[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[Zed-F]

Yeah if we have to be in Slavery 5T anyway I am just wondering if that means we should be using that 5T to get Physics so we can save our merchant instead of having a spare scientist that’s harder to get value from. To me this depends on the precise timing of when we are doing our civic swap to Slavery. If we are always in Caste when in GA and in Slavery when not in GA, then it seems possible that might work. Otherwise, it might be better to just burn the merchant if we can have fewer turns between the GAs by doing so.

Also, in the latter case where we spend a few GA turns in Slavery to fire the 3rd GA ASAP, that also means we have the flexibility to defer Physics for a bit, in case we think Nationalism or Steel is more pressing.

[scooter]

Superdeath picked up Gunpowder, so Chemistry is now on his can-research list.





Surprisingly, Cairo promptly re-signed OB with Yuris to let this boat out.





There wasn't a lot of interest this turn, but the whole thing boiled down to one decision. My treaty with SD expired. The big question was whether or not to warpeace him. If I was confident he would accept, I'd do it for sure. It's clearly worthwhile to have 10T of locked-in peace. One of my concerns though is sometimes someone in his shoes will look at the situation and wonder what they get out of enforced peace. So instead I offered another fish-fish (which I offered a couple turns ago and was not echoed), and I followed it up with an Incense gift. This is the one luxury I took from him, and he does not have his own source, so it's a small token. I'll be hooking my own source next turn with a settler on Skinny Island finally.


I don't really know what the best way forward is. Maybe I should have warpeaced and offered the Incense as a peace deal. In general though, my borders with him are fairly well-defended, so maybe I'm just OK regardless. I'm hesitant to actually declare a war that SD may not sign peace for as there's a tiny risk the others just gradually join in.





I teched Scientific Method on 100% science this turn, and I left it on 100% end of turn despite the fact that I won't leave it on 100% next turn. Earlier in the game I was disguising my GNP edge, but now I'm specifically aiming to demoralize if I'm being honest. I think seeing this now is more likely to prompt a concession than a dogpile. Maybe that's wrong, hard to say. I have steadily improved my commerce during this GA which is probably something I haven't reported on quite as much. For example, if you see comparing the previous screenshot, pressing enter jumped my 100% tech rate from 1631b to 1717b. In fact, look back at the following screenshot.





This was 8T ago, and you can see my break-even tech rate was around 750bpt. It's currently over 1000bpt. The ~40% increase in 8T was largely driven by the younger cities all coming online while larger cities grew another size or two, bumping routes empire-wide. I also managed to slip in Banks/Observatories in Unta/Pale - or at least the Observatory completes next turn. I have more unexplored ceiling as we've established my upcoming civic swaps should improve things, and a couple cities are just coming out of revolts.





I didn't do it at the expense of military either. Note that Yuris has leveled off significantly, even being passed by Superdeath.


Side note: we're near enough the end of the GA that we can get back into Slavery at any time. I was going to wait until the end, but if I sense any threats, I'll just do it a bit early. I'm a little wary of Superdeath who is adding military and thus far ignoring my diplo efforts.

[Zed-F]

I think we’d rather get our civic swaps in before the end of this GA so that the moment we finish Communism, we can fire the GA and immediately swap to State Property / Caste for the fastest possible Kremlin build, without being impacted by the 5T revolt timer. We don’t need to whip immediately while still in the GA if we don’t see a need, but getting into Free Market / Free Religion prior to the end of our current GA might speed Communism too. Finishing Kremlin ASAP means we have the option to swap back to Slavery with super-whips if things hit the fan.

I think the other front we should be reviewing and bolstering defenses on is probably the Yuris front. None of the others can do much without his help, so we should be trying to make sure there are no surprises on our NE border with him. Or at least, no surprises that aren’t actually traps we’ve laid for him in case he wants to get frisky.

[scooter]

Another double turn day. Please explain to me why we averaged 5.5 turns/week back when we all had 4 cities, and now we're picking up double turns now that the turns are the most complex they've been all game. This one came late enough that it does seem quite unlikely that we'll get one tomorrow, but it's also possible I'm just saying this in a reverse jinx effort.


It's not all disinterest either I don't think. Opponent thread activity is at an all-time high right now. SD was playing absent turns, but that has ended. I mentioned he whipped 22 pop a few turns ago. Last turn he only whipped two pop, but tonight he whipped 15 more pop.





Definitely some units. However, this likely would be bigger if it was ALL units. If 39 pop in 3 turns were all units, I would expect a bigger spike than this. Of course, the population loss may be offsetting it. But I think some of it was buildings too. But whip rounds are happening everywhere right now. Yuris whipped 11 pop tonight while Bing whipped 8 last night. So this combined with all the thread activity has my spidey senses tingling. The thing is, the power spikes are just not there yet. So we'll see. However, my ongoing mission of covering all the angles I can find is proceeding. Going from east to west.





Threat level is low here. Only 2 Galleons visible in the area. Importantly, he would need to move the Galleons in the column 1W of Casa Grande in order to actually reach S Island. So I think I just need to watch for that, and if he moves them up, sink them.


Worth noting he did not echo Fish-Fish, but he did accept my Incense gift. I don't think he's planning to come at me, but I'll bet he's simply keeping his options open. Really, there's no incentive for him to try anything against me unless Yuris moves first.





I missed a shot of the Icy Islands front, but it looks a lot like this where I'm doing my best to maximize vision. I'm shuffling a few more defenders into this area as I can. Worth noting that all of these cities have defenders that could upgrade to Gren in a pinch. I did have a real chunk of my naval stack and defenders set up on S Island, but with SD seemingly standing down in the region, I can reallocate a little bit.





Playing a blended defense here. I've got a few units in each city to dissuade boating. But also my Galleon can shuffle units between cities pretty easily. The Gren/Musket pair in Hovenweep for example could be picked up and unloaded in one city or the other in the same turn. So defending like this should prevent the boating route, and it should stop an unload too. In any case, if he did try something it would be extremely costly to him for very little gain as these cities are all quite weak, so I think he'll leave them alone too. But I don't know for sure. I need another Caravel or Privateer in this area ASAP. I also have another Galleon full of Grens being picked up from the mainland now. I haven't figured out exactly how to allocate them among my various cities, but more defenders are coming to my various outposts.





Completed Scientific Method, and boy we did not get shortchanged on Oil. In fact, it's giving us +2h (Oil + GA) on a lot of random tiles.





These spots are my favorite. Those are 3/2/3 tiles during the Golden Age!





So, two things.


First, this is not visible in the picture, but uh, we can 2T Communism now. Break-even tech went up another ~100b end of turn, so it appears we can complete Communism on the last turn of the GA after all. As a result, I have a new plan for the revolt. We aren't going to now, and instead we're going to immediately fire the next GA and get into SP right away. As for Slavery, we're going to play that by ear. Right now our borders are safe enough that we can take a 5T revolt window in Caste I think, though it's a tad risky. So I'll make the decision in 2T. But basically, I'm getting so much production out of Caste GA that I think I can just stay in it. But if big military spikes happen, I'll swap to Slavery, even in the GA, just to be safe. So we'll see. But I'm willing to forgo some of these infra whips smaller cities "need" because really, the oomph I'm getting elsewhere seems to simply be bigger right now. I'll do the math before then to be sure, though. Basically I sort of think why not try to just stick in Caste until Kremlin is actually online. Worst-case scenario, a large number of my units can be upgraded to Grens, and I have the commerce output to pay for it.


Second, this screenshot shows the rough timings to Combustion at current GA breakeven. So, roughly 20T. I can definitely speed that up a bit, but it doesn't count a possible diversion like Physics, which is a worthy diversion. A true beeline could probably be 15T or less.


The other thing is the Nationalism question. I think I should go for it. I think Cairo like the rest will be going towards Chemistry, so I actually do not think he's racing me. If I land Taj, another 8T of GA will easily be worth it. If I don't, I get two consolation prizes - 1) Wealth with 85% production modifier, and 2) the ability to use Nationhood if necessary. I'm not too hyped on mass-drafting Muskets or anything, however it occurs to me that I might be able to mitigate my fears of the 5T Slavery lockout by simply being in Nationhood. Not to draft proactively, but to have another safety lever. It's not the main draw of teching Nationalism or anything, but this is a long-winded way of saying losing Taj would not be super disastrous I don't think.

[scooter]

Oh I missed some things.





Bing gave me a heart attack. I had not noticed this ice pass, and my underbelly here is extremely exposed. Thankfully though, Bing does not have Galleons and cannot exploit it. But I'm going to get this scouted ASAP.





Settled City #35. I have been hesitating on settling the other filler spot, but this one is worth it. Though the filler spot also picked up Oil, so yeah I should go ahead and settle it, especially as SP makes it extremely profitable even if it does nothing.



Also, tech details from this turn.


* Yuris got Printing Press while burning 228g
* SD saved 185g
* Bing also saved 185g
* Cairo burned 14g (?)


I have seen Cairo with Muskets and Privateers very quickly after getting Gunpowder. As a result, I think he's actually saving gold and doing upgrades. He was saving gold last I saw him at least. So he does not appear to be teching at all - I think he's more worried about staying alive.


Yuris teching Printing Press is interesting. I wonder why he did that? The only reason I can see to do that is to contest the goodies after Scientific Method, but he has to know he can't do that. Otherwise it's sort of pointless? The tech was worth like 10c to me, so I gotta imagine it's similar for him, so there's no way it's worth it on its own. It opens up the path to Rifles, but 1) he lacks Banking for Replaceable Parts and 2) I have Grens already anyway, so why bother. But also, it's a whole bunch of beakers not spent on the Chemistry path. What is going on here? I have to be missing something.

[scooter]

[Superdeath has whipped] 39 pop in 3 turns

Make that 51 pop in 4 turns.

[Zed-F]

Ok, excellent news on the double turn, and all that sounds great. I like, immediately after Communism and firing the GA, getting Nationalism and trying for Taj. Agreed, if we swap Vassalage for Nationhood, on not drafting unless it's an emergency, since we expect Kremlin to be much more efficient. Nationhood should be cheaper than Vassalage -- though we would miss the XP, I guess. It would also open the door to getting Constitution and re-examining Rep+Mercantilism, but I think we might first need more infrastructure built in our newer cities to support specialists, and I'm not sure it's better for us than State Property anyway. Or maybe if we decide it's worthwhile to get Constitution, we stay with Rep+State Property and just have some specialists where it makes sense to do so; HR doesn't really seem to be doing too much for us. We'd need to math out the payoff horizon to see if the diversion to Constitution would be worth it.

Good to see we are keeping Yuris under careful watch, since he'd be the linchpin of any attack against us that could actually harm us. Agreed that getting Physics is a worthwhile diversion -- for one thing we can have a lot better vision of what our rivals are amassing troop-wise and where, if a last-ditch dogpile is indeed forthcoming.

I don't think anyone can actually *stop* us at this point -- we're too close to metal ships for that and have too much naval power. Once we get machine guns and metal boats, what are they going to do? Even if they do form a dogpile I don't think they can really do much more than bloody our nose a bit before we make everything they've ever built totally obsolete again.

[Tarkeel]

If we're going for Nationalism and Taj, I think the right time to do it is right after triggering the GA so we have the boosted production for building Taj. I'm a big fan of using Nationhood to cover the lack of whipping.

[scooter]

Sounds like we generally like the ideas. We'll see in a couple turns if Cairo goes for Nationalism or not.

One thing I'm considering. Pale with Moai at this stage is actually comfortably our best production city (in a GA anyway) followed by Unta. We are only possibly at risk of missing one of the two wonders - and that is the cheaper one (Taj). So I am thinking I should have Pale build Taj and Unta build Kremlin, even though that will delay the Kremlin by several turns. The thinking is I'd rather delay the wonder I'm not in a race for in exchange for speeding the wonder I might be in a race for.

[Zed-F]

Agreed, that’s what I was expecting the plan to be if we are indeed able to make a play for Taj. We want Kremlin quickly but we can’t benefit from it until we swap to Slavery and we were hoping to do that on a just-in-time basis if our GAs are still running.