[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[Rusten]

I also thought we were hoping for an engineer out of our capital to speed up engineering*, we were discussing it earlier. That's not conducive to not working engineer specialist this turn and getting the library to run scientists. Maybe I'm forgetting something.

*Low% gamble with scientists taking up most of the GPP

[naufragar]

I'm skeptical about bulbling Alphabet and teching Math. How much commerce do we think foreign trade routes will get us in total? Is it worth delaying Currency? Assuming 3gpt routes from each of b/GKC's cities, we'd be up 6gpt immediately for a 300+ beaker investment. Yes, the value increases as we get further into the game, but for now, it's such a nothing tech. And as you say, it's possible a neighbor techs it before us, in which case we'd probably have to find something else for the Great Scientist to do, but it won't have much at all to do, whether bulb or otherwise. I suspect I'm missing something because bulbing Math seems far more efficient than anything else we can do even if Math bulb-->Currency research ends up being a bit slower than researching both.

I'm happy to pause the library. It's only received the overflow from the settler whip. The cap is currently growing back and is right now on size 2. Switching to a barracks so its samurai has a promotion is fine with me. You're right that the plan was to run mixed specialists at the cap. I had planned to wait until the capital was once again working its food tiles to run the engineer.

(And thanks for the heads up on years-at-peace trade bonus. I definitely would've nuked our routes by accident.)

[naufragar]

I also thought we were hoping for an engineer out of our capital to speed up engineering*, we were discussing it earlier. That's not conducive to not working engineer specialist this turn and getting the library to run scientists. Maybe I'm forgetting something.

*Low% gamble with scientists taking up most of the GPP

I've put the capital back on an axe. I don't know what I was smoking earlier. We don't have any time for anything but samurai/axe builds right now. We're three turns away from All Samurai, All the Time. Our capital does not have much of a food surplus. It's got one 5f tile and two floodplains cottages. In its current configuration, it's not great at using specialists. My plan is to produce the samurai in the queue and grow back while building the library. Population points 4 through 6 can be the engineer and two scientists. Higher odds of an engineer and doesn't force us to work a lone engineer at low pop sizes. If we land the engineer, great. If not, we can bulb (Alpha/Math). If we really don't want to bulb Math, we've got a few turns to decide. Still saving gold.

Lander will miss the samurai deadline, but hopefully its forge allows it to contribute to reinforcements. At Lander, I want to run an Engineer in parallel once it's back up to size. Sure, it'll take something like 43 turns to pop a pure engineer, but they're always useful and if we need a golden age we can just throw in some extra specialists to speed up that ETA.

[naufragar]

Cairo has Currency. I haven't been checking every turn, so I don't know when he got it. His tech rate's good. Cho-ko-nus and samurai don't get along and we don't have horse archers to chew them up. Something to keep in mind.

[naufragar]

Opened the turn up to this diplo offer from Superdeath.


He can see I've got cow for cow with MSCC. If I accepted this, I'd be signalling I'm not planning on making any moves against my neighbors. If I were a different player, perhaps I could've accepted this. After all, I suspect we aren't in his borders until turn 95, which is a significant chunk of peace. Maybe I should've taken the deal. This is a total tangent, but I do hope a diplo game can get off the ground here. I couldn't participate: I already spend too long on the turn+report and diplo would consume too much. And, between you and me, I've seen a few too many diplo games end in real hurt feelings. But I do think it would be fun to lurk. I mention this because this diplo offer reminded me of the NAP days. Is it inherently suspicious to turn down a NAP? Conflict is an unavoidable part of the game.

I definitely blew that f5 smiley too early. As we get closer to t90, I'm more and more restless. Looks like both Superdeath and I are waiting for something spectacular. His power has shot back up after our war.






We're going to test some hard truths about civ4, 1 movers, and the slavery civic's role in defense. I'm more nervous than I sound. I hope that the power has been horse archers. They don't get defensive bonuses.

I keep exploring. The land out west is weird. b/GKC have lots of crab and silver they can settle.



You see Osaka in the above pic. I haven't renamed it because I haven't remembered to check my Gene Wolfe books before the turn and I'm too lazy to check during. It's a sad, sad city.


Ick.  

[naufragar]

About to turn in for the night but forgot I already drew up this pic.


Basically, I need to check if jungle blocks peak vision. If it does, we can be a turn faster with the red plan. Otherwise, we have to use the black plan.

[naufragar]

Ignore that last. It looks like I don't know workers get 2 moves.

Does this change our choice of target?



I don't know if this is a real war. Magic Science has a power lead over Cairo but not a gigantic one for being on 11 cities. Hmm.


I offered a map for map trade to Mr. Cairo. He's our natural ally, plus I think he's scouted a lot better than we have.  

Mr. Cairo has, I believe, the smallest crop yield, but he's Hannibal working coast:



I should note that Superdeath's empire is positively humming. He's got a touch more crop than us, but look at his Mfg:


To my knowledge, that's without forges. Nice land. Nice development. I want it.

Civ4 is a pretty game.


The library and the forge are placeholder builds because the axes are ready to whip. We can get at least one trebuchet out of Pajarocu (which finally has a happy surplus. What a world). I don't know if we can get two. I'd be happier with two.

[naufragar]

Yuh-hah!



I am bad. I missed New Viron's samurai by three hammers. I don't think I wait. I think I let it join up a turn later.  

Mr. Cairo, I think I love you.
EDIT: Deleted spoiled map stitch.

Notice something weird about this screenshot?


So, I've started researching Mysticism. Polytheism 3 turns after that. Am I crazy? Is everyone else? Rusten, if I had realized we could've grabbed a religion ages ago, I would've been totally on board with researching Math. Could've used the scientist to throw a Golden Age for OR in that case. Sorry!  

The whips should give the game away. Superdeath and Magic Science should be able to figure out exactly what we've got and that it's coming for one of them.

[naufragar]

Fuck me. Map trading isn’t allowed. I had posted earlier that I was surprised it wasn’t banned. It is, in fact. What should I do?

[AutomatedTeller]

I think just asking for a reload (and deleting all the pics you have) can do it.

I dunno how much useful knowledge you get from the map yourself. Not a lot to be done about it, anyway.