[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[Sullla]

Pindicator did not accept our resource trade. We have three unhappy cities as a result, ugh. I was hoping that sugar resource would tide us over for the next 3-4 turns while waiting for our silks and dyes to come online. Going to need to do some tile juggling as a result in the planning.

REM has picked up Steam Power tech (bad) but his GNP is now below ours (good).

[scooter]

Pindicator did not accept our resource trade. We have three unhappy cities as a result, ugh. I was hoping that sugar resource would tide us over for the next 3-4 turns while waiting for our silks and dyes to come online. Going to need to do some tile juggling as a result in the planning.

REM has picked up Steam Power tech (bad) but his GNP is now below ours (good).

Really wish I had locked down a trade partner much sooner. Part of the issue is that our incense is only worth +1, so it's less valuable to neighbors. Some people (like Donovan/Dreylin) already have a happy-happy deal worked out too. Worth checking on Dreylin, because I'm sure he is struggling with happy right now and would probably be willing to accept something if he's got any spare. When I get home, I'll try to take a look and see if there's any quick trades we could make, but I'm guessing we won't get bailed out.

[Fluffball]

I love the overview shots of your lands, the workshop smoke trails everywhere make it look like an industrial dystopian novel based on the Soviet Bloc. I whipped you up a quick national flag.

http://i.imgur.com/BwsQAxs.jpg

[Sullla]

Thanks Fluffball! I also imagine our civ as being roughly again to mid-19th century Britain in the Midlands, with factories going up everywhere. It probably wouldn't be the nicest place to live.

I take responsibility for the unhappiness in our cities. We have both silks and dyes in our territory, neither one improved or connected to our trade network. I didn't prioritize improving either one since we only needed to ride out a couple of turns here before the Nationhood penalties wear off, and we're settling on top of silks in about five more turns. It seemed like a waste of worker labor with so many other (better) tiles needing to be improved. I also really thought pindicator would accept that resource trade with us. Ah well, we'll survive.

Micro notes for unhappiness:

* Let's move the rifle heading down from Radio into Pasteurization to keep it happy. We should be OK with machine gun + rifle at the southern island city for the moment, and we'll build an infantry in Pasteurization and ferry it across to join them.

* Cotton Gin can just live with the unhappy face. I agree that there's no point in growing it above size 10, just work Scientist specialists for the time being. Drafting penalty wears off in 2 turns anyway.

* Radio is in the same situation, only we don't want to hire specialists here because we're growing onto good workshop tiles. I think we just live with the unhappiness and call it a day. Drafting penalty wears off in 3 turns.

Other stuff from the turn:



Pindicator popped a Golden Age and swapped civics; he also founded a city this turn. It will be interesting to see where he stands at the end of this Golden Age relative to the other teams. He doesn't have Scientific Method or Communism techs, so he won't be able to go into State Property by the end of this Golden Age unless something really weird happens.



There's no need to keep our galleon and units on the defensive tile right now since Dreylin can't declare war. Let's move the galleon to the tile south of the sheep and unload the grenadier onto the sheep tile. We save money by having them in our culture, and the galleon will be needed to ferry the settler coming out of the capital in a few turns anyway. (We need to kick out the grenadier to make room for the settler!)

No other notes for this turn, I'm happy with our micro plan. I'll make the small edits to reflect the unhappy faces tomorrow. We remain easily on pace to discover Assembly Line tech on T305. Good luck scooter.

[scooter]

Turn 299



2 of Donovan's cavs disappeared along with a cannon. Not sure what he's up to, but he didn't attack Dreylin when the treaty expired.



I did offer this to Dreylin. The gems are worth +1 happy more than incense, so he may well say no, but he's the only one who could keep up from having unhappiness at turn roll.



Sullla - these units were one tile short of being able to cover Pasteurization. So I thought about this, and I came up with a weird solution that hopefully won't give you nightmares.



I unloaded the Galleon rifle to cover it. The settler sits exposed for 1T (just this one). We can safely do this since it borders Dreylin, and he can't declare war. Next turn the city is built, and we immediately carry a pair of units into the city via Galleon and unload them. This prevents Pasteurization from being unhappy. Should be a risk-free move.



I also made a micro tweak here by hiring a scientist rather than working an extra coast. We get an additional 10b this way in exchange for giving up 2 (food)hammers, but it's even better than that since we're going straight onto research next turn, so the 2 hammer "loss" won't be realized for quite awhile.

Also, I've seen this glitch before... But for some reason it claims a 3F surplus right now. Adding a second scientist (dropping a coast) will display both a 1F surplus on the hammer box and a 1F loss on the foodbox. Why is this again? Anyway, that's why I didn't hire a second scientist.



Some good news. After pindicator fired his golden age and REM presumably picked a tech, we're still in second by a very small margin. We're also apparently producing more hammers than golden age pindicator. He's further behind us than I realized. Again, our GNP is being wealth/research subsidized right now, but we don't necessarily know that the other guys aren't doing the same.



Don't think I've shown this in awhile. Dreylin still doesn't even have Steam Power, and he's been saving gold for pretty much the entirety of his Gaspar war, so it's not like he's been seriously working on it. He's got to be like 30T away from Assembly Line at this rate. I keep expecting him to switch over to Rep scientist spam to save himself, but I don't think he's done it yet.



Telegraph settler comes out EoT. That'll take the deer/sheep/incense/stone filler spot. The Steam Engine settler is headed up to Textile Island. Haber Process starts what will end up being a quadruple-chopped settler next turn. Location TBD. I have a couple ideas, and I'll try to get to that shortly.

[Sullla]

Replaying to some of the issues from last turn, and then some new stuff from the current turn (the big Turn 300!)

* I'm fine with your unit moves at Pasteurization. Scary as it is to drop off an unescorted settler, we've had vision in this part of the world for a long time with our explorer, and no one seems to be doing much of anything over here. I think it's a manageable risk. We avoid having any unhappy faces at Pasteurization, and our defensive units are back on the island by the end of this turn. Besides, like you said Dreylin can't declare war on us for another 6 turns, and that's the only way we could be in danger.

* Dreylin did not accept our incense for gems trade. I guess will be an autarky game for us then, at least in resources.

* Nice city micro at Cotton Gin to work around the unhappy face. I agree that there's no reason to grow this city and we may as well work some specialists moving forward. (Also need to workshop the plains tile here when we get a chance.) To answer your question, unhappy faces do not eat food when building a settler or worker; that's why the city is showing up with +3 food. It also makes this moment a particularly good time to build a worker, as the unhappy face isn't counting against us. Not intended but we'll take it!

On to the current turn. Apparently, lots of people are changing civics this turn:



Dreylin is now in Representation/Bureaucracy/Slavery/State Property/Theocracy. His research rate remains awful, with another turn passing with no techs discovered. Their civ also gained all of 18 gold last turn; I hope for their sake that wasn't at 100% wealth. They are still building even more military, now over 900k military power - it has to be killing their economy. I continued to be puzzled by this whole strategic move. Running over Gaspar/Noble was a great decision, but surely they need to stop and consolidate now, right? They can't win the game with just a big army of rifles and cavs. We'll have infantry in 5 more turns, and REM won't be far behind us. I feel like this is the Industrial Age equivalent of building more and more and more axes after successfully hitting a neighbor. It works for a while but you need better units eventually.

BGN also swapped into militaristic civics, the Nationhood/Theocracy pair. Civstats says he drafted the maximum three times on his turn. Both of us expect someone to run over him in the near future; it's a shame he's not closer to us. Get some defenses man!

We also need to watch the cultural borders at Induction Coil closely, since pindicator is now in Caste System and can Artist spam his fish city to generate culture. It might be worthwhile to Build Culture there for a couple turns just to get over 100 culture where we'll be safe.



Here in the south, this new worker from Cotton Gin and the two units (rifle + machine gun) northeast of Pasteurization will hop onto the galleon this turn and unload in the new city. Over the following turns, that galleon will need to start heading east and get over to Steam Engine for settler ferrying duty on Turn 305. More on this in a minute.



Here's city #1 to be planted this turn. This is going to be a very important strategic location, bringing dyes and rice online plus adding more strategic control over this body of water to our south. If Dreylin continues to ignore this region and we feel confident in our military position, I'd love to plant another city later in the same "Spinning Jenny" spot, due south of Cotton Gin. That will depend on what happens as the game progresses, of course.



City #2 to be planted this turn is going on the yellow dot at the right edge of the screen. This is a quality "safe" spot in our territory that we've been ignoring for a long time in favor of claiming other strategic locations. I didn't get a great picture, but I'm sure scooter will do so when we found the city.

The settler currently in progress at Steam Engine will found a city on the western edge of Textile Island, directly on top of the silks resource. It is just off the edge of the screenshot above. The settler that we just started in Haber Process should go to the blue dot pictured here. With the lake and the claims tile it won't require too much labor to get started, and it will pick up a handful of tiles that Haber and Radio just miss out on. We also need it to help secure our supply of oil for later on, and the clams will provide much needed health as we get ready to fill our cities with factories and coal plants. (The rice and the clams are both worth +2 health apiece, since essentially every city is coastal and has a harbor.) I especially like sending the Haber Process settler here because we don't even need a road to this spot! Seems like our strongest option to me.



Steam Engine will produce its current settler T302, and then has enough overflow to produce another settler T305 after just 3 turns of production. I believe that we should send that settler to the green dot hill tile on Textile Island, directly on top of the silver resource. We were originally thinking of putting two cities in this area, but I don't think there's enough food resources to justify that, especially given the cost of each settler. I would also feel better defending this city if it were placed on a hill. We can build the settler at Steam Engine T305, then we have enough overflow to build an infantry the following turn (T306), which can be used to defend this city. Infantry in a city on a hill should be enough to deter casual attacks, and we'll reinforce later with more units. From what I've seen, this seems to be a relatively quiet part of the map anyway - pindicator has been a good neighbor thus far, plus his power is below ours on the bar graphs.

Scooter, what were you thinking in terms of settler spot? These locations make the most sense to me. We go from 8 cities to 13 cities in the next half dozen turns, then we build our factories and consolidate for a little bit, before looking to push out again. I have the micro stuff and sandbox updated through the current turn, and I'll poke around expanding it for the future tonight.

Readers: we have a lot of cities upcoming as you just saw. Feel free to suggest away with more names.

[Fluffball]

Readers: we have a lot of cities upcoming as you just saw. Feel free to suggest away with more names.

Battery. Such a critical and world changing invention; the ability to store power for later use. (Edit: Or perhaps electrochemical cell if you want to get all fancy.)

[picklepikkl]

Bechamp Reduction; it's a chemical process used to create aniline on an industrial scale, allowing for synthetic dyes to become a massive German industry in the late 19th century.

[Sullla]

The settler that we just started in Haber Process should go to the blue dot pictured here. With the lake and the claims tile it won't require too much labor to get started, and it will pick up a handful of tiles that Haber and Radio just miss out on. We also need it to help secure our supply of oil for later on, and the clams will provide much needed health as we get ready to fill our cities with factories and coal plants. (The rice and the clams are both worth +2 health apiece, since essentially every city is coastal and has a harbor.) I especially like sending the Haber Process settler here because we don't even need a road to this spot! Seems like our strongest option to me.

Did I say that this city would be getting founded T304? After going ahead further in the sandbox, forest chops actually get this city out on T303, which means that we need Radio to start a work boat this turn so it can be in place to net the clams when this city gets founded. Change made in the micro plan.

[Kurumi]

Important inventions and no mention of Alcohol Distillation? Come on...