[54 Spoilers] Nothing to see here! Miguelito and Rusten's max score game

[Charriu]

Oh and of course I'm not sure what will happen to that Hippodrome/Colosseum in that city.

[Rusten]

I read your but I didn't see any immediate danger.

Septem grows in size just as fast with the mine this turn if you switch back to coast next turn (no overflow anymore). In Mag I rate 4 hammers over 1F1C and maturing a cottage -- we want that market. KomIntern shouldn't have any problems completing that granary in time with the chop and OR bonus. It will only have +3 food next turn. And yes, I noticed the missionary

[Miguelito]

I saw you fixed it.

Parthenon in Angelia? It still i s without a barracks or stable, but gets some decent hammers now. Failgold would be good. Or do we just not care about the wonder with TGL/NE in KGB coming up and Pacifism eventually?
Alternatively it just keeps building missionaries, although. It's the city with about the longest travels

Edit: there's also Paya which makes a bit of sense to avoid Philo and get Nat through DR, and Zeus which we don't want but don't want the others to have either. Not actually suggesting either

[Rusten]

Parthenon sounds alright, feel free to give it a try.
Somebody has literature already so we probably want to 1-turn music if we're going to try for it.
You gain back so many of the beakers from Philosophy just through the pre-req bonus that you hardly ever want to skip it leading to Nationalism. And I think we have a decent chance of Liberalism here still. Would much rather tech philosophy than build Paya.

[Miguelito]

turn 142, of no drama for once
Cairo's stack is still in place:


I forgot to actually take a shot, but it's more or less what we saw last time. 4 elephants, ~5 catapults, ~4 HAs, axes. I'll take a shot next turn. Maybe he has a second stack building up? His power is barely encreasing though (see below) I'm shifting this sentry phract to the Chichén area, and will have a second one by Akritai.
Somebody tell me please if Cairo can see this tile (from the mined hill):



The peak has 7% of our culture already vs. 40% Cairo. We still will not get it by turn 145 (factoring in it also takes a turn to flip after we get majority), but I'm running 2 artists to make it as fast as possible. But we will quite possibly lose the city, not the smartest idea maybe to found it . What we can do about it... well, attack?



sending this, as he's providing Elkad with iron. Can he accept and just straight up give Elkad the iron again? In SP it's not possible, in MP I don't know. Either way I don't mind propping him up a bit vis-à-vis Mjmd and El Grillo. On second inspection we are trading wine+fur for spices to him already BUT we were going to cancel that next turn (when 10 turns are up), as we got sugar+spices for the same from Ruff meanwhile.
Oh yeah, Elkad:


There's a second galley trailing under the other trireme, which can pick up 2 fresh amphi cataphracts from the Mutal conquest next turn. He'll get another unit out of the city thoguh, with the chop finishing next turn, so it's going to be dicey. Alternatively we ferry over the 2 catapults. Kinda willing to take a risk though, because the trade routes would be so huge for us. Otoh a lurking EG galley striking the newly conquered city would also be annoying. Thoughts?

As you see, the deficit is improving slightly. Demos are looking good:



We got graphs from EG this turn, and will likely lose them again, so I'm posting them now:


The real story here are vanrober's impressive GA spikes. I have no idea what he has been researching (edit: not true, he got HR and Bureaucracy during his GA. Not sure if OR as well,  probably yes.  with vassalage he'd get 3 promo knights everywhere out of the gate, which would actually be a bit worrisome for us,  so there is that). Otoh, I think the person getting Aesthetics last turn and then 1turning Literature was El Grillo. If he wants the Parthenon he'll get it, my attempt is not competitive, but as said I would not mind the gold either with 100% modifier.


our dips are the slavery periods. The latest surge has to do with Russia coming online as well. Mr. Cairo's is strange, as he's in a GA - is that offset by whips? But at least his power (below) doesn't show a lot of units coming online.
new land coming online:


Here's what I've been talking about. Everybody's graphs are flat at different levels. I suspect Cairo is limping to either feudalism or engineering (less likely) during the GA and will whip hard right after ( 2 or 1 turns before our treaty ends, so if we walk in fast, we can be there before those units get into position.




We could revolt again next turn, but I think we want to stay in Merc caste for a while longer at least. Many new cities don't have slots for the free merc specialists ( although Rep citizens are not the worst). I'll have to calculate how much gold we'd lose from caste merchants vs. benefits from serfdom. Also need to check that the AP build in Riparii doesn't depend on the 2 workshop hammers.
I'm thinking we might actually need another  slavery cycle, maybe after 5 turns of serfdom, with the objective mainly to whip some infra in Russia/Mayaland that otherwise would take forever to finish. A few phracts would surely also get whipped on horseback.

[civac2]

Can you show some pictures/info of your core area. I am amazed you got such a large deficit. I get there was one intially but didn't you switch out of slavery even?

[Miguelito]

Can you show some pictures/info of your core area. I am amazed you got such a large deficit. I get there was one intially but didn't you switch out of slavery even?

Delighted to impress you !
But let's have a look at why finances are bad, maybe I can also understand better why:


First conclusion: Our expenses are high and our income too low!

The easy explanation is that of the 24 cities we own 14 were conquered within the last 18 (only!) turns, and one is a now even more useless iceball. Former Russia is slowly coming online but still has a long way to go, and Elkad's 2 best cities are still revolting, the other 2 being at size 3/2.
We are actually at the cap for number of cities maintenance, paying 6 on that everywhere. Surprisingly the army is not costing as much. Another huge factor are trade routes, as was discussed. Before Merc and when we had OB with everybody, a coastal city would get 9+ commerce from that alone. With merc that's 4.
So is merc the problem? First, while in caste every city can take a free rep merchant generating 6 commerce - so more than making up on the difference - but of course half of that is beakers and doesn't contribute against the deficit. If it  were gold we'd be writing black numbers now. (which lets us clear literature in 2 turns, so that's useful). Also we're still prioritising hammers over gold in many places and running engineers instead of merchants, plus a few artists and a scientist in KGB because of the academy. Second, at this point we're getting OB only from Ruff, naufragar, and superdeath, which should be worth less than 25 routes, so a bit more than a third of what would be needed. Merc is fine, in particular with caste (sadly I feel this makes it unfeasible to leave caste anytime soon, as much as I'd want serfdom).

You requested a core shot:


We have only two cottaged cities of our own, Frumentarii and Mag, which however are probably among the best in the world with their banks (both appear on the top 5 list actually, despite being wonderless). They are also significantly more cottaged than comparable cities of Elkad's and gira's (not sure about Cairo). Here's one of Rusten's most influential  contributions: On my own I would have cottaged all of the floodplains but one maybe, made Akritai into a hybrid, and probably also cottaged the southern river. We'd not have financial problem right now, but maybe also only half the cities. The map really does not have a lot of food resources, and the FP and grassland farms have helped immensely, getting the infra (forges/barracks/stables) up and then whipping all those cataphracts. With this core we got to guilds in what I think was a very respectable time, supported by rep/caste, and after that there have not been very pressing technology needs either. I have actually been deprioritising commerce in favour of hammers here: Both Agentes and Angelia used to run lots of merchants, but are now more production oriented.

F1 to illustrate:


Mag and Frumentarii rake in nearly half of the total. Septem may be a bank candidate, and maybe Angelia long term (it gave away the fur though after the shot to work more hammers). None of the Russian conquests will generate significantly more gold than you see here. KGM (former capital) with TGL, Academy and soon NE will mostly prioritise scientists. It has 2 or 3 good cottages that it will also work. Okhrana, FSB and Komintern (gira's second to fourth) are all going to be hammer cities, while I'll leave two cottages at Okhrana in place. There are still 2 iceball silver mines left unworked because cities grow first.
Lakhama and Mutal will have a commerce focus,while Chichén is more about the foodhammers, and Mayapan is more of a fishing post (have to rename the Mayan cities yet). Lakhama has to grow first though and Mutal has to come out of revolt (after that, with forge and market in place already, and with the shrine of course, it will be very nice).
Cairo's land, if aquired successfully, will also provide at least 3 good commerce cities.

t143:


gtfo. Cancelled his fur+wine for spices, and reoffered fur for stop trading.

We have to get into position, as t146 hostilities with Cairo may resume! This time I took the shot of his stack:


How many cataphracts would we want to feel comfortable in front of this? Noticeably absent are the horse archers. We should be prepared for him to make a push with these forking Akritai and Riparii. I'll scout the rice farm next turn.
My attack plan right now has us position the large cataphract stack on the wheat 2E of Memory of Trees. That prevents him from attacking our exposed cities (Cursus and Chichén, not so much we can do about Mayapan) with anything but random HAs. Then the turn after we can see if we want to fight his stack, take/burn the city, or threaten the cap. Taking the city should actually open the option to attack the stack and flank the catapults. Of course that's assuming he stays in place; in fact it's likely that he takes the first half of the timer again and makes the first move, restablishing the 3-way split with Elkad.

So Elkad:


still LB/CB/Holkan, but expect another unit ther enext turn. Pike or LB. We have 2 C2/shock cataphracts landed, and 2 amphis on the galley. Could have had another C3 on the other galley, but misplayed. Would need above average luck to take it next turn, still worth the attempt I suppose.

[civac2]

Thanks for the overview. The heavy focus on food and hammers is indeed instuctive. I have the difficult to resist urge to put a cottage on every tile.

Watermills are just +1 hammer, right? I forgot that workshops are actually usable with Guilds and Caste System.

[Miguelito]

Thanks for the overview. The heavy focus on food and hammers is indeed instuctive. I have the difficult to resist urge to put a cottage on every tile.

Watermills are just +1 hammer, right? I forgot that workshops are actually usable with Guilds and Caste System.

I think you are used to higher difficulties right? I think on immortal or deity this would not be a viable development.
Watermills are +1h, correct, which is not very good, but they gain another 1h with serfdom, as do windmills, while farms get +1c. On this foodlacking map this is our go to civic, just right now I feel it's not justifiable to downgrade a bunch of merc merchants to citizens. Thankfully Cairo is jewish already, so after conquering we can get fast AP temples up and have at least priests (I'm ever more warming up to Angkor Wat, but it's expensive - 250 raw hammers with 100% bonus. Would love to put it into KGB but the cost may be prohibitive).

[Miguelito]

Took t144 right before bedtime.
We were pretty lucky at Uxmal, killing the longbow and a pike at 60 and 50% odds, and the Holkan at 75%. Lost against the crowwbow though, so one more turn, and Elkad should dry whip a new unit. A pike will be very hairy. We have a new C2 phract on the galley. This was avoidable, if only I had reinforced the galley last turn.  

Cairo got engineering this turn. I'm more worried about the road movement than the pikes. Rusten can you take a look inside and tell me what you think? Right now I'm assembling the cataphracts out of the sight of his peak, to move into position next turn.

EG got the music artist last turn already.