Ride to ruin and the world's ending! (TBS, Becko & Joao)

[Becko]

Thanks Becko, I played this turn, we're getting Currency!

Just got back, but it was a long drive -- I think I probably shouldn't play the turn drowsier than usual. I'll read up a little bit more and play it in the morning. Have fun!

[Becko]

T103 played. Things going according to your plan, I think. Plenty of units moving toward that hill, at least, and no early-response team in sight.

Since we're planning on being less-than-neighborly neighbors in a few turns, I only played one turn so as to keep the turn order with Gaswyn. Was that unnecessary?

[Becko]

T104 done, at least on this end. It looks like Dtay might have missed his turn though, so I'll wait and see. I actually don't mind reloading: that would simply mean one less turn for me to screw up.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, reload sounds great here, I'd love to play the Hyperborea attack myself.

I'll be back in around 36 hours btw. I think we need to keep turn order with Gaspar from T104 on since our units show up T105, starting a bit earlier doesn't hurt though(except potentially tipping them off ).

[Becko]

T104 played, again. Although since my keyboard does not have a pause button, it was a bit of a hassle getting it unpaused. I resorted to the onscreen keyboard, but for some reason that made the game CTD.

I *think* I did the same moves as last time. Thoth's comment on CoL made me wonder whether I had turned tech on last time, but we didn't have quite enough cash to go full science. We could have been in a race, it seems. Maybe I should have turned it on to get it in one turn (on the first play, not the replay). Ah well.

Anyway, I think you're (still) good to go.




A total of four units visible, plus a worker mining Iron (?).




Our army is ready to move to the hill. We're still playing after Gaswyn.








Demo dumps. Note that all of these are from the first time around: the screenshots didn't take in windowed mode (which I had to use in order to get the onscreen keyboard working, see above).

Miscellaneous notes:

• There's a barb axe outside 3TS. An axe was completed there this turn.
  
• Sea Chase was about to grow into unhappiness, so was switched to a worker. Whip anger wears off in a turn, I think.
  
• Luis Suarez is freaking nuts and should have been banned for at least a whole season to collect his marbles.
  

[The Black Sword]

Heh, yeah, definitely should have turned tech on for CoL, the beaker benefits of binary research are minimal at this stage and besides the religion we want to start courthouses in a lot of cities right now. It doesn't matter too much though and looks like you saved us a tricky reload situation.

I had a look around, things look good, it will be interesting when we fall back to earth and our golden age ends next turn. Thoth also has some impis in our territory and has found our army, which I don't really like. Now he knows our power is occupied elsewhere. Nothing we can really do though.

Will play after Gaswyn in the morning.

[The Black Sword]

Damn. That galley is more than likely full of axeman. Otherwise why not have the other 2 always on board for flexibility? If so, and he can ferry 4 extra axes over to Hyperborea, then I don't think we can take the city. Just 2 axes and it's probably doable. I am not feeling good about this military investment right now though. I don't think we have enough power concentrated on Hyperborea. Possibly it was a mistake to push forward anyway and show our hand.



I did this to get our chariot out, and put a bit more pressure on them.



Re-offered Dyes for silver to Oxy, though I'm not sure we need any extra happy. Set up 3 more missionary whips, the cities really should get the OR bonus on this courthouse whipping.

[The Black Sword]

That was surprising, I'm not sure it was necessary. It does make me feel a whole lot better about doing this:



Regarding tech; I put it at 0% but left it on Aesthetics. Need to make a decision here soon, I think Music might be a good idea to chase though. We should have a temporary tech advantage thanks to our golden age. What could we chase with it:

1.Liberalism: I don't think the tech advantage will hold that long. I'm also unconvinced of it's usefulness, particularly given how low our break even rate is.

2. Nationalism and Taj: Very tempting. Again though, it's a bit far away and if we don't win we don't gain a lot out of the tech path. There's the problem of building the thing too. We could set a city up with OR and Forge.

3. Early Knights: Also interesting, we would really need to attack and take some land though and there are no weak neighbours around here. That makes it a very risky path. Banks and Grocers are both very useful, some windmills would be nice.

4. Music: Aesthetics and Lit are good; Epics, failgold or build Paya and Zeus, maybe try for TGL too. GP is one of the weakpoints of our game right now thanks to the golden age, would be good to shore that up. Again pretty weak if we lose the first-to bonus, but it's the one we have the best chance of winning I think.

Other short term techs that would be useful:

1. Metal Casing: Our build queues are relatively full right now, forges can be delayed.

2. Military: HBR or Construction. I'd lean toward construction since we're mostly talking about defensive stuff here, would be nice to be putting hammers into long term useful units rather than more axes. It is ~550b though, which is a considerable delay in music.

3. IW: definitely want to pick this up soon with our latest cities towards Thoth; 1 is jungle-locked, the other 2 have a gems and pigs covered. Free Iron hammers are also obviously good.

4. Calendar: We have plenty of happiness, this isn't a priority.

Am I missing anything? I need to decide what to commit to soon. We just got research visibility on Thoth, he's going for Masonry, presumably on the way to construction.

[Becko]

Neat, the path to Hyperborea (do we rename cities?) seems promising. Assuming that's the end of hostilities in the short term, do you foresee any Mongol aggression soon again?

Provided we are at least aiming for peaceful growth for a while, heading for Music seems attractive, partly because the prerequisites are useful in themselves. Iron Working is good, too. And I'd like HBR at some point too, for at least a few Keshiks. :P Where does Civil Service slot in?

[The Black Sword]

Neat, the path to Hyperborea (do we rename cities?) seems promising. smile Assuming that's the end of hostilities in the short term, do you foresee any Mongol aggression soon again?

Yeah, if we manage Hyperborea, I don't think there are any low hanging fruit left and we wouldn't have any more aggression at this tech level. It might require a bit of fighting though to push the Mythological's away from Westward Ho. I'm pretty much conceding the west of the river there for the moment.

I think we might have to rename cities, I was looking up a list of top Wayne movies a while ago and we've left a few of them off our city list!

Regarding Civil Service, I really doubt it will be economically viable. Bureau is expensive and our capital won't have anything more than Lib/market to synergise with it for a while. The benefits of irrigation are very minor in our current land, so that's most of the benefit, and it's an expensive tech and a revolt turn. I'll get the numbers next time I'm in game but I'm pretty sure there are better choices.