[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[retep]

I like when people get paranoic Although I don't think there isn't any reason to be paranoic about your neighbours so far.

What is the tech path again? Please

[Fintourist]

What is the tech path again? Please

Probably close to this:
EOT118: Monarchy
EOT119: MC
EOT120: IW
EOT121: Construction
EOT122: Machinery
EOT124: Feudalism
EOT128-130: Guilds

IW and Construction could easily change places, Machinery and Feudalism as well. After Guilds we could grab Banking, Gunpowder or Engineering, go for Paper->Education/PP, Aesthetics+Lit+Drama or even beeline Astronomy, many options out there..

That's also a lot of tech-related score coming in during the next turns so I guess OH will be happy as our score probably gets closer to BGN and dtay

[Old Harry]

After Guilds we could grab Banking, Gunpowder or Engineering, go for Paper->Education/PP, Aesthetics+Lit+Drama or even beeline Astronomy, many options out there..

If we think we need to get reinforcements to the front quickly we'll want Engineering, if not then Banks are half price for us and there is an Economics Great Merchant to try to bag, although the Epics and Globe are a useful sidetrack. Which would you value most retep and THH?

I'd like to be ready to revolt to Free Market at the start or end of our 2-man golden age, we'll have a better idea of our tech speed and how feasible that will be in a couple of turns. We could try to figure out if anyone is ahead of us on the techs along that path using known tech bonus... I presume dtay and BGN will fight it out over Liberalism (not that I have any evidence to back that up) but who else might go for it? Kriice? TBS? Plako? WilliamLP?

That's also a lot of tech-related score coming in during the next turns so I guess OH will be happy as our score probably gets closer to BGN and dtay

[TheHumanHydra]

Engineering > Banking - Economics (even without Merchant) > top of tree for me. Backfill artsy techs on way to Mil. Trad. (which may come before or after other key military techs like Astronomy, Chemistry and Rifling depending on situation and other priorities [naval warfare / workshops and land defence / cottages (Printing Press) and land offence (but see Commodore's warning) respectively]).

[Fintourist]

I did not manage to play the turn until the end as I was blocking someone. So it possibly has to wait for ~24 hours before I can continue/finish. However, in short news: We are now Hindus and our civics are HR, Buro, Slavery and OR. Started Missionaries in all our 3 Hindu cities and "J" will finish one immediately as planned.

We are currently making 700 beakers with max research and what is ridiculous is that our overflow from Monarchy is enough to 1-turn Metal Casting. If we keep tech on and 1-turn those techs that I mentioned in my earlier post we will gather a crazy amount of overflow during the next turns.. BGN accepted OBs, Krill+Novice and dazedroyalty did not. I think our eastern continent scout will head back to Whosit's lands and our NE scouting galley will next go through Furungy's waters.

Micro stuff:
- If someone has extra time one could calculate whether it is better to finish HA now in Alfie and overflow next turn into forge or whether we want to put one more turn into aqueduct, finish HA next turn and overflow into forge then as Alfie will have religion and OR-bonus.. I'm suspecting that forgetting the OR bonus for overflow is the right call as it might get us that forge earlier and compensate for not having a multiplier for those overflow hammers..
- Whip lighthouse in Marmalade or wait a bit until when the city is about to grow (the city is at size 5 and in current configuration it only had 4 good tiles to work)
- There are few new builds that are kind of placeholders/intuitive selections, galley in Izzy, HA in "Q" and market in Gertie. So criticize especially those!
- We have couple of cities that could soon/immediately whip their infra builds (SAs mostly). We need to evaluate, which cities are better off waiting until they get Hinduism for OR bonus and which cities should just go for it (and possibly get them into 1-whip range)
- You'll notice that we have several unfinished/partial chops out there. Same logic applies there, every chop needs to be evaluated reg whether it should be finished or saved for later.

I have some kind of opinions/plans for all those aforementioned topics as well as a feeling reg what our workers should do, EP allocations, tile allocations etc, but at the moment I'm a bit busy in RL so I probably won't have time to develop anything super clever for the next couple of turns so if OH you have energy to plan stuff carefully that surely is an improvement for our incoming turns (everything should be decently prepared for the future though and I would say that we almost have too many workers at the moment or at least are in a quite balanced position).

I think next 2-3 turns could be those handover turns where we try to discuss most of the micro stuff together with OH and then he takes over the turn-playing responsibility.. My work here is almost done :P Now OH just needs to convert our decent economy into more land and better economy.. Well, I'm not going anywhere, but having probably a 5/6-day vacation somewhere, finishing my masters thesis and starting to work full-time in one month are conflicting with demanding duties as Aztec commander..

[Fintourist]

Engineering > Banking - Economics (even without Merchant) > top of tree for me. Backfill artsy techs on way to Mil. Trad. (which may come before or after other key military techs like Astronomy, Chemistry and Rifling depending on situation and other priorities [naval warfare / workshops and land defence / cottages (Printing Press) and land offence (but see Commodore's warning) respectively]).

Yeah, our chats with OH have went very much along these lines One thing to note reg top of the tree is that OH's Great People plans include getting Theatre (Drama) and NE (Literature) in "Kirby" sooner rather than later. Although I think we have anyways a positive problem in the sense that our tech pace will be so fast that we might reach economics before we get a non-GM birthed regardless what we now do..

[Old Harry]

Economy!

Micro
- In Alfie I'm sure overflowing is best - getting the 25% OR bonus for the forge next turn on hammers invested this turn
- In Marmalade - I wouldn't whip in a GA, even crap tiles are worth something, but next turn it probably makes sense. Without checking I think whipping this turn would be worth 1 extra food but cost four commerce.
- I'll have a look tomorrow morning and come back with any questions and a religion spread plan. We'll prioritize the ones with a lot of infra left to build (Forges, SAs, Markets, Libraries) and leave the ones that will be producing units over the next few turns until later.

If you want I can try to finish off this turn and take on turn playing fully next turn (with help - what sort of times are you available on chat?) What would be really useful is if you note any macro plans for cities on the spreadsheet - I think we'll probably just play micro by the seat of our pants from now on, barring wonder builds and Oxford...

You've done an amazing job so far, just don't let me screw it up!

[retep]

Look OH doesn't want to do micro plans anymore. Fintourist don't go!

Also the epics are important too, don't underestimate then.

[TheHumanHydra]

retep, looks like you'll have to do all the micro now.

I admit I underestimate the artsy techs (and Epics), as I like to call them ... they're fairly cheap; I wonder if they could be snuck in at the same time as some other techs, ie. if tech A that we want costs 4 beakers and random artsy tech B costs 2, and we produce 3 in a turn, teching B then A in two turns instead of just A (before stopping to save gold again). This wouldn't save beakers, obviously, but might help with tech timings at certain junctions?

[Fintourist]

- In Alfie I'm sure overflowing is best - getting the 25% OR bonus for the forge next turn on hammers invested this turn

Ha! I guess I wasn't clear enough on options, but here is the comparison.. (I should totally be doing something else)

(we start with HA at 45/50 and aqueduct at 48/100. We make 16 base hammers this turn, 10 on T120 and 11 starting T121 due to GA ending and working one further grass hill cottage. T121 there is also a 24 base hammer chop coming in..)

Option A (wait for OR):
EOT119: Aqueduct 72/100
EOT120: HA 60/50
EOT121: Forge 71/120
EOT122: Forge 90/120
EOT123: Forge 109/120
EOT124: Forge 128/120
EOT125: Aqueduct 102/100

Option B (start forge ASAP):

EOT119: HA 69/50
EOT120: Forge 33/120
EOT121: Forge 94/120
EOT122: Forge 113/120
EOT123: Forge 132/120
EOT124: Aqueduct 82/100
EOT125: Aqueduct 104/100

Soo.. Option B wins slightly! Running wealth on T120 could be the most efficient approach, but I think we want to convert all the production in Alfie into actual infra/units. EDIT: Just FYI, we don't need to finish Aqueduct yet, we probably grab at least a hindu monastery first. It's just there to ease comparison.

- In Marmalade - I wouldn't whip in a GA, even crap tiles are worth something, but next turn it probably makes sense. Without checking I think whipping this turn would be worth 1 extra food but cost four commerce.

The tradeoff is 2 food (+1 food surplus this turn, +1 from having lighthoused fish next turn) for 4 commerce and having the possibility to work coast at Marmalade next turn (JB would like to borrow a farm next turn or the turn after so it could be relevant too). Those 2 food help in getting Marmalade bigger and being able to whip library there sooner and continue on GPP production. Anyways, I don't feel too strongly about either option so feel free to decide!

- I'll have a look tomorrow morning and come back with any questions and a religion spread plan. We'll prioritize the ones with a lot of infra left to build (Forges, SAs, Markets, Libraries) and leave the ones that will be producing units over the next few turns until later.

Remember, no need to get all the infra done immediately! Guilds is coming very soon and maybe we want 15 HAs that are about to complete to auto-upgrade into knights and start making gains? And same thing maybe in few cities and maces?

If you want I can try to finish off this turn and take on turn playing fully next turn (with help - what sort of times are you available on chat?) What would be really useful is if you note any macro plans for cities on the spreadsheet - I think we'll probably just play micro by the seat of our pants from now on, barring wonder builds and Oxford...

Sounds good, I'll probably be available for an hour starting 9 PM your time. No stress about it though, I should have more time tomorrow so we might do a lengthier chat around t120.