Oxy Hates Making Sandboxes

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 76-80




As expected, Commodore finished his GA by swapping into bureaucracy. This gives him a noticeable economic edge; on a small map like this, with such a great capital, that civic is crucial. It also gives him a major leg-up on the liberalism race, something that I really want to win. I'm pretty sure Commodore has one GS stored and even if he doesn't he should be able to birth another one, so I expect an education bulb. I'll have up to 3 scientists to bulb philosophy and half or all of education, which along with a GA should hopefully land me liberalism around t92. Can Commodore beat that? Possibly, I really don't know. He teched feudalism after civil service and is saving gold on paper turn 80.




Q is doing a decent job of making himself unpalatable. I probably could beat that, but it certainly wouldn't be worth it while I'm racing along the middle of the tree.




I have no idea why Q moved up his stack like this. He just moved it back next turn, so I guess it was a show of force?




People need to stop tempting me...




Cause I'll bite everytime. My power is way higher than Ruff's, so he can't really retaliate. I'm low on workers in the south, so free ones are much appreciated.




Getting ready to settle the jungled middle.




Marble is hooked, so MoM is started. Nobody else has calendar or marble, so I'm feeling pretty secure.




Umbridge is working on a GS to bulb philosophy turn 87 and building Moai in anticipation of the imminent GA.




Visible, you can see Q's settling party for a silly city on the plains hill. Also, Commodore built the HG, usurping me temporarily as the food leader.




Demos. For now, I'm clearly in second place.




Settler whipped for jungle city




Improving the culture situation with Q. If I'm not going to attack him, I need to keep pumping culture.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 81-84




Commodore has staked a claim to the center with a city in an identical location to mine.




As I mentioned before, we landed MoM eot82 in Lupin. Nobody else had calendar, so this wasn't exactly a nail-biter. Still, MoM is a great wonder here and hopefully help me catch up with Commodore.




Improving the defensibility of my southern front, one tile at a time.




How Ruff is garrisoning our border. I still have no idea why he has 3 warriors in a size 7 city with plenty of other units. His capital is only size 10, so he doesn't have a lot of vertical growth.




Turn 82, settle the final city that fits my naming scheme. Merrythought will get its rice hooked soon and then its gems. After that, it'll get a granary chopped and work a couple cottages. Not a great city, but claiming gems and an auxiliary ivory makes it worth settling.




With the MoM, Lupin has become a cultural powerhouse. Once it pops fourth-ring borders, I'll start stealing tiles from Ruff. Also, check out that maintenance. If I didn't have a courthouse, Lupin would be costing me 20gpt! Suffice to say that ORG and Sumeria have served me well.




Overview turn 83




Demos as I turn on research to CoL. Mass wealth building+double arrow tech+triple pre-req bonuses kinda distorts the figure I was able to one-turn the tech, so hopefully I haven't tipped off Commodore to how hard I'm racing for liberalism.




I think score is a pretty accurate approximation of how the game is turning out. Ruff is very low in food, production and GNP, so he is clearly in last. Q is only doing slightly better than Ruff, but he has the economic advantage of the pyramids. Q is about to flip into CS, so his economy should improve. Ruff, on the other hand, is heading to construction, which will set up back even farther while others pick up econ techs.

Meanwhile, Commodore and I are racing neck and neck. We both have more techs researched than Ruff and Q, though Commodore has the advantage for now through his early GA. I think our economies are about equal right now and mine will get better once I trigger a GA and switch into Bureaucracy turn 87. Not only are our economies superior to Ruff and Q, but we're also doing a lot better in population:




Commodore and I account for almost 60% of the world population, leaving only 40% for Ruff and Q. Ruff may have as little as half my total population

By turn 87, Commodore will be up paper and 2 turns of research on me in the lib race. I'm in turn going to bulb philosophy and education, which will hopefully make up the difference along with my stronger golden age economy. I still have no idea who will win this race.

[Catwalk]

Still looking good, crossing my fingers for Liberalism! Sumeria and ORG are definitely a scoop on this map, we'll probably have to disagree on FIN vs PHI That said, you're definitely leveraging PHI well. I have yet to come up with a PHI plan for Elizabeth in PB17

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Of course Ruff isn't going to be at a computer around the time the lib race will be decided

Report up either later today or tomorrow, but Commodore almost certainly got a GS for an education bulb. The winner of lib is still very much up in the air: I have GA and a better economy, he has a head start with paper already researched. My GS to bulb education spawns eot89, so I'm looking at turn 92/93 liberalism. That would be pretty good for most games, especially on this cramped of a map, but Commodore is pretty good at winning liberalism, at least judging from past games. It doesn't help that any tie will go to him by virtue of the turn order.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

I've been microing my cities so hard that there's not a lot of report. Here's the only new thing of import from:

Turn 85-86




My last ditch attempt at slowing Commodore down

I'm considering forgoing lib and directly researching nationalism...

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Ok, I'm back on the liberalism track and I've found a way to get it eot91, with A LOT of wealth and research.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

~Golden Age Special Update~

Turn 87




GS is born, bulbing philosophy(Daoism landed in Snape)




CS is in

It's golden time!




Civic upkeep went down, but expenses raised because of the combination of pacifism and a decent army. Pacifism is still worth it, largely because it lets me comfortably get a scientist in 3 turns:




Mad-eye is at 26/28 food in the box and is losing 8fpt. I'll starve down to 2/28 before getting back to food neutral, but still running some specialists.




And Snape, who will spawn a GS one turn after Mad-eye. I'll try to generate another great person or two after these ones while I'm in GA.




Capital in GA. Man I love this city.

Finally, overview:

You could say I'm building a little wealth

So here's liberalism timeline

Turn 87: One turn paper
Turn 88: Prep education bulb, Commodore finishes philosophy
Turn 89: Turn research to 0%, get scientist at eot
Turn 90: Bulb education, turn research to 100% and switch all cities to research builds
Turn 91: Finish liberalism at eot

So to beat me, Commodore needs to research education in one-turn with a single bulb and then 2-turn liberalism. Considering I'm struggling to do that with a GA economy and copious wealth and research builds, I doubt he can. Maybe if he has a lot of overflow from philosophy or something. This would all be a lot stressful if I was ahead of Commodore in the turn order...

Meanwhile, Q is backfilling religion techs and Ruff just finished construction. I'm expecting Q to research towards nationalism. He got a GE a couple turns back, so rushing Taj is very much an option. Alternatively, he may be going for the music GA, which is still available.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 88-89




Forgot to report on this, but my pillaging expedition into Commodore's territory was a relative success. I pillaged his gold and sheep, robbing him of some commerce and happy. I guess I'm antagonizing Commodore a bit here, but I feel like I'm in pretty open conflict with him already in terms of our tech race. Anyway, Commodore responded by sending a dog/chariot pair down to harass me at Merrythought, leading to this:




I sent in a HA at decent odds




Won that just barely. Next I attacked with a spear at 80%. I lost that one, but cleaned up with a vulture. Workers are chopping all of the forests and jungles adjacent to Merrythought, so hopefully this won't happen again.




Q is seriously pissing me off here. He's been running mass caste artists to push back my borders, starting a cultural arms race to the detriment of us both. He also sniped my sentry chariot that was clearly only threatening Commodore:




Now I get it, I've attacked him before and have been focusing on culture as well on our shared border. The difference is, I have a huge army to back up my actions. Conversely, look how Q is garrisoning our border cities:







I could raze those both on the same turn if I wanted to. It seems like Q should not be working so hard to antagonize me, no? Nothing I plan to do about it now as I've focused all of my civ's production on hitting that turn 91 liberalism date.




Interesting stuff in this screenshot. First, Q is obviously going for music, but for some reason he's switched research onto calendar. Seems like an unnecessary risk. More importantly, Commodore one-turned education with the help of a bulb and overflow from philosophy. The moment of truth will be next turn where I'll see if Commodore can research liberalism in two turns or three. Liberalism is 1150 raw beakers on this map so I really doubt he can get in 2. My best guess at his research capabilites would be something around 375 beakers per turn, which is about consistent with him one-turning education with overflow from researching philosophy in 4-turns. I don't think he has much overflow from education, so it seems like he couldn't get liberalism in 2-turns even with research builds. What I would give to be first in the turn order...

Anyway...




The race is on

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Ok, apparently Commodore thought the lib race was already lost and switched research onto nationalism so I don't have to waste production on building research and can instead get some unis done.