Ok now that I have put Yuri in checkmate. I think it's a good time to think about my next move. I think writing down my options would help me more than simply thinking about it in my head.
First what are my options?
What I decide to tech next depends on what I want to do. What I want to do is also influenced by what I can do and perhaps more importantly what I cannot do.
Tools at my disposal:
Knights
Cho-ko-nus
Catapults/Trebuchets
Grenadiers
Cheap theatres and the ability to run the culture slider
Potentially Notre Dame
Police state/Theocracy
Good workshops (Guilds+Chemistry)
War or peace? That is the big question. If I go the peace route, would I be able to gain an advantage over my rivals? My gut feeling says no, all of the other front runners are Financial and Creative/Industrious just doesn't do enough at this point of the game. So war seems to be the way to go. However, would I be successful in my wars? Let's see who I can attack:
1) Jowy
Jowy is extremely backwards technologically, he only have Horse archers and catapults at the moment, but he have a LOT of those. Jowy also borders Catwalk, who is researching Rifling at the moment. Catwalk will certainly re-engage Jowy at some point. I do not want to engage Jowy right now while Catwalk waltz in and get most of the spoils. But even if Catwalk attacks Jowy, which side of the conflict do I want to hop in? This is how I see my options play out:
a) I stay neutral and let both of them go at it. This would certainly mean elimination for Jowy unless Catwalk makes a big blunder again like the first time. This would mean Catwalk would get much stronger on my border and that doesn't help me.
b) I join in the fight against Jowy. If Jowy gets eliminated this way, I would gain some land, however I will still have a massive Catwalk to deal with on my border having access to Redcoats.
c) I help Jowy to fend off Catwalk. This is pretty much like the situation in the Korean Wars. I mean I am playing the Chinese civilization after all (Jowy would be North Korea, which seems fitting...). This way I would prevent Catwalk from getting too strong at little benefit to myself. Obviously this would commit a lot of my troops which I might need elsewhere.
d) Help Jowy beat off Catwalk and then take out Jowy myself. Come on, I'm not that crazy.
2) BaII
BaII's behaviour is just so confusing to me in this game. He research Guilds and builts 2 knights then immediately after researches Banking and revolt into Merchantilism. He researches Nationalism-> Military Tradition but doesn't build many units. After he finally starts to builds some units he builds the Sistine.
BaII have a strong economy but rather underwhelming in terms of number of cities and land. His cities are very large so they can easily get turned into units. He has Cuirassiers which is definitely a big threat.
3) Mardoc
Yeah just no. He have a ton of land, a ton of cities and a ton of pop. He also have Janissaries which can be annoying to deal with. On top of that he has a lot of coastal cities so I can't really control the sea against him either. If I throw everything at him I can see myself taking a border city or two and eventually stall out due to his advantage in land/pop/cities.
Assessing my tech options:
1) Philosophy->Nationalism->Military Tradition
This tech allows me to draft and get Cuirassier. However I do not think Cuirassier is a significant upgrade to Knights/Grenadier. Or at least I consider the opportunity cost to be too high.
2) Steel
Military tech, I was very tempted to go for it. However it's extremely expensive, when I saw it's 11 turns on break even research I can't justify going for it. It just doesn't do me any good in the short term and no guarantee that it would pay off in the long term.
3) Paper->Education
and Build Oxford! However it will take a long time to build. It's 1400 hammers on just Universities and then I still got to build Oxford itself. My capital have very little production so it's an extremely looong term investment. I will probably have to burn my saved Great Scientist to bulb Education to speed things up.
4) Paper->Printing Press
Gets a decent amount of immediate benefit, Printing Press is not overly expensive. Not a bad option.
5) Banking
Now this is interesting, this is very cheap and a few banks in my key commerce cities would do wonders for my economy.
I've mulled this over for a long time, and in the end I've decided on Banking for now. It's cheap enough for me to 1-turn it with overflow from last turn and start on a few banks soon. After that I'm leaning towards Steel to keep warring.
The decisions made in the next few turns will likely decide the game for me. If stars align I've still got a small chance at winning, but one misstep and I will follow Yuri out of the exit door.
First what are my options?
What I decide to tech next depends on what I want to do. What I want to do is also influenced by what I can do and perhaps more importantly what I cannot do.
Tools at my disposal:
Knights
Cho-ko-nus
Catapults/Trebuchets
Grenadiers
Cheap theatres and the ability to run the culture slider
Potentially Notre Dame
Police state/Theocracy
Good workshops (Guilds+Chemistry)
War or peace? That is the big question. If I go the peace route, would I be able to gain an advantage over my rivals? My gut feeling says no, all of the other front runners are Financial and Creative/Industrious just doesn't do enough at this point of the game. So war seems to be the way to go. However, would I be successful in my wars? Let's see who I can attack:
1) Jowy
Jowy is extremely backwards technologically, he only have Horse archers and catapults at the moment, but he have a LOT of those. Jowy also borders Catwalk, who is researching Rifling at the moment. Catwalk will certainly re-engage Jowy at some point. I do not want to engage Jowy right now while Catwalk waltz in and get most of the spoils. But even if Catwalk attacks Jowy, which side of the conflict do I want to hop in? This is how I see my options play out:
a) I stay neutral and let both of them go at it. This would certainly mean elimination for Jowy unless Catwalk makes a big blunder again like the first time. This would mean Catwalk would get much stronger on my border and that doesn't help me.
b) I join in the fight against Jowy. If Jowy gets eliminated this way, I would gain some land, however I will still have a massive Catwalk to deal with on my border having access to Redcoats.
c) I help Jowy to fend off Catwalk. This is pretty much like the situation in the Korean Wars. I mean I am playing the Chinese civilization after all (Jowy would be North Korea, which seems fitting...). This way I would prevent Catwalk from getting too strong at little benefit to myself. Obviously this would commit a lot of my troops which I might need elsewhere.
d) Help Jowy beat off Catwalk and then take out Jowy myself. Come on, I'm not that crazy.
2) BaII
BaII's behaviour is just so confusing to me in this game. He research Guilds and builts 2 knights then immediately after researches Banking and revolt into Merchantilism. He researches Nationalism-> Military Tradition but doesn't build many units. After he finally starts to builds some units he builds the Sistine.
BaII have a strong economy but rather underwhelming in terms of number of cities and land. His cities are very large so they can easily get turned into units. He has Cuirassiers which is definitely a big threat.3) Mardoc
Yeah just no. He have a ton of land, a ton of cities and a ton of pop. He also have Janissaries which can be annoying to deal with. On top of that he has a lot of coastal cities so I can't really control the sea against him either. If I throw everything at him I can see myself taking a border city or two and eventually stall out due to his advantage in land/pop/cities.
Assessing my tech options:
1) Philosophy->Nationalism->Military Tradition
This tech allows me to draft and get Cuirassier. However I do not think Cuirassier is a significant upgrade to Knights/Grenadier. Or at least I consider the opportunity cost to be too high.
2) Steel
Military tech, I was very tempted to go for it. However it's extremely expensive, when I saw it's 11 turns on break even research I can't justify going for it. It just doesn't do me any good in the short term and no guarantee that it would pay off in the long term.
3) Paper->Education
and Build Oxford! However it will take a long time to build. It's 1400 hammers on just Universities and then I still got to build Oxford itself. My capital have very little production so it's an extremely looong term investment. I will probably have to burn my saved Great Scientist to bulb Education to speed things up.
4) Paper->Printing Press
Gets a decent amount of immediate benefit, Printing Press is not overly expensive. Not a bad option.
5) Banking
Now this is interesting, this is very cheap and a few banks in my key commerce cities would do wonders for my economy.
I've mulled this over for a long time, and in the end I've decided on Banking for now. It's cheap enough for me to 1-turn it with overflow from last turn and start on a few banks soon. After that I'm leaning towards Steel to keep warring.
The decisions made in the next few turns will likely decide the game for me. If stars align I've still got a small chance at winning, but one misstep and I will follow Yuri out of the exit door.
.
