[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

[Amicalola]

T202-204
We got this handsome fellow: 


I think I mentioned this before,* but I'm planning to send him to Thunderbolt, for a 2nd city that produces 10EXP ships. To me, 10EXP ships almost exclusively says "Navigation-II Transports," with other cities doing the destroyers, but maybe I'm missing something else. The other option could be a Military Academy, but I don't want to research Military Science with so many other important (and expensive! ) techs coming up.

We were able to get Assembly Line (with overflow) and Fascism in 1 turn each, which was really great; speeds up my mental timeline significantly. Now we can probably get Railroad and Combustion in 3 turns total, for a really productive GA overall.  


Afterwards, we probably start puttering along to Electricity and (if we get a lucky merchant) Refrigeration. But those are going to take ages - this really is the last hurrah of the Vespertine Economy.

[Amicalola]

T205-206



We got a 20% Great Merchant from Cocoon! Looks like all those turns running 4 merchant specialists actually paid off. 

This changes everything.


I haven't prepared for this merchant, with such slim odds; I'd been hoping to get one from Unison's next GP instead. When I opened the turn, I actually seriously considered beelining straight for Refrigeration before even Combustion. Luckily I had to go out before finishing and was able to play without the excitement later. We'll still finish Combustion first, those ships are way too important. 

Still, this is really huge. We can still get Refrigeration after Combustion (maybe 10 turns away?) and found Cereal Mills then. Wall Street should finish around the same time, in Hyperballad. 


This location isn't quite set in stone, but I do have to decide for sure in 2 turns so it's likely. The biggest downside is how close it is to Cairo; I'm considering building it in Mouth Mantra (Ironworks) instead for the safety, and having Mouth Mantra pump out executives for the rest of the game at one turn each.


Hyperballad is a much better commerce city in general, but Mouth Mantra would be able to produce executives much faster. It's a dilemma.

This is the last turn of the Golden Age, so here's the demographics at our zenith. 



After taking that, I switched into the 'forever' civics, which was sad. 


Welcome to my Fascist Slave-owning Corporatist Utopia. Don't forget your meditations!

[Amicalola]

T207 - Industrialisation
The Buddha demands factories. The next few turns are just going to be whipping hundreds of food into Factories and Coal Plants. With those two buildings, our whips will generate 101.25 hammers per population (45 [Kremlin] base; with percentages of 25% [Forge], 25% [Factory], 50% [Coal Plant], 25% [Organised Religion / Police State], or 45 * 2.25 = 101.25). Pretty good! For reference, expensive buildings are 200 hammers, and infantry units are 140 hammers. Of course, Industrialisation is not the most exciting reporting, so the next 10 or so turns may be fairly quiet on my end. 

We lost top Food this turn.  That was expected though, we won't reclaim it until the very late game, if at all. Miguelito launched a Golden Age and bought about 10 Mining Inc. resources off us this turn at 3 gold apiece. His production has skyrocketed to 2200!  I suppose the game is going to come down to hammers [Miguelito] vs. commerce [Piccadilly]. Miguelito also made peace with Lazteuq, so perhaps he's done with conquering now. 

Otherwise, Cairo is rebounding in economic terms. He might actually catch up to us in tech, once we start whipping units like mad (our economy is far from Mig/Piccadilly, so this is both the fun direction, but also the only plausible path to victory). Cairo finishes Assembly Line this turn for Factories/Coal Plants/Infantry, and will surely get Railroad soon, so attacking him is probably unviable. Which sucks, because now we'll have to maintain a huge army on that side of the empire, even if we head in the opposite direction. Grumble grumble. He's got his army in an aggressive position, as opposed to 1+ turn away from the border, which means we can't really feel safe. On the other hand, he's playing 10-min turns with 45 cities, so he can't be hugely engaged. It's a puzzle.

[Amicalola]

T208-211
Long time no update. We whipped some factories. 


Our empire gets more dystopian with every turn. I love it.

I've unlocked airships, which I'm not super convinced by.


I've never really used them in Singleplayer, let alone MP. But I vaguely remember them being praised in another game, so I wonder if I am missing something. I'm not sure whether they're considered strong for scouting, or actual military operations.

Edit: Oh, here's a 'fun' fact. I had a deal with Commodore for Spices that I'd completely forgotten about. When it was cancelled, I panicked from unhappy/healthy and asked 3 people for for a spices/6 gpt trade. We have 3 spices now.

Also, GG Commodore! Looked like a real bareknuckle brawl over there.

[klops]

I like airships for scouting (in SP). Good range, easy to use, just click what you want to see

In rare cases, it might be useful to actually attack with them. Not so sure about efficiency, but if they do tiny scratches to a defender, your main forces may have additional 10% winning chance if it's a close call

[Ginger()]

Trying to understand the meta for trade on this site, isn't 30 gpt in industrial a bit on the cheap for 5H in all cities? I remember reading your PB 60 and iirc you sold a second copy of a luxury for 17gpt in medieval and complained that that was a bit of a giveaway. 
More dystopia! 

[Hitru]

Yeah, 30gpt for 5H in each coty sounds like a steal to me

[Amicalola]

Thanks for the comments. So as far as the Mining Inc. trades, I clicked 'accept' for a few reasons. It was actually quite an easy decision. Here are those reasons, in no particular order:
- Everyone else is already doing it. Mig seems to have decided that 3gpt is the 'acceptable' rate for Mining resources, somehow, and the other players all seem fine with it. 

- I do not see Miguelito or myself as the frontrunner right now. Instead I see Miguelito and myself as roughly 2nd and 3rd place respectively, with Piccadilly significantly ahead of us both. It seems natural that we should work together against our common (winning) foe, and we both benefit from the deal.

- In that vein, I am trying for Cereal Mills in 2 turns. I would hope that Miguelito will think on my generous trades, and reciprocate with cheap grain resources.

- I don't think you guys are framing the deal correctly (FWIW). '30gpt for 5H per city' isn't really what's happening, imo. Firstly, each resource increases maintenance without a headquarters return, so Mig is paying more than 3gpt per resource. But more importantly, Mining Inc. isn't even close to every city. When I last looked around, it was in maybe 10-15, and that was only ~2 turns ago. Maybe when it's spread more, I could charge more. All that said, it's much more likely that I'm missing something than Hitru is, so I'm probably wrong.  

Also, 17gpt for a luxury in the medieval era seems ok to me, maybe even too expensive. Not sure if you're misremembering, or if my opinion has swung wildly. Personal investment in the games also makes some pretty biased perspective sometimes, so perhaps it was that.



Also Ginger, I happened to see your pre-edit Org-Religion comment last night, which I was thinking about on my walk this morning. Firstly, please challenge my wisdom! A quiet thread is no fun for anyone. I actually think you're correct - I took Organised Religion because it's a nice comfy blanket (and I was excited about Mega Kremlin Whips), but it probably doesn't do enough with all the other multipliers I have. Better options (than Vassalage + Org-Rel) might have been Bureaucracy + Theocracy, or even Vassalage + Free Religion. Oops. I won't change civics now, because it's not worth the turn of anarchy. But yeah, good call on that.

And interesting on the airships, Klops, I appreciate the thoughts. I'm thinking I'll build a few for scouting, but probably <10. Speaking of Civforum players, no chance you want to join the new German game?

Misc. thought: I'm wondering now whether it would have been smarter to just found Sushi Inc. 10 turns ago. The maintenance is huge, nearly double for less food, but it would have been founded earlier and the culture might be more useful than I had been thinking. On the Cairo border it would help, and if I do end up conquering anyone else, it would also be helpful there too. Civ is hard.

[El Grillo]

Well it's true, sushi does cost twice as much for less food in real life too

[Amicalola]

Good point, at least Civ is realistic. But how dare it suggest that sushi is more cultured food than cereal! We've tried making sushi at home a few times, and it's never quite scratched the itch that the really good stuff does. I wonder what we're missing.