[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[TheHumanHydra]

Culture cities may be more like whack-a-mole moles, depending on how many more pop up ...

[Commodore]

[Ceiliazul]

To clarify Commodore, no players have said the Jane is over yet.

[Commodore]

They're in denial. Look at what she's doing!

[Old Harry]

[Old Harry]

Things to point out in the cold light of day

- Fixed the Frontline capture picture

- I mis-clicked a Carrier that was due to be guarding our injured Destroyers, so Yuris could wipe most of the rest out . We're still building navy, and have plenty to defend with so that's not the end of the world, but it'd be nice if he didn't...

- We're out of range of BGN doing anything to our fleet, then we can navigate back in safety via dtay's cities, so I'm pretty happy that we can just go back to teching to space

- TBS hasn't logged into RB since the 8th, so unless he endowed Yuri with the power to concede I don't think the game is over just yet

Those Great Artist producing cities in full:
- Shard +207, 2049/2600
- Tomb of Kesorak +81, 2316/2600
- New Silverhead +108 2229/2600
- Basilisk Caves +72, 2366/2600
- Hornshark (National Epic city) is +154 and is 1873/2600
- Alethkar is making 81 and is at 2312/2600
- Elensefar is making 130 and is at 2024/2600
He's got one in the capital already and I presume he doesn't have any stashed on boats. If he sets Valeth to building Culture it could make ~300 cpt and get to the 18000 he needs in about 50 turns. Next turn should be the last of TBS/Yuri's golden age, so we'll have a better idea of how his chances look, but I'm hoping not to be surprised again...

- We ended last night on 276/300 GG points, meaning we're going to need to do something else to get our commando Tanks from Hazelnut . So this morning I decided to shoot down some more Fighters - bagged two for free, wounded a destroyer and bombarded some more tile improvements... So we're up to 286/300 GG points now . Events, dear boy:


- I'm sooooo tired...

[Fintourist]

Nice amount of action here Because of RL burden related to modern era a concession would be welcome news, but putting that aside I would not give up if I were BGN or TBS even though I feel that individually both players should now feel that they are behind us.

Here are some macro thoughts for lurkers despite the fact that already when we get to see the new turn and TBS/Yuri reaction we are already a lot wiser and some of the following writing could be obsolete. Anyways:

When can we reach space?

As a starter I must mention once again that increased RtR tech costs slow down space victory quite a lot.
- If this game was played without the mod all the techs starting from Reneissance era would cost a total of 342k beakers
- In RTR the same techs cost a total of 660k beakers
After Computuers we still need 220k beakers worth of techs before we can build all the space parts. The above numbers include some non-relevant techs for the space raze, but it's safe to say that without the mod we would have built the spaceship already and possibly would be waiting for it to reach the alpha centauri.
--> I totally love the increased tech costs, along with trait and civ changes I think it's possibly the best change in the whole Mod, but of course that makes space race less attractive compared to culture victory, which is partly the reason why we need to deal in this game with a relevant culture attempt from someone who actually can also build tanks etc. Disclaimer, I'm not saying this is a problem or a bad thing for balance, it's simply different. At the very least it's definitely a lurker friendly balance change

OK, to the actual subject. Here is a rough analysis when we are done with spaceship. I will update my tech model in the near future and provide a more accurate forecast, but first I want to see TBS/Yuri reaction.
- We will finish Computers eot238
- After that we have 220k beakers (ie 180k base beakers) left before we have all the required techs
- Currently we are making 6900 base beakers with max research and 4800 with break-even research
- If we want to be done with teching we in 20 turns we need to make 9000 base beakers with turn (eot 258)
- If we want to be done with teching we in 30 turns we need to make 6000 base beakers with turn (eot 268)
- We can add a significant number of wealth builds, we should be able to land the internet, quick laboratories will boost our tech rate a bit and we have our last Golden Age timed for our last sprint (IIRC we can start it on t250)
--> When we take into account our development in the coming turns, reaching 6000 base beakers per turn sounds fairly easy (eot 268) while 9000 base beakers per turn for the next 20 turns does not sound feasible (eot258)
--> This really needs a more detailed analysis, but let's just say that we will need roughly 25 turns after finishing computers and thus we are done with researching EOT263.

Let's assume that we can manage the city micro efficiently and we need 3 turns for finishing the last part after we get the last required tech (Ecology should be the last tech and SS Life Support the last part). Thus we are done with the ship EOT266 and could win EOT276.

That's feels late, but getting 220k beakers together is simply a major task and waiting for the ship to reach its destination is simply slow and painful. So, what I am saying? We still need ~38 turns before we theoretically could win :P


Does TBS still have a chance

Yeah, I don't dare to count him out. Razing Frontline definitely bought us more time and unlike before there is a chance that we could beat TBS's victory timing. As OH listed TBS will have 8 great artists in place, not sure if he could still build a one more from the scratch during the next 38 turns. Mmmmaybe? But he has already produced so many that even with PHI that's not trivial..

Anyways, Weldyn and Ele easily hit legendary without artists before we get to space and the third city only needs 18k culture from other sources. So let's say the new city already has some culture and it needs to get 16k culture in 38 turns. That's "just" 420 culture per turn. Very little compared to what real culture cities can create per turn, but without proper multipliers that's an effort that requires focus. The clock is now ticking for TBS/Yuri and we should be able to see in the coming turns if a new city will take Frontline's place and whether we need to react.

Kind of kind of to see whether TBS will keep pushing for culture and how fast he will be. As said, at the very least razing Frontline is a major step backwards for him and gives us more time to deal with the situation and be all kinds of annoying if needed.


Can BGN beat us

With straight tech race or straight 1v1 battle? I don't think so. 1. We are tech-wise ahead and faster and even if BGN would get eventually more research power e.g. from wetbandit cities I don't think he can catch up in time. 2. BGN has more MFG and more soldier points, but we are still even enough that with defender's advantage we should be able to hold our ground.

However, in modern warfare there is lot of room for mistakes and BGN has all kind of tools which he can use and give us those opportunities to make mistakes..


Combined ways to lose this?
1. Be busy with TBS while BGN backstabs us
2. Major dogpile from all directions - dtay strikes back!



Enough from potential ways to lose this, let's move focus back to winning..

[Old Harry]

Turn 238

Yuris didn't attack our injured stack of Destroyers, so they can happily withdraw to Revis, covered by seven Infantry. Meanwhile our Transports unload in Edelman and then the victorious Amphibious units are ferried from Dobson to join their comrades in Revis. That leaves five Transports trapped in Edelman until our naval stack heals enough to escort them back to our waters. In the mean time hitting the highlighted stack of Destroyers was enough to get us that Great General we've been waiting for .


Zucchini is going to overflow a bunch of hammers into the Internet next turn. Good news is that BGN is heading to Rocketry (presumably for Apollo Program instead of SAM Inf) so we're not going to be contested for it . We originally planned to turn off research while building the Internet, but actually we need to start building Apollo much sooner than that would allow, so some more planning is required. Bad news is that BGN rolled over five of Ruff's cities this turn and has ten turns of peace with Krill to consolidate those gains. Hopefully he's gained them too late for them to be useful in the space race...


Fintourist suggested that some of our bigger commerce cities would be good at completing spaceship parts with a bit of workshopping. A detour for Liberalism & Communism (13 000 beakers) to allow SP would delay our last tech by a turn, but it might be worth it after we've got Fusion. Anyway, here's a list of potential hammers from our bigger cities:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...=120950640

Demos and power

[Fintourist]

Fintourist suggested that some of our bigger commerce cities would be good at completing spaceship parts with a bit of workshopping. A detour for Liberalism & Communism (13 000 beakers) to allow SP would delay our last tech by a turn, but it might be worth it after we've got Fusion.

Aaa, I totally wrote some crap while spamming our chat. (I forgot we did not have Communism for SP) :P But yeah, we certainly should not divert to Lib+Com. We'll just make do without the minor SP production bonus, workshop big cities in the end anyways and starve down some sizes.

We have been chatting multiple times with OH in the chat about the space race, but here are some thoughts written down. Our last 5 techs should be should be:
1. & 2. Composites (5x Casings) / Fusion (2x Engines)
- Earlier I was assuming that we definitely take composites earlier because of modern armor, but with no Aluminium we can delay the tech if we want.. We just need to see whether we want more time for more expensive engines or casings which will be built by slower cities. Either we need to complete all the casings or both engines in 10 turns.
3. Medicine
4. Genetics (Stasis Chamber)
- A non-Zucchini needs to get 1200 hammers together in 5 turns.
- I would love to get the health bonus from genetics earlier, but this way we get more time for more expensive builds, which we probably would need even if we would have aluminium.
5. Ecology (Life Support)
- Zucchini should be able to get copper-boosted 1000 hammers together in 3 turns (possibly with some overflow)

[Old Harry]

Turn 239

I think I understand overflow better now. We're just pondering if we should be aiming to complete Apollo sooner than t253, in which case we might need to put the Internet on the back burner. I think we decided that we could build all the spaceship parts in the twelve turns that the tech path dictates, but we have another couple of turns to make this decision.


With the culture attempt knocked back a bit I offered Yuri a cease fire to get rid of our war weariness and allow us to log in in the first 36 hours of the timer again.


I put all our EPs on BGN, if he doesn't notice we'll get city visibility on him in a couple of turns. He can produce ~500 EPs a turn though, so this may just be poking the bear... He took another four cities off Fenn this turn, I don't think the remaining four will hold out for very long.


Dtay can declare war on us again next turn, which would have catapulted our injured fleet into Yuri's waters to be smushed by his, so I retreated our boats further rather than healing this turn. Dtay on the other hand only has five boats that can do us damage when we teleport from this tile. By the way I really like the animation for all the Fighters bumbling their way to catch up with the fleet .


Ran some tests:
GE can't rush Apollo
GE can't rush spaceship parts
If needed we can upgrade our Commando Cavalry to Gunships which can't normally get Commando. We're probably not going to research Advanced Flight, but if it comes to war with BGN after our last SS tech then that could be handy to know... His capital is within nine tiles of the coastal city we'd probably aim at.

Demos and power - we're number two, why try harder?