[PB70] The Cartographic Correction Committee convenes

[scooter]

Door number three: F the religion game, let’s get Guilds. Swap off Math and go Alphabet-Currency in order to block an Engineer from bulbing Construction-Engineering, which leaves Feudalism-Guilds as the top two priorities. Maybe I get lucky and pop a second Engineer from Guangzhou (I will have a > 50% chance I think) and then double bulb both techs and get Guilds ages before anyone can do anything about it. CKNs can come via sea to crack stacks while Knights run over smaller cities that are defended by like Skirms or Axes or whatever.

Oh right, there's actually two ways to do this. I have some Merchant GPP options, although another very polluted pool. But going Alpha-Currency to avoid Math, then GE bulbing Feudalism would open up a Merchant bulb of Guilds too.

[Tarkeel]

Why did you take this risk in the first place ya big dummy?

I would do it again. This 7% odds improved my odds in Shanghai by like 30% and also decreased the odds of losing the Apostolic Palace by quite a bit by speeding it up. But this was the downside.

I'd roll those dice as well. Interested to see which alternative you end up with.

[scooter]

Why did you take this risk in the first place ya big dummy?

I would do it again. This 7% odds improved my odds in Shanghai by like 30% and also decreased the odds of losing the Apostolic Palace by quite a bit by speeding it up. But this was the downside.

I'd roll those dice as well. Interested to see which alternative you end up with.

Yeah, so I think I figured out my new Great Person plan. However, I also noticed next turn is T100, and I won't be able to do a big report for that or any turn for the next week. I also remember I did a big T74 report rather than T75, so let's keep it on brand and do a T99 big update. First, the Great People situation. I poked Ginger to bounce some ideas, and he asked a good question - which was "what's our peaceful city count" - as in how many cities can we get to without war. Well, we're at 11 right now. 2 more get settled next turn. Quick look at those.





Here's one. This will get a quick start with a worker pair ready to quickly farm the Wheat, and then will immediately double chop these forests (and then lay cottages) to get a quick start. Also, there's going to need to be some serious irrigation chaining here post Civil Service. (City centers on hills cannot pass-through irrigation, right?)





The other one is here. It will land with a Missionary to pop the borders. I want to get the Gems in as it's also doubled by Forges, plus it bring in the clams. Superdeath's Galley there has a Great Merchant on it and is waiting for the city to be settled. We've agreed on a "no trade mission tax" arrangement, so I'm not extorting him. I figured rather than bargain on him now, I'd do the favor because we're quite likely to have our own Merchant at some point here.


Ok, so that gets us to 13 cities. What else?

* 1 more on Jungle Island
* 1 more on Marble Island
* 3 more on the Superdeath border
* 1 at "Yellow dot" aka the backfill east of Nanjing
* 1 at Horse/Wheat backfill east of Beijing

Also worth noting that like 4-5 of these are excellent Colossus cities.




Here's a wide shot for reference. That makes 20 cities. This is the upside of the aggressive settling south - we just have a lot of land at our disposal, and we can just build settlers instead of military to get it for awhile still. The net result here is it's pushed me in favor of pushing eco rather than making sacrifices to race to Guilds. What's the point in whipping Knights super early when I have unsettled city spots. War is just going to be later on this map - that's fine. Astro is the more relevant prize. So, keep settling while pushing hard for Theology. Save the Engineer for now. Also pay attention to other players tech choices. If I'm in a race for the Apostolic Palace, I'll just Engineer rush it. If I'm not, I can still natural build it quite fast, and then the Engineer could be used for a few different things.

That said, I still want more Great People. So I made another choice which may have been noticeable on the UI if you were looking closely.





We're playing the lottery again, baby. Shanghai will continue with the Priest while also hiring an Engineer. This will result in a Great Person of unknown type in 15T. It's not really painful to work the Specialist either because they also net 6bpt combined for the duration, and their hammers go through the Forge. I did some quick calculations and our odds will be approximately 39% Merchant, 33% Prophet, and 28% Engineer. I'd be fine with any of those. Merchant trade mission would be great. Prophet would likely be a Shrine. And Engineer, well, there's options. I could double rush AP + Sankore in short succession. I could do that with one and pop a Golden Age with the other when I have more cities and pop. I can make it work. Finally, Guangzhou will get to the 400 GPP threshold on nearly the same turn, so I'd have a 5th GP shortly after - likely a Scientist. So this is the way forward - just keep settling cities, get monk wonder(s), and great people, and use those great people to maximize our land.





Demos are weird because I've got 9-10 pop tied up in Specialists. But FWIW - that GNP is still quite close to #1 even at break-even. Currency in 3-4 turns. Anyway, some of my newer cities are on the brink of coming online or are doing interesting things, so I'll highlight a few of them while I'm doing a megapost.





Colossus city through and through and it's almost ready to explode. I built that Mine just to help it get through these early builds (and because my worker was already there), but otherwise this city needs 0 worker labor going forward. Marble Island city is whipping a Work Boat this turn which will net the Fish right on T101. At size 3 I whip the Lighthouse, then we just grow on Colossus coast and whip things as needed. I think this will be a pure military city, so we're probably looking at Barracks -> CKN. One of the nice things here is CKNs have an absolutely enormous lifespan for me. Speaking of military cities, here's another that's doing military + tech that I always seem to highlight in these posts.





Running a Scientist pair here because I wanted the Library partly for culture and partly for science. The specialists lower the food surplus, but I'll finish slow-building the Forge here, and then I'll put a turn or two into a Barracks to get it up to the double whip threshold, then stop while I grow to size 7 - putting a turn or two into CKN if possible. Then at size 7, double whip Barracks into CKN. And pretty much just rinse repeat - slow-ish grow until I run out of tiles, then forge-whip military.





Planning this to be a commerce monster that just grows cottages and whips every 10 turns. I'll do some whipping here shortly once I run out of improved tiles, but when I whip off the cottages, I just hand them to Xian to keep growing them. I should note that I have refused to work that southern cottage since taking it over. Bing will get it back soon, and I chose not to grow it for him. Is that petty? Maybe I should have been growing it since one day I hope it will be mine. Anyway, long-term there are 9 cottageable riverside tiles (10 if I wanna get wild and cottage the hill). The food surplus is a little bit meh, but I will be farming the tiles west of the city in order to chain over to the Wheat, so at larger sizes I can increase the surplus.


ALRIGHT. There's your T100 T99 megapost. This thread will get a bit quiet for a week, so we'll see where we're at after that.

[Tarkeel]

City centers on hills cannot pass-through irrigation, right?

Correct. I did try to keep irrigation chains in mind when crafting the map, so feel free to complain that the chains are long.

[scooter]

City centers on hills cannot pass-through irrigation, right?

Correct. I did try to keep irrigation chains in mind when crafting the map, so feel free to complain that the chains are long.

You know, I wondered if this was the case. I definitely noticed all the dry wheats were all a few tiles away from 1 tile lakes, and I wondered if it was intentional. I like it a lot. It requires some effort to do, but it isn't so much that it's arduous or not worth doing. The irrigation chain paths also tended to be through areas where Farms were more natural anyway.

[scooter]

I can’t really provide a proper update for another day or two, but I have to squeeze out a quick rant. All I gotta say about this trade embargo is uh… This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever. What a joke. Here’s the timeline. Ages ago - like T90ish - a trade embargo is roughly agreed to with Charriu and Superdeath. However, Charriu informs us he needs to wait around 10+ turns in order to make sure he can defend himself. So we push it all the way to T102 - I thought this was an insanely long amount of time. Just whip a few units! But whatever.

So we finally close borders. Mjmd is bigmad. Then within like a turn he burns a Charriu city. WTF was he doing for a dozen turns??? If Mjmd could just instantly burn a city after a dozen turns of “defensive preparations” then what would have happened back then? It’s insane.

So, ok. I expected Charriu to be livid. His chances of winning were bad, but this drops it even further. OK, this is a decent thing and locks him onto my side right? Well, Mjmd demanded 400g and OB for peace, and Charriu informs me he’s just gonna take the deal. EXCUSE ME WHAT.


I’m sorry but that’s straight-up insane. Tell him to go jump in a lake and whip units in every city and dare him to do the same. Ask me for some CKNs - I’d deliver some! The border closing was so short and cost Mjmd what, like 20g? And for his troubles he got raze gold, 400g, and immediately cracked the embargo because the guy who delayed it by over 10T to defend himself couldn’t defend himself for 2 whole turns and then paid an absolutely enormous price for peace.

Have some pride, man. Let future opponents know that you aren’t a human goody hut ripe for the taking. Seems like an incredibly nice guy, but man…


Rant over. I have to get over it because like it or not, we’re still allies here and will be indefinitely because our interests align, but I absolutely cannot count on him to come through on things later.

[scooter]

So, ok. I expected Charriu to be livid. His chances of winning were bad, but this drops it even further. OK, this is a decent thing and locks him onto my side right? Well, Mjmd demanded 400g and OB for peace, and Charriu informs me he’s just gonna take the deal. EXCUSE ME WHAT.

Side note, I bet one dollar Mjmd spit out his drink and laughed for an hour when Charriu agreed to this. I like to imagine this 400g + OB offer was a bit of a spite offer like how people demand all of someone’s cities when they’re mad, and then Charriu said sure. I don’t get it.

Was a bad week to be sort of out-of-pocket and less available than normal. Maybe I could have found an alternative. But so it goes.

[scooter]

We are extremely overdue for an update! Last time we properly updated was T99, and now it's T111. Aside from my brief rant, here's some quick hitters on what's happened since then.


* I settled 4 more cities to go from 11 -> 15.

* I continued towards Theology, being first to Monotheism (founding Judaism) and Theology (founding Christianity). Given my cheap monasteries it makes me wonder a little about longterm pursuing a cultural victory, but that sounds hard in a diplo game. Will consider for sure.

* The Great Fail Embargo happened, where instead of slowing down Mjmd we (and by we I mean not me) gave Mjmd 400g to fuel deficit research. This spooked me about the ability to slow build AP.

* Bing and Mjmd both popped Golden Ages. Mjmd revolted into Organized Religion immediately just like 2-3T after I founded Judaism, suggesting he was angling for it. This further spooked me about the ability to slow build AP.

* I agonized and finally did the painful thing of eating a turn of anarchy to revolt to Buddhism. I needed to adopt it to build AP, but I wasn't wild about going Golden Age. My newer cities are just not ready to take advantage, and popping a GA takes away my ability to rush AP, which given the above points was really scary. What if Mjmd pops an Engineer during his GA? I could just lose it. So, I revolted.


That brings us to today.





The other benefit of rushing it is I start getting hammer payback immediately. I have 4 monasteries and 2 temples live right now and all 12 of those hammers are going through Forges. Also, AP does not have a resource doubler, so I'm "only" getting 75% modifiers on my hammers, so it's not that fast of a slow build. So it's built.





Beijing is entering a new phase next where I'm going to grow it as tall as I can. This has already sort of been happening, but it was slowed by needing to be a settler/hammer pump for a couple projects, but that phase is ending - especially with rushing AP instead of slow building it as I originally planned. A couple workers are descending and are finally going to start spamming cottages on the non-river grassland tiles. It's very late, but better than never. Beijing is Size 10 right now, but it currently can support 13 once whip anger wears off. That sounds nice, but Gems are coming online in 2T, which will bring us to 15 with the Forge. That's pre-Calendar. I have Silk and Sugar in my borders which would get us to 17, and a Market would get us to 19. There's obviously ways to get past that, too. Shanghai will be handing over the Lumbermilled Banana shortly, and some cottages will come too, so that will accelerate a bit. I also need to keep in mind that I have the easiest Oxford access due to PHI Universities, IND 100% National Wonders, and the fact that I'll surely be first to Paper so I'm far down that tech line.





Here's the north. Guangzhou will be whipping a settler shortly which will go towards establishing a northern border city with Superdeath.





The core. Buddhism is the name of the game right now. Nanjing is completing a Monastery, and I have the max number of missionaries being built right now which will all go towards cities that will immediately add cheap Monasteries. I'm also pushing towards Sankore and Paper. I don't expect a race there for a few reasons, but it's so important that I'm delaying Courthouses even further. I badly need Courthouses, but Sankore will be so valuable that I want to not leave it to chance.





The border with Mjmd. Haerbin is a little nervy, but there's some interesting diplo going on with Mjmd. The short of it is he wants a naval unit limit on this sea. He got Metal Casting (thanks Charriu!) and suggested we avoid an arms race. I generally agree. However, I'm concerned he'll just use it as cover to run over Charriu, who at this point looks more squishy than Bing, honestly. I have an idea for a counter-proposal. The main downside of me signing the deal is I think he needs this deal more than me. I have 8 cities on this sea right now, while he has like 4-5. I could definitely out-produce him if needed. On the flipside, the benefit for me is I have equal or more land than him and I'm merely behind on maximizing it, so buying time to do so is super beneficial. So, it's complicated.





Demos are rough. If I'm looking for a silver lining, it's that Bing and Mjmd are both in Golden Ages. Of course, Golden Ages don't impact food . I'm still optimistic about the upside here, but it does increasingly feel like the needle I'm hoping to thread here is getting tighter.





Finally, a wide-shot if it's more helpful. Massive dice roll coming up in Shanghai in a few turns. Still hoping for a Prophet as hoo boy would I love a Shrine, but I'm comfortable with all 3 options at this point. Merchant would be second best as I can trade mission to Superdeath's ToA, and an Engineer I can choose between rushing Sankore, Golden Age, and a bulb towards Guilds. I did place Apostolic Palace in Beijing intentionally. I looked at Shanghai, and while it would speed the Great Person by 1T, it would only improve the Prophet odds by around 2%, whereas Beijing has Oracle so it increases my chances of getting a Prophet eventually.

[Commodore]

Finally, a wide-shot if it's more helpful. 

Thanks for the wide shot.

This is a very very big map. I see quite a few very fine city spots still unclaimed here over a hundred turns into the game, with economies strong enough to be looking at Paper here in pre-AD. That's...nutty.

[scooter]

Yeah the map really is insanely big. Snakier maps with lots of coastline tend to result in this I think. I'm looking at 19-20 cities without any war - and this is on a toroidal map of course, so they're all expensive. I'd get them settled even sooner except I can barely afford them. The Paper thing is arguably a bit deceiving as it's a fairly tight beeline involving me skipping a bunch of standard techs. Construction? Nah, I have CKNs. Calendar? I have metals, Forges, and Rep. Aesthetics + top of tree techs? I'm too slow to get up there so the goodies will be gone anyway. Horseback Riding? I mean, I guess I should slip it in at some point, but currently nobody except Charriu even has it, and according to Superdeath he lacks Archery. Code of Laws? Well, I do need Courthouses, but I've been biting the bullet to secure the monk stuff.

That said though, the sheer map size is what's slowly talked me out of early or midgame aggression. What's the point when I haven't even settled it all, and the cities I have settled need some serious work to be net contributors. I sort of imagined earlier a world where CKNs get us a first bite of somebody and then Astronomy is meant to end the game. Now I am not so sure there will be serious pre-Astro warfare.