[spoilers] Commodore and Dtay are Sitting Bull of Inca, somehow.

[spacetyrantxenu]

So how long until Warhorse pops borders again?

[Commodore]

So how long until Warhorse pops borders again?

Precisely.

In other news, I'm feeling unpleasantly reactive, not proactive, here at the moment. We can't rest on our laurels, and we definitely need an active Great Person plan. Right now I'm thinking we're going to run for the mixed GE/GP/GSci shot out of Cobra, but I'd like to be at 199/200 in Cascade Point when that Cobra pool pops. Then, we go with MoM/Golden Age/Golden Age with those options and the capital's mixed GE/GSci pool nets us MoM Golden Age, Academy, or MoM almost immediately afterwards. All of this with that Guilds goal pushed for hard, we need knights in like two dozen turns or we've stagnated without land for too long.

Coming of Age on the HAK border, then two more on the Elkad Peninsula, then the filler on Angelmass Island. That's four more cities and done, son. Chariots and horse archers shuffle to take advantage in the Netherland if horseless Elkad gets hit, while swords would be nice to potentially steal West Isle places if Joey remains embroiled.

Ceil, Dtay, feelings on the geostrategic picture?

[Commodore]

Oh, and intrepid reporter Mardoc asked for my views on the Zulu-HRE imbroglio:

Mardoc Mardoc: and how does PB25 look from the Incan perspective? Kinda weird to see it from Mindy's point of view...
Commodore: Um
I've been updating a fair bit?
Nothing like the HAK/Mindy spam levels, but c'mon man, daily reports!
You mean the game as a whole?
I liked the platformer analogy.
We've got a mass of goombas, a first boss, penultimate boss, then final boss.
Mardoc Mardoc: well, I guess I meant more 'how real does the HAK/Joey thing look'?
Commodore: Oh
Heh, well, you can't read my 64 thread
Joey was in there griping about having "six neighbors"
Mardoc Mardoc: plus I guess I hadn't realized how slow the game had been lately, thought you had missed a turn or three
six neighbors means six opportunities, right?
Commodore: At least four, given skill/experience disparities!
Mardoc Mardoc: plus it appears that he won't be your neighbor after all, at least not until you've had a war
Commodore: What I think happened is that Joey neighbored peaceful vacation island HAK all game 18.
And ate gassed far-behind being dogpiled HAK in 22
He pushed HAK here somehow...not sure exactly where, but several options.
Anyway, this is happy early-game feeling his oats with Mindy deadlurking HAK
Mardoc Mardoc: Mindy dedlurking always ups the aggression level a notch
Commodore: This version of HAK has teeth, although they still won't be used amazingly.
No cities razed, no power dumps.
So it's no huge deal
But some people can't handle low-intensity warfare.
Mardoc Mardoc:ahh
plausible
gotta admit I haven't followed HAK before this game

...so that's some things that I think.

[Thoth]

Mardoc Mardoc: Mindy dedlurking always ups the aggression level a notch

I should see about recruiting Mindy as a dedlurker one of these games to cure me of my pacifist tendencies.

[Krill]

He's spoiled in 26 so don't you get any ideas.

[Ceiliazul]

What is your relationship with Grimace? If you put a squad of knights behind gunsnroses, you could land on the hill south of reteps ivory on t0 and cut it on t1. Cutting iron shouldnt matter, cuz if retep.gets knights before the blood has let them you're too late anyway. Crossbows? Meh.

Now whether Gimace would take that as an inviation, and whether he'd be on the ball enough to steal your winnings, thats another question. That ivory spot forks Peter and PeteW (ye gods that naming scheme is cause for war on its own!) And would likely present tactical cgallenges for retep.

Probably best to go axe heavy on retep front until then. You've already flashed chariots at him twice, try not to show him horses until the horn sounds.

[Ceiliazul]

Now the backup target is HAK right? If he and Joey drag each other down a bit, or Joey starts to make gains, you should have the continental access to drive home the stake. Joey is a determined and tenacious fighter, but I dont think he'd follow thru HAK to take cities from you with knights. He's going to have a PRO hangover from his terrible losses in pb18, longbows will give him flashbacks.

[Ceiliazul]

Whats retep teching like? Who are the land area leaders? Is retep still running EP on you?

[Thoth]

He's spoiled in 26 so don't you get any ideas.

[Commodore]

Well, bit of an update on the HAK/Joe war...it ain't no more. No cities changed hands, no noteworthy power dropped, no great generals born (both participants are Imperialistic). But it did end with HAK building the Great Lighthouse! :crazy: Dunno, man. Also of note here, Retep is saving gold on Alphabet.

Why yes, I am chopping like a maniac as the even logs keep showing. This ain't Krill's newfangled Hippiemod, we're Sitting Bull here!

I guess I need a more general update for you guys before I ask for guidance, don't I Ceil? Let me know if this doesn't address those questions:

I'm sure the GLH is helping HAK a little bit, but he's gotten totally shut out of all IC-TRs unless I miss a secret island somewhere. As you see, none of us have OB yet. For purposes of discussion, these here demos are pretty consistent...I'm actually vaguely uneasy about the story this screen tells. We got out the gate amazingly strong with Protective the real workhorse...and these demos say we opted to convert that advantage into GNP at this juncture, and we converted very successfully (yegads, lads, this is saving gold with no wealth builds)...but besides this and our stronger-than-most chopping cadre, we're not really all that much better than the rest of the pack. Instinctively, this is a bit early in the game to be performing a CY/MFG->GNP conversion and the MFG dearth is particularly ungood. Need to figure out how to lean on Phi to make up the deficit, I reckon.

Health is actually kind of funny...somehow, Cascade Point is now unhealthy, even without the forge finished yet. Need the wheat, deer, clams online...

I ran a turn of break-even EP spending to get Joey’s graphs while keeping up with Retep (who, yes, is still spending pretty much exclusively on us):

Power’s story, at least, is pretty obvious. I’d like to say we’ve been leveraging this advantage but honestly considering our status as putative favorites from turn 1 plus the absurd heat and light generated by the Oracle slingshot, this is just barely enough to discourage a dogpile. I wouldn’t mind kicking things off against Retep early given his low power but Elkad, not shown, has a lot of ugly around our critical stone foothold.

Less arms race, more arms amble.

Crop yield is basically “how well player is doing in the game”, this being pre-turn-100. Certainly a better measure than score! This graph tells a tale of Joao being Joao, but being surpassed by us and Genghis of Joe out there. Joey’s been top CY whenever we aren’t, he just whipped a bit which is the only reason we’re slightly ahead. The HAK plateau is a grim sign for his future prospects, as even Meditation-first Grimace has caught up there. We want Grimace to be stronger…he’s stopping Gavagai for us, if you recall. I doubt he’ll let us casually stage armies through his lands though.

Unfortunately, Retep’s climb is *not* fast enough to mean an economy crash.

From crop I can take a stab at extrapolating land area...currently, Joey is tops, just edging us out. Donozai and HAK are doing pretty well on that front, while the rest are a bit squeezed. Frustratingly, the one guy I really want to know about has yet to make contact...Gavagai reads from map trades and civstats to be going for a tall, high-tech game, but I fully expect him to shut out Grimace on the backline peninsula eventually. It looks like "over there" the big equatorial island is as of yet unclaimed, giving that side a pressure shunt that nobody around our equatorial sea still has outside of HAK's vast southern backline.

Now manufacturing is where I’ve really fallen down. Joey’s whips sunk him a touch but that just means we’re typically actually more like 6th of 9, only Elkad, Borche, and Grimace below the bar. Gross deforestation is what’s been keeping us up with the pack but forges need to come online double-time and then early workshops and watermills can assist but frankly we’re just under-mined here in hilly Inca.

Hopefully this also shows a *slightly* higher cottage investment?

Gross national product figures should show you the answer to your teching question, Ceil. Just going by gut, don’t think this shows Aztecs as having managed even Math yet, while I think the other three have at least managed that hump; Joey’s impressive spike might have even been Currency (he’s got libraries everywhere for some daft reason). Basically, looks like we’ll have a knights vs. longbow window for our continent for at least a little while barring clever bulbing. Honestly, they all need to tech construction and start the cat-massing right now, but that sucks long term because you need Currency and you really want Calendar/CoL/Monarchy too.

Buisness development always tells us to leave off on the most flattering graph.

Big extra question right now is Elkad; he’s wedged between three big powers (top three on the scoreboard, actually), and from subtraction we know he doesn’t have a ton of special things going for him. His aggressive, well-promoted axes and spears ought to keep him off the dinner plate for at least a while though.

So that’s where we are. Here’s the pretty picture portion of the show; last turn in the Incan Empire. We’re going to slam forward on HBR next turn and then chew on into Monotheism/Monarchy with some wealth building help I think. Engineer shots are coming with Cobra and Cascade Point’s forges, while most of the rest of the empire grows into the tall but surprisingly noninfinite happy cap. Health caps are something to start to be aware of, too. Let’s make this land into something tall and beautiful…

This image shows Joao being really, really pressed for expansion, which is definitely weird.

…then let’s whip it to a blood stump that oozes knights and more knights.