[pb72 spoilers]: the esteemed gentleman's literature and book club

[Tarkeel]

Note that he also wants us to go in earlier. I'd prefer it to be the other way, but we can't really do anything about that.

[greenline]

Oh, that's what the 12 vs 9 meant. I thought it was him saying '12 turns for both of us, not 9'.

[Tarkeel]

Staggered declarations are pretty common; both because the other party needs more time to prepare, but also to get a softer underbelly to attack into.

[greenline]

Bing goes on a terrifying whipping spree. Some of this definitely has to be units. He has Sacrifical Altars up and running now - I've seen the jump on the EP graph. Well, the good news is that there's no unit type he can throw at us that I'm scared of. Protective LBs and phracts eat whatever he has for lunch. For now.

I don't think he can invade anyone else geographically. So we'll see what he is up to.

Full overview of Xist's territory. Can you spot the city that was razed?







I'm thinking that it makes more sense to do a push for Neapolis (the corn / iron city in the center). The cities on the coast are weak and hard to reinforce, can be picked off at leisure later.

Weird thing - Aetryn apparently didn't push for Civil Service in his GA, revolting to Vassalage instead. What a waste of a Colossus FIN capital! Maybe he also is pushing hard for knights.

[greenline]

Well, damn. I messed up on the latest turn and forgot to swap into slavery along with all the other civic changes. Is that enough to ask for a reload? Or should I just live with it?

[Tarkeel]

It's borderline I'd say. It's influential enough, but also avoidable. Will see what the lurkers say.

[greenline]

Lesson learned. whenever you are about to make a big civic swap, take a screenshot and double check everything is right:




We put on 70% research and will hopefully overflow a ton of beakers finishing Guilds. A bunch of HAs are slated to queue upgrade into Phracts. The main commerce loss actually comes from going from serfdom into slavery, believe it or not.

Meanwhile, Bing pops his first GA. His GNP so far was comparable to Aetryns, but he will have 4 extra turns and is probably gunning for Civil Service. Scary.







Not saying my land is terrible, but I'd really rather have stuff like this...

[greenline]

Noob question: with the police state modifier, a lot of cities have Phracts down to a one pop whip. Is that something I want to avoid, only going for two pop whips? Or is it better to just get them out as fast as possible?

[Tarkeel]

Two pop whips are better because they give you more per happy-point, which matters when you're going to whip a few times. It's usually better to get a unit 1 hammer short of a 1 whip to maximize overflow.

The classic example is getting an axe to 4/35 hammers, then two-whipping and bringing it to 64/35. Add in the turns natural production and you can in most cases get two axes for one whip. Another good use of this is to accrue hammers in something that's hard to whip, such as a (national) wonder.

[greenline]

yeah. i am just concerned for the case in several cities where it would take 3 turns to finish slowbuilding a phract. i could potentially have two out by 1 pop whipping, overflow, and whipping again, but i am not sure if it is worth that