(October 23rd, 2017, 22:50)GermanJoey Wrote: Ichabod, I don't think Krill is trying to mix up the meta just for its own sake, but trying to fix what he genuinely perceives as a balance problem...
Yeah, I was forcing a bit, because the comparision seemed colorful.
Krill's last post indeed help to understand where he's coming from. But I don't think you can set as a balance goal to make actively ruining someone else's game impossible. It'll always happen -> if you get axe rushed by your neighbour, you will fall back massively against the leaders, it's the nature of the game. I think the important word here is "active". I agree with you regarding protective, because it's passively ruining a game, not actively.
I was actually a bit too harsh with RtR in my previous post. The main problem is that I don't like having to go through a lot of minor changes and remember what version of the mod I'm playing, with all the minor differences.
T174 finish the last 10% of Gunpowder
T175 Monotheism
T176 1-turn Chemistry
T177 1-turn Theology
T178 1-turn Constitution (probably?)
T179 finish Constitution after it turns out that end up just short of 1-turning it on T178.
T180 ???
T181 ???
I can revolt to Theocracy + Representation (keeping Caste, Nationhood, and Mercantalism) on T179, T180, or T181. However, I'm not sure when I actually want to switch... on one hand, I really want to get the most that I can out of Pacifism, but on the other hand, that civic's costing me an arm and a leg... something like 100gpt above what Theocracy would cost, on top of the ~250bpt that I'd get from Rep. So pretty goddamn expensive for maybe an extra 100gpp in 4 cities. And with the GA, my NE, and the Parthenon, its not like I'm helpless at generating great people without Pacifism, like dtay is. However, I really really do want to throw a GA once AL comes in to get my Factories up ASAP, and while I'm sure I can produce at least 4 more GP by that time, I'll need 3 of those to be different from each other as well as not a Great Scientist. (as I popped one on T174) And all of my GPP pools are kinda mixed. So, it'll be iffy.
The Great Spy at Communism would help a lot, but I'm not exactly inclined to research Scientific Method as that would obsolete the ToA, the Parthenon, and all of my Buddhist Monasteries (I'll end up with maybe 10 in total, but still, that's something). I'd also be forced to tech Education and Liberalism, which are practically worthless to me, so I doubt its worth it to go towards that oath of the tech tree any time soon... which makes me want to stay in Pacifism just a couple turns longer, sigh. =/
Tech
Anyways, my next tech choice is independent of all that. It's definitely gotta be the 3 big military techs (steel/rifling/MT), but the big question is... in what order?
Option A: Steel (est: 7889/1.2/1.08 = 6087 base beakers... would have it by T183 I think, if I pick this one first)
The most important tech right now for a bunch of reasons. 1.) Cannons wreck everything as long as you have lots of hitters to follow up, and hey, look at that, I'm in Nationhood and drafting 4 units a turn! (note: this is what dtay is doing right now, pumping cannons and drafting 4x/turn, presumably gearing up to obliterate Chumchu.) 2.) Drydocks are a super important building in the late-game, both for the promos and the production, and it's better to build them early. 3.) The earlier I get started on my Ironworks, the more I'll get out of it, and I've already got a great city lined up for it in Ventessel/Donovan's former capital.
Option B: Paper -> Printing Press -> Replaceable Parts -> Rifling (est: 966/1.4/1.16 + 3220/1.2 + 4347/1.2 + 6762/1.2 = 12536 base beakers... complete all this by T188, optimistically)
Paper reveals my tech to everyone (bad, since I can already see everyone else's tech), and printing press will bring in like, maybe a paltry ~40bpt or so. However, RP is worth hella hpt, maybe something like 70-80 or so. And then Rifling lets me draft Rifles, which is worth a ridiculous amount of hpt. So, pretty expensive to get to the good stuff, but a pretty good payoff when I get there.
Option C: Music -> Military Tradition (est: 966/1.4/1.08 + 4830/1.2 = 4664 base beakers... could probably finish by the end of the GA on T181 if I run extra wealth)
Part of me to grab this first, load up a couple dozen 3- and 4-promo Knights onto Galleons, upgrade them all with cash at 50 gold a pop at my easternmost port, and then stream them into Carthage as reinforcements to wreck dtay when he comes rolling in. (Cuirs flank-attack Cannons). But, another part me thinks that it's pretty damn expensive plan for something that won't bring me any profit, and sending a huge portion of my army overseas could invite Krill or JR to attack me... both have got to be pretty squeezed in by now. JR actually had the second biggest army a couple turns ago, until dtay started drafting to get above him. There's also the risk that Chumchu won't understand my intentions and try to attack me, sinking my incredibly expensive aid package into the depths. At any rate, I'll want this tech after rifling for amphib Cavalry if I don't get it right away.
OTOH, if I pop a low-odds GE, I think I'll probably get Democracy before any of this stuff and rush the SoL, which is probably worth a good 250-300bpt plus some gppt. It'll take a good 25-30 turns to pay back but man oh man would it put my economy way ahead of anyone else's.
One tech-related oddity is the free Economics Great Merchant. I don't want it until I'm forced to get it for AL and I'm pretty sure neither does dtay, I think, since we both have castles spammed into pretty much every city we have. Probably worth a ~120 commerce per turn for me at least, if not more, even if most of those extra routes are internal (I have some cities big enough to provide 4c internal routes). However, the GM itself is a huge prize, and Environmentalism is a pretty good civic. So... who will get it?
Constitution is finally in! I had to switch 1 small Wealth build to Research to finish it on time, heh, but I did it! Revolting from HR+Pacifism -> Rep+Theo immediately (that is to say, before microing anywhere) brought my expenses/beakers from -530gpt/+1730bpt to -498gpt/+2090bpt, sweet! I realized that switching civics right away would be best, because my 4 specialist-heavy cities were pretty much close to starving down a size because I had been slowly starving them for a long time already, due to chaining my last GA with being in Pacifism for 26 straight turns. I'll put out one more GP at the end of this GA, in 3 turns, and then I think one more GP every 3 turns for the next 12 turns or so? And then a 6th one from my NE city in maybe 15 turns after that. So I think I should be ok for a 4th GA in time for AL... lets see how badly the dice decide to troll me.
Anyways, after "disposing" of some food-striking Pacifist specialists, and adding a few scientists to delay growth in heavily-drafted coastal towns, I only ended up dropping about 50bpt, which is much less than I expected. Cool cool cool. That means I've already hit the two "economy" goals I hoped to hit some time ago (that I don't think I ever posted about), when I was originally planning for this GA about a dozen turns ago: 2000bpt at full slider and 1000hpt!
Great! And it seems that I will actually reach Steel (the tech I decided to go for - more on this in a bit) two whole turns earlier than I projected... it'll be a bit close, but I was at 3T before I microed so I figure it's within margin of error. Note that the second-place MFG is dtay, who just threw his 3rd GA at the end of last turn.
dtay is about to hit Carthage any turn now... either next turn or the turn after that. I'm 90% sure it'll be next turn. He moved a fairly huge stack into position this turn, and unfortunately got lucky enough to play after Carthage did a back-to-backer. dtay's stack has like, 20ish Knights, including his GG Medic, 13 Muskets, a dozen Catapults, some swords, uh, a few other things? And 5 Cannons, which is more than enough to wreck the city's castle (7 longbows, 6 cats, a pike) in one turn. So, I think the invasion goes something like this:
First, dtay moves up to the diagonal tile on second half of T180. T181, Carthage should retreat their catapults (but probably will attack out with them, accomplishing mostly nothing). Second half T181, dtay, bombards down then sacrifices a few catapults, then cleans up the city with swords and muskets. That collapses culture, and dtay can then fork the two other cities in the theatre, which are basically undefended. Carthage has about 25 Knights in total... half are near Ethiopia, however. If he saved his catapults, he should use them and whatever Knights he has on hand to hit the Knight stack, because otherwise Carthaginian culture in the entire region evaporates and dtay can advance his Cannons 3 tiles a turn.
(Funny tangential note: I just noticed that, according to the military advisor screen (F5), dtay has a whopping FIFTY CG3 Longbows in total! )
That leads me to my next point, which is that Plan C "go troll dtay with boatloads of C3 Cuirs" is pretty much a no-go. While I could get Music and MT within 2 turns I think, with the help of heavy Research builds, that doesn't change the rest of my logistic troubles here. First, teching like that would unfortunately use most of my gold. So, I'd need to sit and save gold for a turn or two at least. After that, it'll take my boats an additional 5 turns to travel to Carthage's mainland, which sort of underscores just how ridiculously far west Carthage settled their island cities from their Capital. By that time, dtay's smallish Frigate fleet will also be in the area, necessitating that I drop my units off further north than I'd otherwise like to. So, it would be, realistically, 11-12 turns or so before I can get a dozen or so Cuirs in a place where I could engage dtay's stack. And, unfortunately, I'd expect that most of Carthage will be dead by then. From what I can see, if dtay doesn't screw around too much, he will slice through Carthage like a hot knife through butter.
So, what do I do next? Well... I think this update is long enough for now, so you'll have to wait a few days to find out!
An update. It's the last turn of my GA... here's an overview shot and some of my more important cities:
Empire overview:
(to the left you can see the Regna Counter, which makes me laugh every single time I log in. What a seriously unfortunate city!)
Next, here's my Capital, with all the fixins. The jail will be pretty nice here, even beyond the necessity of eliminating WW in such a huge city... with the Castle and Nationhood, it'll be worth 11 ep/turn. I actually still do want more +ept, because the rest of the world is slowly pushing back the All-Seeing-Eye-Of-Sauron. And well, we just can't have that!
My Moai/HE city, which has a surprisingly large amount of buildings because it simply outputs too many goddamn hammers during Golden Ages to actually produce a unit more than every other turn without wasting a ridiculous amount of overflow. At any rate, its also the second highest commerce city in my empire so it's not exactly a terrible thing to have good multipliers here like an Observatory, Bank, etc.
My Great Lighthouse city, and my second strongest hammer-producer. (and 3rd strongest commerce city) I had originally planned to make this my Ironworks, but to be honest it's in too vulnerable of a location. Plus, I need it to be dumping hammers into ships right now, not into an expensive National Wonder.
Masked Moon, my next GP; 50% Artist, 30% scientist, 20% spy/engineer. I plan to grow this up to size 20% after the GP.
Ghost Spirit, the next GP after that: (75% Merchant, 15% Engineer, 10% Spy, IIRC)
United Palaces, the 4th GP after that; it'll be a 95% Merchant, 5% GE. (the 3rd will be my eternally starved NE, a GM/GE/GP/GA mix, which is currently working very few specialists so that Ghost Spirit will finish its GP first.
Introducing Portsmith, my brand-spanking new GLOBE THEATRE city! When's the last time we saw one of these actually used heavily in an RtR game? And yes, this is one of my main motivations to use Nationhood over Vassalage! I can draft it every single turn (and have been for some time... it was at 7 unhappy faces last turn, heh) for a free 80hammer musket, and then in 7 turns or so, with Rifling, I can draft a Rifle every other turn. Sweet!
Finally, the former Chinese capital, Anchorage, will start on my Ironworks next turn with a huge amount of overflow. It will grow up to size 18 or 19 by the time it is completed... but I haven't fully decided on its final tiles yet.
Demos:
Dtay and I are both researching techs with identical prereq-bonuses and identical KTBs, so it seems his tech rate took a big beating from invading Carthage... it'll certainly improve next turn though, when he switches into Rep.
The question last time was: what do I do next?
I had a big rambly post about this written up last night, but I just reread it and it sounded pretty convoluted. It boils down to this: I need Transports (req: Combustion, Sci Meth, and Artillery) to reasonably fight against the guy who is the furthest away from me on the whole map. However, by that time, he will certainly have MG, so I'll probably also need Artilleries themselves plus Infantries. Thus, my next techs will still be Paper -> PP -> RP -> Rifling, but I might skip Music and MT, or at least delay it for a bit, in order to get some good stuff much further down the tech tree faster. (Steam Power, Railroads, and maybe even AL) I still think that MT is very valuable to me - Amphibious Cavs will be one of the best ways to break MG, plus there's West Point - but I'm just not sure if its feasible to squeeze it in.
At any rate, I think I'm a lot stronger than dtay is right now. I've pretty much closed the tech gap completely while retaining numerous other advantages, such as near-full map vision, a much, much higher MFG, many National Wonders that he doesn't have, better infrastructure, etc. However, allowing him to take all of Couerva will give him enough to either overtake me or at least bring the balance closer to the center. So, I need to take more land so that I can still control the game's pace when I finally have the tech to fight that far away. Unfortunately, Gavagai and Krill are both teching Military Science, so they're probably scared of dtay and I and thus hyper-vigilant against any action against them. And I don't want to get into a long, drawn-out conflict when I need to prepare against dtay in 25-30 turns. JR is an idea, but they're still useful as a land-buffer between dtay, and it's still an unfortunate reality that dtay would be easily able to capture the lucrative Buddhist shrine even if I were able to capture every single one of their other cities. If they continue falling behind though...
More realistic is taking Carthage's islands. They've got some pretty nice ones, and they're not too heavily defended. It also seems that dtay has no interest in contesting me for them, as it looks like he's keeping his fleet closer to home, perhaps in fear that I may try to snipe some of his coastal cities while he's off conquering. I'm also really interested in controlling that whole sea for long-term strategic reasons. The downside is of invasion is hastening Carthage's demise is also good for dtay, because it'll help him conquer faster and thus integrate their land into his empire faster. And worse, it'll allow him to move against DS faster, a much more serious long-term problem. So I'll need to time an island invasion juuuust right... unfortunately, Coeurva just started heavily spending EP against me and thus I'm unable to see what's going on in the war zone anymore... hopefully I'm able to reverse that within a turn or two.
Speaking of DS, Gavagai finally tried hitting the MoM city again with his big Jan stack and was repelled. They signed peace a few turns ago. Man am I glad that I didn't panic and attack DS's flank, as that might have been enough for Carthage to jump in too, at which point DS ends up collapsing. That woulda resulted in a vastly stronger Gavagai and an even weaker Carthage for dtay to demolish. Meanwhile, all I'd have to show for it would be two or three crappy little cities. So, good call on that one, me. *pats self on back*
(November 2nd, 2017, 00:55)mackoti Wrote: indeed good call.But still i wanna see blood(and you have too remain relevant)
oh yes me too, but, i have to be careful. it would be so fun to just crash into, say, Krill with a hundred units and just slug it out, but then what if Gavagai tries to prey on my islands and JR finally decides to wipe out State of Zijin? maybe I hold those two off, but then I'm still locked into Forever-War with Krill and then then dtay gets to Destroyers first and i'm totally crying and crying...
to me, Krill and Gav going for Military Science is a good thing, because then they'll behind when the next tier of units comes up. SoL are already obsolete against Nav 2 Ironclads (and both dtay and myself have them), and Grenadiers aren't very good against Pro Rifles. poor Krill will also soon discover that his precious Commandos really aren't that amazing on a snaky island map like this, especially pre-railroad, and doubly especially when the opponent knows they're coming and has played with and against them before. there's a big reason I haven't deleted all my stupid archers, warriors, and longbows!
The idea of stuffing all of one's roads with these ultra-obsolete weakling units in order to troll Commando units reminds me of that manga Goblin Slayer, where the Goblins will tie live prisoners of war to the front of these big wooden shields so that the humans can't attack them at range with arrows or cannons. Especially at Railroad, where its like you become a mustache twirling cartoon villain tieing damsels in distress to the railroad tracks, heh heh heh...
Gavagai did this against me all over the freaking place in PB22 and it really is quite frustrating.
Post GA stats: MFG is 780hpt, so I went up about +200hpt during the GA. Gold-saving rate is at about double my pre-GA rate, ~680gpt with 140hpt of wealth, which is going to be about my base rate now - I'll have all cities producing less than ~20hpt set to wealth, while all cities above that will produce units. (and drydocks/levees/factories, where/when available). From these cities I'll draft, on average, 2.5 muskets a turn, until Rifling, where I should be able to average 2 rifles/turn. My 0% science rate is about 550bpt thanks to Merc/Rep, about 10x higher than pre-GA, and my max rate, with no research builds, is about 1850bpt, a little less than 2x higher. Break-even is around 1350bpt, IIRC.
Very productive GA, IMHO.
dtay took Zodiac Spire, but didn't advance his Knight stack up. The reason is that although it looks like Coeurva sacced his cats, he kept his Knights in reserve, and has pulled his Knights from his Ethiopian border. dtay was able to spot these with a sentry horcher. So I guess it'll be a more slow-moving conquest for him. He still isn't advancing his navy... Galleons along the coast would really, really help him here. He has a lot of Frigates streaming up from the southwest, so maybe he's just waiting until he has more ships to guard against me before he moves them up? I can't imagine he's worried about Carthage, as they basically have no navy at all in their Western sea. A little bit over-paranoid IMHO, he could have risked, say, a pair of Frigates and a pair of Galleons just to help jump up some Cannons to keep up with his Knights.
edit: or maybe (probably) I'm forgetting he can't see Carthage like I can...
(November 3rd, 2017, 14:03)GermanJoey Wrote: to me, Krill and Gav going for Military Science is a good thing, because then they'll behind when the next tier of units comes up. SoL are already obsolete against Nav 2 Ironclads (and both dtay and myself have them), and Grenadiers aren't very good against Pro Rifles.
T183.
Errm, I remembered this turn that Ironclads also require Steam Power. So I guess it's Gav and Krill, and also JR it seems, will have a small window where their MS will have some sort of advantage via the SoL. PP due in 2, RP in 2 with a bit of wealth, Rifling in 4, then Steam Power in 5... so I'll have Ironclads in 13 turns I guess? T195? Add another 3 turns if I want MT before SP.
I realized that I haven't posted city counts in awhile, so here we go:
City Counts; (a filler being any city under size 5):
me: 46 (11 fillers)
dtay: 31 (2 fillers, 1 recent conquest still in revolt)
Krill: 26 (4 fillers)
Gav: 26 (1 fillers)
JR4: 23 (2 fillers, 2 recent conquest still in revolt)
C: 19 (1 filler)
DS: 18 (6 fillers)
The only news is that dtay is finally moving his navy forward. He's got many stragglers slowly strolling up along his western coast. The weird thing is that he hasn't forted through this really awkward jutting peninsula in his northwest, and instead has to chug the long way around. I guess he must be short on worker labor or something? Anyways, I counted 14 Frigates and 6 Galleons in total along his western coast. I have... I can't remember exactly now, but I think it's 13 Frigates and 8 Galleons around my eastern coast? So we're about roughly even navally for now. For Carthage, I counted 2 Frigates and 2 Galleons in total on their west coast, IIRC, so they're pretty much blood on the water, so to speak.
I declared on Carthage this turn. I took the first part of the timer, which produces a 3 way split.
1.) First off, sorry. I waited as long as I could tonight for chumchu to play first, but I can't play my turn until the afternoon tomorrow and this would necessitate a pause if I were to play on the second half with dtay.
2.) As I work from home, I'm able to play my turn whenever I want, and generally am the first or one of the first to play. OTOH, Chumchu and Coeurva both have been taking forever to play their turns, so I don't think I'll ever delay them.
3.) It's better for dtay and I to play a turn split... even if we don't fight directly, there's a very high probability that we'll want to target some of the same cities on the same turn.
Anyways, spoils so far:
Lost 5 Aquatic Knights (4 with 65%, 65%, 75%, and 90% odds, blegh, but then won one at 23%) plus a Musket, but at least I've got a pretty nice haul there at Boneless Foals. Very unfortunately, Chumchu whipped Walls+Castles in basically every island just in the last couple of turns... I had originally hoped to take 4 islands this initial turn, but had to concentrate my forces more instead. Ho hum.
The primary goal is to take Carthage's six main western islands and then, as a secondary goal, raze as much their mainland as I can before dtay can get to 'em, with three cities in particular in mind. In total, that'll reduce the Carthage available to dtay to take in half. Maybe Krill will join in the fun and take one or two himself... maybe? Anyways, I think 3 of the remaining 4 islands will fall to me pretty easily, but the last one will be contested with dtay. I've lost sight of dtay's Galleon stack, and so it's possible, if it's in one of the few dark squares it might be, that he may even be able to take it this turn. Alternatively, he might be able to take one of the big mainland cities I want to raze, as it's currently very lightly defended and one of these dark spots is 4 tiles away. We'll see...
Also, check out dtay's ridiculous conga line, lol...
)
So I guess it's Gav and Krill, and also JR it seems, will have a small window where their MS will have some sort of advantage via the SoL. PP due in 2, RP in 2 with a bit of wealth, Rifling in 4, then Steam Power in 5... so I'll have Ironclads in 13 turns I guess? T195? Add another 3 turns if I want MT before SP.
I waited as long as I could tonight for chumchu to play first, but I can't play my turn until the afternoon tomorrow and this would necessitate a pause if I were to play on the second half with dtay. 
