[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[Commodore]

Why do we always need a pause?

Xenu, I hope this is rhetorical. We always need a pause because Sian 's basically checked out and his neighbors haven't killed him yet.

FTFY

[spacetyrantxenu]

As your ever impartial game and turn shift supervisor I must avoid specifically expressing certain solutions that would be highly effective in eradicating persons complicit in rapid turn pace annihilation.

On a completely unrelated topic, where are Ceilazul, fluffy, Mindy, and the rest of the Lurker Legion of Blood? Surely they would know what to do!

[Mardoc]

Aye, but I'm afraid the Ottomen have a chance of winning this! That means sending an army to free up land for Rome to settle isn't the best plan. Even if it would be totally justified in PYFT terms.

What did we do this turn to help toward a winning path?

Well, we founded a new city. This one cost 8 off the empire's total gpt, making it official that I don't understand maintenance; the last one was nearly breakeven. Maybe Artuin is closer to the cap and bumped a bunch of cities up in cost somehow? Maybe I just hit funny rounding?

Anyway, makes Courthouses more urgent, but I don't regret settling Artuin here. Marble's quite nice in itself, and of course the city will pay quite well once it's working a metric ton of coasts. Just need to ship in a worker for the bananas and get the basic infrastructure up. If I were slightly more organized, I'd have the worker here already chopping, but we're still running a bit light on them; it'll have to wait for the stone road I think.



Speaking of marble, Bursa's starting to look fun! 5 turns left until HE is in place, after which I ought to be able to 1-turn cats. Not quite there yet without counting overflow, but those workshops are incoming as well. I figure 30 cats is a good goal for now - 10 for each front ought to really increase security. After which I can research Horseback Riding and put up a stable and make a quick-reaction force. Or spend the hammers on a navy and cargo and go a-viking.



Edirne's working on my other national wonder. It's due to speed up greatly in 2 turns when the stone gets a road. And I went ahead and rehired specialists; in 20 turns I will hopefully be bouncing a few cities off the happy caps again, ready for a Golden Age to give a great boost.



Next turn I'll re-engage the science machine, I think. Should be 4-5 turns until Printing Press, burning through our reserves and bumping up our GNP seriously. I'll need to spend some time with the Alphabet-enabled tech trade screen to gain a good feeling for relative positions here; in particular whether Rome or China is vulnerable

[Mardoc]

Turned on research...yep, we still have a fair bit of work to do here. Still, it's starting to look better.


I *think* Zanth is in a GA. But the thing I've learned is that GA commerce is still real, GA hammers still get things built. It's not really artificial and 'doesn't count' - no prizes for Best Unaided Empire.

That said, there's still a lot of game here. Just keep plugging away at settling new cities and building up the existing ones and we'll get there. We'll be firing our own GA's, hopefully before Zanth thinks we're a threat and after he thinks we'd be a pain to attack.

Also, Zanth offered Open Borders and I accepted. I'm pretty sure he's getting trade from others already, and it would be useful to send a unit or two to go scout out his empire. Say, for when we've got a lot of Courthouses up and a reason to see into his cities .

Anyway, more reportage tonight or tomorrow. I've a feeling it'll still be 860 AD til Saturday at least...

[Commodore]

I *think* Zanth is in a GA. But the thing I've learned is that GA commerce is still real, GA hammers still get things built. It's not really artificial and 'doesn't count' - no prizes for Best Unaided Empire.

This. A thousand times this! Thank you for articulating this; I see this fallacy a lot.

[Mardoc]

Random strategic thoughts:

Organized Religion is starting to be a real boon. I'm up to nine Confucian cities, which means I'm probably at least 12 hpt bonus toward my infrastructure; that's worth the 12 gpt I think. I keep pushing, but of course there's that annoying missionary limit. Plus we've got culture, happiness, and eligibility for other religious civics.

I should start taking more advantage from Spiritual - that'll take some planning but we've got civics unlocked that can be used. In particular I need to plan my whips better and start spending half my time in Caste or Serfdom. Caste doesn't make a lot of sense at the moment, as I have something like 3 workshops in my entire empire and am spending the food on growth rather than specialists. But Serfdom would be a real help; even after pushing worker count up to 19 I still feel behind. I might even pull that trigger on the current turn if it's still there when I get home from work. Just need to verify that we won't be needing any whips in the next 5 turns. Serfdom will transition into Caste being useful quite naturally, as it helps me get those workshops built.

Also should, when convenient, unlock more religious civics and plan to use them too. We've got to stay in OrgRel for a while yet, 20+ turns, long enough to at least get Confucianism well spread and make the other civics meaningful. That means it's not a plan yet, just something to keep in mind. For the time being I expect +25% to building hammers to be the most important thing, but circumstances will change. Once we've got the bulk of useful infra up and cities grown to run specialists, +50% GPP would compete in peacetime and +2XP in wartime. In particular OrgRel would go very well with Slavery dips. Pacifism's GPP bonus will go well with Caste enabling specialists everywhere.

Economic civics? The only one realistic in the short term is Mercantilism; only Banking is going to be researched anytime soon. Bonus specs everywhere are probably worth the lost 2-4 commerce/city, especially if I combine it with Pacifism and Caste (and a Golden Age!). Valuable enough to make Banking a priority? No, don't think so, but I'll want it soon enough for banks and the rifling pre-req, I think. Longer term we'll probably plunk into State Property and stay there. I intend to keep growing the empire horizontally, mostly onto workshops and coast tiles: perfect conditions for SP.

Other things:
Should settle the copper/dye/sheep city next turn. That'll probably suppress GNP a smidge more in the short term. Of course it'll be worth it in the long term - lotsa hammers and lotsa coast with decent food supplies.

After that, three more cities to found. I haven't yet figured out where I'm getting those settlers; partly because I need to give my workers a chance to catch up. Which would normally result in 'build more workers, fool!', but I'm reluctant to do that with land running out. I really do have several cities that are finished, and only maybe 2 unimproved tiles in the whole empire being worked. Temporary Serfdom might solve that issue for me, making my 19 workers act like 28 long enough to get over the hump to more tiles improved than I'm using even with more new cities.

Then, I expect a period of great growth in demos. Founding cities is inherently a long term thing, but for short term growth, you can't beat remaining still and going vertical. Whether it's enough - that remains to be seen. Aiming to go vertical strongly enough that we can resume horizontal expansion at the point of a gun :-)

As soon as the turn rolls I ought to have Alphabet. I'm looking forward to that, getting a good handle on my rivals' tech levels. That'll give me an idea when to aim for my war - maybe I should be researching Gunpowder and Astro next, or maybe I should aim for more economic boosts first like Banking or Education. It would be handy to get Oxford and Wall Street up somewhere.

I *think* that I've got three turns to go up to Printing Press after that, but it may be three and a bit. Depends on how new cities and city growths affect me.

Edit: One More Thing. I keep debating where I should toss down the National Epic. I can't figure out anywhere with both the food for the specialists and the hammers for the spec slots, without also having a ton of good tiles that should be worked. Maybe I just need to wait until later; Edirne might be a decent NE once it's grown to size 25ish...

[Mardoc]

Turn has rolled! Time for a tech update:

Everyone but Sian and us has Horseback Riding. Sian has Theology up on us. Aside from that, only BaII, Catwalk, and Zanth have any significant tech lead, so that's a good sign.

Potential target analysis:
Furungy:
Up: Horseback Riding, Philosophy
Down: Aesthetics, Alphabet, Engineering, Paper (after this turn)

So, we're ahead, but not nearly far enough to consider short term war vs. Rome. Janissaries would let us beat up on him as he is today, but if we started accumulating them, he'd grab Gunpowder himself and it'd be a slog.

Gawdzak:
Up: Horseback Riding, Gunpowder
Down: Paper (after this turn), Literature.

We're basically neck and neck with Gawdzak. No point in challenging him, either, not yet.

Also of note: NO ONE HAS COMPASS! So we don't have to fear any naval shenanigans just yet. I actually wonder if maybe I'm going to be first to that despite continuing to delay...

I'm going to continue on the peaceful route, then. No point in trying military aggression until we boost our demographics up a lot.

Still going up to Printing Press next, after which...um, not sure. I guess I'm leaning toward threatening Liberalism, making Catwalk or Zanth get off the pot and grab it while the available free options are only so-so. Only reasonable because Philo and Education are pretty good techs in themselves. Although probably I'll grab Banking first, actually - a breakeven bank in Istanbul would be worth 40 gpt, and Mercantilism would definitely help with joining the Golden Age Club.

Couple bits of news for the turn:
Got ourselves a new city. 2 workers in place isn't really enough, especially without a missionary also in place, but it's a start. Going to put up a copper mine first, use that for granary-building.



And after doing a couple last whips, we flipped over to Serfdom. Saved 7 gpt on civic costs, but more importantly that should gain us a whole bunch of worker turns. Probably flipping back out in 5 turns if I can, although Caste vs Slavery is an interesting question. Especially since we might manage to unlock Mercantilism by then, which would pair really well with Caste.



So war? I'm thinking Rifles/Galleons, vs. Rome. Gotta keep pushing the snowball, but if we do that well enough we can be looking at rifles vs muskets, and galleons vs galleys, and galleons would let it be a very fast war. Well, or maybe Grenadiers. Chemistry-MilSci isn't really worse than Replaceable Parts -Rifling, even assuming I get Banking for its own sake. And boosting my workshops would be a nice bonus. If I go Rifles I really ought to go for Nationalism as well and draft them out.

Well, not urgent. Stick with the economy for now, Mardoc. Courthouses, multipliers, and a lot of city growths, that's the path to greatness.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Have you thoroughly reviewed your game event log since you took over?

[Mardoc]

Have you thoroughly reviewed your game event log since you took over?

I've looked at the new events every turn, but haven't gone back to review it since BC4000.

I did see that both Zanth and Catwalk have Lib in their 'can research' column, but haven't looked to see if anyone else has the option of going that way. Or already gone that way, for that matter.

I also know we've skirmished with both Rome and China, so maybe I need to rethink the excessive Gunpowder delay. But I think 1-turning catapults will make more of a difference there than theoretically available Jans.

[Mardoc]

Zanth 'Can Research' Lib. Catwalk doesn't even have Education. Just about everyone else has Paper in 'Can Research' which means they're not any closer than I am - well, except Jowy who appears not to even have Code of Laws.

If Zanth is paying the least bit of attention he'll be able to grab Liberalism before I can, but if I threaten it he'll hopefully at least grab it before it gives him something like Assembly Line.

Or did you mean something else?

Edit: Ideally Catwalk should be the one threatening Lib. Elizabeth, man, if she can't do the Liberalism race what good is she? But...he's focused on drafting muskets to beat on Jowy.