[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[Krill]

Change of plan.

Merc is worth it given I also need gpp, and after 10 turns it's probably about even with hammers/food. But I don't think I can trigger a GA until after I go Gunpowder>Chemistry>Nationalism and then research Constitution during the GA and get into Rep at the end. if I have to go back to building units, Nationalism is a 10 turn tech, so that's 20 turns before teh GA, so burning a turn to Merc is worth it.

Chumchu also revolted to Serfdom, so he can't whip units, but that suggests no early GA, so he is likely to bulb Chemistry. However, he then can't whip frigates so he would have a slower production build up, and a delayed turn on Chemistry is much more manageable if that is the case. 20 turns of Merc gpp is 60gpp in Nightshade, AF and 120gpp in R101, which doesn't affect the second GA but does bring forward the third significantly.

So I swapped wealth builds to research and I will one turn Banking, revolt next turn to Merc for 1 turn lost. Then back to wealth builds, except for 2-3 whipped libraries so I can run scientists and push through to Chemistry, with the grocer and bank going down in R101 (worth combined 40gpt). If I have to neglect Nationalism then I can go straight to Steel or Mil Sci.

[Krill]

dtay finished Taj.

This is what each player has to do at this point:

Joey doesn't have any real tech ability, I am faster than he is and my tech kinda sucks. He rebuilds China and regrows the pop there, but he has to use his current land army and galleons to take islands on both sides of JR4 and then swing in and hold front cities against Dtay (plus the above tactics requiring hammer heavy coastal raiding units to then clean up in the land attack). Then Joey devours the rest of JR4 after encircling him including the best shrine in the game (though it pains me to say it). At that point he just has to shore up tech and he can force the concession. Problem is just how many units Joey needs to use, but he can't win a tech race and he should fight now before Dtay recovers and brings AGG/PRO land units to bear.

Dtay was about to win by pushing tech, but now he just whipped so much pop that route is no longer available, and he has to win via further expansion. Yes he currently has a good tech position, but he either attacks JR4 (bad idea, he will waste units at the start and then give Joey a good opening) so he hits Carthage, after Couer and Chumchu just threw away the past 25 turns has basically. Depending on how close to cannons he is, he could just run him through. He has knights, so add muskets and cannon and no one can compete with him for this land except that Joey can take islands. Any competition for islands can be won if Dtay is close to Steel, and in a GA? He could be, and he can quickly get into Nationhood, but if he does that, he has to rush drydocks everywhere, and get into Theo, to match Joey on boats because Joey is CHM.

Gav has to decide if he wants to betray me, he can declare war in 2 turns. I think he has already made the decision not to, frankly I think it's a smart move because Joey would benefit, which means that all those whips Gav just did were for units to murder DS. Savant has MoM, which will not obsolete until Gav has Nationalism, so Gav could theoretically trigger second and third GA back to back for 24 turns of GA and just try to hand build all the units he needs. Drafted Jans are decent, but he would only get C1 on them, or CG1 and he just lost a large number of units. However, same tactics apply to Gav as apply to Dtay and Joey: get to Cannon to survive the stack attack from DS, and use galleons to run through both flanks as he pushes down the centre with an SoD. Couer is the neighbour to the south of DS, so no issues with losing anything from Carthage: he knows that he can just mow Couer down if he tries to take anything from DS, because Carthage has no navy and lacks much of an army, and Couer has to deal with dtay having free hands to his south.

My route to win is significantly more difficult, I don't believe it is feasible. I needed Gav to be more successful against Dtay for less cost. Now I basically need to get to a position where I can take out what used to be China, which requires Joey to leave a stupidly large opening to me. Not some meatgrinder war, I need to quickly dismantle all of the islands cities on one flank (my west), hold in the east and raze a bunch of coastal cities in the first few turns of the war. I'd need to march straight at the capital site, hold that and probably just push culture as hard as I could, and then hold a single city front as I cleaned up some of the cities to the east of ex-China. And this just about get's me to parity. I can only do this with a much larger army and cannons, which is the other problem, that of timing I don't have the units, and by the time I could get to them, Joey will have integrated China and have such a production lead he could defend China easily even if I could fight and probably win a naval war. I don't think I have the opportunity to win anymore except through some weird fluke that Chumchu invades me, dtay counter invades Chumchu and they both lose enough units that I can sweep in and somehow take out most of Carthage.

JR4 has an amazing shrine, but doesn't have the cities or land to win, and is between the two behemoths of this game. DS has land and a northern neighbour who wants it, Chumchu has shown that he doesn't know how to wage war and is next to someone that has to refocus to win and is an obvious target. None of these three players seem to have anything special that makes them able to defend well: basically Steel is the most important tech now, followed by Nationalism for drafting to defend if you give up on frigates. Everyone needs Theocracy, no one is using it but me.

[Krill]

I suppose I should also comment on why I should be safe.

Dtay has to reposition units, Joey has to rebuild his economy.

If Gav invades me, then Joey ends up in a position to take out more land with units he has lying around, it does not affect his recovery. Joey, despite having peace for 150 turns (fuck the little sideshow of taking a few cities from DS), does not have any trait helping his tech, PRO and CHM are played out there. Remember the turn he stacked up a bunch of whips in a pause? Since then, he also got a ton of courthouses, he owns this world in EP...and yet his tech still sucks, even after two GA? But give him more land just as Merc comes in to play, and how much more tech does he need? He needs to get to Steel. That's it. Steel and maybe Nationalism, as Steel gives him double promo boats so he can win on sea with production of his cities, and still win through numbers from drafting. Giving him anything to speed him up to reach that point is a bad idea, because Gav still needs to find away to deal with that (hint, he can't deal with two promo boats without Theocracy himself, and Joey outproduces him). So Attacking DS is smarter.

If Joey invades me, he delays his rebuilding, as he needs to divert hammers to replace siege, and he needs to build a huge navy to defend (couple of thousand hammers of boats without Frigates, which I know he isn't close to). If he delays this, he delays his reaching his tech goals, gives Dtay, Mr. Collosus a chance to build on his tech lead, get to Steel first and then use cheap drydocks and Theocracy to build 2 promo boats and use cannons to tear through Carthage, with minimal naval losses as Carthage has no navy anymore and then Dtay can just use his boats unimpeded to take all of Joeys islands from him how Gav should have from Dtay himself. So that's the race, Joey to rebuild and reach the tech needed to defend, and dtay to move his army and kill Carthage as he techs Steel. I just get to watch form the sidelines. Whatever Gav or I do is in the context of that upcoming battle.

[Krill]

I started to write a complete overview report, got halfway through, and then lost it

Here are the picture though, I might edit some stuff in over the next few days but I will not be doing a complete report.

Note that the reason I built the Toaist shrine is not just the income that I could get if I invest in the 1000 hammers needed to spread it. I need the priest slots for the 700 and 1000 point great people (700 gives second great person for GA, 800 from AF which is why it's running specs, 900 from Nightshade, 1000 from R101 then give up). This is what happens when you can't run Caste System.


Overview

Demographics

City Screenshots

[Krill]

Bacchus becomes a general lurker...leaving Chumchu and Couer in charge of Carthage.

Not exactly good for me, they lose any sense of understanding of Bacchus' insight, so do they have the ability to understand likely consequences of their actions without that knowledge? I don't see how.

Full steam ahead to Chemistry, prebuild caravels for queue upgrade, western island cities can throw out 3 turn frigates in 4 cities (12M, OH, BM, BoP), whip a few more out in other cities, I can see myself having 20 frigates within 4 turns of finishing Chemistry. Carthage lacks slavery, the rest is down to timing but he can't compete with that number of frigates. I'll need the frigates anyway as general deterrence, so long as I don't whip hard it's not a problem really.

So the real question is how to get from this position to Chemistry ASAP without breaking things. Probably mass wealth builds except R101 on grocer and bank, and AF on maces then muskets, and then time caravel prebuilds with Chemistry. New cities just follow general growth needs. I figure that gets me to Chemistry right as the peace should expire. Do that, and I'm probably safe for the rest for the game from Carthage unless Chumchu somehow has rebuilt his galleons already, and is able to get Chemsitry in hte next 2 turns, and then throws every coastal city into frigate production. He still wouldn't match me by T175 for frigate numbers, so worst case scenario I have to whip hard, and then I have 30 frigates and he just can't match those numbers no matter what. Then I crush his coastal cities as another learning experience for him.

[mackoti]

Bacchus becomes a general lurker...leaving Chumchu and Couer in charge of Carthage.

Not exactly good for me, they lose any sense of understanding of Bacchus' insight, so do they have the ability to understand likely consequences of their actions without that knowledge? I don't see how.

Full steam ahead to Chemistry, prebuild caravels for queue upgrade, western island cities can throw out 3 turn frigates in 4 cities (12M, OH, BM, BoP), whip a few more out in other cities, I can see myself having 20 frigates within 4 turns of finishing Chemistry. Carthage lacks slavery, the rest is down to timing but he can't compete with that number of frigates. I'll need the frigates anyway as general deterrence, so long as I don't whip hard it's not a problem really.

So the real question is how to get from this position to Chemistry ASAP without breaking things. Probably mass wealth builds except R101 on grocer and bank, and AF on maces then muskets, and then time caravel prebuilds with Chemistry. New cities just follow general growth needs. I figure that gets me to Chemistry right as the peace should expire. Do that, and I'm probably safe for the rest for the game from Carthage unless Chumchu somehow has rebuilt his galleons already, and is able to get Chemsitry in hte next 2 turns, and then throws every coastal city into frigate production. He still wouldn't match me by T175 for frigate numbers, so worst case scenario I have to whip hard, and then I have 30 frigates and he just can't match those numbers no matter what. Then I crush his coastal cities as another learning experience for him.

Caravels will will remain caravels, beter try with some triremes.

[Bacchus]

I'm gonna post so many smilies in this thread and see how long until Joey has a breakdown.

[Krill]

Why Bacchus why?

[Bacchus]

I'll read your view on the whole thing a bit later, but I think we both can guess at the answer -- it's because I hate you and for the second game I'm dedlurking in a row, all I did was push the turnplayer into ruining your game no matter the cost.

[Krill]

Yeah I don't buy that. You remember past actions to inform future assessments, but that's standard, that's not irrational.

The question should really be rhetorical, because you can't comment on Couerva in this game, and there are no unspoiled previous games to judge him on.

Most I can see you doing is giving advice to pull a trigger, not pulling the trigger itself.