[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[flugauto]

2280 GNP, probably 1/4 of it is Istanbul. Ok, Bureaucracy is worth it.

[Mardoc]

Nothing much exciting to report this turn. So have some pictures:

[flugauto]

It is 1300AD and the communists are taking over the world.

[Mardoc]

Gawdzak's invading Jowy

Jowy asked me for cash - he recently researched Guilds, so I'm guessing that's why he wanted it. I declined and spent it on Cannon upgrades instead. Not sure if Gawdzak is paying enough attention to see cash move, and I'm also not sure that hurting Gawdzak is the best use of my resources right now. He's not as scary as Zanth, anyway, and I haven't found any cost effective way to hurt Zanth.

Honestly, I'm not sure taking Jowy's land is a net positive for Gawdzak. There's not a ton of cottages, and Gawdzak needs tech more than he needs land. I do think he'll be able to manage it, but I'm less certain he can manage it at a profit. If he does - well, timing is also a concern . If Furungy manages to mostly keep up in tech and Gawdzak does not, then I may just go south instead of west when we finally make it to a tech lead.

In other news, Zanth took a Nakor city. Hopefully he loses the army that did that - unfortunately my eyes were elsewhere so I can't say if it's likely. He's paused against Slowcheetah - I really really don't understand why. Sure, Nakor's more dangerous, but Slow's not going to get easier by waiting.

2metra continues his mad whipping spree. Furungy's Knight stack disappeared - I guess it headed west. He made sure to show me a pair of Grenadiers in their place . So probably TBS is finally going to exit this game, between the two of them. Although 2metra's whipped more than he'd need for just TBS, I think - maybe some of that is for Zanth. I hope so, anyway!

The world is going up in flames. Ottomans are going to keep trying to stay out of it, for now - although of course eventually the global proletariat needs liberation. It's probably a good thing for us, actually - war everywhere means low investment in the infra people would need to catch our tech rate. As long as we keep safe, that is.

Spent the whole treasury on cannon upgrades, and I think I'm going to keep doing that - knocked science down to 70% to provide a ~200gpt net treasury boost which should finish off the upgrades in maybe 10 turns. Upgrading all our cats is a total cost of 3K, rather more than I expected at 170/per, but it's the best thing we can do for security in this mad world. Boosted us up to 7th Power, which is a good start. Have mostly cannon in the military queues, too, although still most of our production is going toward banks and grocers and such. Honestly, 50 cannon would not be too many, as long as we can provide some form of hitter to go with them.

And, at home we just keep teching. Researched most of Replaceable Parts, will probably finish that and move onto Steam Power next. Trying to keep an eye on Zanth and BaII, who are the most likely Physics competition, but delay Physics until after Railroad if we can. Our workers are bored, so it's a great time to pick up Railroad. More hammers, better military efficiency with our sprawling empire, and of course machine guns. But our third GA is probably dependent on getting that Physics Great Scientist, so I can't let that slip away either. It's a challenge - but I'd rather have our problems than theirs.

[flugauto]

Has Nakor pillaged Zanth's land? If Nakor has, then Zanth gets a wasteland and loses units. A dream.

[Mardoc]

The only thing Nakor's done to Zanth that I've been able to notice is raze those two cities early in the war.

Well, and apparently doublemove him . Waiting on reload to gain our next 1000 beaker catch-up turn.

[flugauto]

How many beakers of ketchup do we need? What techs do we miss?

[Mardoc]

Maybe I can do that survey tomorrow. Not looking likely I can manage to find the time for it today.

[Mardoc]

Haven't done this systematically, but...Zanth just popped up with Assembly Line and Railroad in his 'can research' spot. Which means he's got at least this much on us:

Zanth is ahead:
Rifling
Music
Nationalism
Military Tradition
Constitution
Economics
Corporation
Steam Power

We're ahead:
Astronomy
Scientific Method
Communism

Haven't counted up beakers for these, but I'm pretty sure he still comes out on top. He might have a few more techs that I don't remember off the top of my head. He's Org, so Assembly Line's about to let him catch up in hammers. And he's been eating Slowcheetah and now adding in Nakor to the menu.

(aside: Dang it, Zanth! if you weren't willing to finish Slowcheetah off, can you at least let him get a sub? )

The good news is, we're rocketing along still at 2000+ GNP while the next best competitor is around 1300; even post GA we ought to be well ahead of most people, and our third GA is probably doable within 20 turns.

[Mardoc]

Jowy lost his first city - seems like it was a size 1 or 2 in ex-France; it was razed. 2metra declared on TBS - surely this time is the last war for TBS? Surely? Civstats seems to show two cities falling.

Fake edit: Whoa! And...2metra liberating a Dutch city? There's a sequence of 2metra score increased, Zanth decreased, slowcheetah increased, 2metra decreased to original value. That's going to be interesting - he might have just handed me the game, in fact.

Zanth's stack is inside Persia, and I haven't found any Nakorian units that can kill it. He's probably getting another city next time his stack moves (not sure if that's this turn or next).

The world-wide Power spikes are nuts! Building my ~3 cannon/turn, I'm in 7th Power and likely to remain there until battles start occuring. Or until/unless I panic and swap out all the queues for military - but I still think adding infra will pay off. I should show the Power graph next time I do a complete report to give a scale of the way people are building armies. I'm only outbuilding Zanth, and he's comfortably in 2nd Power so doesn't need to build much. Fortunately, cannon punch well above their weight, so I'm not super-worried yet. Rails should let me do more with less, as well.

Finally got research visibility on Zanth, he's going for Democracy, due in 1. I'm...not at all convinced that should be a higher priority for an Org guy than Assembly Line, but I can't complain. Presumably he's got a GA coming up soon and wants to add in Universal Suffrage for some hammers. And maybe Emancipation, which would make me very glad for Hammams. Also glad he's still not headed toward Physics. We're finishing up Steam Power, so our beaker gap is closing a bit. (just as demos would predict)

Having a bit of trouble figuring out what I should do next. I see lots of little things worth doing: many cities still can benefit from banks / grocers / markets / observatories / courthouses / etc and so on. Growing cities is still worthwhile. We need to generate Great People, and shop for replacements for the resource deals Furungy cancelled on us recently. I'm stacking up cannons, as well, for security, and teching like a madman. But I don't see any big projects that seem possible.

We have only one military advantage on anybody: Galleons. Aside from those, we are even or behind on all military tech against any potential targets: Zanth, Gawdzak, and Furungy all have basically equivalent positions to us. So...short term there's very little we can do militarily. I keep pushing research, and sooner or later we'll have an opportunity.

The one possible exception is Zanth. If he keeps putting off Astro to preserve his Colossus, and keeps ineffectually fighting both Slow and Nakor with no particular focus, then we might be able to go raze his coasts. I'd want 20 cannon, 30 hitters for defense, and then another 20-30 units for attack. Seems like a ton, but we're consistently producing 2-3 units/turn these days without any focus. It might be doable. Especially if that 2metra thing is a sign of times to come!