[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[Commodore]

Well, a pretty uneventful turn all things considered. Only thing kinda cool is my attempt at a galley chain to bring the settler eastward as soon as possible. Not all that interesting, but kinda fun.



Good news, bad news on the capital cit...er, "top five" cities screen. The good news is that Aquilonia is finally the highest population city in the world, woo hoo. The bad news is that RL7 built the Kremlin, almost effortlessly. It's almost like they feel they need more of an edge in production.



Silliness aside, it really is crunch time for decisions about how to play this string out. With tech parity or tech exceeding myself and Luddite, anything we can build they can build bigger, they can build anything bigger than we. A dogpile (complete with, no offense, the terrier-sized Yuri) might mean we have equal hammers into armies than they do, and even drafting is less of an advantage in the infantry age.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Seven, if given the choice between killing me or killing Yuri, would shred the Ottomans in a second. Likewise, and this is somewhat less sure, I think he views Luddite as a closer rival/threat than I am. If I could pump out artists, build those cathedrals fast, and go 100% culture, I might, might be able to pull off three legendary cities before the NAP cooldown + attack utterly crushes me. Hrm.

In either case, I need to head up Philo-Nationalism-Constitution to Democracy and Assembly Line. I have probably until then to decide if I'm going to go full-on culture mode and hope, or full-on military mode and hope. Either way, a strong general infra push is going to be in order right now, with the only modification of the normal builds spreading Judaism and Buddhism to my 3/4 target cities, and making enough temples to go all-out cathedrals when (or if) called for.

[Commodore]

Okay, about to do a massive Turn 125 report with all my cities, etc, but first, a little oddity; why don't I control this tile?



Also, ded-lurker question, Ceil, I know we're in the endgame here, one way or another. How'd you feel about joining me for another?

[Commodore]

Hookay, maybe its because everyone else is in a Golden Age or is Mali, but the Turn 125 demos (saving gold, thank goodness) look ugly:



Oh, merch was part of the GA for Yuri, so my trade took a hit too. This, at least, will be looking up in two more turns.



The Second Golden Age of Hyboria better be a doozy, because things are looking kinda bleak. That GA is coming up pretty soon, needing only one more non-scientist to trigger:



Cities, spoiled for file hugeness:

Aquilonia, my pride and joy. About a third of the gold generated this turn is from her. I won't be leaving Bureau unless I'm attempting a weird end-run at a final cultural push at the end of the game. Three turns from now all mines/lumbermill will be railroaded, and the levee will finish, upping by another 11 the hammers here...on further reflection, I should make a Buddhist missionary next turn, the levee will still take two more turns and I'll lose less hammers that way. Overflow is the name of the game here, soon I'll be building 2-turn MG's for more or less everywhere.



Ophir is limping to its last pop point here, after which it will turn hammers into cultural output or military, depending on how my last gasp looks. You were right, by the way Ceil. This place was too food poor to be my second city, although its been a real trouper nonetheless. It's at least unboatable, which will be nice in the final days of the empire. I'd love for the last battle to occur here.



My strong-but-not-critical core generalist is Koth, which would have been quite the miserable city indeed were it not for the iron mine and the butt-ton of food. Koth's main contribution has been to grow all five cottages now donated to Aquilonia into villages/towns, which is not a minor help. Once the grocer adds some health I might actually use this as a globe site, the food surplus would mean even infantry could be drafted often, and it's not like I'm dying for more tiles to work.



Nemedia is the last of the Old Core, and has also more or less reached its cap, especially now that the scientist has been born. It's darn exposed on the coast, but that coast is Lake Hyboria...hrm, Ceil, does this city look potentially legendary to you? It might actually be a stronger prospect than Zamora...which, if so, means I need to halt building a cathedral there. For a city working coast for most of its life, this place is still remarkably strong, with an okay post-rails hammer output and the ability to work plenty of artists.



Zingara, having grown like a weed, is now ready to churn out GP when needed, and I'll be kicking it into high gear next turn, working on making "not a scientist". I expect Pacifism and caste to give me a couple more Great Artists on demand too before the pool gets too deep. The place is as exposed as all hell, which will suck the second anyone with a few boats and a desire to cause trouble rolls in. Still, until that fateful day, keep on farmin' Zingara.



Zamora. Sooooo yeah. Might want to reconsider this place as a third cultural city, although that will mean four irreplaceable turns of building down the toilet. Grocer needs to go in either way, it's hard enough to grow this place without fighting the food lost to unhealthiness. Seven towns will be nice once they finally mature though...I'm having a little trouble deciding on this one, honestly. Maybe I should just use this place for machine guns. In any case, this is the least of the Six Core Cities of Hyboria, hands down, although its still a nice enough burg.



Who's late and useless? This guy, Bossonian Mark. Great Moai site about two thousand years ago, only now getting up and running. I'll swap to a Jewish missionary next turn and the whip him three turns later for maximal overflow, then maybe do it again. Once the stones do go up it'll be okay, I'm just kicking myself for how long it took to work this bugger.



Khoraja of the hot, dry east is going through a growth spurt right now, although if I feel even vaguely threaten it's back to the hills she goes. Settled for marble that wasn't urgently needed, nonetheless more Hyborian soldiers are grown from this sparse region than anywhere else in the nation. With the invention of steam engines more and more the focus of this arid land is turned towards the construction of navy. Which with a dry dock+ heroic epic, will happen fast.



Khauran is a fishing village devoid of purpose, carrying its weight but little more. I know that the attack, no matter how abortive, of Egypt might have tanked any chance of anyone not Malinese winning the game, but I'm going to point at this poor cripple, always looking longing at those nearby crabs, as the reason.



Looking northward to the hub we have Xapur, a trader to the realm if there ever was one. The rathaus just whipped in turns this place into pure profit, and I'm just going to be growing and growing from now on as no amount of infrastructure I can whip in could compare with the empire-wide profit of its trade routes. On a hill with rifles in it, this place will actually be reasonably secure too unless a concerted effort is made to take it.



Brythunia, the capital of the hub, needs a Forbidden Palace soon but I am loathe to whip it anymore. I'll probably swap off the silver and steal back the deer soon to grow even bigger for a little, as this place needs to be working all five remaining marginal tiles should be fine, grow to seventeen, run an engineer, and stagnate with an almost core-city size output.



Poor Hyperborea has a pitiful surplus, and all its wow tiles are hard to hold onto without stagnation, but for all that it's keeping up as a member of the empire, and ironically its probably the securest place in my lands, what was once at the forefront of Hyborian expansion now a sleepy (if cold) backwater. Of all the places to live in this world, I might note, that village 2W is the most pleasant I think.



Corinthia, solidly in control of its BFC, is going to be a very strong miner in a few turns once it snags back the pigs from Pictish Point. The culture fight is always going to be an issue here but artist specialists give me confidence that I can keep this place intact. If/when RL7 strikes, this is the French city I'll be sorriest to see go.



Cimmera is feeling the pressure of two strong cities against its one, although with Sistine artists I can claim the nice windmill tile back at least, and probably the village out east will be feeling more yellow soon too. Great place over all, obvious tagged as my northern navy-producer. Of course, day one of any Mali war this place evaporates like spit on a griddle.



Finally, the new little guy Pictish Point is a commerce monster in about thirty turns once all those cottages actually grow into towns. I wish I could have swung capturing Corinthia way back when it was barbarian Parthan, because this place would have been an awesome Moai location. As the natives of this land used to say though, cest la vive, non?

[Commodore]

How's this for a landmark? Second nation too reach the total too, although a sizable portion of both 2000k populations still have mustaches and superiority complexes. Mr. Nice Guy, your citizens live on as a very persistent minority.



The French cultural battles continue, with Cimmera's next target being that lovely little soon-to-be-town on the land-bridge. Hey, anything that make it less attractive to attack my core, I'll take...and if it's a 2/0/7 tile, so much the better.



Without the Sistine, I'd be having a lot more trouble with most of this crap. I'll be waiting in this little rock's case for Caste, but 5 turns of a single artist is halfway to third-ring should secure myself from annoying flips at least.



Ah, and as for when that will be...looks like in six turns I'll be firing that GA, fortunately my GPP pool is unpolluted here in Zingara. Not a terrible rate, and the GA will mean this stable configuration giving a massive +76GPP per turn. What are the thresholds again for GP birth?



I feel so very left out of this whole golden age thing. Yuri will definitely be cascading into a double GA, although a triple is probably unrealistic. Also seen in this imagine, buncha white workers all thinkin' they be John Henry, makin' dem rails.



Considering the absurd skill level disparity between Seven and the rest of us, I feel fairly good about myself here. There demos would definitely be cause for hope, were it not for, y'know, the first in all categories researching Radio while I am tackling Philosophy.



Radio makes me think, I doubt these guys would like to lose the hammer bonuses on their temples, but I could be wrong and they'd be willing to bite the bullet and go for the UN for denial purposes. With a little work I think I could get Diplomatic Victory votes from Luddite and Yuri, as second in pop would I be the other option? Hrm. Maybe if I could somehow contact Ranamar, he'd vote for me too...that's got to suck, losing your civilization to a know-it-all bully.

Bully, you say? Well, Yuri's sending RL7 20 gpt for the Merch revolt, being threatened with privateer blockades. I'll be contacting Luddite as soon as possible about us going into Merch ourselves for a while, just to slap the GLH holder around a bit. I mean, sure he's massively powerful and light-years more experienced than the rest of us, but that's just wrong man.

[regoarrarr]

Not a terrible rate, and the GA will mean this stable configuration giving a massive +76GPP per turn. What are the thresholds again for GP birth?

I think it will actually be 57GPP/t, since your base is 19 * (100 for NE + 100 for GA)

[Commodore]

I think it will actually be 57GPP/t, since your base is 19 * (100 for NE + 100 for GA)

Ach sorry, I meant GA plus being in Pacifism. Yeah, I do wish the bonuses were multiplicative rather than additive.

*edit

And we have another worker. Regoarrarr the worker is going to hang out near the Mali front, where in addition to being expected to make bricks without straw he'll also be called on to wipe out incoming Machine Gun/Infantry/Cannon stacks with nothing but cats, cavs, and the occasional rifle.

[Commodore]

Right, not a lot crackin' now, but a few more turns will see a lot of fun as the GA pops. Man, I want to fire off a decent GA now, this is a silly-huge number of GNPs. Everyone at full research, I believe.



Sweet. Anyway, with the construction of a levee, Aquilonia is now rapidly running out of stuff to build. Universal Suffrage + GA will make this place start to build up huge excesses even while churning 1-turn MGs for the empire.



The other place for silly unit production is finally weaving in the Heroic Epic, plus, hey, railroad mines are nice.



Finally, my internal TRs got another got another shot in the arm with the icy rock of Barachan Isle, barely breaking even this turn due to my big cities' being on a different landmass. Man, check that toriodal maintenance in action there.



I'm behind, but then again, most everyone is. Luddite mentioned his NAP with RL7 expires Turn 150, after that, the world start to burn. Even with quick speed discounts I can't expect to drive my cities up to legendary in 20-30 turns. So military it is, bring the popcorn my children.

[Commodore]

Well, I could have been in a golden age right now, but I decided to let it wait a turn. I could have gone hungry a bit and really have pushed a GP out pronto, but why bother? Might as well use the GA boosted production on the SoL (for failgold) and wait a bit. Zingara could have really pushed the sucker, though.



As it was, after EoT this morning (turn 130), I got an Elvis wannabe to go with my hunched nerd.



I'm not the only one pushing the GP. Yuris is still trying for a cultural victory, I'm willing to bet.



Looking at the front, it's a good thing that we didn't try pushing Egypt further. His relatively backline cities still have a decent set of forces in them. Still happy with my island settling rights.



If this all seem a little dull, that's because it is. Mostly, I've been workin' on the railroad, all the live-long day.



Next turn ought to be a lot more interesting.

[Commodore]

Boy, that's fun...hit "Submit Reply", check the tracker, and hey, it's already too me again. Sweet.

So, have myself a great artist, a great scientist, and two of the three other people I'm playing with have switched to Mercantilism. What's a bloody tyrant to do? Take it away, Mr. Event Log!



I now prefer to call myself "Prime Minster". Also, specialists.



Democracy is exciting, don't get me wrong though. I'm not in the freer systems, but don't think I'm not into liberty. I fully expect to see some fail gold here, and if worst comes to worst, hey, free SoL.



Oh that's what it feels like to have a 2k GNP. I like it, with suffrage I might even be able to keep it afterward.



With a little jiggering, I'm also going to be using that great GA production to help with those dismal soldier numbers too. I'm probably pathetically deluded here, but I think I'm actually still in this thing. Mali and Egypt are still 1 and 2, but hey, what could happen? They tag-team me or something?

[Ceiliazul]

Boy, that's fun...hit "Submit Reply", check the tracker, and hey, it's already too me again. Sweet.

I have been continually impressed with the pace of this PBEM, you've got a good thing going here Commodore. At this point your chances of winning are slim, but still hanging on.

You said earlier that attacking RL7 isn't much of a choice... I guess that's true. Just remember that your only chance of winning is for Egypt and Mali to ride each other into the ground. It's reasonable to think that Mali would shift focus to their original core in a defensive war, so your chances of consolidating the mustachioed peoples under the yellow Transformers flag are... well its the best chance you have.

Where will you go on the tech front after industralization? I don't see any other way than a Plastics beeline for the oil... and you need a modern navy to defend that oil. Almost certainly, each Civ's oil will be a primary target. Especially as air power becomes prevalent, oil will be make or break the war effort.

As far as culture goes, I don't see any way you get there unless you can gain NAPs with all the parties at war. It seems like that choice between butter and guns needs to be made once and for all during this golden age.

So, if you sell out for the culture victory, you'll need to stay out of this war. If you sell out for a military victory, you'll need to stop even considering culture.

Put another way, "If you chase two rabbits, you'll lose them both."