[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[GermanJoey]

He got them both, but I don't think the MoM would affect lib.

[NobleHelium]

Catwalk got both MoM and Taj and is still not winning? That's never happened before.

[GermanJoey]

Catwalk got both MoM and Taj and is still not winning? That's never happened before.

Looks like he put everything into getting the Taj solely to get a free revolt into Nationhood in order to draft dozens of maces... not exactly the recipe for victory.

[spacetyrantxenu]

OK, turn report. I couldn't make heads or tails out of most of what the workers were doing. Looks like they were automated. Otherwise I can't explain how this happened.




Now that those workers are there now, next turn they may as well chop that forest before the settler plants a city. I'm not sure where the garrison for that city is, I presume it's one of those nine population points in the city to the west. Looks like one to draft next turn, and send something over to cover the new city.

Speaking of drafting, German Jojo finished Rifling so as of this turn England can finally draft redcoats. I'm the game admin, not a player, and I'm thoroughly spoiled so I'm not going to make policy for England. But my god are some of these border cities woefully under defended. So I drafted 3 cities for redcoats, I don't think anyone can argue that was unfair. I put signs around the empire with suggestions for turns to draft in the near term, basically anywhere that wasn't going to grow onto a good tile I thought to draft it the turn it would grow so it would instantly regrow. That sort of standard stuff. Knowing the wider game state beyond England I won't comment if more defense is necessary or not, but if I'm subbing for someone without instructions and see vulnerable border cities defended by a single ancient age unit....yeah, those get drafted for redcoats.

Jojo had a great merchant sailing north toward 2metraninja's land to do a trade mission. I continued sailing north, as well as scouting out some mission values in cities I had visibility on. It isn't visible in this picture but the GM mission will be worth 1300 gold in a few cities further east. I imagine it will be about that much in the capital but I'm not searching for that formula, no no no. I put a sign on a tile where the galley can get visibility on both cities, you can check the mission values from there and figure out which city will give more cash for the mission. It's probably the capital since it's size 14, but the size 9 city has the Temple of Artemis and I don't know how much that modifies the value.




There isn't a ton else to say about England. It just feels like the life went out of this empire about the time Catwalk started drafting maces. Turns out he drafted 12 maces and called it an invasion. Here's the map, then more about English history:




The empire itself isn't too bad. There are a lot of mature cottages, there's a good leader (Fin/Phi), good UB (Stock Exchanges are coming online now), and a good UU (redcoats just now becoming available). It's 1150 AD with draftable redcoats, that doesn't seem too bad on the face of it. There should be an opportunity right now to go crush someone, but the latent draft anger from the last round kind of hurts now, and the fact that the last war was a complete waste of resources really brings the problems into perspective. Next slide:




Confirmation, yes, I wasn't paying attention before, Catwalk got both MoM and Taj Mahal, but as Jojo pointed out, he didn't pursue PHI universities. I know with Jowy as one neighbor (always aggressive and a threat to attack anything that breathes and probably many things that don't) and Nakor surprisingly building a military on his other border that Catwalk had to maintain more of an army than he'd have liked, given his previous games. With that said, building a force because it's necessary for defense and spending a force for no return in a bloody war are two different things, so when he had that fruitless war against Jowy earlier he really drained the life out of his empire and flattened out his growth curve compared to the other contenders in this game. This isn't spoiler info, it's all visible in the England demographics and graphs (not pictured).




Anyway, there should be a lot to like about Elizabeth of England coming into the late Renaissance, but, not so much in this case. I think there's some fun left in improving this empire and trying out some goals. I think I have an idea of what Jojo was after:




One note, I changed builds in two cities that were building redcoats. I don't see a reason to spend 110 hammers when you can spend 1 pop instead. I think I changed one city to a catapult, the other to wealth. I didn't change any other builds.

I put down a few signs for tile improvement suggestions but the first order of business is probably to stop all the damned automated workers. What's the keystroke for that? Something and backspace? I never need to use it so I don't know.

Dick76, are you still taking over here? I really didn't want to make everyone else wait anymore and since you haven't played yet it wasn't like I could ruin any of your plans playing without instructions. You have a turn to play now, since I've rolled it and England isn't at war with anyone. Good luck, have fun.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I'm pretty sure it is Alt + Backspace to cancel all worker actions at once.

Nice history, though I prefer them written in the blood of my enemies.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Nice history, though I prefer them written in the blood of my enemies.

Sorry, it's a Catwalk thread. Sometimes blood is not included.

[GermanJoey]

Ha, the 4 workers on that tile was an accident. I had meant to move 3 there and then chop before the settler plants, but accidentally selected a wrong one and moved it before I realized what happened. The garrison there was indeed intended to be a drafted redcoat... I didn't draft any new muskets during my turns with rifling being so close and many cities still suffering from draft unhappniess from Catwalk's war with Jowy. So yeah, Nakor could have murderlated England in the preceding few turns, but that seems unlikely now. There shouldn't be any automated workers unless Dick logged in and did that. There's not too much other crap for them to do besides road, anyways, and replace some cottages with farms and some farms with cottages depending on the purpose of the city.

A trade mission is worth 500+200*C, with C being equal to the value that a trade route with that city would give. So, its generally worth doing the trade mission with the ToA city, although I couldn't figure out where it was exactly, just knew it was somewhere up in Mali and that I wouldn't be around by the time it finally got there. The ToA city probably gives the better trade route especially if its on the coast, as it probably has a harbour by now. I was thinking the cash could be used to either upgrade muskets or be reinvested in Education, literally in this case... saving the unit for another dozen turns to spend on a 2-GP GA is also an option.

It can still be worth building redcoats the "long" way in some of those junk cities I think... yeah whipping them costs more pop than drafting, but only 1 unhappiness compared to 3.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Junk cities usually implies low population filler cities. Typically, these have the most happiness surplus, but they're only draftable if you can get the city big enough. In general, I'd save the draft for cities that can do them and use the whips on support units like catapults, mounted, etc.

Now, blood!!!

[NobleHelium]

I'm pretty sure it is Alt + Backspace to cancel all worker actions at once.

I think you missed a huge opportunity here not to give him a key combination that would delete all his workers.

[spacetyrantxenu]

If you leave them automated long enough about half of them will wander into unprotected border positions where they can be gobbled up by anyone. That's half as good right?