[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

I like your Infantry plan, but I'd like to build the Ironworks in Zucchini once SoL is done and some dry docks ASAP, so Steel appeals (once we get the max known tech bonus - an interesting note for lurkers is that we'll be getting 72% known tech bonus on RP next turn ).

The way I see things in Zucchini working out:
EOT193 we finish SoL
Then we have 3 turns time to finish the units that have been pre-built or maybe get a health building in place. There will be 7 additional unhealthy faces in Zucchini soon.
T197 we can start Factory, probably a 4-turn build (possibly 3 if there is a lot of overflow)
T201 we start coal plant, should be just 2 turns
T203 we have had Steel in place for a while and can start Ironworks, 700 hammers with +100 % bonus from infra probably makes it a 6-turn build

Actually going Factory + Coal Plant before Ironworks is optimal even if we had both AL and Steel from the start. The only inefficiency is the turns 194-196, when we can't yet start those, but that's mitigated by those overflow gathering unit/infra builds.

Once we have Rifling and a decent standing army I think our biggest risk is someone bee-lining Destroyers and doing to us what we did to dtay.

I don't see this as a threatening scenario. I think we have time to grab Assembly Line and still be first to destroyers. BGN still needs a while before he can match (and exceed) our break-even beaker rate.

[Old Harry]

Turn 185

We finished Theology and the overflow alone (+ the 20% arrow and 72% known tech bonus) completes RP! BGN and dtay are both showing two turns on Sci Meth, with 2671 and 5141 cash saved respectively we can say they've got enough to make it to Communism and/or Physics. Oddly though neither has research visibility on the other - they're at 32/43 EPs, so dtay shouldn't even have BGN's graphs. I'm not sure who to cheer for here .


Mapping out Dreylin's defences - there are a few Muskets and a Pike or two, but it's mostly Longbows. He's concentrated his stack in Giedi Prime - if we put an assault force 1SE of Kirby we could destroy quite a lot of this stuff... It'd need to be a big assault force though. Also that's quite a lot of catapults to worry about.


The Forbidden Palace completes in two turns, at which point we should see how bad our distance maintenance is. Right now State Property would save 260 gpt for distance maintenance. Our overall trade route income right now (using the F4 info screen to add them up - I presume that accounts for the Free Market bonus) is 1062 commerce, if all trade routes were the same then the difference between FM and SP would eb:
1062 * 4/5 (free market bonus) * 3/4 (extra trade route) = 637 commerce in State Property

However (as Fintourist pointed out to me) we'll actually lose fifty 3-commece routes:
50*3 = 150 commerce
and the free market bonus
1062 * 4/5 - 150 = 700 commerce

That means Free Market is worth 360 commerce to us (using the 1.4 multiplier Fintourist worked out a couple of weeks ago - which takes the upcoming Wall St into account) that's 500 gold. State Property will get us somewhere between 20-50 extra food (as new workshops keep getting built it'll push towards the latter), + 10% hammers (our mfg before the golden age was ~500, but it'll keep going up as more workshops come on line so lets call that 70 hammers) and lose us at least 250 gold. So, since we're thinking about drafting up our army and racing to space Free Market wins...

Oh, and we also settled Astro Isle. Zebedee is our 52nd city. We'll see how long it takes dtay to boat it...

Demos and power

[TheHumanHydra]

Can cavalry flank off of boats? I'm guessing no, but that might be a nice way to get rid of those catapults.

Glad to hear Astro Island is settled!

[Azza]

Can cavalry flank off of boats? I'm guessing no, but that might be a nice way to get rid of those catapults.

Glad to hear Astro Island is settled!

Cavalry can't flank in a city, so it's a moot point.

[TheHumanHydra]

Forgot about that. Thanks, Azza.

[Old Harry]

I never tried, but it must work (outside of cities)...

note to self: haven't checked our trade relations for a while.

[Ceiliazul]

Can cavalry flank off of boats? I'm guessing no, but that might be a nice way to get rid of those catapults.

Glad to hear Astro Island is settled!

Cavalry can't flank in a city, so it's a moot point.

You still help them after they ruthlessly made you push Enter for four months? What a guy!

[Old Harry]

Hey! Every one of those presses was a victory! Right Azza?

Note to self 2: Scooter and Krill's PB13 discussion of late game civics might be relevant to our own.

[Old Harry]

Turn 186

Lots going on in this picture - BGN has just about circumnavigated us, Krill can see how many units we're keeping pinned in these coastal cities, I've got our Amphi stack selected and there is an iceball at the bottom of the screen that might take kindly to a settler...


In fact there are five more iceball sites along the bottom of the map that share a food with an existing city - such as Kipple and Ursula here. Tempted?


West point completes this turn - after which do we build 16XP Rifles or 18XP Cavalry? Rifling comes in with room to spare at 50% science. Should we save up some cash before going for Steam Power?


Boldly's capital - this makes me suspect he's got his 4-man GA coming up soon ! Annoyingly there is no way of commandoing this city from our direction, and from the north I doubt that Nakor will last long enough to let us hit it from his culture .


Now THIS is annoying - the Musket was set to be three hammers from completion last turn, allowing it to queue-upgrade to a Rifle next turn. BUT THEN WE GOT REPLACEABLE PARTS AND IT SCREWED EVERYTHING AAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!11!!!


Costs the turn before the Forbidden Palace completes.


And a shot of the city with the highest costs in our empire. Look familiar Mardoc?


Demos and Power

[Fintourist]

In fact there are five more iceball sites along the bottom of the map that share a food with an existing city - such as Kipple and Ursula here. Tempted?

Somewhat. According to my quick calculations a new size 1 city increases our civic upkeep costs by ~4 gold (40 % inflation included, currently 32 %). Our ice ball city Kipply has a maintenance cost of -10. If we assume that as a baseline the total cost increase is about 14 gpt.

On the profit side new cities will make 15 commerce from trade routes, 4 from city tile + coast and 1 gold from wealth = total of 20 commerce/gold per turn at size 1.

So basically those cities are worth 6 gold per turn for us. We are IMP so we can get easily produce necessary settlers pretty easily and those investments are ok if there isn't anything more valuable that we can produce.

West point completes this turn - after which do we build 16XP Rifles or 18XP Cavalry?

I say cavs for the next 4 turns, but once we switch into Theocracy (I assume at the end of GA), we should switch into rifles. How do you see it?

Rifling comes in with room to spare at 50% science. Should we save up some cash before going for Steam Power?

I don't think we are going to get any known-tech bonus for Steam Power so there is no reason to go binary because of that, but overall it's good if we have some money to spare. However, couple things to note:
- I would like us not to show our opponents our max gpt (+2275 now during the GA), so from now on we could save money with 10/20 % research?
- Wall Street will be finished in 4 turns, at that point we should have used all our cash if we want to optimize.



BGN is now at 61 cities, after he has eaten Nakor + Q he has 64. We have 52, I'm feeling more and more like we need a bit more land so that we can remain competitive until the end. Even if we weren't planning an invasion we should increase our military strength for defensive reasons. Hopefully defending isn't needed and our border situation with BGN and dtay is comfortable enough and those units can be used for eating Dreylin/pindi.

I have some things that I need to raise reg our health situation and foreign trades, but they are not urgent + I'm a bit tired :P