[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[Tohron]

I promoted the Grenadier to C2 and immediately regretted not taking Pinch instead.

I bet you were pinching yourself over that one

[Sullla]

Checked the game very briefly before heading to work. Donovan discovered Steel tech; really wondering what his game plan is with that choice. I'm not too comfortable with the situation on the pindicator border, and we can discuss the logistics of shifting another drafted rifle over there later today. Probably draft Cotton Gin, shuffle unit over to Steam Engine, shuffle that rifle down to the southeast. Good luck with the turn today, scooter.

[scooter]

Speaking of pindicator - I was thinking of offering him Open Borders on this turn. We'll be revolting into Nationhood, so even if he sees an empty city or two (they should be filled very soon anyway), it's not like he'll do anything about it with us drafting. This will let his Explorer escape, which he may appreciate. Plus with us leaving Mercantilism, we'll want Open Borders with a couple players to get more foreign trade routes going.

[Sullla]

Agree on offering pindicator Open Borders. We've both had chances to whack workers on our border, and the peace is holding thus far. We should also offer him that corn resource for free after our culture swallows it, but that's for a future turn.

[scooter]

I forgot to add - good call on the Observatory. I had it as Barracks because we had it temporarily penciled in, but I took a screenshot of the city with the idea to suggest that maybe straight onto an Observatory was best. Then when I got to the report I had like 20 screenshots and just started deleting extras, and I couldn't remember why the Steam Engine screenshot was significant, so I axed it. Oops . Thankfully you were on top of things.

Gaspar just played and whipped twice, but given his 4 cities (and his capital likely doesn't make sense to whip this turn due to chop), there's nothing to really complain about anymore. AnyI've been hoping for awhile he would magically finish Assembly Line and upgrade to some Infantry to halt Dreylin, but those hopes are pretty much gone now.

[scooter]

Turn 291

There's a lot to cover here. It was an eventful turn! We kicked it off with a Communism bulb and a revolt.



Demo/finance dump in spoilers because there's a few of them.

Before revolt



After revolt



After completing turn (a few new tile improvements/assignments, a few drafts, and a few fired specialists)

The short of all that is we're getting a lot of value out of those trade routes to BGN, and dropping distance maintenance sure doesn't hurt.



Previously we were getting 4c from trade routes, and now we're getting 11c. I think we need to sign OB pretty aggressively now to get the foreign routes going.



Offered OB here as planned. I also offered them to Gaspar because why not. We may get some income for his few remaining turns, and it'll let our Explorer enter their borders. I think we should also offer them to Donovan. Any thoughts on that? If these guys aren't so willing to sign OB, we can always just offer it to REM who we're guessing will be in State Property pretty soon. Maybe we can help each other with routes and lock Dreylin out of our routes.



Haber Process is pretty ridiculous in State Property mode. Drafted it this turn, but it'll grow on consecutive turns after this, so that takes the sting off of it.



I moved this drafted rifle onto the banana tile. Next turn we can load it onto the Galleon and unload it inside Antiseptic, giving us 4 units up there.



I also moved the Cotton Gin drafted rifle into Steam Engine, and I shuffled the Steam Engine rifle onto this tile. I agree that we definitely want a third unit in Induction Coil. I think we should get the experience Rifle in there, so I'm thinking next turn we swap positions of these two rifles, and the following turn we move the newly drafted 2xp rifle into Induction. The only reason I moved the Steam rifle onto this tile was so that we had the flexibility to change our minds next turn if Pindicator gave us some reason to do so.



Speaking of, Cossack here. I'm not necessarily worried, but it underscores the need to get a third unit into here.



Sullla - I went with something a little different than what you suggested here, but we obviously have time to change it. Instead of working artist + 2 coast (+build culture), I fired the artist and worked the horse. This nets us +1 culture, +1 food, and + 1 commerce in exchange for 4 beakers. I think this is ever so slightly worth it. If there's something I'm missing (or a slick micro reason I don't see), let me know and we can change it.



I dropped off the Explorer and also moved the Rifle onto the jungle hill tile to get a full view of the surrounding area. Good news: no huge incoming Cav stacks to mess us up.



Aggressive + Theocracy + Barracks means all these drafted Rifles will have instant pinch access which is pretty nice. I never choose Aggressive in the unmodded game because it's normally such a bad trait, but it's fun to play with it for once.

[Sullla]

Holy crap - those trade routes are worth a LOT more than I thought they would be! Hopefully pindicator will sign with us, he probably wants to get his stranded explorer out of our territory. I think we should offer Open Borders with REM, as he's going to be in Communism soon and there's a good chance he'll accept. Not having a shared border could also help there. With Gaspar/Noble too? Sure, why not. Take some extra income while we can still get it. I'd hold off with Donovan, as he's not pursuing Communism tech at all (he just researched Steel), and there would be no motive for him to accept. Scooter, do you want me to offer those Open Borders deals in-game, or should you do it? I'll be logging in later tonight to check.

Forming an international embargo against Dreylin on trade routes sure would be nice. Hopefully the other teams will play along. Even with just BGN, we're going to be well ahead of the sandbox pace on commerce, which means faster access to Assembly Line tech. Very nice.

Your build swap in Induction Coil makes sense to me scooter. I've been hesitant to sim much there since we don't know what tiles will be in our borders at what point in time.

More thoughts to come later tonight. By the way, did you guys see that we have 6 different cities growing in population next turn? State Property is pretty freaking amazing.

[picklepikkl]

Three civs are different shades of red. The success of Comintern was inevitable.

[scooter]

I went ahead and offered OB to everyone except Dreylin. Including Donovan, which I didn't really mean to do, but whatever. He'll probably just say no.

Every city having a free Harbor will help the trade routes a bit I imagine. As more people add cities to islands it'll get even better (foreign IC routes rule).

[Sullla]

Of course, the harbors! That explains why the trade routes are so valuable. Free harbors and water being everywhere on this map tilts the civics column even further in favor of State Property over Mercantilism. We also get 3 trade routes per city here in the late game, so foreign trade is worth a huge amount of cash. Getting Open Borders with some of the other teams would make a massive difference. I think we have good odds to get some trade going with pindicator; he already signed Open Borders with Donovan and REM, even though the agreement doesn't do anything for either side. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on all those proposals we made this turn.



Here's the value of our Open Borders with BGN: 14 commerce/turn. That's close to 10% of our overall economy at present, and BGN only has four cities total. Come on pindicator, you know you want to get your explorer out of our territory...



Let's discuss unit logistics briefly. We drafted Telegraph, Cotton Gin, and Haber Process this turn. Here are our respective (land) frontiers:

* Donovan border: we have 1 rifle and 1 machine gun, in a city on a hill with 40% defensive bonus. This area should be pretty safe, and we'll be drafting Radio next turn for another rifle. (I don't think we want to double draft Radio, since I'd rather let it keep growing than cap it around size 9-10.) We'll probably hold this rifle in Radio for now, and have it ready to move elsewhere as needed.

* Pindicator border: we have 1 rifle and 1 grenadier in Induction Coil. There's another rifle moving to the city to beef up the garrison. I think that's solid enough for now, with pindicator able to break through but not without a real effort. (I'm also going to suggest we Build Culture to get up to 100 culture and the 40% defensive bonus. We can get about 15 culture/turn here, so it won't take long.) Scooter, I'm also fine with your plan to shuffle the rifles to get the promoted one into Induction Coil. Finally, I was also intending the Telegraph missionary next turn to go to Induction Coil for the culture bonus, unless you think it's better served elsewhere.

* Dreylin border: we have 1 rifle and 2 grenadiers at the former barb city. There's another rifle about to be ferried up there next turn (the one drafted out of Haber Process). That's probably enough for the moment, as we can reinforce later if Dreylin starts to show any interest in the region. Scooter, I also think we want to shuffle the Telegraph rifle up to Haber Process, since the latter will be growing and Telegraph will be static for a while on a settler build. Maybe do that after pindicator moves his explorer through?

* Southern flank: yeah, these cities are still empty. But we have good vision in this region, and no one should be able to hit us without us having a chance to respond. Cotton Gin will draft a second rifle to defend itself in a few turns, and so will Pasteurization once it grows to size 6.

* Northern Island: we have one rifle in Spinning Jenny. It will draft another rifle in a few turns, and that should be plenty for now.

Let me know if you have other thoughts. We'll probably need to squeeze out another rifle somewhere when we start settling again, but that's for the future.



One last issue for the turn. I noticed that REM has a massive amount of production invested in this city; the formula works out to about 830 shields. That has to be a Statue of Liberty build, and he'll likely land the wonder barring a Great Engineer popping up somewhere. It's a good news / bad news deal. On the one hand, REM getting stronger helps him serve as a counterweight to Dreylin in this game. On the other hand, REM getting free (Representation) specialists in his 12 cities or whatever isn't exactly a good thing. I think this game is heading towards a three-way matchup between Dreylin, REM, and our team - each of us pursuing totally different strategies. You've got to love that setup.

For that matter, Dreylin's offensive seems to have stalled out somewhat. The low-hanging fruit has been captured from Gaspar/Noble, and no cities have changed hands the last two turns. The Dutch capital of Lance Armstrong is going to be a tough nut to crack: 40% cultural defenses + on a hill. Rifles with full fortify bonus will slaughter cavs under those conditions, even unpromoted rifles against Pinch cavs. Dreylin needs to drop the cultural defenses, and his frigates/galleons are not well positioned to reach Lance Armstrong by sea. Hopefully Dreylin will be stymied for a little while before he can move units into position, and the assault itself will be bloody.

Sandbox and micro plan have both been updated. Here's a link to download the current sandbox. Have fun.