[Spoilers] Lazteuq and RefSteel's PB51 Adventure

[Raskolnikov]

Does Organized Religion speed up wonders?

It does!

[RefSteel]

Founded Taco on the silk island. (I'm running out of Mexican food, so I used the reserve name)

Running low on names is a good thing: It means we're expanding well! But in case it helps, here are some more good ones:

- Bolillo
- Chalupa
- Elote
- Flauta
- Guacamole
- Huarache

I think we are less likely to actually get it, but being a high-food city with a market and coastal trade routes, it would be excellent if we do. There are 2 forests left to chop for it.

I'm not really worried about competition. It's not a very powerful or popular wonder: More valuable to us than most because of PHI, and because it's cheaper with marble, but still not a game-changing build, and therefore likely to remain available to us.

Does Organized Religion speed up wonders? If so, we could use it with Buddhism in the golden age.

Yes, as Raskolnikov said, it helps a little. Since we have marble already, the marginal benefit is small though: Whenever we adopt OrgRel, it will save roughly 11% of the remaining hammer cost of the Wonder because of the way the bonus multipliers add up. The cost of teching Mono sooner and delaying Bureaucracy is too high for that to make sense unless we want it for missionaries and regular infrastructure builds.

Has a copper-copper and fish-fish trade with Superdeath.

That's interesting; copper-copper (or iron-iron or horse-horse) usually signals a loose military alliance - i.e. both wanting to attack the same enemy. It's rare to see it accepted though, outside of the absolute end game. Normal procedure is:
1) Civ A offers copper-copper trade to Civ B.
2) Civ B rejects the deal regardless of whether it's wanted, since it's either not wanted or worth keeping secret.
3) If Civ B does want to join Civ A in an attack, Civ B then offers copper-copper back to Civ A.
4) Civ A rejects the deal even though it's obviously wanted, in order to keep the alliance secret. It's understood that offering, rejecting, re-offering, and rejecting means the alliance is accepted by both sides ... for the present. Like fish-for-fish and the like (which is much more likely to be accepted in-game, to signal friendship to other players) the duration and details of the alliance are undefined and ... uh ... fluid.

[Lazteuq]

T118-119
Thanks for explaining copper-copper. Maybe Vanrober, like me, didn't know the "normal procedure"
I didn't take the Monotheism detour. I hadn't realized the production multipliers have diminishing returns. But I guess it makes sense, because gold and science multipliers work that way.

Started the golden age once we got Code of Laws. Even at 100% in golden age, we aren't #1 in GNP. Needless to say, Plemo is scary. A chariot is on the way to scout his land.
Civil Service will be done on T122, Golden Age ends T126.

Gira built the Great Wall? Wow, I assumed no-one would build it. Nothing else seems to have changed in foreign news. Superdeath appears content to operate at power parity with a demilitarized border.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for explaining copper-copper. Maybe Vanrober, like me, didn't know the "normal procedure"

Very likely true. It's also possible that superdeath offered something like fish+copper+OB for fish+copper+OB, intending something like, "I'll give you open borders, but only if we can be friends and allies" - and that vanrober just accepted straight up, wanting to make use of the open borders right away.

I didn't take the Monotheism detour. I hadn't realized the production multipliers have diminishing returns. But I guess it makes sense, because gold and science multipliers work that way.

Yes, with a few exceptions: Bureaucracy hammers do work this way, but Bureau commerce is applied to the capital's total commerce from palace, tiles, and trade routes, then divided between gold and beakers (and potentially espionage and culture) according to the sliders, with the results fully multiplied by the relevant buildings - so our best tech rate should increase significantly when we adopt bureaucracy.

The hammer exceptions are for Mathematics, which improves the base hammers from chops, before any multipliers are applied, and the Kremlin, which basically does the same thing for whips when in slavery.

Needless to say, Plemo is scary.

Yup!

Civil Service will be done on T122, Golden Age ends T126.

In that case, if we haven't revolted to Caste yet and won't be going into OrgRel, I think we should hold off and adopt Bureaucracy as soon as CS comes in (keeping Slavery). If we wanted to run more specialists than our buildings allow and we have adopted Caste already, I suspect we should still revolt to Bureau + Slavery at the first opportunity (so probably T123?) and plan our specialist use accordingly.

ToA aside, what are we building with our boosted Golden Age production?

[Lazteuq]

T120:

Yes, with a few exceptions: Bureaucracy hammers do work this way, but Bureau commerce is applied to the capital's total commerce from palace, tiles, and trade routes, then divided between gold and beakers (and potentially espionage and culture) according to the sliders, with the results fully multiplied by the relevant buildings - so our best tech rate should increase significantly when we adopt bureaucracy.

So this is why Bureau's +50% is much better than a Bank's +50%?
I did not revolt to caste, because I didn't see any specific cases where I wanted that many specialists.


With 2 chops going in, ToA should be 4 turns away.
I'm really building Markets for the +3 happy more than for the gold. It's tempting to 4pop whip some of them, but I also know we should take advantage of the happy cap and grow these cities large(size 12ish). 
I've been running 2 merchants in Enchilada, so there will actually be a 30ish% chance of a Merchant.
Fajita borders expand in 8 turns, then we'll be able to connect the Dye by Superdeath's border.

We have graphs on GKC, he is in constant military buildup but has very poor production, actually the worst out of everyone we know. Maybe he's running entirely off whipping, but that can't work well in the long term. Meanwhile Gira isn't building any new units. This makes me think GKC might see an advantage and attack Gira again.

[RefSteel]

So this is why Bureau's +50% is much better than a Bank's +50%?

Yup. In theory, if you were running a billion Merchants in a city generating very little commerce, the bank would actually be better, but since most gold and science ultimately comes from commerce, bureau increases both, and then each gets fed through all the relevant multipliers.

I did not revolt to caste, because I didn't see any specific cases where I wanted that many specialists.

Good call.

I'm really building Markets for the +3 happy more than for the gold. It's tempting to 4pop whip some of them, but I also know we should take advantage of the happy cap and grow these cities large(size 12ish).

Tile yields in a GA are so good, it's almost never a good idea to whip things (especially for four pop!) until the GA is over.
 

I've been running 2 merchants in Enchilada, so there will actually be a 30ish% chance of a Merchant.

Interesting. I'd have kept going with Scientists thanks to our Academy, but the difference isn't huge (10.5 beakers per turn vs 7.5 gold per turn) so if a Great Merchant would be more valuable to us, sure, it's worth giving up a few beakers for a roll of the dice.

I'm exhausted and time may be growing scarcer for me going forward - we'll see - but it's nice to see the progress the empire has been making!

[Lazteuq]

T122
Got CS and switched to Bureaucracy. One side effect I hadn't thought of: Now everyone knows we're pushing down that tech path.
Enchilada pops a great person in 3 turns.
4 more turns of golden age: Breakeven is about 250 right now, so thats 1000 golden age beakers, plus 100 gold in the bank. We can get Metal Casting in 2. Iron working in 1, then about 1/4 of Machinery. That will leave 750 beakers of Machinery left at non-golden age tech rate. Assuming that's 150(including building some wealth), we can get everything for maces and crossbows in about 10turns.
If we get a great merchant, it could bulb Metal Casting. But I think a trade mission would probably be more valuable. Metal Casting is about 700 beakers, but trade missions seem to give at least 900 gold.

Superdeath's power has dramatically increased. We might be getting maces and crossbows just in time. I'm moving almost all the cats and axes to the center of the border. I'm sure he could take one city with the amount of power he has, so the objective is to make it unprofitable for him to continue a conquest. I think it is too expensive to maintain a completely effective deterrent army.

[Lazteuq]

T123
Superdeath cancelled cow-cow and re-offered. He also offered Dye for Incense. I accepted both.
Superdeath also positioned 4 chariots near the border. I don't know why.
Plemo beat us to ToA, but we got 290 failgold.That speeds up the timeline toward Machinery significantly. This turn we are teching archery on 0%, because I'm unsure about the potential metal casting bulb next turn.

Started building more catapults, because they won't go obsolete soon.
Road toward Girapolis is almost complete, I see no defensive response from Gira.

We have iron 2W of Enchilada. It will be mined in 4T.

I played some singleplayer yesterday and realized I've been undervaluing specialists during golden ages. So I set Quesadilla and Tortilla to run some more specialists. Next GP will definitely come out of Quesadilla, its pool is already about half full.
I added an extra scientist to pop Enchilada's great person a turn early.

QUESTION!: Are trade missions allowed? I'm worried they violate the no spies rule.

Here's a long-term idea:
1. Research alphabet
2. Bulb Paper with a scientist
3. Bulb Guilds with a merchant
4. Profit.
It depends on great person dice rolls unfortunately. Paper is necessary to open up the guilds bulb, as RefSteel pointed out a few weeks ago.

[RefSteel]

I really have no time at all right now, but to answer super quickly:

QUESTION!: Are trade missions allowed? I'm worried they violate the no spies rule.

Yes, trade missions are allowed. Be careful not to leave a Great Merchant open to attack by a player you don't trust though! (Note they don't teleport when war is declared unless an enemy unit is on the same tile.)

[Lazteuq]

Thanks for still checking up on the thread even when you don't have time!
T124
Assuming our breakeven rate is 150bpt once the GA ends, we can start building Macemen on T128. I haven't lurked enough to know if that's good, but it feels pretty good to me.
After that, we could do HBR and Guilds in roughly 12 turns, so I think 16 turns is the minimum total to reach Knights. Not sure that's the best strategy though.
Against the odds, the GP out of Enchilada was a Merchant! A Scientist should come out of Quesadilla in 20 turns(Maybe I should have switched to Caste...). Waiting on bulbs means not having Guilds until turn 144. However, we can probably directly research Guilds by T140. So maybe a Merchant+Scientist golden age would be better. Speed isn't everything though, and the bulb path is probably more overall beaker-efficient.
And then there is still a trade mission option. I don't want to provoke Plemo or Superdeath, but I'm betting that Gira would let our Merchant through, and the scouting would be very useful. I moved the merchant towards the border, but haven't committed yet.

MJMD got the Parthenon and Great Library. Basically this means all the wonders we've talked about are taken. This is fine though, because I think conquest is a solid path forward anyways.
Plemo has adopted Vassalage. So far, I don't think anyone else has taken Bureau, so we were probably the first to Civil Service. Superdeath is still the only one with Alphabet so it's hard to know what "average tech" is. I think we might actually be leading in tech right now.
In any case, we're 1-turning metal casting.