[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

[Rusten]

How are we doing? I'm back home, but I'm a little afraid of logging into a bunch of diplo screens I wouldn't know what to do with, so if we're at war I'll just jump on after you play.

[Miguelito]

Doing swell! We have peace with civac's galleons, and can have frigates by the time it runs out. We're 2 turns from Lib and I suspect nobody's competing, and we're finishing our 3rd wonder this turn (Paya, not sure it was worth it). 2nd in world food - about 20 behind civac - and world power - behind civac by a whole lot.

With civac's peace I did the most shameful reversal of alliances and treachorously backstabbed our friend Elkad. If I were an expert at teleporting I could have struck his wounded 3 promo knights which had just beaten up civac's invasion - who evacuated his English conquests with our units looming, but may come back at them considering we are Elkad's new likely main target. We don't have as many units around, and lots of draftees against Elkad's highly promoted CHA knights, but we should at least make some nice gains and reduce his production base enough to drown him.

The one downside is that with the civac situation and the new war I have been drafting our core 5 times every turn during the GA. Corta Cana and Bonfim were left alone mostly, at least.

So, interesting turns coming up!

[Rusten]

Preliminary thoughts:
Game state looks very good. Lib looks secure. Couldn't see anyone with it in "can research" tab.
Lib-astro --> Literature (NE in Para and HE somewhere) --> Steel (first to drydocks is a huge deal) --> military science (dominate seas). Obsoleting the Colossus is a necessary evil. We are too vulnerable otherwise. At that point we'll need to decide if it's time to hit civac while we have advantage both on land and sea or conquer the nearby continent without him being able to interfere much.

I feel bad for Elkad, but he wasn't doing any military build-up at all last time I checked so joining on his side wouldn't be fruitful. Scavenge what you can.

edit: Economics first for the GM is best if there is no competition for that. Looks like that's what you have in mind. You've probably written this already but I have a lot of posts to catch up on. Tech that within 2 turns and adopt free market end of golden age. Very nice!
Nevermind, we don't have banking so there's no time.

To provoke some thoughts: Do we ever gamble on Liberalism still being available 2 turns from now and go banking --> economics to fit in Free Market before end of GA? That said, I haven't calculated whether we have the beakers for it. Sadly my initial count now has us coming up short.

[Rusten]

Some more food for thought:
Banking --> Lib (economics) --> astro (self-tech)

Positives: Can fit in free market during GA. Keeps Colossus active a few turns longer.
Negatives: Could lose lib (although very unlikely) due to 1 turn delay. Economics is cheaper than Astronomy and the latter even doesn't have a pre-req bonus (4 KTB rn).

IDK what our average trade route gives right now, but I imagine it's at least 5c, so fitting in FM will yield an extra ~150 commerce per turn. That wins back the beaker difference quite quickly. Would it make us vulnerable to galleons? I think not with 9 turns of civac peace. What do you think?

[Miguelito]

Yes, that totally seems worth trying. My worry is that after the GA we may lack economic strength to reach Astro sufficiently early before the peace runs out, so we can get a number of privateers online.
Otoh that's what Free Market helps with, right? And the GM should still be out there as well. I have yet to review ingame if it makes sense to me.

[Rusten]

Cornflakes played since I was in. Check to see if he bulbed education.

I like the free market in GA route. Astro will be teched fairly quickly -- and we can prebuild galleys etc.

[Miguelito]

I went with the banking plan. Might be a greedy play to come back to bite us, but it's fun, and that's what we're here for.

Cornflakes played since I was in. Check to see if he bulbed education.

He hadn't.

Meanwhile the Elkad campaign is proving more problematic than expected. He is playing out Cha to his fullest advantage. After throwing a GG on his wounded knights, he now has a bunch of guys running around with 4 promos each. They'll still be wounded next turn though (having moved), and we can hit with collateral and every drafted musket that I could get to the front. At least the knights don't get the culture defense.
Otoh, his 1 movers are coming in. He also may attack out for flanking hits. Maybe I'll even sim the combat? Would be a pain to set up.


razed 2 cities; one that was going to civac otherwise, the other I didn't want to have to hold, and it can be replaced with 2, more tightly spaced ones.

[Rusten]

What are we building a Tao missionary for? Asking because I want to finish the knight in queue and start on a bank (Bonfim).

[Miguelito]

- wanted for the knight to get Theocracy XP
- for Theocracy I want to convert to Tao because most military cities have it already. Also gives us culture in Elkad cities.

[Rusten]

The knight goes to 88/90, can switch to bank next turn before finishing it the turn after again. Sounds better to me unless you really want to spread Tao somewhere. Bank in Bonfim is a lot of gold. Can build missionaries after.