[PB79] MirOh No, what am I doing?

[Mjmd]

Woah what happens here?





He has PBSpy ID 2, I have PBSpy ID 3, so I'm guessing he gets Lib first? I'm calling my senator again.

And thanks Tarkeel & Mjmd! I don't see anything on the page, so it must be a ceasefire. And yes, I'll be building up a navy after Nationalism.

Straight coin flip. In a simultaneous pitboss game the player order is randomized every turn. May the odds be ever in your favor.

I really liked the odd tiles in the map. Kind of a cool little thing to do. Most of the map honestly looks pretty nice. Something is off with Gira's start. He is a bit isolated by land. He has 2 land neighbors, but both of them its thin meaning he would have trouble expanding into either (and in reality probably only Xist as Miro could interfere if he went into Coldrain). Coldrain and Xist would have trouble invading him because the other would interfere and as far as I can tell they did end up at approximately natural expansion area. But its still a nice looking map.

[greenline]

The mountain ranges around Gira are just because his start is very close to yours by raw distance. That may have been overcompensation.

[Miro]

Straight coin flip. In a simultaneous pitboss game the player order is randomized every turn. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Oh noooo. A 50/50... Ok I thought it over and realize I don't even have Optics yet, so at best I get Nationalism with it. Which I could just finish this turn instead. It's nice to deny xist a free Lib tech, but going Nationalism here seems like the better play.

But there's no fun in that. WE ROLL THE DICE! 

[Miro]

We won Lib!

Taj Mahal is starting now and I think I'll have enough defense available to protect it. I didn't switch to Nationhood yet, I plan to switch to it + Slavery either next turn or the following turn (last GA turn).

coldrain and xist signed a peace treaty after the war and coldrain ceded Royal Valley, the island next to Rome.

xist's navy seems to be switching to the northern sea, so I may lose a few islands up there. Optics finishes next turn and Astronomy in 1T or 2T afterwards.

[Mjmd]

NICE!

I actually recommend gunpowder before astronomy because then you get to draft protective muskets instead maces and you'll need anyways.

I'm EXTREMELY curious and/or worried why Coldrain sent a city to Xist after the initial peace. You almost never see a city traded afterwards. Check the trade screens. My initial thought is its part of a long term NAP; IE he paid for peace. It doesn't mean he will go to war with you, but it probably means you can't expect help from Coldrain. Although maybe he will want it back if he sees the opportunity.

[Miro]

NICE!

I actually recommend gunpowder before astronomy because then you get to draft protective muskets instead maces and you'll need anyways.

I'm EXTREMELY curious and/or worried why Coldrain sent a city to Xist after the initial peace. You almost never see a city traded afterwards. Check the trade screens. My initial thought is its part of a long term NAP; IE he paid for peace. It doesn't mean he will go to war with you, but it probably means you can't expect help from Coldrain. Although maybe he will want it back if he sees the opportunity.

Ahhhh now I found out what you guys are talking about with the Foreign Advisor screens. I kept checking the "Active", "Resources", and "Info" tabs to see any foreign trades going on. Now I see the "Relations" and "Glance" tabs show it all between nations. This whole time I thought nobody else was doing any trading, though I could see the 10T peace treaty between xist and coldrain.

I know xist had ~800g 1 or 2 turns ago and now he's broke:


He offered me ~400g for a city after the Rome war, so maybe he and coldrain just haggled a bit on the island xist wanted to buy.

I can see xist is trading with both coldrain and Gira, also everybody now has open borders with everybody. I don't think xist will send anything through NA to hit my east, but I have vision of NA so I'll watch for it.

[Tarkeel]

I can see xist is trading with both coldrain and Gira, also everybody now has open borders with everybody. I don't think xist will send anything through NA to hit my east, but I have vision of NA so I'll watch for it.

As an extra bonus: You can see the War Weariness accrued from each player (here: 29 from coldrain) which can be used to gauge if a war is hot or not. There are some caveats though; you don't accrue WW for fighting on tiles you 100% contrl, and they might be just maneuvering and looking for an opening to hit.

[Miro]

T176 Update:

I just finished Chemistry and our Navy production has started! Taj Mahal is ~4T away, I can't be certain xist didn't grab Nationalism T171 if he was able to 1T complete it after Lib. I could whip Taj Mahal to be safe, but I'm not planning to do that.

Military Tradition is 2-3T away.

Xist's navy just reached our border, so I hope my army presence at the border is enough to deter him from navy raiding. I checked out vodka and did some testing to be sure, now I see how jacked PRO Muskets are vs Knights. I'm much more confident in defending my islands now. I also did more drafting, whipping, and Knight production than I probably should have. I drafted 12 Muskets T172 - T175, now I'm stopping and plan to taper military production.



My military looks alright now, but I may have overcorrected (see power chart towards bottom).


Production:


Global tensions are rising. Xist closed borders with me a few turns ago. On T173 I offered Gira, my lifelong bestie since T72, a generous resource trade to commemorate 100T of peaceful trade and open borders:


He responds with:


Gira nooooo

coldrain's navy has been stationary in the middle of his nation for 4 - 5T and Gira's East Indiamen aren't massing or moving much, so I'm not expecting a 3v1 in the immediate future.

Xist and I kept 417 espionage on each other for many turns, so the 400g for 400g trade offer as an espionage stop-point message seems right. After closing borders with me, he started putting espionage on me again, so  I'm 100% on him.

On the bright side, our Christian buildings are fire.

Most cities have both of these buildings and 26 / 30 cities have Christianity. Next turn, 29 / 30 will have Christianity.

I found a new Super Canal placement that won't ruin a Wine tile, just 2 desert hill tiles, a plains farm, and a grass hill cottage. Sandbox test below with forts along the old border between Rome and China:

Our workers are running out of work so we can spare the worker turns and Small World, our HE city, is building navy now. I want navy to go between north and south seas after a handful of Ship of the Lines are completed. The northern-most fort in pic should be moved 1E.

We still have the highest GNP after our GA ended and after coldrain started his GA.

Charts/Dems:




Questions:
(Q1): Do any Industrial world wonders stand out to you? I'll push for Statue of Liberty if I have a reasonable chance to grab it, but I never care about Broadway, Kremlin, or Pentagon. I've grabbed them when it was easy, but I can push for Kremlin later if it seems OP.

(Q2): Is there a trigger I should consider to start teching Scientific Method? With such great monasteries, I want to avoid it for as long as I can. I figure if I see someone finishing Combustion + Scientific Method, I'll need to grab them ASAP to keep a competitive navy.

Otherwise the tech path I'm looking at is something like:
Military Tradition (for navy) ⟶ Steel (for drydock navy) ⟶ Banking + Econ ⟶ Con + Democracy (Statue of Lib) ⟶ Printing Press and then I basically just beeline Tanks and go to war.
I'll have to hit before nukes so that I don't have to learn how nukes work.

[Mjmd]

Whip Shop of the Lines; a lot. I'm unsure if you should be letting up on drafting at least of non port cities. I get hopefully will be in a GA again soon, but its a free one and there is an enemy fleet on your doorstep.

Q0) That Canal won't work, so you'll have to do the other. If you have truly absurd amount of free labor you can transfer in batches and rewine / refort the tile every once in a while. Canals are maximum 2 tiles long, doesn't matter if its fort or city. Did it actually let you move the ship through in the test?

Q1) I'm pretty sure SoL is a trap for leading players. The main question is combustion or assembly line first and here I'm thinking combustion and mining inc along the way. Kremlin is one of the more broken modern wonders, even if you don't end up with cereal mills or sushi it allows some pretty disgusting whip production. Including of nukes! I consider the late game major keys: Kremlin, mining inc, cereal mills, and Cristo. The 5th is probably SoL, but usually after combustion and assembly line you want industrialization for battleships and tanks and by then whomever is in 3rd has grabbed.

Q2) I would grab printing press and rifling before combustion. I agree with steel first, but then banking > printing press. I get wanting to save monasteries as long as possible, but obsoleting your opponents entire navy is also pretty good / its likely that is the path he will choose, so you don't want him obsoleting yours.

Tactical nukes are only one tile vs ICBM 9 and CtH made both of them really expensive. Unless you get all 4 late game things tacticals are by far the most common.

[Tarkeel]

I'm pretty sure that canal will work; it's the lake W of Ravenna that's the key here as it enables the "middle fort" as canal.

SoL: Is a very strong wonder (depending on map), but Democracy is a pretty big detour. We built it in both PB58 and PB66. Much of the power comes from civics boosting those free specialists even more.
Kremlin allows for some serious whip-powered warfare in the modern age; Amicalola's PB59 empire was one of the first and still a good example. Mjmd did similar in both PB66 and PB75.
Pentagon is pretty nice to have, depending on traits and other civics, but it's on a tech you'd want regardless of the wonder.
Cristo Redentor is perhaps the big standout wonder in the modern age, giving you access no another trait, and opening civic dancing.
The three/four happy wonders are all somewhat impactfull, but more map depending on luxury availability.