[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Turn 254

TBS covered the latest angle I was looking at . His final great artist is due this turn, 84% chance.

We finally stole Liberalism and revolted to Free Religion - gaining 500 beakers and 50 gold a turn. No more Commando tanks, but that's okay because I'm after highly promoted planes to bombard the improvements at Elensefar at the minute.

It may be possible to run enough wealth builds when our SS Thrusters finish to break even at 100% science. We'll have to see about that in 3-4 turns... I don't know about the GE just yet - there are still a few things in flux (ie Fintourist needs to update his spreadsheet. Nudge, nudge.)

[Fintourist]

It has been a really long time since I last posted or managed to log in. Today was my last day at work and summer holidays began so let's quickly provide some input..

Our victory date. I updated the model and we are still staring at the same finish date for space techs: eot263. Possibly we can squeeze it already eot262, but I did not analyze things throughly enough: Can we maintain 100 % tech rate, what will our speed be after GA, etc? Well, it's eot262 or 263. --> Assuming the later date, I think we can manage so that the last part finishes eot266 and our theoretical victory date would be eot276.

BGN: OH has better info than me: Is it possible that BGN is sandbagging multiple techs? I doubt. Thus BGN is far enough behind that he can't beat our space timing with peaceful play.

TBS on the other hand.. It seems he has given up on artist in Hornshark, which means that he is heading for 18k culture in Basilisk Cave (8 artists right?). We did not have vision of the city currently so I used the last pic OH posted for analysis purposes. In my quick model, which assumed more or less stagnant development + artist starvation at the in Basilisk I had TBS reaching the 18k culture in Basilisk eot274. I'm sure there are ways to optimize that date, (moving palace etc.) so I think the conclusion is that TBS should be able to reach legendary status comfortably before we reach space. However, if he rolls the 16 % non-artist this turn that should buy us enough time so that we simply focus on our own thing and try to beat him peacefully..

Unless TBS gets an unlucky roll and we can focus on our things I guess the big picture options are these:
1. Kill TBS adventure - OH uses everything we have to destroy one of the culture cities. Let's leave all our borders empty, take every single unit. Probably use couple turns worth of commerce in upgrades and rushed builds (mass transports). I guess we need to aim at having a TBS culture city killed by t270 (in 15 turns) so the mobilization needs to start next turn, it might be even too late already. The game plan is practically to throw everything, gamble on nobody taking our empty cities and count on us beating BGN's space timing with a major handicap
2. Wait if TBS screws up somehow and/or try some low-odd cute plays. Practically it means playing our own game and waiting for the game to end. Maybe TBS manages to do something stupid or my analyses are off and we grab a close win
3. Just concede.

What we choose from above options really strongly depends on OH's willingness to commit his RL time. The option 1 is simply terribly time consuming, I'm talking 5-10 hour turns if we want to organize an efficient attack that actually is fast and strong enough that we can push through. I'm terribly sorry for OH that I haven't been more around during the last couple of weeks. OH has been (as always) a hero with playing these monster turns (to my defense that was our deal in the beginning, the later 125 turns are just a tiny bit more time consuming than the first 125... :P

Well, let's hope that TBS gets the 1 out of 6 roll (non-artist out of Elen) and we can maybe grab a lower effort victory..

And as final thoughts here is a random post I've posted a while ago in our chat, because I'm too tired/busy to post a full text about the current meta situation and things that go in my head..

I'm afraid that TBS won't let us take MoM and due to Basilisk being able to burn through 10+ efficient artists turns, just some sea food pillaging etc. won't be efficient enough. Unless we can beat TBS's culture timing with our space attempt or he rolls that wrong great person our options are to concede or organize a final march a la oledavy (PB6). I think I would be ok, with going into uni suffrage and just buying boats and units everywhere and just sending everything in 1 pile to TBS. TBS is a better player than BGN, but that culture victory is still pretty cheap --> If BGN back-stabs us and rolls through our empty cities that's maybe even a more fair outcome of this game.. Hmmm, I need to think about that. Anyways, it would require a major RL effort from you, but playing with a sole purpouse of destroying a single city in 15 turns, but being allowed to use every resource we have might be a fun adventure?

Reg above, nothing against BGN, but overall I feel that TBS is simply more capable of solid civ play including the ability to micro a great culture victory. However, I think BGN has done the real heavy-lifting in this game and got himself into a strong position and thus would maybe be a more deserving winner than TBS, who meanwhile is going for a backdoor victory while benefiting from extremely high tech costs and maximum distance from us + BGN. Nothing against TBS's culture attempt though, that's what I would try in his position too and it seems that he is really pulling that off unless we (read OH) puts in a major effort.

[Commodore]

So how many turns of spaceship can you afford to burn in the race vs. BGN? Sounds like:

and:

Are called for!

[Old Harry]

Turn 255 prologue

Bad news... TBS birthed William Shakespeare . And I don't think stealth bombers or tanks are the answer . More on that later.

The latest plot he foiled was to head through the empty port city of Glamdrol and hit Elensefar or even his capital Weldyn (off the top of this pic). Unfortunately he's not an idiot and stacked a bunch of Cuirs in our way. He's done a much better job of managing his rail network to limit commando strikes than we have vs BGN. don't let BGN get tempted...


As for whether we can beat him - I think your model is slightly pessimistic Fintourist: When our Thrusters finish building we can add 500 hammers of wealth builds t257 and another 100 t258, meaning our cash reserves could last another six or seven turns instead of the four we have right now. I think we'll end up bumping along between 90% and 100%, which is 9768 or 10649 bpt right now.

We have Satellites, Plastics, Fiber Optiocs, Superconductors, Fission and 15827 beakers into Fusion. We need to run 100% research to get Composites (Casings) eot 257, then we can go for 90% to get Medicine eot 259, Genetics (Stasis Chamber) eot 261 and Ecology (Life Support) eot 262. I don't trust the estimate for t261 and 262 as we'll be out of our golden age by then, but we can hire scientists and suffer mass starvation, so I don't think it'll be a problem...

Watercress (Stasis Chamber - 1200 hammers) has a base hammer rate of 72 (outside golden age) if we follow the signs, but if we workshop the farms and run five engineers it can hit 90 hpt. I'm not sure how many hammers the Battleship will overflow (to be stored in wealth builds until t263 - in fact that's even better for our tech rate!) but it will all get +250% = 315 hpt, meaning that if the base overflow is >80 it should be ready eot 264. (Please check my figures!)


Zucchini (Life Support - 1000 hammers, copper doubles) has a base hammer rate of 55 (at food-neutral and outside a GA), with starvation of -20 food it can make 79 base +350% = 355 hammers. If we use the Docking Bay in our overflow chain we should be able to overflow a huge number of hammers, so the Life Support *should* be a 2-turn build, ready eot 264. (Again, please check my figures...)


So if TBS can improve on t274 for Basilisk then he wins. Although I'm currently pumping highly promoted fighters out to take range promotions and bombard the northern farms on Elensefar. How badly could we hurt this culture date if we shuttled all our 17 spies over here and started poisoning and sabotaging buildings? Could we take out a Cathedral? Why didn't I think of that 20 turns ago .


As for our other opponent: BGN completed Apollo last turn. His MFG has always been better than ours due to state property, so tech is his constraint. The techs he still needs are Fission, Fusion, Composites, Medicine, Genetics and Ecology. I presume he'll get Fission this turn. Is his economy strong enough to catch up the ~27000 beaker lead we have in seven turns?


Anyway, that's enough speculation, I'll actually play the turn tomorrow .

[Fintourist]

Shame about the artist, and yeah, I think with proper micro we can get techs eot262 and complete last parts eot264. That of course requires a nice focused play. i fear tbs's winning date thanks to the new artist is too fast despite our slowdown efforts, but why not give our best try anyways! Not marching 400unit stack through his land is kind of pity though.. Lets send everyone of our spies up there and build even more, run full Espionage after we have finished techs, pillage everything we can and maybe even sacrifice commandos for minimal gains. Elensafar pillage destroying needs to happen asap as the city goes very soon into full artist burnage mode. Hmm.. If TBS plays it too tight I wonder if we can screw his plans pretty bad by destroying all elen's cathedrals in the middle of his starvation --> if he needs to waste an artist in elen instead of basilisk, things get closer. Assiming ee dont have visibility of basilisk could you post the culture amount shown in victory screen?

[Fintourist]

Yeah, and reg BGN space race. He can't match our GA-boosted last tech push. I guess my rough estimate for his theoretical win date would be eot280. So we probably could spend 5 turns of comnerce for upgrades/EP and still get a close win in that regard.

[Old Harry]

Turn 255 proper

Okay, this is just getting weird. If I knew whose improvement it was I might be tempted, but what if its one of ours?


I forgot to mention in the tech speed discussion that we've got a Great Merchant due in two turns, who will shuttle over to BGN's lands to run a mission in one of his bigger coastal cities (with a customs house - that does influence the return doesn't it?) on t259. That should keep us going at 100% indefinitely and allow some research builds.


These are all the cities that aren't building wealth, some of the odder builds are for overflow purposes.


Demos, victory and power

[Old Harry]

We had a chat about how to approach sabotaging TBS.

Weldyn is ~15 tuns away (pic from t253), it'll get it's culture from towns running at 100% multiplied by buildings and +120 from building culture on top of what you can see here. It needs 26000 more points and makes 1600 cpt.


Elen is at 18 turns (pic from t255), it's culture is from artists multiplied by buildings. It needs 17500 culture and makes 1000 cpt.


and we're not sure when BC will pop, but it's probably 20 turns (pic from t252). Its going to get most of its culture from bombs, with the balance from artists multiplied by buildings. It needs either 11000 (or maybe 7000) culture and makes 500 cpt.


So which one does destroying cathedrals (or other buildings) or poisoning water hurt most? We decided BC was out of the running as most of its culture is coming from artist bombs.

So this is a rough estimate of times if we sabotage cathedrals in Weldyn and Elsenfar. Else comes out on top.


The next question is do we burn what we can ASAP or wait for the discount? It looks like delay comes out ahead here, but that doesn't take into account the number of spies that get caught waiting for that discount. And since we can start running 100% espionage on t263 spies will probably be our limiting factor...


The final question is do we go for Cathedrals or starvation first? If we put him into starvation he might as well run every citizen as an artist, meaning instead of 12 artists he'd have 23 (then one less each turn). If poison his water at our first opportunity and don't hit the cathedrals then Else pops on t270, so it looks like destroying cathedrals and other culture buildings first is better value for us. Also burning the Eiffel tower city would be very nice.

TBS can rush-buy the cathedrals again, but if we destroy the temple too then he needs to rebuild that first and we can keep destroying them cost-effectively. Also the effect of the building doesn't kick in on the turn it's built so we can just keep knocking them down if we have enough spies.

Now to build more spies...

[Old Harry]

Turn 256

With Fusion in the bag we begin the engines, both are a seven turn build.


Buldozing these towns just seems wrong, but if we were building wealth we'd only lose about 20 commerce and thats mostly because we're FIN. Does RBmod need to do something to improve cottages late game? Perhaps give Universities and Observatories more of a boost?


These are the culture cities now.






And this is our response and the spaceship parts getting built.

[Old Harry]

Turn 257

Why did TBS want to log in early this turn? Nothing showed up in the event log (except that he snuck a galleon past my destroyers so a marine could kill some fighters ). We have completed 4/5 Thrusters so far and will start on our Casings next turn. All the new wealth builds mean we're practically breaking even at 100% research . We have 13850 beakers into Composites and +10700 beakers per turn at -120 gold per turn. I'm scratching my head about the last couple of spaceship builds though. The tech plan is:

EOT Tech
257 Composites
258
259 Medicine
260
261 Genetics (Stasis Chamber 1200 H)
262 Ecology (Life Support 1000 H Copper gives +100%)

Watercress can get >200 overflow hammers and it's max base hammers is about 86 (due to starvation to get that much o/f) while Zucchini should be able to make about 160 o/f hammers with a base of 86. Then they can both 1-turn the Life Support, while only Zucchini can 2-turn Stasis Chamber, so I'm thinking we should build that there. Can you check my maths FT? It doesn't help my calculations that the golden age ends half way through the overflow buildup .


I screwed up some spy movements so no spies got unloaded this turn, but we'll be unloading five next turn and they'll be in the city t259 and able to sabotage t260. There will be twelve more the turn after, then more the turn after that. We'll have 8500 EPs to use t260. Then perhaps we can start running the slider...