[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[Tarkeel]

I gotta pop borders here, and none of my eastern cities are Hindu, which made missionary distance quite far, and Astronomy obsoletes Monuments. I'm very not used to the latter ever mattering in games. I say that because a few turns ago I considered just using a Monument in this city before realizing it wasn't going to work.

Under normal circumstances, Theatre would be an alternative (but they're quite expensive for a fresh city) or (as you sau) just building culture with Music... But we don't have time for Drama!

Re: border pops - One thing I thought of (briefly) is that Castle is a viable emergency backup border pop mechanism. Very slow, but efficient in that we want a castle anyway and it's cheap for us. Very unusual for that to be a plausible option, but here we are.

Agreed, castles are also underrated culture sources, but they will also go obsolete in the not too distant future.

I'm still pretty convinced Mao was the best leader in this setup, especially for Carthage, but I also have been thoroughly convinced of Tarkeel's pregame reminder of the value of Creative on a water map.


I'll also say that I'm not 100% sure Organized needed to be banned here with the benefit of hindsight. Financial probably did, but I'm not totally sure Organized is significantly better than Exp/Pro/Cre. I think Expansive in particular is in a really good place in this kind of game.

Agree that we probably have gotten more value out of both PRO and EXP than CRE. The value of ORG is pretty heavily tied to the difficulty, and while I'm a big fan on EMPeror I'm less sold on MONarch.

[scooter]

I went ahead and checked on the Great People situation. If I start generating them next turn - which is where I was leaning with Unta's build queue just clearing up - the best timings look like this:



Malaz City: work 2 scientist and 2 merchants for 6 turns: Spawn GP that leans strongly towards Scientist/Artist, high single-digit chance at Great Merchant.


Unta: work 2 scientists, 2 merchants, and 1 engineer for 13T: Spawn GP that leans strongly towards Merchant/Artist, but probably 10-20% chance of Scientist.


Percentages are ballpark here. There's also refinements. Malaz City could work fewer than 4 specialists in order to control the %s better, and as long as it beats Unta's Great Person, it's fine. In this plan, we could throw a Golden Age in 14 turns, which I think is pretty good as Chemistry would already be online (estimate: 11T), and we could quickly grab Banking as mentioned, not to mention Philosophy for a Pacifism stint in order to help generate the 3-man GA. There is a slightly unorthodox option that I normally do not love, but it's worth mentioning here.






Thanks to 100% modifiers, we could actually 3T The Great Wall. In this scenario we work an Engineer and these exact tiles for 3T. We would be trading 75 base hammers today for a permanent 2 GPP starting in 3T. Here is the full set of tradeoffs, please yell at me if I'm missing some.


* Upon completion of The Great Wall, it would take 11T of 5 specialists to generate the GP instead of 13T. Or put another way, this delays the second GP by 1T, but means we have 2 fewer turns of max-specialist config.


* This reduces the likelihood of getting 2 Merchants or 2 Scientists by I think around 4%. Quick mental math has the Spy odds around there, +/- 2%. This is small, but given that the odds of duplicate is probably ~10-15%, it's actually a meaningful reduction.


* Generating for 3-man GA will be challenging in my low-wonder environment, so a couple extra GPP probably is marginally helpful later.


* There's of course the opportunity cost of building 75h of stuff. Put through the Forge + OR bonus, that's 112.5h into a building, which would be 75% of an Observatory, or all of a Walls/Castle duo with plenty to spare. Or into a unit, we're looking at 117% of a Mace/Galleon.


* To be exhaustive here, you also have to count 10 tiles (5 specs * 2 turns) we would get to work instead of specialists during this time. This gets fuzzy fast as specialists produce real value, and we're still working an Engineer for 3T during this time.



My feeling is it's probably a wash which tilts towards NOT doing it as getting an extra unit during this time sounds more valuable. But I figured I'd throw the idea out there in case there's a tradeoff I haven't thought of here that might tilt it back the other way. The most convincing thing to me IN FAVOR is the bit about diversifying the GPP spawn pool as Spy is not an option for Malaz City, so the additional 4% helps at the margins here.


Delaying the Unta specialist config also probably gives me room to play with Malaz City's spawn a little bit in order to further put my thumb on the scale. Essentially what happened was during the last GA I tried as best as I could to tilt Unta towards Merchant and Malaz City towards Scientist, but the reality is both cities will need some of both to get to thresholds in good time.

[Zed-F]

One note - in CtH our Castles don’t obsolete until Corporation (when their trade route is replaced by the Corporation trade route) so they don’t obsolete nearly as quickly as normal. We are planning to get Economics soonish but are not really close to getting Constitution for researching Corporation.

[Tarkeel]

I actually lean towards Great Wall being worth building.

One note - in CtH our Castles don’t obsolete until Corporation (when their trade route is replaced by the Corporation trade route) so they don’t obsolete nearly as quickly as normal. We are planning to get Economics soonish but are not really close to getting Constitution for researching Corporation.

Good point, I think this is a change that was added in after the previous game in which it mattered for me (PB58); in PB66 we were playing Spain so they didn't go obsolete at all. Still, it is a tech we'll need at some point, but it can be delayed somewhat. In particular, it allows us to grab the Economics merchant and then delay Corporation untill AssemblyLine or we're ready to found a corp.

[scooter]

I actually lean towards Great Wall being worth building.

I've been waffling, but the ways in which it can help me mitigate the odds of bad GP RNG is really convincing me too. The more I've thought about it, the more I realize I'm understating it, as it would allow Malaz City to spend very little time running Merchants.

One note - in CtH our Castles don’t obsolete until Corporation (when their trade route is replaced by the Corporation trade route) so they don’t obsolete nearly as quickly as normal. We are planning to get Economics soonish but are not really close to getting Constitution for researching Corporation.

Good point, I think this is a change that was added in after the previous game in which it mattered for me (PB58); in PB66 we were playing Spain so they didn't go obsolete at all. Still, it is a tech we'll need at some point, but it can be delayed somewhat. In particular, it allows us to grab the Economics merchant and then delay Corporation untill AssemblyLine or we're ready to found a corp.

I have occasionally been forgetting this too despite it being one of the reasons I picked PRO was believing we would get plenty of value out of them thanks to the delayed obsoletion. It's definitely true that Economics is not too far away for us, but Corporation is quite a ways off still.

[Zed-F]

If we’re aiming for Pacifism during the GA and Theocracy only at the end, we might need to get religion spread to a couple of our eastern high-food cities like Black Coral and Ubaryd so they can run specialists during the GA with maximum returns.

We might yet need to fall back on teching Meditation and building a monastery or two once we swap out of OR to keep spreading the word. Or maybe we wind up in Free Religion instead of Theocracy after all, I guess, depending on whether getting to metal ships faster is more valuable than Theocracy XP.

EDIT: Having looked at it a bit more I think even with a bunch of first-to bonuses the game probably ends before we get metal ships. As we said frigates are probably enough, but even if not, Liberalizing Steel and teching Military Science means we can have SotL as fast as other players’ frigates being built at double speed in our highest production cities, not to mention Grenadiers and Cannons. Tech rates being what they are, that will itself be a pretty durable advantage in the event Frigates alone aren’t enough.

[scooter]

Basic turn report, but I did take a million screenshots after the turn for T150 which hopefully I will find time today/tonight to write up.





Settled City #25 as planned.





Cairo has some plans re: Golden Age. There was a Scientist in particular that was unaccounted for, so it's nice to find it.





Meanwhile, confirmation Bing is building a stack. It facing south made me nervous, but it would do the same thing if it was ultimately headed east. I'll get better vision next turn.





End of Yuris Golden Age. He used Schwe Paya to get into Theocracy because he has not gotten close to Theology. Interesting way to convert hammers into beakers - especially his extremely hammer-heavy empire. More importantly on Yuris.





He apparently picked up Astronomy with exactly 0 gold to spare. I... sort of wonder if he remembers that he needs Paper for Galleons? I would assume surely he remembers, but it seems like there's no way it was proper to tech Astro yet. The Galleons need something to put on them, and I can only assume that thing is Samurai. With Vassalage/Theocracy/Tatara/Barracks he can build 9xp Samurai. Except he still doesn't have Civil Service. By teching CS before Astro, he could build Samurais while he techs Galleons, whereas by doing Astro first, he still can't build anything while he techs Civil Service. Of course, there's bulb concerns, but no reason he couldn't just dump the bulb into Astro but using his empire beakers on Civil Service first. Is there a reason I'm missing here? The only thing I can think of is the bulb goes up a few beakers while his cities grow, but that seems small to me.


This is really helpful for Superdeath who is going to benefit from a second player worth of Known Tech Bonus because of this.


More later hopefully.

[Zed-F]

I think the most plausible thing is he just forgot he needs Paper and assumed he’d get galleons immediately.

[scooter]

Turn 150 Update - Domestic


First let's look through some selected cities. I actually did take a screenshot of all 25 cities. However, it's just way too many to break down in any detail. So here is the imgur album with every city screen if curious:

https://imgur.com/a/eYnGaqJ


Otherwise, I'll go through maybe half of them here, starting with the two with Great Person relevance.





I did go ahead with The Great Wall in Unta. Unta is a rare city that has not gotten a Castle, but that's largely a function of the fact that it's been on settler/worker/missionary/WB duty for awhile. Actually, this is true of all my core west non-border cities, while my border and east core cities pretty much all got one.


More importantly, here's a chance to peek at the GPP situation. We have a healthy blend of Merchant, Engineer, and Artist, with a remote shot at a scientist. The Engineer would be fine as Malaz City has no Engineer points, and the Spy points from Great Wall is the same deal. The Merchant/Scientist/Artist split is where it gets a little funny and hard to say the exact chances of things going bad. The short of it is I am prioritizing Merchant and minimizing Scientist, but running some Scientists will be inevitable. Of course, I get the second Great Person here, so it's important to look at Malaz City...





This has a few possible ways of going wrong. Malaz City is overwhelmingly likely to pop a Scientist. Great Wall means I can delay the Merchants by a few more turns too, so I will be able to keep this to very high Scientist. If we get this very high dice roll, then as shown in Unta, the odds of two unique will be very good.


The second scenario is the Artist roll, which is a function of using them to pop borders during the GA. This would also be a fine outcome here, though the second dice roll would be a few percent sweatier I believe. It would be hilariously cruel if we get double Artist via Caste Border pops + MoM GPP. This is the least likely outcome, but it would be by far the most cursed. It's the only scenario where I cannot think of a good contingency. I'm going to ignore the possibility entirely until it actually happens. Why? Well, as Tom Moore once said about Peyton Manning.





Finally, a Merchant roll here is currently 1%, but that will rise a few percent here as I hire a couple to get the GP out before Unta. As seen in the previous shot, this would make us sweat out the Unta roll a bit more, but it would still leave me with a pretty good dice roll. But things would get uncomfortable given the nearest other accessible GP is the Economics Merchant. At that point we may be looking at shifting gears to a Sid's beeline or something. The double Merchant outcome would be annoying, but there are of course ways to deal in that trade missions are still really powerful.


Of course, I can minimize the chance of duplicate GP type by simply delaying the GA longer, but there's diminishing returns at that point. I would rather just get on with it due to the value of firing it and trust I'm going to get my reasonably likely good outcome.





Pale has continued to be an excellent Moai city. I'm adding one last workshop on the tile 1S of it for as-needed use. It also lacks the Castle, but I want a Barracks so it can do some military here soon. All of these freshly build cities are largely empty. That's fine while I have the only Galleons, but that won't last forever. So, Barracks and then maybe a few units. Not to mention I'm about to unlock Muskets. (And Privateers which I've not really discussed.)





Aren has been a whipping post in the past, but now I'm just trying to slowly grow it. That Galleon was an original Galley -> Galleon upgrade that got paused for the settler, but I need to finish it now.





Y'Ghatan is just going to build units for a little while. It's got a Barracks and good production. However, I'm letting it limp up to size 8 rather than parking it in hammer config. That Lumbermill will likely go back to Ehrlitan which uses it in its own hammer config, but it has bounced back and forth. But in general the plan here is to stagnate at size 8 on that plains mine and build units. This city is such a pain to grow that it is firmly on the NEVER WHIP list.





Another one of my utility production cities. This city also is used to slow-build out units. In this case it's a badly needed missionary to convert the east island, which is still completely absent of Hinduism.





Black Coral will in the not-so-distant future hand over that second Fish to Mustard Dot, but for now I'm letting it grow. Very productive city that 1) generated me a scientist in the GA, 2) whipped a bunch of infra at high-ish pop costs (that Courthouse hurt) right after, and 3) has easily regrown all that whipped away pop. Undecided on next build here. Possible Privateer spot with the lack of Barracks for land units.





Outlook is finally hitting its potential as an excellent city. The Library is useful, but also helps preserve borders like this. But the 8F surplus just gives me a lot of wiggle room here.





Trygalle is coming online already here. Granary is about to complete, and the Cothon will come in quickly as I'm about to chop the forest 1N into it with OR and EXP bonus. Right after that the Sheep will enter its borders, and this city will really be off to the races then.





Granary is already in here thanks to a chop, and the forest 1N is also getting chopped. I have 3 workers around this city, so improvements are coming quite fast here. I'll probably cottage the river and may lumbermill the 1E forest, but the 1N forest is too much of a security risk to keep. Honestly farming some of the grassland to just grow the city faster is totally defensible as I'll gain more $$ by getting my trade buildings and multipliers up faster than I will from a slow cottage growth probably. This game won't last long enough for these to grow to towns.





Our first Iceplains Workshop is online, and man it's a pretty tile. Just wait until Golden Age Caste. It takes a ton of worker turns, but it's well worth it. As soon as borders pop, this city adds a Fish. I will likely just grow to size 3 on the usual Granary/Cothon/Lighthouse trio, but at size 3 pause and whip a missionary or WB for one of its neighbors.


I think that was a good mix of the most interesting cities. Later I'll write up a state of the world with empire shots for everyone, myself included.

[Zed-F]

Looks good in those cities. Generally, I know we want to build some units, but Castles are so cheap I am hoping we have time to get them in everywhere before we make any serious offensive moves. The ROI on them seems like it should be very quick, they are like having an extra 2+ pop points.

For Bastion, you mentioned a lumbermill 1E of the city, but we were planning to fort there for protection of a fleet based 1NE of yellow dot. Do you think we skip the fort, or plan to put it on the riverside tile 1SE of Bastion instead?

Re: Privateers - well, we are in the lead and are about to tech Frigates. Privateers in CtH are just something you use while catching up to someone else's Frigates, right? They don't offer the ability to bombard IIRC. I'm not sure we really want to build many of these; land units might be better while waiting for Chemistry so we have things to load on Galleons.