[SPOILERS] ljubljana embraces the dark side

[ljubljana]

Some tentative build orders for the next few turns:

Scythia: (Temple) - Campus - Settler? (hesitant though I am about doing this in the Pingala city)
Hungary: (Builder) - Builder - Library
Religious Settlement: (Builder) - Builder/Monument? - Walls - Library
Nan Madol: (Monument) - Builder
Gran Colombia: (Lavra) - Walls
Venetian Arsenal: Lavra - Walls - Monument (lots of good tiles in the third ring)

We will also probably want to find room somewhere for the following in the short to medium term:

- 2 horses or 1 horse + 1 sword, ideally by t89.
- 1 more builder for Feudalism farms
- Two CHs + markets for the Guilds eureka and extra TRs
- Shrine + Temple for the Divine Right inspiration
- More settlers as applicable

We will probably need to spend 10-ish turns in Limes, unfortunately, because a) we want to get RS's walls up quickly to deter Ioan, get the Engineering eureka, and avoid delaying Machinery but b) GC and VA won't be ready to start them until probably the mid t80s. However, this is in tension with the need to build more military, since we can't run both Limes and Maneuver in Classical Republic...unfortunately, I'm not sure there's an easy way around this, unless we don't mind delaying crossbows for a bit longer. We could maybe get CS in 11 turns or so if we go for it next (hoping to rush to Theocracy) and build a few more Monuments in the meantime, then swap to Maneuver after that, but I'm not sure that's enough time for VA/GC to finish their walls (unless maybe we delay GC's Lavra?). We could also go for Feudalism next (to ease the path to knights), then delay it for as long as we need to get the walls up in time. From this hundred-foot view, it seems like the best place for the second temple, should we go that route, is probably Nan Madol, since it has strong production and few immediate infrastructure needs. We can probably squeeze the extra military in at RS and Scythia, since I'd rather delay a campus + library for a few turns than Hungary's critical builder.

If we do go for knights next (after xbows, presumably), we'll want to do our best to leave at least one of these barb camps alive for long enough for us to kill a unit with one, which might unfortunately prove somewhat difficult. I was thinking that we could maybe stand to build a chariot soon to upgrade to a knight, though I'm not completely sure we'll have the gold income for that. Actually, I wonder if there's an argument for getting knights before xbows, just to make sure we can in fact land that Eureka? I'll take a look at the relative beaker costs, I think, then make a decision about that - if we can get to knights + Feudalism in 10ish turns (which may actually be somewhat plausible, though we'll need to think fast to get both the Apprenticeship and Feudalism eurekas), then knock one out in Scythia, that might actually make some sense.

Also, if we're going for Feudalism next, we may want to keep a few of these upcoming builders (eg, in Hungary/RS/NM) 1 turn from completion for a few turns until they can take advantage of Serfdom. We can't do this with all the builders, since we obviously will need a few for Feudalism farms, but maybe we can connive to get the second wave of the upcoming builder push to arrive slightly post-Feudalism. Maybe we can have Hungary's upcoming builder make a farm triangle, along with one farm from the RS builder, then the second Hungary/RS/NM builders can all come post-Serfdom? Yeah, that seems like a pretty strong plan, especially if coupled with Maneuver-boosted HC + horses and a knight upgrade as soon as we can afford to do so....though I'd really prefer to find some way to allow the Hungary builder in particular to make some lumbermills...

[ljubljana]

Episode 76: Forgive me my Sins, for I Live in Pennsylvania and it is November Third

(This includes any sins in the capitalization of the above title, the rules for which I admit I never quite got the hang of and might be applying completely incorrectly )



Ioan's military power drops even more? Wow, they must be really taking a beating from TheArchduke...uh, and, indeed, I'm increasingly nervous about the fact that the same does not appear to be true for thrawn. Anyways, I go ahead and offer Ioan 20 iron + 1 gold for 20 horses + 1 gold, doing my best to signal friendly intentions while proposing a deal that I expect to be mutually beneficial to both sides.

We're now 5 turns away from taking our shot at Tithe, and, as we contemplate this, more and more cities start to pick up our religion - counting Mohenjo-Daro and four thrawn cities (!), we're now up to 10 in total. Pulling this off would be a major shot in the arm for our civ, and I'm increasingly kicking myself for not doing so earlier instead of faith-buying the VA settler. I failed to plan for this because, of course, I thought the odds of both thrawn and Ioan passing on Tithe were far too low to justify sinking production into a Temple, but it'll be very painful if we now miss it by a few turns as a result. I think we should be safe from any Apostle sniping, since thrawn's faith income is still a bit behind ours (44/turn) and we have a head start, but I'm worried about Stonehenge. I don't think TheArchduke is in a position to sink production into it, but CMF might be...for now, I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope that their last-place culture and science ratings, coupled with their only average expansion pace, will disincentivize this enough for them that we'll be able to pull off our slowish Apostle play here.

We also get another Great Writer this turn. I seriously consider passing, since we don't want to push our ES much higher if we can avoid it, but we could really use a scout on thrawn's border, and passing now would trumpet to the whole world that we're planning a Dark Age play for the next era while also essentially locking us out of any future Great Writers. Thus, I eat another 1 ES by taking the Writer...hopefully things won't actually end up close enough on this front for this decision to come back to haunt us... I think if we get another GW this era, I probably will pass, though. I'd say the same about a prospective Great Artist as well, but we'd like the Humanism boost if we can land it, so hopefully the next era will come soon enough that we won't be forced to make a choice about this.

RS finishes its builder, which begins life with a coffee plantation, which, in addition to the useful amenities, gives enough housing to drag RS's time-to-growth back up into the "reasonable" range. After much aimless deliberation, I decide to sink our free turn of production there into the library, since a) we're likely to have time for one more non-Walls build between now and the Feudalism builder and b) our science is in noticeably worse shape relative to where we need to be for a Cossack push than our culture. In that vein, here are some tech and civic tree screenshots:





Not pictured in the science shot is Engineering, with 6 turns to go, but that'll come down post-Eureka. Yeah, I think crossbows have to be the next choice, since we'll get them substantially sooner than knights and they'd be more useful in a war with thrawn anyways due to buffing our city ranged attack strength. We'll probably proceed on to knights after that - I am a little concerned that this delay will manifest in our failing to kill a unit with a knight in time for the Military Science eureka, but I think that's a risk I'm willing to take to make sure we'll have crossbows available during a hypothetical thrawn attack.

Culturally speaking, I think I'm ready to commit to Feudalism next - we could really use two free builders' worth of charges, and the farm buff is far from useless as well, since we're actively working on growing cities up to CH size now. That does delay a third-tier government, which I'm a bit nervous about in the medium term, but I think the growth curve boost of Feudalism probably wins out for now, especially since our culture is much closer to being on track for a Cossack push than our science is anyways. We'll get Defensive Tactics next turn, which is nice - I'm likely to take Victor 2 with the governor title and move him into GC, possibly in conjunction with delaying the Lavra there to start Limes-boosted walls, just to make sure we put up as imposing a front to the possibility of thrawn aggression that we can reasonably manage. One thing I'm undecided on is whether we should build walls in Nan Madol as well - I think it's an unlikely place for a thrawn offensive, and it'll be backlines relatively soon, but maybe it's worth doing anyways just to make sure they're not tempted into an end run around the GC-VA line. They could hit us at Hungary, too, but maybe that'd be awkward enough for them that we don't really need to spend time on walls there as well.

Also, I'm debating swapping out of Ilkum and onto Natural Philosophy next turn - while I don't love the amount of production we'd lose by not having Ilkum in place for three builder builds, perhaps the possibility of having crossbows ready to go on t89 makes this worth it. That said, we may actually get them nearly that quickly anyways, especially with more beakers coming from Scythia's growth and VA's founding (on a geothermal vent) and I don't want to look like a huge bpt runaway quite yet, so maybe I'll just stick with Ilkum for a bit longer anyways.

[marcopolothefraud]

Speaking of the election, let's talk about how your decisions seem too conservative... (Ba dum tss)

Pulling Tithe off would be a major shot in the arm for our civ, and I'm increasingly kicking myself for not doing so earlier instead of faith-buying the VA settler. I failed to plan for this because, of course, I thought the odds of both thrawn and Ioan passing on Tithe were far too low to justify sinking production into a Temple, but it'll be very painful if we now miss it by a few turns as a result. I think we should be safe from any Apostle sniping, since thrawn's faith income is still a bit behind ours (44/turn) and we have a head start, but I'm worried about Stonehenge. I don't think TheArchduke is in a position to sink production into it, but CMF might be...for now, I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope that their last-place culture and science rating, coupled with their only average expansion pace, will disincentivize this enough for them that we'll be able to pull off our slowish Apostle play here.

It's best to let bygones be bygones, and I don't think you should be too worried about missing out on Tithe early on. Having said that...Stonehenge? Seriously? Why on Earth would CMF, a veteran player, dump 180 production to get the 4th religion in the game, just so he can snatch Tithe and a second really bad belief? You have a wide-open path to Tithe, my friend.

I don't want to look like a huge bpt runaway quite yet, so maybe I'll just stick with Ilkum for a bit longer anyways.

Please, please don't shoot yourself in the foot in order to avoid being a "runaway". Thrawn's running away and you need every advantage you can get against him. From what I remember, you have a +3 campus in Hungary and a +3 campus in Religious Settlement - and those 6 extra beakers (notwithstanding your Scythia campus) will be such a crucial bonus to your development. Plus, everyone else is going to put down campuses and probably boosting them too.

Sure, Ilkum's nice, but +30% production to builders really means a 23% discount on their production. I don't think that's worth Natural Philosophy at all.

Some tentative build orders for the next few turns:
Scythia: (Temple) - Campus - Settler? (hesitant though I am about doing this in the Pingala city)
Hungary: (Builder) - Builder - Library
Religious Settlement: (Builder) - Builder/Monument? - Walls - Library
Nan Madol: (Monument) - Builder
Gran Colombia: (Lavra) - Walls
Venetian Arsenal: Lavra - Walls - Monument (lots of good tiles in the third ring)

Great plan overall. Given how big the Nubian threat is, I would give up on VA being a powerful city in its own right, and avoid the Monument for now. We need to chop its forests and build at least a little military there. It breaks my heart to say this, but you should also schedule some chopping in GC and Nan Madol - they have more than enough Breathtaking tiles to work, and they can sacrifice some. If we don't get some military in those border cities, we will lose the game once the Declaration of Friendship runs out.


I hope that I don't come off as too critical and too negative in my remarks. It's really fun to dedlurk you, given that you post so often and share so much. You're a very methodical and perceptive player, but I'm worried that you aren't aggressive enough - and that single quality, weighed against all the others, might be your downfall in this game.

We declared Friendship with thrawn on t59 (iirc), and that declaration will expire, in his favor, on t89. Since t59, he's grown significantly in faith income (1/turn to 44/turn), military score (317 to 438), and presumably production. We don't know anything about CMF or theArchduke, but we do know that Ioan is taking a tumble for the worse right now. We have to prepare for a skin-of-our-teeth war against thrawn. If Ioan becomes uncompetitive, we have to decide either to protect him or seize a border city or two.
http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/forum...hp?fid=305
PBEM 13 (a game that I almost ruined, oops) is a great example of a Russian player defeating the runaway of the game and pushing to victory. I think we can model ourselves after that.

[ljubljana]

Speaking of the election, let's talk about how your decisions seem too conservative... (Ba dum tss)

   
This is pretty perceptive though - other than the RS plant (which seems to have worked out well so far), I haven't really made a single aggressive decision all game thus far. Partially this is because it has always seemed to me that our most plausible path to victory in this game lay in waiting out the rushing civs, outteching them, and attacking at or after Cossacks, but I do think there's a degree to which this reflects a general habit of mine as a player as well.

Pulling Tithe off would be a major shot in the arm for our civ, and I'm increasingly kicking myself for not doing so earlier instead of faith-buying the VA settler. I failed to plan for this because, of course, I thought the odds of both thrawn and Ioan passing on Tithe were far too low to justify sinking production into a Temple, but it'll be very painful if we now miss it by a few turns as a result. I think we should be safe from any Apostle sniping, since thrawn's faith income is still a bit behind ours (44/turn) and we have a head start, but I'm worried about Stonehenge. I don't think TheArchduke is in a position to sink production into it, but CMF might be...for now, I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope that their last-place culture and science rating, coupled with their only average expansion pace, will disincentivize this enough for them that we'll be able to pull off our slowish Apostle play here.

It's best to let bygones be bygones, and I don't think you should be too worried about missing out on Tithe early on. Having said that...Stonehenge? Seriously? Why on Earth would CMF, a veteran player, dump 180 production to get the 4th religion in the game, just so he can snatch Tithe and a second really bad belief? You have a wide-open path to Tithe, my friend.

I think you're probably right. I'd be more confident in that, though, if it were actually true that taking the fourth religion would entail taking bad beliefs - Choral Music and Feed the World are both still on the board! Choral Music/Tithe is a plausible choice of first religion beliefs in most games, and especially if CMF is feeling behind in culture right now, I can see them considering a t80 Stonehenge play as an unorthodox but viable way to catch up. I don't think this will happen, and I'd personally rather have a settler in their position, all else being equal, but I do think it's plausible enough to not feel completely confident about our Tithe odds. 80-90% confident, yes, but completely confident, not quite.

...though, ok, in retrospect, having built encampments everywhere instead of holy sites (of which they have exactly zero IIRC) would make even Choral Music fairly weak for CMF, so hopefully you're right and we'll land Tithe in 6 turns with no issues.

I don't want to look like a huge bpt runaway quite yet, so maybe I'll just stick with Ilkum for a bit longer anyways.

Please, please don't shoot yourself in the foot in order to avoid being a "runaway". Thrawn's running away and you need every advantage you can get against him. From what I remember, you have a +3 campus in Hungary and a +3 campus in Religious Settlement - and those 6 extra beakers (notwithstanding your Scythia campus) will be such a crucial bonus to your development. Plus, everyone else is going to put down campuses and probably boosting them too.

Sure, Ilkum's nice, but +30% production to builders really means a 23% discount on their production. I don't think that's worth Natural Philosophy at all.

Yeah, this is broadly correct, and, to be clear, I am absolutely planning to get NP up as soon as our wave of Feudalism builders completes, and to then probably not deviate from that for the whole rest of the game. But, if we're making three builders in cities with a total of 50ish hammers/turn while running Ilkum (which is plausible), for at least the turns on which that's true, we'd be trading 15 hammers for 6 beakers by switching to Natural Philosophy instead. I don't think we've quite reached the stage of the game where 2-1 hammers for beakers trades are worth it (though that time is fast approaching), which is my basic logic behind considering staying in Ilkum instead.

Some tentative build orders for the next few turns:
Scythia: (Temple) - Campus - Settler? (hesitant though I am about doing this in the Pingala city)
Hungary: (Builder) - Builder - Library
Religious Settlement: (Builder) - Builder/Monument? - Walls - Library
Nan Madol: (Monument) - Builder
Gran Colombia: (Lavra) - Walls
Venetian Arsenal: Lavra - Walls - Monument (lots of good tiles in the third ring)

Great plan overall. Given how big the Nubian threat is, I would give up on VA being a powerful city in its own right, and avoid the Monument for now. We need to chop its forests and build at least a little military there. It breaks my heart to say this, but you should also schedule some chopping in GC and Nan Madol - they have more than enough Breathtaking tiles to work, and they can sacrifice some. If we don't get some military in those border cities, we will lose the game once the Declaration of Friendship runs out.

You're absolutely right that we will lose the game if we don't get more military in these border cities before the DoF runs out. My basic plan for doing so is the following - first, renew our DoF with Ioan (or just ignore them, since their milpower is dropping rapidly), and shift all our military towards the Nubian border. Second, build walls in Limes in the next 10 turns in both border cities, delaying Lavras as necessary (more likely in GC than VA) to make sure this happens on time. Third, as soon as we get Feudalism (eta t85ish), swap from Limes into Maneuver and build two horsemen (contingent on Ioan accepting our horse-for-iron deal) and a heavy chariot in core cities, which will finish by t89 without requiring chopping. Finally, fourth, we're on track to get Machinery in about 12 turns, and will be close to having enough gold for a crossbow upgrade as well if we land Tithe - we will certainly want to do this if attacked, and may want to do it pre-emptively even if not.

What do you think of that plan, from a defense perspective? I admit that, in part, I'm hoping that thrawn will be less likely to attack us than we'd think based on just the milpower rankings because a) we have DoTF and the Matterhorn, b) they're at war with both TheArchduke and CMF and are hopefully actually attacking at least one of them, and c) taking Crusade makes a lot more sense if they're planning to go for CMF or TheArchduke than if they're plotting to attack us the instant it becomes an option. As much as I don't want to lose the game by getting attacked by thrawn (obviously), I also want to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot by chopping woods if at all possible - it is true that the GC/VA combo can weather a few chops right now, but, once they hit size 4 or so, turning all those woods into awful blank grass will make a major difference, and we're likely already behind thrawn in per-city production at this point as it is.

I hope that I don't come off as too critical and too negative in my remarks. It's really fun to dlurk you, given that you post so often and share so much. You're a very methodical and perceptive player, but I'm worried that you aren't aggressive enough - and that single quality, weighed against all the others, might be your downfall in this game.

We declared Friendship with thrawn on t59 (iirc), and that declaration will expire, in his favor, on t89. Since t59, he's grown significantly in faith income (1/turn to 44/turn), military score (317 to 438), and presumably production. We don't know anything about CMF or theArchduke, but we do know that Ioan is taking a tumble for the worse right now. We have to prepare for a skin-of-our-teeth war against thrawn. If Ioan becomes uncompetitive, we have to decide either to protect him or seize a border city or two.
http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/forum...hp?fid=305
PBEM 13 (a game that I almost ruined, oops) is a great example of a Russian player defeating the runaway of the game and pushing to victory. I think we can model ourselves after that.

No, you don't come off as too negative - in fact, I really appreciate critical feedback, both in this case and in general, and think that being on the receiving end of it is perhaps the most efficient way to improve my Civ6 game . I definitely have been very passive this game, but that's at least partially by design - we've never had enough cashflow to support the kind of army that could conceivably take cities from another human, and playing defense while we try to turn our economy around has seemed like the most viable approach thus far. If we get Tithe, though, that'll change in an instant, and it'll make much more sense to start at least keeping an eye towards avenues for military aggression.

As for Ioan, yeah, maybe...we should certainly consider whether extending the DoF actually strengthens our thrawn defense by enough to make up for losing out on the chance to opportunistically vulture cities in the next 30 turns. I don't think an outright Ioan collapse is too likely unless thrawn stabs them, since TheArchduke is probably preoccupied with their 2v1 right now, but we should definitely snap to attention on that front if Ioan actually starts losing cities. We don't really have the kind of army that can easily do even that at this point (horses + archers vs. walls is tough even with a big numerical advantage), but perhaps this will change in the next 30 turns as we get crossbows and then knights/coursers.

[ljubljana]

Episode 77: Recount in Religious Settlement, Nan Madol Too Close to Call



This turn's actually pretty quiet, for the first time in a little while. Ioan accepts our iron for horses deal, nice! They also move their trader into range at RS, seeming to further reinforce their friendly intentions when the DoF runs out. Naturally, we start Limes walls in RS anyways, due in 3, which appears to be just in time to lock down the Engineering eureka without wasting beakers. Meanwhile, we continue to count down to Tithe while watching thrawn's milpower just keep creeping up and up with bated breath... I decide that Gran Colombia should, indeed, swap onto its walls now, just to make absolutely sure we get them done quickly and in Limes, even though this means delaying the Lavra by 5 turns. In a few turns (probably when RS's walls finish), I'll have to remember to put exactly one unboosted turn of production into a horseman somewhere, to avoid wasting any horses by hitting the resource stockpile cap.

Oh, I'm also considering delaying the campus in Scythia slightly for another builder, just to further leverage Agoge and Serfdom while we're in position to do so. We really can't have too many of those right now, especially if we do end up being attacked by thrawn and needing to chop out some crossbows. I'll also probably delay the Hungary builder by a few turns to make sure it gets the Liang boost - does anyone know offhand whether we'd have to delay it by two or three turns to make that happen, given the numbers shown? I'm not sure if governor reallocations are processed before or after the production cycle. In a similar vein, we also pick up another governor title from Defensive Tactics. I take Victor 2 for the free unit defense strength, as promised; after spending a few turns hanging out in RS to alert Ioan to his presence, I'll shuttle him over to Venetian Arsenal to do the same with respect to thrawn, where he will remain for the forseeable future.



Hey, here's something to think about - a halfway decent site has appeared to the NE of RS, which grabs a second horse source while being barely in range of a super-Lavra on the plains hill next to the Matterhorn. That said, this is probably a purely theoretical curiosity, since it's well into Ioan's loyalty pressure (-11) and is way too aggressive to be worth angering the civ that is shaping up to be our one actual friend in this game IMO.

[ljubljana]

Episode 78: Late Returns Widen Thrawn's Popular Vote Lead



VA founded, Lavra begun. Our free builder will most likely mine the gems next turn, then harvest the stone and find a Breathaking lumbermill to build somewhere, ideally such that either city can swap onto it as needed. Wow, is thrawn's military ever spiking. I'm not sure how much more we can do about this than we're already planning to, since we're already strictly resource-limited in terms of our ability to construct high-tech military units - maybe we'll be able to squeeze a third horse into our upcoming Maneuver push? Which brings me to my next observation - somehow we're making 4 horses/turn, apparently from the accidental Mohenjo Daro suzereignty! That's a significant break, actually - I doubt we'll need a third horse source for a Cossack push, so we should be able to settle with purely snowballing considerations in mind for the immediate future . We also dump one turn of production into a horse at Nan Madol this turn as it finishes its monument, to keep our horse stockpile low enough to take advantage of this.

I tested the Liang/builder interaction at Hungary in SP as well - it looks like we will indeed get the extra charge if the builder completes on the same turn Liang is installed. Thus, we'll only need to drop two turns into the library now to make this work, so we'll have the builder ready in 3 turns. That builder will likely make a farm triangle to complete the Feudalism eureka (the RS one added a farm this turn as well to take us to 3), then go for either a lumbermill or an iron mine.

[ljubljana]

Episode 79: I Sure Hope This is Someone Else's Problem



Six hundred and twenty! 

That's terrifying. I don't even feel like we really have any idea of where it's coming from, either - their horses stockpile isn't going down, and they don't even have iron hooked up, so I guess it must be a combination of Warrior Monks, a huge swarm of Pítatis, and maybe some spearmen too? Crossbows might also be possible with a really dedicated beeline, but I doubt it, seeing as they're two techs behind us and we're still two techs away. Well, if they really are coming for us, I'm not too sure what our odds are. We'll have three more horses and an HC up here by t89 or shortly thereafter, and should be able to shift over our garrison on the Ioan front as well, and we're projected to hit crossbows on t89 exactly, though we may not have the gold to upgrade any right away. That said...wow, do I ever hope this means thrawn's fighting TheArchduke in earnest and not just building up to roll over us, because I'm far from confident that even that level of defensive commitment will prove to be sufficient.

We're 4 turns from the Lavra in VA, which will then take another 4 to build the walls under Limes, just fast enough to finish before the DoF runs out. What it might not be is fast enough to finish before Limes runs out, but that's okay - if we end up having to build the last 20 hammers at full cost, it's not the end of the world, and certainly not worth delaying Feudalism or anything like that.

I should probably build walls in Nan Madol too, just to be safe, right? I'm trying to scout out any units that might be moving towards us in that direction, and I don't exactly think it's likely that much of their army is down by their capital, but it is in fact possible for them to swing around and hit us here, so maybe I should get the walls up in Limes while we have the chance to at least do so at +100% hammers. We could do that now and still have (just) enough production to also get this new builder in before the city needs to start its Maneuver horse in earnest, I think - that seems a bit wasteful now, so I'm hesitant to commit to it, but it certainly won't seem so wasteful should thrawn actually end up trying to hit us here . If we do that, though, we may need to find another location for the second temple (if it's even worth building one just for the Monarchy eureka?). I suppose RS could be another good choice for this, but it has quite a few other infrastructure needs as well, a problem which will only be exacerbated when it comes time for the CH in the not too distant future.

Ugh, I don't want to do this, but should I be thinking about offering thrawn another bribe once we get Tithe up and can actually afford it? That'd be a dead giveaway of our lack of real aggressive intent in the short-term...but if their military power doesn't stop spiking soon, sheer survival might supplant trying to tie down some of their troops on defense as the most important consideration in our dealings with them going forward.



On the Ioan front, I remain cautiously optimistic that things are looking peaceful in the short term, despite their ongoing remilitarization. If they're really planning to hit us on t83, they don't have much time left to start moving down the huge swarm of legions that they'd need to have a realistic shot at cracking Victor-boosted RS. All the same, I realize now that I did slack on our defenses here a little bit, and our archers are slightly out of position as a result, most of them being off scouting the Nubian frontier. Hopefully our read of the diplomatic situation here will turn out to be correct, and we won't end up badly punished for this misplay.

[ljubljana]

Hmm...I'm trying to figure out how we should set up our defensive line at GC/VA. I think at GC, we can use these forests to something resembling our advantage, since they'll block any Pítati shots from out in range 2. To wit, horses 1 NE and 2 NE of GC should be difficult to break, especially if supported by archers/crossbows. VA's a little more exposed, but maybe we could hold at the line of tiles directly E of the city? At least the approaching Nubian armies would have even less cover than our own troops on such a battlefield...

[ljubljana]

Episode 80: Far Along the Brooding Horizon



Hungary swaps back onto its builder, as promised. Looks like we're a bit ahead of schedule on both Feudalism and Machinery, which is at least something of an encouraging sign - if we're lucky/clever, we may be able to find a way to leverage this to get our horses out quickly enough that they'll be visible to thrawn before t89. Scythia lays down its campus this turn, but is actually starting a granary in this shot, which it needs to grow any larger due to the lack of any really compelling farmable tiles (we'll put a farm triangle to the west eventually, but not before the city acquires that grass tile). I actually change my mind about this for the current turn, though, and decide to finish off a partially-completed archer instead...for all the measurable good that'll do us . Scythia's actually all the way up to 29 hammers/turn in its max production configuration, so it should be able to get a builder and either the granary or most of the campus done before feudalism pops even with this one-turn delay.

One more turn until we have enough faith to take a shot at Tithe, which, indeed, has not yet been sniped by Stonehenge or anything silly like that. We also have one more turn until TheArchduke gets their Great Scientist, though, which could actually result in an interesting choice for us if they take Euclid and Hypatia succeeds him. That said, to be hones, I'm not completely confident that Archduke even will take Euclid, since he's just so weak - it's conceivable that the right move in their situation is actually to pass and hope someone else takes the bait and opens up Hypatia. I don't exactly think that's the most likely outcome, but if it did happen, I'm not completely sure yet what we'd do once Euclid becomes out problem.

Oh, I guess now that we have Engineering, I should probably lay down the aqueducts at all the cities that will eventually build them just to lock in the cost. The only city where I can do this with no opportunity cost is Nan Madol (1 NW), though - Scythia would waste a wheat harvest by doing that, Hungary and RS want to work farms on the only eligible tiles, GC probably will never build an aqueduct due to all the forests, and VA would have to commit to a campus on the Breathtaking grass by doing so, which I'll probably do eventually but might not be ready to do quite yet. Hmm...

[marcopolothefraud]

Hey! Sorry I haven't responded to many of your posts lately. There don't seem to be many strategic decisions and we're just waiting until t89. thrawn's military strength seems to keep rising - clearly the war isn't affecting him much.

If Archduke passes on Euclid, I think we should pass on him too. He's not worth the Era score, and we already have the Mathematics boost. Shame that we wouldn't be able to use Hypatia though.

I'm worried that Horsemen and Heavy Chariots alone wouldn't be able to stop thrawn, because they would have to expose themselves every time they attack a Pitatí Archer. But Crossbowmen can stay in cities (or on +6 defensive terrain) and fire shots at will. Once you get Feudalism, I would advise you to spam Crossbowmen with the policy card. Crossbowmen are 180 production, which would effectively be 120 production with the card. At a glance, Scythia makes 27 production/turn? That means Scythia can hard-build 1 crossbowman every 4 turns, though they would take a while to reach the front. Or you could chop them pretty quickly in VA and GC.