[PB22 Spoiler] Joey and Borsche puke on the funny pages

[GermanJoey]

Some interesting factoids, by the way... I haven't been using scripts to do tracker stats-tracking here, like I did in PB18, but I did take a look at the logs per-player (ctrl-a then replaced decreased/x to count the whips) to see how many times in the last dozen turns (which is as far back as I could check) each player whipped. This doesn't differentiate between 1 or 2 pop whips, or even count up score like PB18; I can say most of ours have been 1-pop whips, but I have no idea about anyone else.

joey: 19
dreylin: 14
remai: 13
commodore: 13
gavagai: 8
HAK: 8
dtay: 5
gawdzak: 6
mackoti: 4
furungy: 4
plako: 0 (!)

A few players here surprised me. First, dtay has a CY roughly equal to ours yet hardly whips at all - is he happy crunched, perhaps? Similar deal with Gawdzak, although I know he isn't happy crunched at all. I'm surprised he isn't whipping out settlers like crazy to secure the islands. Next, plako hasn't whipped AT ALL - is his land very food-poor?? Hmm... Finally, REMAI have been whipping very hard, despite their CY being, at best, 60% of ours, and having 4-5 less cities throughout this time period. What are they doing? Their power is spiking a bit recently (I think they got IW) - do we need to be worried?

[wetbandit]

Great updates GJ, keep 'em coming (and with the youtubes).

[GermanJoey]

Thanks, wetbandit!

T103. More of the same, although we got our 5th religion spread this turn. And, for the 5th time, we got it in a city that had either already popped its borders or was already about to anyways.

[GermanJoey]

T105.

ohhhhhh mama, I think we gotta shift our priorities a bit here...

Code:

******************
*HORSE WHISPERING*
******************

--==Scenario==--

"Our horse trainers believe that it would be possible to gain a much deeper
bond with and understanding of our riding animals. They require a longer and
more coordinated network of Stables to pursue this goal."

--==Quest Help==--

"Horse Whispering. You are tasked by your elite trainers to build enough
stables for them to transcend the traditional limits of animal husbandry."

"To complete this quest, you must build X Stables in your various cities. You
will fail this quest if a rival civilisation completes it first, or if you
reach the Renaissance Era without having met the conditions."

--==Mechanics==--

Chance of Event in Game = 25%
Required                = Horse Bonus
                          Animal Husbandry Tech
Obsoleted By            = Renaissance (Nationalism, Printing Press, Education,
                                       Gunpowder)

--==When Complete==--

"Congratulations! You have met the goals of our horse trainers and built for
them enough facilities to empower their plans. Please choose a reward from
along the benefits your horse trainers are able to provide to you."

--==Options==--

"Use our advantage to immediately train Horse Archers."

"Use our existing horses as more effective scouts."

"Our horses are trained to be more productive on the farm."

--==Results==--

Option 1 - "Use our advantage to immediately train Horse Archers."

Cost   : None
Result : Receive X number of Horse Archers

Option 2 - "Use our existing horses as more effective scouts."

Cost   : None
Result : All Mounted Units gain Sentry Promotion

Option 3 - "Our horses are trained to be more productive on the farm."

Cost   : None
Result : Stable Yields +1 Food

All three of these results are awesome. The first is that we get 7 horse archers immediately in one of our cities that built a stables, I think on the last city to do it (so we'd want to plan on 3CD). All of these HA are 0XP, but still, we're producing 7 HA at the cost of -10 hammers a piece and getting the stables for free. Our Carthaginian 0XP HA all have C1 too, don't forget. The second option, sentry, is the "worst" option here (since you really only need a few sentry units) but is still something to consider because it gives us a lot of tactical options. Finally, stables giving +1 food for free is really really excellent. In many cases, a stable would be better than a lighthouse in a new city. It's sort of like if we were expansive Khmer, except even cheaper/better than a Baray? We're sorta food-rich already though...

Given that we're planning to go to war, I think (like, 99% think) we want the first option, the seven free HA, but we don't have to choose now.

In other news for the turn, Gavagai offered OB; since he has all his routes filled by Gawdzak, I think this is in spirit of friendship. I accepted. HAK, believe it or not, completed the HG... even with stone (that you had to pay for), that was not a good play man, you'd have been better off just building settlers. He settled a new city last turn, but that still put him at only 7... he's not expansive, so he spot 333 hammers to gain 210. Well, I'm really happy Gawdzak didn't get it, I guess.

Domestically, three new cothons finished; our gold-saving rate, without weath builds, is now +168gpt, more than double what it was 10 turns ago... and we more cothons (and a gold mine) coming in the next couple turns...

[GermanJoey]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12/7/14 8:40 pm Dreylin Logged out
12/7/14 8:40 pm Dreylin Finished turn
12/7/14 8:34 pm ReallyEvilMuffin Score decreased to 265
12/7/14 8:34 pm Dreylin Score increased to 284
12/7/14 8:30 pm Dreylin Score decreased to 282
12/7/14 8:30 pm ReallyEvilMuffin Score decreased to 269
12/7/14 8:30 pm Dreylin Score increased to 286
12/7/14 8:16 pm Dreylin Score decreased to 282
12/7/14 8:05 pm OT4E Changed name to Dreylin
12/7/14 8:05 pm OT4E Logged in

[GermanJoey]

T107.

REMAI lost two cities from their western neighbors across the sea, Dreylin N' Friends (DNF from hereon out), at the end of last turn. Based on the score ups and downs, I think they razed the first one (maybe that one was mainland, like what I did with Bacchus in PB18), and kept the second one (probably an island). Their power has been spiking lately - not as fast as ours, as we're #1 by a comfortable margin while still trying to repress power, but fast enough to be worrisome. If DNF were able to snipe two cities so easily, they probably have most of their units concentrated near us.




REMAI also got a trade with Gavagai for Ivory last turn, which is annoying but understandable. Gavagai, like a classic arms dealer, sells weapons to both sides in the hopes that we'll kill each other off with them. We'll hopefully be able to get a few of our own while we still can; construction lands in 3 turns, but our deal potentially expires before then so I queued up a spear in place of a sword. I offered 8 gpt for stone from Gavagai last turn, and he denied without even a counter-offer; I guess he's working on his Moai.




I cleared out another more barbs up north, and with roads completing next turn, I'll be ready to settle T109, with chops completing t110. Gawdzak got the Music artist (!), probably with failgold from the HG, which means that a.) I think the ToA is still safe for a bit, and b.) we'll be getting some pretty killer KTB from hereon out. Also snowballing like crazy is Mackoti, who revolted into Bureau at the end of last turn.




We were #1 GNP while at 100% this turn!

[Ichabod]

How do you know you'll get 7 HAs from the quest? I don't know much about how quest works, but my impression is that 9 HAs would make more sense, since you are building 9 stables. Or am I completely off with this line of reasoning?

Another thing, when you finished the first Cothon, you mentioned something about it being only 50% TR yield increase, not 100%. But wasn't this value always like that? I don't think it was changed by the mod.

Nice climb on the scoreboard, by the way.

[GermanJoey]

Ah geez.... it seems you're right on both accounts. Regarding the former... I'm mildly dyslexic and so I often "see" little details backwards (its why I edit my posts so frequently - I very often put words in the wrong order and only catch it after re-reading my post a few times) and then unfortunately remember things exactly how I saw them. I'm not sure what it was about 7 and 9, but it must have been something. In this game, Borsche has been catching quite a lot of that for me, but he's been traveling the last few weeks and hasn't had time to talk about this game except on steam. So, thank you! I'll have to queue up another two stables somewhere... I think they'll have to go on my southern continent, where cities are not quite as developed by queues are not quite as urgent. Regarding the cothon yield... hmmm, I coulda sworn they were +100%, but I just checked the wiki and it seems you're right. Maybe Borsche and I were talking about them before the game started, and I simply swapped the 100h cost for the TRY? Hmmm... Well, so it goes, I'm still happy to have them.

And yeah, excited to be climbing the scoreboard after being in the gutter for so long. We'll be knocking techs down every single turn for all but one of the next 6 turns I think, so we should be in a pretty respectable position by the 1AD watermark...

[Ichabod]

Well, a couple more HAs can never be a bad thing, right?

[GermanJoey]

Yeah, it looks like I'll need them too. REMAI actually passed me in power this turn, so it looks like they're building up at the same time I am. I don't think they can match me in raw production, but I'll certainly need a lot more catapults... gonna have to delay the attack date a bit. Maybe they'll get antsy and attack me instead?