[SPOILERS] joey and scooter's thread: FUN THINGS ONLY

[GermanJoey]

There once was a player named spacetyrantxenu who was King of The Pirates. He had fame, glory, and culture beyond your wildest dreams... on the day they finally brought him to the gallows, these were the words he said:

"You want my fortune? It's yours! - but you'll have to find it first. I left everything I have in One City..."

[GermanJoey]

So, regarding TBS. The big question is whether or not he's going for a Cultural Victory... I think he's perfectly set up to do it, and while he probably can't compete with BGN and Finharry (who, with landing the SoL, remain solid competitors with BGN in the endgame despite being down many cities) for space, he could beat them with culture. I have a lot of experience with CV from many years of high-level single-player play, as its often the only way to salvage a win on a non-Pangaea map with bad geography. Here's my tealeaf reading on TBS's potential preparation for one:

Signs for:

• He is spreading Christianity and Hinduism purposely with missionaries, and perhaps Judiasm as well. I've only been tracking closely for a few turns, since most of dazed's land was fogged and he never had a state religion, and I've def seen these religions pop up in cities that had only Confucianism before. Here's a map of his religious spread:
  
  
  

• He built the Sistine Chapel, the "Cultural Victory wonder"
  
• He has the AP, meaning he's already got one religion fully spread and all its temples and cathedrals built.
  
• He's Spi AND Phi, the single two best traits for a CV.
  

Neutral signs:

• He is in Pacifism, which is typically what you want after all your religions are spread in order to generate some extra Great Artists. However, I think he's just going for a 4th, MoM-fueled GA.
  

Signs against:

• He's not in OR to speed religious spread.
  
• He has not spread Taoism at all.
  
• He's already generated a billion GP, meaning it will be hard to generate a lot of artists for bombs later.
  
• He's already built, I think, a few Confucian Academies on our border - all of my cities on that border have Academies and yet he's still pushing my culture back, which can't be accounted for just from the Sistine alone. Then again, he may have so many AP temples built that he can spare these here.
  
• He has not researched Scientific Method, nor switched into Free Speech. He has the AP, so he won't want to obsolete his Monasteries, but this is an important civic for CV due to the +100% culture and the extra commerce from towns.
  
• He is spreading Confucianism to cities with no religion - this is one of the biggest arguments AGAINST a cultural victory, although it could either be a misdirection or a mistake. For CV you actually want to found new garbage "flycatcher" cities in the hope that they'll get a random religion spread that you don't have... TBS has 5, but an additional one could cut a half-dozen turns or more from his victory date.
  
• He's not researched Democracy, much less switched into Universal Suffrage. Cash-rushing temples and cathedrals is a classic CV technique. The cottage growth mechanic from Emancipation is also really great for CV, as US towns easily outperform even Sistine artists in culture per turn once the slider is cranked.
  

The big question for me is, if he *is* gonna do it, do I let him do it? We've had our troubles between us - a settling race and a long cultural cold war on our border - but we've been fairly peaceful for a long time. I'm thinking that unless some huge break comes my way, I don't have any real chance to win this game. So, what incentive do I have for stopping TBS from winning a CV, even if I could (and I probably could if I get that GG from Facism), just to let OH or BGN win via space? I don't even know where OH is on the map! On the other hand, TBS has played a hell of a game, getting into a top position with a leader whose traits are considered by many as some of the worst in RtR (Phi for sure, and while I like Spi many others hate it) despite constantly fighting (he's been at war with Me, Xenu, Hashoosh/Furungy, dazed, Zanth/Gavagai, and dtay). That said, I still care a lot about our stupid cultural cold war. I want to keep my core cities' BFCs intact and I especially want my goddamn wheat tile. I'm even building my Hermitage there (finishing in 2t) to secure it, at least from any collateral culture from Sistine buildings. If the tile still flips, I'll know he's purposely trying to muscle past it, showing no respect to me, and I might have to rethink some things....

[Ceiliazul]

Really good analysis Joey, including some things I hadnt thought about in my own CVs.

[GermanJoey]

[GermanJoey]

T204.




I think I'll be juuuuuuuust barely able to 2-turn Oxford after this...

Fascism general secured! Rifling in 2 (as long as I'm not attacked next turn, I'm fine) and then MT can be 1-turned after that at like 90% slider. West point will be like a... 7 turn build after that (forgot that its like 800 base hammers, holy shit), and then its Commando time!

[Qgqqqqq]

2t-Oxford is impressive! Boy, that is one lovely capital - I especially like the 5f-town

Do you have any plans on how to use those commandos, or are they primarily deterrent?

[GermanJoey]

deterrent, mostly. Like I posted before, as long as TBS respects my borders, I'll support him in his cultural victory attempt.

[GermanJoey]

all of my games have slowed to a crawl - anyone want to see a domestic overview? I haven't done one in ages and I guess I have time now.

[Ceiliazul]

all of my games have slowed to a crawl - anyone want to see a domestic overview? I haven't done one in ages and I guess I have time now.

I would love to see a domestic overview.

Mostly im curious how your love affair with Zoo has gone this long without you putting a ring on it with Oxford?? No OU until after coal plants? Ye gods! Zoo looks like it is contributing over 20% of your raw beakers and Oxford will be a very significant boost.

And yet, 2-turning rifling at 60% without much overflow is impressive in ANY empire... how will you stack up with the leaders after oxford?

Oh and one more question: Who gets the hammer next? Where is the BLOOD? !

[GermanJoey]

all of my games have slowed to a crawl - anyone want to see a domestic overview? I haven't done one in ages and I guess I have time now.

I would love to see a domestic overview.

Mostly im curious how your love affair with Zoo has gone this long without you putting a ring on it with Oxford?? No OU until after coal plants? Ye gods! Zoo looks like it is contributing over 20% of your raw beakers and Oxford will be a very significant boost.

And yet, 2-turning rifling at 60% without much overflow is impressive in ANY empire... how will you stack up with the leaders after oxford?

Oh and one more question: Who gets the hammer next? Where is the BLOOD? !

For you, my good doctor, I'd be happy to do a domestic overview when I get home from work tonight.

In the meantime: Zoo does not have Oxford yet because it's been hell to get 8 universities online in light of other pressures. I'm one of the stronger civs in the game, sure, but all game long I feel like I've had to do more with less. Thus, I have not had much production to spare. For reference, as I guess its been a long time since I've posted a demographics chart, I still am, at the moment, in 9th place in land, at something like 35-40% the size of the leader (BGN I guess), but I'm also 5th in number of cities, 4th in population, and I believe 4th in total beakers researched. (its fairly close between dtay and I, but after that there's a huge gap between us and 6th place Krill)

Unfortunately, like in PB22, a lot of that population, perhaps 1/3 of my total cities, is in iceball islands and tundra hellholes and other junk like that, good for bringing in income via lighthoused coast, specialists, and passive trade routes, but not much to speak of as far as actually useful hammers go. Another 1/3 of my cities are "little pumps," size 7-10 fillers with barebones infrastructure (granary/forge/AP buildings) that have been great for producing missionaries, catapults (IIRC I lost something like 100 catapults conquering Persia), drafted Jans, harbours, etc.

So, if you went back 5 turns ago, I'd say I actually had 6 only "real" cities in my empire where a 200h University investment made sense:

• Three production cities (Hastee Tastee, Moonshine, and Cedar Point). These have primarily pumped military for the last 100 turns, but I have squeezed out useless Universities in all of them in the margins. An additional large part of their output has been wasted on cultural buildings - Confucian Cathedrals, Theatres, my Hermitage in HT, a couple turns on straight-up culture to get 4th ring borders in M, etc. I think I'll end up putting Christian Cathedrals in them too at some point.
  
• My Moai is a great city of course. It's mostly pumped military but does have good infrastructure too, including a University.
  
• Carnival used to be another big hammer city, but had to rework itself into a GPP center to get my 3rd GA on track for factory acceleration. It still had enough hammers to get a University though.
  
• Zoo and Haymaze are pure commerce cities. They've got pretty much every economic building, including Universities, only by virtue of needing to build nothing but economic buildings.
  

And that's it. I also had Persepolis developing into a 7th "real city", and it finished a University recently, after first building a Granary, Forge, and Library first. (also remember that nearly all my Persian conquests all came captured at size 1 with nearly no infrastructure) That left only 1 more university to go, and I started it in one of my "little pumps" around t160, I believe. It took something like 20-25 turns for it to finish, heh, just in time for me to have other priorities in Zoo, such as a Jail and a Levee. I made the call that it'd be better to finish a levee first (+17 base hammers per turn) in time for my GA (+34 base hammers) and then grab the factory + coal plant next before finally tackling Oxford. I dunno, I guess I coulda put a second university in another little pump earlier, but I think my call not to was the right one considering I barely triumphed over Persia in the end. It might actually have been the wrong call to build it in that little pump at all!

Oxford will "only" add about 250*70% break even rate = ~176bpt in the GA, which is like a 9% increase to my total? Nothing to sneeze at for sure, but not worth bending over backwards for, IMHO. That's actually similar to what I'd gain from Free Religion, I'm now just realizing, wow. The cost of Theocracy is really that high? Well, I'd still rather have that extra promo since I can't compete with TBS in terms of sheer masses of units if culture push ends up coming to commando shove. Anyways, it'll be cool as hell to see Zoo pushing close to 900bpt at full slider on the last turn of this GA. I don't think it'll affect my relative tech rate compared to the top 3 but maybe it'll give me an edge over dtay in the final standings for this game.

Thankfully, with levees and factories and coal plants installed, my little pumps will finally become real cities and I'll be able to head out into the world again - you will have your BLOOD. Right now I have my eye on HAK again, who's currently dealing with a pathetically small CH invasion. (something like 5 rifles and 5 cats in total, I guess aiming to claim HAK's Moai) I'm still deciding whether to delay WP for a turn or two in order to save enough gold to upgrade my Jan stacks into infantries en-masse a turn earlier. Maybe I could get a loan from somewhere and do both? Hmmm... the one caveat with invading CH is that it'll give me a new border with BGN, which I'm not interested in at all.

Invading CH himself is also an idea I've toyed around with a bit, with the goal there not really to gain any of his land for myself but to incite plako to pile on and remove the Greeks' offending light blue borders from my southern shores. However, I think I like better plako sitting idly by with his enormous standing SoD because I think it'll make TBS less inclined to make any offensive moves in my direction in fear that the French Foreign Legion floats over in his direction should an opening arise. If plako does in fact invade CH on his own I'll see what I can do to help him out, maybe farm some XP...