Gaspar and NobleHelium - More Arguments About Buildings & Food.

[Gaspar]

Appreciate the comments. Yes, I think we succeeded in making an entertaining game. Think about how dull this game would be if Mistabod were Seven kicking all of our asses next time you think I was a dick for trying to match skill level in the setup. Frustrating as it is for Noble and I, I also think the slight trait imbalance also helped to balance the game. Anyway, I'll report in a bit but I thought I'd update on the tech situation since we teched Alphabet this turn:
[COLOR="DarkGreen"]
Yuri (HC of Ottomans):[/COLOR]
Up:
Feudalism, 670
HBR, 239

Down:
Polytheism, 95
Monotheism, 114
Theology, 479
Code of Laws, 335
Civil Service, 766
Alphabet, 287
Paper, 574
Education, 1724
Machinery, 670
Philosophy, 766
Divine Right, 1149
Nationalism, 1724

Net: We're up 7774 beakers

Mistabod (Vicki of Byz)

Up:

Aesthetics, 287
Literature, 191
Music, 574
Feudalism, 670
Guilds, 958
HBR, 239
Engineering, 958
Drama, 287

Down:

Philosophy, 766
Education, 1724
Nationalism, 1724
Divine Right, 1149

Net: We're up 1199 beakers
[COLOR="Indigo"]
Dave (Gandhi of France)[/COLOR]

Up:

Aesthetics, 287
Engineering, 958

Down:

Monarchy, 287
Theology, 479
Divine Right, 1149
Nationalism, 1724
Paper, 574
Education, 1724

Net: We're up 4692 beakers
[COLOR="Yellow"]
He Who Shall Not Be Named (EZ Mode of EZ Mode)[/COLOR]

Up:

Feudalism, 670
Liberalism, 1341
Aesthetics, 287
Literature, 191
HBR, 239
Engineering, 958
Gunpowder, 1149

Down:

Divine Right, 1149
Alphabet, 287

Net: We're down 3399 beakers.

Showing the tech screen in case I missed something:

[Gaspar]

A little bit of discussion on the state of the game, then I'll report.

I think the most interesting thing there for the dedlurkers is Mistabod's position. I think they've made a couple key errors that are why in my mind they're definitively in 3rd place right now. (Which, oddly, is where they are on the scoreboard.) The main error is not abusing Financial properly. Chariot got a better look into Byzantium this turn, let me paste that in:



You can see the FFH influence there - waaaaay undercottaged for a FIN civ. That ultimately greatly reduces their long-term potential. Now, if they had Phracts due to creative bulbing/dedicated beeline 20-25 turns ago, fine. But basically they'll hurt Dave and by the time he's gassed, Commodore and Us will have Rifles. So I think you either play a long game with cottages or a short game with farms and mines and go apeshit on the Phracts. They did neither and the gap between Commodore and them is only going to grow. Maybe they can leverage Dave's land into something more, though I fully expect Dave's land to be completely farmed and mined because he hates cottages.

I think we could have beaten Commodore to Liberalism if we had pushed it and teched there quickly and just accepted taking something crappy from it. That probably would have been the correct play because that beaker disparity is only going to grow. You can actually launch a spaceship without ever researching Astronomy and I fully expect him to try and go that route, keeping his hax Fin Colossus coast in play for basically ever.

Anyway, just a short commentary but I think its pretty clear from the tech analysis that this game is Commodore's to lose. I think he *can* lose it, we're not that far behind, but ultimately if he continues to play as well as he has thus far I don't think there's any catching him.

[Krill]

Physics needs Astro.

[Gaspar]

The turn itself was pretty quiet. We teched Alphabet at 30% and no wealth builds, so we've stockpiled some gold. Our Golden Age is sadly over in 2t. Yuri is up to 14 HA in the Samsun vicinity. If terrain didn't demand that he sit in our territory for a turn first, that could be scary:



At the moment, we have 3 Axes, 2 Spears, a Mace and CKN in Caldeum, plus 4 Catapults behind the city. Feel pretty strongly that would be enough to shred his stack, albeit short of enough hitters to kill it. I sort of wish he would throw himself at the city, since we'll eventually have to deal with those HAs if we attack him and I'd much rather do so with cats in the area.

Kepler was born in WC @EOT, and he'll do this next turn:



We'll get either a Merchant or a Scientist out of Dahlgur Oasis next turn, then swap probably to Theocracy for 5t to get a 2nd promo on the army before resuming OR to try and get Oxford up.

GNP looks wholly unimpressive for a GA, but that's 30% with no tech selected.

[Gaspar]

Physics needs Astro.

Oh yeah, forgot that both Flight and Artillery require Physics. Blame Noble.

[Gaspar]

Ok. Have reloaded BEOT for these. I gave a stitchmap up above and see no reason to replicate that overview shot here, so if you're curious what our overall territory looks like, scroll up a few posts. We'll do the advisors and such first then the city by city tour later. I'll skip F1 since you can see all that stuff in the city tour.

Here's Financial Advisor on 100% tax, 100% science and breakeven:

Breakeven is actually ~65% but I went with 70% because I can. Of course the GA distorts things but we're definitely second to Commodore here, unfortunately a distant second.

Current Civics:

Would really love something other than HR as there just isn't enough food to grow our cities large productively. Representation would be ideal right now, USuff later. Ideally we'll swap back and forth between the two eventually, depending on whether we're pushing GP or not. I did that a lot in PBEM24 and I felt it was quite useful. Anyway, we'll do 5t in Theo after the GA, with Slavery back enabled obviously. The reason to that is this:

Military Advisor:

That's a lot of outdated units.

I already explained the tech situation in detail above. After Printing Press we'll clean up Engineering most likely before heading towards a shot at the Economics GM en route to Rifling. Would really love to hit the top of the tree to get the NE in play as well as land Sistine, which would be great with our Monk Wonders, but I really don't see how or where we'll have the time and free beakers for that. Not to mention lack of marble.

We are the People of the Book:

Relevant portions of Victory screen:

Espionage - that Commodore mission cost is obnoxious - he sees our research even with us on an EP lead:

And the graphs, presented only on the 50t interval:

All stuff you know already. Primarily that Dave didn't start building units fast enough, our MFG is awesome, Commodore's GNP is awesome.

City tour incoming later tonight.

[Gaspar]

Let's say for argument's sake we were intending to attack Yuri at some point in the future. You will recall that we previously asked what your favored dotmap would be. Well, the underwhelming response to that - here's what we believe the ideal dotmap to be for us:



Now, the positives to this plan should be obvious. Firstly, it uses all the grassland in the middle of Turkey, much of which is currently unused. Secondly, all border cities are planted on hills for higher defensibility. Thirdly, it integrates with our empire more naturally.

Downside? Well, we lose any buildings Yuri has already built. And more importantly, have to produce 5 settlers. That's a lot of "getting cities off the ground, no?

What does the peanut gallery think? Is the superior dotmap worth razing and replanting 5 cities? Obviously Samsun gets razed and replanted no matter what because its current plant is completely worthless, but every other plant could be discussed.

[pindicator]

What are the odds that Yuri's learned his lesson about how paranoid you are and is still planning on hitting Commodore?

[Gaspar]

What are the odds that Yuri's learned his lesson about how paranoid you are and is still planning on hitting Commodore?

Uh, you see the Holy Roman Chariot 1SW of Samsun, yes?

[CFCJesterFool]

Except for Sansum (whatever it's called) which screams *raze me*, razing the other cities seems such a waste of pop. A better option would be either whip them down to size 1 (and use the resulting army to get more land) or starve them down for as many GP as you can get (and bulb something useful). This ofc assumes they aren't size 1 or 2 by the time you get them.