[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[flugauto]

Rifles good. MOAR RIFLES BETTER. Do we have Castles in Furungy's border cities.

[Mardoc]

Do we have Castles in Furungy's border cities.

Nope. They don't really have a lot of hammers, so they've been focused on basic things like Courthouses and Libraries (these cities were hurt the worst by going Caste, as their main hammer supply was the ). He's partially in the Gunpowder age anyway, so a Castle wouldn't be good for very long.

But, it appears he didn't attack last turn, so we have some time to reposition. And build more Janissaries, and otherwise prepare. Actually, on further reflection, this might just be a 'close borders spark tensions' moment - I really don't have any indication that he intends to attack, but he *could*. Although if he really wanted to, parking his stack where it's obvious to me is a silly move...although that could be a double-bluff...

Here's what I've seen of his. It's centrally positioned to be a nice counterattack - or to attack us in a spot we're unprepared for. But it's not actually in position to 1-turn our cities like I initially thought.



In any event, we've got another turn. Last one pre-Communism. I thought about doing a relative tech comparison, but it turns out to be a bit more complicated than I thought. The Ottoman tech tree looks like swiss cheese, because I've been so ruthless about skipping all the military techs. I'll still get started on that sometime today, but I think I'm going to need to start with a spreadsheet and do this thoroughly.

The big foreign news is that Zanth has finally broken the Dutch defenses. Fortunately Slowcheetah's been whipping like a madman, so the Babylonians only inherit size 1 cities, and presumably took a few casualties in the process. But soon I expect the Dutch to be limited to their island holdings at most. Whether they can keep them depends on how much navy they've been building.



That collapse is quite clear on the Power graph. You can also see 2metra's rise, and other indications that the world is a dangerous place. Interestingly, Furungy is not increasing his Power especially quickly, which is another indication I may be paranoid. Although it looks like Gawdzak's going to be a threat to someone - I hope it's Jowy.



Edirne looks a LOT nicer with that Grocer, doesn't it? It's really getting into the heavy specialists era - I'm going to attempt to keep stacking up world wonders here too. Although Kremlin won't start until this Hammam finishes; need to keep growing, and we've a significant head start anyway. No one else even has SciMeth, let along Communism.



On the other end of the Ottoman spectrum, little Silifke is proving to be worth the settler. No food sources mean this is never going to be an awesome city, but you can see it's already producing more commerce than it costs. Maybe someday it'll even produce a military unit .



The demos look very nice. Next turn is going to be a very dramatic rise, on top of this. Which means it's time to start playing conservatively, building an actual military of modern units. We're still well behind Zanth in total beakers, but it's starting to look like catching up is feasible.

[flugauto]

Maybe workshop the Silifke tiles? The cottages will not grow into anything useful.

[Mardoc]

Maybe workshop the Silifke tiles? The cottages will not grow into anything useful.

Probably a good idea - with State Property. I wasn't considering the food boost to workshops when I planned the city initially, and it couldn't support workshops without that extra food. But yeah, I don't think we ever leave State Property, so it makes sense. If we want cash we just have the city build Wealth.

We definitely have the worker labor. I was just starting to preposition them for railroading since I've pretty well run out of other things to do with them. Even roaded every tile in our borders .

[Mardoc]

It rolled! Time to find out how much utopianism can help in Civ!




We're about to finish Oxford, so knock it to 100% gold.





Then revolt to State Property.


+156 gpt
+ 10 hpt
+ 19 fpt

Cool. Worth about what I expected - probably a lot more when applied to tech on . Didn't expect losing the Merc specialists to hurt the hammers quite that much, but it's probably worth it. That extra commerce will just have to become Railroads and Assembly Lines to bump the MFG up some more

Then fire off the Golden Age...


+309 gpt
+ 163 hpt

That was definitely more than expected . It's a fairly strong argument for doing our best to ensure we get the GScientist from Physics, isn't it? Would make the next GA a lot easier to achieve.

Then clean up the ciites' tile assignments, and forget the screenie . Was a fairly minor change anyway - mostly pulling specialists back to tiles, and in some cases, pulling coast tiles to workshops.

This is just plain awesome! . Now...time to spend that immense income on catching up militarily. Rifling first, for defensive purposes. After that...maybe back to Physics, maybe go for Railroad by way of Steel/Steam Power. Maybe go back in the tree a smidge and pick up some of the neglected techs like Theology and Drama. And Nationalism for the draft-option. Too many choices!

I'm thinking we don't want to fight in this era, so I'm going to continue to neglect Military Tradition for now. Probably neglect Military Science as well. Rifles/cannon/airships/machine guns ought to be able to make us safe, right? Not like we need the extra speed on our units once we get Railroads researched and built.

Subject to continued waffling, of course

[flugauto]

Thank you Guy Fawkes and Mohammed Shah! +30% commerce, +30% hammers worth Golden Age!

[Mardoc]

While we're waiting on either Krill to play (that unabashed advocate of turn pace in other games ) , or Nakor to return and play, we might as well waffle some more, right?

I think we're going to go for Steel first, rather than Rifling first. Why? Well, a combination of reasons. First, Steel can protect us from everyone, while Rifling mostly just protects us from Furungy. I also have no hesitation in spending hammers liberally on cannon - those are useful right up to the end of the game. But honestly, if I were in Zanth's shoes here, I'd be seriously considering an attack on Ottomania with the leftovers from the Slowcheetah war.

Also, Steel grants other bonuses, where Rifling is just rifles. Drydocks, Ironworks, Ironclads - none are vital, but all are probably worth building at least on back-burner priority.

Steel's en route to Railroads, which is the next noticable jump in production - and also vital for defence. Letting us keep a central reserve instead of needing one for each enemy will make a huge difference, and machine guns will be nice too. Rifling - well, it's en route to artillery, but that's pretty deep in the tree and Steel's also required.

We're bound to come back to Rifling sooner or later; it's required for Infantry if nothing else - but I think cannon are more urgent.

Probably the tech path looks something like Steel - Replaceable Parts - Steam Power - Railroads, with Physics mixed in somewhere as yet undefined. Follow that up with a push for Assembly Line: Nationalism - Constitution - Economics - Corporation - Assembly Line.

I'm toying with the idea of reversing the two, but...well - then we have to find another early military tech. 8th soldiers just won't cut it anymore.

Odds and ends that I want at the last second:
Theology
Rifling
Music - Military Tradition
Military Science
Combustion
Artillery

These are all things that will be a nice military boost, but only a military boost. None, with the possible exception of Music, help push the snowball - not unless we get there early enough to take some snow from a neighbor, anyway. Since Railroads/Assembly Line *do* provide military benefits in addition to the economic ones, that seems clearly higher priority. At least as long as we're ahead but not way ahead - way ahead means military adventures might make sense.

Unless, of course, a neighbor gets frisky. Then we might grab some of those branches early.

I'm starting to think we might not need to go conquering, though. Maybe we can win a space race from here without more land.

[flugauto]

Yes, Steel is good, cannons and everything. But Steam and Railroads are really expensive.

How much is the upkeep of Bureaucracy? With many cities, maybe Bureaucracy bonus just pays for civic's upkeep? Nationhood has no upkeep and gives happiness and allows to draft. Maybe Rifles and Nationhood is an economically and militarily worthy way?

Also, how is the Krill-Nakor war against Gavagai-Zanth?

[Mardoc]

Yes, Steel is good, cannons and everything. But Steam and Railroads are really expensive.

I think you'll be surprised how much faster we're researching. Up to Railroads is 15K beakers - but at the moment our breakeven rate is about 2K/turn, and our 100% science rate is ~2400. I expect to reach Railroads by the end of the golden age, most likely - 7 more turns.

Well - ok, so I also want to add in Physics if we can, and spend some gold upgrading cats to cannon. But call it 10-12 turns and I think it's reasonable.

How much is the upkeep of Bureaucracy? With many cities, maybe Bureaucracy bonus just pays for civic's upkeep? Nationhood has no upkeep and gives happiness and allows to draft. Maybe Rifles and Nationhood is an economically and militarily worthy way?

Bureaucracy costs 54 gpt at the moment. Which becomes 71 after inflation.

But...it produces more yet:


After multipliers, that's 144 gpt from Istanbul - or 216bpt, attributable directly to Bureau.

It might not be as much when we leave our golden age. And losing 70-150 commerce will be less important when we're willing to spend the population liberally for hammers. But during a Golden Age is the worst time to be drafting - we want to *work* all those boosted tiles.

Nationalism-Rifling is ~5500 beakers, assuming we're picking up Replaceable Parts anyway for the railroads push. That's a three turn delay - maybe four since that pushes railroads post-GA. Not a huge penalty - but we're still well behind on tech, so it's some loss of efficiency.

Anyway, here's what demos look like with Oxford complete and tech on:



I don't have anything else big up my sleeve, though. From here, it'll be mainly consistent little stuff - growing onto more tiles, finishing up banks, etc. I think I've convinced myself that Courthouses may still be worth building despite State Property: 3 gpt becomes 4 with inflation factored in, +2EP, plus it gives us the option to leave SP at some point if that looks important.

That fifth place land does make me think we still need to plan a war at some point. I just don't think Rifles is the right spot for it. For one thing, all our neighbors have Grenadiers now. For another - we're actually still fairly behind in tech, I think, although I haven't found the time to do a detailed survey yet. Those demos should mean behind in tech is temporary - but it does mean now isn't the best time.

Also, how is the Krill-Nakor war against Gavagai-Zanth?

Sitzkrieg. Still officiallly declared, but I haven't seen any evidence of fighting: no cities changing hands, no Power drops from either side, no stacks visible in each others' lands. It does seem to be tying up a bunch of Zanthian cavalry and rifles, though, meaning his progress against Slowcheetah is slowing. But that's a relative turn - he's still been getting a city/turn more or less.

[Mardoc]

Oh, Bureau also produces a harder to quantify benefit. More hammers in Istanbul, specifically. Without it, Oxford would still be several turns away - the Observatory coming next would take longer - etc and so on. We've got lots of general hammers, for things like units - but Istanbul itself is kinda light. And with all those glorious towns, it needs all the multiplier buildings we can manage. Bureau will be easier to shuck once we run out of new infra for Istanbul.