RBP3 [Spoilers] Capac of Mali

[Swiss Pauli]

More Vital Statistics

Cultural Comedy:



Us v Them



Someone's been busy whipping & drafting...



Spot the Golden Ages



Nice work from Carthage there.

Money's too tight to mention:




I started tracking the expenses just a couple of turns ago to get a better feel for where our costs are generated. As you can see, it’s a real mix of factors and whilst State Property will bring down our city maintenance significantly (50 gpt and counting), we’d also lose hammers (2 per city) and beakers (50 total) from Rep-boosted Merc specialists (as well as +2 cpt). I think we’ll be able to sell PAT the benefits of Mali remaining in Merc

The Incan Wars

We’ve declared war on Inca three times in the game: two opportunistic declarations (one to kill a nosy chariot, the other to bonk a poorly protected settler) and one strategic attack that brought us Gimme Shelter. This attack could have gone awry when we decided to press on towards Kiwi Town. A tactical mistake by Inca (not covering workers with a unit), made certain we spotted their deep-lying mounted & catapult stack:



Disaster averted, we retreated and we’re now at stalemate, so let’s look at the losses and gains for each side:

Mali losses: 2 chariots (one defeated, one deleted), one curry (deleted). Total hammers: 160. Adjusted hammers (allowing for production bonuses): ~100.
Inca losses: 1 chariot, 1 HA, 1 Settler, 5 workers, 2 longbows, 1 city (terrace, library). Total hammers: 825. Adjusted hammers: ~600.
Mali gains: 1 city (granary), 1 worker. Total hammers: 200. Adjusted hammers: ~150.

We also had to use a Great Artist to culture bomb Gimme Shelter to prevent Inca potentially retaking the city by using their cats to strike through neutral territory whilst the city was still in resistance. As things now stand, the costs & risks of either side attacking (us Kiwi Town and they Gimme Shelter) outweigh the potential benefits.


Little Wonders

Since T100, we’ve completed the Pyramids in Sirian, and Mausoleum of Mausollos, Taj Mahal (thanks in part to a GE from Pyramids), and Sistene Chapel in Uberfish. None of these would have been attractive without gifts of marble and stone from our allies in PAT. A strong advantage to MoM, Sistene & Pyramids is that they provide recurring, empire-wide benefits and none expires as such, though Pyramids’ key benefit is available with Constitution (not likely to be researched by PAT before T165). Taj’s Golden Age was critical in providing the cash & hammers to conduct the recent Incan campaign.

Of the remaining wonders, Statue of Liberty is attractive but it’s hideously expensive and Democracy is not PAT’s research list for the next 30 turns. Cristo Redentor is attractive because extra traits are always welcome, and Eiffel Tower may seem great for culture, but it’s an overkill wonder because broadcast towers are only needed in three cites for a Cultural Victory, so it’s only worthwhile if one city can produce the 1250 base hammers more rapidly than three can each produce the 175 base hammers.

The Entertainment Wonders (Broadway, Rock’n’Roll, Hollywood) don’t seem worthwhile even for a CV, 3 Gorges Dam won’t pay out unless we have a lot more cities, which leaves Kremlin. With early Communism (we’re slated to research it after Steel) this wonder becomes much more attractive as it will have a relatively long active period until its expiry with Fibre Optics. The downside is that it’s hard to use rush-buy much if you’re a researcher (as we are currently), so cheaper whips would be the long-term benefit. Fully discounted, I think it would be worth building so we should hook up our stone before we complete Communism, and go for it at Sirian.

With our claim to the floodplains, we’re also looking at setting up a Globe Theatre city, but this will miss out on the benefit of one-turn drafted Rifles because they’ll be obsolete by the time we finish Globe. Another city we can look to set up would be a National Epic/National Park city. I have a site in mind, but all it has going for it is forests, so we’d need to use rush-buy to get the wonders built.


Prospects

We’ve certainly moved up the scoreboard, but Maya and India have a clear advantage in terms of number of cities and quality of land. Krill is not to be underestimated, and Ottomans have a large and populous empire (though they can’t expand peacefully any more). England has plentiful lebensraum to their east, but Carthage has just a couple of viable spots left. Aztecs, Inca, Rome & Babylon have no chance of winning, and Portugal has just thrown in the towel (rather pathetically I must say) so the game may end right here.


Thanks for reading, gentle lurker.

[T-hawk]

Eiffel Tower may seem great for culture, but it’s an overkill wonder because broadcast towers are only needed in three cites for a Cultural Victory, so it’s only worthwhile if one city can produce the 1250 base hammers more rapidly than three can each produce the 175 base hammers.

The other difference is that Broadcast Towers require Mass Media, one tech further than Radio for the Eiffel Tower.

[dsplaisted]

Thanks for the great overview, Swiss!

[Swiss Pauli]

With us being switched away from Steel, I reassigned some specialists to work the land, and doubled whipped the theatre in Sticky Fingers. Uberfish will birth a GP next turn.

[Swiss Pauli]

T151 Report

And we got...a Great Engineer, Gustav Eiffel no less. Whilst we won't be burning him on his eponymous tower, there's been some tentative discussion of going for Democracy now that Maya will complete Constitution by T156/7. Aside from Statue of Liberty, Democracy is attractive to run Emancipation during a GA in order to speed cottage growth. The quicker we can grow our villages to towns, the more attractive Free Speech becomes. Unfortunately for us, we're not due another GP for some 45 turns (Uberfish), but maybe we can use the Spy from Communism.

Back in the nitty-gritty of the game, we founded a new city:



Chop came in immediately towards the theatre. It's better for us than a granary given the culture-war with CRE Rome. It costs us 8gpt in overall city maintenance and 2gpt in civic upkeep. Ouch!

With the Incan stalemate, I moved a couple of Muskets out of Gimme Shelter towards Voodoo Lounge. New mounted units should mass with the Curry and Cav so they can cover both of these cities. Gimme Shelter should soon grab the desert road tile from Inca meaning that it can no longer be one-moved by mounted units. One curry has been renamed 'To Maya', and is to be given to them as we promised when we borrowed their Knight.

Cities have been managed for growth (except Sirian). Was toying with pre-building a cannon in Sticky Fingers, but switched to a University because the additonal 50 hammers for a cannon will take too long to produce naturally. Sirian produced our first Rifle and is working on another. Monastery whipped at Uberfish, courthouse lined up at Ruby Tuesday, and Paint It Brown starts a Hindu missionary.

Optics has been requested from Maya so we can put Rep beakers into Astro.

[Swiss Pauli]

Worker actions T152

Quite a lot of workers need new tasks next turn:

Hot Stuff will pop borders so Patti can start to farm the corn. Marianne should run to the Spices in Steel Wheels 3rd ring, and Jana should start to quarry the stone. Bianca should head southeast towards Voodoo Lounge and one of Jerry and Carla should start another farm at Babylon Bridge. We have 14 workers for 11 cities (with another city planned), so we could probably do with one or two more. Maybe whip one at Blake once it finishes its cav (2t)?

[Swiss Pauli]

T152 Report

Quiet turn so far. All workers started new actions, but I spotted a problem at Hot Stuff: we can't chain irigation until it pops its 3rd ring, so we might want to look at whipping the theatre ASAP. Maybe put the chop into a theatre rather than the mint (and use whip overflow into the Mint). Elsewhere, I decided to put the overflow from Uberfish's whip into a Hindu temple (instead of into the market). Rifle selected in Steel Wheels, and that's it for new builds.

Some interesting news from the Roman front:



That knight is the only unit in the city (and I covered our worker after taking the pic). We could have a go at razing it, so I've asked Babylon has more units in the area. I think we'd be better of focusing on improving our land, but we could always feint at Sssssexy by roading 1 tile towards it and see how Rome reacts.

Elsewhere, I've put together a new tech-path proposal including Democracy and mentioned to PAT that we'd like to burn the GE on Statue of Liberty (and that we plan to build Kremlin). We'll see how that pans out. Returned Sugar and the curry to Maya, reminded Carthage of our deal for Hot Stuff, and I note that Ruff has adopted Nationalism and Theocracy, so it looks like he plans to draft some Rifles, and we can also infer that India gets Rifling next turn.

T153 will see us switching research back on and heading to Communism. It's also the turn on which Ottomans & HRE announce their defection from CUDDLE to PAT, so it should be an interesting turn. Unfortunately, we may be paused for almost a week: Shoot's teammate disappeared a month or so ago and his sub (Cjreynol) is AWOL.

[dsplaisted]

That is a major blunder on their part to defend a city that can be one-moved with only one Knight. I think we should try to take advantage of it. We would need 4 workers. On one turn we use 2 workers to road the tile SE of Voodoo Lounge and cancel their action. Then on the next turn we use one worker to finish that road, 3 workers to road the tile 2E of our city, and we can attack Sssssexy with any two-movers in Voodoo lounge.

It's possible they'll reinforce the city but since they are leaving it open like that they probably don't see the danger, so we should go ahead and try.

[Swiss Pauli]

We got a screenshot from Babylon:



Note the lack of road connection to Sssssnake. We have seen the other tiles ourselves (when the sentry curry was on the desert hill) so there's defintely no road Jerry is free to take up a new task, so she can run down from Babylon Bridge. Whilst we wait for her, Nakor can farm on the roaded tile next turn (T153) whilst Bianca & L'Wren road. If Rome doesn't suss the plan we can finish both roads on T154 and

To cover our workers, we should move the 3 'reserve' cavs & 1 curry to 1SE of Paint It Brown om T153. Voodoo Lounge itself can be defended by 2 Muskets & a Rifle from next turn. If we're still 'go', I'll ask Kyan to send another screenshot after Rome has ended their T153. Rome's power did increase (gifted units from Cuddle), back to where it was before they gifted to Inca, but it's certainly not spiking.

[Swiss Pauli]

@Daniel: I'm away without civ access from now until Monday evening. Not sure when Carthage is due back, but if it doesn't work out conveniently then it time for us to use our first pause