[PB64] Amicalola Gets To Heaven with Tarkeel and Ljubljana

[Tarkeel]

I see somebody realized (new avatar) he built the Great Lighthouse quiet often in recent times.

Hah, I'm glad you appreciated the change.  I've been wanting to make an avatar for ages, and just never got around to it. 

No answer for my (perhaps very obvious) mechanics question?

Hey, us euro types are only just finishing brekkie. Yes, cities will be updated with buildings in the fog, as well as size and road connections. It's a very leaky game.

(Also very much appreciate the new avatar)

[Amicalola]

T170
Naufragar accepted the peace, so our other plans go unrealised. Surprisingly, SD also made peace with Gavagai for Brezhnev, the crappy border city near me. So SD and us are land neighbours now, while it looks like Gavagai may scrape a meagre existence for the time being. I pillaged what I could around old Kruschev, and now we focus inwards for another 8 turns.


(Thanks Tarkeel for the answer, and also for subbing later on).

[Amicalola]

T171
Naufragar built his Jewish Shrine for 22 base gold per turn, and also researched Theology (presumably for the AP), as he founded Christianity. Uh oh.

Ginger wanted our only source of gems for 5gpt and not trading with Nauf. I reoffered, because that's getting quite scary - hopefully he's still keen. Thank goodness I razed that city, at least.

[Amicalola]

T173
Cranked up the wealth builds to get Engineering in two turns instead of three. The plan is to then whip a round of pikes->castles before the peace with Naufragar is up. He hasn't resigned open borders so I suspect he's planning an attack of some description. Ginger accepted our deal and promptly reopened borders with Naufragar, making that the second time he's done that this game.

[Amicalola]

T176
I am increasingly convinced Naufragar plans to attack us in 3 turns. His power is rising quickly, he still won't open borders, and though he is keeping his 1-movers in Alexander III (it seems Nauf gave up on his naming scheme  ), his 2movers (and any new builds) are nowhere to be found. I think what's most likely is an attack at Fever Dream, his old dye/spice city that was traded so long ago. 


It's also possible that Nauf is planning to attack at Alexander III, but I don't think he'd let us get vision on the stack with sentries in that scenario. It looks more to be like he's baiting us to defend down there, before striking the north. 

In any case, I am worried. So last turn, I 2-whipped a bunch of pre-built pikes and am overflowing them into castles this turn. 


Castles are pretty good, imo - Protective castles are near-overpowered. I will probably whip more pikes in 2 more turns, at least in the cities that are close. It's not a huge setback if I'm wrong, and letting Naufragar take cities here would be a total disaster. 

I also got the library quest this turn. An event, finally! I'm not sure what the reward is, but we should find out next turn, because I already have 7 libraries.  That is how it works, right?

[El Grillo]

That one is pretty good, +2 beakers per library or one random ancient era tech, or a settled great scientist in the city with the great library, if you control it. You should get the reward pop up next turn.

EDIT: +2 beakers in one library, not per library, whoops

[Mousey]

That one is pretty good, +2 beakers per library or one random ancient era tech, or a settled great scientist in the city with the great library, if you control it. You should get the reward pop up next turn.

Wasn't the +2 beaker only for a single highlighted library? I remember that option being extremely underwhelming compared to how other quest rewards usually work globally. It's probably so the option doesn't outshine the free GS, but still disappointing!

[El Grillo]

Oh, my bad, you are right. That feels rather underwhelming indeed, perhaps it’s balanced around libraries being a much more common build than some of the others.

[Amicalola]

Yep, just the +2 beakers. That's so underwhelming.

[Amicalola]

T179
These turns of peace have worked out very well for us. I was not wrong about our potential to scale if left alone:


That's at 0% science, too (although Naufragar is researching arrowless Astronomy, so it's not as good as it looks). Cottages? Pfft, who needs 'em. And fwiw, I think it's tempting to attribute this to us having 4 more cities than the next closest competitor, and that's part of it, but I would counter that three of those have no food resources and basically do not grow.

Oh yeah, Nauf is researching Astronomy!  We might be catching up to the pack in research, but we're still quite a ways behind him and Ginger. I'm not sure how we defend against Galleons in the near future.  

The castles, bazaars and harbours have worked wonders for our economy.


Look Ma, I found a way to make the bazaar's 25% bonus matter!  Here's how they've affected things in the broader scale:


Oh yeah baby, gimme that trade route goodness (if you're wondering why the numbers don't match up, it's because unit cost is still halved graphically, for some reason). 

If no one attacks us in the near future, we're looking very nice long-term. Unfortunately, I think it's very likely that Nauf will attack this or next turn, as he's continued to whip a lot of... somethings... for 2 or 3 pop each, and someone's power shot past ours this turn. I have followed suit, whipping mostly pikes. We are better prepared to defend in the north, where the cities are more valuable and I think his knights are probably lurking. If he goes for Fever Dream, I think we can stop the attack dead. If he goes for the south instead, it's closer. The alternative is that he waits until Galleons, but that seems unlikely given the whipping sprees.