[spoilers] Pindicator and Regoarrarr - Bismark of Ethiopia

[pindicator]

Looks like he is going around making easy gains. Which doesnt' look good for us.

[pindicator]

So, heading to bed I noticed we were last to play so I ended turn.

And then I noticed we weren't last to play, because the turn didn't roll. Um, stupid half-asleep me at work again, I guess...

[regoarrarr]

Commodore countered offering marble for (our only) silk.

I am tempted to accept. The epics are 200h each, which means that without marble they are 100 raw hammers, and with them they are 67h. So we'll save 66 total hammers.

Currently no cities are up against the happy cap, though a few are close. But this just means that we'll have to cancel in 10t. It would be nice if we could get it again when we're ready to chop out our Taj pipe-dream.

If you're around and have any thoughts in the next bit let me know

I did have some other more long-term thoughts while driving for 12 hours today but I'll post those in a bit.

[pindicator]

I agree with doing the silk -> marble trade. We can cancel when we're in need of happiness, but we may not if we're going to be in HR soon.

[regoarrarr]

Okay I accepted the deal. Here are some quick text notes before I actually play the turn

* Yuri manually spread Christianity to his new capital (it already has Confucianism in it so it looks like it wasn't an auto-spread)
* Krill turned on science and will have CS in 2t
* Scooter just completed Notre Dame, which means he already has ENGINEERING Actually ND doesn't seem like that great of a wonder with all the different landmasses though I guess he does have quite a few cities on his starting island (especially if you include Mist's cities)
* Commodore got a great spy.

[regoarrarr]

What we really need is to figure out where we're building the Heroic Epic (National Epic is in Church Lady I believe we've already decided)

[regoarrarr]

Okay so here were some of my musings as I drove for 12 hours with 8 people in an 8 passenger minivan.... :-/

The way I see it, we have 3 major options for our mid to long term strategy.

1) Build up an army and attack Krill
2) Build up an army and attack Yuri
3) Do neither and tech towards Liberalism

Pindicator and I had talked a week or so ago about Liberalism, and we realized that nobody has Paper (can't see techs on F4) and nobody has Philosophy (Taoism still has not been founded). So when we talked about the forests around our newly found city of Schweddy Balls, we realized they would make a mighty fine Taj Mahal!!

So we talked about, once we flip into Caste System here in a few turns, running max scientists in (our new Nat. Epic city of) Church Lady, and popping out a scientist to bulb Philosophy. In addition to putting us on the Liberalism track, that also keeps Philo out of the hands of anyone else on the western continent, allowing us to further spread Christianity.

But while I do think that moving towards Liberalism is a good idea (especially since with our workshop economy we're going to want Communism sooner rather than later), I don't think we can just go solely for #3.

Reason for this is the wonderful RB mod, which has increased the tech costs for techs post-Paper. Specifically, Education and Liberalism are both 4508 beakers. At our current breakeven rates, that means they would each take 34 turns . So.... that's not going to happen any time soon.

I do think teching Paper in the medium-term is a good idea, since tech visibility on folks is good, and it also does open up the UoS, which is a good building for us. Also, it's not out of the question to still bulb Philo with the next scientist, and we certainly could just tech Nationalism straight up (a bargain at only 3864b ). If we get Paper, then we potentially could buy techs from other civs for gold too, if anyone techs something post-Paper (likely possibilities would be Gunpowder, Nationalism or Astronomy)

So that leaves us #1 or #2 (unless you can think of a viable Option 4 or 5, which very well may be the case). Of the 2, attacking Krill would be madness I think, unless we could organize an effective dogpile, the chances of which should be remote. Now, he may make this moot by attacking US now that he's done with Nakor / Ceiliazul, but that's a whole separate post. Attacking him means attacking someone with a way higher food and production base, who is SPI/CHM and is currently in Theocracy + Vassalage and has the Statue of Zeus for +3XP in a city, at tech parity (at best). AKA not a good idea. Oh did I mention the fact that he currently has 513K power to our 223K? Oh, I didn't? Well okay then...

Now attacking Yuri, on the other hand, has a few advantages. If we can get to Guilds somewhat quickly, attacking with knights if he only has longbows (or even maces or better xbows or his current axe / spear / chariot army) is a good match. Longbows are good for us since he's AGG and so they don't get a free C1 promotion. His power is middling like ours, and his food and prod numbers are comparable (though slightly above our current levels)

Plus, we might be able to get wild-eye Commosan involved. If we signal to him we're planning an attack in 30-ish turns (my best thoughts were a horse/iron trade for 30gpt, then horse/iron for 29gpt, etc. etc.), that should give him enough time to finish up with Cyneheard and recover a bit. Plus we can one-turn the cities of Char and Xil (assuming he chops that jungle at Xil at some point)



That would net us double gems which is probably worth it alone. And of course there's the valuable real estate on Inferno Island....

Anyways, I think that's where we need to head, at least for the next few weeks till the inevitable Krill concession gets proposed. Thoughts?

[regoarrarr]

So what that really means is that we need the HE over near Yuri. 2 options would be Hanukkah Song and Wayne's World

Wayne's World:
* PRO - Already has a manufacturing base - at size 7, it can work corn, horse, grass mine and 4 grass workshops, for 19/23 base hammers (post-Caste / post-Guilds)
* PRO - already has a barracks
* PRO - it doesn't really have any incentive to grow past size 7 (until we "liberate" the fish from Yuri )
* CON - any troops we want anywhere else (pre-Yuri destruction) have to be ferried as WW has no connection anywhere else


Hanukkah Song:
* PRO - more flexible / centrally located on the western continent
* CON - does not have a barracks yet
* CON - or a forge (forge currently due in 6 or we could whip)
* CON - lower current MFG
* PRO - higher potential MFG (can support 7 workshops with its FP, spice tiles and 1 farm)

[regoarrarr]

Pindicator also pointed out a huge CON for Wayne's World is that Yuri can see into the city center, so he'd see everything we built. And actually he can see everything on that peninsula (except the far eastern tile), so we decided to build the HE in Hanukkah Song

[regoarrarr]

Turn roll!



I'm not sure this balances out some of our early barb RNG luck, but hey 2c is 2c!