[spoilers] pindicator goes off the deep end

[Ceiliazul]

Please tell me you posted that in Rego's thread as well!

That would be spoiler info! :neenernee

[pindicator]

So in waiting for the save, i decided to put together a long-winded post about my upcoming tech and game goals. It's getting tougher to do because if this was a SP game it would be about the time where i felt like things are reasonably doable on auto-pilot. But I'm not playing AI so i can't assume that at all here!

I did a little number crunching and figured I should be able to get Astronomy in two turns. Well, i take it back. I definitely can get Astronomy in two turns, but should also be able to 1-turn it after researching Feudalism next turn. The amount of beakers i'm getting in this GA so far has been way, way more than i anticipated. I think back in turn 116 my break-even bpt was just shy of 300; next turn i'll be able to put the slider up to 80% thanks to Spiral Minaret and make around 750 at break-even.

I'm still not settled on the tech path, but right now we're looking at finishing out the golden age with

• Feudalism
  
• Astronomy
  
• Construction
  
• Guilds

Construction and Feudalism could swap places if i can't hit the expected 750 bpt or if i calculated the overflow coming off of Education wrong. But coming off of Guilds I should have enough overflow to pick up HBR and either Literature or Alphabet in the two turns following the golden age. Those two turns i'll be running max tax while waiting for Oxford to finish in the capital; then i kick off my second golden age on turn 128.

The second golden age is a little more up in the air, but i'm leaning towards revolting to Nationalism & Theocracy on turn 128 and using Oxford as a bit of a crutch for the decreased beaker output of coming off of Bureaucracy. I may decide to move this up to turn 125, on the last turn of the current golden age, but that will mean Oxford takes an extra turn to come in. I guess it depends on whether i need the extra twelve berserkers and more galleons/caravels with +2xp, which in turn depends on my military goals. Maybe i should be thinking about my military goals more than which technologies i can get when.

The second golden age will see me head to Chemistry. The immediate techs to get are:

• Engineering
  
• Gunpowder
  
• Chemistry

That should take me 5 turns at the most, which would give me the ability to build frigates on turn 133. This is also the last turn of my NAP with Yuri. Maybe i'll throw in Banking before Gunpowder just to get another turn of drafting berserkers in. I can also throw in other techs if they don't slow down the turn i get Chemistry on. Dare i throw in Economics as well? I don't want to delay chemistry too much; i am going to want 6-move frigates for the upcoming war(s). I guess i could make caravels and upgrade those by cashing in the great merchant from economics.

Further away, what comes after Chemistry? Lots of possibilities here, like:

• Rifles!
  Lots of good can come from upgrading berserkers to amphibious rifles, but it will take researching Alphabet, Printing Press, Replaceable Parts, and Rifling to get there. So while its the biggest payoff its also the farthest away.
  
• Cuirassers
  Need Music & Military tradition here, so it isn't as steep an investment, but it is off the main line of research. I also don't think this plays to the strengths of the Vikings. But right now i'm entertaining a plan that involves using knights and frigates on the first turn of any war to take out Cuzco. Obviously cuirs would work better than knights, but while the plan is fun i don't think it's my best option: it may be better strategy to take out Yuri's surrounding islands and tie him down to defending Cuzco. Then again, maybe it's better to eliminate Cuzco and shorten my front.
  
• Grenadiers
  If Gaspadore or Yuri were guaranteed to have rifles then i would be more keen on strategy of boating his cities with amphibious grenadiers. Instead the only benefit is that it will take considerably less beakers to open these units up. This also will allow Ship of the Line, if an opponent gets within sniffing distance of Frigates. But Grenadiers are a choice of convenience for me; it's the girl at the bar that's easy to talk to even if she isn't the one that's been catching your eye.
  
• Destroyers
  Definitely my longer-term goal, but i don't think i can get Alphabet, Printing Press, Replaceable Parts, Steam Power, Steel, Railroads, Scientific Method, and Combustion all in time. Destroyers seem like a good follow up after going for one of the choices above. We can lump Physics and Airships in here as well.
  
• Economy!
  What's that? I don't have to attack anybody, you say? I can just focus on technologies like Economics, Constitution, and Corporations before eventually landing Mining, Inc? I would love that option, except i don't think i can avoid a war in the next 20 turns. Well, let's just say i feel like i owe Rego this war against Gaspadore. My only excuse is to be in a war with Yuri when the time fir war with Gaspadore comes up; i've given my assurances there and i won't turn back. Don't think of warring with Yuri as an excuse though. Even if he has given all indications that he's not taken the earlier war personally, i don't want to take the risk of leaving him an open avenue to attack and get revenge or be opportunistic while i go after Gaspadore.

So to sum up, the next five turns seem pretty set. And then it gets murkier. I guess i need go decide 100% if i am going to attack Yuri, and then how i am going to do it? When and where and with what? It may not happen on the first turn of the NAP. Then again, if i can get Yuri to sign a NAP extension, maybe i can use him as a buffer while i take out Gaspadore's closer cities. Hmm... That's tempting in the short term but may end up being a liability in the longer run.

[Ceiliazul]

Who knew that the deep end had crossroads? I like your style of presenting all the ideas and then puzzling out which is best.

[pindicator]

Thanks! I wish I had more graphs and neat mash-ups of maps though

By the way, I just got the next turn from Rego and once again my econ is doing better than expected. At 80% slider I get 800bpt with -4gpt! Also, I now have enough EPs into Yuri that I can see his cities Maybe I should invade him when the NAP is up after all...

[pindicator]

Turn 122

Looks like my calculations on the amount of overflow I got when I finished Education were off. I think it was just an oversight of forgetting 2 other people have Astronomy; I'm hoping that it isn't a symptom of me not knowing what I'm doing

So while I still 1-turned Feudalism, i will not 1-turn Astronomy next turn. Instead I will 1-turn Construction and then the accumulated overflow will let me 1-turn Astronomy after that. I thought about just swapping in Construction and Feudalism in the order (that also would have worked), but I decided that I'd rather start on a few key longbows sooner than later.

The big news of the turn was Education coming in. This meant it was time to start the push for Oxford. Since we're playing a Large map, this means I need 7 universities instead of the standard 6. The micro for this part was figured out a few turns ago and I had settled on building universities in:

• New Deal
  
• AAA
  
• CAA
  
• FAP
  
• FDIC
  
• NLRA
  
• NLRB

New Deal and FAP will be able to build their universities within the next 3 turns, but the other cities will need to whip the universities to completion. I'll put details in the spoiler, for those of you that find this kind of thing interesting.

[SIZE="4"]The nitty-gritty details of how I'll start Oxfrod on turn 125[/SIZE]



New Deal can actually 2-turn a university, thanks to Bureaucracy. The best overflow I could determine was to build a buddhist monestary first. I've turned off growth in New Deal to make all this happen; on the plus side this means I'll get a great person out of here sooner, but on the down side is I'm not getting as much research out of my Big-B capital. After Oxford finishes we'll start growing here again.

Oxford will then finish in 3 turns: 122h on the last turn of the golden age, then 77h and 70h (firing the engineer) to get the 268h wonder finished. Hurray for +250% multipliers. This is also why I'm waiting to swap to Nationalism until the 2nd golden age. If I swap now, Oxford will be delayed.






AAA is fairly straight forward. It got 46 hammers on t122, and it will get 28 hammers on t123; put together that puts me 60 hammers away, exactly what i need for a 2-pop whip on t124. The only trick here was that I got good overflow on t120, so I ran wealth on t121 to keep that for the university build.






CAA is another 2-pop whip, but in order to reach 74 hammers it needs to work the 2 plains cottages. I'll get 48h + 27h to get there.






FAP will just build the university in 3 turns. Easy peasy.






FDIC was one of the more creative ones. I brought it to 28/60 for a library on t120, and then 2-pop whipped that on t121. This gets me 29h overflow this turn into the university, or a total of 60h to go into the university all on the first turn. Next turn we can put 15h to get us in line for a 2-pop whip on t124, but as you can see I had to hire a priest & an engineer specialist to get there. I figure losing a few food is better than losing a whole pop.






NLRA is another pleasantly easy one. We get 57 hammers this first turn by working an extra plains hill. Next turn we work the second plains hill for 40h. 57 + 40 + 40 = 137. No whipping required






NLRB is the final city for university. I couldn't find a way to get good enough overflow for a 2-turn build, so I built a berserker to get a bit, but even when I hire an eng & priest specialist it still only gets 25h on the first turn. On t123 it will pull in 19h, bringing me to 44h, exactly enough for a 3-pop whip.

I screwed up NLRB earlier and forgot to hire the eng specialist the turn it started its berserker. If I had remembered there I wouldn't have to hire the priest specialists now to get enough hammers to only need a 3-pop whip.

I started a few archer builds, thinking they would upgrade to longbows when Feudalism came in. Sadly that wasn't to be; they were changed to crossbows. Well, 7 hammers wasted, not the end of the world.

On the other side of the world, my galley spotted a bit of a border dispute between Gaspadore and Rego.



Hostility there lessens the chance Gaspadore comes after me. I haven't even asked Gaspadore for a NAP; by my understanding he is playing without NAPs, and I don't want to convey any signs of weakness by bringing up the subject.

I also mentioned that I have visbility on Yuri's cities, thanks to EP. I'm still not sure I am going to attack him right when the NAP ends (I may still try to extend it). But since I can see what he has defending each city, it never hurts to look at the possibilities:



Circles are cities that I could hit on the opening turn of a war; squares are staging tiles that are outside of Yuri's sight. The city with the Forbidden Palace is also Yuri's new Moai city, so destroying that first would be paramount. I'd hit the capital with frigates to lower defenses and then take a couple galleons of knights, land them in NIRA (or I could also make a fort south of NIRA in case he attacks first), and use the knights to take out Cuzco. It's also possible to hit Machu Picchu on the opening turn of a war; I would need to put a fort on the forest tile northwest of NRA. But I'm not sure if I have a staging tile that would be out of Yuri's sight.

Anyway, no time table for a war, or any assurances that I will definitely go to war. But it's likely I will, so best to have some plans and ideas in place.

[pindicator]

Turn 123

Rego finished Scientific Method and he'll pull in Physics next turn. I think he took the lesson oledavy taught him to heart, going after airships like he is. And yes, I could have been a real jerk and 1-turned liberalism myself. Maybe I should have. But I don't think it'll keep me out of the running, and it certainly goes a long way in rebuilding goodwill between us.

As for my turn, I just came shy of being able to 1-turn Astronomy, so I put the beakers towards Construction instead. I gave a lot of thought to Constitution but I need to get Astronomy in, because I think Yuri is going to have that soon enough.

Remember that overview of Yuri's lands I posted last turn? One unit I did not write down was a Great Scientist he had. That Great Scientist has since disappeared; where is he going? I don't think Yuri bulbed him -- otherwise we'd be seeing Yuri with Alphabet. An academy? Doesn't seem a good choice at this stage in the game. So what has he done with it? Edit: Oh, and Yuri placed a city right where I thought he landed a settler. Yay for prognosticators!

And I finally determined my goal of attacking unit: we are going to buck convention and go Grenadiers. Why did I settle on grenadiers? They're a lot cheaper to get to than Rifles, they're cheaper to upgrade from berserkers, and finally avoiding Rifling will let me build berserkers longer. If I have Rifling & Military Science or have Rifling & Railroads then I can no longer build berserkers. And I'm banking that an amphibious grenadier would best a rifle in utility for this map. But if I need to defend, then I'll have Rifles. Or machine guns...

[oledavy]

Wish I could draft a unit that starts with amphibious.

MG's are probably your best bet for defense. With 27 strength vs. gunpowder units, 1-2 first strikes, and an immunity to collateral damage; they make any sort of offensive difficult, and attacking from the sea near impossible. Additionally, with their 20% chance at interception they also defend decently against air units. Only issue is that railroads obsolete maces/berserkers iirc.

[pindicator]

Wish I could draft a unit that starts with amphibious.

MG's are probably your best bet for defense. With 27 strength vs. gunpowder units, 1-2 first strikes, and an immunity to collateral damage; they make any sort of offensive difficult, and attacking from the sea near impossible. Additionally, with their 20% chance at interception they also defend decently against air units. Only issue is that railroads obsolete maces/berserkers iirc.

You can build them if you don't have Rifling teched I did a test game in world builder today to look specifically for this and was pleasantly surprised. Sadly I won't be able to draft berserkers - after gunpowder I'll be drafting muskets. But if I draft rifles those drafted ones won't have amphibious either.

I'm not sure that this is the best idea, but considering I may be at war in as little as 10 turns (don't think Yuri will attack but you never know), I think it's the right one.

[pindicator]

Turn 124

Finished up my 7 universities; next turn we'll start Oxford in the capital.
I finished this turn at over 800bpt. Next turn I'll be closer to 900bpt. Which will be bittersweet, because next turn is the last turn of the GA.

Rego has started calling me "Mr. First Place Man" every time he catches me in chat. I don't know if he's trying to make me feel full of myself and slip up, or if it really does bother him that I passed him in score.

Yuri just hit me up in chat. He wants to know if my NAP extension is still on the table. Dang, I need to figure out fast what I want to do.

Update: I extended the NAP to turn 160. I just don't feel like I could be ready for a war in 10 turns, and this way I get to focus on Gaspadore with Rego for 15 turns, then can switch gears to go after Yuri. But now I'm wondering... maybe it would have been better to get Yuri's land sooner and consolidate it. Well, guess this means we're no longer going for grenadiers.

Update #2: I really need to take my time before agreeing to some of these deals. In a lot of ways a NAP with Yuri makes sense: I'm going to focus on economic techs now instead of pushing straight for chemistry. But there are benefits to attacking Yuri in 10 turns too, and i should have really taken the time to weigh out such a big decision.

[pindicator]

Turn 125

The last turn of the golden age. We had a good run, picking up the following techs over the last 9 turns:

• Divine Right
  
• Optics
  
• Paper
  
• Education
  
• Feudalism
  
• Construction
  
• Astronomy
  
• Guilds (grabbing this turn)

If you thought that golden age was good, just wait until the next one
The NAP with Yuri means I can focus more on economic techs and less on militaristic ones. But I have a war to fight in about 20 turns, as Rego keeps talking about declaring on turn 144. My goal is to have destroyers by then; let's see if i can do it!

For my last turn of the golden age, I squeezed out one last great person from NWA. Had to lose some food, but I'm going to transfer it's GP producing duties to another, more central city, and let this guy focus on infrastructure and growth for a while.



At end of turn, I was rewarded thusly:




Since it's turn 125, let's do a little bit of a round up.

[SIZE="3"]Population[/SIZE]

I settled a new city this turn, and I'll have another settled in 2 more turns. This brings my city count up to 28. Rego has climbed back up to 25. Gaspadore has actually caught me with 28 of his own. And Yuri has 16. In total number of citizens, the score is:

• Yuri: 133*
  
• Gaspadore: 148*
  
• Rego: 211
  
• Me: 219

*Rego's C&D says Yuri has 132 and Gaspadore has 149. Dunno how we differed, but oh well, it's close enough to see the rankings.

I have been slacking on new cities, but I plan on remedying that shortly. There are still 5 marginal locations to settle nearby, and then we'll have to start taking cities

[SIZE="3"]Technology[/SIZE]

Even though I've made a lot of ground on Rego, letting him pull in Liberalism gave him another surge. I'm hoping to make that ground up over my next golden age, but really it was just as much about solidifying alliances (and letting him go down a tech branch I'm not interested in yet). Anyway, the tech total beakers line up like this:

• Rego: 26,721 beakers
  
• Me: 18,004 beakers
  
• Gaspadore: 10,731 beakers
  
• Yuri: 7,835 beakers

As for particular technologies, they break down individually like so:

Rego
Has on me: Alphabet, Literature, Music, Liberalism, Printing Press, Scientific Method, Physics
I have on him: Construction, Theology, Divine Right

Gaspadore
Has on me: Alphabet, Horseback Riding
I have on him: Aesthetics, Drama, Civil Service, Divine Right, Paper, Philosophy, Education, Nationalism

Yuri
Has on me: Literature
I have on him: Priesthood, Drama, Theology, Divine Right, Guilds*, Philosophy, Paper, Education, Astronomy, Nationalism

*Yuri will finish Guilds on his next turn.

Rego's the clear leader here. Can I make up the gap? If I can keep my population lead and make up the beaker gap then I have a good chance to win the game.


[SIZE="3"]Demographics[/SIZE]

These are taken after ending turn, so these demos are post-golden age:



Crop keeps going back and forth, but Rego has nosed ahead here again. Mfg is dominating, but in such a whip-heavy map I don't know how much of a story that is really telling. I guess it means I need to whip a little less. But GNP is looking really strong. Rego and I have both finished a tech at the end of the turn, so this is about as good a ranking as we'll get to see. In fact, one of the things I'm looking forward to sharing are my economic numbers outside of a golden age. And then, just wait until 8 turns from now, because I'm going to target some economic techs next.

Soldiers is also something to keep an eye on. Right now Rego, Gaspadore, and I are all leapfrogging each other. I'll start a turn 3rd in soldiers and when I finish the turn I'm back to first. So nobody's really committing to a military build-up (yet) but nobody's entirely ignoring it either.


[SIZE="3"]The Empire[/SIZE]

Here she is! Can you spot the new city?

The near:



And the far: