[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[Tarkeel]

The payback for Representation is very closely tied to Mercantilism, and is meant to piggyback on that. All of the free specialists and whatever else we're running to create GPP get +3 beakers, regardless of what else they do. That's close to 90 base beaker, before libraries. Sure, it costs a bit more than Mercantilism and thus isn't as sure research, but I think it's worth it.

I don't expect PP to be worth it, just wanted the numbers for comparison.

[scooter]

The payback for Representation is very closely tied to Mercantilism, and is meant to piggyback on that. All of the free specialists and whatever else we're running to create GPP get +3 beakers, regardless of what else they do. That's close to 90 base beaker, before libraries. Sure, it costs a bit more than Mercantilism and thus isn't as sure research, but I think it's worth it.

I don't expect PP to be worth it, just wanted the numbers for comparison.

Another way to look at the Mao pick? I have built 78 buildings in this game with a trait discount. I wonder if anyone else has even got to half of that. 8 more are building right now. We'll easily cross 100 in the next 10-20 turns.

As you can see here, just 7 total villages + towns right now. And for that matter, only 4 hamlets, so no more than 11 in the next 20 turns. It's pretty weak.

[Zed-F]

Apart from the research cost of the necessary tech, the biggest difference between them is that Banking does lead to something else we want (Economics) whereas Constitution doesn't in the near-medium term. A smaller point is that Rep scientists don't give any more GPP than non-Rep scientists.

Scooter said that Mercantilism gives us around +100 bpt including Libraries, so if we use the same figure for a 2000 beaker tech we'd need to run Rep Scientists for 20 turns to break even, right? Are we likely to have scientists for more than 20 turns? I guess this could depend on whether we stay in Mercantilism or switch to Free Market after the GA. Maybe if we get Constitution and switch to Representation, then we do stay in Mercantilism; we aren't planning to go to Corporation anytime soon.

[scooter]

Also, I agree Representation would be amazing for us. I'm mostly just weighing that against other things that would be amazing for us. Grens, Drydocks, Destroyers, Merchant/Scientist/Spy at Econ/Physics/Communism, etc. I don't quite know when the right time will be to slot it in. A way to calibrate: the longer it looks like the game will go, the earlier it makes sense to grab it.

[Zed-F]

Also, I agree Representation would be amazing for us. I'm mostly just weighing that against other things that would be amazing for us. Grens, Drydocks, Destroyers, Merchant/Scientist/Spy at Econ/Physics/Communism, etc. I don't quite know when the right time will be to slot it in. A way to calibrate: the longer it looks like the game will go, the earlier it makes sense to grab it.

I think part of the answer is -- we need to fire our GA #3 before we can research Nationalism, which is required for Constitution. So, it won't be in the short term, but we would either need to finish it before GA #3 ends, or we would need to finish Taj and swap into Rep then. As such, I don't think this affects the order of what we are teching in GA #2 -- we probably need to finish Economics first to make sure we have a GA #3 to begin with. Then at that point we can start comparing whether it's better to go for Liberalism first or go for Constitution first. I suspect Economics and Military Science should both be water under the bridge by that point -- but I am not sure how many beakers we can pump out in GA #2 to be ready to make such a decision.

[Zed-F]

Do we know yet whether we actually need the Economics merchant for GA #3 or whether we intend to hand-build all three GP under Caste + Pacifism? I’d assumed we’d want the merchant to reduce our GPP requirements but maybe I’m wrong.

[scooter]

Do we know yet whether we actually need the Economics merchant for GA #3 or whether we intend to hand-build all three GP under Caste + Pacifism? I’d assumed we’d want the merchant to reduce our GPP requirements but maybe I’m wrong.

TBD. There's a tiny part of me that wants to be greedy and generate 3 during the GA, and then clean sweep all 3 of these GP while generating an Artist for a FOURTH MoM GA. But that's probably a bit too pie-in-the-sky.


I would like to avoid using any of the first-to GP for the 3-man GA, but overall I'm not worrying about it just yet. Right now I think of the Economics Merchant as a flexible safety net. It could save me if RNG goes bad, it could be iced for Sid's, or failing all of that, trade missions are always strong. I'm not explicitly earmarking it for anything just yet.

[Zed-F]

So if we are not assuming we are needing Economics before the end of the second GA then yeah it does make things easier for us timing-wise regarding the potential order of getting different things (Nationalism/Taj, Economics, Constitution, Liberalism, etc.) later on. The most pressing question is whether we want to slot in any of these ahead of Military Science, but they all are either expensive enough or come with enough timing issues relative to firing our 3rd GA that it doesn't seem to make sense to get any of them very early in GA #2. So, I guess we plan out as far as Military Science and take additional looks as we get closer to see what happens with our GP generation.

[scooter]

Quick update today.





Settled. WB is en route.





There's Bing's military. A whole bunch of catapults taking an eternal trip across his empire 2 tiles at a time. I assume in order to capture a crappy iceball city. Hilarious.





Cairo has completed Optics and opened up Astro. Of course, he still has to tech both that and Paper, so he's got a ways to go. He and Bing are miles behind SD and Yuris.

[Zed-F]

We expect to be in OR only for about another 10 turns or so. Does there come a point where we should worry less about sending missionaries to new cities (and plan to build Castles for culture) and instead send missionaries to eastern core cities lacking Hinduism for Pacifism GPP? Or are all our GPs coming out of western core cities?