[pb40 spoiler] Götterdämmerung: Destruction Is The Masses' Entertainment

[Coeurva]

Stonehenge is still unclaimed, but there are only two first-ring forests at Space Love and unlike everyone else in the game, RFS-81 has no cheap border pops (besides monuments) -- there will be ample warning. If we're somewhat quick to settle for our own stone now, we might in fact manage to chop the Henge at X7 (which is now called Malepartus) ourselves.

You know what else he lacks?


Horses. He's not receiving them from anyone by trade, either; this is good news for our cities and workers in the south, and allows us to flash a spear to Inca (though it'd be Shock-promoted, so maybe we shouldn't ). What F4 revealed is that Charriu and shallow_thought are trading rice/rice; this concerns me, as they both look well-positioned (Charriu has a Classical tech, likely Maths, and an intact GNP) and RFS-81 is poised to become the apple of discord between us three. shallow_thought will not border us before conquests occur, which means we have to be most efficient (not necessarily first) to conquer, I suppose. He's still in the lead pop-wise, but we seem to be catching up to him quickly now.

None of our trade contacts has hooked up any happiness resources. Even with metal luxuries presumably scarce, I've been assuming that everyone has ivory close to their capital. Nor has Hinduism fallen yet.

Magic Science showed a chariot inside Geneva this turn. Not a threat by itself; we can whip Nobiskrug for an archer and axe if he moves in. He might have wanted to show us the chariot for deterrence. It is possible that he's assembling a chariot stack west of his city, though, so I'll try to enqueue a spear as well, possibly produce and show it. Founding Malepartus has also teleported his quechua back to Geneva.


5gpt lost to Malepartus. Soldier graphs show superdeath barely ahead, and I think Magic Science is #6, which raises the question of whether s_t is Rival Best. I think it's not Charriu, at any rate, who seems to be closer to 95,000 soldiers than 110,000, but I didn't hold a ruler to the screen or anything.

superdeath, who has now razed the other barb city, offered Open Borders, then crab/crab (well at least I read his tenacity correctly). I've declined both and offered OB to RFS-81. If he declines, superdeath will get his OB in exchange for horses (I'll kick him out if he scouts our territory, though; I'm not as concerned about RFS doing that, since he can see inside the relevant cities anyway). The Munsal axe is going to stick around in the area, to cover for settling the stone city as X8 for the possible Henge plan at Male.

[Coeurva]

Stonehenge plan:


Surprise, it's going to be Schilda after all -- with no stone, because settlers take too long to finish. Failgold to Currency wouldn't make for the worst outcome, either. Chops can finish a library instead, or we just pre-chop for praets (might be better). I mainly want to deny the wonder to others at this point, although its effects are still useful -- e.g. even +1 cultural pressure on Space Love could force RFS to take countermeasures, or possibly lose his wheat (although it's first-ring for him, so Malepartus would have to dominate it); we'll also get the whales sooner. I think the Henge will have fallen by the time Malepartus can pop borders, so we'll have to settle for Schilda.

Venusberg builds the X8 settler for whales; I confirmed that you can trade across culturally-controlled ocean, so both ICTR and whales are available pre-Astro. There's 25t of whip anger cooldown at the city and I didn't consider another worker all that useful; I'd like to equip Venus with mines, but it obviously needs happiness for that.


shallow_thought whipped three pop so his decrease in food doesn't mean much, but I think we've caught up now. RFS-81 accepted OB (actually declined and re-offered) and is currently ripping us off on trade routes; I'm sending a warrior along the road to Golden Void (his capital) to discover that city.



Pictured: superdeath apparently recovering his economy, and Charriu possibly struggling after founding his seventh city? For frame of reference, our GNP spike there measures 87 (with ~20bpt of research building, so not all that meaningful). Other graphs aren't that interesting right now; nobody has much of an advantage, except that Magic Science is still somewhat behind on food.

[OT4E]

No surprise for me, I would do the same. Denial value is good but culture bomb in the front is also very very nice thing.

The only surprise here is that it is still unclaimed. I think somebody has gone for pyramids, but overall low interest to religion path is enigma for me. People value each point of science here for their needs so I guess Oracle was worth investment.

Are we decided on skipping Maths? Or we have simply no time for it?

[Coeurva]

Not skipping Maths so much as delaying. I think it's the right call; Currency will come in right before we finish the X8 whale settler (or possibly X9 if we should squeeze in another city, although the only worthwhile spot left is claiming the crabs, horses, stone east of us, which is in fact rather important, but our expenses have become worrisome imo, I'll post our breakeven beakers next turn), and then we gain another 2-commerce trade route per city -- and can possibly sell our Open Borders for (substantial) gpt to the highest bidder, too. I don't think anyone else will go for Alphabet (I'm pretty confident that Charriu's Classical tech is Maths, or he'd probably want to trade with shallow_thought, whom I think he borders), and more importantly, I don't think anyone else has island access like us via a high-cultured non-capital city, so these trade routes might be in high demand.

We haven't unlocked a good target for chops yet -- which means forges (with gold) or units on this map, I think. The Gardens are decent, but not worth Maths in themselves yet; maybe if we unlock more Arctic islands, but 250h for 8-9 pop points isn't all that impressive. 6 praetorians for that price would serve us just as well to capture 8 pop, I believe (not by themselves, but they might well tip the scale). Or a forge.

Another reason for immediate Currency: I'd like to build an EXP forum at Rungholt: pretty much all our current cottages/hamlets grow in ~10t and afterwards, the return will be 8-10gpt at that city at 0% slider before merchants -- not bad. (I'd like a GMerch as our first great person, too; not that I have a plan for it yet, but it seems more pertinent here than a Scientist bulbing Compass or Lib-path techs or whatever.)

Indeed, it's strange that nobody has claimed Hinduism or the Henge yet (and MSci has had Mysticism since T0, but the raze might have led him to scrap any such plans), especially the people apparently beaten to the luxury sites; superdeath has an excuse due to CHM, but extra happiness rarely isn't helpful. The others might well be concerned enough about crashing before Currency that they don't want to deviate from the beeline. In fact, that's another reason why I want to head for Currency now... it shows on the diplo screen, and sends everyone lacking it a sign to "catch up soon or die" (or at least that's how Currency is commonly viewed, I reckon), taking strategic freedom from our opponents.

PS. marginal note on map layout. I was slightly wrong when I thought everyone bordered everyone on a horizontal ribbon; looks like the starting positions are slightly askew, so that everyone has exactly one player they don't share borders with. For Magic Science, that would be Charriu; for RFS, superdeath; for us, shallow_thought.

[OT4E]

Forum for the win! I told you about this plan very long ago. :D

Everything looks good then. Agree with all points.

[Coeurva]

I'd have appended the thread title by "Build Forums And Win", but that would give it all away...

Short late night update.

Domestic affairs: uneventful. I took Munsal off Research to 2t an archer, as we can 6t Currency at 100% sci now (need 2t of saving gold, so eta eoT88). Nobis builds a spear in 4t. Rungholt finishes a barracks.


Foreign affairs: Mr. Crab/Crab has evidently been looking at our units in Munsalvaesche with that impi (note direction he's facing); RFS-81 has graphs on us and might be #1 soldiers (either him or s_t); MSci war-peaced shallow_thought last turn.

We've gained vision on the Mongolian city of Lighthouse (size4 working 6f corn, a hamlet, a 203 FIN lake, and something I've forgotten), and now know the reason why RFS-81 hasn't hooked up his ivory: it's not inside his borders, despite being 2S of the Malepartus pigs, and I think 3-4 tiles diagonally from Golden Void. Strange dotmapping imo, but I don't know the whole picture.

[Coeurva]

I'd like to make more workers or settlers, but we have to be able to defend the stone city from superdeath, who has settled city #8 (s_t is also on 8), possibly at the clams, and because everyone is stuck on tech and out of room, they're building copious Ancient Age junk; since we seem to be ahead already, I'd rather make sure nobody gets ideas. After Stonehenge finishes, I want trade contact with Charriu, because I'm not ruling out entirely that he might have taken Iron Working rather than Maths... both he and superdeath are also investing 2 EP/t into us.





Here's a postcard from Inner Mongolia; they settled city #5 on the spices to claim apparently foodless ivory, which we'll reveal next turn. They continue to put 4 EP/t on us, even though we're not investing any. I don't care too much; this will serve to hide a possible buildup, but I haven't seen anything en route from Lighthouse, so an imminent attack would have to come from the western approach (roading Space Love -- Rocky Paths). In fact, RFS is garrisoning Golden Void with multiple units (axe + 2 archers); why keep an axe there if you were planning to attack someone, when every unit counts? They've chopped both forests at Space Love, I'm guessing into a barracks. No horses.


Lighthouse has 5f corn despite what I had misremembered when I last talked about it. Looking at this, I'm appreciating more and more what a coup landing Malepartus was -- provided that we can defend it. The axe being produced in Rungholt will go here, maybe the one in Munsal as well -- depends on what happens in our east. If superdeath has settled a first-ring crab city 4t east of our borders, we can't do too much about that yet, but he must not claim our horses or stone.

[OT4E]

This is silks, not spices.
Lighthouse is very nice city, we dont have such a lake to plant, btw. And you can see starts were not identical, but I think they are fair enough.

99% they are not planning to attack us.

[Coeurva]

Confusing luxury resources, going for wonders absurdly late, fascination with overseas cities, plans to attack everyone around us? I'm doomed to repeat PB37 forever.

RFS is probably not planning to attack us, I agree, but I'm not so sure about Charriu's plans, and only the Mongols would be in position to pile on. This is nice to see, sure:


But this is not:


He whipped Forza this turn, too. At present, it only contains one (Shock CG1 D1) archer, but I don't trust this apparent invitation to demilitarize and hope we'll get our Analytical Druid Engine eot instead.



Plans for these builds -- Nobiskrug's spear stays in place, then the city builds a work boat (preparing for the island settlement). Canoel remains on Research for the time being. The axe in Munsal's queue joins with the one in the city to complete one of two operations: (A) move east (add one archer) to drive superdeath from the stone/crabs/horse area where we'll settle "soonish" (more detail to come when the situation is clearer to me); (B) move south to defend Schilda or stand ready to snipe Charriu's city of Forza, if he is indeed planning an attack either on us, or someone else (obviously keep the axes 1NW of Schilda if the latter since Charriu has permavision on our city, and vice versa).

The Rungholt axe goes to Munsal to replace the two axes leaving the city. Munsal itself enqueues a settler to whip off two unimproved tiles around T90 and complete it. This settler would take over the task of settling the island, while the Venus settler goes eastwards to found the new border city with the Zulu, probably the last one until Calendar.



Why is Rival Best CY still so close? Because shallow_thought now has ten cities. Ten cities!! If he's Rival Best GNP as well, and it seems that he is (or I hope it's RFS-81), then apparently he can even pay for them. (Diplo screen shows no Currency yet, and I'm willing to bet this is a prelude to his Hanging Gardens.) That's why I'd like Munsal's next build to be a 2-whipped settler; we have to claim some land of our own again, the island alone won't cut it.

Rival Best Land Area went up by 10,000 from last turn, not as much as you'd think from two new cities -- so these are either coastal or "fillers" at his outskirts, which would support the Gardens conjecture.

e: And I might have been right about the sugar being present at every start, if nothing else I still think the starts are not mirrored, but have the same total of foodhammers from resources in the BFC.

[Coeurva]

T85 Stonehenge -- why not; this has to be some kind of negative record, and Schilda will shortly become Charriu's favourite city, I'm sure. Last turn's whip in Forza was an archer -- possibly to cover his flank while he's planning to attack somewhere else, but I stuffed the spear and two archers into Schilda nonetheless. And in case he's gunning for the Mongols, which isn't all that unlikely (more in a minute), I definitely want to get this city:


The rice is overlapped from Golden Void, but even first-ring, this would add nicely to our empire, although it's far out on the flank... and I'd rather stop Charriu at Lighthouse, but if he strikes soon, that's not going to be possible.

What else is new? Graphs on Persia:

Nothing unexpected -- he's our closest competitor (or we are his), only his GNP is smaller than I'd thought -- which should indicate RFS-81 is Rival Best GNP (it would make sense, as he's also getting foreign trade routes). What's notable is that we rose a rank in soldiers this turn:


Which means the Mongols could be just behind us (unless we've overtaken superdeath), and they don't have a lot of pop to slave (cities are size4, 4, 2, 2, 1). I think the plan has to be Iron Working after Currency, and only then Maths -- sooner rather than later, we will need a task force of praetorians to intervene in Charriu's war, wherever he'll point his swords at. Or hopefully not swords. And hopefully not Horse Archers, either, which is far from impossible. There's a worker at Forza who will finish a road, which will amusingly establish trade with Charriu when our borders pop, without any need for us to spend time roading; we'll see if he has iron then (horses are confirmed).