[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[TheHumanHydra]

Can visibility on dtay be maintained if he continues to invest in you as such? If so, I'd say yes (if you're going to win, it's going to come down to you and him at some point).

[Ceiliazul]

if you're going to win, it's going to come down to you and him at some point.

If 'if', then !

(simple logic, really)

[Fintourist]

I checked around quickly, but did not move anything as Azza had not played yet. I left some signs though (I questioned e.g. the culture build in veggies before checking our thread and remembering that OH already had commented it). Cities that finished builds were set on Wealth and I left tech on Drama (as placeholders). With those couple extra wealth builds we would be making +1100 gpt per turn, which starts to sound like an economy..

Btw, pindicooters broke 1000 gpt at around T170 in PB13 --> It seems probable that in this game researching will be a bit faster and my first, very rough and theoretical estimation for spaceship launch date is T270. That's 115 turns from now, which means that we need to get busy so that we manage our planned Domination win..

Anyways some random comments:
- Obviously we had to lose another extra knight at Violet...
- I have no strong opinion what to think about our tech path. I'm wondering whether we should get Gunpowder + Mil.Trad sooner. E.g dtay is just one tech away from Cavalry and I don't want us to be too far away behind when it comes to ability to build stronger units. And as said, we currently don't have too much power and if we want to be able to capitalize opportunities that our neighbors might give us we need an army.. Let's assume we will attack someone (Cyneheard?) with Galleons and knights+cuirs+cavalry in 30 turns? Anyways, I think we should save gold for 2 turns and think about our path a bit more.. Obviously further economic improvement that Corporation path enables sounds attractive as well.
- About EPs: I did not check how much we are missing before we get dtay's city visibility back, but investing in that surely would make our life a lot easier/relaxed. Getting tech visibility from multiple contenders might have some value too, but information about our neighbors is still almost always the most important thing..
- Feel free to start a settler somewhere, once we have captured Communist we want to settle on the ruins of that city we razed earlier. It already has netted crabs in the first ring, which makes is fairly attractive.
- Alfie has 2 unhappy faces at the moment, but the warrior next to the city and knight from hazelnut will solve the problem. Getting rid of Mardoc-related WW will make our life again a lot easier
- Alfie can complete the aqueduct it has started, but it could also build a quick knight? Can you notice how our distance from top power makes me a bit uncomfortable. I'm not really worried, but I think we want to boost our soldier point ranking and start working towards our next conquest --> which requires higher emphasis on units than we currently have. Even if our luck changes we will be still losing some of our existing units too.

That's enough for now, let's see if we can chat a bit when it's actually our turn to play. Thanks everyone for your comments! Lurker participation makes this game even more enjoyable.

[Old Harry]

Can visibility on dtay be maintained if he continues to invest in you as such? If so, I'd say yes (if you're going to win, it's going to come down to you and him at some point).

I've no idea, but I agree, we want to keep it for as long as possible.

Anyways some random comments:
- I have no strong opinion what to think about our tech path. I'm wondering whether we should get Gunpowder + Mil.Trad sooner. E.g dtay is just one tech away from Cavalry and I don't want us to be too far away behind when it comes to ability to build stronger units. And as said, we currently don't have too much power and if we want to be able to capitalize opportunities that our neighbors might give us we need an army.. Let's assume we will attack someone (Cyneheard?) with Galleons and knights+cuirs+cavalry in 30 turns? Anyways, I think we should save gold for 2 turns and think about our path a bit more.. Obviously further economic improvement that Corporation path enables sounds attractive as well.

I'm leaning toward economic techs, but with the backup that we get Optics for Caravels so that dtay can't get those Cavalry over to visit us. Statue of Liberty would be amazing...

- Feel free to start a settler somewhere, once we have captured Communist we want to settle on the ruins of that city we razed earlier. It already has netted crabs in the first ring, which makes is fairly attractive.

We have some happy cap trouble in Watercress (Azza's old capital) so a settler build there might help.

- Alfie can complete the aqueduct it has started, but it could also build a quick knight? Can you notice how our distance from top power makes me a bit uncomfortable. I'm not really worried, but I think we want to boost our soldier point ranking and start working towards our next conquest --> which requires higher emphasis on units than we currently have. Even if our luck changes we will be still losing some of our existing units too.

How about a temple for the happy? We possibly built too many banks and have too many commerce cities, not enough hammer cities. However Izzy, Nina, Quentin, Jelly Bean and Hazelnut should all be able to pump out some units fairly fast once they're fully grown. Pikes are actually the best unit we have against Cavs - they should trade at a roughly even hammer ratio - so I'll get building some of those.

That's enough for now, let's see if we can chat a bit when it's actually our turn to play. Thanks everyone for your comments! Lurker participation makes this game even more enjoyable.

Looks like tomorrow evening about 7-10pm my time (did your clocks change or is that even further into your night time now?)

[mackoti]

I beat 1000 bpt way earlier then them, they just had an ilusion they are the leaders in research.They were never in front of me.I took the tech lead from Dtay and after no one took it from me till game ended.But still agree this game has far more beter land so lauching will be faster.

[Fintourist]

I'm leaning toward economic techs, but with the backup that we get Optics for Caravels so that dtay can't get those Cavalry over to visit us. Statue of Liberty would be amazing...

But we neeed moooar land!

We have some happy cap trouble in Watercress (Azza's old capital) so a settler build there might help.

How about a temple for the happy? We possibly built too many banks and have too many commerce cities, not enough hammer cities. However Izzy, Nina, Quentin, Jelly Bean and Hazelnut should all be able to pump out some units fairly fast once they're fully grown. Pikes are actually the best unit we have against Cavs - they should trade at a roughly even hammer ratio - so I'll get building some of those.

Nah, techs will get very expensive in this game, so we will still need a lot of commerce. I think our balance looks fairly decent, I prefer it to BGN's more hammer-heavy economy although that isn't too bad either (especially for a non-FIN civ). And we still have a bunch of turns left where we can get stuff done with whips in several cities before going into full growth mode.

I have nothing against a couple of pikes, but in principle I prefer units that have more use when attacking (2-movers and anything with high base strength). As said, 50 cities might be enough in some scenarios when it comes to competing for space victory, but I would prefer having at least 80 by T200..

Looks like tomorrow evening about 7-10pm my time (did your clocks change or is that even further into your night time now?)

I should be available from now on, so poke me in gchat We changed our clocks as well.

I beat 1000 bpt way earlier then them, they just had an ilusion they are the leaders in research.They were never in front of me.I took the tech lead from Dtay and after no one took it from me till game ended.But still agree this game has far more beter land so lauching will be faster.

I believe you, I just did not bother checking your thread, because I thought I might not find that info there and pindicooters also created a pretty competitive economy with their FIN/ORG/mids/Nakor-land. Anyways, how do you feel about your economy in hindsight? I remember you using a lot of hammers for wealth builds, which typically isn't desirable, but I can see wealth-workshops being decent in the short-run compared to non-FIN-cottages. Obviously things worked for you, but I wonder if you would change anything (economic) if you would play your position again?

[Old Harry]

Turn 156

Nothing much going on. We're saving cash on Philosophy since we can grab that + Nationalism without deciding on the Military or Economic route. I'm a bit worried that we make few hammers (half of the leader, sixth overall) so would need to whip heavily if invaded, but more workshops are going up around our recent conquests and during the next golden age we can switch to caste for a big hammer boost (although less flexibility about what to do with them).

I wondered if the benefit of a Harbour + Customs House (80 + 180/2 = 170 hammers) would outweigh Bank (200/2= 100 hammers), Library (90 hammers) or Sacrificial Altar (90 hammers) builds. Assuming the city is under size ten each trade route would get these benefits (before multipliers):


For the vast majority of our cities a Harbour + CH is going to be worth 6 commerce. Although in Gertie it'll be worth 12.

A size 8-10 coastal city makes about 30-40 commerce depending how many coastal tiles it's working. At break even (60% tech) a Bank will be worth 6gpt at 30 commerce, 8 at 40, 10 at 50. A library is 4.5 bpt at 30, 6 at 40 and 7.5 at 50. Libraries start to outperform Banks when the slider goes up to 70% tech, I'm doubtful that will happen as we already have Banks in our big commerce cities and we'll want some cash for upgrades soon.

Sacrificial altars are generally worth around 5-6 gpt and give 2 EPs.

So we might as well decide Bank/SA/Library based on maintenance and break even rate (so Rocky started a Bank this turn) and Harbour/Custom Houses can wait until the bank is built and their return goes up.

So did I do the maths right?

[Old Harry]

I beat 1000 bpt way earlier then them, they just had an ilusion they are the leaders in research.They were never in front of me.I took the tech lead from Dtay and after no one took it from me till game ended.But still agree this game has far more beter land so lauching will be faster.

I believe you, I just did not bother checking your thread, because I thought I might not find that info there and pindicooters also created a pretty competitive economy with their FIN/ORG/mids/Nakor-land. Anyways, how do you feel about your economy in hindsight? I remember you using a lot of hammers for wealth builds, which typically isn't desirable, but I can see wealth-workshops being decent in the short-run compared to non-FIN-cottages. Obviously things worked for you, but I wonder if you would change anything (economic) if you would play your position again?

If you're racing for first-to bonii I can see a lot of desirability for wealth workshops... if we weren't building everything with the whip here I'd want to use a few more wealth builds!

[Fintourist]

if we weren't building everything with the whip here I'd want to use a few more wealth builds!

Ha! Didn't you just say that you think we might have too many commerce cities and now you want to build wealth on top of it!?

[Old Harry]

Yeah, but if we suddenly wanted to build things with hammers rather than build money with hammers then we could.