[spoilers]Commodore is Darius II of the HRE, now with less excuse.

[Merovech]

Nice! You've still got a shot, imo.

[Commodore]

Nice! You've still got a shot, imo.

Thanks! I'm having trouble seeing it, but I'll try. We've got some decisions to make here. Early rathaus spam has some interesting effects for planning. There have been a flurry of posts in Gaspardom and Mistabodia, probably planning, so I'll add the Holy Roman perspective. See this image:



Let's break down what the tech visibility tells me:
-Yuri...who knows. If the Highly Militarized Zone between China and us didn't exist, he'd be dead right now. Instead, he's dead later. Moving along.
-Ichabod is still working on Guilds, sandbagging slightly. His MFG is growing, looks like he's getting forges online before the eight billion cataphracts come online. Well enough, might be wise, ticking Doomsday Clock. Moving along.
-Dave now...two turns to Engineering. Well done Dave! Erm. I hope. Pikes aren't going to stop 'phracts, but they'll make it bloody expensive to slog through France. Which might make things slow going...or, it might encourage Ichabod to go north (yay!) or northwest (boo!). Hum.
-Finally, Gaspar. They just teched Paper, makes sense as they have the AP. The UoS would be a big boost, they have stone, yeah, cool. Now, however, they are teching Philosophy...which means they're about to have just Education to go for Liberalism. Um. None of that, boys.

So what can we do? Well, we can either tech Liberalism (Libbing Gunpowder) or we can go Engineering/Guilds. Not both in the time frame. This is going to be tricky, and we need to chose in two turns (HBR isn't a big deal, we'll be teching that for mass overflow). A GSci could be generated for Education, but that has its own dangers.

The RNG will be relied on for GPs out of Oasis now. Once the ToA lands, we'll have the classic "GPP Roulette" setup going on. Now that we're in a GA, we can swap to Caste along with Bureau/Pacifism, but the question is what to make out of the non-Oasis cities (Sasha and Kiki).



A GM would be nice for cash bombing, but as you can see above, Oasis will have a so-so shot at landing one anyway. A Great Scientist could be forced to bulb either Education or Chemistry, which would open Steel and cannon, which cataphracts do not flank. Anyone else, and we do need that extra one else, is another Golden Age.

Xenu, Ceil, thoughts?

[Commodore]

One final additional note; allowing China to snag Liberalism might be okay, but they also then with Education have the inside track on Economics. With Spi Caste GMs are a dime a dozen but spending a GM to get a GM is a good deal.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'm always in favor of being first to put cannons in the field. If you're worried about being overrun by hordes of 'phracts, them running into a withering fire of cannonballs would probably be an effective beginning to your defense.

I'll try to take a look at the save soon and give more thoughts.

[Commodore]

Okay, need to one-turn every tech here. One thing I want to do here is to make darned sure this crap doesn't show up with arrow-boosting. Um. Yikes.



Not sure when the RB record is, but I'm still proud of this timing:



Here's the GPP plan. Sasha makes either Great Scientist or Great Engineer.



Oasis makes a Great Somebody.



Meanwhile, lacking slavery, I have no choice but to grow onto 5-commerce coasts. Life is brutal, man.



Good GA.

[spacetyrantxenu]

We're going to get soooooo dogpiled.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I'm always in favor of being first to put cannons in the field. If you're worried about being overrun by hordes of 'phracts, them running into a withering fire of cannonballs would probably be an effective beginning to your defense.

I'll try to take a look at the save soon and give more thoughts.

This. If you go for liberalism, steel would be your most expensive tech option, if you can get there in time. Barrage cannons do wonders for hashing up an invading stack.

I like your tech plans. If you are somehow unmolested and can get to rifles, this will be very bloody, and very fun.

With Mistabod 'phracting it up soon, do you anticipate any hostilities from them or do you think they'll just go after Dave? What's the AI response for "this would not benefit us" when you ask them to attack another AI? I see any gains they could manage, except perhaps the center of the map poor speedbump city, to be untenable in keeping, and just a spoiling attack on their part. Not a good use of their invading force, IMO.

Grats on Taj and good luck getting the GP to line up for you.

[Commodore]

This. If you go for liberalism, steel would be your most expensive tech option, if you can get there in time. Barrage cannons do wonders for hashing up an invading stack.

I like your tech plans. If you are somehow unmolested and can get to rifles, this will be very bloody, and very fun.

If I was confident of being able to Lib Steel, I would go there hell-for-leather. Unfortunately at a bare minimum I'd need Paper->Education->Gunpowder and Construction->Engineering to open Chemistry. And researching Alphabet would be needed if I was to line up the the Chemistry bulb.

A Great Prophet was born last turn, if it was Gaspar's then the reason they're delaying on playing is that they've fired off their own golden age. I'd have to assume at a minimum a Great Scientist born soon for an Education bulb, then, which means they really just need to hand-research Lib (and a wee bit of Education) to snag it (assuming Philosophy finished for them this turn). I'd have to play the beaker-banking game and go extra hungry to be confident of beating them, and then the most expensive tech available would be Constitution or Gunpowder, maybe Military Tradition if I can beaker-bank with Music without suffering too much of a hit. That's assuming the worst, but it's generally safest to assume the worst.

Mentioning MilTrad reminds me, actually, I'm hammer-poor but GNP-rich, as old would expect for a small fishing empire like this. Upgrading is normally a sucker's game but Curs and cavalry are actually fairly efficient from knights. I'd probably prefer to pump knights (once in Theocracy) and then mass-upgrade afterwards, to curs if we must, cavalry if we can make it to Rifling.

Rifles is a good, meaty target for us to aim for, I'm just seriously worried about what Gaspar could sandbag with Liberalism. The Chemistry third way is kind of interesting to me, upon reflection though. Steel isn't that hard to hand-research by this point, and it's something I want for Railroad in the end anyway.

[Commodore]

Okay, sandbagging is bad, and Gunpowder is good. I'm gonna try to snatch Liberalism, but it's going to be hard. Here's why:



And here's why Gaspar's GNP just jumped considerably:



And here's another wrench in the plan; we're looking at 70% odds on an Education bulb. It's not the end of the world if a GE comes a cropper, given the need for Engineering, Guilds, and Gunpowder...all high on the bulb list. But that would put me out of the Lib race. If so, no biggie, needed Paper for Printing Press anyway.



A final wrench. Dave asked, I gave...I figure this is "propping up against 'phracts" money, and I will be asking for a return on the loan one way or another.



Pity the Kremlin is a bit of a diversion...

[Thoth]

Hum. So post funny thing about team Gaspar, get loads of chuckles. Post a far-reaching tech plan that promises at least highly entertaining BLOOD, and not even my dedlurkers weigh in.

Remember,

All Lurkers are Scum.

And Ded lurkers are the vilest Scum imaginable.