[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[pindicator]

Seems like a fun enough way to spend my time

[pindicator]

107

Golden Age is done!  We spent our last turn swapping back to Slavery and then looking at cities which I really wanted to whip, but couldn't stand whipping while we were in a golden age.  This turn I had no such qualms:  Libraries whipped at Gloomhaven and Citadels; the settler at Dominion was finished with 1 pop.  In almost all cases we whipped off unimproved tiles.  I'm reluctant to whip cities that are larger, but Dominion really doesn't have a lot of ability to grow much higher until I can get windmills.

The missionary situation is almost entirely finished.




Missionaries landed in Azul and Citadels, and the last one arrived in Clank! this turn.  Actually we will need one more for the new city, but I haven't sorted where that is coming from yet.  Because I have a round of infrastructure I want to put in now:

The 3 coastal cities I want to get Lighthouses in as soon as possible.  To that end I ran a couple Wealth builds (Libertalia & Wingspan) to ensure we could 1-turn Sailing at 50% this turn.  Next turn all 3 coastal cities will start lighthouses and likely all 3 will whip them to completion on 109.  The other big infrastructure push is building markets throughout our core 4:




I was a little on the fence about Markets, or may have only built one in Wingspan; but then this turn I re-discovered that PRO gets +50% production for markets in CtH.  With that kind of a boost and with OR in place we're getting +75% production.  The core 4 cities all make at least 24 commerce per turn, so there will be a decent gold boost in building in these cities.  One challenge with these core cities is that every one of them is at their happy cap.  I need more garrisons (or markets) in order to grow further.

That leaves the border cities for military builds & other:  Gloomhaven, Citadels, and Catan.  Though Citadels and Catan are still getting the basic infrastructure put into place.

So obviously superdeath did not agree to the war for war deal.  And at this point I give up trying to understand what he wants from me with his diplo messaging.  After declining the joint war on Cornflakes, I received a trade request of Copper for Copper and war on Cornflakes.  I probably should have hit accept right there:  however, Cornflakes then took peace with sucksatciv with no cities trading hands.  Did Superdeath scare Cornflakes into doing nothing?  Did he convinced Cornflakes to join in an attack with me?  Like I said, I have no idea what Superdeath is going for.

The one thing that did come from all this was Mjmd asking for a Crab for Crab deal.  I assume he forgets we already have Fish for Fish.  I accepted.

Finances post-golden age:




And Demos:




Notice that Cornflakes has whipped quite a bit down.  Last turn he was in the 160s in crop yield.

A small note to add:  Top 5 cities is changing wildly turn to turn.  Last turn it showed 3 Arabian cities and 2 of mine.  This turn the capital cities of two other players joined in the mix and we were down to 1.  Whatever measure it uses, a number of cities seem to be neck-and-neck.

[pindicator]

108

So that +50% to markets got us thinking, and when I crunched the numbers I saw that +75% overall boost to a market meant that I only needed 86h total to build on. So 2 pop whips were very doable, and when my breakeven rate is at 20%, suddenly markets are looking better than libraries. Markets are now going everywhere:




Lighthouses first to the coastal cities, as food is still my biggest concern for developing those cities. Everything here is going to be 2-pop whipped, and in most cases this will be whipping off of either mines or unimproved tiles. My worker force is inadequate without proper planning, and my lack of planning since Hanging Gardens has sent my workers on various half-measures which really aren't useful.

Eldritch Horror did triple-whip its market, whipping off a newly built cottage:




Originally I was going to chop and then double whip in 2 turns, but that city gets +9 fpt and will regrow faster. Meanwhile the chop was much better served at Azul which was able to one-turn its lighthouse. This in turn is going to free up Azul to work coast and move its shared cottages over to Wingspan, letting Wingspan grow further.

Naturally the turn I decide to switch to a round of infrastructure was the turn Superdeath decided that he really meant war with Cornflakes this time:




I'm not sure there was a worse turn for him to choose. Pretty sure that Great General is Cornflakes', since he's already been in a few wars but it could be either way. I know I've been encouraging Superdeath but I'm still 6 turns away from Horseback Riding and I'm not about to go throwing my garrison at Clank! into Cornflakes' lands.

I guess I could try to give him some "moral" support:




Here is my thinking: Cornflakes has a stronger power rating and I expect him to win in a 1-vs-1 fight based off my limited information. So I declared war and moved nothing forward to try and give Cornflakes a bit of pause. Perhaps I can influence him to keep some troops back? To that effect I also sent Mjmd a demand to declare on Cornflakes. I'm not holding out hope he does anything, but perhaps he could see the gain in even doing an empty declaration like I am.

Next turn I think I might use the overflow at Eldritch Horror to build a scout and get some information on the battlefront over on Superdeath's side. I probably go on a couple turns and then send Cornflakes a peace deal. Ideally I send the peace deal right before stabbing Superdeath in the back with an army of Horse Archers, but that is still 10-15 turns away.




Somebody researched Metal Casting this last turn.

[pindicator]

109

Superdeath lost a lot of power and Cornflakes hardly moved the needle. Since the GG was spawned on Superdeath's turn, this sure looks like a suicide attack.

In any case, I whipped half my cities. After the turn ended, we are close to 30% breakeven. Now in a couple turns we'll ruin that by settling the horse city, but it's nice to see progress.

Horseback Riding should be finished end of 113, maybe even 112 depending on how expenses drop. One nice thing about these whips is that it drops the expenses too. With how badly Superdeath has faired, I'm increasingly likely going to just backstab him with a horde of horchers. But that would mean needing to hold off on any peace with Cornflakes - better to secure the enforced peace when we are about to stab Superdeath in the back.




Mjmd researched Iron Working this last turn. I suppose he could have one-turned it, considering he did just use a Great Merchant on my cities for cash. I have to admit, I would feel a lot better if Mjmd was the one who also got Metal Casting. But it doesn't seem entirely likely.

Given the location I think it's a fair assumption that we have our Iron 3rd ring to the capital, probably right by Sushi Go somewhere.




We'll whip the other half of cities next turn.

How heavy do we want to whip horse archers when they come in?

[pindicator]

111

Another weekend with only 1 turn played for all of Friday/Saturday/Sunday, and I have to try and remember what I was planning last time I played.




Cornflakes offered peace and I really couldn't think of any good reason to keep the facade going. He obviously can see I'm not taking an attack seriously, and while I would rather have a few more turns before the enforced peace begins, it's also looking less likely that Superdeath is going to be rolled over (most likely he just whipped together an invasion stack and now that it was taken care of both sides are being cautious on invading each other again).

I also woke up to the need to be tracking people's gold. Whether I'm rusty or just getting old, I hadn't thought about looking at people's gold & gpt. But some encouraging sights here: we're making as much gpt as Cornflakes while he is in a golden age. (He is also gaining a good amount of his research by specialists I would suspect, but let's keep things positive.) Looking at what I've been able to track so far:
Superdeath: Burning gold at 75gpt; 136g in bank
Mjmd: Burn rate is 134gpt; 658g in the bank. (He must have pulled in around 900-1000g from the GM.)
Bing: +5gpt, 126g in the bank.
Sucksatciv: +24gpt, 37g
Cornflakes: +78gpt, 113g
After whipping our own markets and ending turn we are sitting at +77gpt.




I think this give another point for invading Bing instead of Superdeath. From EP spending we can see Bing is researching Masonry, so his economy is woefully bad. By the time we get Elephants and Catapults mixed in to our forces we should make easy work of him.

With Mjmd, his economy is starting to pick up as he has improved his gems. If he is our Metal Casting technologist then this would give him a good boost to his happy cap, and may be why we saw Mjmd take the food lead with a huge leap this last turn. He is also about to settle his 13th city by the iron I spotted in his territory.




Our 11th city was founded, Puerto Rico. I had been saving this for our first island city but I am becoming increasingly suspicious that there are no islands in this map. If there are any they are pressed up against the border and too far away to get until we get to Astronomy. With 4 workers ready the horses were connected right away and Puerto Rico is working the horse tile. This is really a bit of a throw-away city, just being settled for those horses. But we didn't take that much of a hit. Expenses ended up only going up by 8 this turn, though some of that was due to multiple whips of infrastructure again. I am building it a missionary at Gloomhaven, but it will not arrive for another 6 turns.

Speaking of whipping, Clank! is starting to get pressed in a bad way from Mjmd's 3rd ring culture. It's pretty sad when a neighbor's 3rd ring culture is beating out your first ring, and we lost the hill tile I had planned to chop into Clank! next turn. So I whipped a library there this turn. I know Hitru has told me that Libraries are not worth building just for culture, but yikes we really needed to do something here. The market I had planned on chop+whipping will likely have to wait here as I'm going to go straight into barracks and then horse archers.




Speaking of horse archers, we turn the tech on next turn. HBR finishes end of t113 and then Construction comes in either t118 or 119.

[pindicator]

113

Cornflakes decided to go for Apostolic Palace?




I mean, it's a neat enough wonder but hammers aren't exactly the bottleneck in this game. Now if he bulbs Paper and then builds University of Sankore then that's a plan I could start to understand, but until he actually starts battering over opponents with his production this is kind of a meh move.

Also, Superdeath is really trying to make that shrine work by spending missionaries on my cities.

And lastly, Cornflakes' golden age is done. His gpt is back in the gutter at +12.




My zero-culture approach is getting punished here again with yet another city getting pushed back by Mjmd's 3rd ring culture. Catan is the first time where I'm actually losing a workable tile, so thankfully the city pops its own borders in 2 turns and will hopefully get the farm back. Again, really tempted to whip the library at size 4, but more likely we whip catapults here instead.

Somebody now has Calendar and if we're being serious it's Mjmd: with his workers on the 3rd ring borders I'm pretty certain this means he's going to chop out MoM on the border city here. A move that will seriously annoy me with the culture that wonder will put out. I was talking with Hitru about getting a low odds (40%) Great Engineer in 13 turns, but that is not going to be soon enough to take MoM out from under Mjmd here. He's got too many forests still unchopped.

Kudos to Mjmd for his great merchant strategy. The gold he earned is really paying off as he's been able to burn through a number of techs. I wouldn't be surprised if he's able to get Currency as well (assuming he hasn't already nabbed it). I was feeling pretty good about having the best economy in the game, but honestly I'm not sure. If Mjmd comes out of this burn with currency and is able to whip out his own markets then he'll be right up there with me. Another reason for me to get moving on the "kill a neighbor" plan.

That plan is getting some more shape: with Superdeath and Cornflakes in a standoff, and with me now actually looking at the gold amounts/income of my neighbors, I can see that Bing is dead in the water. With EP tech sight I know he's at 0% science (90 turns to research Masonry), and with Currency I can see he's making 5gpt at 0% science. With only catapults, spears, and chariots he'll have nothing to stand in the way of catapult stacks - so I'm going to whip out a round of catapults and then follow that up with a round of horse archers. Should be enough to start romping through his territory.

The follow up to this plan is likely Calendar myself, although it's a bit of shame that Mjmd is going to get the wonder ahead of us. Still, I have 2 calendar resources in my territory and growing taller is still on the menu - or at least freeing up the MPs I've been putting in my largest cities. Timetable for tech is something like Construction at end of t114 (turned on the juice this turn), HBR end of t119, and then Calendar end of t125. My next great person is also due end of t125, and will be something like 60% great merchant / 40% great engineer. If Mjmd is slow with his wonder building maybe I can steal it out from under him - but more likely it will be a merchant to fund getting Code of Laws and Metal Casting. Then likely on to IW, Machinery and Engineering? I'm thinking early Castles to take advantage of PRO trade routes.




My stone gift can be canceled next turn and while I'm not likely doing that (better to whip a catapult), I am looking at starting Moai in Libertalia as soon as realistically possible. It's my best city for that national wonder. But even with perfect overflow and 2 chops I'm still going to have to produce about 50 hammers the slow way, and so I may not attempt building it until after I feel I have the needed units for the upcoming war.

[pindicator]

115

2 big things to bring you all up to speed on.

First, Dominion hit size 7 and hired to merchants:




Great person due in 11 turns, and I believe we'll be looking at a 60/40 split between merchant & engineer. I covered what my ideas for them were in the last post already.

Second, we finished Construction:




I think I'm going to whip every city for the first round, and likely whip the non-core cities a second time to try and get a quick 10 catapults out. Then we'll do the elephants and horse archers. You might see me juggle off of cottages in the larger cities to get the elephants out sooner? Or not, perhaps I just need to whip everywhere.

[pindicator]

116

So some question of whipping cities. I'm not in too much of a rush but I also don't really have much production outside of the whip right now. And I want to get a round of catapults finished before HBR comes in so I can start the horse archers and elephants as soon as the tech comes in.

With that in mind... I did whip most cities, but I made sure that I never whipped off of a cottage. Azul picked up a cottage from the capital and Citadels picked one of Sushi Go's cottages up. Perhaps I should not be whipping off of the 1f3h1c riverside mines as well, but for now I did. The exception to the exception was Gloomhaven, where I did not whip at all because it just doesn't have the growth to justify a whip. All in all, we should have 12 catapults finishing by eot119, when HBR is due in.

Cornflakes declared on sucksatciv again. I'm not sure what is going on over there but I've got a chariot coming through Superdeath's lands to try and get some eyes on the far side of the world.

[Commodore]

away.

[pindicator]

I'm trying to figure out if I have encountered a bug or just messed up something simple:




Last turn I whipped a catapult at 4/50 and also put a chop into the city. This should have put me at 98/50, when you count the 4hpt the city is naturally pulling. I was then planning on one-turning another catapult with the 48h overflow. But I have only 28h overflow.

I can't think of any scenario where I only get 28h overflow. That means the chop only gave me 10 hammers? There's no scenario where a chop gives so little. I tried to recreate in single player and it came out right, so I'm not sure what to do here. I mean, I probably play on because it isn't game-breaking, but it is still very odd and now I have to figure out the production here all over again.