[PB60] Lazteuq and Civac

[Lazteuq]

That's right, there are no modifiers, just regular production and 2pop whips.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 115: 1 AD!
We finally have currency, and now are up to +50gpt at 0%, plus 45 specialist beakers.
I want to prioritize priests over scientists, because a prophet for the christian shrine would be really nice. We can easily guarantee scientists with Caste, but prophets are hard to get.
Once we get the AP, I think monasteries will be worth building. Probably want to stay in OR even if we have monasteries, just because the +25% hammers is so good. We can always go back to Paganism if all the religion civics seem unnecessarily expensive.

We got iron working and discovered there was iron in the capitol jungle. I should have been able to predict that. Another one on the hill I just mined near Yokib. In 3 turns the Gems should be mined, adding some very important happiness.
This turn we whipped two more settlers, from Oxhutza and Lakhama.


Tech thoughts:
CoL for Caste will be important. I don't expect to actually build many courthouses though.
Construction would be pretty good, since our unique Ball Court gives +3 happy.
Metal casting is good for forges and a few lumbermills, but not super exciting. It does already have 4 people's KTB on it though. Forges will be +3 happy since we have gold, silver, and gems! Forges+Ball Courts is probably an excessive amount of happiness. If I had to pick only one, I'd definitely pick forges.
Monarchy isn't very important, I don't think Serfdom makes much sense for us here. It would give us access to wine, but that's about it. And it's a prereq for Feudalism.

Nobody has gone down the aesthetics line yet. Eventually we might want to go there and farm failgold.
Philosophy enabling Pacifism could be pretty nice, especially combined with Caste.

Here's my idea of mid-term planning:
Research CoL and run Caste to make a scientist for a GA. Also important to start working on merchants and artists for future GAs.
Research Metal Casting, build some forges.
Research Civil Service, run Bureaucracy, use a second scientist to put an academy in the capitol. Maybe move the capitol to Xukpi?
Research Philosophy to get Pacifism, and because it leads to Nationalism....
Try pretty hard to get Nationalism early for Taj and the civic Nationhood.
Inevitably get dogpiled and realize I may need to include some more military techs in this list...

Not sure where to put Construction in this list. Catapults are surely too important to ignore.
I'd really like to skip Machinery-Monarchy-Feudalism-Guilds until after some of the top half of the tree stuff.

Side note: I feel like this is the kind of situation where Divine Right might actually make sense, but it's soooo expensive.

[civac2]

Random thoughts:

I have changed my mind about Serfdom. We need windmills at the capital in the mid term. Getting them to 2/2/2 or 1/3/2 would be amazing. Some other windmills on random plains hills (or desert hills) would allow us to make use of those tiles. We would also get macemen and better lumber mills.

Yokib is the best city we have next to the capital. It can get to +16 food fairly easily. I'd put the National Epic in there. Right now we should grow it as fast as possible to size 20+. For this reason I'd use all 4(?) workers we have in the north. Maybe build another worker somewhere though I'm not sure this is necessary.

We could cottage Izamul. In the long run more economic substance is needed. We could go for specialists there too but the more we lean into the Rep specialists the more we need to kill everyone in the Renaissance.

Apropos killing people in the Renaissance, we could go cuirassiers + drafted musketmen via Education (preferably another bulb). Taking Astronomy as a Lib pick would also work maybe. This requires us getting a tech advantage. Atm we are actually behind. Rep specialists and Pacifism powered bulbs could catapult us ahead but then maybe not. Seems a bit optimistic.

A few more units would not be amiss. Especially, if they don't have to be whipped. Plus maybe, a couple more axes in Altun Ha. Alternatively, we could start on the monasteries in preparation for the AP.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 123
Despite the fact that we're still doing pretty well and have the potential to seriously impact the outcome of the game (or even win!), I don't feel very motivated to report. Not sure why. I guess I feel more invested in PB59 for some reason, even though I should be treating it more casually and treating this one more seriously. I really just shouldn't be in 2 games at once. Anyway, here's a screenshot:

Mjmd and Jowy have both just recently started Golden Ages.
Now that GKC and Jowy have a peace treaty, we're a bit concerned about either of them attacking. However, I've positioned a holkan, scout, and workboat to watch that area, and they haven't made any aggressive moves. Jowy definitely could cause a lot of trouble for us in Yokib, but I don't think he knows how weakly defended we were 2 or 3 turns ago.. Also I recently built a scout and sent him to watch the Superdeath border, nothing scary down there either. I think we're pretty safe right now.
Safe enough to adopt Caste I'd say. That starts a 5-turn danger period where we can't panic-switch to Police State/Theocracy/Slavery if someone attacks, so it's a bit risky.
We've been growing a lot of the coastal cities and whipping very little recently. I think we should make the swap to Caste next turn.

Still no-one has researched Aesthetics. Continuing down that tech path, we could try to get the Music Great Artist, but I think that conflicts with getting Taj. I doubt we could pull off both. I'm pretty sure wqe could get the Music artist if we focused on it, but at what cost? Later on, maybe we can pull off the Economics Merchant, maybe with Education and/or Banking bulbs.

AP is done in 3 turns, we already have 10 Christian Temples and we'll soon have a few monasteries as well. That plus some upcoming forges might put us on top of the Production demographic.

We've discussed using great people for three things: bulbing (Philosophy first, then who knows what... education?), building a academy in the bureau-capitol, and of course starting a golden age. Philosophy might actually be the most important, because it enables Pacifism, which is a pretty big deal for us.
We're seriously considering Taj. Mjmd is of course the big competition. He did build MoM, which (maybe, sort of) indicates he may NOT be planning a early Taj...? Nationalism is just a really good tech anyway because Spiritual means we can easily get a lot of value from short waves of drafting.

Amica/Van have Crossbows, and Jowy has Berserkers (Macemen). Tech pace feels pretty fast, but maybe that's just because the game turns are going so fast.
I saw a lot of boats on Jowy's inner coast, I think a lot of the GKC-Jowy combat was on water.

I had been spending EPs on Amica/Van, but they were spending on us a lot as well. They are ORG and will probably have lots of courthouses, meaning we will end up totally outclassed in espionage. I decided to give up on getting research visibility on them, and switched to spending on GKC instead.

[civac2]

I did some calculations. If you want the safe GS from Oxhuitza it's likely optimal to grow it to 8 in 5(4?) turns (not sure how the happiness situation is exactly) then switch to Caste System for 5-6 turns and employ 6 scientists. This works better if we have Civil Service already at that point. If we can get CS fast we could double switch.

Quirigua can do it faster but has a small chance of failure due to the priest points.

[civac2]

Lazteuq and I consider rushing the Taj Mahal with the help of the Philosophy bulb and a GA. We would research Nationalism in the first half of the GA and then use it to finish the Taj quickly. I like to do it that way because you gain an extra half-round of GA if the Taj prolongs an existing GA.

We are currently 477 of 1248 beakers into Civil Service with 344 gold saved up. Tech requirement after Pre-Tech and KTB bonuses is 617 (Civil Service, 971) + 312 (Alphabet, 390) + 2340 (Nationalism, 2808) = 3269 base beakers. The numbers in brackets are the nomial values given by the game. With our current tech rate (165 beaker at balanced costs but also with a bunch of caste scientists) we need 20 turns to get there not accounting for the GA or wealth/research builds. That is a bit steep.

As for the GPs, we could produce a safe scientist in Oxhuitza in 5 turns with one turn of starving and then another GP in Quirigua within a further 4 turns even if we switch out of Caste System.

One problem is that Jowy is preparing for war. He has amassed some galleys and berserkers in his inland sea. They are almost certainly meant for GKC but if we do not produce any contemporary military units we cannot influence events. Moreover, if he did decide to attack us with his force we would have no hope of stopping it currently.

@Lazteuq: Are you OK with starving Ox down one size to get the GS in 5 turns? We could the swich into slavery again for some badly needed units and forges. Staying in caste system is not only dangerous the specialists also hurt our empire output and development in mid/long term. Techwise we could just save up further and sprint to Machinery if necessary.

[Lazteuq]

Starving Ox was my thought anyway. I agree with returning to slavery for 5t at least.
Little things:
-Should we go back to a Forge in the capitol?
-Why not run a bunch of specialists in Chichen? I see no reason for it to be growing larger still.
-I set Qirigua to work the gold mine instead of the lake, because I think it's ok to empty that food bin. 5c+2h is surely worth 3f. Also, do we want to get the Oxhuitza GP done first? Right now the Qirigua one will finish in less time. Maybe it's fine.

I really don't know what to do. I wish I could predict when other people will try to go for Taj. In one way, Nationalism is unusually good for SPI: it gives us the draft. However, golden ages are actually less valuable for us, since we can already switch civics whenever, and we also aren't set up to fully take advantage of the buffed tile yields as well as someone with more windmills, watermills, and lumbermills would be. I find myself questioning whether Taj is even worth trying for.

I was never that enthusiastic about civil service anyway, I'm fine with being indecisive and saving gold for a bit. If we get Philosophy and an academy in the capitol, it makes more sense. Chain-irrigation will help us a bit, but our workers still have plenty of work to do in other places.
I think it's too dangerous to have nothing better than axes and spears for the next 10+ turns. I think the cheapest way is Construction+HBR+Archery for catapults+elephants (and Ball Courts!). I think that would be enough for some credible defense against overland attacks. We'll be really vulnerable against boats for a long time and I don't think there's much we can do about it. Stuffing coastal cities with defensive units might be enough vs. Amica or GKC, but I think it's not viable against a large attack of Jowy's Berserkers. We can defend one coastal city decently, but if he decides to roam the seas and threaten multiple cities at once, we're in big trouble. For example, he could galley fork our cities of Qirigua and Izancanac. Also Civac reminded me Jowy could be hiding his units on boats. His stack near his capitol could reach us in as little as 4 turns if he builds a fort canal by Texas.

Maybe we should try to find an opening through diplomacy. We haven't had any interesting interactions with our neighbors in a long time. I wonder what Superdeath and Mjmd are planning in the medium term... They're both in military buildups and Superdeath just declared on Mjmd. Mjmd seems to have a lot of units defending their southern border. Next turn we should have a better idea of how hot the war is. It's hard to imagine collaborating with Superdeath against Amica unless they are a super obvious leader because Mjmd will always be there as a counterweight.

Amica/Van are forced to maintain small armies in their north and south defending a couple of pretty aggressive city sites. I doubt they'll attack in the short term unless they see a easy target, like Coba or Mayapan being underdefended.

I worry that Jowy might actually profit majorly in an upcoming war against GKC and then develop an unstoppable lead by gradually consuming him, getting 2x land area. GKC's praets may indirectly help the rest of us by making conquest slow and painful. If GKC starts collapsing, it would be nice to join in, if only to farm some GG points and city capture gold.

Also, Mjmd DID finally build the Great Wall, so now with hindsight I wish we had put failgold hammers into it.
Now that we have the AP, our production is comparable to Superdeath and AmicaVan. Jowy and Mjmd are in golden ages so of course they're much higher. GNP doesn't look too bad either, but I definitely do see that we are lagging in military and tech progress.

One question that may govern the future tech path: Is circumnavigation possible on this map? How can we know? Is Tarkeel willing to answer this question?

It's Turn 128 by the way. Here's a city list...

...yeah, you could say we're getting some value out of Organized Religion.

[civac2]

Oxhuitza will be faster than Quirigua if we use the one turn of starvation. Technically they would produce a GP on the same turn but Oxhuitza is earlier in the city list and so will get out its GP while Quirigua gets hit with the increase.

For military, I would consider getting machinery. Then we can build macemen of our own and also crossbows.

Chichen: Sure run some specialists there. That's a good idea.

Quririgua: I prefer the lighthoused lake over the gold mine but it's certainly debatable. So the gold mine is OK, too.

Forge in capital depends when we get the Taj. If later it's worth it. If earlier we need the production for prebuilds.

[Tarkeel]

One question that may govern the future tech path: Is circumnavigation possible on this map? How can we know? Is Tarkeel willing to answer this question?

The map is a toroid, and by default circumnavigation should occur when you've defogged a tile for evervalue of x and y. (Ie; explored both horizontally and vertically). I haven't knowingly tinkered with this for this map, and I'm not sure you can tinker without turning off world wrap.

[civac2]

In base BTS circumnavigation cannot trigger if there is not enough water.