[spoilers] pindicator goes off the deep end

[pindicator]

At the end of next turn I will get my next great person out of AAA:



Those odds are close to what the final calculation will be, so I've been trying to think about what I would do with them should I get each one.

First off, for reference the bulbing formula on Quick Speed is:

1005 + 2 * pop beakers for a scientist
670 + 1 * pop beakers for other great people

My population right now is at 89, so we're at 1183 beakers for a GS and 759 for the others.


[SIZE="3"]The Great Scientist[/SIZE]

The most likely result also gives me the biggest range of possibilities.

The standard play of turning him into an academy isn't as great as most maps. Right now my capital is getting 30 or so commerce a turn, so an Academy would get about 15bpt. My break even research is somewhere around 50%, so the academy would take over 100 turns to match a bulb.

With bulbing him, I can't practically use him on Astronomy like Gaspadore seems to be doing. I would have to research Paper, Education, Philosophy, Alphabet, Compass, and Optics first. So I came up with two alternatives:

1) Use him to go after liberalism, and use liberalism to grab Astronomy. Research path of Machinery, Compass, Optics (caravels for the war), Paper, and use the Great Scientist to bulb about 1200 of the 1857 beakers needed for Education. If the war is over quick (if only I am so lucky) we could even go for a quick Education and get oxford rolling in the capital ASAP. The cost of teching Paper & Education after the bulb will be about 1,250. I think my break-even research is around 150 beakers (turning into 180 net beakers with a 1.2 tech modifier), so we'll say 7 turns to research this after Machinery comes in. But another 3,300 beakers (18 turns) for Compass, Optics, Philosophy, and Liberalism.

2) Go for war! Research Alphabet after Machinery, bulb Philosophy and then research Nationalism. Total beaker cost: 2,163 - probably 12 turns of research needed. But then I can build the Taj and draft berserkers!

3) The not-so-safe bet: Research Alphabet, Compass, and Philosophy, and use him to bulb Optics. 1,507 beakers - about 8 turns. It would be faster to just research Optics.

I'm leaning towards saving him for Education right now, but the idea of going after Nationalism is sorely tempting.

Settling him is also a possibility for the capital, if only for the 1 hammer in this hammer-starved map. But I think the potential 1,200 beaker gain outweighs any settling options.


[SIZE="3"]The Great Prophet[/SIZE]

There are two possible bulb paths for a Great Prophet:

1) Bulb Theology. I could do this immediately. This would lead towards building Apostolic Palace once the war situation was resolved, or under control.

2) Research Theology and bulb most of Divine Right. Theology costs 515, and bulbing on Divine Right would leave me with about 480 beakers to finish off DR. Say 6 turns to do this.

3) Same as #2, but then research Nationalism (Adding 1857 beakers and 10 turns of research). Yes, it would be cheaper to go through Philosophy. But who would see this coming!?

Right now I am leaning towards just bulbing Theology with him. There's also settling to consider. 2 hammers and 5 gold would be a nice addition to my holy city of CAA.


[SIZE="3"]The Great Engineer[/SIZE]

The least likely is also the most useful great person I could get. I think with a GE the choice is very clear:

1. Bulb Machinery. Then use my stored up gold to tech Compass and Optics. The only downside to this is I would have to redo all of my micro for whipping out berserkers, but I can live with that.

Just to entertain other options...

2. Research Machinery and bulb Feudalism. I've never seen a GE used to bulb Feudalism before, but longbows would be a great defensive asset.

Then there are the wonder-rushing options. I can think of one that he would be especially good for.

1. Globe Theatre. It's potentially one of the most useful national wonders on this map, but also one of the hardest to build. 234 hammers and no modifier. I would need to go Aesthetics and Drama and build 7 theatres (33h each), but that's doable by the whip here. Where would the wonder go? Either FCA or my newest city: FWA.

2. Apostolic Palace. It's worth mentioning because it'll be a big hammer boon for whomever lands it.

Really, it's going to be a Machinery bulb if I get the GE. I'm going to be in a war soon and I'll need all the toys I can get my hands on.


[SIZE="3"]The Other Option[/SIZE]

For Great Scientists and Great Prophets we also have the option to go for a Golden Age. The best part of a GA now is that it would let me switch civics to Bureaucracy, adopt Buddhism, and boost my GNP. The downside is that I'm still whipping a lot of my infrastructure and my cities are still quite small. This isn't the best time for a golden age. But it could be worthwhile just to save those two (or more!) turns of anarchy.

[pindicator]

Turn 95

Guess what? I messed up micro on CAA again! So to recap, I figured out micro on t93, then didn't do what I wrote I should do. Discovering my mistake on t94, I do my best way to salvage the situation. And then I didn't do what I figured I should all over again!

The best way to go forward is to 1-pop whip the galley I queued up, and then overflow into barracks, then overflow into berserker. Well, it'll be an axe when I select it but a berserker when its done. I'm going to make up for this missing axe by taking the axe that's currently garrisoning FHA. FHA will use some overflow on an archer (too much overflow means I can't 2-pop whip zerks).

There was a lot of whipping to be done this turn. I whipped away 11 population, about 1/8 of my total population (don't worry, 4 grew back!), and this just the first round. Right now those whips are going into galleys, barracks and the odd trireme. On t98 I whip zerks, and that will make this turn look tame.



We spread some buddhism around - AAA and CWA both got missionaries. False religions (Judaism & Hinduism) had spread naturally, so we had to interdict the true belief, and also help the coins of our holy city. Now just to figure out when to adopt that religion...

We also basked in the glow of our new Wonder.





Capital is back in the top 5! And Pyramids have new ownership.

Sian lost another city, and it looks like his most important. I can see he took quite a chunk out of gaspadore's power, but lost is lost. Gaspadore owns the pyramids now, and he's probably counting on it as his road to recovery.

Sian did accept my asking price of 50g for silk. Guess I could have asked for all his gold, but I didn't want to be entirely heartless. I won't miss the silk because gold will be hooked up in 2 more turns. And I should have a second source of silk in 10-12 turns, nudge nudge wink wink.

I didn't show you guys our new cities! Meet the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) and the Federal Works Agency (FWA). There are lots of agencies that start with 'F', but we're actually over halfway through the New Deal list.



The bad part is that I'm not diverting any resources to help these cities grow. They're going to have to whip their own starting work boats, but everywhere else is gearing for war. I may be able to get a worker up from FHA to mine that hill, but this is about it for now.

You know, I'm tempted to ask Gaspadore if Malaka'Jin is a net drain on his economy. He could "loan" it to me, I'd gift him banana and ivory, and improve the tiles for him. Then when he wanted it back he'd just need to ask. And if he were to agree to such a crazy deal I'd whip two work boats out straight away for my two cities.

I ended turn, and grabbed another demographics screen for you all.



I am topping GNP with no tech researched. We finished research on Civil Service this turn and in 2 turns we'll have Machinery.

I got a few graphs as well. Power:



You can see Gaspadore's dip. I'm starting to rise; I bet Yuri sends me a note within his next 3 turns.

Rego got enough EP to see Yuri's research. He's teching aesthetics. He doesn't even have Metal Casting yet; he's still 3 techs away from crossbows and maces of his own. Rego also teched Aesthetics this last turn. He asked me to swap gold for gems so he could build the Paya. I'm afraid that this war is going to let him get The Great Library as well.

Here's GNP as well:



I might start doing less min/max if it keeps climbing like this. Oh well, at least the war should fix that.

And finally AAA's next great person was born. Who wants to guess the type of person it was? I think we'll have to give another prize to the winner.

[NobleHelium]

I think you're supposed to give Britain ships in return for 99-year leases on military bases.

[luddite]

i'm glad you were able to get the MoM this time, at least.

[Ceiliazul]

I'm sure it's not an Engineer, else your micro wouldn't b queueing an axe in 2t.

I'll go with the odds-on favoite: scientist.

[pindicator]

Chatting with Rego today our GNP numbers are strikingly similar.

While researching Paper...
He gets 311GNP at max science. At max tax he makes 142g
I get 309GNP at max science. At max tax I make 148g.

And I'm doing this despite being 20 population behind. So where is the difference? He's now 60 crop yield and 40 mfg ahead, and I'm whipping away my peoples.

[pindicator]

More chatting with Rego. (He's got the turn again so it looks like we'll get a second turn in today.) He's putting his EPs into Yuri and I'm putting mine into Gaspadore; we're sharing the information.

He's been telling me Yuri has had Aesthetics selected at 0%. This turn apparently Yuri has no technology selected and used up his gold on stock. So Yuri has enough raw beakers to 1-turn Aesthetics. Even more helpful was knowing how much Yuri's expenses are. On t96 he had 354g. This turn Rego tells me he has 59. So his expenses at 100% are 275!? That's double mine and he only has 3 more cities! Even better, this gives me a rough estimate of how long his next tech will take. Assuming he goes for Metal Casting, he's going to need to build up again to 275-ish gold. He's been gaining gold around 70gpt late, so let's say it takes him 3 turns to store up enough, meaning the soonest he could have Metal Casting would be t101. And that's assuming it's his next tech.

Why is he going Aesthetics? Here's my guess: Yuri hooked up marble 2 turns before I finished MoM. It also looked like he pulled in a little bit of fail gold the turn after I finished the wonder, so I'm guessing he had decided to go for it. Now he's trying to put that marble to use with another wonder. I pray he goes Literature next for Great Library. That would make my day.

And there's the save!

[pindicator]

Turns 96 & 97


And the answer to the Great Great Person Mystery Challenge is...

at the bottom of the post! :neenernee

I'm getting so excited about going to war, I went and put together a countdown for you all

turns to go!

Think of it as a special kind of advent calendar. One that ends in war!

I've been scouting out the south side of Yuri's borders in anticipation of war:



This guy won't do anything rash when war comes. He'll try to pillage a few nets, but staying alive and harassing will be fine enough. Right now his intel is going to help me devise my strategy.

I don't know if I reported this, but Yuri asked that we not enter each other's territory after I declined our NAP. I'm respecting this; wouldn't want to raise suspicions any more than a large power spike already is going to. Speaking of which, Commodore is chatting with me right now. Wants to know who I'm going to attack. I'm playing it coy.

For Turn 96 we picked up a very important technology:



Halfway to berserkers! Machinery actually finished at the end of t97, so things are very exciting 'round these parts.

We settled our 18th city this last turn. Out of comparison, Rego and Yuris both have 20. Commodore has a settler off to found his 16th by Malaka'Jin. (So i guess a loan wouldn't have floan. Sad, I should have asked anyway.)



Yes, settling the fish would probably have been better. But I'm paranoid about staking land since Commodore did that to me in the west. The worker will chop out a work boat, cottage the grassland, and then move on to the next place. You can get away with a lot less workers when there are so few tiles to improve.


Okay, gigs up. Here's our great person:



I had a feeling he was coming. After all, I did jinx myself about a week back when I first talked about my next GP:

Edit: A wrinkle to bulbing Theo is that I probably won't be ready to start building Apostolic in New Deal on t95. I want to build MoM there first, mind you. So maybe we cross our fingers that we don't pick up a great prophet...

I didn't actually use him on t96 as I was thinking over options and it at most cost me 1g. I was sorely tempted to hold on to him, tech Theology on my own, and then use him to bulb most of Divine Right. Since DR has no pre-requisites my beakers won't get a 1.2 multiplier as they will for Theology. And I will eventually go for DR because I want to lay my hands on Spiral Minaret.



But I realized it was going to be a long time before I actually researched Theology on my own. After machinery I'm going to be running 0% science for 4 or 5 turns, to upgrade my axes into berserkers. So instead of sitting on the prophet I decided to pull the trigger and take Theology. Yes, this wasted a couple hundred beakers, and yes I'm starting to regret it already. If the war goes well I'll get to start AP a little early in my capital, but that's about it for advantages.

So Ceiliazul, for being our only participant, you get to name something. In fact, you get to name a lot of somethings. Right now I have naming conventions in place for cities (New Deal alphabet soup), Workers (FDR cabinet members), and galleys (communities in the area I grew up). For my trireme-class of warships I'll let you pick the convention. It can be anything you want.

And here's our newest holy city:



I'll probably use the missionary as a scout.

[NobleHelium]

You could have held onto the Prophet until you were actually ready to build the AP, unless you wanted the holy city.

[pindicator]

You could have held onto the Prophet until you were actually ready to build the AP, unless you wanted the holy city.

Too true. I don't know why I felt rushed to make a decision, but obviously I should have held off.