[SPOILERS] Rusten enters uncharted waters

[Rusten]

Confused still. I tried asking Elkad for a peace treaty and all his remaining gold (170) and he accepted for some reason. So now I'm only down 60 gold, but utterly confused as to what Elkad was trying to accomplish/say.

How do you assess whether the opportunity cost of whipping is worth the acceleration to attack? One aspect as you allude to his hitting the tech disparity window, but what about more cites and more land faster?

Even if 2metra's units are outdated he still has a shit ton of them, so I'd rather not be the one having to plow through them. It would still be costly and I need to make sure I have an overwhelming advantage. Once I start a war I'm not stopping. I'll be aiming for Borsche and DS too.

I'm basing my game around the hypothesis that emancipation is gamechanging (+1 food for towns and faster cottage growth) and I can't justify delaying it by whipping my empire back an era. I think it will be much stronger to start this golden age in 3 turns and continuously produce units while at the same time teching towards nationalism and then constitution afterwards. Not only does constitution give the much coveted emancipation civic, but it also gives me representation to go with mercantilism. I can start going more all out when nationalism is completed (draft for numbers) while teching constitution.

A very simplified and short answer to your question is that I'd rather capture a lot of land later than "some" land now. My advantage will be even more overwhelming and stand the test of time.

PS I am toying with the idea of sending superdeath an iron+horse for iron+horse deal and stabbing DS while all of his units are stuck in the north, but this is still being assessed day-to-day. I really don't understand what 2metra is doing keeping 50 military units just idle in his territory. He even has a big power advantage over Borsche.

[Rusten]

That said, this could be one of the cases where a shorter less decisive war is worthwhile. While I don't particularly want to walk into 2metra's core and face the wrath of collateral I could gobble up the periphery with ease as it's lightly defended. Then just sit and defend with Urukku+knights with him being unable to cause a dent. That won't require enslaving my entire population either. I quite like this over attacking DS first. Then just walk in when drafting is available.

Definitely something to consider in the coming turns. I mean, he has 10+ chariots -- what are they going to do against a strength 8 pike? 
As mentioned earlier in the thread and in PB41, pissing someone off if they have no way to punish you for it is not necessarily a problem.

[Rusten]

Pindicator (Christianity founder) has yet to build the AP somehow, so I think I'll grab it.* Will 1-turn theocracy next turn and hopefully get a GE to rush it. I've got a 60% chance for the engineer. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but please let me win one of these this game.
If I miss on the GE I have some overflow and a production city in a golden age that will try to build it. But that might be too late, so please, give me the engineer!

Planning a 2-pronged attack on 2metra. Knights will swoop in and take the southwestern goodies and hoping to simultaneously be able to land a big stack near his core by naval transport. Getting a few extra galleys and triremes for this purpose.

In other news Krill has declared war on OH. I kinda expected this, because at current rate OH is beating up on TBW which means Krill would be his future neighbour. Krill will want to slow OH's advances as much as he can.

*Has yet to adopt the religion and take advantage of the civics too. A little questionable.

[Rusten]

Here's a power graph from a few turns back, 2metraninja is green.




I just can't understand his play this game. He had a major military buildup while both of his neighbours had next to no military and then he proceeds to just sit there with it. He has 15 or so catapults, 23 axes and 15 or so chariots doing absolutely nothing in the middle of his territory for 20+ turns. Boggles the mind.

Now I'm not complaining or bitter that my neighbours aren't playing to my benefit, that's not the point of this rant. Him attacking Borsche would obviously be great for me, and soon it will be suicidal, but it makes no sense doing what he's done. I think he was even #1 power at some point. He's just tanked his economy (and game) for no reason. If you're going to build that many units at least use them for something. I repeat, this was not a response to neighbour power increase.

It's impossible for me to do what OH is doing to TBW right now, TBW had nearly no units, but eventually I will get enough units to take out 2metra. That said, still toying with the idea of attacking DS instead. I did find his stack entering SD territory this turn. If it keeps moving further (or is wiped) he makes for a lucrative target eventhough he's possibly #2 in world power.

[Rusten]

Golden age demographics.




Turns out watermills are pretty good in serfdom+golden age. 2/4/2 or 1/5/2 tiles depending on plains/grass. However, the epitome of value is still to be found in the fishing villages:




Theocracy in 1, engineering in 4. Pre-building some spears to be upgraded in build queue. Once that's in I can begin to entertain the thought of launching the invasion, because:




Correction. Make that 23 (useless?) chariots
While he never attacked Borsche at least he never attacked me either, and soon he will be harmless.

[darrelljs]

How many GGs of useless units are there ?

Darrell

[Rusten]

How many GGs of useless units are there ?

Darrell

Many.
But there's also a lot of war weariness to come.   To my memory I keep any luxury trade with people behind 2metra (after declaring war) as long as they have access to me. Hopefully that is correct, otherwise I might run into some issues. Trade routes I will definitely lose, but that's not a problem.

Happy to announce that I got my great engineer last turn. Rushed AP -- happy days.  
Can easily produce a 2nd GP for a 2nd golden age without it.

This Krill thing is very surprising to me. I wonder what could've caused a ragequit. The civ has signed peace with OH so it can't be an immediate doom scenario either. Going from hour+ turns and writing a novel in his thread to quitting entirely is rare. I'm sure OH is very happy to border TBW a 2nd time rather than Krill.

[Rusten]

/rant, just to prove my point from the tech thread:

Timer is extended, and 2metraninja has yet to play, as usual. He will always wait until the last moment, probably to be able to play all of his pitbosses on various sites at the same time. It saves time for him personally, but it has slowed the game down immensely since we started.* He's not the only one, it's just been easy for me to pay attention as he's my neighbour. If we increase the timer by 12 hours we also increase the time it takes for 2metra to play his turn by 12 hours.

I know people have lives away from the game and turnsplits complicate playing schedules, but players that always delay their turns for their convenience grates me so bad. It has a spiral effect where everyone else delays playing or request a pause because "so many others have yet to play".

*Not as big of a deal right now as I don't expect any <24h turns.

[darrelljs]

This Krill thing is very surprising to me. I wonder what could've caused a ragequit.

A minor setback is tradition.

Darrell

[Rusten]

This Krill thing is very surprising to me. I wonder what could've caused a ragequit.

A minor setback is tradition.

Darrell

You're right, I even predicted as much.  

My prediction: Will expand to a reasonable size despite slow civ+leader and turtle to his UB/UU without making waves early on. Will then get scared of 'player x' graphs and who knows what will happen. For his sake hopefully not an implosion.

Implosion it is.
- - - - - - - - -

I've been looking at timings and I don't think I need nor get to nationalism in time for my first war, but I'm currently swimming in hammers so that's alright. I'm finishing engineering this turn and the techs I'm looking for are (in random order): divine right, paper, nationalism (and civil service), constitution, optics (and compass).

My original plan was to go straight for nationalism, but I'm considering optics first for the vision and map knowledge.* The 2nd point is that divine right gives a pre-req bonus to nationalism, so it's tempting to grab that early as well. That also gets me started on Spiral Minaret sooner, which is a huge wonder as I already have the monasteries+temples because of the AP bonus. It's a lot of beakers, but I'm sitting at 500-600 on even slider IIRC, and might even add some capture gold to that. I still have 5 turns left on my GA, but more importantly I have an idle GP and a different source GP that's spawning soon which guarantees back to back golden ages.




Popping both golden ages now synergizes well with no draft/whipping and instead using my population to work boosted windmills and watermills (serfdom). The tiles are sick in a golden age given the age we're in. A grass hill windmill gives a return of 2/3/2 and I have a lot of them available. My workshops get a boost with engineering too. A declaration of war is perhaps 5 or so turns away, depending on how I want to play it. The build-up is well underway, but 10 turns is also reasonable if I want to brute force the core. I'll have tech visibility on 2metra next turn which will help inform my decision on how soon to pull the trigger.

I've decided to delay any aggression towards DS until after the whole starting continent is mine. I quite enjoy the stalemate he's got with superdeath right now, and if I were to jump in then the only thing that would happen is that DS would pull back and defend his core from me while superdeath gets a free pass in the north. An attack right now would to my mind be strategically flawed.

*Might also get to settle some island cities.