Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[SevenSpirits]

OK, played.

Research to Electricity! 3t tech but almost 2t so I built wealth in Dale this turn. Next turn we can up science to 90% (from 80%) and finish it, I think. I expect us to be able to discontinue the Dale wealthbuild too, which we should if possible.

I started a couple airships since recon missions are pretty sweet. Erebor can just keep building them in fact - it doesn't have a barracks/drydock yet and this will allow it to skip both those buildings. Also switched a couple cities back to Universities, from military duty.

Didn't bother mining the workable Uranium (or the other one, of course). Our workers have enough to do and the workshop is arguably better. I shuttled some workers back to our home blob, since former France is pretty much up to speed and the main remaining task is railroading everywhere.

GES's golden age ended. He researched Economics on the way to Corporation. We are now the Confucian Pope. We finished the Kremlin and can 1t Paya with the overflow.

[SevenSpirits]

Turn came back (124). I played it, my computer crashed before I ended turn, and I played it again. Grrr.

We got electricity. This gives another 32 or so commerce a turn before multipliers.

Having completed the Kremlin, we also got Shwedagon Paya. No need to research Theology. Next turn we can build Broadway. It costs 526 hammers and has no doubler resource, so it will take two turns. We'll definitely want Radio next for Cristo Renentor and the Eiffel Tower and Rock'n'Roll. The latter two will help us ignore Emancipation. Radio should take three turns. This means our end-of-golden-age civics swap will only have to be good for about 5 turns. I'm really waffling on what we should select. Specifically, Caste/Slavery both have their strong points, as do Theocracy/Organized Religion. Right now I'm leaning towards Caste (even though pop-rushing is now 50% better with the Kremlin, we'd rather just be out of Caste for a single turn at a time to use it). I'm also leaning towards Theocracy as we have a lot of nearly-finished units right now, and won't have a lot of buildings to work on. Thoughts?

[NobleHelium]

You're mostly using Caste now for the workshop bonus?

[SevenSpirits]

You're mostly using Caste now for the workshop bonus?

Entirely, yes. We have ~23 workshops.

[Ranamar]

I thought we'd get something like that for commerce boost from Electricity. (Okay, actually, I hoped it would be slightly more, but... that's still a lot of windmills.)

Given the units you mentioned are incoming and that we've built most of the buildings we're going to want, aside from factories, I suspect, I agree we should use Theology. Caste/Slavery is not something I have a really good feel for, but I think I'm going to lean toward cast for no really good reason other than "slavery bothers me."
Well, okay, it also bonuses all of our piles and piles of workshops, which is why we switched to it in the first place, and I certainly can't complain about that. I also just gave almost exactly your reasoning for your choices.

So... yeah. Sounds good!

Also, just out of curiosity, is it even physically possible (assuming no overflow) to build units in Barad-Dur anymore without losing overflow?

[SevenSpirits]

Also, just out of curiosity, is it even physically possible (assuming no overflow) to build units in Barad-Dur anymore without losing overflow?

Nope. We're producing more than twice a Machine Gun's cost by a few hammers.

However, once the golden age is over we will lose 19 of our 73 base hammers. It looks like Cristo (670 hammers with no multiplier) is going to take as many as four turns!

[novice]

Very impressive. The other teams are just left in the dust.

[SevenSpirits]

Played t125. Hopefully someone else can get one soon. It was early enough this time that I thought yuris might be able to still play the next round though so I hurried it through.

So first of all, foreign news summary of the last two turns:



Yuris gets an artist, starts his first 9t golden age, and switches to better civics. Notably among them: Mercantilism! We have a NAP + open borders agreement so I was kind of indignant about this. Those trade routes were part of the deal! After the turn I caught him on chat:

me: hey
Yuri: hey hey
me: nice golden age
Yuri: yeah, finally :P
me: hehe
I actually come with a small complaint
3:05 PM we agreed to open borders as part of the nap, but your adoption of mercantilism effectively closes them
Yuri: errm, we didn't mention Mercantilism. and it's the best civic for us to be in if we want to produce more GPs
me: that's kind of irritating to us. trade routes are important with GLH and that's why we were willing to sign the deal
3:06 PM you are aware it closes borders for trade right?
I understand it's a good civic for you
3:07 PM Yuri: yeah, I know it cancels trade routes, and I'm sorry it's an inconvenience for you, but I don't think it breaks the deal
3:08 PM me: it clearly breaks the spirit of the deal
now I'm ok if you just want to hold to the letter but privateers would also not break the deal btw
3:09 PM Yuri: yeah, sure they won't
3:10 PM I'm truly sorry, I didn't really think about it as closing borders. I was just thinking about the best set civics for our people, and Rep/Merc was the best option
3:11 PM me: ok, apology accepted
are you planning to stay in merc after the golden age?
Yuri: no
but we intend this to be a 18 turns GA
I don't know yet when we switch out
first and foremost we need to produce GPs to extend the GA
3:12 PM me: right
3:15 PM ok, so I tried to check how much this cost us in lost trade routes. it's really hard though, the way they shift around is terrible
I think it's around 30gpt though
3:16 PM oh, rather, 50+, the 30 was commerce
would you be ok with paying us half that while you're in merc and our open borders deal still stands?
Yuri: so 15gpt while we're in merc?
me: 25
3:17 PM Yuri: 20

me: lol
all right

The short version:

Me: We agreed OB!
Him: Still technically OK!
Me: Attacking you with privateers would also be technically OK!
Him: Sorry.
Me: Pay us money.
Him: I will pay you slightly less money than you asked for.
Me: OK.

Note, after this conversation an easy way of checking the lost trade route impact occurred to me: take the last turn's save and cancel them there. Doing so showed us lose 37 (gold + beakers) per turn. So they are paying us about half the lost income, as I estimated. (The 50 estimate was high because I knew he'd negotiate it down even though half is pretty generous IMO.)

Also, this turn I ran some airship missions since we got two of them out. The results:




A couple of Commodore's cities have more than one defender (though only one up-to-date one), none of Yuris' do. So not much military there. We on the other hand should be a bit more prudent given our lead in this game.

Set research to 60% to give about enough gold for two turns of 100%, which I believe will finish off Radio. Let's turn research back up to full next turn and revolt to Theocracy what with it being the final GA turn.

[Ranamar]

I didn't spot a turn in my inbox before I left this morning... I'd be happy to play some more, but you're available to play in that nice hole left by when I'm at work. :neenernee

Yeah, I'll try to pick up the slack around that.

Also, yeah, I'm amazed we don't have everyone jumping on us already. Then again, for all we know, they're all talking about it but don't think they can move yet.
Paranoia dictates being most thorough about defending the lands formerly known as France... well, actually, it would if it weren't for the fact that we know the real threat would come from the sea. Thoroughness and the resources to do it say defend everywhere anyway, just in case. Enough airships to scout our borders every turn could be in order, come to think of it. Yeah, let's build a third or fourth airship, at least. (They remind me of hawks in FFH...) Yeah, we should probably do that just to be prepared, even though we have deals with everyone.

IIRC, our cancellation rules are:
Commodore: 7 turn warning
GES: 10 turn warning
Yuris: Actually, I don't remember. Is that one fixed?

Also, I'd just like to add that you're quite aggressive in your diplomacy. I'm a much nicer guy, and I think we'd probably have somewhat less gold than we have, otherwise. Alternately put, "You extort well."

[SevenSpirits]

Lol at the extorting.

I played the next turn too since it came in midday again. This was the last turn of the golden age, and I swapped us to Theocracy and dialed up research to 100%. Radio will finish next turn.

I queued up an intelligence agency in Barad-dur to build in the one turn gap between Broadway (which just finished) and Cristo. It'll be worth +14ep and also make a later Jail there be worth 14 instead of 8ep. It won't hurt to get a bit of espionage going since our opponents (who built courthouses) have been kind of outpacing us in that area. After that gets built, we can erect Cristo Redentor in four turns.

I agree about airships. If we get 7-8 we should have coverage of just about the entire map every turn, and that's with just one of them stationed in someone else's territory.

Here are demos before and after ending turn (i.e. with/without golden age). Of course, we have a tech selected in both cases.




NAP status btw:

GES until t150
Yuris until t141
Commodore until 7t after cancellation