[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[pindicator]

149

Jowy continues to overstate the importance of his trade routes.




So let's talk about these trade routes he's giving me. Thanks to have an island city I still get 3c for half the routes in cities that do not have foreign trade. I could easily settle a city for the other half (but I'm hoping to hold out for a missionary and give some time for negotiations first). When I count up how many 2c trade routes I have, the number is a total of 7. So I tried to tell Jowy that much.



And then I offered him 2gpt for those 7c of routes.



I also canceled his sugar.

Now there's probably a few extra commerce from any island city he might have, but that 7c is close enough. So let's say I settle my 2nd island city. Then what does having foreign trade from Jowy give me? I will already have 2x 3c trade routes in all my non-Cothon cities and all my Cothon cities already have foreign trade filled from Mr. Cairo and Charriu, who both want as many open borders as they can as well. Well, Jowy will give me the opportunity to build more Cothons. Cothons give me no bonuses to domestic trade, just another 2c route. I'll get that from walls and castles pretty soon as well, and for cheaper. But I have no plans on building more Cothons in the short term because we're building lots of army to kill superdeath right now.

So Jowy gives me barely anything at this moment. Later on, as we develop it will be nice. When we are done with this stupid war and can spare hammers. Right now? His trade really doesn't do much.

I wonder what he'll think those trades mean, or even believe me.

In any case, if he declines then I'll just settle the island city and take the domestic routes. That will make the new city pay for itself right away, I'd think. Actually, I will probably wait until after Guilds.

Speaking of Guilds! I found that I am very close to being able to turn on the beakers this turn. So I found a couple cities that can spare a turn of building wealth and still hit their numid targets, and we are looking good for Guilds at end of t151. This means whipping on t151, first wave of knights come out t152, and I probably get them amassed around t154. Which I think also means the slow stack moves in on t153. That should be right about when they've all massed up together too.

There's no canny way to get at Boil It. We just have to take the 3 turns walking through his territory and hope we have enough numbers to make it work. Well, there's 1 possible trick but it involves a settler and I don't know where I'll have the spare production to get one of those out.

18 cities and no courthouses?

No wonder your costs have stayed so high.  

Technically 17 now

But that in itself isn't my concern. It's why the neighbor to my east who has 16 cities and no Courthouses and has no cost-saving traits at all is paying 100gpt less in expenses. I suppose he could have been building wealth all this time, but that's one thing I hope to see with the F2 screens after the game.


PRO: 43 (2096)
FIN: 54 (1871)

FIN finally starting to pull ahead.

[pindicator]

If any of you thought that reminding me he has a shrine with the largest religion in the game, then you're taking this lurker can't talk thing way too far. Also: I'm an idiot, because I've stated that in this thread and forgotten it later twice now.

[NobleHelium]

I have no idea who has what.

[pindicator]

150

So yeah, I'm a forgetful idiot. It doesn't change anything, but Mjmd has had the Hindu shrine and is the only one who has shrined their holy city.




Best spread religion too. Btw, I think that was a really good investment for him to swap to Org Rel and his religion for eating 2 anarchy turns. I probably should have done the same? Oh yeah, I was at war.

Mjmd picked up Guilds this turn, beating me to it by 2 turns. But that also makes it so I will comfortably hit Guilds in 2 now and don't have to worry about an occasional wealth build to squeak it in. Mr. Cairo even appears to be on the way, as he finished up Machinery. And AT got Alphabet so I could see his tech choices.



Everybody has Feudalism by now, except superdeath, and I'm sure that's what he is going for next. I'm falling farther and farther back here, my early lead all gone.

I've so wanted to put real pressure on Mjmd. And now I know I just assessed things badly as far as how much time I had to go after Superdeath. (Although if Mr. Cairo had actually gone along with my earlier suggestions of us teaming up, who knows?) Maybe there's still time to go after him after superdeath, but it will depend on how the upcoming push goes. That's such a big miss by me, and I know I've talked about Mjmd's shrine before. I've just ... forgotten.

Other foreign relations left Jowy not responding for any further Open Borders negotiation. Jowy, if you honestly think that my open borders are worth 15gpt and nothing less than you are a fool. He also left two unguarded workers right by where my warrior ended up, and so I had to really restrain myself from retaliating against the hostility I have gotten from him all game. It was understandable when I was in first place. Now it just looks like he is badly, badly misreading the situation. But I did not kill his workers off because I decided I didn't want to weaken him and would rather have him with decent relations when we have to try and take down Mjmd later on.

So let's look at what we're going to do about Superdeath.




We're still about 3 turns away from actually invading, but superdeath has given some opportunities by settling a city 1N of the pig. I had a crossbow in range to actually hit his workers and pike this turn, but no workers to road over to it. So i decided to add some complications: we moved 2 workers onto a jungle north of Marion, along with spear and longbow. This is in view of Superdeath and he may take it as a feint considering he just did the same to me earlier. It kind of is: next turn I plan on hitting his pike with my crossbow, should he not move it away. Then we will continue by moving the numid sentry onto the jungled forest hill. If everything still looks clear then we'll move an appropriate number of Numids to threaten his new city. This will all be t151, the turn I whip all my numids into knights.

Ideally this makes him shift units away and then I move the big slow-moving stack into his territory on t153. I've been trying to keep the stack nearby and centralized, but also far enough away that he does not spot it. There are still a few more catapults and longbows making their way to this stack as well, but it should be near 40 units with the catapults when it goes in.

There is one potential trick I could do if I build a settler or move the settler down in the south up to here. All the tiles that Coos lost are still majority my culture. If I get any culture on those tiles they will flip to my ownership. This is mostly the hills east of Boil It. I'm not sure how that will really help me, however.

The plan is that the knights should be ready to join into his territory by 154. Here are all the city build lists, and all the numids about to be whipped into knights:



It should be 13 in the first wave and we'll try to get another 13 shortly after. Some cities like Lincoln and Belisarius may not whip at all as they are high production and low food. So it may only be 11 knights at first, followed by another round 2 turns later that i'll 2-pop whip everywhere for. Yes, we are going to lose a lot of population over the next 5 turns. But I want to really strike hard. I'll be whipping off of production tiles mostly, so this should not effect research rates too much.

Here is my F2 screen:




Inflation at 19%

Demos & Graphs

Big Stitch Image of the area

Select Cities

PRO: 43 (2139)
FIN: 50 (1921)

[Commodore]

Thank you for the big stitch; really helps follow the whole sector.

[pindicator]

151

Whips ahoy



I opened up the turn to another "generous" offer from Superdeath




What I Imagine Superdeath Is Thinking:
You need to go kill Mjmd otherwise he's going to go win the game! Otherwise how else will I win if you let him run away with the game? But you still need to pay me gold because you've blocked all my awesome Great Lighthouse trade routes. Just forget about the fact that I've burned your city. And double forget that last time you declared war on someone I stabbed you in the back. I totes won't do that this time, pinky swear promise!


EDIT: One more thing, I don't even care if taking peace and attacking Mjmd would be the right play. Superdeath declares on me and then consistently demands I give him money for peace? When he's been the aggressor and we both know the only avenue he has to expand is through me? The nerve of this guy. He gets eliminated or I get eliminated, no other way for this game to go.

PRO: 43 (2182)
FIN: 50 (1971)

[NobleHelium]

Tell him to convert to Buddhism.

[Thoth]

If any of you thought that reminding me he has a shrine with the largest religion in the game, then you're taking this lurker can't talk thing way too far.  Also: I'm an idiot, because I've stated that in this thread and forgotten it later twice now.

  :

I didn't know. 

My thinking was more along the lines of "maybe he isn't running 100/0 binary science, but 80/20 to disguise his max gpt and gold burn rate"

[vanrober]

If any of you thought that reminding me he has a shrine with the largest religion in the game, then you're taking this lurker can't talk thing way too far.  Also: I'm an idiot, because I've stated that in this thread and forgotten it later twice now.

I was thinking about the mini couthouses (ikhandas) of mr cairo

[pindicator]

Oh yeah, Mr. Cairo's costs have been a little more understandable. Although I don't think ikhanda's make up for all of the 120gpt difference between us!

I've been day-dreaming about attacking Mjmd with all the knights I'm going to have, which would be like 20-25 knights in 2 turns. Except I don't think that on its own will really get me all that far. Better to add those numbers to my existing troops and go after superdeath. But oh how I wish I felt like I could turn this army south and punish Mjmd for not pushing up military.