[PB79] MirOh No, what am I doing?

[Miro]

Yeah the canal worked in testing. I took another look at it by highlighting all tiles a boat can move to. The rule is that a fort/city must be within your cultural border and on a tile adjacent to water, then a boat can travel through a it even if the path is through a dozen forts in a row and their bodies of water are on opposite sides.

The green tiles are eligible for boat travel.
Option A (from last post, dark blue) costs: 2 desert hills, 1 flat plains (farm), 1 grass hill (hamlet)
Option B (dark red) costs: 2 desert hills, 1 plains hill, 1 grass hill (mine)
Option C (black) costs: 1 river plains hill, 1 river plains tile (farm), 1 grass hill (mine)

I forgot option C can be done without taking the Wine tile now that our border expanded from the last time we looked at a canal.

I like option B the most here, those seem like the least useful tiles.

[Mjmd]

I like B as well. Tarkeel is right, its treating it as 2 tiles long because of the lake to the west.

BTW don't whip Battleball. I know I said to whip a lot of your coastal cities, but I would spare that one because Moai.

[Mjmd]

Did you get Taj? Are you at war?

You can't just leave us on a cliffhanger!! I'm hoping the non reporting means non warring.

[Miro]

T182 Update:

I did exactly what you said to do: 

Whip Ship of the Lines; a lot. Go into Serfdom during GA so you can't whip. Also you're very cool and handsome.

But now I'm thinking we should have been whipping Ship of the Lines instead of being so greedy!

xist's fleets are moving and I can switch to Slavery next turn. We have ~6 total Frigates out. xist's invasion forces are moving. Gira's East Indiamen moved into FoW. After ~10T of staying in one place, coldrain's main navy started moving from 2S of The Swamp (center of his east coast) south towards our eastern border with him last turn. The Gira and coldrain movements could be nothing, but I'm preparing either way.

xist had ~15 Knights in Arretium a few turns ago, but they're either more centralized now or loading into Galleys. I'm flaunting army at the border to try and deter his navy from acting, but for all I know it could be having the opposite effect.



I have enough army at the coastal cities to survive 10 dropped off Knights, so I don't think xist should DoW in the next few turns unless he's doing it as an announcement to start a 3v1.

And put your minds at ease - at most, it can only be a 3v1 and no barbs can join them because I built the Great Wall! Surprised nobody ever built it. I was gonna get so much failgold if they did, but instead I'll take the +2 GPP/t in Blood on Clock. I didn't check to see if anyone else got failgold afterwards, but my tech notes lead me to think nobody got much.

I've been drafting every turn, mainly from inland cities.

Latest techs:

• coldrain got Rifling + Replaceable Parts
  
• xist got Nationalism and is now going for Constitution
  
• Gira got Gunpowder + Education
  
• Miro got Military Science + Steel and is now going for Banking + Economics
  

We also have a GA, GS, GE and can enter a 4th GA whenever we want! I hadn't thought this far ahead (shocker), so idk when I want to start it.



Charts/Dems:



A major question I have below is on corporations. I have little experience in the modern era, but like to research questions myself first instead of asking and following blindly.
I read some articles and the mod notes.
Our main goal is to get Tanks rolling then all out war, so Refrigeration ⟶ Sushi Co isn't happening.
Biology ⟶ Cereal Mills isn't a huge detour. I don't have a Great Merchant, though.
Mining Inc. and Creative Constructions are on the way and we already have a GE.
The other 3 take future techs and give Science/Wealth/Culture, so I'm not considering them.

I don't know how much Aluminum or Coal I'll have, but I have an average of 2.5 of the other corp-related land resources.
Mining Inc. 13 - 16 Hammers per turn Correction: 9 - 12 Hammers per turn seems really enticing.

Did you get Taj? Are you at war?

You can't just leave us on a cliffhanger!! I'm hoping the non reporting means non warring.

Lmao I was like 5 minutes away from finishing this post. And yes, I got Taj Mahal! Forgot to mention above. xist didn't get Nationalism until T177, my Taj Mahal finished T178. I whipped it out of fear that he would use GE on it or something. Silly, because in the last post I thought he might already have Nationalism and I was confident enough to not whip.

Questions:
(Q1): Should I wait for any civics to start the next GA? I can get Police State from Fascism before I start getting SciMethod + Combustion. I planned on using Free Market and skipping Communism, but you guys said Kremlin is great, so I'm reconsidering. I'm still weighing monasteries vs SciMethod ⟶ Communism. Love these monasteries.

(Q2): With our Tank goal in mind, would you spend the GE on Mining Inc.? Do you ever use multiple corps? I'm planning to put no effort into intentionally popping a Great Merchant (though I'll run Merchants in cities normally), so I don't think Cereal Mills will be happening.

[Mjmd]

Corps are pretty good still. Mining inc is probably the best (although the last greens game the player I was ded lurking lost that race, got create con, and that turned out to be better because it was a pretty land heavy map). Cereal mills kremlin can be very good and is something I've had the pleasure of doing. I ground Plemo down in PB66 with just cereal mills (after I lost Kremlin), but I do think the production ones are slightly better. You can offset the cost with wealth builds if needed and eventually whip happiness does start mattering. Edit: to answer you question it happens that people use multiple corps, but usually people are fighting to get 1, so it doesn't happen often. I did get to in PB75 to great explosions.

I would save the GE for mining inc or create con if mining gets taken by someone else. Getting the Taj GA makes the immediacy of another GA less. I would sadly switch out of org religion into theocracy btw when you swap to slavery. Blood on Cloack is so good at GP generation I wouldn't worry too much about when the 3 person GA will happen. There are also two free great people coming up on tech tree (although 1 is a GS, but something you could do if in a race is use your GS to bulb physics to get a GS although just going communism might be the thing to do).

WHIP WHIP WHIP Ship of the Lines. Every port city except for moai (until end of GA at least) and blood and cloak.

[Mjmd]

Is the economics merchant still there? If not another thing ugly Mjmd said was to do banking > printing press > RP > rifling.

[Miro]

Is the economics merchant still there? If not another thing ugly Mjmd said was to do banking > printing press > RP > rifling.

I'm fairly certain xist finished Economics T175 from my notes, but I'll double check next turn.

I was initially planning to get Economics for Free Market before this GA ends, but the timing won't work out if I'm switching back to Slavery next turn (which I plan to). So you're right, Banking ⟶ Printing Press sounds better.

Corrected an error in the Corps Excel table above. Mining Inc. has ×0.75 Hpt in this mod, so Mining Inc.'s 9 Hpt vs Creative Con's 7 Hpt with 42 Culture per turn, plus Coal/Aluminum found.
If I find 4+ Coal, I may just get Creative Constructions ASAP. If 2 - 3, I'll think it over. Railroad would only take a few more turns, but before discovering Aluminum with Industrialization, Mining Inc. is only 1 more Hpt over CC.

[greenline]

The extra culture from CreCon can also be quite, quite powerful...

[Mjmd]

I don't know your timeline, but if you finished banking this turn then I would would suggest switching into merc. Eventually if you get a corp free market is better, but merc is fine for now. Don't know if I want to delay whipping even another turn, but MAYBE IF armies / navies aren't too threatening you can wait 1 more turn.

Coal is a mining inc resource fyi. Generally I prefer the little bit more production, but yes the culture was very good in PB72 due to the land heavy nature of the map. Here, I think the more production is better. Might be worth looking back and seeing if any great engineers were born by anyone else for how much to prioritize. I'm very curious where Xist is going with his tech if its to Democracy or Corporation, so let me know when you know. In general these later turns a lot of stuff can happen, so updates more often are appreciated. Also, later game multiplayer civ is somewhat rare so people like to read about it / I expect more questions (which I also had my first multiplayer late game).

[Miro]

T183:
Just finished Banking, so I added Merc just in time for the Slavery + Theocracy switch. Coldrain closed borders with me, but hasn't had much of a Power increase on his graph for a long time, so he might harass with his navy, but I don't think he's trying to invade in the near future.

From T177 to T183, his main army went from:

• Grenadiers 5 ⟶ 6
  
• Knights 6
  
• Horse Archer 1
  
• Catapult 4 ⟶ 6
  

I'm getting Alphabet now. Learning their ABCs should help the Chinese people better understand their Literature, Music, Calendar, Engineering, Paper, Education, Banking, Chemistry, Astronomy, and Steel-working systems. Up until now, we've had all this blank paper for nothing!

xist's navy looks ready to DoW:


I'm preparing my islands and inner coastal cities. I don't think he'll seize Telestrations (SW island) this turn. Assuming 5xp units, his 2 Galleons would need to be carrying 6 Grenadiers for a 50% - 71% chance of capturing it. Knights do much worse. That also assumes his 5 Frigates could remove the city's entire defense next turn, but it has Castle. (Ship of the Lines are out of range)

Telestrations: (1 newly drafted Musket)


I could upgrade the Axeman to a Grenadier, but when war isn't 100% certain, I don't want to. Yes, I see xist's navy, but it could just be some military exercises! Or maybe he's trying to flex navy like I'm flexing army if he's worried I'll DoW. His risk seems too high if he hasn't gotten "War with Miro" + "X gpt" assurances from coldrain and/or Gira. He didn't ask for + "X gpt" when he sent me "War with coldrain" messages earlier.

I say all this, but I know he's gonna DoW. Did a little whipping to prepare:


His northern Frigates moved to the Dutch island city, they might harass while Galleys come up the rear later.