[PB26 Spoilers] Joey and Donovan play around in the muck

[GermanJoey]

A few more shots.

Power:




GNP is lookin' good, although Thoth's "true" GNP should be more than mine cause so much of mine is culture.




lmfao... and this is without the jump from Standardization this turn.

[GermanJoey]

T116.


Every turn, as soon as I log into this game, I look at these graphs and then make the Kefka laugh for about a good minute.









They say when one has a huge banana, one can't help but brag a little...




Couldn't quite 3 turn this guy, since I don't have stone and nobody will sell it to me. ;[

The reason I want the mids is because I think I'll now have enough happy-cap to support police state. Police State is a fucking crazy civic, worth +25% unit production in each city, halfed war-weariness, +6 production and +6 commerce in each city. Yes, those last two numbers are right - I get 2h and 2c from monuments, barracks, and courthouses. Jails provide an additional +4h/+4c, although I'm nowhere close to those yet of course. However, I can't reasonably switch to it (or Rep either, which would also be awesome for me) because I'm so reliant on Hereditary Rule to support my huge cities. I currently need 5 HR happy in my capital, Banana Pudding, 5 in my second Moai, Bananas Foster, and three in Banana Bread. Those three are all still growing though quite fast though, so I figure those numbers will be closer to 8, 6, and 10 in about a dozen turns. I've also got one other really great fast-growing city, Banana Split, that will reach those types of numbers soonish. So, where can I find 6-10 happycap? So, we'll get at two from markets, three from calendar, one from wines, and one from colesseums... that's seven. Thus, if I can score at least one other market or forge happy (gems, furs, or silks) from a trade, then that's 9. At that point, I think the enormous benefits from Police State will make it worth turning on avoid-growth in my two biggest cities.

At any rate, Currency will be pretty nice, nicer than I had realized. A market in my capital will be awesome for all those settled Great Prophets, and, so will a quay, which I had forgotten was actually enabled by Currency and not Compass. That'll be a straight-up +20 commerce between my two Moais... my economy should be looking very strong soon. Next, I believe that with a single turn of wealth in one of my mid-tier production cities I can grab Calendar in 2 turns and then Construction in 2 turns after that. After that, I just need Machinery and Guilds for Knights, which should come quickly with some wealth builds.

Speaking of Machinery, Pindicator gets it first next turn. (Krill can probably get it now but he has instead saved up like 650 gold). Pind's still in a turn-split with someone but I can't quite figure out who... I have a sentry horcher crawling around his territory but I can't find any stacks. He's also not building any units, although he is in slavery so who knows what he's got in his queues. I have quite a big power difference with him now, although interestingly Thoth is building up troops at almost the exact same rate that I am so I did not actually coast to #1 power as I had expected.

Regarding Thoth, I think the only reason he isn't more dominant in the demos is because coastal cities are so slow now. That's one Smegmod change that I really dislike is the changes to water tiles. Coastal spots are a lot slower now because a.) workboats take 4 turns to net seafood (the fact that you get them out faster because wb are now foodhammer units doesn't matter, you still get your seafood hooked slower overall) and b.) you need to build a 20h pier, a building which competes directly with a granary as a first-build, for that seafood to even be worth working. Its especially stupid because I thought the problem Krill had with seafood was that he thought it was so much worse than land-food in the early game (it is worse tile-for-tile but not *that* worse), but now seafood and coast are phenomonally worse early but better later. It was kinda neat to have a workboat to explore with at first but then my capital turned out to be in a little lake, and now that unit has basically been doing nothing for the last 75 turns, swell. On top of that, even after you build the pier your coast tile is still worse than it was before, when before it was "not great." Coastal spots eventually become pretty good because of the harbor/shipyard/quay line of buildings, which are interesting, but coastal spots always had that mid/late game advantage to them.

By the way, I think that once I have my HE's and PS/Theo up I'll have 8 cities capable of 1-turning Knights. Assembly Plant + PS + Colosseum gives a +95% baseline production mod, then +120% in four cathedral cities, and +170% in two HE cities. The latter two need just 33 base hammers to complete a knight in 1 turn!

[GermanJoey]

3 of the top 3 now

[GermanJoey]

Arrgh, Brick got one over on me. I wasn't paying attention and he stole this marble from me on the turn I was gonna start the MoM w/ big overflow:







I hadn't noticed he was fighting Pindicator for that clam, and thus got a barracks, monument, and library. It's kinda stupid because I could have just whipped out this monastery a bunch of turns ago and thus wouldn't have had a problem, but I had wanted to grow the city. So, I offered to buy it back from him for 8gpt, but then he insulted me with 30gpt, so I threatened to go to war over it, a stupid decision on my part, so then he threatened back with copper/ivory and whipped like 8 times and offered it back for 20gpt. I probably should have just taken the 20gpt even though I only needed it on the first turn of the MoM build to get it done in 2 turns. I also want Marble for my HEs and NEs, but by then I should be able to take back the Marble naturally. I was just layed off from my job on Thursday (survived 4 rounds of layoffs this year but couldn't make it 5 I guess, this new CEO really loves his "headcount reductions") so I wasn't in my right mind, been really down in the dumps the last few days. =/

[spacetyrantxenu]

CEOs have to eat (caviar) too, man. Gotta make those numbers! Seriously though, sorry about the job, that sucks. Hope you pick up something better soon. At least it happened in the summer while the weather is nice? Looking hard for a silver lining here...

[GermanJoey]

Yeah. =/ It's really funny, our group is in the middle of our final stages of a project to complete a government grant, and without me there they'll miss the deadline and lose the grant. That's not talking myself up or anything, we were barely (yet solidly) hitting the deadline before, and so its pretty unlikely that they can find a replacement for me and get them up to speed in the 4 days before tapeout. HR is definitely shooting my department in the foot with the timing of this shit. Also just bought a new car, wife's about to have a baby, lose my 1-month sabbatical vacation I get every 4 years, lose 2 months paid paternity leave, etc. Really just, horrible, horrible horrible timing on top of a horrible thing already.

Well, at least I have more time now to work on my map tool... =/

[GermanJoey]

At any rate, I just sent Brick 20g as an apology and hope he just accepts it at that. I really don't want to war with him, I'd have nothing to gain (except that marble, XD) even if I take him with a clean sweep as his other neighbors would be much more easily capable of integrating his lands into their own.

[Tsargon]

I'm very sorry about all that Joey, are you at least getting some sort of departing money?

[agent427]

Welcome to NEET heaven, gamer.

[GermanJoey]

Yeah, I'm getting a severance package, but only if I agree not to try to sue or whatever. =/ I think I have a case, but its really hard to give up that money and health insurance... especially with the baby coming. GOD BLESS AMERICA.