RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[Cyneheard]

Thanks. I hope you didn't move any units, since it's not our turn yet.

[antisocialmunky]

didn't

[Cyneheard]

No more war! Finally. Can focus instead of infrastructure. CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL WORKERS: London is going to grow to size 15, and then start spitting out workers left and right. Animal Farm needs its cottages bulldozed and replaced with workshops and watermills. Our eastern lands need improved and chopped and whatnot. Our troops in Carthage's lands are moving back home; we need those knights around. And they're only 50g each to upgrade to Cuirassiers if we need them to be.

HRE has a Great Artist...and I think they may be bombing us. Presumably at Edinburgh; trying to bomb at Beaver Rock would be fairly foolhardy, I think: our culture is pretty well-established there. Discussions are under way with Mali to get their GA if needed to counter-bomb.

[antisocialmunky]

Whee, time to play this game again

I just hope State Property actually lets us expand again...

[Cyneheard]

State Property isn't necessary. Workers and military are. SP just makes it a lot cheaper to expand.

[Cyneheard]

Hey, look, we won the culture war here! I thought I took the screenshot with my mouse of their army (upgraded one of the knights to sentry). There were about 6 units there, only 1 Lands, I think. If they don't bulk up their defenses,
the idea of throwing 10 cav at them the turn after Rifling comes in is very tempting. 950g.



Ok, my Formation Knight is definitely going to get upgraded to a cav when Rifling comes in (2t). Those Catas are trouble.

[Cyneheard]

Or the cataphracts aren't trouble:

Byz will give me a settler and a worker, they settle on that plains hill, and no further north, and we agree not to overlap BFCs.

20t NAP minimum, 10t cooldown.
If he declares on Egypt, then the NAP is void.

And I'm going to try to flip HRE and the Ottomans to PAT. If not, then Singa Mati will likely burn. Yes, I am evil.

[Cyneheard]

Well, no official word from either Ilios or WK.

But, let's see, what all's happened since then?

- Portugal lost a front city.
- PAT, Ilios, WK, and India were the only teams who seemed interested in continuing. Do Ilios and WK really want to be THAT alone in teams that care? Long-term, well, it would be good to have the five of us (me, those two, Carthage and Krill) more likely to stick together (although Carthage's sub situation is a bit of a wildcard), once ex-CUDDLE gets taken down a notch. My territorial ambitions are basically the two barbs cities to my east, and filling out the rest of the land between me and Krill. That should get me 14-15 cities, more than enough for staying relevant throughout the game. Of course, the chances of ex-CUDDLE crumbling without their two biggest techers are fairly high IF the southern row also gears up for war. I'm not convinced that the Maya will do so. Mali obviously has already, and Babylon, well, Babylon's played a pretty weak game.

- Haven't spoken to Byz since our deal, but I figure it'll be pretty easy to get them to flip once Ilios and WK do.

[Cyneheard]

Word on the street is that Ottos and HRE are joining PAT. Assuming the game continues, of course.

Posterity shots, before revolting to FM/Theocracy, and adding some new OB with some people:

[Cyneheard]

England's income has exploded: 263gpt (FM and a Market at the shrine city of BR, which has 25gpt base from the shrine)



And...um...isn't that someone's GNP at 102? My CULTURE is higher than a team's GNP. Yes, I'm Creative with 3 wonders, and have fought a culture war, but REALLY? Also, 5th in GNP as a funder is a little crazy.

Mali's proposed tech path:

Maya: Constitution (T156) ->Corporation (T161)->Assembly Line (T174) -> Fascism (T179).

HRE: Steam Power (T159) then fund.

Mali: research off till T153, then Communism (T162) -> Astro (T168) -> Physics (T179)

Carthage: Scientific Method (T153) -> Biology (T162*) -> Railroad (T177) *assumes Carthage in GA

Ottomans: Steel (T153) then fund until T156 -> Democracy (T167) -> Medicine (T181)

Babylon/England/Egypt- Fund, Fund, Fund.

Letter I sent to PAT:

Note: Portugal has delayed SM, and it is now due in 7t. Strangely enough, Portugal is running +1gpt, so Donovan seems to self-funding.

We will have the money in the T180 range, someone can detour and pick up Divine Right or Military Science (Not a terribly necessary tech, unless someone wants to make highly-promoted units with Commando or Blitz).

I just ran the numbers on our funding situation, and we have about 100gpt to spare when running 4 techers and 4 funders. The opportunity cost of running 5 techers (HRE) is about 300gpt. We have 2505 gold, and at current production/consumption rates under Mali's plan, we'd end T181 (assuming everyone who finishes a tech continues) with 4231 gold. This is a very good sign, that we have the room to work with on either running a significant number of upgrades, or having the funders go on more of a war footing. This also answers the "do we need Byz for funding purposes" question: No. Do we want Byz for military purposes? That is not my decision, but if we want to efficiently level the rest of CUDDLE, then we'll want 9v5, not 8v6; even with a tech edge, defender's advantages will make destroying our foes difficult.

Given our flush funds, I definitely want to upgrade a (Formation! Very useful to have a superb anti-cav) knight that's near the barbs to a cav; as units come to replace him, he can definitely head up to defend against real foes. We need to make sure that PAT-wide there's at least 1000g at all times: That lets us fully fund the techers without gpt gifts awkwardly complicating things, and leaves a slush fund for emergency upgrades. So, that leaves 1500g available for upgrades; obviously, don't do it if it's not needed. England could burn through almost all of that 1500g by itself, and only be upgrading knights and later units. But there's more than enough $ for anyone (including the techers) to do an upgrade or two.