedy decision. Not only is he culturally crushed by Krill and me, but he's paying out the wazoo for that city. With Krill and I both having three cities with significant cultural control, he doesn't really have any other options, though--despite me offering to raze if for him on multiple occasions.

Tech wise, I'm doing calendar too hook up all the calendar resources my third city just pulled in. I also want CoL to switch in and out of caste. I'd like Meditation to build the Shedawan Paya (I can never remember how to spell that). Then, I'd like to tech to Guilds. CHM, Ger powered Knights seem like my best bet for an attack. Krill will see it coming for sure. I just switched EPs back to him (I was getting Cyneheard's graphs), so I'm hoping to see his tech again soon. I don't know what it would take to erase his ability to see my graphs. That actually might make Courthouses worthwhile! If I could surprise him, that'd be great.

The problem with war in this game is that it doesn't really help unless it leads to a victory or prevents one. Attacking Scooter or Cyneheard at this point seems useless. The raze gold isn't worth the cost in unit support/hammers/etc. Taking one of Krill's cities, though, would be totally worth it I think. He's already bombed them so they cultural defense is high I can't avoid that. Instead, I think I need to wait till he's put some more culture into them and raze one to demoralize his cultural efforts. If I can do that while defending my own cities, I'll be set.

I don't have any interest in going for cultural victory myself. Realistically, that means that my pathway to victory is going to be conquest. Of course, If i pulled it off, I probably wouldn't actually beat any player all the way down--just enough that they'd concede. I put the odds of that happening at 20%. I give Krill a 30% odds of defending effectively and winning by culture. I give Cyneheard 10% chance of winning some crazy way. And I estimate 40% odds that Cyneheard and/or Scooter do something unexpected to tilt the games outcome unexpectedly and beyond my ability to predict.

One question for the mapmaker I've been wondering about that I think it's fair to ask since the whole world has been revealed. What was the thinking about the stone/marble placement? Were you hoping someone would plant a city in that area to claim one/both? With natural capital border pops, two of us would get stone and two would get marble. (I'm no scooter when it comes to map musings, but I think that's the way it'd work). Of course, from my perspective marble would be much more useful (GLib, Heroic/National Epics) and all stone has got me was the Great Wall, which I only built because of the stone. Stone would have been nice when i was building the Mids, of course, but that didn't happen in time.

[NobleHelium]

The problem with war in this game is that it doesn't really help unless it leads to a victory or prevents one. Attacking Scooter or Cyneheard at this point seems useless. The raze gold isn't worth the cost in unit support/hammers/etc.

That's why I strongly advised letting players keep conquests from other players...

[dazedroyalty]

That's why I strongly advised letting players keep conquests from other players...

I can say for sure I hadn't really thought about that particular ramification at the time. However, I also don't know if I would have wanted it to be different. If Cyneheard coulda kept more cities, I think he probably would have invaded me as well.

Fortunately, Krill's cultural goals makes war inevitable. I don't know if I have the ability to get a good guess in for when Krill will be able to win cultural victory. I need to get someone form PB6 in here to help me out!! 3 cities to 25,000 culture.... GAs are 2600 culture per bomb? Something like that. I can track his GAs born via the news box. Note to self: start checking that every turn and writing them down! I can see his cities on the victory screen. I hope I can make it to knights in time. There's no way he can win before then, right?!

[Square Leg]

GA is 4000*0.67 = 2680

Good luck!

[dazedroyalty]

OK, I reopened the last save to track great people born:

[COLOR="Red"]Cyneheard got a GSci in 380 AD
[/COLOR][COLOR="Yellow"]Krill got a GSci in 320 AD
Krill got a GArt in 200 BC[/COLOR]
Cyneheard got a GSci in 280BC
Krill got a GPro in 440 BC
Cyneheard got a Gsci in 600BC
Krill got a GArt in 760BC
Scooter got a GPro in 920BC
Krill got a GSci in 1240BC

So Krill has gotten five Great people but only two of them have actually been Artists. Here is the current standing of his three cities:



His cities need:

21515, 22198 and 23808 for a grand total of 67521 more culture. From artist bombs that means he needs 26 bombs. Of course, he'll get his own culture from working artists but he's built basically 0 wonders besides Oracle:



(Note, I need to get visibility on Iwazaru)

Next turn I'll take a screenshot again and see how much he is gaining in culture/turn, but it can't be that high yet. If he was working 5 artists in a city, that'd be 20 culture/turn. I highly doubt he has research turned off. I really hope I get tech visibility back on him to see where he's at. Honestly, though, I think he's pretty far off from a culture victory. Maybe I have been misreading him this whole time and he's not planning to go for culture at all. I know he's PHI which helps with the Great people, but I feel like I keep reading people talk about how it only speeds them up and doesn't necessarily produce that many more in the long term. Krill has gotten 5 great people already--I've gotten 5 as well but one was the free Artist and one was a great general so that's really only 3. Plus, I am pretty certain Krill doesn't have the national Epic so my great person rate won't be much slower.

Ooops, I probably won't get his graphs. I just took a look at his cities and he's built courthouses. Boo. If I had three courthouses right now, I'd be saving about 8 GPT. That's not really that great. It's the EPs that would be nice.

In other news, if my tech rate doesn't improve or decrease at all, I'm 34 turns from Guilds. Maybe 32-33 if there's enough overflow in there. Fortunately, I expect to get there faster than that.