[SPOILERS] Cornflakes and Q Eat 'Em for Breakfast!

[Qgqqqqq]

Always engineer - maybe scientist?

[Cornflakes]

I was surprised to find that we actually have as many cities as Commodore now (with 18 cities) ... We've added 6 in Azzaland (including the icy Marble location) in the last 10 turns. Planning to found about 5 more in the next 15 turns or so.

2metra and AT have 1 or 2 less, TT has about 12, Jowy something like 7 or 8.

As noted earlier, Commodore is in Vassalage + Theocracy and expected to steal Nationalism by the end of the GA (based on his increased EP's against us). Someone is going to feel a little pain soon. Our army from Azzaland will return East to Postos. I do not want to provoke Commodore, but I do want to make it clear that we are not easy pickings.

EDIT: still debating whether it's worth provoking AT by razing his border city. I'll have to check what the current status of trading is, and whether it's worth it. I think we're just getting wales from him (and OB, but that won't matter once we swap to Mercantilism).

[Cornflakes]

I was testing a couple thing in the sandbox, and I have us an 11XP knight just to see what options we have for 3 promos. I was surprised to find that mounted units can actually get Amphibious promotion! I won't be using it against 2metra I don't think because I want all the knights to march on his capital, but it's nice to know the option is available. Maybe further down the line when we want to go after Commodore with Cavalry.

NOTE: we should be growing Grand Slam as quickly as possible if we are planning to do Trade Mission, because as noted above each pop about 10 in the capital is worth 40-50 gold from a trade mission! Market raises our happy cap + 3, and I queued Grocer next because we have all four resources for the grocer.

[Qgqqqqq]

Grand slam is growing ASAP, and picking up almost all available tiles.
Yeah, but our cities sucketh - we're definitely in the game though, and a clear second IMO.

[Cornflakes]

I don't know about clear 2nd ... and I also don't know that Commodore is clearly in 1st. AT is only 1 or 2 cities behind, plus his war with Jowy went much better than Commodore's appears to be going with 2metra. I'd set the current ranking Commodore > AT/Us/TT [about equal] > 2metra [slightly lower] >> Jowy [much lower, no chance at victory].

2metra is putting up a strong fight. 9 pop whipped away this turn, probably for knights. He must have bulbed PP, because I got this when I logged in.




Of course I declined, but it's kinda tempting. PP give us at least 15 commerce per turn, plus it save us 2500 beakers on a tech that we'll need anyways for Communism. If we can get 2metra to give us gold as well that'd be mighty helpful, although the ability to draft will make is much more difficult to war against him because (1) it'll make him put up an even stronger resistance to Commodore, and (2) he can easily add a couple muskets at threatened locations when we invade because he'll have 2-3 turns advanced warning.




BOOM! I called it, although I thought it'd be a couple more turns. The EP economy can be really effective. for about 1600 EP's he stole a tech worth 2800+ beakers. EP modifiers also come much cheaper (Nationhood [free everywhere] + Jail [120 hammers] gives the same +75% multiplier as Library + University + Observatory [440 hammers]).

[Cornflakes]

Oh, I confirmed that stolen technologies cannot be brokered.

Finally free from the turn split with Azza!

[Qgqqqqq]

Err definitely trade nationalism for PP.
He'll get it anyway (in 20 turns) and we get benefit this way.

[Cornflakes]

2metra and Commodore exchange a city AGAIN! Each captured a city this turn, and there have been about 6 city captures collectively if I remember correctly ... 3 on each side so the cities should still be controlled by their original owners, except that 2metra just razed a city. (are you allowed to raze your own city upon recapture?)

I have an impi headed south through 2metra's territory to observe the conflict. May the bloodshed between our most fearsome rival and our next target continue long and hard

Also, according to Civstats it appears the 2metra accepted PP + 150g for Nationalism.

[Cornflakes]

Q, you are officially in charge solo until the 26th. I just played this turn, and can check in before I leave in about 7 hours. I will not have a computer with Civ on it so I can't log in at all during this time, although I should have internet. Don't sweat about asking for a pause here or rush home. I expect the timer would naturally run out early morning Friday for you, so even if you don't get back until late Friday or Saturday the pause shouldn't exceed 24 hours.

Confirmed the trade with 2metra, which leaves us with exactly 500g in the bank. Economics is 4-turns, so we need about 800-900g to burn through Economics. We won't have quite that much next turn, but we'll have enough for 3 turns and a turn or two of break even to finish it up. We are the only civ with Banking at this time, so no point really in delaying our research into Economics. Full steam ahead.




2metra offered this, which I declined. We miss getting Commodore's graphs by 1EP ... he didn't spend any on us this turn, so I swapped a couple points over to him to get his graphs for next turn. Commodore and 2metra each had about 70 war weariness with each other this turn. We can monitor this going forward and see how this changes. When ours hit about 100 or 130 we got an unhappy face in all our big cities. We were up to 3 unhappy faces when we eliminated Azza and they all disappeared

[Qgqqqqq]

I'm expecting someone to post a screenshot of seafood being made inaccessible in the capital by ice next. Maybe the entire port will be blocked?

I settled one such submarine base in pbem47 (?). They're great - can't be boated, but can build ships, and can let the ships out through a fort.

Ok I built it because I needed to settle on marble, but I liked the map design.

I realise I haven't updated the bunch I've just done - sorry about that.
But this exchange caught my attention, because we are planning along with our recent spree of settlers (aside:we should've gotten workers out of Blimp not the extra settler) to settle one such city in the Northern TT border (second aside: please bump me if I don't report this in ~12 hours time when I'm next logged in, as I realise I often forget that I've promised pics).
In total we have 4 settlers on the move for the last turn of the golden age, one planting for the fish near azzas old city, one planting for the cow in another of azzas ruins, and two to go north and secure the TT border before he even realises its an issue.
The northern cities are gonna be junk unfortunately, as we just don't have enough workers to support the. I'm considering retasking one of those settlers, but we really don't have any better options.