[PB57] Pindicator searches for his mascot

[pindicator]

Turns 077 & 078

Oregon State is playing Houston in the Elite Eight as I write this. Not a good start for my alma mater, we're down 12-4 in the opening minutes.


On 77 we moved units up, including shuttling some units from the old barb city Mortimer that I had held back.




Jackie Chan had 2 spears and a bowman on defense and I expected a triple whip for a 3rd spear. TBS didn't disappoint as that was what I opened the turn to today.

What did surprise me was that the diplo messages must be flying around rapidfire: Cornflakes was happy to peace out with TBS for no point exchanges seen on PBSpy, and now Old Harry has joined in the fray, declaring on TBS. Poor TBS, I didn't mean for the world to gang up on you. But that scoreboard and wonder chain was rightfully scaring some people.

Since Jackie Chan was not on a hill and did not have walls, I expected better results ... and got them: only 2 horse archers lost and even a low odds win!

Code:

C1 Horse Archer vs Spear (20.9% / 15.8%) - Withdraw, Spear to 66hp
C1 Horse Archer vs Spear (21.9% / 15.6%) - Loss, Spear to 83hp
C1 Horse Archer vs Spear (21.9% / 15.6%) - Win!
C1 Shock Horse Archer vs 83hp Spear (51.2% / 9.8%) - Win!
C2 Horse Archer vs 66hp Spear (73.6% / 5.3%) - Loss, Spear to 47hp
C2 Horse Archer vs Bowman (74.3% / 5.1%) - Win
Horse Archer vs Bowman (89.1% / 2.2%) - Win

And now my big goal for the war is complete:




I think there might be a city E-NE of the rice. Next turn I'll be able to bring my sentry horcher up and see for certain; if there is and if it looks like something I can hit then I'll try to burn it. If not, then I think I offer peace. I did not offer peace this turn because I want Old Harry's whatever to get a little more committed. It would be great if those two could stay at war for a while.

I'm wanting to turn my attention more towards economy. First stop on that is getting my religion Shrined:




WebstUR will finish its archer, then build a temple which will allow it to generate a 3rd priest specialist. I probably should even skip the archer but I just can't stand to leave my defences so barren down here: even if Old Harry really has no coastal cities nearby from which to launch an attack.

Similarly I'm starting axes all over. All these early Espionage Points mean that I almost have tech visibility on everyone (Cornflakes next turn - I forgot to switch EPs this turn) and know that TBS is heading towards Iron Working. I'm envisioning my tech path as Currency -> Metal Casting -> Paper; however, Iron Working, Construction, and Calendar all will deserve some consideration ahead of Paper.

Still, Paper is a big priority because I'm going Religious Wonder route:




AP is due in 6 and I could cut that down to 4 if I wanted. I think I will: I'll chop out that forest and that will finish it up end of t81. This isn't so much because I want the AP now but more because I want to get the capital back to other things - but I will try to whip some Temples before then too.

I also have a settler roaming around but with recent cities costing me so much I'm rethinking putting him down in the filler spot I had him slated for. I'm actually eying Gavagai's 1-tile island. He never settled it. And if I can stuff a bunch of units in there then I think it will more than be worth grabbing.

The Only Graph That Matters:




Despite all the wars it seems the unit production has leveled off. I think all these additional wars on TBS aren't very committal; I've probably invested the most towards him. Cornflakes and Gavagai had a committal war. I'm looking forward to that resuming; that would be a great time for me to poach that island...

EDIT: 14 - 22 with 5 minutes to go in the half. The low score is good for us; our defense is playing well. But we really need to stop turning the ball over.

[pindicator]

So we rallied in the 2nd half, came back from 17 down to tie the game!

And then fell apart in the last 2 minutes to lose anyway. Sigh, it was a remarkable season and I love that they didn't just give up but I'm still sad to see it end.

[pindicator]

I took a peak at the save since there was no turn yesterday, and TBS had offered me straight peace.  As much as I would like to check out / burn any city near House, I decided I probably had gotten as much out of this war as I could easily get and took the peace deal.

Which means it's time to rename those cities.




House, being close in name to Houston, gave me the idea to give the University of Houston a tip of the cap for defeating my alma mater, Oregon State University, in men's basketball yesterday.  So we rename the city to their mascots, Shasta and Shaka, for the male and female cougars.  I read the university also sponsors male and female cougars at the Houston Zoo with the same names, but my quick internet search could not find them.




And Jackie Chan sounds close enough to Jacksonville that I went with Dunk'n the Dolphin.  I know nothing of this school, I just thought the phonetic similarity was a neat take on representing dialects and name changes of cities that changed hands.




I'm now in forced peace with everybody except Gavagai.

Hmmm...  Still have 16 horchers

[Tarkeel]

I'm now in forced peace with everybody except Gavagai.

Hmmm...  Still have 16 horchers

Sounds like casus belli to me.

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm now in forced peace with everybody except Gavagai.

Hmmm...  Still have 16 horchers

Sounds like casus belli to me.

'E's Monty. 'E doan need no steenkin' casus belli!

[pindicator]

079

Hitru and Old Harry have given TBS peace. Yeah, I probably should have waited a turn before signing that peace deal, or at least waited for my turn. But in any case, I'm happy with my gains, I'm still strong enough that nobody can pounce on me without building up first, and I've knocked TBS down a Peg.

OH will be something else to consider, as he just built the Great Library. Glad I didn't decide to go that route, I don't think I would have gotten it.




These weakly defended border cities do make me regret the peace again a little. But I'm going to chop both those bordering forests, so unless he wants to have Chuck burned out of the fog on the first turn of war he's going to need to stuff some defenders in there. I suppose the same is true for me, and I'm already building my wave of axes to counter his inevitable sword army. But I feel like I'm in the better position still.

I dont' think I'm going to poke Gavagai when my horcher army heals, and that's in part because the timing for healing and then moving into position puts me right up against my TBS forced peace. The other reason is this:




Here's hoping those are heading back towards Cornflakes.

'E's Monty. 'E doan need no steenkin' casus belli!

Half right. I'm Asoka here, and while I have the Aztec whipping ground, I also am going to consider growing my economy. We're going to have some big changes in the next couple of turns. Currency I should be able to squeeze out at eot80. (Sniping Gavagai's island would be funny, but considering how poor the growth of that city would be and how expensive, I'm not sure it will really gain me anything unless I can also take cities off Gavagai in a war.) So that should help GNP. To help hammers, AP will finish at end of t81. A couple of the weaker production cities swapped this turn to Temples; next turn as many cities as possible will. And then on t81 they will all whip their temples along with the AP finishing - that should be a boost to my mfg to rival early forges. And with the temple happiness, you can think of it as free hammers. Kind of.

Demos now:




Again, we're looking for big improvements in GNP and MFG over the next couple turns.
I also have tech visibility on everybody after ending the turn. That's nice.

[Brian Shanahan]

Half right.  I'm Asoka here,

You can't fool me, not even this day!  Just because you've had to grow out some Covid hair doesn't mean you've become a hippy peacenik all of a sudden.

Plus, Ashoka was a right bloodthirsty hot head in his youth. Monty hadn't a patch on him

[pindicator]

080

Prepping for next turn.




I may not whip all of them - if the natural production is good I'll let them finish a turn or two later.
Currency is in and Shasta N Sasha came out of revolt. Dunk'n will come out next turn. Missionaries are heading north!

Next tech is a bit of a head-scratcher. Options are:

Iron Working: reveal Iron, open up my UU, but there really isn't much for jungle here so I'm not too pressed.
Metal Casting: This is more about triremes than anything else, but I'm sure a forge or two would be good in spots.
Construction: Like above, another defense minded tech. Opens up War Elephants and Catapults both.
Monarchy: I feel like this is the next big economic tech for me. Since Code of Laws is now almost entirely useless for me (will be nice later on to get Caste, but not yet), I think my tech path needs to eventually go Monarchy -> Feudalism -> Civil Service -> Paper
Calendar: I've got a luxury or two. This is mostly for the extra commerce at the capital and to let it grow more on good tiles.

I think after writing this all out, it makes sense to go Construction > Monarchy. And maybe squeeze in Metal Casting ahead of Monarchy if I really fear someone is going to poke me by sea.

[Amicalola]

As the Aztecs, you don't value forges for the whipping efficiency and AP multipliers?

[pindicator]

Well, they're nice, but they're also spendy. 120h means I'm likely 3p or 4p whipping them all to completion - even with Org Rel. Plus I have other things I think are more important to build now: catapults, triremes, monasteries. I'm using the cheap religious buildings as sort of forge-replacements early on. Later on I'll work at getting forges down. I suppose I could really just push infra hard right now and then grab Metal Casting next. But I really think I need to get catapults.