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

[spacetyrantxenu]

Just a link to what looks like a civilopedia entry for an expensive building with a copper build doubler. So I guess there's some kind of exploit/micro thing you could do by disconnecting the copper? I've never heard of this one. Is this grey area stuff or clever micro?

[DaveV]

Guessing that it involves disconnecting the copper right before you get a lot of overflow, giving you full overflow value for hammers that were originally doubled.

[novice]

You can whip the stupa and then immediately disconnect copper. You'll only gain 1 pop worth of whip overflow though. It only works for whips, not regular overflow.

Being an expensive building, the stupa is also useful at the tail end of an overflow cascade.

[GermanJoey]

How do you disconnect your own resource?

[Gawdzak]

How do you disconnect your own resource?

Pillage it with a military unit.

[GermanJoey]

Oh right, duh.

[The Black Sword]

Damn, my thread got hijacked, hope dtay wasn't paying attention to all this activity!

Anyway, novice already explained it. I need a big building at the end of an overflow cascade, at the moment the best I have is market in Fort Apache or Courthouse in my capital(the two prospective locations). If I disconnect copper then I can get 300h overflow from the Stupa, or even better, 400h in the capital if revolt to Burea on the turn of the overflow.

The grey area stuff then is getting the Stupa to 299/300 with copper on, 1-whipping it for 75h and then disconnecting the copper, essentially getting a 'free' 30h overflow. I guess I shouldn't use this trick, though I'm not sure I can get the full overflow without it.

Dtay set research on Feudalism, reading 4t, which indicates a tech rate very close to mine. Meanwhile Gaspwyn got Taoism and Philosophy, so both Oxy and Gaspwyn are 1 tech up on me in a Taj race and the Ind civs seem to be ignoring it. Meanwhile, my GP counter reads 16t but I reckon I could make Nationalism slightly quicker than that, so I'm not sure I can count on a golden age. Need to make up my mind.

Finally, dtay added an extra skirm to the party but no spear, so 2 axes and 2 skirms. I moved in and I can see his boat with my sentry, unless he's got another one, which is unlikely, he can't add any extra defenders next turn. He should have had space in the boat for 2 units as well, but only brought 1 across, implying he might be out of units there anyway. As I mentioned I have 3 axes, 3 chariots and 1 spear in range. Hopefully axes suicide on skirms and the chariots clean up. Pictures when I get a chance.

Stupad exploits...

Got to appreciate good wordplay.

[novice]

By the way, personally I think your little trick is kosher, it's on the same level of exploitation as fail gold IMHO - exploit it, or ban it/mod it out.

The trick would be less effective in ToW or RtR, where all 100% doublers are changed to 50% IIRC.

[The Black Sword]

I don't really have a problem with failgold, the exchange rate is reasonable, except in the case of Ind, which I don't mind giving a small buff, and it has it's drawbacks too. Obviously the game mechanic wasn't intended though. This feels worse to me, creating hammers for free, particularly if you trade away the resource rather than disconnecting it.

Anyway, seems like my tech rate is probably too good for me to take advantage of the Stupa, for the moment though I'll continue to save gold and build up hammers in the courthouse in the capital and the market in Apache while I bide my time.

Some pictures:




Dtay threw his golden age and revolted to caste, I'm expecting the others to do so relatively soon too and I'm not sure how competitive I'll be for the first-to's if they do. I'm slightly regretting Music because those beakers might have given me a lock on Nationalism. Even if my tech path is still up in the air, I'm definitely going to be in a golden age in 14t time, I should get things sorted out for that. Try to cut back on the whip and grow my cities. This GA will be great people orientated too so I should figure out the demand and supply. I guess I'd like 1 scientist for an academy, 1 to bulb Edu, 1 mixed Prophet/Artist in MoM for the eventual 3 people GA and other than that merchants. A PP bulb might be nice too. I should maximise the chance of a lucky Engineer too, would probably save that for Mining Inc. Also on the to-do list; check out corporations.

[The Black Sword]

2 more GAs. I was checking out a possible Taj path, I think I could 8t Nationalism from here, requiring a bit of wealth-building. Best I could make was a 7t Taj build though, which I think Gaspar can beat. Our current tech level is about even in the Nationalism race, my greater gold stockpile, including Paya, making up for his Philosophy. Our GNP appears to be similar, despite his golden age, but I reckon he has more multipliers. So no advantage there. I have to assume he's going to generate 2 GP to continue his GA to help build Taj. He doesn't have MC yet, so that should slow him down one way or another but giving them some credit for optimising the build, I don't believe 7t is competitive. So, I'm tentatively going toward the Knight path. I might try keep the Taj option open until it times with my GA though. With that in mind, construction seemed a good idea to pick up now. I have some ideas for possible gains I can make with Knights, particularly vs Gaspwyn if they ignore military techs to beeline Nationalism.

Underestimating my own tech rate has been a big mistake this game. I went for Music because I didn't think I'd be competitive for these later boni, when those beakers would have pushed me over the top. I also didn't have a good Taj plan set up early like I did in 53 because I didn't think I'd be in with a shot.