41 Vice: Commodicator/Pindore

[superdeath]

without knowing the situation, id almost suggest trying the post office out if USA.

[Zed-F]

This week's opportunity fell through. Into unemployment, y'all.

Sorry to hear that. Good luck finding new opportunities.

Hopefully at least the game continues to go well for you. How is the western half of your empire coming along? Last I heard there were some settlers in production for Silver / Superdead islands and possibly elsewhere... how close are these to their destinations?

[Mardoc]

Sorry to hear that.  Hope it's brief!

So do you upgrade those skirmishers to Longbows in a couple turns, or would you rather spend the cash on tech?  You've got basically everything possible going to improve a skirmisher, but I guess at some point bonuses become less important than raw Strength.

[pindicator]

Turn 138

As Commodore mentioned we had a bit of discussion on the great people, but in the end we sorted it out.  Mostly...




Straightforward Clinton is going to starve out a Great Scientist.  But the tooltip doesn't take into account the starved person dropping off so it really comes in 5 turns:  66 + 60 + 54 + 48 + 42 + 30 = 300.  But you can actually mix the order up a bit and save a population, so after this screenshot I went back into the game and made some changes:




This makes Gerry and Burr lose a turn of growth, but both those cities losing 4-5 food each is not nearly as much as Clinton losing a full population, so it's worth the change.  Also, Clinton isn't going to want any more great people points after this so there's no reason to go over 300 if we don't have to.  This way now we go 66 + 30 + 60 + 54 + 48 + 42 and end up at size 7 instead of size 6.





I might have lied about Clinton being straightforward, but I promise that Hendricks is going to be.  Hendricks will get to work 9 specialists for the first 3 turns of the Golden Age, and then we'll starve it down until it lands it's great scientist on the last turn of the golden age.  54 + 54 + 54 + 60 + 54 + 48 + 42 + 36 = 402, and our second great scientist.  It will end up at size 6 so we'll have some regrowing to do.

After this we are going to sneak up to Literature and build National Epic.  We might even consider building a few cheap wonders here:  Great Wall and Temple of Artemis are both still up and would both be good choices.





The tricky one is going to be Stephenson because the goal here is to actually get as many great people points as possible without getting a great person.  Stephenson comes before Hendricks so we can't even "tie" on turn 144, we have to stay under 400 entirely.  Then it will be able to get a great person out over the turns after the golden age ends.  Our plan for this city is to get the first half of the next golden age.  Hendrickson will then get the non-scientist needed for that GA, which we'll want to pull out of the hat when we get to Nationalism, Mercantilism, and Rep.

Because it's not an immediate need there won't be any starving down in population, and the 26 food we have in box is JUST enough to accomplish that.  We'll work the plains hill mine for 3 turns to get the skirmisher out and finished, and work 6 specialists during those 3 turns.  On t141 we work 6 specialists and then move the plains hill over to a coast to only lose 2 food that turn.  And then on 142-144 we pick up the coast tile and run 7 specialists, getting us to 398 at the end of the golden age.  After that it will be 7 turns of 5 specialists to get the next great person, but we will probably be able to go a little slower in order to grow a little or get some production with the mine.

Here's how it all will fit together:

	Clinton	Stephenson	Hendricks
138	96	164	108
139	156	200	162
140	210	236	222
141	258	272	276
142	300	314	324
143	-	356	366
144	-	398	402

[pindicator]

Commodore and I had a bit of lamenting this morning about not building an academy earlier in the game. I can understand our decision at the time: we recognized that we would not be making a bureau capital due to needing to avoid Civil Service in order to pull off the Astronomy bulb, and that Nationalism was our civic of choice for the mid and late game. But still, we've had a great scientist sitting around for some time now and it has us lamenting. So the question came up again, and the big data point we decided on was whether or not an academy makes sense now over a Chemistry bulb later. (Frigates, yo. Frigates are big.)

And that turned into a secondary question, which I'll answer first: does building an academy now need to happen for us to be able to tech all of Machinery, Feudalism, and Optics. Originally our plan was to use a bulb on Optics (or Machinery) to rush us along to Astronomy, but if we can save that bulb for a Chemistry bulb or a future Golden Age then that makes more sense considering the size and sprawling nature of our empire.

So first of all then, what does the rest of our teching look like for this golden age? Currently we sit at 166/1046 on Machinery, and need all of Feudalism and Optics. We have 279g in the bank. We make 195g at 0% this turn and 617b at 100% (but bleed over 300gpt). More realistic is a situation where we save gold for 2 turns to get up to about 660g and then can run 70% slider for 4 turns, putting us at 460bpt at a cost of 160gpt. We are getting roughly 80bpt the 2 turns we will be saving gold due to specialists. So add all that up:

460 * 4 + 80 * 2 = 2000. 2000 base beakers for the rest of the golden age.

The cost of our techs, taking in account known tech bonus. Machinery has a 50% boost thanks to 5 civs knowing the tech. Feudalism is at 44% with 4 civs. Optics is unknown so I'm going to put a conservative guess of 2 civs knowing it, or 32%. (Rusten obviously does know it and we are pretty sure Gav just unlocked East Indiamen thanks to the art on his cities changing.)

Machinery: (1046 - 166) / 1.5 = 587 base beakers
Feudalism: 1046 / 1.44 = 727 base beakers
Optics: 897 / 1.32 = 680 base beakers

1,994 base beakers needed to tech all 3

So we should be able to nab them all, if barely. And increasing costs may mean we have to throw a wealth build in at the end but I'm confident we get there and don't need an academy now in order to get there.


Back to the first question: does an academy now help more than a Chemistry bulb later?

I'm going to peg the Chemistry bulb at about 2000 beakers. Right now our bulbs are worth 1,900 and we'd only have to grow another 30 pop to get up to that figure. So it's probably a conservative estimate.

An academy right now in the capital will get us roughly 20 beakers/turn outside of a golden age. I logged out without a screenshot of the capital, but right now in the GA it's pulling in 80 commerce. That will drop to 70 outside the golden age, and actually 20 beakers/turn may be a bit generous because our breakeven if probably somewhere around 30%-40%. But we'll be generous and account for fantastic growth and say that we even average 25bpt from the academy over the time it takes to get to chemistry. That then turns into 33 base bpt (giving an average known tech bonus of 2, which is again probably a little generous).

So even with all those generous estimations, how long does it take for 33bpt to equal the 2000 of our bulb? 60 turns.

[Commodore]

Academy math: Basically, do one immediately or never at all. We're never getting Oxford either, I think. Universities just too dang costly. Optics is going to be teched directly by the end of the golden age, ignoring the bulb. Make that at least *three* people who have Optics now.

Rusten is taking and holding BGNu cities now, so I think Naufragar will be able to defend himself. Go for it, dude!

I realize we've been golden through two whole turns without showing a picture of our Moai. So...here's our Moai.

Gavagai has landed what I'm 90% sure is Astronomy, casting the whole "capture Hindu shrine" thing in doubt. If we want to swap at the end of the golden age, the neutral religion is Christianity, and we'll want to spread it from here. So...that's going to be a fun little debate.

After Astronomy, we're going Guilds->Gunpowder->Construction->Engineering->Chemistry (bulbed) -> Military Science. That road is the safest on a water map, plus it's just beautiful for workshops.

It's not a vast amount of land, but the Isthmus of Pindore is going to sprout 17 workshops in toto, to go with the four active mines. That'll be a lovely bunch of hammers for making ships. It's weird to see all this green and think "production" not "commerce" but the era of cottaging is just about over.

[Krill]

Obvious question is obvious: when did you get the GS that could have made the academy? And how many turns until you would be able to bulb Chem?

[Zed-F]

At least Naufragar built the Great Library, so Rusten won't be adding a free great scientist to his mix. We have a great scientist due soon, it's...awkwardly timed. Math seems wasteful, dunno about Academy.

Commodore
Here is a random thought. Would it be worth it to go forward an early Golden Age rather than Academy or bulb?

Pindicator
Golden age into caste is where I'm leaning right now. Use the GA to get #2 and #3 great scientists for the Astro bulb. Maybe an Academy if we can also get #4 in

Commodore
Hum
Given timescales, might even look at an Optics bulb.

Pindicator
We may even want to hold off on the GA until we get to Monarchy? Or can at least get that HR civic switch on the back end.

Commodore
Yeah
Caste/HR/OR/Fuedalism by the end, if possible.
I don't see Bureau as worth it, but can be convinced.

Pindicator
No, I'm not sure it is either. Maybe if we end up with a shrine and can run a high %

Commodore
Hah
Well, got a great Divine Right plan?

Looks like the first GSci was around T116. It's probably less than 20T before they can bulb Chem, but obviously they'll have a better idea than me.

This suggests that even an immediate academy ASAP would not have gotten more raw beakers total than a Chem bulb (as of the time they gain Chem.) It's possible they might have enjoyed the benefit of intermediate techs sooner, though, which might have made the trade-off more worthwhile, and obviously the Academy has more long-term benefits.

[Commodore]

Guilds/Gunpowder/Construction/Engineering will probably be right about at 20 turns, sans an infusion of money.

[Commodore]

Tired, not a ton of time, but I had to post this:

Donovan is crazy, brah. He's still at war with BGNu, and now THIS. And Gavagai has East Indiamen.