[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[Epoxy]

THE DAILY ROLL

TURN 251–252: JUST LIKE THAT

The Ottomans' capital has collapsed, and with it so have their best soldiers. Now they cling onto their sovereignty with but three cities. It is unknown what casualties the Byzantine armies have suffered for this invasion, every captured city being preserved and garrisoned rather than razed means their forces are stretched thin over a splintered front. In fear of the coming storm that is the Khmer's superior military, a bargain has been made for ten turns of guaranteed peace. But this agreement hasn't stopped Khmer cavalry from pillaging infrastructure in ex-Ottoman territory with impunity, goading the Byzantines' inability to protect their newly earned spoils. To what extent will the Khmer behold themselves to salting the earth of the new Byzantine cities? Every pillaging is another expense of labour Byzantium will have to debit for its nascent territories. Now they are exposed, and will have to move swiftly to restore parity to their suffering economy and poor tech in order to go toe to toe with the Khmer once the ten turns end. In the meantime the Aztecs entertain notions of their own southern campaign in the future, the prey an unsuspecting Netherlands. The Aztecs must have more land before their labour, whipping edge, and free specialists can threaten to overtake the Khmer's monk economy.

[Commodore]

The cost differential should also calculate the beakers for Democracy versus Divine Right.

[GermanJoey]

Well, they start with Divine Right in Ren era games, so that should be a pretty easy calculation...

[Nekira Sudacne]

The cost differential should also calculate the beakers for Democracy versus Divine Right.

That would make it not even a contest. the cost difference is 1600 beakers before setting modifiers, plus devine right can be bulbed outright by a great prophet if you have one popped mid game from an eairly wonder (Polluted GPP pools from religious eairly wonders are not always a bad thing, great prophets do have some use). Not only does that make it cheaper, but you could have it up and running before democracy is on the scene at all, giving the monks a good head start. assuming an ancient era start and two civs beelining for Statue and Monk, the Monk would get there first and have it already having had reached the break even point before the Statue comes online. no contest. The only balancing factor is the high risk of a split--another civ building one or two of the wonders when they notice your beeline for denial value.

Bottom line for Scooter: Statue won't beat Monk for REM at this point, it's already hit break even and pulls ahead faster. all it does is pull you into shouting range tech rate wise. You need to gain a land edge to have a chance of winning this thing.

[Sullla]

In terms of military, here are the most likely bets to happen in the next 15T:

1) Someone attacks RMoG, and I use the opportunity to blitz a few of his cities with two-movers. If I'm lucky, RMoG hate me less for it, and I have an easier time. 

2) REM and Mackoti attack each other. That frees me up to either go island-raiding (Plako, REM, and Mackoti all have islands in range for me), or invade someone full-scale like RMoG. Or pile on one of the two big dogs.

This seems like the best course of action to me as well. See what REM and mackoti do and then react accordingly; I think we need to see scenario #2 play out for us to a have realistic shot at winning. Fortunately, it seems like REM has every incentive to attack mackoti in the near future while he still has a major tech edge (rifles/cavs versus muskets/cataphracts), and REM isn't the kind of player to miss out on that window. 

I also don't think it's quite as bleak as some of the economic analysis in this thread has suggested regarding Statue of Liberty versus monk trio of wonders, mainly because REM won't be able to go for too long without picking up Scientific Method and obsoleting his monasteries. No Scientific Method means no Communism for State Property, no Physics or anything beyond it for airships/planes, and no Electricity for tanks. That's all pretty far off, and REM can get both Assembly Line and Railroad without Scientific Method, but it will come into play eventually if this game continues. 

Agree that we will not be able to out-tech REM though, since we are both Organized. We will need at least land parity, and more likely a land lead. I don't think the other teams (none of whom are Organized) have much chance of keeping pace though. Mackoti if no one attacks him for 25 turns, but that seems very very unlikely to happen. Interesting game to be sure. 

[Nekira Sudacne]

I didn't say REM was unbeatable, I even specifically said the Monk economy looses half it's value when REM inevitably techs Scientific Method. But he'll still have pulled a few thousand beakers ahead of us by that point with his head start, That golden age+Trio building spree in the first 50 turns of the game was a brilliant move, it was really unlikely to have worked (SOMEONE should have snagged Taj or at least a Monk wonder from him), and the gamble paid off handsomly.

That said, this game is far from over, and pulling out to such a strong eairly head start always paints a big ol' target on your back. Lets hope someone takes the shot.

[scooter]

Turn 252-255



This was the dispute that kicked up the firestorm. You can see the Wheat tile that REM was on. Definitely nothing Mackoti could have done to stop it, but you can also understand why it's irritating.



Statue landed as planned. Also, great person bombardments here. I'm finishing a settler here for the north, and I'll squeeze a couple more in soon. Settlers pay for themselves even more quickly now that they come with two free specs. One has to be a citizen initially, but I get Libraries up pretty quickly. I'm trying to run two scientists in every city unless there is a compelling reason to get extra hammers (like running through resource doublers).



Mackoti kicked off a golden age. I figured it was coming soon, but I thought he might wait a couple turns until his new cities were more online. That said, he's clearly concerned REM will interfere.



Settled the new city. I think this one should be fairly easy to guess? The fact that it's a fishing village felt appropriate even if the presence of the fur feels a little wrong. I'll hook the fur, farm the grass and Wheat, and I should be able to just do whip cycles here over and over again indefinitely.



I got city visibility on RMoG, so on to Plako. RMoG's front cities are well defended, but the rest...



Not so much. If he could be caught just after exiting Slavery like Mackoti did to Alhazard, a blitz would be possible. Unfortunately, I'd have serious competition for it.



The good news is SoL catapulted me to #2 in GNP while at 0% researching a tech with no prerequisites. That's pretty nice! The bad news is at 100% researching double prereq tech I'm still behind REM. Still, I'm north of 200bpt at 0% right now, and over 600bpt at 100%.



Oxford is 3T out, so that's how long I have to decide which way to tech next.



(Yes, I just teched Astro completely at 0%.)

Mackoti left Alhazard with just this island city and made peace, so REM will surely pick that one up. Also, the great people continue to fall.

So, let's talk about the tech situation. If you notice from the tech visibility here, everyone is headed for Rifles. Like, literally everybody. At one point I thought a few people would race to Communism, but now it looks like everyone is shelving that goodie train for security. Gunpowder pretty much has to be next, but that's a very quick tech (like 1.5T at full research). The main problem with the Rifling race is that it makes Cuirassers as an offensive weapon look pretty impotent.

So for what's next, this change in the global tech priorities leaves me with a few options.

1) Head towards Rifles myself. This is the safe and traditional route. I don't necessarily have to actually bother with Rifling immediately, but I need to get close to it. Getting close to it puts me within a stone's throw of Levees, ORG Factories, and Infantry. This route will make me completely safe, and it'll also open up Cavs which feels necessary if I want to compete with REM and Mackoti over the bones of the other players.

2) Hit the bottom of the tree. Something like Gunpowder-Chem-MilSci-Steel. This will get me to Grens pretty quickly to counter Rifles. It would be a little vulnerable to Cavs, but picking up Frigates, SOTL, and Drydocks would give me naval dominance over literally all my neighbors who are headed to Rifles. I wouldn't be able to conquest a bunch of land this way, but I could certainly make islands gains. I was hoping to threaten REM's islands south of me after I landed Astro, and this would help ensure it.

3) Dare everyone to kill me by racing to Communism. All of my competition are spending resources chasing other techs, and suddenly the prize of Kremlin + Spy feels wide, wide open. It's still a little unclear what great people are about to shake out, so it's not a slam dunk, but combined with Altars, Kremlin-whips would be, uh, fun. This would require teching Gunpowder, and maybe partial-teching MilTrad so I could get Cuirs quickly if needed, and praying that nobody would call me on it. The chances of people leaving me alone are slightly above-average here due to the presence of 1) the REM/Mackoti standoff and 2) RMoG looking softer than me. Still, it's essentially putting up a "kick me" sign.

#3 is a terrible horrible no-good very-bad idea. It's wildly risky, and it doesn't even guarantee that I get the Kremlin. State Property is also a little less of a gamechanger for me than normal. That said... It's the highest upside route. I'm ok with flaming out spectacularly if it was due to seriously going for the win.

I've changed my mind approximately 10 times, but I'm very slightly leaning towards #1. I've already got the Stables because I felt Pinch was a necessity, and I can have a bunch of Cavs online pretty quickly. The main hole in this plan is it potentially leaves me day late dollar short because REM is about to have his own Cavs like tomorrow, so I fear RMoG's land won't last long enough for me to get a big chunk of it. And of course, Cavs aren't going to cut it against Redcoats.

I've got about 3 days to decide. Convince me if you'd like.

[Commodore]

Stylish Grenadiers should not get left in the cold!

[antisocialmunky]

I don't think that you should write off #3 that quickly. I think you can probably combine the Communism and Steel route for cannons/grens/ships. Just commit to bottom route and then pick up Communism if it looks doable after chemistry or steel. Physics GS and Bio are available as well from there. Of course this is going to bias you towards a defensive strategy without cuirs but no coastal city would be safe from you for a little bit.

The thing about #3 is it'd be a one horse race since the other players that are still in the game are going for #1. Since you know (like you literally know because spies) what your opponents are doing your likelihood of getting it goes up quite a bit. You are basically seeing if Mackoti or REM will call your bluff and coordinate attack someone with comparable tech that can create an army from nothing and see everything they are doing.

I guess plako could come after you with redcoats too. He gets rifling pretty quick so maybe grens are a necessity though given that he's surrounded on 3 sides by mackoti, I'm not sure you are that much on his mind right now.

[Tohron]

Right now, all of your options involve teching Gunpowder, so you don't need to decide right away. Once gunpowder is researched, you can look at the assortment of Great People plako has available (has he bulbed anything yet?), and decide if you have a decent shot at Communism. If you do go for communism, you could use a couple spies to have advance warning if anyone tries to call you on it. Also, if you have one great person available when finishing Communism, you could use the great spy to start a golden age, giving a free State Property revolt and extra hammers to finish the Kremlin and build military while having boosted research to catch up in military techs.