[PB70] The Cartographic Correction Committee convenes

[Commodore]

Well, on the plus side Chucklenaughts are more horrifying with Astronomy than without.

[Qgqqqqq]

What is the aggressive plan then? How do you plan to fulfill the embargo?

[scooter]

Well, on the plus side Chucklenaughts are more horrifying with Astronomy than without.

I love a UU with a long shelf life.

What is the aggressive plan then? How do you plan to fulfill the embargo?

Well, the embargo is dead. It lasted 2 whole turns. Charriu peacing out and giving 400g + OB to Mjmd as part of the deal killed the embargo, so SD and I promptly signed OB with Mjmd again once he did that.


As for aggressive plan - well right now there isn't really one. My break-even tech rate is like 20% (a little wonky due to the scientists admittedly), and I have 4-5 more cities to plant. I've shifted pretty thoroughly towards the Monk Wonders as a midgame plan, and I intend to see that out while keeping an eye on Mjmd. I'm going to bet that my strong amount of land secured + economic wonders will power me as they all come online. I'm not even totally sure that rush Guilds and run over Bing is even a great idea right now. There are a few issues with that.

1) As mentioned, I'm still trying to get my own city plants integrated. I'm building stuff like Granaries still even right now. So integrating conquests seems far off

2) Bing has somehow magically jumped towards the brink of completing Currency according to Charriu who can see his tech via EPs. I suspect he was gifted/loaned some gold, but I can't confirm that. But he was ages from Currency (not even done Math) just a few turns ago, and suddenly he's about to have it? Plus he's in a Golden Age, so he's going to jump ahead a bit.

3) Any move against Bing would elicit a response by Mjmd. It's full diplo. That makes full-scale conquest incredibly difficult.


I was at a crossroads a couple weeks ago between push for Guilds and push for Monk Wonders, and the sheer number of city sites still available and strong tiles unworked has pushed me towards the latter path. In my planning time, I'm not looking at what cities to get Knights from, I'm looking at what cities get Spreads/Monasteries and when.

[scooter]

Some small updates. First, diplo. I noticed my NAP with Superdeath was about to expire, and I’m about to settle a lightly defended city near him (that he’s agreed to me having), so I realized it was a good time to extend. I have no interest in conflict with him. It’s T113 now, and we pushed it all the way out to T150. He is still the only player I have a NAP with or have ever had one with.

Mjmd and I had some back and forth about not having a naval arms race. He got Metal Casting bringing him to naval tech parity, but obviously it doesn’t really benefit us to have a naval cold war. The net agreement we came up with was:

* Both of us limited to 1 Galley and 1 Trireme on the shared sea between us until at least T135
* I can cancel early if he declares on Charriu
* He can cancel early if I declare on Bing

I was sort of loathe to give him this initially, but also I couldn’t figure out a way that not signing could benefit me, so I agreed. Loading up some CKNs on Galleys with Trireme support is not in the plans, and if I really pushed he could absolutely whip enough to defend. So let’s not bother. The early opt-out were my idea, FWIW.


Finally, in actual game news, the big Great Person dice roll is tonight assuming we follow the normal turn playing pattern, though slight chance it slips into tomorrow morning. I already sort of explained this briefly in the previous post, but here's a reminder on the approximate odds and the plan.

Great Merchant (39%) - Run trade mission to Superdeath’s Temple of Artemis city. There’s quite a few needed techs, so this would be used to burn through a couple of them. I have a couple options there on which path to follow, but I’ll get into that if we actually pop one.

Great Prophet (33%) - Buddhist Shrine. This is worth around 10-12 gpt right now, but that is very quickly growing, and other players would help spread it too thanks to the AP being built. Really hoping I get lucky here after missing out on the 93% dice roll earlier. In the short term the Merchant is better, but the natural spreading from Shrine and my expectation that it will scale well over time thanks to AP, I really would like a Shrine. The reality is I missed my chance for a high-odds Prophet, so I’m going to have to rely on eventually hitting a middling odds Prophet now, so hopefully this is the one. Basically, I’ll get other 25-50% odds swings later in the game, but not really much higher.

Great Engineer (28%) - Likely Sankore rush. I’m not 100% certain, but getting it online immediately as I finish Paper sounds nice. However, I would have to consider using it on a Golden Age or soon-ish Guilds bulb, though the latter is rapidly falling out of favor in my eyes.

[scooter]

The only part about this that annoys me is that I have to try to figure out if it's more lucrative to go to Superdeath's size 4 mainland Temple of Artemis city or one of his islands. If one of you want to just tell me and save me the effort, that would be cool . I know what the formula is, but it's not especially helpful because it sort of seems to me that they're worth the same, which doesn't seem right.

[scooter]

Horseback Riding? I mean, I guess I should slip it in at some point, but currently nobody except Charriu even has it, and according to Superdeath he lacks Archery.

You know, I feel like I should follow-up on this real quick. This is wild - we're 114 turns and around 80 cities from 5 players deep into this game and nobody in the entire game is able to build Horse Archers right now because the one guy who has the tech has skipped Archery. I assume he got it for the Elephants. Any idea if this is the latest ever? They're generally such an uber unit that it's nutty to see them ignored for 114 turns and counting.

[Tarkeel]

The only part about this that annoys me is that I have to try to figure out if it's more lucrative to go to Superdeath's size 4 mainland Temple of Artemis city or one of his islands. If one of you want to just tell me and save me the effort, that would be cool . I know what the formula is, but it's not especially helpful because it sort of seems to me that they're worth the same, which doesn't seem right.

Assuming they are both size 10 or smaller, they should be worth the same.

[Qgqqqqq]

You can normally check by queuing moves on the GM.

[Tarkeel]

You can normally check by queuing moves on the GM.

Would that work with an island though?

[scooter]

I’m like 90% sure Mjmd just swiped the Music artist. I’m growing a touch exasperated here as it seems like nobody else is interested in claiming meaningful prizes except me, which means anything I don’t take is just his. Charriu has had a monopoly on Literature for like 30+ turns and just didn’t take it. I’d just written it off as a viable target because I’ve been expecting it “any turn now” for ages, and it’s just never happened. Some of this is on me for not annoying him about this I guess, but is it really my job to be like “hey, you can have a free great person by finishing that tech and deny it to the game leader in a MoM golden age.” (During the time it’s taken to write this, Charriu confirmed this was true, and was pretty “no big deal” about it. Sigh.)

Well, the bright side is it means we are definitely on different tech paths, and that puts him further from Astronomy. I’m toying with bulb plans either towards Astro itself, or bulbing Education/Philosophy and Libbing Astro. Something like that - though it’s a bit hard to line it up exactly right. I’m a ways away from it, but I have a head start. I suspect Mjmd is more likely to greed and push towards Taj. I don’t think I can race him if he does, so I think the only other recourse is to try and punish militarily if he does. And if he plays more conservatively, I can always use the Galleons on other players. So let’s think about what it takes to get to Astronomy.


Techs needed to Lib Astro:
* Calendar
* Code of Laws
* Compass
* Optics
* Philosophy
* Education
* Liberalism

I’m counting Paper as complete as it completes next turn. I can put bulbs into a couple of those above. I’m on track for a couple likely scientists before long here. For Mjmd it’s essentially the same list + Machinery, (Civil Service OR Theology), and Paper, minus Calendar and Code of Laws. It’s a longer list if he wants Taj first.


Things needed to Bulb Astro
* Calendar
* Code of Laws
* Compass
* Optics
* Printing Press (blocks Scientist bulb)
* Education (blocks Scientist bulb)
* Alphabet (blocks Scientist bulb)
* Philosophy


If I have all these techs, a scientist bulbs Astro. There’s one fairly glaring issue - a scientist will not bulb all of Education or Astro currently - or even close. I’d have to check, but I think it would literally take almost two full scientists to bulb Astro alone right now, though that can obviously be improved a bit with grown population.

I could get wild and shorten this list by avoiding Code of Laws, which would remove Philosophy from this list. However, I need Courthouses so badly that I don’t think this is viable, plus it leaves Liberalism up for Mjmd to claim himself. Comparing the two paths, I don’t love this one as much.

So, I should just race for Liberalism, right? Well, there’s one huge problem with that too. Namely, if Mjmd just wants to Lib Nationalism, he can remove Machinery/Compass/Optics from the above list, and suddenly he’s got the edge. So, it’s going to be tough. One option would be to pursue the tighter Lib Nationalism play, and then if I have a big enough lead I could greed and slip in Optics/Compass first. Thinking about it anyway. Real chance there’s an error above, but I’ll tighten exact plans later once I figure out which to pursue.