[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[yuris125]

• Moved Settler toward hub. We need to figure out his destination very soon.

We actually can move him to the tile 1SW of the deer without knowing the exact destination. But I'll ping RL7 today

• RL7 birthed a Great Engineer :thumbsdow

Since we don't think they're close to Nationalism yet, they could burn him on Sistine or Notre Dam, not wait until Nationalism and Taj. We can only hope

• Started Market at Best. Rock FM should be able to pop a workboat after courthouse, and still have it on Retro's fish in time for the border pop. Should be perfectly timed, in fact. If there's something more pressing at Best, I'm all ears.

Market is a good choice, but we should switch to Buddhist Temple once AP is finished (assuming we get it)

• I think we should whip the Granary at Retro next turn. It'll techincally stack the whip anger, but it's so small it doesn't matter. Granary is worth it.
  

Agree, I have nothing against stacking whips as long as we can manage the unhappiness - it shouldn't be a problem in a small city with our high happy cap

• Started a courthouse at Europa. It has all of 1 hammer per turn, so anything we build there will take forever unless whipped.

We can take the grassland mine between E+ and Radio 7 back to E+ soon, but yeah, in general it's a city for whipping

[Maestro]

I would have preferred Buddhist temple or monastery at Best, but it doesn't have Buddhism yet. Markets are actually particularly good on this map, since we'll end up with fur, ivory, and whale, for +3 happy.

[Maestro]

I've been going through a few numbers for Taj Majal. Base cost on quick is 467 hammers. If we build in Ultra (as I think we should) we get 25% Forge, 25% OR, 50% bureau, 50% IND, 100% marble, for 250% total bonuses. So each base hammer turns into 3.5 hammers after bonuses. 467 / 3.5 = 134 base hammers needed.

Ultra has 5 forests in the BFC. If we chop all 5 that gets us 100 base hammers. Stealing back plains cows and working all mines adds 18 hammers per turn. If we can whip overflow for 16 hammers, that gets us 134, which means we can 1-turn Taj in Ultra. Getting all 5 forests to land at once would require some planning, but it is possible. I think Taj is sufficiently valuable to us that we should consider this plan.

To be perfectly efficient, we should also calculate exactly what turn Nationalism will land. Next turn we should take a note of the gold production at 0%, the beaker production at 100%, and the total number of beakers needed for Nationalism. We should have enough time to get enough workers in the area (need at least 5), but I'd rather work it out and be sure than end up dumping 400+ hammers only to get ninja'd between turns.

How do you feel about this Yuri?

[yuris125]

Sounds like an excellent plan! I agree that Taj is very important for us, and if we can 1-turn it, we definitely should

[Maestro]

Turn 90 Taj Report:

Philosophy: 118/707
Nationalism: 0/1571

0% science: 165 gpt
100% science: 399 bpt, -147 gpt

Current reserves: 478 gold

Need to research 2160 beakers. 2160 / 399bpt = 5.42 turns at full science. 5.42 * (-147 gpt) = Need 796 gold. (796-478)/165 = 1.92 turns of 0% science.

Bottom line: 2 turns of gold, 6 turns of research. These numbers will move a little over the next 8 turns, but I factored in some fudge room, most notably on the 5.42 * -147 calculation, and in rounding up to 2 turns of gold savings. We should be fine, and even if we are not we can build a turn of wealth in maximum or get a loan from Commodore.

Nationalism in end of turn 97. Build Taj on turn 98. Need to whip for overflow on Turn 97. Need all forests ready for chop on Turn 98, which means forest must be entered by worker on Turn 95, chop 96-97-98. List of workers who can be in range in time:
James LaBrie
Dmitry Telnov
Phillip Galkin
Kirill Karpov
Vakhtang Makharadze

Some of those are close enough that they can get a few actions in first. We just need to ensure that every forest is entered on turn 95.

Not much non-Taj stuff. Whipped in some infrastructure like we planned. Moved Settler toward hub again. I don't think we should wait on RL7. If they don't respond, we should just take a spot. We've done our best to plan with them, but we can't delay expansion (and possibly lose ground to GES) because they haven't gotten back to us.

[Maestro]

Oh, and as a nice little bonus, Buddhism spread at Radio 7 at the end of turn.

[yuris125]

Seven told us that he doesn't think either of those locations is defensible, so we can claim both. They could be indefensible for us as well, but with our NAPs with RL7 and GES, it shouldn't be a problem. In case of an emergency, we can always quickly get to Longbows. I believe we can defend them if we get to Gunpowder before anyone attacks us; and if we don't, then so be it. We won't catch up without taking risks, and this is one I'm willing to take (going all in for Taj is the other one)

RL7's power has been skyrocketing for the last few turns by the way. With our NAP active for another 20 turns, I would think it's too early for a build-up against us. Are they going to attack GES? If they do attack, and the war doesn't end quickly, it's a chance for all of us to catch up. But GES's power hasn't been growing; I hope he knows what he's doing. If RL7 win this war, they pretty much win the game



Nothing we can do with it though; we don't have units or tech for any military action at this stage. I think if we can remain a factor in the game until post-Rifling, we can still win. If not... well, then I'll start working on a post-mortem

I don't want to start investing in military until we get to Gunpowder, ETA for which is around T110. The current NAP with RL7 expires T111; if they attack us T112, we will probably be able to defend the core (with draft and whips), but will almost certainly lose all cities in the middle, and border settlements in the east. I don't think we will recover from it. However, I feel our diplomatic relations with RL7 have been closer than with any other team; I hope there is enough goodwill to prevent them from attacking us. At the moment, I'm not too concerned about anyone else: GES's power is even lower than ours; Commodore is busy developing the land he acquired from MNG; and MNG would probably have to go through our core to make any gains, and I think we can defend it

[yuris125]

T91 - nothing really interesting happened. Put a lot of signs for Workers, so that we get them in position to start chopping Taj on T95. We won't be anywhere near as efficient as the grand masters of the game are, we will lose quite a few Worker turns - I have a few Workers already in position, even though they won't start chopping for 3 more turns... but this is important. Also put a lot of signs for whips which need to be done next turn

Interesting diplo with RL7. Got this message:

Hey,

We currently have two NAPs, the one tied to ivory and other stuff and the 10t cooldown one. I'm triggering the end of the 10t cooldown one.

Of course, you have nothing to worry about. We still have a NAP. I am just hoping you will be a bit paranoid and confused and build a few extra units.

RL7

I honestly didn't realise that the NAP with 10t cooldown was still active, I thought the new NAP took over from the old one. However, if they wanted us to "feel confused and paranoid", they certainly achieved this. The message sounds like they want to be sure they can attack us on T112, when the current NAP expires. However, why give us an advance warning, and even explicitly tell "build more units!"? Could they know something we don't about other teams' plans? But who can attack us except them? Other considerations aside, we're NAPed with Commodore and GES, and I don't think MNG would tell them about his plans, it's widely known that they were the ones who initiated closing borders with him

We replied:

Hey,

Haha, that sounds fine. No need for redundant NAP agreements. We are indeed starting to build more units however, do you know of any particular threat we should be ready to defend against? We did notice your power rise, but we hope if you have any aggressive plans, they're not directed towards us

Seven's reply is pure diplomatic brilliance

I am completely unaware of any aggressive intentions of any player towards another that I am permitted to talk about!

I don't think you have to worry.

Seven

The main problem is that our military science is still in the stone age. We don't have Archery, we don't have HBR, we don't have Feudalism, we don't have Machinery; the best military units we can build are Axes and Chariots. They just won't help against any attack, whether we build them or not

The plan is to start spamming Catapults after we finish Apostolic Palace. Not quite defensive units, but they will help our power rating, and they will be useful for a long time. I also had an idea to try to buy a few units off Commodore, he probably has a few unneeded ones after his war. Of course, we don't have any spare gold until we either get Taj, or lose it. So I sent him a proposal to buy a part of his army around T100. We'll see what he says

[Maestro]

Regarding worker actions, if the workers are in forest early, we can at least have them road. Roading a forest tile effectively removes 1 turn to chop it, since you can enter it and start chopping on the same turn.

I believe we'll have enough gold now to turn research back on this turn. Fingers crossed for Taj!

[Maestro]

I took a peek at the save, and there's some bad news.

1. GES landed liberalism
   
2. GES finished Apostolic Palace. We were 2 turns out. As a consolation, we do get 216 failgold out of it.
   
3. GES settled SE-SE of Orange dot, so the ice hill is no longer viable.
   
4. RL7 are trading Rice+Stone to GES for Marble. Not sure if this is good or bad. Means GES can't start working on Taj right away. But maybe means we're fighting RL7 for it. Who knows.
   

Basically, we have to decide what to do with hub settlement (move Orange dot or just take red?) and if we're still going to push for Taj.

Our old exploring work boat is actually 4 turns away from crabs in Red dot's 1st ring, so we could hook those up pretty quickly. We can still settle Orange dot 1W of its original position. Not great, but not awful. I believe it would still be a profitable site eventually.

Bottom line? I think we should settle Red dot and push for Taj. I have not played the turn, though, so that plan is up for discussion.