[Spoilers] 0x49-y: Marxist-Joaoist Praxis

[Mousey]

Good thing I've been working on a master plan to bring the Viking empire to its knees before any of that happens 


Ath

Athens must fall!

I'm not sure you want to be invoking the Spartans of all people for success in a primarily naval war, given Persia kept giving them free fleets and they still lost most of them.
Hell, even in land wars they are very overrated.

But good luck, it's going to be an interesting fight once the NAP is up!

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Hey, who won the war in the end? :P

Clearly Scooter is Athens with the innate naval superiority between viking UB and circumnavigation. To defeat him I must emulate the Spartan strategy of brute strength and sheer numbers making up the difference.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

The race is on

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Another mechanics question: if 2 cities go over their GP counter at the same time which one births the GP?

[Thoth]

The first in turn order processing. IIRC it's the order the cities are listed in F1

[T-hawk]

That is correct, first one in turn order as shown by F1 births it, which raises the threshold immediately, so the next city will accumulate points past the old threshold.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Thanks guys

In other news, I've worked out a 2nd draft of my GP plan that requires less starving and gets the 2nd astro scientist out a turn earlier:



And here's the tech plan:



Special Golden Age update tomorrow.

[Commodore]

Love the planning stuff. Do you have a building/whipping plan and metrics plus logistics for what you're going to be fielding post-treaty?

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Not as of now because the situation is currently pretty fluid:

1) Scooter is a very good player and will surely realize that I'm likely going for an astro bulb next turn when I pop a GA and switch to caste + pacifism
2) What he will likely _not_ realize is that my real GA goal is chemistry. My best estimate now is that Scooter is 12-15 turns away from astro but probably 25+ away from chemistry
3) Scooter and I currently have a Peace Treaty NAP that expires on turn 105. I'll be popping my GA and switching to caste turn 103 so Scooter might be tempted to DOW me while I lack Kremlin whips. Alternatively he may not renew our Peace Treaty NAP on t105 and attack once he gets astro. I have a backup plan for GP plan where I only get out 3 great scientists which slows down my chemistry research but lets me get to Astro and switch back to slavery a couple turns earlier

So if Scooter leaves me alone then I get to Astro turn 115, chemistry turn 116 and then switch to slavery and liquidate all of my pop into galleons/frigates/knights/muskets/siege. During the GA I'm having a couple cities dedicated to military/ship production so I won't be building an army from scratch, but I think t125ish is when I would have a full invasion fleet staged. There are 2 fronts I have to worry about which complicates things.

If I were scooter with full knowledge of my plans what I would do is immediately start whipping up a big navy to protect his veteran berserkers and start harassing my waters and forcing me to whip during my GA and not get out scientists. But he has plenty of land to expand to and develop right now so I don't think he'll declare war unless he thinks it's existential for him not to. What I'm counting on is that he assumes my GA is to get to astro, which he should be getting to around a similar time, and not to get to chemistry, which would give me an insurmountable advantage. We did exchange fish + 120g for fish + 120g several turns ago which might also incline him to not attack me.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 103 Golden Age Update




We live in interesting times here in PB73. This turn Scooter and I both have fired golden ages after building wonders the previous turn, Scooter with the MoM and me with Shwedagon Paya:



So it looks like Scooter researched up to Music for the free great artist and is now looking to accelerate into the mid game with a 12 turn GA and plenty of new cities to grow up. Now on the whole I'd say this is actually good news for me. While this definitely makes Scooter dangerous over the long run, I had already accounted for that and planned accordingly. What I'm most afraid of is Scooter beelining astronomy and invading me before I can gain a decisive tech advantage on the seas, but he's now researched theology and the music line and only recently completed optics. Now I think it's likely he's going for astronomy now, but even with GA research he'll still take a while to manually research it. My astronomy research is due t116, but my chemistry research is due t117—that should make for a nice surprise for the Viking navy.



Switching into golden age civics...

Now let's take a tour of the empire in its most auspicious age:



Hampstead

Capital, amazing commerce and production output.

Golden Age Objectives

• Spawn great person for 2nd golden age (due eot 110)
  
• Push espionage via Intelligence Agency and spy specialists to secure research visibility on Scooter (important to make sure I don't get surprised by his astro timeline)
  
• Generate lots of beakers with all of its developed cottageland
  

Coyoacán

Top commerce and food city.

Golden Age Objectives

• Spawn 2 great scientists, one for second GA the other for bulbing (1st due eot 105, 2nd due eot 116)
  
• Generate lots of beakers with its 7 science specialists, riverside gold, and 5 FP cottages
  

Gori

Golden Age Moai, need I say more?

Golden Age Objectives

• Build enough boats to deter any naval invasion from Scooter
  
• Build a monastery and missionaries to spread Confucianism in anticipation of switching into Theocracy
  

Shaoshan

Only non-coastal city in the empire. Strong hammer potential but weak on food, one of the few cities that I'll go easy on whipping when building up my army.

Golden Age Objectives

• Build longbows and crossbows for garrisoning front cities
  
• Crank out knights for mobile defense force and eventual marines for coming war
  

Simbirsk

2 food resources, a couple cottages, weak-ish silver mine. This city will get a lot worse once Colossus is obsoleted so it's currently high pop will be mostly liquidated into guns and boats.

Golden Age Objectives

• Generate great scientist (due eot 114)
  
• Work all of its commerce tiles to help push research
  

Kuntvesto

Decent front city, ok hammer potential with SP workshops.

Golden Age Objectives

• Generate great scientist (due eot 109)
  
• Build naval units once workshops are built on its flat tiles
  

Havana

Another city that gets much worse without Colossus coast, but +6 food surplus is enough to whip out a lot of frigates so I'm happy with it.

Golden Age Objectives

• Generate Great Scientist (due eot 113)
  
• Work colossus coast and grow population that will be whipped down once war prep gets started in earnest
  

Westminster

Border fortress, the key to my southern front with Scooter.

Golden Age Objectives

• Build Statue of Zeus to deny it to Scooter and push culture against Scooter's city to the south
  
• Build of defenses that make it impossible for Scooter to raze it from the sea
  

Now here's what demos look like after hiring a million rep scientists:




Our food lead has evaporated and Scooter will only pull more ahead as his new cities grow while mine stagnate to get out the specialists. However, my GNP lead has widened to a ridiculous level, which of course is my short term goal.

The Viking War
I'll write more about my thinking on the upcoming conflict with Scooter later, but for now have some pictures:

The Western Front


The Southern Front



Current Navy Composition



Any questions people have?