Japper leads the Imperium of Man to death or glory

[Japper007]

Turn 50:

Time to look at scores again, comparing this with other PBEM's we seem to be about a third of the way through, though in this one we seem to have more space.



We've dropped to third in culture, but it's deceptive as Pindicator has only 8 culture but he also has 8 Tourism (which isn't really a relevant metric right now as we'd be the last to fall before a Tourism victory at this point, as we have about a 100 more lifetime culture turned into domestic Tourism than anyone else at this point...) We are still in an overall lead in civics though, as the scores show:



We are also second in Empire score, which is the best measure for gauging overall success IMHO.



I also looked into Great People somewhat and we're in a dead heat with Alhambram for Hypatia, I'm thinking of moving the completion of Fenris' Campus forward to gain an extra GS point per turn, possibly build a Library in Terra, and maybe even a Campus project. None of our neighbours are in the Great General race yet! It is a neck a neck between Krill and Jester, both of which we haven't even met yet. Excellent.  

In terms of military scores we are practically dead even with pindicator. 86 for him to 85 for us, meaning we both have I think 3 archers and 1 warrior in terms of military power, but he also has a worthless scout and some of our units are damaged. He doesn't have the power to stop us taking LV 

I'm curious, could both Krill and Jester's high military scores be explained by a Mutually Assured Destruction buildup? They don't really seem to be making any substantial gains despite having more than sufficient military to take a City State. Are they locked in a unprofitable war? That would be awesome  the longer they stay at it the bigger our Roman snowball gets!

[Japper007]

Turn 51:



Builder puts a fishing boat on the Fish, we complete Celestial Navigation as a result. I'm moving him to Macragge to complete the Iron mine there, which will boost Iron Working and Wheel at once.

[Japper007]

Turn 52:

La Venta gives me an offer I can't (and don't even want to) refuse:



A three charge builder!  Yes this left my units slightly out of position, but I'll cry about that later okay?

As a result of this labour windfall, I switched Macragge back to it's Campus, as it won't need it's Builder for a long time yet when it has three more improvements to work with! I also rerouted my Builder at Terra to the sheep as he won't get to the Macragge Iron mine faster than our stolen Builder. Also note the insane cost on the Campus? Yeah that is the one drawback of Rome, your culture is so fast that your districts rise in cost really fast. Having "too fast" culture is, as we say in our Calvinist swampland here: "a problem of luxury" though

One slight annoyence is pindicator's scout, we'll trap it when we found the Crater Lake city in about 10 turns. He seems to want this situation though, as his Scout has been bouncing around our borders, seemingly looking for a pillage oppertunity.

[Japper007]

Turn 55:

Got two pastures down on both sheep and it provides an excellent oppertunity to show why God of the Open Sky is often (before the patch introduced the broken City Patron Goddess one) the first pantheon to get picked up:




Look at those glorious yields , the true strenght of this Pantheon is a bit "hidden" as its true power is that it is tied to what is already one of the most powerful improvements in the game, meaning you always want to improve and work the tile ASAP anyway. Across my empire I'm getting 3 culture from pastures now, 30% of my income even though I'm Rome! (And locking in this powerful pantheon in the first place could only be done because I was the first to CoL in the game, another excellent example of the might of that early culture snowball...)

[Japper007]

Turn 56:

Encampment finishes, we are now tied with Jesters 1 general point per turn.





I kill some hapless City State Warriors, nice bonus with CS units is that the experience on them doesn't get nerfed down to 1 after the first promotion like it is with barbarians. If they want to keep sending I'll keep farming, though I expect they will run out of warriors pretty soon (they have a lot, but they have no production to replace losses, even if they did I kill almost two per turn...)



Alhambram has shot up in GS points to 2.6 per turn (waaat that number can't be right? There is no unrounded source of GS points yield in the game right?) In reply I started a library in my capital, we'll also finish the Campuses in Macragge and Fenris in time as well, hopefully. Getting Hypatia would be quite awesome. Even if we miss her, it's still good to get some science infrastructure down anyways.

[Mikeforall]

Alhambram has shot up in GS points to 2.6 per turn (waaat that number can't be right? There is no unrounded source of GS points yield in the game right?) 

he might have gone classical republic, which gives +15% great people point generation, with an additional +1% generated every 15 turns.

[Mikeforall]

I'm curious, could both Krill and Jester's high military scores be explained by a Mutually Assured Destruction buildup? They don't really seem to be making any substantial gains despite having more than sufficient military to take a City State. Are they locked in a unprofitable war? That would be awesome  the longer they stay at it the bigger our Roman snowball gets!

Hmm, have you looked at fluctuations in their military scores over the past few turns?

They indeed got a relative high score for 'just' taking over a city state. 
Especially China. China should not be focused on military this early, unless they are forced to do so. 
We cannot say for sure, since we cannot see them yet, but it could very well be Krill snatched a builder away from China, after which Jester started building a war-machine to prevent further damage. 
It would explain why China does not yet have any wonders up. 

Then again, that is all just speculation for now.

[Japper007]

Alhambram has shot up in GS points to 2.6 per turn (waaat that number can't be right? There is no unrounded source of GS points yield in the game right?) 

he might have gone classical republic, which gives +15% great people point generation, with an additional +1% generated every 15 turns.

Ah that explains it! I knew there was something I overlooked. I always forget about the government bonuses themselves, I mostly care about the card selection (though I did go for Oligarchy in this game for the +4 combat bonus, come to think of it). That means he's been in classical republic quite a while then.

[Mikeforall]

Ah that explains it! I knew there was something I overlooked. I always forget about the government bonuses themselves, I mostly care about the card selection (though I did go for Oligarchy in this game for the +4 combat bonus, come to think of it). That means he's been in classical republic quite a while then.

If your last score update is still up-to-date, he is second in raw culture, so he prob landed it a few turns after your government.

[Japper007]

Turn 57:





Settler in Fenris is out but Pindicator has positioned his scout where it has to go. Did he predict my moves or is that just extraordinarily unlucky for me?

Sigh fine then...



The warrior purchase means my city will be delayed a turn, but it's not the end of the world, luckily I had the gold to buy one outright.