[SPOILERS] Rusten and Hitru laugh off any and all mistakes as bad RNG

[mackoti]

Approaching global trade embargo time....

Naufragar cancelled OB even though he was gaining more from the routes than us. Maybe he was close to filled up by now, or they got replaced by other civs after cancelling, but it's annoying/worrying to see all those green lines in the F4 screen between everyone except us. My dream of getting routes from both Commodore and naufragar when currency is in (3 turns from now) was short-lived. I'll appreciate every turn of Commodore trade routes I can get, but I fear those are also coming to an end. Mercantilism can't come soon enough.

I may try to ask for OB in exchange for OB+gpt, but I fear even that will get declined.
Perhaps BGN will agree to OB now that he's located our borders and he also can benefit. Worth a try.

I know how its feel, I was denyed OB even i was backward becasue you know Mackoti strong. I bet Nauf wants you to pay money for OB, he is a strange dude, I read to many times(didnt read his thread): he benefits more when actualy they were getting more. And i think in this mod Mercantilism still has foreign trade routes. Dont buid GLH then for sure no one will open borders...

[Rusten]

I guess our fate is well and truly sealed then with you posting in here now as well.
(Don't actually leave, I appreciate the company and openly encourage posting)

You're right about mercantilism, I forgot about that change. So trade routes will be a thorn in our side for the entirety of the game...
Kill them all!

[Rusten]

Naufragar did indeed want gpt in exchange for OB. He sent an offer with us giving 3gpt on top. I rejected it at first, but we sent it back this turn as currency is finished. Incredible deal for him, but at least it's a positive and it keeps him on our side until astronomy (we hope). Now go build the MoM for us.

We had some discussion and when trying to think 10, 20, 30 turns ahead in time made some tweaks to plans. We're cutting down a bit on GPP in favor of production by running (at least) 5T of slavery to whip infrastructure and some more settlers/workers/units. Current science rate is so strong that pacifism will not make much impact -- can delay the 4th and latter GPs a bit instead and skip meditation+philo, meaning that we only need 2 GSs. Could probably have guilds in the BCs even if we wanted to, but on this map such a beeline doesn't work quite as well. Keeping OR also comes with perks. Long story short, never tech meditation until you're sure of what to do.

I still maintain that drafting is the key to this map and hope that others will be slow to realize as they might be used to more land-based maps (RB standard). With so much food available compared to actual land tiles you need other sources of production and slavery is nerfed big time.

Quick look at the demographics. Not sure at what point of the turn these were taken, but needless to say they're quite positive. At least 1 civ has tied us in food, but that's to be expected when you run as many specialists as we are. The real story here is the GNP/economy.

[shallow_thought]

I still maintain that drafting is the key to this map and hope that others will be slow to realize as they might be used to more land-based maps (RB standard). With so much food available compared to actual land tiles you need other sources of production and slavery is nerfed big time.

I think people will cotton on to this quite fast - even in RtR the whip is king early. But maybe the odd neighbour will blindly try to run a workshop economy and get surprised...

[Rusten]

Long time no post. Short one here as I ease back into it from holiday celebrations.

We switched into slavery+OR this turn to support what I will name the third wave of expansion. Two settlers are already on their way to eastern islands with more to follow.  1 city has been settled since I last posted, but overall it's been quiet for a while. We were almost doubling the #2 GNP for a while but teching will slow down now until caste is back on the menu (probably in 5 turns as we need to pop borders). 
The new city is BubbleBoy, which was founded on the newly discovered SE island. There was some drama with a Commodore galley here, making it possible that it would get immediately razed, but so far so good. Whale was scouted to the north of this island so a 2nd city will follow (3N) in the future. As you might've guessed by the Commodore galley there is a coastal path all the way to Mali from here, but he has no way of reaching our mainland.






Double fish and all those forests (wth mathematics now) = pretty damn good. 2 turns late on the wb, but there was not much time from discovery until settlement. Its founding settler was originally going NE. At least this sequence fits well in terms of civic swaps. Caste is back up the turn it's needed for the NE cities.
Blazed through MC, monotheism and now mathematics. Probably IW --> calendar/compass next. I doubt this map will suddenly produce 9-10 iron tiles like the last one I played, but hoping for at least 2.

[Rusten]

Very happy with the switch to slavery. The last couple of turns have revealed some more city spots and we're prepared to break the bank to grab as much land as possible short term. REP+caste+plethora of food resources will bail us out of any tech issues.
Below are 2 spots that I'm keen to settle in the direction of Commodore. They'd be easily defendable on hills (aided by Celtic guerrilla promotions). The newest settler was rerouted to settle the PH by the sheep, and the clams+stone will follow if we succeed.




Now it's reaaaaaally far away from our capital, but Commodore doesn't know that. For all he knows our capital could be around the horse+clam spot and not the other side of the starting island. There's a chance he will still be offended, but we have to try it. If we can settle and get basic defense up it's almost impregnable and works as a great buffer. Commodore's tech should be way behind, which puts us ahead in the astronomy race. Once that is in he will not want to start a war on the seas. Given that he eliminated SD he'll have a lot of land to choose from so it's unlikely he'll rush there. He has 14 or so cities already. And the city that's covering the crab in culture was settled* 5 turns before contact, so not more than ~15 turns ago. It's not the center of his empire.

This does mean that almost all of our forces will be on the eastern side of the empire, but I've spotted the bulk of Naufragar's stack in a border city near Commodore, so we're pretty safe to send axes and archers away right now. The fact that Commodore has cities all the way over there is another reason I'm keen to grab the hill cities.




*Or captured, but fairly sure it's the former.

[Rusten]

Came to my senses and decided that the city 30 tiles east of capital was too greedy. Especially since Commodore captured a barbarian city in between. Up to 17 cities now and costs are high enough as is. Getting to astronomy in a timely manner is very important, else all the new possessions are free pickings.

Here's a look at some of the new cities -- so much greener land than our starting island. Sadly there's more coast than actual land, but still a very valuable area. Some spots are still left to backfill later, but those are more marginal (single seafood).




Speaking of green starting islands, how about Naufragar?




He's our natural target this game. Not only is his land of much greater quality than ours long term but he is also dangerous because he has such a short path to our most important cities. I've behaved and not complained about it recently, but let it be known that I am still very annoyed about him having galley access straight into our land (capital and best cities) with next to no warning or countermoves available. 

A bit of an outdated picture, but I forgot to take one this turn. Settled 1E of iron this turn (2 lake tiles in the fog) and our 18th/19th city will be down by the silver (a resource not yet claimed by empire). Think we'll have 5 6  different luxuries hooked up at that point, which is a godsend when we start drafting 3 times per turn until the end of the game.

[Rusten]

I wrote yesterday that naufragar is the natural target, but that doesn't mean that anything is set in stone. If Commodore keeps settling cities and delays astronomy we might have to cut him down a size or two.

I was very surprised to meet Gavagai and see that he only has 10 cities -- with the GLH no less. I guess he's all in on astronomy and wants the EIM early, but that's still a very low amount.
That said Donovan has only 5 cities, but well, Donovan plays in mysterious ways.

Thinking longer term the plan is to double bulb chemistry pretty early and getting some guerrilla 3 raiding parties going along with naval superiority -- no cities would be safe. G3 grenadiers anyone? 

[Rusten]

SW empire (finally accessible). A settler is camping out with the warrior and will follow a worker into the galley next turn. Settling our 19th, and probably last until astronomy, city between the fish, iron and silver.




SE empire: Despite heavy maintenance BubbleBoy is already contributing positively. Not sure if I've mentioned it but plans are in place to whip courthouses soon and finish up the FP on sugar island. PezDispenser was just settled as our 18th city. It sucks to not have the work boat already in place for the crab, but this settler was initially going way east and was pulled back at the last second.







The decision not to lightbulb philosophy (no early 4th GS) and expanding east means that Moai is back in MarineBiologist. HappyFestivus is too small and slow to grow after getting multiple work boats and galleys.




The 2nd GS for astronomy is pretty much complete, just need to finish machinery-compass-optics now. Maybe we could've had astronomy ~5 turns from now without adding all the new cities, but to what end? I'd rather get it later and secure the good cities and start developing them earlier. Astronomy is an important tech to make sure you don't get run over, but the real goodies come with chemistry and steel, that's when you can truly outproduce your opponents on the seas.




In short, maturing the empire trying to take advantage of having a religion (OR) to get important infrastructure in place. There's no way around courthouses with all the maintenance. It was always going to get really costly when there was no eastward expansion available (until border pops) -- very long distances. We're not racing ahead on GNP anymore, but we are keeping up despite the increased costs, and I'm fine with that. No real threats at the moment and both BGN and naufragar have low power and seem to focus on maturing their cities as well. Naufragar has been whipping a lot recently, but it looks to be infrastructure (he did just adopt OR).

[darrelljs]

What do you think the odds are for each of the remaining teams to win he game?

Darrell