[PB75 Mjmd] Call to Power

[Mjmd]

T234continued......



Ginger STILL hasn't played. I did ask him on discord if he needed an extension, but no answer. Both SD and I have been reloading / giving extensions unasked for. If he wasn't the literal next best shot of winning I would say skip his turn, but SIGH.

Speaking of SD



Do I believe it? Maybe. Mainly because SD is in like 4 games right now so he might just not care.

It will be curious if a dog pile commences. Ginger isn't far behind, so to me its him vs me and everyone else kind of sits back and hopes we drag each other back a la PB66. But people don't always see the game the same way and my GA is making me look pretty.

So what to tech. I'm up stupid early and rambling so feel free to stop reading.

Question is which victory condition do I go for?

- Conquer SD for concession - I already promised I wouldn't do this, but lets assume I didn't or he betrays me again. This would initiate a dog pile. I would obviously wait for industrialization, so I could probably do it. Pros: pay SD for betraying me earlier. Cons: Need large fleet in order to do on any fast timeline and unsure if I can out produce Ginger to do activities in non home waters. Real life time. My wife isn't working 3rd shift atm, which means I don't have PB66 levels of time for a major offensive war. This is why I did promise SD I wouldn't. I don't like this option for both in game and out of game reasons.

- A limited war vs Nauf to kick off a dog pile and try to just destroy them defensively; again after industrialism. It wouldn't be the first game won by just sitting back and letting people suicide into you. See PB65. Pros: I probably haven't shown, but there are 5 mining inc resources in very isolated Nauf cities near my border. ITS POSSIBLE Ijub wouldn't jump in if I just take 2 cities. He is a wild card in this and the first option. I don't know what happened between him and Ginger, but Ijub giving a city back, followed by being attacked, and then followed by Ginger pillaging Ijub's conquered territory doesn't point to great relations. Personally just the pillaging of my territory when I know you need me would be infuriating. Cons: I have nothing against nauf this game. I mean sometimes in civ4 you just go to war because its the winning move, but still. There isn't a guarantee he would even join in a dog pile. Although he has in past games to a great degree; even marching through former enemy territory to attack. Less real world time, but still a lot, but hopefully for short time period and game ends sooner so net more time.

- Tech to nukes and Cristo. I have Kremlin and access to police state. Cristo Kremlin MIGHT be optional even. Its possible police state plus mining inc is good enough for a few ICBMs. Tactical nukes aren't great on this map. In PB66 there were close quarters naval fighting with cities easily accessible via commando. Here you pretty much have to win the naval war over longer distances first before you could attempt via sub, so ICBMs are much more important than PB66. Pros: nukes Cons: I'm not sure I can actually out tech Ginger. His land is SOOO much better than mine. That being said if I think I can out build him in nukes.

- Culture win push - I've been setting it up, so its not inconceivable. Right now I'm at 75 turns at 90% culture, but I can probably drop that quite a bit. Have I mentioned I picked up a Confusian city in my Gav/Scooter conquest? Observant people will have noted that it was a very early city for mining inc. So with my 1 Hindu city from an early spread I can put in two more sets of religions in my worst city and 1 in my 2nd probably.  Pros: its been forever since a game went to an actual win con. Cons: Ginger would get nukes and I wouldn't. There are 3 techs for nukes I wouldn't need for this and 1 tech for culture I may not need for nukes (radio, which for nukes is on way to mass media, but again not sure I need Cristo, but would want for culture). While each turn probably isn't long its still almost certainty AT LEAST 50 turns away unless I get a lucky artist after my next GA (assuming I don't keep rolling prophets). That is the one thing I 'm missing for my push is a dedicated artist factory.

Now teching combustion > Biology > electricity > Industrialization are the mandatory techs for all of the above. A key question is if after biology I should fit in Democracy for Statue of Liberty. I think so. Between mining inc and being industrious its not horrifically expensive. But delaying industrialization may be a mistake, so maybe after? But then that shortens payback period.

Now the nice thing about going culture is I can always switch to the nuke path. While Cristo is maybe optional for nukes its not like its bad for the push and would also force Ginger to build manhattan project instead of me wasting hammers on.

If I'm going the attack Nauf route I 100% don't want to delay industrialization for democracy. Want the tech lead when I kick that off and not sure I'm keeping tech lead on Ginger for long.

Honestly it might depend on what Ginger does soon. If Ginger goes for democracy after biology I'm just B-lining tanks and taking over those 2 nauf cities. If he doesn't I'm tempted to just try to build my lead and go for statue, which is good for longer game in going for nukes or culture. I'll note electricity is a better economic tech than normal thanks to all my windmills and I'm building quite a few water mills so its possible I wait until after that for the decision on statue. I don't think I have a firm favorite among my options so just leaving open options seems ok.

[Mjmd]

T237

Out of golden age and there are some worrying numbers here.



I'm #1 in GNP, but just doing some rough math most of that is culture. Ginger may actually be slightly ahead and I have few ways to add. My decision to go for factories before biology is born out as Gingers production was almost beating me IN a GA and is super high now. I should be able to catch that up between factories and coal plants coming online and newer cities. Even with biology next I doubt I'll catch him in food, but will offset some of my very unhealthy cities. I don't think Ijub is attacking anyone, but man is his power rising. SD is back even with Nauf and his troops seem to all be headed this way still.

[Mjmd]

T238

Ginger and SD signed a defensive pact. Doesn't really matter as I kind of assumed. Wonder if it was meant to be hidden.

Ijubs gnp is now about even with Ginger (and mine if you do the math) and he actually got to biology before me for which I'm grateful.



I've been second guessing my decision to do mining inc vs creative inc, but Ginger birthing what has to be a low odds engineer makes me glad I did take mining inc.

I may test this, but can someone confirm what happens if two competing corps are in the same city? / if its possible?

Edit: you can buy out the previous one for a couple hundred gold. Something to consider eventually .

[Mjmd]

T239

Remember how I thought I was tied with Ginger IF you accounted for culture. Ya I'm now tied, with the culture included.



Also yikes is that I while I remembered last turn to delay oil for unhealthiness reasons (Rome was building an aqueduct in preparation), I didn't recheck Rome or other cities this turn. I blame being tired. Biology is going to be too late for a couple of cities even reducing it to 3 turns. To note in PB66 I built 0 public transportation and I have 3 in production this game with more likely all the way. I've been battling missing health resources all game, but man are they really kicking in overtime now.

Production gap is narrowing though and I have another GP roll of the dice in 4 turns. About 58% chance, but in reality 100% chance of prophet.

[Mjmd]

T240

Ginger completed Pentagon. I'm hoping this is what he used the engineer on. Creative constructions has not been founded, so seems likely, but he has has assembly line so long could be a natural build and he could be saving.

I've spotted 2 Ginger cav and an infantry in SD territory. He also has a airship in an Ijub border city with me. The question being is he preparing an offensive or is he just honoring the defensive pact with SD or both? I'm hoping its just defensive pact related. He is out teching me, which I'm rapidly becoming worried about long term. Is it an offensive on me or Ijub? I'll have to be careful not to get war peaced in case its Ijub. Ijub has a lot of power, but infantry are really really good vs rifles and Ijub is lacking steel. I don't know how much stock to put in an attack on me. It would require Ijub NOT to close borders. Mind if I ask Ijub close before war means Ginger only has one option so Ijub won't take, but I can't imagine Ginger doing a huge attack through Ijub and leaving himself defenseless. Unless Ijub has decided to abandon our defensive pact, but as he has given me plenty of warnings in the past I think I trust to that. Also, if Ijub turns against me atm I don't think there is a ton I can do so might as well not worry about.

I'm still building tons of infrastructure.  Behold the unhealthiness. You all saw previously my prebuiilt health buildings back when I had more grocers than libraries. Ya I should have extended that to even small cities as I have a size 6 losing food atm.



My heroic epic and ironworks city are churning out 1 turn 5 exp infantry, but they just started doing so.

[thrawn]

It's Ljub, not Ijub . Ljubljana, like the capital of Slovenia

[Mjmd]

I'll try to remember. It will only be the 3rd or 4th time I've changed how I've wrote his name.

BTW I forgot to mention how annoying it is that Ginger is constantly getting unasked for extensions. Its the right thing to do, but still. Kind of wish Civac would just take over. It would be WAY worse for me, but still. Despite leading every demographic Ginger is playing short turns and I suspect Civac would be more involved. But ya he FINALLY rolled the turn after an unasked for extension and a pause, played 12 minutes in current turn, and will probably be last to play this turn. I hope its due to asking Civac a question vs some kind of clock game, but who knows at this point. Its at least pretty hard to double move past my privateer / airship sentries at sea now.

[Mjmd]

Production gap is narrowing though and I have another GP roll of the dice in 4 turns. About 58% chance, but in reality 100% chance of prophet.

CALLED IT!!!

PB59 early keystone city. Had some early worker micro combined with creative that made this city really tick. Also, the city that introduced me to morale generals off boats......



T243

And mind you another 10% chance was a merchant that would have been for cereal mills, which would have been fine. About 6% was a scientist which could have bulbed part of electricity; not great, but ok ish. BUT NOPE, bloody prophet AGAIN.

Now I had a choice. Do I just spend my 3 saved GPs. Just settle both prophets, found cereal mills, and bulb part of electricity. OR do I really wait 32 or 33 turns for another chance at a GA. I decided to wait. I think the game is going that late. Mind the current time is with me giving over a grassland windmill and to get even a turn or two faster I either have to give up really good plains tiles or another grassland windmill for a bit. I may still decide to change my mind next turn and just spend them. Cereal Mills would probably be good enough even if I don't spread everywhere. Maybe I'm just supposed to hope for a low odds artist to speed up culture; something to consider. I would have / would love to get out of organized soon though. Its been good for me and will continue to be for a little, but 8 turns of GA would have been perfect then switch away. But ya 32 turns is not soon.

Anyways, catching up got fresh cow for cow from Ljub a couple turns back. Love how because I had no seafood early we were doing cow for cow and he has just kept that as the signal this whole time. Ginger has been holding the second half of the turn for like 3 turns now, which is curious because his power graph has been semi flat the last little bit.



Shown is SDs main stacks (he has another 10 or so cannons in the south, but the 34 up here seem to be the main), but point being very few hitters. If you were trying to demolish an attacking army to put them in range of out of date praets this makes sense, but for offense? BTW the Ginger units appear to just be protecting an airship. Haven't seen any additional.

Also, while we both show 6 turns to electricity I'm losing gold doing so and Ginger has positive 750gpt atm. This can only be from wealth builds. So ya fascinated if I'll be at war next turn or not. Mass wealth builds does not scream war soon, but then why is he holding the turn constantly. I mean other than to see what tech I'm going like he did during our tech race, but still he only would have had to hold this last turn for war or that, so why the other 2 turns if not to THIS TIME prevent double move. I think I can speed up to 5 turns, but saving some gold in case of needing unit upgrades.

Settled 3 biology cities that only have plains tiles and did pass Ginger on production finally.

[Mjmd]

After much thought I went back in and decided to found cereal mills. IE gave up on a 4th GA.



A lot of my reasoning was honestly just wanting to use the scientist to help bulb electricity. Without the GA now I feel like I'm pretty likely to fall behind in tech. My land just can't keep up with Gingers. He doesn't even have Wall Street yet and it doesn't even matter.

Did I immediately fail the cereal mills spread in my capital? Yes yes I did. Not sure why Charriu fixed missionaries, but not execs.

BTW there will be a 4th settled prophet in JPJ next turn (prophet born this turn)). And yes there is 1 settled in my capital as well, making 5 settled prophets!!!

[El Grillo]

They can have a nice interfaith symposium and discuss the finer points of theology together. The oldest ones have been just sitting around with nothing to do for hundreds of years at this point, right?