[pb72 spoilers]: the esteemed gentleman's literature and book club

[greenline]

Will have more time to update later today, but important notes from the turn:

Bing revolted into slavery + nationhood. His GA probably ends next turn. Notably, no representation.

Aetryn grabbed economics. He is probably racing us to MinInc if not cereals.

[greenline]

Okay, some things to note now that I have time to report and double check things.

First off, I misread Bing's civic swaps from last turn. He is in Theo / Nationhood, not Slavery / Nationhood. This is a big relief to see. While he will keep up a decently competitive MFG (although he is still 200 behind us at the moment), it means he can not burn all his accumulated pop at once into cannon / cav whips. Because he's already burned so many GPs for three golden ages, it means it will take him quite a while to get a suite for a 4th GA, especially since he is no longer in pacifism. He can draft rifles on the defense, but they are not so great on the offense and take 2 pop to draft.

(another mistake from my end: my vacation starts at the start of October, not the end. October 1 - 5 or so. I'll pencil in this later)

And, sadly, rails need two workers to finish in one turn.




I'm honestly completely puzzled by Bing's choices in tech and civics here. He had all the time in the world to at least grab Constitution and not be sitting in HR for a bunch more turns. If he wanted to use Theocracy for a military push, then why not also go in Slavery? He has the highest pop in the game and a bunch of it is tied up working coast tiles that are now sad 2/0/2 yield outside of his GA. Because he's half assed it, I now feel comfortable turning wealth builds back on. Without Bing being able to whip a shit ton of cavs he doesn't have much hope of pushing through my current garrisons. Not having Slavery as Aztecs, given his land, really seems a waste.

With all that being said, I think this solidifies Aetryn as the biggest long term threat. He has been drafting me pretty well in terms of research. The main priority now is beating him to cereals.

I'll do a general city overview on t200. For now, I wanted to show off the kind of average low pop city I have, and the amount of value it provides. Take this city, which only has grass farms and an iron resource to its name:




Plentiful forests to chop most of the infrastructure, a rep specialist or two, and it outputs this level of commerce. Not included is the shrine money. If other players are curious about how my MFG is so high, it is due to a lot of cities like this.

Finally, an overview of what I have scouted of Aetryn's land.













At first blush, it seems a bit greener and richer than ours, but not to the extent Xist's stuff is. It is definitely enough for him to be a space race contender.

[greenline]

SoL would be great as well, but MinInc alone is better than it IMHO, especially as the HQs are unnerfed in this game. There's still the cost of spreading it, execs are still 100 hammers and you need gold, but still.

Would we want to spread MinInc ASAP once it is available, or wait until we have landed Cereals to do them both at once? Currently we are teching Constitution -> Corporation.

MMm. Juicy. Remember to build the watermills in the correct order; IE NW of the city before N.

Sadly, I think NW would kill the irrigated farm next to it.

[Tarkeel]

I'll do a general city overview on t200. For now, I wanted to show off the kind of average low pop city I have, and the amount of value it provides. Take this city, which only has grass farms and an iron resource to its name:




Plentiful forests to chop most of the infrastructure, a rep specialist or two, and it outputs this level of commerce. Not included is the shrine money. If other players are curious about how my MFG is so high, it is due to a lot of cities like this.

With serfdom, some of your best tiles are grass lumbermills and grasshill windmills; up until electricity they're as good as watermills. I wouldn't chop those forests unless it's an emergency.

SoL would be great as well, but MinInc alone is better than it IMHO, especially as the HQs are unnerfed in this game. There's still the cost of spreading it, execs are still 100 hammers and you need gold, but still.

Would we want to spread MinInc ASAP once it is available, or wait until we have landed Cereals to do them both at once? Currently we are teching Constitution -> Corporation.

Start spreading ASAP; it takes a while. It's also good to find the balance in spreading to cities that can continue the spread vs cities that need the production. Remember that you can only have 3 execs at once, including in queue, so you don't want to waste time on moving.

MMm. Juicy. Remember to build the watermills in the correct order; IE NW of the city before N.

Sadly, I think NW would kill the irrigated farm next to it.

Farm 2W of the city is right next to a lake, so already irrigated.

[greenline]

With serfdom, some of your best tiles are grass lumbermills and grasshill windmills; up until electricity they're as good as watermills. I wouldn't chop those forests unless it's an emergency.

The only forests I've been aggressive on chopping are on hills. Flatland forests I have only chopped for farms when a city needs the extra food or irrigation - otherwise they are all lumbermilled.

Promised a city overview but I was stuck sweating and dealing with car bullshit for most of the day. So it will come tomorrow. On the plus side, a bunch of levees finish next turn, so the city overviews will look much nicer.

[greenline]

bummer of a turn:




Aetryn is asking about the rules in the tech thread and I am pretty sure I know why. With some crazy amount of wealth building he finished Railroad and presumably has enough to finish corp this turn. So MinInc could be down to a coinflip next turn if he has an engineer. I'm frustrated in myself for not seeing this coming and committing to one turning Corp last turn. But I didn't think he'd be able to 2 turn Railroad. I guess CreCon is not horrible as a backup, but god damn.

Lousy Bing for slowing us down in tech this whole time. Was it worth it? Bing got basically nothing out of that besides looking scary for a moment.

Would it be worth using our merchant to just bulb corp this turn to guarantee we land MinInc? I give you permission to log in for that, Tarkeel, if you think it is the best play. I'll be out for several hours after this and the turn will probably roll.

On the bright side, here are some overviews of core cities juiced up with levees and such.













Watermill is in the wrong place here, I'll move it when the city has spare food post biology.

[Tarkeel]

Aetryn is asking about the rules in the tech thread and I am pretty sure I know why. With some crazy amount of wealth building he finished Railroad and presumably has enough to finish corp this turn. So MinInc could be down to a coinflip next turn if he has an engineer. I'm frustrated in myself for not seeing this coming and committing to one turning Corp last turn. But I didn't think he'd be able to 2 turn Railroad. I guess CreCon is not horrible as a backup, but god damn.

The rules as written don't have anything to say about founding corps, and when I tried to raise it in previous games I was told it was similar to bulbing techs: ie, first to do it wins. According to that interpretation, it would go to whomever logs in first, which I feel is wrong, as it gives incentive to camp the timer and play double.

Would it be worth using our merchant to just bulb corp this turn to guarantee we land MinInc? I give you permission to log in for that, Tarkeel, if you think it is the best play. I'll be out for several hours after this and the turn will probably roll.

Given that Aetryn is about to play the double and get the corp, I think it might be worth bulbing and founding. Cereals is good, but it's best when you're running slavery with Kremlin.

[Tarkeel]

I went ahead and did it, but have to run out myself. Pics to follow later. Set research to SciMet at 0%.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 201 (1410 AD)
With Aetryn turning on the gas towards Corporation it's worth blowing the Cereals Merchant on bulbing Corporation this turn and founding MinInc in Creation, as previously discussed.


We need another two banks before the city can build Wall Street, so for now MinInc costs about 8gpt in each city. I used the other exec in Atlas and set both cities to build new execs, and turning down research for a turn both to get spreading gold and beacuse I wasn't certain where you wanted to go next.

(Note that Xist isn't in Mercantilism, so if he ever signs peace and OB you can spread MinInc to him)

[Tarkeel]

Adding some empire overview shots, for myself if nobody else:

Southern Core


Forms our primary border towards Bing, but the peaks severly limit the possible axes of advance. Modern Warfare will be hell in this area; we should build some fort airbases on the spare border hills.

Roman Hot Pocket


Carved by steel, this bulge is somewhat exposed, but mainly from Aetryn. Mediolanum should probably be pushing culture to get second ring for vision. Poor Ardea and Arpinum though.

Frozen Frontier


Some pretty borderline cities here, Biology can't come soon enough for them.
Make sure to connect all the metals here for MinInc.

Western Wastes


Extremely awkward geograph here; Forgotten Soldier and Good Earth are basically on their own if Bing ever invades.

Northwest Passage


This might actually be where we invade Aetryn from down the line. Staging E of Odyssey, you can land outside Forgiveness.