[SPOILERS]Specialist of Everything: JC of the Zulu

[Commodore]

We can build enough research to do that, but with the amount of cottages we'll be destroying and hammers that go into the spaceship, I can't sustain that output. I'm hopeful we can starve enough on Rep scientists to make it though.

Now that's my kind of micro!

Heh, I actually figured land would be your issue; I remember looking into spaceship with my Canadians in PB13 and concluding that while beakers we no problemo, a water civ has a real devil of a time making parts.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, the hammers are certainly the harder part IMO, I'll try take some pictures of the producers next turn. But you try cut everything as tight as possible obviously.

Actually, a big move on Gawd's part was razing all the cities on Gav's east coast(Well, obviously that was a big move, but in addition to just hurting Gav). It has made the Chinese Island a very safe area, we should be able to see any incoming attacks well in advance. So he has most of that land pre-workshopped and pretty much every city up there is building a ship part. It's an entire mini-continent full of rocket scientists.

[Commodore]

Soooo...Japan?

[The Black Sword]

Pretty much:




The bottom 4 cities have the roughly 50 base hammers required to build a Casing. The last Casing is coming from my Moai:




Only 45 base hammers which equates to 157hpt into the Casings. That means we can 8t it and we'll have 2t worth of overflow coming in, so even this worst case should finish in time.

Engines need to be a 10t build to make it:





I didn't think I'd make that at first, I managed to miss both of these cities as possible part builders on my first run through. But Taipei can shave down to 10t by starving on workshops instead of farms and CivilWar is unusually productive for a size 12 after I've paved over all it's cottages.

There are then 3 big parts to build; Docking Bay, Stasis Chamber and Life Support. Stasis Chamber has no multiplier so that goes in the Ironworks:



Our Ironworks sucks unfortunately, the other cities would be just as fast but PaperTowel will be faster if any factories or Labs are destroyed. The plan here is to get 4t overflow; a marine, the nuke and Cockpit will get 3. Then I'll use one of the GEs to rush Wall Street for a 4th turn. With 2t of natural production and some starvation I think we barely make the 1200h for the Chamber in time. Might need to settle another Engineer to ensure that.

I'll decide that next turn when the last GP pops:



This Oxford/Academy/NE capital is also one of only two cities above size 16 with enough hammers for the big parts. With all the hills, it's our best producer, so it'll build the final part, the Life Support. We'll get 3t overflow from the Industrial Park, another nuke and then the Thrusters. That should be enough to 1t the final part.

Finally, we'll build the 2000h Docking Bay in our only other big city:



It's yet more cottages to pave over. IIRC, by workshopping all this we should get it built in time. I can't remember how close it is. The last two turns my airports have been working over time sending workers back to the homeland for these workshops.

So, hopefully everything builds on time. Then it's just a matter of defending everything from 3 other space race contenders and dtay, whom we've apparently attacked a few times over the course of the game.

[The Black Sword]

I saw dtay declaring war on 2metra in the log and thought Portugal's time was over. But looks like 2metra just razed 4 dtay cities on civstats!?! What is going on over there?

[The Black Sword]

Heh, it gets better, someone has gifted 2metra a couple of nukes.

[The Black Sword]

My last GP from the capital was a Great Merchant, which was the best result and should hopefully go some way toward reaching that tech goal. An Airport flew him down here where he's hidden in a transport.




I also flew down two workers to complete a RR beside DumaZulu. Next turn, we unload the transport there and run a trade mission to the size 22 Nidaros, hopefully without GJ suspecting anything.

The first step in the tech goals is to 2t Composities from here, which is a bit tricky. I'm probably going to have to start some non-optimal starving next turn to make it. But these Casings are close run thing, so starting them a turn earlier should be worth it.

Started the Docking Bay now that Satelites is in:



Demos:



We actually have a lot more hammers than that, but scientists are better than workshops in a lot of cases. I suspect the same holds for Gav though, especially since he's in Environmentalism. Food is also a bit artificially deflated.

Here are some of the obstacles we'll have to deal with:



Plako ferrying spies over to our lands. I don't want to cancel our OB deals yet as I need the money right now. I guess we'll re-evaluate after Composites. Also, note to self, get spies in our big part builders.




GJ's fleet is in a quite aggressive location. He's in range of UninvitedGuest(the irony ). With enough collateral from missiles, or planes(but I don't see many fortunately) he could take the city. If he has enough commandos, he could take the other 3 cities on the island too. Well, he'd only get to raze them, he couldn't hold, but the point is it's a pretty aggressive location if he's trying to be peaceful. I don't really want to move my own fleet in range to force him to back down, since that's even more aggressive. I don't know whether the fleet has always been there or if he used the turn where I was taking over to sneak up a few tiles. Anyway, the island isn't too important anymore, so I'm trying for a good mix of defense and threat to dissuade him.




Gavagai's fleet has been healing up in Deliverance and the rest are congregating between there and Amarah Prime. His massive land stack has disappeared, which is obviously worrying. He's at least 3t, possibly more, behind me at this stage and Gav isn't the sort of person to sit and hope something breaks his way. I'm expecting an attack somewhere.




This is his great advantage, I have 2 cities which don't even quite reach the level of these guys, with BFCs full of Levee powered land tiles. He has 7 in this picture alone, 2 more in the north and a bunch of other good producers not far behind. Well, I have 10 spies on the way to his land and I'm hoping I can get another 10 on the way. Realistically, if I can make him take 2t instead of 1t after finishing the tech tree, I'd be pretty happy.

Plako is next in the space race IMO, 1 tech behind Gav IIRC. GJ is a further tech behind, and being in Police State instead of Rep is pretty big handicap too. Perhaps that's why he's the only person still building up his army:



World War and multiple capital razes are probably his best shot.

[The Black Sword]

Found Gav's land troops. Bit surprising really, my spoiled self remembers both of them wanting peace. Then again, they both wanted peace last time too. I don't think I'll make my tech goal, so if Gav can 1t Ecology at the end, he'd only be 2t behind me. Still not feeling like fighting though. We'll see if the two of them peace out next turn in any case.




I spy a dead Moai.

[The Black Sword]

More espionage bullshit.




Who on earth thought that was a good idea? And how did nobody figure this out in PB18?

I'm intending to destroy a lot of multiplier buildings on the turn he hits the tech, so any overflow chain won't get access to them. I feel that's cheesy enough tbh, I don't think I'll use this mission.

My ship finishes this turn and nobody has the EPs to do something like this to me fortunately. I'm assuming you can't blow parts off the ship after it's launched ...

[Ichabod]

I'm assuming you can't blow parts off the ship after it's launched ...