[SPOILERS] naufragar, Charriu, and Zalson's Threepenny Opera

[naufragar]

But On phone and data, so apologies if this is a mess.

Regarding Operation Finish Music Now: Thank you thank you thank you. Never in a million years would I have thought to hold off settling. Let’s hope the prize is ours.

Don’t worry at all about the axe. In fact, I’d keep exploring with him. If Commodore kills an axe just for kicks, we’ll have learned a lot about him. I covered our workers because worker snipes can help him. Killing our axe just pisses us off and tells us how he feels about our empire.

I think your instincts are right about having Gavagai as a trading partner. If we lose Rusten, BGN, or Commodore, it’s nice to have a back up. Plus he’s not a leader that needs the world to boycott.

So, it’s looking like we’re gonna get the Music golden age. Guess we need to figure out what to do with it. Do you think we can get through Monotheism and Monarchy in time for a civic swap? (And if so, do you think we can afford putting off metal casting, iron working, etc?) As you said, if we want a second one, we’ll need a merchant. Think The City can beat Baffords to the 200pt great person without muddying its pool? The thought in my mind is if we can quickly fire off the two-person age soon and use it to pump a bunch of scientists out and do optics, calendar, look at Astro. (And “quick” here might be tens of turns)

EDIT: oh, PS Thank you again for shepherding the empire while I’m gone. I won’t be able to play tomorrow’s turn, but for the turn after I’ll be back at my post.

[Charriu]

I'm not sure how the tech situation right now is. Monotheism for OR can be nice but, which religion should we go for. Our cities are very much divided between different religions. That's why I think that although OR would be nice it would be not the best to go for more hammers. I'm not sure if we can make it to Monarchy with just this one golden age. I will assess our financial situation later. I think we don't have the immediate need for iron working, because only Auldale needs to cut jungles right now, we already have access to dye thanks to Auldale and the NE dyes are still very unattractive without any way to get irrigation there.
I think if we are looking for hammers then Metal Casting is the best way to go. The workshops give fast access to more hammers and we could build forges.
Getting the 200pt great person in The City sounds like a good idea, but to achieve this, we need to run 2 merchants and 2 scientist there and only the 2 great library scientists in Bafford. This of course will muddy the pool, but it already was muddy, so no point in getting any more causes. I will assess this situation, too.

[Charriu]

T111 Part 1:

---

I went in to assess the situation and the good news is, we got the Great Artist from Music. Amusingly somebody else also got a Great Artist the same turn, so it will be more difficult for the others to find out who got it from Music.



This is the GP situation in The City and...



...this the situation in Bafford.



It's also possible that we get to monotheism and monarchy during our golden age and switch. We would need to run break even science to make it.



I've also founded our next city and put every city off wealth. The new maintenance situation is as followed:

Running 100% we lose 99 gold
Running break even at 40% we gain +1

So that's the situation on the ground. Here are some questions and things I'm pondering about.

1. We have at least 3 cities (The City, Cathredal, Auldale) growing the next turn. I think it would be better to start the golden age with as many pop as possible.
   
2. I'm a bit nervous about Rusten. He whipped quite a lot last turn and Bafford - our Great Library city - is very close to him. We need to put more units in there. Currently it only has a warrior and a chariot.
   
3. The 200pt great person. It is possible that The City makes it, but it needs to run 2 Merchants and 2 scientist. But during the golden age I would rather like to work our great commerce and hammer tiles in the city. Depending on our plans to go for monarchy, we may need to run those commerce tiles to make it there.
   

[naufragar]

I still can't believe we actually got it! Thank you Charriu!  (I wonder if someone tried to get cute and produce an artist to bulb Music for another one.)

By mental math in shower (so be very careful!), The City can beat Bafford to a great person by one turn (17 vs 18 in non golden age) by running a cycle of 2 merch-2 sci then (2x) 2 merch-1sci. This gives The City a ~62% chance at a merchant.. Or, we could blow the top off and not care about percentage and trust our luck to a near coinflip. I think we do want The City's great person to beat Bafford's however we do it, because it's going to be very easy (especially without Caste) for Bafford's to beat every other city in our empire for a great person, so if we let its natural trickle from the Library get our 200pt person, we have to work harder for another city to produce one. The question of what we do if we end up not able to fire off a second GA I haven't yet thought about.. I take your point about wanting to work the bonus commerce/hammers during a golden age but the golden age does also give us bonus Great People points, so we're not totally losing out.

Re: Rusten, yeah. Feel free to start military builds, and I'll post them to Bafford's as they come off the assembly line. Rusten shouldn't have anything that can cross ocean with troops, so Cathedral's culture should spot him, but forewarning doesn't really help if he just shoves 12 horse archers or longbows at us. That'll be our next stronghold.

You're right about not needing Iron Working. How about after Monarchy going for Metal Casting --> Construction? I am getting a little uneasy not picking up military techs lately, but there's so much other cool stuff to research!

I don't think you need to research Priesthood. The prereq bonus is nice for Code of Laws, but won't get that for a bit and I don't think it saves time on a Monarchy date. Temples aren't super helpful to us, especially once we get into Hereditary Rule.

Your reasoning for delaying the Golden Age seems sound to me.

EDIT: Is Rusten’s power spiking and does he have tech visibility on us? (Although I guess last turns whips won’t show up for another turn)

[Charriu]

I still can't believe we actually got it! Thank you Charriu!  (I wonder if someone tried to get cute and produce an artist to bulb Music for another one.)

By mental math in shower (so be very careful!), The City can beat Bafford to a great person by one turn (17 vs 18 in non golden age) by running a cycle of 2 merch-2 sci then (2x) 2 merch-1sci. This gives The City a ~62% chance at a merchant.. Or, we could blow the top off and not care about percentage and trust our luck to a near coinflip. I think we do want The City's great person to beat Bafford's however we do it, because it's going to be very easy (especially without Caste) for Bafford's to beat every other city in our empire for a great person, so if we let its natural trickle from the Library get our 200pt person, we have to work harder for another city to produce one. The question of what we do if we end up not able to fire off a second GA I haven't yet thought about.. I take your point about wanting to work the bonus commerce/hammers during a golden age but the golden age does also give us bonus Great People points, so we're not totally losing out.

Re: Rusten, yeah. Feel free to start military builds, and I'll post them to Bafford's as they come off the assembly line. Rusten shouldn't have anything that can cross ocean with troops, so Cathedral's culture should spot him, but forewarning doesn't really help if he just shoves 12 horse archers or longbows at us. That'll be our next stronghold.

You're right about not needing Iron Working. How about after Monarchy going for Metal Casting --> Construction? I am getting a little uneasy not picking up military techs lately, but there's so much other cool stuff to research!

I don't think you need to research Priesthood. The prereq bonus is nice for Code of Laws, but won't get that for a bit and I don't think it saves time on a Monarchy date. Temples aren't super helpful to us, especially once we get into Hereditary Rule.

Your reasoning for delaying the Golden Age seems sound to me..

I looked at the great people situation and The City can easily beat Bafford as long as Bafford does not work any additional specialists. The City needs to run 6 turns with 4 specialists and the rest with only 3.

About Rusten. Mh you are right, I have to look if into a small so that I know if he can get to Bafford.

We definitely want Metal Casting after Monarchy, for the forges, workshops and most importantly the trireme.

I just put Priesthood in there for additional information. I will look more closely into any benefit from the prereq bonus.

[Charriu]

T111 Part 2:

---

Our current religions in case we need to switch religions during the golden age, but I think I know which religion will be choosen for us.



Buddhism. Or BGN send out a really strange spy into our empire.



I found a city from Gavagai and returned the open border agreement. I think he will take it and will see our rejecting in the light of me subbing for you.



Rusten did another round of whipping and his power increased. Somebody will get hit in the next turns. I did not sim it in the end, but there are ocean tiles between Bafford and him. Nonetheless I started some bowman and let The City finish its spearman just in case.

Some more info before you take over again. I set research to Monotheism and run one round of 0% science. I did not start the golden age this turn and left the honor of doing so for you. Also very important I've run only one round of 2 specialists in The City this turn, because I wanted to grow the city for the upcoming golden age. That means that we need at least 7 turns of 4 specialist there, which will propably be in our golden age.

Commodore also left the axeman alive and I shipped him back towards Receiving or even our mainland.

[naufragar]

Thanks Charriu for your masterful handling, and please feel free to hop in anytime. You know where the keys are. Thanks for letting me fire off our golden age, but it wouldn't have happened without you. (Because I would've settled Charriu's Point too early and then whoever landed that other artist would have bulbed Music! Wild game.) I had meant to take a picture of the Artist doing his golden age dance, but I think I had quick moves on.

Here's the most recent power graph (Turn 113):



Our power isn't hopelessly anemic, but we, rather than BGN, are Rusten's eventual target. Here's why.



He revolted back into Caste System on the previous turn, so this could be him getting his whips out of the way. Nevertheless, our eastern seaboard is too vulnerable and we shall fortify. In six turns (if we have six turns), Cathedral's borders will expand over a peak that will give us fantastic vision into Rusten's waters. I had thought about changing out the bowmen for higher base strength units (especially spears to counter horse archers) because the bowman's low base strength hurts it badly when fighting promoted units. (I can't really understand all the math. Basically low base strength + huge percentage bonuses gets crushed by high base strength and smaller percentage bonuses? I'm not a scientist.) But then, as Charriu probably saw, I noticed this.



There are perfectly innocent reasons to get Iron Working. On the other hand, none of our neighbors have it, and Rusten has been whipping. So we raise the alert level.

This is the land between Rusten and Commodore and there is a ton of it.


We want neither of those players to have gigantic untouched back lines. Oof.

Our golden age demos:


Below average MfG in a golden age.    This is partially explained by our abysmal crop yield, which is partially explained by our tiny land area, although we do have 7(!) fish resources. Hereditary Rule will help.

As Charriu predicted, we have revolted to Buddhism.    We haven't revolted to Org. Rel. because we would have to wait to revolt to Hereditary Rule afterwards. Charriu, you're right on the money about our need for Metal Casting and triremes. There's a choke down by Cathedral that a couple of triremes can use to hopefully contain Rusten for a bit.

In six turns, The City gets its great person at about 50-50 odds between Merchant and Scientist. If it's a Merchant, we dance for joy and can fire off a second golden age right as our first is ending. If The City produces a scientist, hmm. I think we go on a bulbing spree. Before Iron Working, a Scientist would bulb Calendar. After, it would bulb Compass. We're perfectly happy with Calendar, but we also are happy with Compass, I think. In fact, Great Scientists hit so many good things for us. After Compass (and Metal Casting) they get Machinery, then Optics, then Astronomy so long as we avoid Meditation. We have to research Construction ourselves, but I think we don't mind just running full scientists at Bafford's and just hitting the bulb button whenever we can.

Again, Charriu, thank you very much for covering for me and covering so competently. Anytime you want to hop in, even if you just get a hankering to look around, you know where the password is.

EDIT: I forgot a miscellaneous tidbit. Donovan Zoi and Gavagain are at war. Gavagai seems like one to take advantage of weakness and Donovan Zoi built a lot of wonders, so Gavagai perhaps saw an opportunity.

[Charriu]

Well you are praising me too much. It wasn't that big of deal. The reason why you didn't see the "golden age dance" is the same reason why you don't see the "Great Wall" walls on the map. These things are disabled in MP games.

Sad to see that I may be right about Rusten. I started bowmen because they were the quickest to build and serve as a general defender, also because Bafford and Cathedral did not have those.

To be fair I did not saw the iron from Rusten, good that you did.

About buddhism, what did BGNs missionary do?

Yeah, triremes could close down that choke point, but I doubt we get them in time.

It was a pleasure to cover for you.

[naufragar]

About buddhism, what did BGNs missionary do?

Rats, I forgot to take a picture. He has moved to the cows near Bonehoard. I suspect BGN will use him to get a look at our lands before proselytizing. There's a galley of his near Cragscleft. We have opponents on three sides and they can all get to us very quickly.

We got a good border pop and now have visibility into Commodore's nearest city.


I've marked with an X a legal city that can share Receiving's fish and pick up a banana, but, um, I don't think that's getting settled any time soon...

Especially as Commodore got a touch more power.



Meanwhile, our work boat found this.


That's a Commodore city, but from the looks of the borders, it only has 1 tile of culture. I have no idea. I hope I would've caught him capturing another barb city, but who knows.

For reference, here's the distance.





For some reason, the last few turns I forgot that the Great Person counter updates with each one a civ creates, so we can't actually have them produced in back to back turns.   Time to put me out to pasture. Have no clue how I missed that. I've fiddled with tile assignments a bit so that Bafford's reaches 200pts the same turn as The City. I think The City will produce a great person first because it was founded earlier, but I will check so I don't screw that up royally.

[Charriu]

I would not settle this banana city NW of Receiving. That city just screams to Commodore: "Take me". We have a good defensive position against him now and should keep there.

Boy that southern Commodore city is far away. Could it be a former Superdeath city, because of the mine E of it? It's really strange.