[SPOILERS PB71]Krill: By the numbers, when the walls fell (on everyone else)

[Krill]

I'm not going to Divine Right. It's a waste of beakers, and the prequisite techs (Monotheism and Theology) give nothing other than civics I have access to due to Scwedagon Paya. UoS was built mostly for denial, but between Mercantilism and UoS every city can be expected to generate a combination of 13 beakers and gold (with no per turn input costs outside the civic costs, which I have to pay anyway). That's enough. Just grab Engineering, Feudalism, Guilds and Banking in some order and go play warlord somewhere.

Additionally, I think that I will get at least two, probably three cities large enough to get 2 commerce routes in many cities via internal trade routes (3 trade routes matters for castles).

[Krill]

Pictures tomorrow when I have time and I will have EP vision on all of Commodores cities but he has close to 50 units in a defensive pose. That's a few more than I thought he had, but he has nothing on his front towards Thoth. They are in a defensive posture but that's irrelevant. I need to ensure I have enough units to handle him. Pindicator hasn't really done anything with his stack and u have enough units to handle him without slavery. Yuri is running around with war elephants. All this preamble to explain two points.

What civics do I revolt into next turn (T168), the last of the first GA, and what tech do I head for next?

I think, counterintuitively, the right choices are Serfdom and Engineering.

The reasoning is this: slavery will not get me more units because I have no cities left to whip without destroying my current MFG lead. I need to swap all cities over to units to put together that 30 unit backup stack and I build that without whipping anything in about 8 turns (Cherry gives 8 units, then Apple, Raspberry and Plum build a further 10 units between them. Pomegranate, Lemon, Carrot all build another 6 and then I have other cities providing the last 6 or so). Those 30 units are all I really need to handle Commodore and Pindi as their stacks stand.

What would make a difference is not longbow, or knights when war elephants are on the scene, its castles to delay city bombard and pikes (all C2 formation!) to counter the elephants. And the road movement to get new units into the grinder.

And most importantly, the road movement allows me to attack Commodores front city with HA stored in Cherry. That forces him to split his stack and makes it easier to defend and flank away invading catapults.

I will have enough fold to run 3 turns of max research after the GA so probably looking at T176 depending on what Bureaucracy looks like. Might be a bit quicker.

[greenline]

I've been pleasantly surprised by how quickly you can get to Engineering on a beeline. With stone or especially protective, it's a very nice economic and military goal in one. Spam them in every city for a free route and good defenses. (But you do need a good economy to get there from machinery)

[Krill]

Promised an update. Just won't be a great one.




Yuri moved a reasonable number of units to be difficult, then I realised that he mis-moved for an invasion and it looks like he just misclicked them out of his capital? Not something to worry about but a really good point why I want 5 pikes in Carrot behind a castle. Also not a reason to revolt into slavery.








In numbers that's quite a lot and deserves respect but in terms of actual units other than spears and axes? I count 28 cats, longbows, swords and war elephants.





After the revolt into Theocracy and Bureaucracy.




After the GA. Three turn Engineering confirmed. Max tax is 125gpt and 62bpt. Mids, GL and UoS have effectively broken the game, now I just need to resolidify my army strength and reinforce world peace through fear.

[Krill]

I just rushed out the turn as I was dealing with morning work emails. Three turns in 20 hours is pretty good.

I looked at the demographics, 1 in every column, but the second place MFG is close. Then I think I should check the event log.

Oh look, Pindi revolted to Judaism. Why would he do that outside a GA? No reason to waste a turn.

Look at the event log further. He triggered a GA three turns ago and I never noticed.

Pin will get Feud about 3 turns before me. I'll easily beat him to Guilds. No one is moving against me and in 8 turns I'll have everything locked down.

The game isn't won but I need to male a major misplay at this point.

[Krill]

I've been pleasantly surprised by how quickly you can get to Engineering on a beeline. With stone or especially protective, it's a very nice economic and military goal in one. Spam them in every city for a free route and good defenses. (But you do need a good economy to get there from machinery)

There's an important point to this. Revolting into Mercantilism will cost me all foreign trade routes, so castles aren't that relevant. At best it will be a two commerce route, versus a three beakers from rep, two culture from Sistene and the rest of the specialist output. But as so many cities are essentially front cities I am going to build them pretty much everywhere anyway. The big question is if, given the health constraints I have, I can get internal trade routes big enough to counteract the lost foreign routes.

I can get Apple to size 17 with a grocer, Cherry to size 17 due to the 6 forests but then it caps out (could get to size 18 on a dye if I needed), but Potato is stuck at size 16 because of the self destruction superdeath caused to his starting area. OTOH, Potato can eat the unhealthiness up to size 20. All my other cities are essentially crippled to around size 12 at best, if I go for a OCS strategy (which, frankly, makes a lot of sense). But those three internal routes are probably enough. I expect to turn tech back on on T179 and hope for Feudalism by T181 (possibly T180) and Guilds eot183 with no gold left. Then Banking should be done eot188 at the latest, and revolt T189.

Ultimately, my goal is to be able to generate 300bpt without the use of the slider (ie if specialists are all set to scientists, although I'll use merchants generally as they are more efficient in most cases).

In this version of RtR engineering does not require Machinery, so pretty much everyone could have gotten to Engineering by now. They just chose not to, but it's worth considering why: Pindicator bulbed Machinery, and just researched Feudalism because he wants knights (he just researched HBR on T173). Commodore went to Feudalism because he wanted a generic defensive unit and vassalage, and it was cheaper than MC and Engineering given he Oracled Monarchy, plus he could build war elephants to manage HA. Thoth went to Feudalism after fighting off samurai, and went to Monarchy for happiness and only then went to MC, pikes are useless for him except to manage Yuri and that just is not a priority.

[greenline]

Does RtR have any way to boost routes besides island cities and slow growing (there's also free market, i suppose) ?Does seem to make Mercantilism on the weaker end.

[Krill]

At this point RtR is essentially built on top of CtH, but the trade routes should be thought of as base BtS trade routes.

[Tarkeel]

Harbors exist, but I'm not sure Krill has any cities that can build them?

[Krill]

Yeah, ToA was built by Bing in his capital (hoping for a prophet, he lucked out every time so far), and I have no coastal cities for harbours (no point, Commodores culture claims all the coastal tiles and there is no seafood to claim).

The only reason trade routes really get highlighted in CtH is because of PRO.