[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Commodore]

Wow wait, so ETA for space is down to ~40 now?

[Old Harry]

I was assuming that it'd take us about ten turns to get in position to hit TBS, although I guess we could hit in five turns if we are really keen.

Our previous estimate of spaceship launch was around about t270, but I don't think our 4-man golden age, the Internet or the northern continent becoming productive were factored into that. Fintourist will probably be able to give an accurate update in three or four turns, once we've got an idea of just how good our tech rate will be, but right now I'm betting we launch around t260. At which point its going to be hard for anyone to stop us (we'll essentially stack everything we have in the cap to avoid Regoararing ourselves) but victory wouldn't come until t270.

Although that's excluding Flight and assuming we don't do much cash-upgrading - both of which I'm sure we'll need - perhaps add two or three turns to cover them.

[TheHumanHydra]

Sounds like 2. is the only good option.

[Old Harry]

Turn 215 prologue

In international news Krovice gifted us a Galley, TBS adopted Nationhood/Theocracy and is on his way to Combustion in two turns along with BGN and I think BGN put 350 EPs into us last turn . We could get close to finishing Electricity this turn and then overflow a lot of beakers to take advantage of KTB, but I think next turn would be a good one to start Broadway in Zucchini, so perhaps we use Drama to cascade the beakers? Domestically I settled on one of our Oils, so we'll have it hooked the second Combustion comes in.


Hinduism spread to Lucky and My Finger this turn so we're ready to start the golden age. The costs of switching civics this turn are interesting:
- Vassalage costs 133 gold more than Nationhood - with inflation at 43% that's more like 190 gpt. But it will save us 89 units worth of costs.
- Pacifism will cost an extra 1gpt for our military units - right now our unit cost is 79, but we have 89 military units to take care of which totals 168gpt (206gpt with inflation).
- So if we stick with Nationhood/Pacifism I think our costs go up by 127gpt, while if we switch to Vassalage/Pacifism I think they go up by 190-79=111gpt. I checked on Nationhood happiness and only Ophelia will have an unhappy face (for 2 turns) if we switch out of it. I think we want to avoid drafting in the GA anyway, so this seems like a good idea, especially as it gets us those important 2 extra XP for Commandos from Hazelnut .


Before the GA:
- At 100% we make 5277 beakers at -1397 gpt
- At 70% we make 3884 beakers at -12 gpt
- At 0% we make 634 beakers at +3220 gpt
I didn't start the GA as I haven't figured out where to draft just yet. Spike and Kale were obvious, but the others are three from Herbs, Nuggets, Twinkle, Quincy and Red Cabbage...

[TheHumanHydra]

Is the galley gift warning of an impending naval attack, similar to our scout gift to Pindicator earlier?

[pindicator]

Is the galley gift warning of an impending naval attack, similar to our scout gift to Pindicator earlier?

You gifted me a scout?

[Fintourist]

Is the galley gift warning of an impending naval attack, similar to our scout gift to Pindicator earlier?

You gifted me a scout?

Yeah IIRC we did not manage to get it too close to your dtay border in time so even if you had noticed it would have been far from obvious.

***

Reg space race timing I'll need to come back in couple of turns. I've been sick + busy at work + moving this week --> additional civ analyses haven't had high enough priority and still need to wait until next week.. However, depending on that analysis + several other things I'll comment reg not attacking TBS vs. attacking TBS soon vs. attacking TBS later.

Could you OH get us an updated view on victory screen? I would like to see how much culture TBS adds currently in 1 turn to those cities. He is still so far away that we have at minimum 40 turns to deal with him, but whether we can tech to the end of the tree, build the spaceship and wait for its arrival before TBS goes legendary is a different story. I don't know if I said it here or in chat, but those 5-religion cities don't happen by accident so even if TBS isn't running the slider yet, he definitely is keeping that option open. Gandhi is really a fine leader for an annoying culture attempt.

I commented in chat reg civics, but anyways here again. Did not check the math, but Vassalage + Pacifism sounds like a way to go. Lurkers, I'm not sure we have expressed this totally clearly, but this move is required for launching our final 4-man GA on turn 250. That should hopefully improve our space timing a little bit and/or help us deal with possible final battles.

[Old Harry]

Turn 215 main course

Is the galley gift warning of an impending naval attack, similar to our scout gift to Pindicator earlier?

Hadn't thought of that - but probably more likely it spotted BGN's Frigate nearby and didn't want to give him the XP?

Those spy missions last turn mean we don't have sight on dtay's cities any more. Two turns of full EPs would get that vision back, but right now I'm a bit worried about BGN overwhelming us with all the security bureaux he's built. I think we should assign another city or two as EP generators in addition to Gertie. Perhaps Twinkle? Maybe Veggies? Hmmm.

Victory screen - it looks like TBS is making 300 cpt in Elensefar and 200 cpt in Weldyn even without running the slider . Looks like Elensefar is going to be running Artists though - not many cottages and lots of farms, so perhaps that'll be slower once the slider is on.


I took some closeups if you want to work out what buildings the cities have built.

Elensefar:


Frontline:

Weldyn has a HA and a Warrior, Elensefar has a HA and a Warrior while Frontline (our primary target) has two Spears. The two coastal cities we'd need to target have:
Kharbranth: 2 Rifle, 2 Musket and a Mace
Arcanclave: Infantry, Cav, Rifle, 2 Cuir, 4 Musket and a Mace
I've highlighted the closest city to us, which looks like it's got TBS's main defensive stack in it. Without Railroad there is a good chance he can't reinforce one of our real targets from it. I think declaring and sitting on the staging point tile and bombarding on t219 could fool him into thinking we're after Lashing... Just need to bring up too few Frigates to do the job fully .

Next turn we can have 6-move galleons containing 4 Commando Cav, 9 Amphi Infantry and 2 workers moving through dtay's waters (I offered OBs), but they'd need to be accompanied by slower Frigates, so they won't be in position to hit TBS until about t220.


Before the GA:
- At 100% we make 5231 beakers at -1393 gpt
- At 70% we make 3841 beakers at -11 gpt
- At 0% we make 598 beakers at +3214 gpt


During the GA:
- At 100% we make 5948 beakers at -1380 gpt
- At 70% we make 4343 beakers at +216 gpt
- At 0% we make 598 beakers at +3939 gpt

After adopting Vassalage/Pacifism:
- At 100% we make 5948 beakers at -1400 gpt
- At 70% we make 4343 beakers at +196 gpt
- At 0% we make 598 beakers at +3919 gpt


GP farm round up - Gertie just keeps on keeping on, with the temple completing next turn it can run a Priest too. Spy/Engineer/Prophet is due around about t245.


Kirby is on Artist duty, due t224. Then it'll produce a Scientist for a bulb about t253. (I presume that'll be a more immediate benfit than a merchant mission?)


Lucky's Merchant is due t220 and will involve starving to size 8 .


My Finger will starve to size 11 during the golden age, then will finish a Scientist eot233 with some starvation or eot235 without. Essentially we'll just figure out how paranoid we need to be about BGN nearer the time.


Demos (our MFG isn't far off BGN with the GA) and Power (over 100 turns this time, which I think tells a nice story about how we could afford to farm it up for a long time once we had the continent under control).

[TheHumanHydra]

Can't we stage against Arcanclave from out of sight 1N of Edelman?

[Old Harry]

Can't we stage against Arcanclave from out of sight 1N of Edelman?

We could but TBS has a lot of Caravels scouting around and I think he has Physics already - so I suspect he'll notice our fleet approaching from some distance away. 1N of Edelman may delay the attack a turn too. I'll check if it's possible to do in-game this evening (unless you want to log in to check?)

Do you think TBS would buy that we're going for Lashing? I suspect that's our best shot.

Another alternative is to make it look like we're attacking dtay really and then moving our fleet up into range might not look suspicious... Dtay has more Frigates than us + air support though so until we upgrade to destroyers I don't see it working.