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

[The Black Sword]

Nothing like that. I'm not sure how you'd make extra beakers like that, I thought overflow gets divided out by that multiplier and then multiplied by the new one. In the first place, I wanted enough overflow to 1t Lib and I set that up. Then since that was screwed up I have a lot of overflow on my next tech. Alphabet is next just because I need it to bulb PP, not because it's cheap or anything. And I tried to make sure I ran out of gold in the turn pictured, which meant 100% research, because I have a Trade Mission coming in this turn so any gold would be sitting around useless for a while.

I think have 1.5k overflow beakers T146 and I'm getting about another 1k this turn since the Bulb was ~2200b and got most of PP.

On the current turn and future plans:

I rolled a G Prophet from The Sea Chase. That gave me enough variety to throw my 3 person golden age, which would surely ensure me the Taj Mahal. Well, I'm feeling pretty confident there and I whipped off an almighty amount of population last turn, so I don't think it's the best time for a GA. I can only blame myself if I lose the Taj now. I did send the Prophet towards McLintock though, in case Rapwel's bid shows signs of life, if I settle him I shave a turn off my ETA.

What to do now though is the question. In the immediate future I'm going Gunpowder(draft about 20 muskets) -> Calendar and we're going to want Engineering pretty soon afterwards. In the medium term we have 3 sets of techs:

1. Constitution, Corporation and Democracy
2. Military Tradition, Replaceable Parts, Rifling
3. Chemistry, Sci Meth, Communism

I think we're in a good place for a Cuir, Cav, Rifle attack. I'm going to go through the alphabet screen soon, but we have a giant tech lead. It'll be hard for our opponents to counter that.

Ideally, I go ahead with that attack, maintain enough of a tech lead to win the race to Communism, but also take long enough to get there that my population has recovered from the war effort for my 3 person golden age, with the GP and the GS and something else. Then the GA secures me Kremlin and I make it to Democracy by the end of the GA to revolt to Universal Suffrage(and make a good SoL run).

Even in that ideal world, I still have 2 GPs sitting around for an awful long time waiting for me to throw the GA.

On the other hand though, if I go for Communism first, my opponents will definitely have time to get counters to Cav/Rifles and when is my next attacking window? Maybe airships/artillery.

Perhaps I should take the Rifling route but not go all in. Just full drafting, and pre-build/whip a single round of cavs and whatever natural production I have. I don't like attacking without putting everything into it though.

For the moment I can delay my decision a bit, until I hit calendar at least, no need to use the GM right now either, need to run through the current 1500g I got from the last trade mission first.

[GermanJoey]

Oh! I see, I see. I had thought all the multipliers get re-divided out again too, and I understood what you were doing with overflowing into lib, but I got confused as to why Alphabet was completely dark green like that. For some reason, I had thought you researched all but 1 beaker of it in order to purposely megaoverflow or some such. Sorry for the stupid question, just extremely tired and not seeing things straight - we missed our flight to the island today, and had to take a 3 hour train to another city tonight just so we can catch a plane from here tomorrow morning.

[The Black Sword]

Oh yeah, I also got a bit of overflow from Economics since the bulb did a lot of that.

Some pictures to give an idea of our relative tech abilities:

[SevenSpirits]

I just caught up here.

Inflation normally increases after players' production, but remember, pitboss order is all screwy. It does players' production after the global stuff instead of before it. Global stuff includes incrementing the turn counter, recalculating ownership of culturally contested tiles, and forest growths. And, apparently and not surprisingly, inflation.

[The Black Sword]

Ok, so I guess on critical turns I need to keep extra gold equal to 1% of my expenses then.

The turn of decision is here for me I think, here's my tech screen:



I am only missing Compass on the left, on the right I have the 3 follow ups to Education; Lib, Econ, Gunpowder and nothing else. In addition I have approximately 2k beakers built up in overflow.

I am up the following techs on everybody:

Aesthetics, Literature, Music, Nationalism, Paper, Education, Liberalism, Economics, Printing Press.

Gaspar(16,052b down):
+ Engineering
- Banking

Commodore(15,903b down):
+ Theocracy, Engineering
- Philosophy, Alphabet

Thoth(18,743 down):
-Gunpowder, Alphabet

Oxy(21,596b down):
+Engineering
-Polytheism, Feudalism, Guilds, Philosophy, Alphabet, Archery, Horseback Riding, Gunpowder, Banking

I'm not going through the effort of doing dtay.

Anyway, that's a lot of beakers! Commodore has played a good mid game as well, using his Knights to take the lead in city count but I think you have to be a bit critical of the play of the others here. Thoth's attack on dtay did not work well at all for him and pulled him back into the pack. Gaswyn had the Taj Mahal nicely wrapped up and have allowed me to steal it out from under them. Probably they should be further out in tech from Thoth and Commodore too but they have kept a higher than necessary soldier count too and have opportunities to use it; Oxy's low power, picking up some more pieces from dtay, dogpile on me(I'm increasingly paranoid here). Then we come to Oxy who's built no military units whatsover and is still behind everybody in tech, and hasn't thrown his first golden age yet as a Phi Civ.

Another point which I find a bit surprising is that no-one else went for Literature and the Epics. I know there's no marble and I took the wonders on the way but the HE and NE are pretty powerful. Commodore is probably the one to watch in the future, with the Apostolic Palace coming in too. I evaluated that a while back btw and decided it wasn't worth the investment as a non Ind or Spi civ.

Pretty sure I'm going to head up the military route first, with this advantage Communism should still be pretty safe and I can see if anyone starts trying to chase it.

[Qgqqqqq]

Do you still plan on running corps or are you intending on running SP now?

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, I think in terms of pure gold, Free Market is competitive with State Property. The problem with State Property's other bonuses then is that I want to do cottage/Kremlin stuff so I'm not sure how many workshops/watermills I will have. The likelihood of Mining Inc is pretty small at this point but either of the food corps will be worth around 10fpt. I'll probably be Kremlin-whipping that food into hammers. They are a bit further down the tree though and cost some initial investment to start up. If I'm not sitting on a GM at the end of my last GA I'll likely take State Property.

I think I'm going to spend my current GM on a Trade Mission, which gives me ~7t research at 100%, enough to get to both Rifling and Mil Tradition. We'll go Rifling first and just pre-build Cavs during the delayed turns. I probably don't want to draft as many muskets as I originally thought. After that the Taj should be just about complete from slowbuilding. I doubt I'll go for GPs this time though I should check it out. I'll likely just take Caste and try for a GM in my NE city in case someone manages to steal Communism/for Sid's Sushi. So, it remains to decide who I'd like to attack and how much I want to commit to it with the GA coming. I could consider whipping in the Cavs pre-GA, holding them in the queue, and then switching to Theocracy to let them finish.

[The Black Sword]

So Gaspar attacked Oxy a few turns ago, he's moving through Oxy's territory at about a city a turn and looks dangerously close to the capital already. Oxy does not seem to be doing the mass-whipping that I would have expected/hoped for and he's playing pretty quickly. That is quite clearly the best place to attack right now.



I managed to figure that out about 2t before the war, Gaspar had too much force to pick on dtay, too little for me or Commodore, just right for Oxy. So I started moving my catapults over that way. I kept my Knight stack in the west until I saw the first city fall though, to be safe.

I should be able to make Mil Trad inside two turns with a bit of wealth building and I have a lot of Cavalry pre-built. The Taj finishes the same turn as Mil Trad, so I'm going to whip in the Cavs and revolt to Theocracy. Still debating whether to send my Knights in ahead or wait for the first few Cavs. I've obviously been drafting the max 3 Rifles per turn too. Unfortunately, Oxy's front city has something like 4 maces on a hill with high cultural defenses. Ideally I was hoping to take Oxy's capital and everything behind it. It's looking quite likely Gaspar gets there first though. Still, if Gaspar takes too much we can always attack him, this will be our best expansion prospect for a while because whoever does pick up the land won't be sitting on massive latent culture.

On Domestic plans, our civics for the GA will probably be HR/Nat/Caste/Merc/Theo. Free Market hasn't been the economic bonus I hoped, since Commodore and Gaspar closed borders, Thoth is in Merc and I'm about to declare war on my main trade partner. Actually, it might be an idea to consider getting Representation if I do plan on Merc. Caste is only really necessary for my NE city so I'm still debating that. I need to pick up Engineering after Mil Trad at least.

I'm going to have a lot of cavalry, and they shouldn't obsolete for a long while, I'm thinking of naming them after characters John Wayne plays. Becko, I need you!

Some important cities:
The Quiet Man:


True Grit:


McLintock:


The Conqueror:


A not so important city:

Katie Elder:


It might be a crappy filler that spent most of it's life costing me money, but it's another draft queue and I'm going to whip it for a Cav as well(6->3 Knight, 1 whip Cav).

Overview:


Most places on Build Wealth have a Knight at 89/90 already.

Some other info:

[Molach]

I am reading this thread and liking it.
Exclusive so far too.

I'm thinking of naming them after characters John Wayne plays. Becko, I need you!

Is cheating allowed? IMDB says, from 1932 onwards;
Craig McCoy, Steve Pickett, Duke, Buzz Kinney, Larry Baker, John Drury, John Steele, John Mason, John Trent, Lt. Tom Wayne, John Bishop, Dick Wallace, Jimmy McCoy Jr., Cpt John Holmes, Singin' Sandy Saunders, John Brant, Jerry Mason, Ted Hayden aka Gat Ganns, John Carruthers, John Weston, Randy Bowers, John Travers, Rod Drew, John Tobin, Chris Morrell, John Higgins, John Martin, John Scott, John Wyatt, John Middleton, Cpt John Delmont, John Tipton, John Clayborn, Cpt John Ashley, John Blair, Bob Randall, Pat Glendon, Biff Smith, Bob Adams, Johnny Hanson, Duke Slade, Dare Rudd, Stony Brooke x7, Ringo Kid, Jim Smith, Lynn Hollister, John Reynolds, Matt Matthews, Jackson Morgan, Cpt Jim Gordon, Pittsburgh Markham, Pat Talbot, Duke Hudkins, Daniel F. Somers, Lt Cmdr Wedge Donovan, Rocklin, Duke Fergus, Col Joseph Madden, John Devlin, Lt. Rusty Ryan, Quirt Evans, Cpt Kirby York, Thomas Dunson, Robert Marmaduke Hightower, Cpt Ralls, John Breen, Cpt Nathan Cutting Brittles, Sgt. John M. Stryker, Lt Col Kirby Yorke, Lt Cmdr Duke E. Gifford, Maj Daniel Xavier Kirby, Sean Thornton, Jim McLain, Narrator (heh), Steve Aloysius Williams, Cpt Dooley, Hondo Lane, Dan Roman, Cpt. Karl Ehrlich, Cpt Tom Wilder, Temujin/Genghis Khan (!), Ethan Edwards, Col Jim Shannon, Joe January, Townsend Harris, John T. Chance, Col. John Marlowe, Davy Crockett, Sam McCord, Gen William T. Sherman, Cpt Jake Cutter, Tom Doniphon, Sean Mercer, Lt Col Benjamin Vandervoort, Michal Patrick Donovan, G.W. McLintock, Matt Masters, Cpt Rockwell Torrey, John Elder, Gen Mike Randolph, Cole Thornton, Taw Jackson, Col. Mike Kirby, Chance Buckman, Rooster Cogburn, Col John Henry Thomas, John Chisum, Col Cord McNally, Jacob McCandles, Wil Andersen, Lane, J.D. Cahill, McQ, Lt. Brannigan, J.B. Books.

...how many cavalry does a Man need?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Apparently you can name nearly all your cavs John and be within compliance of the unit naming scheme.