[SPOILERS] Novice and SevenSpirits play Suleiman of Korea

[novice]

Last turn we played we completed banking and a gsci from AM. Next turn, turn 93, we'll change civics and end our GA. We'll save our GSCi and go Civil Service (eot93)-Paper(eot94)-Edu(bulb, eot95). If Lib is available t96 we'll risk wasting time on philo t96 for Lib eot97. If Lib falls we'll divert to Economics. Eot 97 we'll get a high odds GSci from FS which will settle in AM or bulb PP. It could also be a low odds engineer which can bulb Engineering or rush Taj Mahal.

We'll build some military but maybe we won't attack anyone until we have engineering, or Rifling, or at all.

Tech goal after Economics is probably Rifling. Astronomy will wait since we have the Colossus, although we will likely want Communism eventually.

[SevenSpirits]

t92 (yesterday) was the last turn of caste/pacifism so we had a big party.



Pictures after ending turn. Actual ETAs: t97 for FS, and t101 for AM

I also hired a bunch of merchants in Blameless Yin. Meanwhile some of our other cities have been preferring production, seeing as we've really powered through a lot of tech and have now unlocked quite a few buildings that will help our GNP (Banks and Courthouses, and soon Universities). Here's one, Cruel Guitar, which has put hammers into a Knight but will knock out a 1t Barracks t93 before finishing it.



We've also been founding a few more cities with the advent of Mercantilism - here's the sugar city, Renege in Gin.



t93: No full report this turn since things are really in transition - it was the one turn where we were in new civics but also golden age. However here are the events starting eot92:



The main news is that NoGAyet need a new name. (They were going to get one anyway - that's not news - but now they need one. ) We can still use NoGNP occasionally though as they are still below us (admittedly while saving gold):


Our breakeven tech rate looks to be about 250 while they are making 190g/turn in the golden age and an unknown number of beakers (from presumed caste scientists).

Finally I thought I'd post a picture of our current tech progress. (Note that we're also missing Monotheism (and don't plan to ever tech it).)

Next techs are Paper and Education. If we try hard (and Mackoti isn't ahead of us there) I estimate we could even follow that up with a 1t Philosophy and 1t Liberalism. We will see next turn. However since both of those techs are useless to us for now except to get to Nationalism, and getting Nationalism before Mackoti wouldn't even guarantee the Taj Mahal, I think we probably won't end up going this way. But I'd be happy if we pushed Mackoti to rush there sooner.

More likely we will pick up Economics and Engineering after Education, and then head to Rifling.

[regoarrarr]

Any reason for working the corn in Attach Mimes rather than another scientist? It's a 6/0/0 tile, but you're starving anyways, so does it do anything?

[SevenSpirits]

No starving there, the screenshot as after ending turn. We ended at 0f.

[novice]

It seems we'll be able to beat Mackoti to Liberalism. On our t94 we lacked Paper, Education, Philoshophy and Liberalism, whereas Mack lacked the same techs. (He picked up Drama, indicating that he's collecting overflow to 1-turn the rest of the techs.) However we will also be able to 1-turn all our techs, and Mack can't bulb Philosophy without picking up Alphabet first. So unless he burns two scientists on bulbing we should be able to beat him.

That might allow him to pick up Economics though as he sees us land Liberalism. Still, Nationalism is 1591 beakers which beats a Trade Mission. And we estimate that if Mack detours to Economics we should get enough of a head start that we can steal Taj Mahal from him. So basically we should be able to get Lib + TM or Lib + Economics.

We'll see how it works out.

[SevenSpirits]

We bulb education. Mackoti seems to have followed us to Paper so I expect him to be not far behind in Taj construction if he so desires.

Cruel Guitar can finish Taj in 5 turns with the help of some overflow, a chop and a triple-whip at the end.

(Just grew onto that... grass??)

Mackoti meanwhile would build it in his capital, which can whip 7-8 pop, and has the Bureau and IND bonuses. So he'll only need only 54 manual base hammers which he can easily do in 2t. Therefore he can surely take Taj from us if he tries. (He can probably get Nationalism right after we get Liberalism. If not then the turn after. And he's 2t faster than us at building it.)

However:

1) Nationalism is quite good for us, as we are planning to beeline Rifling after and don't need Bureaucracy.
2) We are making Mackoti expend a ton more effort to get Taj.
3) We believe that if Mackoti goes for Taj he will necessarily concede Economics to us, in which case we are getting both the Liberalism and Economics bonuses which is amazing.
3) There is about a 14% chance that we will get a great engineer in the next few turns. If so, obviously Taj is ours. I'm thinking we should delay the GP until the turn Mackoti techs Nationalism, in case it's the engineer.

So what else? Oxford is on the way. Next turn we'll start 5 Seowons, turn after that we'll whip them (not sure about the one in AM yet, gotta do the math... maybe it's better to just let it slowbuild it - no overflow but +2 pop. We will see), turn after that start on Oxford.


Here's where we will finally build Moai. It will see at least part of our golden age, if we get one.


Other news, let's see. We got our first courthouse. Next turn that Mercantilist is going to work as a spy, so this single building is increasing our espionage by 150%.


And... well, I offered a map swap with Lewwyn, but I also tried to warn him about knights attacking his jungle cities. (Mackoti's been building up knights, as well as a couple maces and trebs, and has moved up his great artist as well.) Unfortunately we only know the name of one of the potential targets. But the other two both have a rice, so, uh, yeah...


Finally since I haven't posted them since the golden age, demographics. Mackoti is the top food, GNP and soldiers, but third MFG because Lewwyn just kicked off his first golden age, joining NoTechParity.

[Ceiliazul]

And... well, I offered a map swap with Lewwyn, but I also tried to warn him about knights attacking his jungle cities. (Mackoti's been building up knights, as well as a couple maces and trebs, and has moved up his great artist as well.) Unfortunately we only know the name of one of the potential targets. But the other two both have a rice, so, uh, yeah...

lol, here we go again with crypto diplo! Seriously though, the thing that strikes me from that screenie is the vast gap in naming quality. Well done there.

NoTechParity.

Boo! 'NoGNP' at least had all the right letters in it. Nasty for nasty's sake is lame.

[SevenSpirits]

It was a stretch, but I was going for No + Par. And saying they lack tech parity wasn't meant to be insulting at all, just factual (in fact I specified it was about tech parity and not some more general judgment on purpose). For a long time Mackoti was the sole leader in tech (and even now we are behind him) and I didn't feel like I was insulting anyone to say that.

NoGraspOfPriorities was the only somewhat mean one I can recall using and I meant it in a friendly, joking way in response to them making choices that are bad for us, those bastards! I mean if you can't rag on people for doing things that are inconvenient for you, is life really worth living?

I suppose if one of their names didn't start with "No" we wouldn't have so many negative conflations about them. Suppose it was Scooter and Regoarrar playing as Babylon instead of them, to take some random folks. I guess we'd use these and others:

Scooterrrrrrrrrr
Rooter
ScootHorseArrarchers
GreatoWallaler
LowestScorrar
Arrartery
EgoScoot
GoScootAtSomeoneElse

Makes me wish I had more use for this habit.

[Ceiliazul]

NoGraspOfPriorities was the only somewhat mean one I can recall using

I guess it was leftover distaste from the "congenital defect" post. I agree the negative names are low hanging fruit, and I'm happy to hear there's not too much intentional nastiness.

'Rooter', incidentally, is one of my favorite characters from an otherwise horrible book.

[SevenSpirits]

I guess it was leftover distaste from the "congenital defect" post.

Thanks for letting me know that came across poorly.

I will try to explain what I was thinking. I know that I (along with most everyone to various degrees) are often bothered when someone else does something that is inconvenient for them. No one likes their stuff being screwed up. In my case in particular I tend to be very understanding most of the time (I always try to see it from their point of view) but when someone does something that is, as far as I can tell, not only bad for me but also bad for them, then looking at it from their point of view actually makes me more frustrated. So I have a strength and a weakness here.

Anyway I have another habit (which I like) which is that I try to see fun in everything, including this habit people have of being like "why did you do that!? it was inconvenient for me!!" Beats being annoyed! So in that post I was playing a self-centered guy who can't conceive of a reason for anyone to refuse OB with him or to scout him with a great spy, so he assumes it must be that they were actually incapable of opening borders. Basically I was trying to make fun of myself for grousing all the time about NoRiteOfGassage not opening borders with us. But I do have to admit there was also some criticism of them for not producing a great person earlier, which was quite real. And looking back it sure reads like I am berating their play. Oops. I meant to gently criticize the great person stuff (as that is somewhere they could improve their play IMO), and over-the-top criticize refusing to give us OB, but I mixed them together. Sorry, NobleGas.