[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[yuris125]

T18 - Everyone except Commodore discovered BW this turn. Otherwise nothing exciting. New Worker moved to the hill SW of Ultra, ready to chop. Philipp Galkin finished road on the wheat, ready to go pasture cows. Till is going back, spotted a bear on the desert hill in the south-east, but it should't interfere with our movements. Alex found jungled banana S of the marble

[yuris125]

T19

Not much news. 2 Warriors completed this turn, I believe by GES and MNG - they seem to have exactly the same tech path and build order so far. But will try to figure it out later

Mysticism in at the end of next turn. Not sure what we will do next, we need to make sure we found religion after the second city is founded. We also don't want to delay The Oracle, and don't want to sent the Settler unprotected. I have no idea how we will solve this puzzle

Alex's explorations



Demos T19



At the end of the turn, everyone's score increased - 20 turns after the capitals were founded, so it's land points. Didn't change the standings, we're still trailing everyone by 8 points because our mighty capital is too small

[Maestro]

Played turn 20. Before I played it I attempted to plan ahead:



If we researched Meditation, we'd get it end of turn 25, which is 1 turn too soon for our second city. Poly said 7 turns, but when I actually ended the turn, overflow dropped the time to 6 turns, which would be just right.

To me this presents us with 2 options:

1. Full steam ahead on Polytheism. We should found city#2 during T26 and get Hinduism end of T26.
   
2. Research meditation, but run 0% research for a turn. We found city#2 during T26 and get Buddhism end of T26.
   

I think option 2 is slightly more efficient. It is also more risky. As soon as we found City#2, we will not be able to run 100% research any more. I don't know what the maintenance costs will be on Prince at that distance (we should consider checking in the worldbuilder), but we're getting 13 beakers per turn right now. Saving 13 gold means 6.5 more turns at 100% research with 2gpt in maintenance. We would burn that up getting Priesthood+pottery, so in effect we'd take the turn saved by researching the cheaper Meditation tech and distribute it over the the next few turns, instead of saving it up front. Is that efficiency worth the risk that somebody might ninja Meditation from us in the extra turn? I don't know.

I got so caught up in the planning that I didn't grab a demographics or new exploration screenie. The two tiles E of hill pigs are Oasis and grass horses. I'll post demos (assuming anything changed) later.

[yuris125]

To be honest, figuring out demos is becoming more and more difficult. When people are at size 3, there are too many variables, we don't know who works which tiles. But I'll give it my best shot

Here are T20 demos



MNG has +13 score increase, that's growth + tech. He discovered BW 2 turns ago, and his power increased by 5k in the last 2 turns. 1k comes from the growth to size 4, and my guess at the other 4k are a Warrior + Hunting. I didn't expect Hunting to be researched this early, but nothing else makes sense, and we don't know his resources

Commodore - +6 score, a tech discovered in 5 turns. My guess is Pottery, researching The Wheel at this stage and not following it up with Pottery would be strange

Both GES and Ranamar could be a threat to our Buddhism/Oracle attempt. GES with early priest specialists would benefit from a religion; Ranamar of course is, we believe, our primary competitor for Oracle. We discovered BW one turn ahead of both of them, so currently we're ahead, but we plan to delay Buddhism by a turn; being last in the turn order, this could mean trouble. Will depend on what we see what we get the next turn. If one of them discovered a tech (which would be a 3 turn tech) without a power increase, we would have to think again and maybe take the safer route through Polytheism

Also of note: GES grew to size 3 6 turns ago, Ranamar 7 turns ago. If they don't grow to 4 very soon, I would strongly suspect them going Worker-Settler at size 3

[Maestro]

Do we know if anarchy comes up on the demos? More specifically, if somebody switches to slavery will we see 0s under the rival worst column on that turn?

[yuris125]

As far as I know, yes. Don't forget though that two of the four opponents are Spi, and Commodore doesn't have BW yet. Currently we will only be able to see if Ranamar switches to Slavery

[Maestro]

As far as I know, yes. Don't forget though that two of the four opponents are Spi, and Commodore doesn't have BW yet. Currently we will only be able to see if Ranamar switches to Slavery

At least Ranamar is the most interesting opponent, until we land Oracle that is

[yuris125]

I've been thinking about Meditation vs Polytheism all evening. I'm convinced we should go through Meditation. Religion is important, but faster Oracle is the ultimate priority. But let's think about a dotmap in case we miss on Buddhism, because the Magenta dot loses a lot of its appeal without a fast border pop. I'm afraid I don't like any of the coastal locations around the copper, because they have no food except crabs - which we currently can't work. The only decent location is NE of the copper, but it causes us to waste a lot of coastal tiles, and I don't like to do it as a Fin leader, even more so if we get Colossus...

Polytheism is also risky, however, other leaders could well go for Hinduism for the same reasons we're considering it. Going for a more expensive religion and still losing... that would be a disaster

With the turn still being with Commodore, it's very unlikely we will get it in time for me to play, so the final tech choice is yours. But I strongly prefer Meditation

[Maestro]

Commodore still has the save (14 hours now! I wonder if he forgot to attach it or otherwise made a mistake sending it to the tracker), and it's midnight here, so I will not be playing the turn tonight. I'm on board with the Meditation stall. Even if it fails to land Buddhism, it's more efficient for Oracle. I'll look at the dotmap again tomorrow and evaluate the plan of action if we fail to get the religion.

[yuris125]

Wrote a T21 update while on the lunch break, and apparently clicked Preview instead of Submit!

Briefly: chop finished, the still unnamed Worker should start mining; Settler completed, should move on the sheep next turn; Till going as planned; Alex died to a bear. Researching Meditation