[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[antisocialmunky]

I think you try and get more land with whatever tech you choose. Other wise you'll just get starved of land and not be able to leverage your advantages. So that's probably cavs/rifles. Physics is probably worth it for the airships though.

[scooter]

I'd love to get more land. If you could guide me towards this mythical "more land" that will still be available 10T from now, I'd be grateful . RMoG is too little too late. The options are Mackoti, REM, and Redcoats. Take your pick.

Turn 261-262

Mini update.



Haven't named this city yet, but I will shortly. I thought long and hard about settling it 1SE since RMoG's city is about to fall, but I played it safe. Looks like a terrible city (it sort of is!), but it can run up to 5-6 grass farms, and that's plenty enough to be useful.



I'm trying to move vaguely into position here to do something. What exactly I don't know. RMoG is about to have Rifles, and REM has a horde of Cavs. The main thing I've got going for me is enforced peace with REM and Mackoti which means if I do capture something, I have like 8T to reinforce it. It's going to be hard to capture anything though as just 1 Rifle will make for like a half dozen dead Knights. I probably won't get anything unless REM really screws up.

Worst case scenario I'll just pillage these cities to the ground when REM captures them. There's quite a bit of cash to be had in pillaging cottages here. RMoG will be dead before I could get Cavs onto the field, so serious gains aren't really an option here sadly.


If you noticed, I completed almost all of the rest of Scientific Method to mask what I'm going for next. Unless something weird happens (very possible!), I don't think Mackoti has enough gold to beat me to Physics. The scientist itself isn't that attractive on its own. Physics costs more than it's worth in beakers, but the additional value is opening up a golden age and airships. Plus I'm just about there anyway, and if REM isn't going to do his part in slowing down Mackoti, I guess I could?

Talking about the metagame here, I think REM screwed up very, very badly. Of course me getting Kremlin gets me into the game, but Mackoti getting Kremlin is very possibly death for REM. He badly needed me to beat Mackoti to Communism to keep himself in the driver's seat, and then he handed Mackoti a war-peace despite knowing Mackoti was sitting on a great person. This is completely puzzling to me. He knows my tech situation, and he had to know if he held Mackoti down for like 2-3 more turns Communism/Kremlin was mine. He didn't even have to fight him! He just needed to convince him to tech Rifling which he was successfully doing until the war-peace.

So now Mackoti has twice the land of REM, peace with his two major rivals to get his infrastructure in place, and soon will have Kremlin so that he can use his massive population/city/food edge to whip himself silly for a horde of Cavs, and then he'll just continue running people over until a concession comes. I honestly think Mackoti just won this thing. REM isn't going to get the gift that was the Dreylin dogpile from 33 this time around. I honestly think he threw the game away.

On top of that, he's irritated me by taking away the only route to victory that I could see. I wouldn't be surprised to see a concession before Christmas. I'm certainly not giving up, but I'm sort of at a loss as to what to prioritize next. I'm getting a great person in about 6 turns, so I guess we'll see if it's an Engineer (25% or so chance I think), and if so, Mining Inc save us? Otherwise, I suppose I'll trudge towards Factories. Kremlin and RMoG going down likely means my only opening is an REM/Mackoti showdown, which fortunately is not at all impossible. My next moves should probably just be setting myself up to benefit from that if it comes.

[Tohron]

One good piece of news is that in the event of a REM/Makoti showdown, Makoti's capital is a lot closer to you than to REM, so in a split, you'd almost certainly manage to get it. I wonder if there's any way plako could be influenced to hit Makoti in the event that you and REM both attacked him?

[antisocialmunky]

I'd love to get more land. If you could guide me towards this mythical "more land" that will still be available 10T from now, I'd be grateful wink. RMoG is too little too late.

I'm not sure why are you being passive aggressive at me for stating the only way for you to win.

As it is and as you said, this is going to shape up into a dog pile against Mackoti at some point or else the game is lost for everyone. Your goal should therefore be putting yourself in the strongest position possible to try and come out with the biggest spoils after the war (optimistic). Probably the most useful immediate thing to do is get as many first to bonuses while REM (whether its a great person, new units from a tech, or corps or whatever) is busy eating people and mackoti is building his economy. You have decent tech and are in an area of the tech tree where there's not a huge amount of people are so there's that. Options wise, you could:

1) Definitely get the Physics Great Person just to deny it and for GA and airships.
2) Run the numbers on Mining Inc to see if the cost of getting the GE and spreading it are actually worth it. Your horizontal expansion is limited so maybe going vertical this way is feasible?
3) See if it is feasible or even desirable to you can exploit your momentary tech advantage in naval/air to take islands or vulnerable land from Plako. Redcoats or not, he's the softest target because he's not going to be able to throw a third of the entire map at you. Maybe this isn't desirable at this point because you wouldn't be able to get him to join in on a dog pile. Who knows, in 10 turns, Plako might be run over by Mackoti's wall of Cavs so it may not matter if you antagonize him.
4) Do the standard teching towards factories and infantry and maybe try and arrange the dog pile before mackoti can take advantage of factories and infantry?

Other than that, I guess you can just continue experimenting with OR in this era or having whatever fun you can find.

[Epoxy]

THE DAILY ROLL

TURN 261–262: NUMBERS DON'T LIE

The Byzantines are leading the race for the Kremlin by several turns, so the Aztecs are already anticipating their plan B: research physics, steal its great scientist, activate a golden age, and then marshal a fleet of airships to reign terror from the skies. Not much compensation, but better than offering the great person to someone else. Byzantium appears to be in the premier position of the game, the Khmer's early attack on the Dutch having given them license to switch their research from rifling to communism so early; a few turns delay may have meant all the difference if Byzantium consolidates its massive extent and accesses empowered whips from the Kremlin. The Aztecs need a target, and fast, before Byzantium's 30% of the map becomes 30% of its entire economy, against which no one could stand, even disregarding the possibility of future Byzantine offensives. There is no clear route for Aztec victory when the number one contest has twice the land of all the others. Something drastic is wanting.

[Epoxy]

One of the dangers of REM's offensive against RMoG is even if it succeeds with total conquest of territory, REM would have two fronts with Mackoti, separated by the widths of two continents, while Mackoti only has to deal with one. With the right initiative and timing (depending on RMoG's resistance), Mackoti might be able to take advantage of this edge. It could complicate any following plan REM could have for attacking Mackoti.

The same may apply to us with a simultaneous attack on Plako with Mackoti. The good news is that our intelligence advantage can anticipate any such movement on Mackoti's part.

[Tohron]

One of the dangers of REM's offensive against RMoG is even if it succeeds with total conquest of territory, REM would have two fronts with Mackoti, separated by the widths of two continents, while Mackoti only has to deal with one. With the right initiative and timing (depending on RMoG's resistance), Mackoti might be able to take advantage of this edge. It could complicate any following plan REM could have for attacking Mackoti.

The same may apply to us with a simultaneous attack on Plako with Mackoti. The good news is that our intelligence advantage can anticipate any such movement on Mackoti's part.

That's true for dealing with attacks on east and west simultaneously, but a REM-Scooter attack would involve hitting him on the north and south, where the long, narrow shape of Makoti's empire works against him.

[Epoxy]

That's true for dealing with attacks on east and west simultaneously, but a REM-Scooter attack would involve hitting him on the north and south, where the long, narrow shape of Makoti's empire works against him.

Ja. I hope, tech-wise, that an attack on Mackoti is feasible. Operation Trident!

[antisocialmunky]

One of the problems with a dogpile would be mackoti pulling out of the south to defend the more developed cities in the northern hemisphere.

[Tohron]

So how many spare mining resources do REM and Plako have? A final advantage of getting Mining Inc. would be the possibility of buying their excess resources for gold-per-turn.