I haven't checked in for a few days but I wouldn't be surprised if Krill is reporting for me.
I've adopted pacifism+serfdom+vassalage as planned. Shrine prophet is due in 3 turns, after that I will hurry the GPP in capital which is likely a GE (shouldn't be more than 4 turns later, max 5). If I get a GE I'll have engineering and guilds at about the same time. 2metra has construction, so going in with only knights would be a little wasteful (elephants).
Almost all the important cities have forges and I've got the 8 courthouses for Forbidden Palace, so I'm ready for war mode. Lost the pop lead from all the whipping, but it will all grow back over the next few turns. Just this end of turn 8 cities will gain +1 pop.
I will start a GA with one of the scientists to boost knight production. Normally I would've just whipped my cities to the ground instead (or use workshops), but this game I have a lot of plains cottages, watermills and windmills and their production will add up during a golden age. I can limit my whipping to the fishing villages and coast. Even during a GA it won't hurt that much to whip away coast. Keeping cities at a high pop will get me towards constitution and democracy quicker and I'll have my Moai Statues up too. The key to this map is to work and improve what little land is around to full effect. If I can get fully matured universal suffrage+free speech towns while the rest of the world is relying on coast I'll have an easy time. Incredible yield difference, especially with Krill's town buffs.
If I don't get a GE (alternative will be a prophet or merchant) I'll trigger my golden age with that one and probably use the 2 great scientists to work my way towards liberalism and take nationalism as the free tech. Unlocks free speech and gets me closer to democracy. I doubt I will do any galleon play so I don't need to lightbulb astronomy. I have good targets on my own continent, so I can just rely on privateers for defense.
Some screenshots for reference:
Cities like this cry out for slavery during the build up, but I'm not whipping away land tiles in other cities.
Developed the far west. Still room for 1 filler city, but it's not a priority right now:
F1 screen:
The short term goal (next 12 turns) is to grow all the cities with land tiles available as much as possible and improve the tiles in preparation for triggering the golden age for knight production.
1) Piling on Dark Savant is a definite possibility if the war vs superdeath keeps up. No need for astronomy or optics once I've secured a beachhead on the continent. My current advantage against him might not be as long-lived as the one against 2metra/Borsche. Would only need 5-8 galleys. Piling on is even more likely if 2metra keeps that huge stack of catapults sitting idle in his territory, I'm not sure what that's about. I don't fear 2metra as he has no answer to Urukku+knights, but it could prove way more fruitful to invade DS first and then 2metra+Borsche after. I've got a scout mapping out DS' territory right now, that will help inform my decision.
2) Lightbulbing engineering is unnecessary as my research rate is obscene. If I get a GE I will save it for the Taj Mahal instead. If I get a GM I could be convinced to bulb civil service to speed up nationalism (GA with GS). If I get a prophet IDK, maybe I should turn off the prophet specialist and add another merchant.
That's one way for me to retake the population lead. Looks like OH got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
Expecting 18+ score increase end of turn and most of those whips being horse archers turning into knights. Nothing else makes much sense, but the power graph will make it obvious anyway.
If I was his neighbour I'd be pretty scared right about now.
I've already met the requirements, but I guess I won't get my reward until next turn.
Code:
Quest6:
Master Blacksmith
Prereq: City with Forge
Obsolete: NATIONALISM or PRINTING_PRESS or EDUCATION or GUNPOWDER or ASTRONOMY
Active/Weight: 25/500
Aim:
Build default number of players for this world size forges (7 for standard) while not loosing the city triggering the quest
Result:
1.1 Copper resource is revealed
2.All Swordsman units gain the Shock promotion
3.IF you have a state religion gain 1 engineer specialist in the triggering city
Looked around at a few screens and couldn't find him engaged in a war, but it's possible OH is about to attack him. I presumed he wouldn't ask unless it was something important so I accepted. If it means a few more upgrades to stall OH that's welcome.
Now the annoying part is I think Elkad is operating under the assumption that deals are enforced for 10 turns and made this offer accordingly. With Krill's war change it seems to have changed all resource trades to an enforced 5 turns instead of 10. If Elkad manually cancels this after 5 turns only giving me 175 gold back I will be upset. I wouldn't have accepted a deal where I'm losing money.
In other news I finally got my shrine for +31gpt. Started pre-building some horse archers and going back to slavery (+OR) next turn.
This is the stack that's making it difficult to plan long into the future:
As revealed by the accidental admin leak 2metra has a lot of units, but they're all outdated. Won't stand a chance against Urukku+knights, but it would still be best if he were to send that into Persian territory before I make a move of my own. It's also the reason why I'm not ruling out a strike on the Malinese. My economy and land situation is so good that I don't need to immediately whip every city upon discovering guilds. I will simply launch my GA, produce a bunch mostly through natural hammers and then strike when the time is right. 2metra's tech isn't going anywhere paying for that monstrosity.
I'm hoping that me reinforcing the border with longbows will push him to make a move on Persia, thinking that I'm only getting defensive units and he won't achieve anything attacking me. Getting to nationhood for drafting would be very nice, that would help supply the numbers. Pity I'm not France, this would be the perfect situation for musketeers.
I've stopped going 0% science as I don't want anyone seeing how much gold I'm getting per turn. It might cause them to cancel open borders.
How do you assess whether the opportunity cost of whipping is worth the acceleration to attack? One aspect as you allude to his hitting the tech disparity window, but what about more cites and more land faster?
^I'll address that tomorrow when I have some more time. I wasn't going to post today, but something very puzzling happened.
I already reported that Elkad asked for gold in return for GPT. Now this turn I logged in to find myself at war with Elkad for no apparent reason, which means that the return deal has been cut off after just 2 turns. What on earth is he smoking? What an asshole move. I guess we have a new goal set for this game. Friends no more.
He's done a great job of turning a potential ally into an enemy.
Yeah I suppose, but he had a similar trade going with Krill (for 16 GPT), and he didn't declare war on him (that was part of the reason I accepted in the first place). It's just very confusing to me. Saving 300 gold is not worth pissing off one of the most powerful civs. I can't make sense of it. He also plays after me so I lost some trade routes I couldn't get back before the turn rolled. Ended up asking SD for open borders this turn (and giving him gold luxury). He's a madman, but at least I know what I'm getting into.
It's just 1 turn of gold income for me so it doesn't affect my game all that much. But the principle of it is more the issue here. I do not approve and he will pay. He'll see more of the Viking in me than the honest Scandinavian from this point on.
