[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[Zed-F]

Even if not it’s probably still better to get the galleon back earlier for the next settler & some missionaries to get fish in culture. Frigates are in what, ~12 turns? We have a limited amount of time before our core converts from economic production to military production and those galleons will be needed to shuffle troops rather than settlers.

I think we should still have time to get castles built in our western core, they are cheap for us. We’ll need the workers & missionaries too. If we’re going to run out of time for anything, I think we’ve said it’s the workboats that will suffer, if it comes down to that, since some of those could be built locally.

[scooter]

Did you remember that an oasis takes two moves?

I did not. This is what happens when I play while sick.

Even if not it’s probably still better to get the galleon back earlier for the next settler & some missionaries to get fish in culture. Frigates are in what, ~12 turns? We have a limited amount of time before our core converts from economic production to military production and those galleons will be needed to shuffle troops rather than settlers.

I think we should still have time to get castles built in our western core, they are cheap for us. We’ll need the workers & missionaries too. If we’re going to run out of time for anything, I think we’ve said it’s the workboats that will suffer, if it comes down to that, since some of those could be built locally.

Yeah I'm not too worried about the WBs. The cities in the area that get Fish hooked quickly can easily do a couple 2 -> 1 WB whips just to speed the neighboring cities along. Honestly the main bottleneck is the 3 missionary limit - constantly tied up while they are in transit. But it's OK, we're managing fine enough.

[Zed-F]

About how many turns is SD from Galleons? We think he can’t bulb Astro because he’s either bulbing Alphabet, Paper, or Printing Press in preference to Astro as he’s already teched Civil Service. He could hard tech Astro and bulb Paper, though. His max tech rate is worse than ours, but he does get KTBs. I think we get Frigates maybe before he gets Galleons, but it could be close.

[Qgqqqqq]

Oasis often trips me up as well (especially when you spring it on FFH2) - easy mistake to make.

[Zed-F]

Also…. what is Bing doing, whipping up a storm two turns in a row now? Is he still trying to do something on the Yuris border? This can’t be a good strategy when we have galleons and are soon to get Frigates.

[scooter]

About how many turns is SD from Galleons? We think he can’t bulb Astro because he’s either bulbing Alphabet, Paper, or Printing Press in preference to Astro as he’s already teched Civil Service. He could hard tech Astro and bulb Paper, though. His max tech rate is worse than ours, but he does get KTBs. I think we get Frigates maybe before he gets Galleons, but it could be close.

Superdeath actually just picked up Paper, which you can see in a screenshot below. I suspect he used his Scientist on it and is just gonna grind through Astro now. Might take him a dozen turns? It's hard to gauge because I'd expect his break-even to be worse than that, but he has Representation, so bursting tech is possible by just mass hiring scientists. He can also do mass wealth/research builds. Will check food graphs next turn for any signs of the former.

Also…. what is Bing doing, whipping up a storm two turns in a row now? Is he still trying to do something on the Yuris border? This can’t be a good strategy when we have galleons and are soon to get Frigates.

I think there's a few things going on here.





Yuris just picked up a Scientist that is surely slated for Astro. That will put him something like 800-900 beakers out? So he might get it in 4-5 turns. Of course, with no CoL he still has to tech 3 techs post-Astro to even be able to build Galleons. So while he is sort of the closest, he's still got a ways to go.





Cairo picked up Machinery, so he's slowly headed towards Astro as well. However, Bing is still miles away. He's the last remaining player to not have Machinery. So he needs Machinery-Optics-Paper-Astro. And...






He's still at war with Yuris, who it must be noted does not have Feudalism. So maybe he's going to try to take that random city in his face that he chased away? Hard to say. But it's notable that they never made peace.





I've been scouting players with Caravels and have been shocked by how many cities are either empty or may as well be, so it was a stark contrast to find this from Cairo. This is more real defenders than I've found in every SD city combined.

[Zed-F]

Yeah it’s kinda surprising that SD has picked traits that say ‘I’m prickly’ and has researched techs that allow him to build units that are prickly, but hasn’t actually built many of those units that would make him actually prickly. I wonder if it makes sense to try to alpha strike him while he’s weak. It’s harder to make conquests in his land profitable due to distance maintenance but it might be easier to acquire some in the first place. Of course as soon as someone calls him on his farmer’s gambit he’ll whip up a storm and declare ‘forever’ war (with ymmv on the ‘forever’ part) so I don’t know that’s better than just crashing into Bing, who has a large number of not-that-scary units that are mostly on the Yuris border, few prospects of getting scarier ones quickly, and whose lands are easier to integrate.

Bing doesn’t have Civil Service either, so he also needs that to get Paper. But he does have Construction for some reason? Not sure why he went there. Could have to do with the Yuris conflict I guess. Or maybe he wants Engineering for Castles and maximum prickliness with his medieval defenders?

Speaking of great people, I think we were planning to get into a second GA after Frigates, Banking & Theology. At what point do we start finishing up Unta’s GP? I guess when we throw it depends on exactly what our goals are and how the timings work out.

[scooter]

One very minor thing I did forget about until a couple turns ago.






I gotta pop borders here, and none of my eastern cities are Hindu, which made missionary distance quite far, and Astronomy obsoletes Monuments. I'm very not used to the latter ever mattering in games. I say that because a few turns ago I considered just using a Monument in this city before realizing it wasn't going to work.





Fortunately, there is a plan for it. I began ferrying one over from Y'Ghatan, and the signs more or less make it clear. It does mean One Eye Cat will have to live without the Fish for another ~15T, but it's OK. The Crabs will be hooked shortly, and it's getting two chops for development. But just a small thing I found amusing as you so rarely find yourself at Astronomy in a game wondering where you're going to get a border pop from. Generally you've teched Music by this point and can simply Build Culture if you have to or any number of other methods. I'm still pretty convinced Mao was the best leader in this setup, especially for Carthage, but I also have been thoroughly convinced of Tarkeel's pregame reminder of the value of Creative on a water map.


I'll also say that I'm not 100% sure Organized needed to be banned here with the benefit of hindsight. Financial probably did, but I'm not totally sure Organized is significantly better than Exp/Pro/Cre. I think Expansive in particular is in a really good place in this kind of game.


Side note: the settler completing in Ubaryd next turn will go to the long delayed Black Dot for Crab/Iron. Should be settled either T153 or T154, depending on how I juggle the Galley/Galleon and settler/missionary.





Bing continues his buildup. You can see the reminder I set for my Caravel in his land - rather than keep defogging I need to verify that this isn't aimed at me and he's not building up on his south coast. I highly doubt it, but good thing I can check. Part of why I wonder is Yuris is not building up at all. However, I spotted something very telling this turn.





Yuris teched Feudalism. I thought this was weird when I first saw it as it seems like a diversion from Astro, but thinking on it, I actually get it. I think what happened here is he needed to open up Civil Service anyway to get to Paper, and while Feudalism is the slightly more expensive path there, it's probably the more useful path given that he needs some actual defensive units. Whether that's for fear of Bing or fear of me is harder to say, but it also might explain why his Power flatlined for a few turns as he waited for Longbows to become available. (I must note: tomorrow will be Turn 150 and still no Samurai buildable for Japan.)





Meanwhile the colonization of Ice Island is nearly complete. The next two turns will see two more cities complete (there's a settler under that Missionary), there'll be a one turn gap, and then I'll settle the one tile island. Pale completed another Work Boat this turn that is headed this direction, and I may do one more from there. Missionary logistics have been tricky due to the 3 build limit, so I may have Letheras actually whip one for the city settling next turn. Commodore making all the seafood second ring was a good but annoying touch here.

[scooter]

Bing doesn’t have Civil Service either, so he also needs that to get Paper. But he does have Construction for some reason? Not sure why he went there. Could have to do with the Yuris conflict I guess. Or maybe he wants Engineering for Castles and maximum prickliness with his medieval defenders?

I think this is most likely to be Catapults for that Yuris extreme pink dot they're still technically at war over. But I need to get vision to confirm.

Speaking of great people, I think we were planning to get into a second GA after Frigates, Banking & Theology. At what point do we start finishing up Unta’s GP? I guess when we throw it depends on exactly what our goals are and how the timings work out.

Soon as Unta is not really needed to support the western expansion anymore. In addition, Malaz City now has enough pop and specialist slots to work the rest of its specialists too. Right now it could work 4 specialists without starving and generate a GP in 6T. Unta is a touch further away in GPP but has more population. I need to figure out timings and decide which one should be first vs second. The other thing is due to lack of Caste, I'm not going to be able to go with pure GP pools. There will be some risk of overlap and getting the same GP type twice. In the case that happens, the fallback plan will be the Economics Merchant. In the most unlikely outcome - double Merchants - well I dunno what I'll do honestly . We're probably talking about a single digits likelihood there though, so that much is good. Overall I'd estimate we're like 15-20T from the next Golden Age?

[Zed-F]

Re: border pops - One thing I thought of (briefly) is that Castle is a viable emergency backup border pop mechanism. Very slow, but efficient in that we want a castle anyway and it's cheap for us. Very unusual for that to be a plausible option, but here we are. Especially for a city like Black Dot that IIRC doesn't really need quick border pops to claim resources, it could be a good option. We probably want a missionary where possible for efficient building construction while we're still in OR anyway, but for cities with low priority border pops, Castle buiilding could help offset priority calls regarding limited missionary numbers being made in favour of other cities.

Re: Yuris Feudalism - He's still in a GA, isn't he? I thought so based on the demos at least. Maybe this is at least partly a matter of wanting to get into Vassalage before his GA ends. Can get screenshots of all the graphs?

Re: our next GA - 15-20T sounds good. Assuming Chemistry next we should have time to get at least one of Banking/Theology before firing and maybe both depending on how we time it and assuming our GPs pan out to allow it. It should also give our new cities at least a little time in slavery before we swap into Caste during the GA so we can build GPPs for our 3rd GA.