[Spoilers] Pindicator's Nice Thread

[pindicator]

161

Miguelito's watch has ended, and Gavagai's is waning. Bing has declared war, so I wonder if Gav might have done Commodore a favor by taking back that Ivory city.

I'm not sure what to make of Bing. He has refused to trade me anything all game: even a few turns ago when I suggested the equally helpful Silver for Gems he turned me down, despite having a surplus of Gems. I don't see any trades of Silver going to him. Earlier he refused to trade me his spare Stone as well, so I don't know what to make of him. I do suspect that we have a knight army advancing on Gavagai, however. Do they continue on to Commodore? To Superdeath? To Me?

My sight in that area is gone as Gavagai bopped my sentry horse archer in Bing's lands. I've only just recently remembered to send out World Map trades, so I have done that to a couple of individuals: naufrager, Commodore, and Superdeath. Pity I didn't get one in with Miguelito before he was lost.




I'm continuing to go for infrastructure with some military sprinkled in. My workers are mainly in two groups: building windmills for My Little Pony in the east, and building farms for Rome & Arretium in the west. I think I will rename those cities soon, likely as soon as Gavagai is eliminated. At least I'm assuming Bing is coming with an army strong enough to finish the job. Commodore has knights now.

I think Commodore's nature to always push has gotten the better of him here. That horse archer maneuver he pulled was just a strategic misstep: he had no way to ever hold that city long term from Gavagai. I could have seen him burning it, but even then the benefit of such a move escapes me, especially when he was right on the cusp of knights. Better to save those horse archers up and upgrade them, then come in to finish Gav off. As it was, Gavagai was easily able to retake the city, and not without the loss of a fair number of units on Commodore's end. It just feels like a waste of resources from Comm's end.




Commodore is in a dicey spot now. Where does Magic Science go next? Where does Bing?

Personally I would really like to go for Optics for Whaling Boats and then Astronomy to conduct some naval raids on both Magic Science and Superdeath. Mainly for Magic Science as I feel his weakness is being hit by sea: relying on Serfdom for his economy means he has no rapid reaction ability to whip in defenders. Then the fun part would be if I could ever get control of the Cumae area I could potentially fort ships to hit Bing and beyond as well. But I think we have to get Mercantilism in first. Feudalism finishes in 2 turns and then I kick off the golden age with the aim of picking up Banking. I'm going to try for getting great people for a 3rd golden age, but I believe I'll be running Serfdom instead of Caste during this GA, so I'll be relying on RNG at the capital to split the GPs up.

Power is all relatively even, except for Bing's force and what is left of Gavagai. I feel relatively safe to focus inwardly.

EDIT: Shoot, I've been thinking about RtR Mercantilism in my head and not CtH Mercantilism. Do I really want to lose my foreign trade routes? I'll need to consider this all over.

[pindicator]

163

Bing/Civic have invaded Superdeath and I've kicked off my second golden age.

Revolted into Vassalage & Serfdom but immediately could see it was a mistake to go out of Bureaucracy - even with hiring more specialists that's still a lot of commerce I left on the table. I might have to switch back in 5 turns.

Tech path looks to be Guilds in 4, then Banking in 3 and then we need to decide what is next. Next Great Person pops this turn, likely a scientist.

[Zed-F]

What did you decide when you re-examined Mercantilism?

[pindicator]

Still worth it. We'll be giving up only 15c in trade routes in exchange for 13 free specialists.

Still thinking on the larger tech plan. I might try to go straight for drafting rifles

[pindicator]

165

We're in a golden age, let's show off some stuff!




We birthed a low-odds Great Merchant last turn and so now I'm hoping that I can get another low-odds roll in the next 2 to get an artist, priest or engineer. I am debating going for Drama after Banking just to build a Theater here and hire more artist specialists because i've opted not to go for Caste in the Golden Age.




With 200h to go we are actually 3 turns away from completion. On the last turn I switch from grass hill mine to steal the capital's plains hill mine and get the 66 + 66 + 68 = 200h needed. After this I switch tiles back to commerce and give the hammer tiles back to other cities.




We've been one-turning maces for a while, but accumulated quite a bit of overflow, as you can see. So I'm going to 1-turn a monastery and then build a longbow for the city itself, and after that Guilds will be done and it will be non-stop Knights for a while. Unless I build up enough overflow to 1-turn or 2-turn something good (like a market or a courthouse).




One big benefactor of Rome's capture was He-Man no longer is a runty border town but can finally grow to be the production city it was meant to be. With the forge finishing we'll be putting out over 25hpt here quite quickly. I think this will be a western military pump later down the road.




Honestly, nothing special planned here for Ninja Turtles but I feel I haven't shown it off that much since I took it from the barbarians. With it situated at the center of the south I am going to need to stock it with a stronger garrison: especially now that we are in the era of large Knight armies.

And some demos:




I know I'm a little behind on tech compared to Bing and Magic Science, but I think a lot of that is because I went the upper half of the tech tree and I'd wager they still haven't touched it. I'm hopeful that I am not too far behind because I'm a bit more worried about the lack in mfg. The forge & religious building push hasn't really done a lot to help - I fear that this is really just due to me having poor quality cities compared to the rest of the pack.

5 hour flights are a great time to think about game states (in between reading, debating whether you want to pay for the in-flight WiFi, and trying to sleep), and so I have notes from both my flight in and back that center around the same points. But the main conclusion from all that thinking and note taking is that my bigger problem is not so much in the tech but in the creation of the army - and for that point I'm not really going to try to whip out a knight army once I get Guilds. For one, I'm just going to be doing the same thing as everyone else but later and weaker, and for two it just would kill my civ to do it. Plus, who am I going to attack? Commodore is the only sane answer at this point and I know that the only way me attacking Commodore doesn't turn into a grind is if I double team on him once Bing or Magic Science have already started the job. Besides, Fish for Fish with Commodore is well intended and I don't plan on changing that.

So I think I need to go for Nationalism and the draft to raise up my next army. This is of course problematic because Nationalism expires the MoM and so I really need to get together enough great people for a third golden age before researching that tech. And that means I have a bit of a window between finishing Banking and getting my third great person (hopefully I don't need a fourth) for the Third Golden Age. So I was thinking a bit of where I want to go with tech during that time.

Short version: no idea, I want everything.

[pindicator]

167

Am I the tech leader???




Guilds finished last turn and I am finding a lack of techs with numbers showing up in the lower left hand corner. Engineering has 3 people with it. Banking and Gunpowder surprisingly have zeroes: I would have sworn somebody would have grabbed that by now. Perhaps they were never that far ahead. Naufrager has Theology and Divine Right. Superdeath has Music.

That's it.




Naufrager just teched Civil Service, which means I doubt he has grabbed Paper yet. I think he could be pushing towards Taj here - but really I'm not ready to race him for that yet. I would rather secure my 3rd golden age and lose Taj than go the other way.

Commodore has another Great Merchant - I feel like the trade mission gold from those have been the engine that has driven his economy this far.

And then I also received these messages from Bing:




Does he want me to join in on Bing? Finish up Gavagai? Attack Commodore? He has no seafood to trade - could this be a fish-for-fish deal in absentia of seafood? My best guess is he would like me to attack Commodore in 20 turns but I think that is a bit optimistic on his part. For one, I suspect Magic Science is going to jump in on Superdeath and I'll be shocked if that split ends amicably. For two, I have no intention of attacking Commodore until I have Rifles.

So naturally I responded by echoing his Iron for Iron.

All this is giving me a takeaway that I need to focus even more on production and army: if my tech situation is better than I anticipated, then I need to ensure I don't get conquered. I think this also makes me more likely to go for Astronomy after Banking to put pressure on MS from the sea.




University of Sankore finishes end of turn. And I started another wonder: the Parthenon at My Little Pony. Honestly I should have built this a while ago, but with it only being a 7-turn build I think now is a decent time to get it built. It was a 5-turn build at Thundercats, but TC is at 40hpt and can 1-turn knights for the rest of the golden age. I am 1 turn away from finishing the courthouse there, but I really want to get at least that first knight out so Magic Science can see I'm building them.

I want Bing to see my power going up, too, because I've fallen to the back of the pack:

[pindicator]

168

Gavagai is no more, the University of Sankore is ours, and now we move on to the next phase of the game.




I'll be kicking myself if Commodore puts a city where his worker moved to ahead of me: that's exactly the spot I've been eying to put a city myself after Gav was eliminated. I kept pushing that back as I thought I had time. Now He-Man is going to try and get a settler out in 4t and hopefully that will be quick enough. But if it is not then I have nobody to blame but myself. Commodore likely wants that spot as much as I want it: putting a city on that tile would let me shuttle galleons between the north and the middle seas.

That feels like a major checkpoint. My entire strategy early on was shaped around being in such close proximity to Rome and now that Rome is eliminated I have to admit I'm not clear on the best way to proceed. I could try to keep my Commodore buffer intact and take to the seas, I could try to tech away and only look at expansion when I have a significant military advantage, or I could look to combine with Bing or MS and eliminate Commodore next.

For now I want to get through my tech goals in my current golden age.




With UoS complete we are almost making 60bpt at 0%. Compared to last turn, we went from +15bpt to +58bpt. Going through my cities I have 17 religious buildings and another 3 in production. That leaves 6 more spots open for growth. Ideally we plant a couple more fringe cities on the Commodore borders and give room for both more religious buildings and more free specialist slots.

Speaking of cities! We are way overdue for renaming the latest two and finding some fitting 80s cartoons:













Rome becomes Transformers to signify the change-over. Wish the culture would resolve itself quickly there, I really want to start working that second clam.

Arretium becomes The Real Ghostbusters, as a nod to how long it took me to exorcise the Roman demons to my west.

Last bit of news: Magic Science wanted to buy Marble off me for 8gpt. Another reason I should have built Parthenon earlier. But I think this shows MS has gone up the top half of the tech tree and now is trying to get his Epics built. (Or Parthenon.)

[pindicator]

170

Everybody seems to be jockeying for the next war. I received a lot of messages on 169:










Naufrager wants help in taking down Magic Science. Commodore seems to be proposing he attacks Bing by land and I attack Magic Science by sea - or I'm just biased towards that interpretation because secretly I yearn to turn Mali into a pirate nation, raiding by sea.

I replied to Comm echoing his request, and a turn later sent a response to naufrager of just Copper for Copper. I can't commit to a 7-turn time frame, I don't have the mobility for that kind of warfare. Or the navy.

And then I saw Bing is up to no good:




There is only one good reason to build that fort: to access the northern sea. And only I have cities on that northern sea that Bing cannot already reach. Coupled with his worker scouting out my north coastline at this moment and I have decided I do not trust Bing. So I think that seals it: I'm in the Commodore - Naufrager axis, and opposed to the Bing-Magic Science one.

I messed up my timings for Banking & Mercantilism. I thought i had it timed out fast enough to finish Banking and get a mid-GA revolt to Mercantilism in. But I was a turn too late: with 5 turns remaining and Banking just in, I needed to either get to my post-GA civics now or I wait on Mercantilism until t174. Since I needed to stay in Serfdom for the production and worker boost, I decided to delay Mercantilism until the end. Which in turn meant that I was good to swap back to Bureaucracy last turn, fixing the mistake I had made of getting out of it for the start of the GA. Big B gets me another 20-some beakers per turn and I'm not really racing out units.

Banking was almost delayed, but I stuck with it because I decided that the capital was going to build a Bank next. The rest of the empire is switching over to military builds: knights and catapults mostly. I don't plan on going on the offensive, but I feel like I need a defensive force for my core, now that my main army is in the west watching Bing.

As for tech, I decided to push down more economy. Printing Press is next, though I may not press straight on to RP after. More likely I go for Astronomy or Liberalism, one of those. Perhaps I'll round out some of the cheaper techs while I make up my mind.

[pindicator]

Dog walks are so good for thinking things through. Here goes:

1. Drafting Rifles is the goal. Having boats to launch them from is the secondary goal.
2. We will need a 3rd Golden Age, at the end of which we get into Rep & Nationalism. We don't have to be drafting rifles at this point but it should be the next thing we aim for.
2a) We can expire MoM before the 3rd GA if it means landing Taj. Including that here just to remind myself that MoM is a means to an end, not a win condition in itself. However:
3) Next Great Person is likely a GSci. Meaning our third Great Person needs to be an Engineer, Prophet, or Artist (or Spy). So my main priority at Rainbow Brite needs to be building either Temples, Courthouses, or Theaters.
3a) Next GP is due in 2t. Then it's 600 points to go. Assuming GSci is next and assuming we land Parthenon in 3t then we probably need to fire all merch and sci specialists and run only Eng & Priest. This will put is at a base of 15 GPP/t but over 50% of that is going to be Sci from the Great Library. Point being, I need more alternative sources of GP points.
3b) I think I can switch to Drama this turn and then 1-turn a theater in the capital next turn.  That would let me run 21 base, or 63 gpp/t for the first turn, 73 after Parthenon finishes for  the rest of the Golden age, and then 52 after that.  So 11t after (13t from now) for the 6th Great Person. Maybe sooner if I can add another temple or a courthouse. But the bank will have to wait.
4) I think I can get Astronomy by the time the 3rd GA is ready. Or Printing Press, Philo, and most of Nationalism. But not both.
4a) Engineering keeps getting skipped by me, but I fear it's a necessity for now. If I ever want to go on the offensive I will absolutely need to tech that first.
5) I think Astronomy is still desirable because it's going to be easier to launch an attack from boats than going through Commodore. But yikes, where to fit that in?

[pindicator]

The other side of the coin: timing out my great person generation makes me realize I really need to continue to improve the economy and get the techs coming in faster.