[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[Zed-F]

Then I don't know why they didn't unlock half-price banks 15 turns ago. I guess they are still 100 hammers even so, so maybe that's it.

[pindicator]

Then I don't know why they didn't unlock half-price banks 15 turns ago. I guess they are still 100 hammers even so, so maybe that's it.

Because we forgot we had half-priced banks to unlock

Same reason with Economics. If we had known how much it was worth we probably would have gone there instead of PP and saved the great person for a golden age. Well, maybe not. PP was only 2 turns with the bulb.

[scooter]

Then I don't know why they didn't unlock half-price banks 15 turns ago. I guess they are still 100 hammers even so, so maybe that's it.

Because we forgot we had half-priced banks to unlock

Same reason with Economics. If we had known how much it was worth we probably would have gone there instead of PP and saved the great person for a golden age. Well, maybe not. PP was only 2 turns with the bulb.

Yep. It was a mistake, basically, and we can't have a whole lot more of those if we're going to beat mackoti.

We spent some time talking over our upcoming options. Maybe some of the ded-lurker crew will want to weigh in on some of the things we talked about:

1) Mackoti abruptly stopped teching Astro, and he switched to Drama. I cannot figure out why. It doesn't unlock anything for him, so it's purely for the tech itself. He also got a city from suttree for peace. He did get gunpowder too. One theory is he's going to grab nationalism and draft himself a bunch of Jannisaries and/or he's going to grab Rifling next (just needs RepParts for that), with the goal of wrecking his continent. THe purpose of Drama here being Globe primarily. However, aside from a couple suttree cities, his options for that aren't great. Old Harry is a good player, and he's relatively modern from what I can tell in techs. That would be a tough war, but if he won it, he'd be forcing us to conquer a neighbor too.

That theory still sounds like a stretch to me, though. So I can't figure out why Drama. I don't think the Theaters are all that useful to him, so Globe is really all that's there, and that's a weird diversion for someone who doesn't have Nationalism.

2) We're thinking about ignoring Rifling for awhile. Current tech path is obviously Banking-Econ-Astro, but after that we have interesting options. Chemistry is almost certainly going to be our next tech after that, and we figure if we continue hitting the bottom of the tech tree, there's no real reason for Rifling. Military Science in particular is a fantastically evil option. Amphibious Grens are terrifying, for one. Privateers at Chemistry will be nice, if only to use one in each stack for a free sentry. Steel for Drydocks will be useful. The short of it is we're thinking we're Vikings - our +2 movement boats are our strength - so let's maximize that by emphasizing a naval tech path. Doing so also forces mackoti to pick up naval techs for defense, which is NOT what he wants to be doing at this stage of the game.

3) Slightly longer term, we have a key fundamental tech choice to make. Option A is to go Replaceable Parts -> Steam Power -> Assembly Line. That option opens up Rifling yes, but it also opens up Levees (we have lots of river heavy cities) and then opens up factories, and we are ORG. We'd probably grab Pentagon too. If we get there quickest, Fascism (unlocked by Assembly Line) would get us a free Great General too. By that point our jungle-land cities will have gone from meh to pretty powerful cities, and that could be quite a boom era for us.

Option B is to delay that track for awhile and go for Scientific Method. That opens up 3 techs that all have great goodies at them: Communism (free spy and State property, although we are pretty iffy on if/when State Property will be worth it given the enormous bonus of Free Market), Physics (free great scientist), and Biology (farms). At any time in there we could grab Steel and/or Military Science because those have clear and obvious benefits for us too.

After chatting, we're kinda leaning towards the latter, especially because we think Mack may be targeting Rifles. We may be able to boost our navy AND still clean up a couple of these first-to bonuses, while unlocking Biology which will be a big boost.


So there's the highlights of what we discussed. Any thoughts from the ded-lurkers and/or further thoughts from pindicator?

[scooter]

Extra comment: I think part of our influence here is what we would do if we grabbed those first-to great people. For instance, teching Physics just for the scientist to bulb something is a net loss in short-term beakers. Ok sure, there's longterm benefits AND there's denial benefits, but I'm mostly concerned about the short-term because we have to play these next 50T perfectly or else we'll lose mackoti here. If we want to try to snag them both for a second 3-person golden age (after our planned 2-man), that could potentially be a solid option.

Alternatively, if we want to go the route of conquering more land on our continent (from Lewwyn or Commodore or whatever with Infantry or something), we should definitely beeline Assembly Line, because we would have a window where we could easily overwhelm our neighbors with considerably more production. We're teching much faster than both of those guys, so they'd be hard pressed to keep pace as we launched into the next era.

Also worth noting Mack is also ORG, so he's gonna have to make this exact decision soon.

[scooter]

EXTRA EXTRA comment: boy would it be nice to use a golden age to build a round of factories and levees.

Yes I'm starting to sway back that way a tad. Ok I'm done spamming for now.

[Ceiliazul]

love lurking this thread guys. keep up the good work.

[pindicator]

I'm also starting to lean towards Assembly Line, although that is a more long-term goal than a short-term one. Keep in mind, after Economics and Astronomy if we did a direct beeline to Assembly Line we would need the following techs:

• Replaceable Parts
  
• Gunpowder
  
• Chemistry
  
• Steam Power
  
• Meditation
  
• Philosophy
  
• Nationalism
  
• Constitution
  
• Corporation
  
• Assembly Line

So i do like it for a long-term goal, but i don't think a beeline is reasonable. We will want to fill in some techs, and we'll want to branch along the way to grab other good bonuses (like Military Science, Liberalism, Rifling or Steel), and we'll want to prioritize some techs sooner than others. Corporation stands out if we want to stick with Free Market above State Property, for instance. Gunpowder and Chemistry are probably our next techs after Astronomy. And i'm probably going to sneak in Meditation over the next few turns so we can build monasteries in Pirates and Bills and push Commodore's culture back.

[scooter]

Totally forgot you need Constitution for Corporation. Anyway, we definitely know our next 4ish techs, so we're OK for now. So I jumped in to check on something Noble suggested to me via chat:

Noble: drama is a good tech to build overflow with
are there any techs that mackoti would want to 1-turn or blow past to get the tech behind
something that obsoletes stuff like scimeth
or something that is useless if someone else gets it first

Not that I can figure. He definitely could be setting up for that since Astro is almost done too, but the first-to bonuses are still a couple steps away. He DOES have a very significant chunk of gold saved up - even more than us - so he's definitely going to do some burning soon. We're a little concerned still he could do a mass galley-galleon upgrade spree at Astro, but I think that's becoming a tad less likely with the excitement on his continent. Anyway, while I was in, this happened:



Hoo boy. I hope this turns into a hot one. Could lend to some opportunism. If you're having trouble keeping track of all the wars, you are not alone.



Yeesh. And that's what mackoti and suttree making peace in exchange for mack getting a city. Hopefully that pisses off Old Harry, who was clearly in the middle of conquering suttree.

[pindicator]

lol, no wonder there's been so many pauses. I wouldn't know how to split all those multiple wars

[pindicator]

Turn 165, Part 1

I just took a peek, and Ichabod has fired off another Golden Age. I think his war against WilliamLP is pretty much a hot war because WilliamLP was begging for stone when I logged in the game. Thought about it a bit, but I think I'd rather have a strong Ichabod. The stronger that mackoti's neighbors are, the better. So why try to slow down Ichabod's war?

Then after I rejected, WilliamLP had a second offer:



32gpt for stone? I'd say that trumps geopolitics