[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

[Miguelito]

Elkad reoffered the peace without taking the city that I emptied for him
I took it, although I'll probably regret it, but maybe it helps him mount a defense against civac. But civac is now sending a mainland stack. He's 8 turns away from London so I guess he *should* not get it in the next 10.

With peace with civac for 6 more turns, now that the GA is over was the first turn I didn't draft . Will resume soon enough for civac defense / intercontinental expedition force / London mop up, but for now it felt better to let the Spanish cities grow and not draft away Colossus coast while we have it. Astro in 3t. More important than the draft will be to whip a bunch of privateers, and a second wave of frigates. I have yet to evaluate the timing for Chemistry to assess how to weigh both.
I am preparing two settling parties and workers/WBs for the astro land, and offered map trades with the earlier explorers to get a better idea where to settle exactly. We also have 2 filler spots in Spain left (W of Filho de Ogúm / horse island).

I am not very happy with the last ten turns, which is sad because that was the Taj GA, a supposed moment of joy. Mostly the Elkad war was a huge mistake that I can't beat myself up enough over. Limited playtime also gets in the way of thinking/planning things through. Another symptom is that right now we have 4 GPs sitting around (2GE/2GM), and I don't really have an idea what to do with them . GA into Democracy/Mining/Sushi? There are also some very tasty industrial wonders to save a GE for.

civac is dumping his many Zigg EPs on us now, and I'm wondering if we'll have to run 10% at some point to counter. Also building our own CHs of course, but less, although they get enhanced a bit by Nat.

[Miguelito]

Elkad reoffered the peace without taking the city that I emptied for him
I took it, although I'll probably regret it, ...

One reason for regret is souring relations with civac. It makes it look like we're leaving him to deal with Elkad's units, while we'll still can't and won't let him get all, including London. And that look probably is there because it's not that far from the truth. But it's scummy. Anyways, we need to convince him that war is not profitable, not that we're friends - and I've been a lousy friend in this game anyways.



Enough beating myself up, here's something more pleasant:




Ichabod traded us maps of his already explored and settled Astro land, and I placed some dots.

I'm planning for a first wave of 4 galleons (3 upgraded, 1 queue upgraded) carrying 3 settlers, 3 muskets, 4 workers, and 3 WBs trailing. The first 3 cities should be yellow, orange and teal, as they do not urgently need border pops and get us silver and dyes. All settlers are coming from the north, so teal has a long trip to make, but it should be able to chain with orange's galleon after that one's unloaded. Most workers are coming from former Spain in the west.

The island has Elkad to the SW, Mjmd to the SE/NE, and Charriu to the east. I saw a carrack of Mjmd's this turn, so he is competition, sort of. Which makes me want to secure blue early, but we just can't support that city that early with WB/workers, and it needs culture to shine, so a missionary (monuments will obsolete! )? Going to leave it for the second wave.



Chemistry is 4 turns at current breakeven, which will suffer a lot however when Colossus obsoletes. So it should come 3-4 turns after peace with civac runs out. I also want to upgrade a few galleys. 



Rusten, while pursuing other goals we unlocked Oxford and Wall Street*. Of course it would be sweet to put both into Bonfim, but I'm not really seeing it very soon. I think Wall Street should be on the mid term agenda though, because I think/hope we'll have at least one corporation HQ. So, let's say banks go to CC, Bonfim, Camunjerê, Marinheiro, Vai Você (Dono FP city), Confu holy city, Angola É (Dono Cap)...? Dono's fur island city has some hammers.... Camunjerê build queue is a huge mess of second guesses and postponed projects, but . Confu holy city will be slow, maybe faster in Maré or Madeira or...?
Not sure if we'll ever want to build the unis for Oxford?

*Oops nah, we haven't but it still seems wise to prepare already.


Also Astro will unlock our UB which I already had forgotten about. Where should they go? Paraná and Maré (already got a lot of Great Artist points) I guess. CC and Bonfim after the banks. Further than that I'm not sure, 150h is a lot.

[Rusten]

Oxford should be worth it with Bonfim's massive commerce, but it's not 1st priority.
Yes, Salons are not that good, but the cities you pointed out that have both alright commerce and could use the GPP should get one.

Which corporation are you thinking? Sushi? Mining? Both?

[Miguelito]

Which corporation are you thinking? Sushi? Mining? Both?

I guess we need to discuss what our plan for entering the industrial age is, so I took the turnless day to think about that.

First off, early on you laid out a late game plan around Kremlin fueled rush buying. I think we could achieve Kremlin, I'm not sure though I still like the plan as much. On the one hand, our economy is good, but not splendid - even with Colossus still active and during the GA, there were others (probably also gilded) superating us in the demos.
On the other hand, the function of turning gold into hammers can also be fulfilled by corporations - obviously Mining, and Sushi through slavery, where again Kremlin would come in handy.
So the plan kinda works with Sushi, but what would we do with all that food if we can't whip and draft a lot more than once per ten turns? Sushi also locks us out of Emancipation, if we don't want to use it for drafting only. Also US is only really fun with a lot of towns, and while we can be reasonably fast at villages with Emancipation, I'm not so sure about towns (but haven't looked closely yet for the ones already growing).
Spreading a corporation empire wide is very costly though, which speaks in favour of your US suggestion.


I am pretty sure that if we try to win it would be through space not culture, so that effect of Sushi is less interesting - of course it still is very relevant for neighbour issues.

Also mind that the mod gives everybody a corporation executive upon researching the corresponding tech, meaning that corps are not monopolised (but also if we build an HQ via a GP we may well get additional revenue from people spreading on other continents).


From gut feeling I sort of like Mining best as a priority. Wild dreams see us with both corps using Suhsi food for caste/rep specialists, but that's not very real.

I put together some tech costs and possible pasts in the Google spreadsheet:


I'm assuming Chemistry is a given after Astro, and Poly-Lit almost certainly as well.
Path 1 gives us, in what appears relevant to me:

• PP commerce (currently 30-40 but growing of course)
  
• Rep (btw libbing constitution over Economics was an option that we didn't discuss, although I guess with FM we're better off)
  
• Corp TR
  
• cannons
  
• drydocks
  
• Ironworks
  
• Railroads, including mine/LM hammers
  
• access to Combustion and AL
  

(I don't value Levees very highly)

Path 2:

• PP commerce
  
• Rep
  
• Corp TR
  
• Kremlin (reasonably secure)
  
• Great Spy (dito)
  
• farm +1 food
  
• National park - technically we could use a astro land jungle city, or leave the forests in Malandro (former Dono border city) standing, but really it's more of a meme.
  
• Access to Physics
  

Of course we can also do a mini version of 2 without Sushi, but trying for the Communism and Physics first tos. Airships also have been pretty relevant in some games.

I think there's a clear preference for path 1, but I could agree to go for the first to GPs and Kremlin first. Where it gets really interesting are the possible diversions - Democracy, MS, Rifling... and when to go for PP/Corp with their passive econ boni, vs the first tos.

I guess Democracy should be part of the next GA. At the end should be enough, want to run caste anyways during it right? Fwiw while I'm not sure regarding US, I still think Emancipation is pretty interesting - although it would have to make up for the tech cost alone, as even SoL isn't really appealing, or would you disagree?


So I would want to use one GE for Mining. The other one seems a bit wasted on Kremlin. My dream is still Redentor, but that is very far down the road. Pentagon is an option, but maybe even Wall Street? The 600 hammers mean 40 turns at Bonfim's current 15 hpt (bonified) output, which will only increase significantly with Mining. 40 turns of Wall Street at the current rate (which of course will increase yet, and doesn't count GAs) is about 2000 gold, and leaves the city available to do other stuff like Oxford, hm.
Actually we could go back to running an engineer at Paraná, a 3rd GE would find his use surely.
The 2 GMs - just GA 2&3, seeing as it doesn't seem very likely for us to found Sushi?

[Miguelito]

Astro is researched. I don't have good numbers, but our combined income + beakers at 30% went down from 700 to 606 .
Could have been even worse though, since when Sid closes a door, he opens a window:



With this Corta Cana and Bonfim are near even in commerce per turn (palace included). There's also a little curse in there, as the -1h in the mine has CC down to 15 base hammers, which hurts the forge. Need US, or a levee, or AL.
Long time readers (do I still have readers?) may remember that that gems was also popped, so we certainly can't complain about our luck on that front.

With Astro in the bag and Privateers buildable, I also started the diplo offensive with civac.
First I sent the conventional fish/fish.
Then this:


The incense means I give my blessing to whatever war he wages to his west. I'm curious how this will be misinterpreted.

Meanwhile this:


is my proposal for splitting Elkad. We claim the iron/crab island and London (sugar), he gets York (pig), clam island and the copper/crab razed spot. I feel this is more than a bit cheeky on my part. I directed all of Elkad's resistance against him* with the dubious peace I made, but still propose an even split. We would have great trouble fighting him over this claim, as he's whipped out a significant number of knights and still has 4/3 of our power, including a lot of maces, cats, etc. However we are ahead of him with our privateers now, plus a bunch of other techs, so will likely get to the next generation of arms ahead of him. So maybe he agrees to the split, or otherwise I'm fine with negotiating.
*And it seems like Elkad beat back his one stack last turn at the expense of some catapults. But civac is bringing serious power now. I fear that this isn't getting reported. I only saw Elkad's knights injured, his 5? cats gone, and civac's main stack having moved back and collateraled. I did not make an effort to count possible kills.

So, whatever diplo offers come in next turn (or not) will be interesting. Also may inform the number of privateers we whip next turn.

Research wise, I decided to clear Literature before Chemistry. The epics are just long overdue.
2 further issues for discussion - at which point does it make sense to whip those banks? And regarding the astro island dotmap:


Move teal 1W onto the horse? Or orange 1SE? It's a worse layout long term, but gets the corn right away. We lack a good way of getting culture into these cities. A caste GA would help, but is not due right now. I even considered teching Music, but we don't have that much excessive gold lying around. I'm wondering if OR over Theo (and staying with Confu) would not have been better. In part for the ease of sending out missionaries. With Theo at least we only get useful spreads (however with FR, any spread would be useful...)
Actually I think I like moving orange best. Long term it just sacrifices the hill plant, and makes logistics worse as we plant on the south coast, whil our mainland harbours are in the north/northwest. But that should not complicate things too much, as long as we have yellow dot well connected.

[Rusten]

I'll read and respond later, but before I forget Civac offered fish for fish on login.
FP is a priority down in the SW territory.
Cornflakes wants to win by culture judging by how he's spread religion. Nothing pressing, but worth keeping an eye on.

[Rusten]

(I don't value Levees very highly)

Aren't they very good on this map, though? I need to have another look at the map.

Mining was my main corporation of choice too, but it's been nerfed in the mod and last time I checked this map was pretty low on mining resources. How much are we likely to get from it? How much will be under our control? "Free" hammers not tied to tiles is always going to be incredibly strong though, and we already got the GE which is often the biggest obstacle to founding it. Mining corp and cottages sounds strong to me. But if we're not getting a corporation then we need to seriously consider state property before building all our courthouses.

I very much like the idea of rushing Wall Street to speed up the gain and also freeing it up for Oxford. It's really expensive and has 0 modifiers, unlike Oxford.

With Civac offering fish/fish, do we now start preparing an invasion of the eastern continent?

[Miguelito]

Not much of interest to report on t158. civac has 11 galleons in the inner sea, but I trust him not to attack right after fish/fish. Still whipping 5 privateers this turn and one next, but no 3pop whips.
Piccadilly built the Jewish shrine, and Judaism also holds the AP (and we don't have a single city ), so this should do him lots of good.


But let's continue the dialogue.

I'll read and respond later, but before I forget Civac offered fish for fish on login.

Good. Interestingly he didn't answer the other offers. Is that approval or just cold shoulder?

FP is a priority down in the SW territory.

Are we sure we don't want it on the other continent? Also I'm starting to think OR would have been better. We need so many NW prereq buildings. I composed a list of cities to build the 8 banks/unis required: CC, Bonfim, Marinheiro, Camunjere, Vai Você, Angola, Sim Sinhá, Bananeira. The last 4 are former Dono cities, and 2 of them don't even have a forge started yet. I can see Onca as a backup candidate, what else...? There's always the option to whip 5 pop on an island.

Cornflakes wants to win by culture judging by how he's spread religion. Nothing pressing, but worth keeping an eye on.

Yes, it's been clear since we got his maps. Worth checking F8 from time to time. I think it's not unreasonable to hope that Piccadilly or civac will take bites out of him. But the culture is creeping slowly so far, and I'd hope we'll have oil ships by the time we might have to consider an intervention.

(I don't value Levees very highly)

Aren't they very good on this map, though? I need to have another look at the map.

They would be, if only we had built our cities on rivers (but we conciously decided against for short term benefits, which certainly have paid off). I see only the cap and Camunjerê as river cities which actually work their riverside tiles.
In Spain there are 3 I think - Angola, Vai Você, Bananeira. Mjmd has settled just one riverside city, his cap. But where wecan build them they'll be very nice no doubt.

Mining was my main corporation of choice too, but it's been nerfed in the mod and last time I checked this map was pretty low on mining resources. How much are we likely to get from it? How much will be under our control? "Free" hammers not tied to tiles is always going to be incredibly strong though, and we already got the GE which is often the biggest obstacle to founding it. Mining corp and cottages sounds strong to me. But if we're not getting a corporation then we need to seriously consider state property before building all our courthouses.

Currently we have 13 mining resources, not all of them connected yet. In Elkad's land there are 3 more waiting for us, and on astroland 5. Coal hasn't even been uncovered yet. I think it's not unreasonable to expect that we'll have 30 resources at least by the time we found the company. Each gives 0.37 hammers, so we'd have around 11 already. We may also want to trade for resources.

I very much like the idea of rushing Wall Street to speed up the gain and also freeing it up for Oxford. It's really expensive and has 0 modifiers, unlike Oxford.

It is, 40 turns straight if we don't account for GAs or whip overflow. Now, is it worth a GE? The city's currently making 106 commerce. With cottage growth and Printing Press I expect that figure to go up by 25-30 soonish. Assuming tat and a 50% breakeven rate those 40 turns translate into 2600 gold*, which I guess is better than a trade mission, and as you said also frees up the city. The alternative is still to save him for a wonder, but I don't see an essential one until Redentor, althouhg Pentagon is nice of course.

* And if we were to found a corporation during that time it could be a lot more

With Civac offering fish/fish, do we now start preparing an invasion of the eastern continent?

My idea is to build up fleet (and more units) while settling the astro island, then invade east, if we feel good about civac.
At some point we also have to deal with London. civac is sending a stack that should be able to obliterate Elkad's, but if Elkad just retreats to the cap we either have to invest a lot, or cede it to civac.

[Miguelito]

Can you take the turn? Daughter's sick and I'll have to take as much sleep as I can. Would be good to play before civac, but if you can't I'll just play tomorrow. Concentrate privateers in the middle see, but make it look defensive (it is). Whip the privateer in Chora, and I think Maré needs a draft. Epics are starting.

[Rusten]

I've been out drinking, so no.

Sorry.