RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[Cyneheard]

Short chat with Mali, but needed to be straightforward about Sticky Fingers being where it is, and where our plans are:

me: you there?
Capac: just dsp. Did you get 200g for Monarchy now or you will get it when you get Currency?
me: I get when I get Currency. Byz will be good for it. Or else they'll be dead for it. If they cut us out of that 200g, then I will send my army their way, and get Babylon and Maya to help out. half of the teams in this game are running skeleton or near-skeleton defenses
[10 minutes later]
me: our 6th city is also going to have overlap with Sticky Fingers (it'll be 4N of SF). The choice is to either overlap with your city (while placing ours 1S5W of our capital), or overlapping with our cities, which is unacceptable, since they would be either our capital or our second city.
I'm going to be honest: You chose to settle Sticky Fingers really far north, and we're settling first-ring sites that fit with our plan and with our food.
it's fine, just don't expect to keep all of SF's BFC under your cultural control, even just Creative + Libraries
Capac: I don't think we'll have a problem, try not to encroach on our first ring though. we're kind of worried about the culture from Gibralter with the great wall
me: that only gets Gib up to 4cpt. I doubt Gib's going to get a library
Capac: but you'll want a Library there eventually, and we're not CRE
me: for a while. your first ring will be safe
Capac: if it's just CRE + Great Wall + eventually Library then I don't think we'll need to worry about the first ring
me: We're going to try to keep Gib from being the holy city. it'll be at 3 pop when we found Taoism, I think? with the much larger AF and BR more likely to win that lottery. Gib only has 1 tile of overlap (the peak doesn't really count)
me: the other city will have 3. oh, are you currently putting 1 beaker per turn into Aesthetics? since the deal isn't going to happen with India, I'm afraid

Then, he was gone.

[Cyneheard]

T90:

Gulliver is dead.

HRE, however, has a barbarian problem. Our HA who still has movement moved 1NE to get out of sight again. I don't remember much of an army sitting in Midas...

Ilios, you shouldn't have moved both your HAs north like that. They're needed at the home front. Welcome to the area known as "I'm next to the Great Wall".

[Cyneheard]

So, the Maya approved of our still selling Monarchy to Byz, and I wrote this response, which I think explains why Byz's inability to team closely is pure in a game this size.

Yeah, and we got a king's ransom for the tech, too. While screwing over three runt non-PAT civs.

I think this is proof of why neutrality or dealing with everybody doesn't work:
Byz is paying 1/2 the cost of them researching Monarchy.

You paid 100% the cost of researching MC, and are getting:
Math
Construction
Monarchy
Aesthetics
Calendar
Currency
COL
Theo?

So, you paid more like 10% the cost of researching Monarchy, amortizing the MC cost over all techs received.

Well, more like 15-20%, but my point still stands. Byz has no chance of maintaining tech parity with us unless they have a tech to trade. And we'll be running researchers at 100% science. How can they keep up at break-even?

[haphazard1]

Excellent news from (former) France.

Sad news on Gulliver, but with barb axes starting to show up in significant numbers a warrior has little chance to survive. He served us well, and we can do without the maintenance.

Speaking of barbs...they are popping up, aren't they? Good thing we built the Great Wall. Hopefully we can avoid fog-busting too much of former France, and let the barbs cause some havoc with our rivals. Of course, we need to protect any valuable units we move into that area....

We certainly need some spears, even with our already large military. Fortunately HR will make them useful as we can continue growing our existing cities, and new cities will need garrisons as well.

[Cyneheard]

I think we can get 3 spears out easy, once the forges are done. Might add a fourth, but probably won't (the fourth would be at London). NOTE: These plans might get amended based on where Taoism comes in.

Current city builds:

London: Settler, followed by a settler (with 2 chops coming in, one a 24-hammer third ring chop), settlers being finished this turn and T94. Can build a spear after that or not, and then probably start the forge.

Animal Farm: Forge, while still working the scientists. Might whip the forge on T96 after bulbing Philo, and then knock out 1 spear, and then getting us some sentry chariots.

Beaver Rock: Forge, not sure if/when it'll get whipped. One spear after that, and then either on to a courthouse or a mace if Machinery comes in fast enough.

Gibraltar: Can finish the spear at any time, but I'm going to let it sit in the box for a few turns to save some maintenance. Probably build it the turn we revolt to Taoism: that's one turn of no maintenance paid while still getting use out of it.

Edinburgh:
With HRE's culture near, its build plan:
Granary (chop coming in...T94)
Library
Either barracks or walls, depending.

[Cyneheard]

T91:

Still no Aesthetics from India. That is really bad. 30t of teching, and they can't get 540 beakers. Including all the war gold.

I whipped BR's forge. It'll go stable - spearman (save some maintenance). This way BR can go onto sentry chariot duty as well as AF; it'll be producing 12 base hammers fairly soon (15 with the forge).

[haphazard1]

Still no Aesthetics from India. That is really bad. 30t of teching, and they can't get 540 beakers. Including all the war gold.

Is this really a "can't trade it", or is this a "won't trade it"?

If they really can't manage Aesthetics in 30 turns...ouch. Just how hard have they been pushing their expansion? You would have to tank your economy pretty hard to not manage 18 bpt by this stage of the game.

Maybe they researched something else during this period?

[Cyneheard]

They haven't finished Aesthetics yet. And, no, they haven't teched anything in the meantime.

Why their economy was so bad: distance maintenance. They kept 2 Sumerian cities, and are probably paying about 15-20gpt in maintenance for those two sites.

[Cyneheard]

Thinking long-term:

What would have to happen for PAT to Liberalism Steel?
Basically, Chemistry, Rep Parts and Nationalism are all roughly the same cost.
Current round of research (through ~T105):
CS
Machinery
Feud
Aesthetics
Lit
Philo (bulbed by England, T96. Expect us to control the clock on T95, so that we can be online instantly to bulb Philo immediately. Can't risk India beating us to it. I actually hope their GSci is planned for T96...and they lose Philo by a matter of hours. See below.)

Assuming 3 full-time techers:
Carthage would go from CS to Paper, and then on to Guilds (~10-12t) --> Gunpowder (~12-15t) --> Chemistry (~20t) (Guilds needs Feudalism completed, and that's the long pole of the first round of techs. Carthage could finish Paper T106-107.): That's somewhere around T145.
Babylon (ideally, gets the GLib) bulbs Edu with 1 GSci, and then techs the rest and moves on to Liberalism.
Maya get useful stuff like Nationalism, Banking, Printing Press, whatever. Banking would be useful; gets the financiers into a much stronger position.
If we can finance extra techers, then who knows what else we'd pick up. Compass/Optics/Astro line's pretty weak. Maybe Economics after Banking?

me: hm. Barring a monstrous tech lead, there's no way we're going to be able to Liberalism anything significantly more expensive than Nationalism.
Krill: wait and see
me: Well, Rep Parts and Chemistry cost essentially the same. I'm looking at Rifling and Steel paths for Lib'able. Feud's probably coming in around T105-110. Guilds is ~12t after that and Gunpowder 10-12t
Krill: 3 techers. paper and Nationalism are my guess
me: bulb Edu, and Chemistry would be another 20t. maybe as little as 16-18t. T145 Lib of Steel. Rifling's slightly longer, because PP ---> Rep Parts
is a little more expensive. but, next three big techs should be Eng, Paper and Guilds. Put Carthage on Drama and/or Music once CS finishes? since they'll be waiting on Machinery and Feud before moving on to something else
Krill: They can do paper. With 1.4 from theo
me: cheap, then
Krill: cheaper than CS. significantly so. 7turns?
me: um, they'll do it 6t
Krill: so do Paper
me: post-Bureau?
Krill: yeah
me: So, T106. including a Bureau revolt. 125bpt shouldn't be tough at that point. So Maya gets to go Drama/Music line
Krill: Babylon?
me: Banking? PP? Nat?
Krill: Who does Guilds?
me: Carthage. Paper --> Guilds. have to wait for Feud
Krill: Edu gets double bulbed by whom?
me: The GLib Babylon? That's the only way we'll have a shot at getting something big from Liberalism. heck, one bulb might be sufficient, and then they finish it
Krill: 1 bulb is doable. I can't see them getting a second
me: their bpt is high enough anyway. the critical path is Guilds --> Gunpowder --> Chemistry
Krill: I hope Carthage are getting a GS. they could do with an academy
me: agreed. Especially with all that Bureau commerce... their cap should be at 30 commerce base by that point. So, that's 45 commerce to feed through the academy... 8 cap + 4 TRs + 7 silver + 4 cottages @ 4 commerce per gets them to 35. 9 cap, including palace. 36. An academy would be worth 27bpt to them... at that rate.
me: Oh: India's probably keeping their GP. hoping they bulb Philo. instant shrine.
Krill: That would be funny as hell
me: I will be controlling the clock on T95 so that I can log in as soon as T96 rolls and bulb. and then I'm going to laugh twice as hard if they get a GSci and bulb Philo after we do. Because they, say, don't check the event log
Krill: that would be awesome

[haphazard1]

Ouchie on the distance costs. That is pretty painful...hope those cities are very strong ones, to have a shot at being worth it. I rarely play the early rush, partly because of the economic impact of success. Let's not even talk about what happens if you fail.

Given the value of Liberalism in a game with multiple human teams, I agree it will be hard to get a really advanced tech. But even one of the "standard" Lib techs like Nationalism would be a very nice boost.

I also agree that Guilds and Banking should get high priority from the alliance. In most SP games the tech slider stays high enough that grocers and banks are low priorities (at best). But with financing civs we need those improvements, and obviously for us it will unlock our UB. Pushing through Banking early also allow for a grab at Economics and the free Merchant.

We'll have to see about Philo. Hopefully nothing unexpected will happen there. Do we have a back-up plan for our GSci is we somehow do not get Philo?