[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[pindicator]

I'm not sure. Right now it's a bit of dead weight but when I founded the city I had multiple cities pressing against the happiness cap or in anger. It wasn't until I hooked up all my calendar resources and got a couple trades recently (yay Charriu giving me wine for one of my gems) that my city happiness cap has ballooned into the double digits. I think there was a good 15 turns of those furs actually making a difference in multiple cities.

Right now, not so much.

[pindicator]

127

Buddhism, it's like you remembered me after 30 turns of nothing!




I mean, the city doesn't need borders popped any more and I could have used you 50 turns ago here, but I'm not going to complain. I'll be in Organized Religion very shortly and every one of these is one less missionary I have to build.

Meanwhile, I fear for Charriu. I'm not sure what Jowy is bringing to the fight but being on the wrong end of a 2v1 is never a good time. I had previously gifted Charriu my iron - since he has Gaelic Warriors I'm not sure what good it will actually do - and I might gift him a happiness resource if it seems he's holding his own against the two of them. Jowy has been the most confusing player of the game to me, as he's built himself quite a tech lead by being the only civ to get not only Code of Laws but Civil Service - yet I'm not sure how a war is going to translate that into gains for him. He does need to expand as he's currently the smallest empire in the game. But I would think he wants to get a tech advantage first. The obvious play was to go for Ballistaphants but he clearly didn't do that, so with a tech and commerce lead why not just go for knights or cuirassiers?

Poor Charriu has dropped to last place in the scoring with all his whipping but I haven't seen anything with my warrior to suggest that he is in imminent threat of collapse. However, everything had been pushed north to fight AT and Jowy may be able to take some cities while troops are repositioned.

Superdeath did what I was hoping he would do and what you never really want to do in a golden age:




He superwhipped!

The high MFG i saw last turn was in fact superdeath as he spiked quite noticeably on the graphs now. This makes me not want to push in as I am not going to have enough units to force anything decisive. However, I think I can use the time of him reacting to a central push to do some work around the edges.

So here's my idea




Two goals here.

First is to try and raze Shrimp Gumbo and eliminate superdeath's source of ICTR routes. I'm hoping that Gumbo is only sitting on 1 or 2 archers and then I can unload or attack amphibiously depending on what I see.

The second goal is to eliminate superdeath's ivory. My main stack will be able to do that next turn as if superdeath's stack doesn't move I'll be moving everything onto the ivory next turn and pillaging it with my sentry numid. This is also to hopefully draw superdeath's attention away from the south, where my numids are going to be doing an end-around and trying to raze what I hope are lightly defended cities in the jungle.

I missed a real opportunity this game. Flanking 2 opens up Mobility and I could have had a bunch of Numids racing through the jungle, maybe even paired up with a couple Woods 2 melee units. I suppose it isn't too late for that, but I don't want to wait on a new round of Numids before going after superdeath's ivory. And if I run into a scout or some other trouble then I'll have a pair of elephants moving up as well, a turn or two slower than the main numid forces.

Superdeath doesn't have Iron Working yet, by the way. The iron tile I see in his territory isn't showing any bonus yields yet, just a regular 2f grass tile.

Also, note I'm fitting in a pair of settlers out of Yamhill and Clatsop. One is going for the island location, the other is either going to go settle on the marble or try and establish a border city by Mjmd. Probably the latter since I have a lot more time for the marble city. I'll also put a city out down south so I can set a defensive city on a hill / choke to slow down Mjmd from coming that direction. 18 cities will probably bankrupt me, so I'm going to have to rely on Wealth Builds. I'm still only break-even at 25% right now.


PRO: 37 (1144)
FIN: 33 (948)

[pindicator]

128

Oh look, superdeath does have iron working now.




Anyway, two archers on a hill behind walls ... a little tougher nut to crack than I was expecting. However, I have CR2 on one of these swords and with the 20% bonus to attacking cities it turns out that these are going to be coin flips. Which means that 3 should be enough: lose 1, win 1, third guy cleans up. I kind of wish I brought a fourth but we'll see how this falls out.

Chop came through up at Lincoln and then I decided to whip the Cothon there anyway. All this overflow is going to be held up until Organized Religion comes online and then we'll throw it into a forge. Wealth builds to get us to the golden age.

And so I moved more units in.




Superdeath moved all his units somewhere out of sight, but he could only have gone west or southwest. There's also the possibility of the 2 great generals that superdeath has, but that can only give 2 of his elephants two-move status. In any case, this is just to make sure that stack doesn't go south. Next turn we likely turn this pile of leftover units back to Coos. I'd like another turn here and to be honest I might have just waited a turn before moving in but with his units disappearing I need to make sure they stay up north and don't go heading south on some silly mission like killing all my numidians.




I get all twitchy kinds of nervous when someone who isn't at war is last to play and then doesn't play the next turn and that's exactly what Mjmd did last turn. Only - our enforced peace is still around for 1 more turn so he can't be declaring on me this turn. Which means that there's a settler just off picture. Darn, I had illusions of bringing in a settler down here to be a thorn in his side.

I whipped the settler at Yamhill because it wasn't working the best tiles (whipped off a plains hill and a plain grass cottage). This settler is going for the island location because that's the one that will be most profitable. The one at Clatsop will be slow built because Clatsop is working good tiles. And Belisarius started another this turn because it's a 5-turn build and that city has capped out it's growth.

Graphs, because we haven't done those in a while

PRO: 37 (1181)
FIN: 33 (981)

[pindicator]

129

I have to admit, I'm starting to feel bad for the position that Superdeath is in.




I'm not very good at being cutthroat, and so emphathizing with what I know has to be a frustrating game has part of me thinking "could I give Superdeath peace?" But honestly, no, I cannot. Superdeath would only be given a reprieve and a 10-turn window (at least) to claim more city locations, to get his economy going, to actually profit off of his Great Lighthouse trade routes. As awful as a play experience this must be fore SuperD, I'm afraid that it's correct for me to keep the pressure on. So there cannot be peace.

Honestly, we can blame the map on this one too. Superdeath has only one avenue for expansion: through me. So knowing that he would have to come for me later, then I can't give him peace. If Superdeath had a land or even a galley route to Mr. Cairo then I could entertain the thought. Likewise, perhaps Superdeath has just checked out of this game - his turnplay speed has greatly gone down and where he was near the top of the scoreboard he now sits near the bottom with Charriu, who is desperately whipping away to save himself from a 2v1. And if he is checked out then that means later on I'm going to come in and conquer him with knights or cuirs or something. And in that case, I might as well keep the pressure on so he stays weak and I can conquer him sooner.

Superdeath, when you eventually get to read this, no hard feelings. I know why you came at me and I agreed with it (well, actually I'm not sure I entirely agree with it but I look forward to us hashing out strategy and what-ifs afterwards). If there's any frustration to be had here, I think we should both do the only logical thing: blame the mapmaker.

Anyway, there was no peace and no counter-offer from myself to him.




Here's where Joyw took a city of Charriu. There's been nothing since - just a lot more whipping from Charriu - but I imagine it will take a couple turns to heal and/or move on to the next city.

Also note how my peace deal with Mjmd expired this turn. I made a point to finish all my elephant builds at end of last turn just in case he was going to declare on me this turn and cut our deal one turn short. In the meantime I just need to remember that I need to cancel this deal next turn with him.




Superdeath added another archer and I messed up on the odds calculation as it turns out my swords are only getting ~20% odds to win and not the 50% I thought. Also, I noticed here that I was potentially within striking range of finishing Monarchy. Finishing Monarchy this turn would be very good for me as my great person is born next turn and being able to revolt straight into Hereditary Rule on the first turn of the GA would be a nice benefit and not having to wait until the last turn. Actually, it may not make a difference as my happy cap is so high up already but I went for it and through everything that wasn't building a settler or Moai on Wealth builds. I then pillaged the hamlet my swords were on and ended up just a few gold short.



That few gold was made up by retreating my slow-moving army back into my territory, and left me a few gold over so I could keep on the Cothon at the capital. I'm not going to try to invade superdeath until knights. I'm sure he knows this too, but it's the smart play. I suppose if I really wanted to be sneaky I would whip up the knights, sign peace with superdeath, and then go after Mjmd. Something to think about. Although Mjmd does not have the nice prizes of Pyramids and Great Lighthouse that Superdeath does.

I forgot to get a picture, but he also has the south covered with some spears and a horse archer. I could try to rush my units in but I just settled for my GG spear and sentry numid. Really, there's no point in forcing anything right now.

Someone picked up Machinery last turn - I think maybe Jowy? And then someone else picked up Monarchy this turn - I suspect Mr. Cairo for that one.

Then when I hit enter and rolled the turn:




Good stuff coming next turn!


PRO: 38 (1219)
FIN: 35 (1016)

[pindicator]

Hmmm... maybe I should offer peace just so i can take full advantage of my golden age. I think i can get more leverage out of mine than he does from his, no?

[pindicator]

So I went ahead and double checked the trade routes are indeed being cut off from Superdeath by this war by drawing up something similar (note: not exact) to the layout here. And it does confirm to me that they are being blocked. That means Superdeath likely has trade routes of 2/1/1 in his cities and if we give peace then we're going to be giving him 2/2/2 routes with a couple of 3c routes in for all the island cities out there. Roughtly 24 commerce per turn. That would be about a 20-25% jump from his golden age gold-per-turn and would be something like an 60% jump from his pre-golden age income.

Looks like I have to stay at war to prevent that trade income from coming in.

[pindicator]

130

Mjmd broke the ivory for luxuries deal with me, but I would have done it this turn if he hadn't first.




He's not telegraphing very friendly intent towards me, and from what I've read of his thread in 51 he seems the type of person to let you know exactly what you think of him.  I'm thinking about throwing him a fish for fish trade, see if that will help ease tensions.  While I'm confident in my ability to eventually grind down Superdeath, I really want to avoid the prospect of a two-front war.

Jowy took another city off Charriu, but it looks like it was a small city on the edge of tundra.  Next up will see if Jowy makes any real progress - he is getting to the edge of Charriu's core now.

And I realized that I had another tool at my disposal:  ship blockades.  Now they do not block tile usage but they do prevent trade from going through, and me cutting off the ICTRs for Superdeath would be about 13gpt a turn if I reason this correctly.  I wonder... do blockades also apply while at peace?  That doesn't seem right.  If I could give him peace and then just blockade along my shore that would be a wonderful solution to these endless turn splits.  But I don't think that's how they work - unless a lurker knows and can correct me?

Speaking of peace, I thought of a peace deal I would accept from Superdeath:  20gpt.  That would be the majority of the extra trade income he receives with some room to haggle down to 15.  But perhaps it should be more since if you consider the blockade I'm denying him of at least 35gpt right now.

Anyway, this might all be moot.  I think we'll be invading with knights in about 20 turns with how things are looking right now.

To get us there:







Good news is that I only have 5 cities that still need Buddhism and then 3 new cities so 8 missionaries in total.  I started 3 right away, am finishing builds in a few spots, but my main goal for this golden age is to get forges finished everywhere.  When it comes time to whip knights we're going to be glad to have built forges now.  A few markets would be nice but it turns out those are expensive when you're not playing FIN/EXP in RtR.




I'm continuing to run the 3 specialists at Klamath and now have added these in Lake.  Ultimately I am going to try to be better at running specialists as I don't think I've always fully utilized that part of my game.  And while I have good odds of getting Scientists in both - well, I guess I may want to build one of those markets after all.

Long-term I think Klamath is my great person pump.  That means I'll probably want to pave over a couple of those cottages I just laid down too.  Pity.




Obligatory.





Demos look a lot better.  I think that's Superdeath at top GNP?  Actually I bet it's Jowy.  Man, I don't know what kind of game Jowy has been able to play out there in the far east but kudos to him so far.  If he does gobble up Charriu then he's going to be in a very good position.


PRO: 38 (1257)
FIN: 38 (1054)
These were a pain to count knowing that the Golden Age coin comes after the FIN coin, but I think that's accurate.

[pindicator]

I immediately regret hiring those specialists at Lake. That's going to be 42 turns for those 2 specialists to get into a great person at 300 points. Klamath meanwhile will hit the 200 level in 15 turns.

What I could do is keep those specialists at lake and then kill the specialists at Klamath as soon as the golden age is over. Then we'd get the 200-level great person at lake in 25 turns and the 300-level at Klamath in 36 turns. Plus we'd be able to guide the second Great Person a bit better to be something that isn't a scientist since we'll have more agency in what we can build at Klamath than what we can build at Lake.

Alternatively I just fire those two specialists at Lake and then Klamath gets 200-level at 15 turns and 300-level at 48 turns.

[pindicator]

131

That's a trireme




Time to retreat.
I'l have to make a round of triremes myself and then push back in, possibly shuttling in more attackers this time.

Out east I got sight on AT's stack that is laying siege to Charriu




Jowy did good to let AT take Charriu's attention and then attack from the south. I wonder if Mjmd is going to jump in. He should; he'd grab a lot of good flood plains lands if he did.

Finance screen:





PRO: 38 (1295)
FIN: 37 (1091)

[pindicator]

I forgot to mention last turn that I did offer Mjmd a fish for fish trade. Point being is that I want to encourage him to go for Charriu. And why would I want him to go for Charriu? Because I'm getting increasingly uneasy that he might go for me.

If he declines the Fish for Fish - and I don't believe he would be the type to accept and then attack anyway, because he got very upset by that same thing happening to him in PB51 - then I just might give Superdeath a peace offer after all. I believe I'm within 20 turns of knights and I very badly want to get these forges in now. After those forges we pretty much are going to be back to unit production. I don't believe Mjmd would come after me if he knew he'd have to face me alone. And his power has been building lately.

On the other side, I am 3 turns away from longbows. Feel pretty confident I'd be able to halt an attack after a round of those come through. But again, I'd prefer to get the forges down first.