[SPOILERS - PBEM29] spacetyrantxenu - Mao of Babylon

[spacetyrantxenu]

T100 - HBR is in. Set research to zero, set direction to Guilds. It will be worth building some workshops soon around Mitt and Herman Cain (1/3/0 on plains tile). Slowcheetah is about to settle a city 221 of John McCain and has a work boat headed toward the fish already inside my culture. If he goes crazy culture in that city and steals my fish I won't be happy about it. He already placed a city 112 of Rudy that overlaps 5 tiles with my cities. The new one will add an additional 5 tiles of BFC overlap. I don't like the idea of a PHI neighbor sharing 10 tiles with me because I don't doubt his specialist spam will outstrip my cultural production. I'm going to have to build culture buildings instead of something more useful in these two cities just to keep up.

I scouted Sian's border and found Mehmed II, it is 336 of Dazed's Function (center jungle land grab). I can see why Dazed is irritated about us cramming Rudy on his border, but Function was just too ambitious to think no one would challenge it. He could have built it 1 NE and been fine from my side. Of course, doing that he wouldn't have stolen resources from Sian or kitties. So he put it where he did and it led to conflict with me. Too bad. He was ambitious and that's the drawback.

In demographics news, Sian must be building wonders again as his MFG is crazy high. Looks like he's 100 hammers clear of #2 right now. It looks like he is in deficit spending and has 117 gold in the bank this turn. Let's see if his cash goes up next turn, and if he finishes a wonder. (I don't have time to check his city builds right now).

[spacetyrantxenu]

I know it's T100 so I'll do a state of the empire post when I have time.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Quick tech summary:

Kitties up :

Aesthetics = 265
Alphabet = 265
Calendar = 309
Philosophy = 707
Paper = 530
Construction = 309

Total 2385

Kitties lacking:

Monarchy = 265
HBR = 221

Total = 1899

Kitties can tech Liberalism (1201) now, guessing 3-4 turns, then will take Nationalism = 1591

Around T 104 we'll be around 4k beakers behind. Not good.

Demos this turn:

Best 589 (Sian?)
Deduced 2nd 384 (Kitties)
Us: 195
Worst, 173 (Dazed)

Both Sian (117 gold in bank) and Kitties (75 gold in bank) running 100% science this turn. Dazed running 100% (I assume) gold this turn, 344 gold in bank, 93GPT saved.

The tech situation leads me to conclude that we may not stand a chance to win this game unless circumstances change drastically. The best thing that could happen would be Sian and Catwalk bludgeoning each other. We need to find a way to engineer this. It is important to keep in mind that Kitties are using a GA to get these numbers, but the tech lead will not be vanishing as they spawn more GPPs.

Honestly, I'm not sure what we can do right now to make a significant difference on the tech situation. We're building courthouses and infrastructure as rapidly as I see that we can. The war will not help us very much, if at all, even if we hold some island locations because our maintenance will go up. Maybe this can be countered with an additional intercontinental trade route, but this will only go so far. About all that I can come up with to salvage a chance to win is some sort of diplomatic backstab, declaring war on Sian but having an arrangement with him about it being window dressing and using this to manipulate our allies, but I don't want to go that route quite yet. This just feels like this game is getting away from us.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

One other interesting thing to note is that Sian, Kitties, and us have power graphs trending upward. Dazed is largely flat on the power chart. What does this portend? He is the primary agitator for the war and yet does not appear to be pairing his production with his diplo by building any units. Ours indicates some military teching, certainly, but this is a necessary precondition to actually having something to fight with. Also, we are building some military now, at long last, though it's still mostly infrastructure builds.

I'd like to get a complete tech situation from Kitties if we can manage it. Perhaps in the spirit of team cooperation they can provide us info on who has what. Or, we can tech alphabet after guilds. We need it for PP anyway. Or, probably we should just go for banking and try to pull our economy back out of the gutter. Those four cities founding at once certainly hurt.

Yes, I'm all over the place today with tech plans. I'm racking my brain trying to come up with some sort of solution to our inability to keep up in tech.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Or burning cities will reduce their ability to tech. Just have to find the least expensive way to ruin everyone else's economies.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I played T101 this morning before work, no photos, and reporting from memory (bad idea, not reliable). I think we finished our second space ship engine and should be ready to launch in....OK, even my memory isn't that bad.

I left research at 0% saving cash, we're back to saving up quite slowly since slamming down those cities. I didn't send the Hindu to Tim Pawlenty after all, I just went ahead and 3 pop whipped the courthouse there, mostly because that city has almost all of the infrastructure it needs already. I don't remember if it has barracks or not so we could build some and start pumping maces and x-bows, or start building triremes so we'll have at least something resembling a navy. At a minimum it needs a few more units for garrison, unless we believe that if it builds two triremes we can prevent a landing (not possible if an enemy has more than 3 galleys). Instead of sending the Hindu to Tim I sent it toward Mitt, who has not yet begun his court house. I set Mitt to build a Christian so we can get a long overdue monastery in Newt. When we're running max science that is worth an extra 15 beakers per turn so it's worth it. I think Sian's AP religion is Buddhism, so as long as we don't have that faith in any of our cities we aren't subject to any bullshit AP vote nonsense causing us anger for defying edicts (or am I confusing that with the UN maybe?)

What else...I held off on 3 pop whipping Herman Cain's courthouse, his Hindu arrives next turn then we can get OR bonus on the whips. It may take it down to needing 2 whips to complete, but that's OK too. We'll be at size 4 instead of 3, so we'll regrow to 6 faster and can whip Herman again sooner. Mao likes this plan either way.

I sent the mace built in Mitt toward our jungle region, wasn't sure where else he'd be more needed. I feel relatively safe in the north (Jon, Mitt, Rick, and Newt can all quickly pump units if needed), but we don't have high production potential in the south so we should keep more of our army down there since it can't as easily be reinforced. I think we should strongly garrison those southern cities first, then worry about the islands in terms of taking units built in our core. Whatever units Gary and Michele can build will obviously garrison the western island holdings, the two eastern ones (I've forgotten their names, gold city and wines city NE) will eventually be reinforced from our core cities as they have low production and not a ton of food to whip troops into being.

Do you think since our tech path is going to be militarily focused for a while that we should generate another Great Scientist to help bulb down an economic path, so we can kind of do both at once? I'd have to check to see what tech we could bulb next with a GS, but it likely isn't on our war tech path. Maybe Philo is next? I don't remember.

Wasn't this a great update, with dodgy intel? (Don't forget that no one does dodgy intelligence reports like Republican appointed spooks).

[Ichabod]

The reports here are awesome.

Good work, guys!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T102

Sian 407 Gold 354GPT (in GA?) - GNP 611
Kitties 1 gold 0GPT - GNP 473
Dazed 553 gold 151 GPT - 245
Us 374 gold 148 GPT - GNP 252

Sian finished Statue of Zeus and probably got a bunch more fail gold. I'd have to open the save from last turn to get a look at his gold. Xenu, please track this turn by turn, if you can.

Kitties teched liberalism, not sure what they took. Nationalism and PP still on the board, can't take astronomy (no compass). We can't see past paper, could have taken education. Also could have taken economics for the GM. That would be my guess.

Moved some units around, EoT Courthouse in Bachman. That city is really coming along nicely. LB in Rick Perry. EoT 103 we should have both missionaries on the mined hill 8,7 of Rick Perry for the boat to take to our islands in NE. I also whipped the forge into Herman Cain. This turn you can 2 pop whip the forge in McCain 8/6, wait a turn, then probably triple whip that courthouse, -15.66 on maintenance now. After that, a couple turns later depending, double whip the library or something for culture. Going to be a culture fight with Kitties for sure.

I'm wondering if something is afoot between Dazed and Kitties. I've seen funny stuff north of Huntsman. A few turns back Kitties built a road in Dazed's land on the hill, now Dazed is moving a mace around up there. Can he even build those yet? He's still in Barbarism. I'm suspicious. Maybe a gifted unit?

I took a long look at the game this morning and now I'm late for work, so this is all I have time for right now.

[spacetyrantxenu]

If they do have something going on that's up to them. If they attack us that would make them obvious NAP breakers, so I doubt that is the case. But if it is, we can't do anything about it other than whip LBs everywhere and make them pay for their sins.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T 103

Not a lot happened this turn, really.

Kitties GA ends, switch to Nationhood. Let's see those power numbers now. I hope they're not actually coming after us.

Turn reporting, now with pictures because Xenu said so!! :neenernee

Whipped Forge in McCain (8/6). Now that we're at 50% production bonus, we'll chop those trees. Look for a courthouse whip soon, too.
Those maintenance costs are insane.

Long term, I see this city being our GP farm. A little more food than is needed for a pure draft camp, I think. I'll have to run the numbers closely, but I think we can get the best drafting out of Giuliani.



Giuliani: I see +13 food at size 5 if we irrigate grass tiles. No way I want cottages here anyway, given the proximity to the border and easy pillaging. A draft camp would be a good cultural buffer. Probably would piss Dazed off, but I don't really care.



Bachman: This one is coming along nicely. I don't see an immediate threat (not that that means one doesn't exist), so I think we can continue to lay down the infrastructure until we see someone's power spike. I'm thinking market next, then library. We spend more turns saving cash these days than running beakers.

Even with the courthouse, that maintenance is rough. At least this city is pulling its weight. We need calendar next to get these happiness resources hooked up so we can continue to maximize this city and Moai.



Newt, you old Fascist you... I wish that we had gotten down the cottage incubator city to cover the fish to the SW of Newt. This city would be much better for having three towns down there now. PP is going to be big for us, if the game is even still competitive by then.

Demos:

Sian 460 gold, 100% science
Kitties 30 gold, 100% science
Dazed 701 gold, 155 GPT
US: 101 gold, 100% science

Other stuff:

• Cow tile in Gary Johnson still at 54/45% culture in favor of us. Monument finished (I know, bleh move, but I don't want that tile flipping), Temple now (4t w/o whip), then Market. Civ-city builder at work...
  
  
• Chop went into Cheney's forge, next chop up there into Huckabee's forge.
  
  
• Moved the missionaries. They'll get on the boat for the NE island next turn. Three cities left and we're done spending hammers on this project.
  

That's all. Not quite as exciting as your PB7 turn. :duel: