[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[Elkad]

If I put a general on a Frigate>Destroyer, it's because I got to Combustion first, and I'm taking Blitz because I'm in (or starting) a naval war.
Knocking out a couple frigates and a stack of galleons with a single ship is a thing of joy.

[Zalson]

Great general airship?

[antisocialmunky]

Its too bad you didn't have any 6XP cav, a medic gunship is always neat.

[Sullla]

Blitz on an upgraded destroyer would indeed be very nice. It wouldn't work on one of our promoted ones though, as we already burned three promotions into Navigation II. Also, is it possible to attach Great Generals to aircraft (?) I honestly don't know.

We're having a fast turn today. Scooter has already played the turn, and I'll let him post the turn report when he gets a chance. I logged into the game afterwards, and saw this:



Since scooter said that we should definitely accept Open Borders with Dreylin, I accepted this offer. No trade route benefit just yet, but Dreylin will be able to move through our territory, and station airships over our cities. It's kind of funny how we have all these REM airships hanging out in our territory. Airship party over Germany!



I made a couple of build swaps, most notably putting another settler into the queue in the capital. We seemed to have agreed on the double settler plan for the southern island, might as well queue that sucker up. I also set up some missionaries to keep spreading the faith to our heathen cities, and started us on the path to 6 universities and Oxford University.

I tested the "100% science at all times" idea in-game. It took about six cities to break even on costs: Telegraph, Induction Coil, Contact Process, Power Loom, Battery, and Photograph. That still left all of our best cities free to build other stuff, and we still have quite a few younger cities that are getting their factories/coal plants in place that will be able to contribute later. We produced about 570 beakers/turn at 100% science, which is better than I was expecting considering how we still have lots of libraries and observatories in production, not to mention Oxford eventually. We were also just shy of #1 in GNP when I made that swap (a little under 800), with no Build Research in play. Give me a few more turns to develop our empire while REM/Dreylin remain at war, and we'll be in position to start matching REM's research. I hope anyway.

[scooter]

Turn 327

Quiet turn except one large-ish piece of news.



We can now build West Point. The Blitz Destroyer suggestion came in less than an hour after I went ahead and made a Medic3 Infantry, which is unfortunate because I love that idea. My inexperience with modern units is showing that I didn't think of that. That said, I don't know if we actually have any unpromoted Frigates. We do have an unpromoted Ironclad, though. Oh well, the Medic3 unit will still be pretty useful to us at some point. I gave it Morale too which is always fun.



I took this picture in case I decide to talk myself out of this slightly crazy city placement strategy. I'm still having some mildly lingering doubts, but it sure would be nice to have the extra city here and make the (dry) rice tile be at least slightly useful. Well we're committed now, so let's make it work.



We've looked at this before, but here's a look at a hypothetical front with Pindicator. It would be pretty easy to put a serious dent in him very quickly. That city marked "empty" is an up-to-date sign too. That's kind of crazy. Size 9 border city and he isn't bothering to defend it. That's an impressive degree of checked-out-ness.

If we head to Industrialism, we could take the two front cities (sizes 14 and 11 here) with marines and then drop a bunch of Panzers next to the inland size 14 and 13 cities on the same turn. That would let us blitz through him very quickly. If all went according to plan, we'd see 4-6 cities fall in the first 2 turns which doesn't leave the other big players much time to react. That sounds fun to me.

Still kinda far-ish away. Plenty of time for someone to stomp on our plans.





City comes out of revolt on each of the next 3 turns - Zipper, Antiseptic, and the newly renamed Aspirin in that order.

[Sullla]

Turn has rolled on T328; we're getting back to a nice pace. There's not a whole lot to report as no one picked up any new techs this turn. REM did found a new city at the end of last turn, and BGN founded two more cities last turn. I'll try to get an updated city count this turn.



Zipper (former Hedgehogs) came out of resistance this turn. Unfortunately it's only size 2, and I doubt we can win the cultural war with REM's nearby city for the pigs tile. REM has a pretty scary stack over there that I profoundly hope we don't have to deal with. If Dreylin is planning on making a move here, now is the time before that city comes out of resistance.

I think we can start turning on research at 100% science next turn. We'll lose some money because some of our cities are still finishing up builds before going over to Wealth but that should be fine. Our beaker count at 100% science is going up rapidly, from about 550 beakers last turn to 600 beakers this turn. I want to start pushing for Combustion and then Physics before much more time passes.

Settler should found our really greedy southern island city this turn. When we add those two cities, plus our captures come out of resistance, I think we'll pass Dreylin in land. We've actually passed him in cities. I still think our strategic position is really shaky at the moment, but we're hanging in there and making progress. Thank goodness Dreylin and REM remain at war for the time being. Hopefully we will have REM's bar graphs back again soon, we're now making 58 EP/turn and they're all going towards him.

[Dp101]

Image is broken. Edit: Never mind, it works for me now.

[scooter]

Next turn officially played. I'll write it up tomorrow, but in the meantime, I did check on city counts after I settled our new city.

REM: 23
Us: 20
Dreylin: 19
BGN: 15
Pindicator: 12
Donovan: 1

Worth noting that that's a size 2 city freshly out of revolt, a pair of cities still in revolt, and a brand new city from us, so our 20 will feel better than it does now further down the road.

I probably haven't given BGN enough credit for scraping himself up to respectability. He can't win the game, but he'll be a tough out for somebody. He's dragged himself up to 15 cities after being hilariously far behind, and he managed to begin industrializing while fielding a small but very modern army too.

[picklepikkl]

Start a petition in the tech thread to rename BGN's empire to Switzerland?

[scooter]

Turn 328



We may be seeing another Dreylin golden age coming up. He's also sitting on a spy.

Any thoughts on when the ideal time to throw a 2-man is? I believe we're the only contender who hasn't done so yet. We could get one without too much difficulty. Radio isn't too far from naturally producing one, which means we would just need to squeeze out one more from somewhere else in Pacifism. We could potentially use it to get to Industrialism pretty quickly. GA-enhanced research builds everywhere would churn out a lot of beakers.



Settled our new city to bring us up to a solid 20.



I think we'll slowly see a big boost in what these cities produce in the coming turns. The island is pretty light on food, so foodless Kaplan Turbine will take some time to get up to speed, but it's getting there. I think we're about at the point where it's maybe worthwhile to get a couple filler spots we've ignored. In addition to this spot on the island, here's a couple candidates.



Picks up just 3 new tiles, but one of them is a corn. This city could sit at size 5 working corn, a pair of workshops, and a pair of scientists. Or better yet, a pair of merchants and just work wealth indefinitely. In terms of cash it would easily be profitable, it's just a question of the up-front cost of the settler.



This one is the weakest of the three. It picks up 4 unused tiles in the middle of our empire. Unfortunately the fact that it's not coastal makes it harder to be profitable (fewer trade routes, no harbor), but there's probably a case to be made. State Property makes it so easy to make a city profitable.

I lean slightly towards waiting a little longer on the third one and building the other two. Thoughts?



Quick infrastructure burst continues. Tentative plan is to turn science on next turn.



Seems like Dreylin missed his opportunity to attack Silkmoths, as he definitely doesn't have enough in range this turn, and next turn the borders will be popped. I was really hoping he would recapture it.





We picked up one or two Dreylin trade routes this turn. That should very slowly improve. I think we'll finally regain REM's demos this turn, but it really depends on if he's spending 100% on us or not.