[SPOILER] Asoka of the Vikings (Nakor & Gaspar)

[Gaspar]

Going to look at the turn, then the diplo. We'll need slavery as soon as we pop the Gsci in Crossing, the Paradise cities really need the whip.

On tech - let's just push towards the Liberalism plan for the short term anyway. While Locke should certainly get it, we can use Liberalism regardless, and by discovering it reasonably quickly, we can force Locke to not sandbag it and take something better. It might be running wealth in our core cities once Education comes in to push it as fast as we can. Right now we're at 530 bpt @ 100%, so that's 5T for lib. By the time we're researching it, hopefully we'll be close enough to 600 that would make it come in 4.

[Nakor]

The game is back up!
Beaverpass finished a Forge, going LB - Settler for a filler city close by.

Not much to add... LP is running away with the game...

[Gaspar]

The game is back up!
Beaverpass finished a Forge, going LB - Settler for a filler city close by.

Not much to add... LP is running away with the game...

I think LP has already run away with game. I'm a might bit occupied, though I'll get a look in the game and get some more comprehensive thoughts either later tonight or tomorrow. Sorry!

[Gaspar]

Ok, looking at the turn...

Just a couple of quick tweaks, emphasizing growth/commerce everywhere. Fired the artist in Fisherman now that borders have popped, Crap will get the same treatment next turn. No real reason to emphasize production in our core cities right now, a little extra growth will do a lot more for us than a Market will. Of course we'll need to get there eventually.

Regarding the tech plan discussed with plako, I think we have to get Education/Printing Press before we push ships. This sort of the mistake we made in PBEM12, pushing military before economic. We can get Compass -> Optics -> Astronomy in approximately 15T at any point. Chemistry is a bigger issue, as we've ignored Construction. So we'd need Construction -> Engineering -> Gunpowder -> Chemistry. Right now, that looks approximately 25T. So 40T total for the Ship "beeline." I suspect that the combination of getting some Universities up and Printing Press will probably bring that down to something like 35T.

So we can do this, but its definitely ceding the economic high ground to Locke, who again, I'm not convinced is actually teching any faster than us at this point, he just had a head start. LP obviously needs to be brought back to the pack, but I'd like to see some other players making sacrifices economically as well. Frigates would be huge against LP though, I think any organized coastal blockade would cripple anyone on this map, we all can't help but have a ton of coastal cities (did we ban blockading?)

Here are my direct comments on the dogpile:

1. Keep it small. Given plako's read on rego, I can't help but wonder if rego's buddying up to LP. You can't be aggressive with both of your powerful neighbors. I'd trust plako and Locke here, maybe luddite. Nobody else.
2. Before we make a simple tech choice in this direction, I'd like assurances that a. we never see our units used against us and b. that whichever teams are involved are making an actual hammer commitment to this battle.
3. We make a specific agreement regarding territory. If we take stuff, who get's what.
4. We also make a NAP policy - if someone leaves the battle, they can't attack us for, say 20T. At the conclusion of the overall battle, we add in a 15T NAP or something. I say this because I don't want to run into someone pulling a Dantski and then turning the army on us like he should have on you in PB2.

But yeah, at the end of the day, might as well fight LP. :P

[Nakor]

I thought we could get this done, and I'm glad you proved me right.

Going PP - Edu - Compas - Optics - Astro gives us both Uni's (and Oxford) and Observatorys for better research. After that we can go the Chemistry line.

I think we must squeeze in Liberalism, Theology and HBR/Literature as well, the former for more civics the later for 2-movers and HE/NE....

Should we use the next Great Scientist on bulbing Edu or on a GA? I'm inclined to go with bulbing and use the next one for a GA or trade mission (Great Merchant).

We've got some time before this starts and the early techs should be done anyway, so I'll be kind to Plako...

[Ellimist]

So, we can do this, but its definitely ceding the economic high ground to Locke, who again, I'm not convinced is actually teching any faster than us at this point, he just had a head start. LP obviously needs to be brought back to the pack, but I'd like to see some other players making sacrifices economically as well.

Do you have graphs on everybody? Could you post the important(power/GNP/food/etc) ones?

[Gaspar]

Took a look at the new turn. Philosophy is due next turn, so next GP we can accelerate a little faster. Absolutely think we should bulb Education with the Gsci due in 2T, like I said, I think we should go for Liberalism next, just so Locke has to take Nationalism and can't sandbag it.

Again, moved all the units I was sure what you were doing with and ignored the rest. Did quite a bit of micro. Cities are definitely rounding into shape, though man do we have a fair few utterly lousy plants. Anyway, let's not get married to anything post Liberalism. We'll do Education, Liberalism and Printing Press next in some order, then we can go from there.

For Ellimist, here's graphs:



LP is in a class by himself, though a ton of that is culture, I still don't doubt his true research rate is a fair bit better than ours, however. Locke's line is peaks and valleys, but basically, its pretty much the same as ours, which is flatter. Everyone else is pretty firmly behind us and Locke.

Here's production:



Now, since we're at peace, we've been very heavily working commerce tiles over production tiles, working 2F2C water tiles to grow and emphasize tech rate over say, 1F3H mines which are basically superior tiles. But right now we need to grow to capacity in our developed cities, which don't have a lot they need to build. If we needed to gear up the war machine, we could generate a significantly larger number of hammers. Still, our lack of land shows here and in the next graph.

Crop Yield:



We're solidly middle of the pack here, and this is the best indicator of future potential on the board. You can see rego's only appearance on the top half of anything here, with his rampant city spam. In 30 or so turns, we'll be solidly behind all the players except Adlain, who god only knows what he's been doing, and mackoti, who got eaten by luddite.

Power:



This graph is completely meaningless at this point, but you asked for it, so there it is. You can see LP building no units whatsoever because he has a NAP with everyone until the end of time, if that's your thing. You can see rego and mackoti spike a little bit. rego I assume is a combination of MP for 4 billion cities and his border tensions with plako. mackoti, I dunno. How long is he NAP'ed with luddite, and does that even matter to him at this point? I can't imagine he'd be able to do any real damage anyway.

[Nakor]

Did the other moves and hit End Turn.

Guess we should set up a Champion Pitboss game! Love to see Speaker/Sullla against LP and Krill....

[Ellimist]

Thanks, that's a lot of useful detail.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Guess we should set up a Champion Pitboss game!

Funny, I've been discussing a "power players" Pitboss to follow this one with some of the best 8-12 players at RB. Don't know if the idea will ever get off the ground, but I think the lurker interest would be huge.