[spoilers] Commodore: Worse than Toku, it's Giggles of Siam!

[Thoth]

We really, really, really need a Taoist missionary for Hawk's Ridge.

Saving the forge whip overflow (if any) via building Wealth for a turn or two until Stone or Taoism are in play....

A Baray here would be useful as well, +5 food per turn makes for painfully slow growth, but I'm not sure when it's worth the hammers. Size 12?

[Commodore]

So, how badly will this be for me in the diplomatic front? Assuming I don't get sniped, this might be kind of bad, meta-wise, although great obviously in the whole "two free scientists in the academy cap" sense. Thanks to Parthenon, ought to yield a couple great people, too. Fingers crossed.


Verdant Acres is sucking hind teat right now, despite the Taoism spread. Really, I'd say this city ought to get stagnated soon, size 13 working the grass workshop and a plains workshop. A baray would enable an engineer, making this an excellent hammer spot indeed. Meanwhile, enjoy this shot of me working a dry plains tile.


Completing the tour of GPP pools, here's Riverside Manor. We'll either nail a shrine or a golden age with this; I'm hoping obviously for the 70% prophet but a golden age to enable Bureaucracy would be very nice. Annoyingly, the Taoist missionary failed to convert the city, so no extra temple to skew the odds a little better. We are entirely too Hindu.


Seriously, look at this. We have as many foreign religious adherents as base, and the Hindus just keep on growing. Taoism is going to be a regional novelty, I think, alas.


Amazon got a spread of Hinduism, so here's the situation now. Oddly enough, Cultural Victory is viable in these conditions, and would be faster than space or dom certainly. Trouble is, it would also be suicidally risky.


Turn: 154
Status:

[Commodore]

At long last, hiatus is done, lurkers rejoice! Not much popping at the moment, however. With stone online, Moai are about to get built, just need a few whip->overflows. As Thoth said, we need a Baray's +1f soon here, but I think a courthouse is next after the Moai. Ought to be a good spot.


I'd love to spread Taoism to Hawk's, but unfortunately we're short a galley. The missionary TM is cranking out now will probably go east, young man, to one of the hundred Hindu cities out there. It's annoying, but let's risk more 90% spreads using the limited-to-three missionaries, yeah, that's fun.


Notably still agnostic is Willowbrooke, cheerfully still cranking out the mammoths. Given we're in OR, not Theocracy, I figure it can hang out for the nonce. With barracks/stables, I'm already pushing out 5xp mounted units anyway; C2 or C1/Shock BEs ought to give Serdoa pause. Come on, Mr. Maya, knights are useless.


Interestingly enough, one city that still hasn't converted is Callum's, island city closest to the Hindu Holy City. Any time I can gets a free spread, I'll rejoice, but I'm doubting it here. Heck, maybe I'll open the new turn to find its gone Confu. Eh, ah well. Just need to keep growing to something like size 10, and then I'll be able to 5-pop whip a courthouse to deal with the weepingly massive maint load. This whole area is costing me.


Demos are actually decently snazzy, although MFG is lagging as ever, it seems. I'm finally back up a bit in the soldiery, and CY looks nice. I'll be whipping a bit more, but soon enough we'll be able to swap to Caste and it's going to be awesome. GNP, yeah baby yeah, that's 80%!


Of course, if ever I begin to feel even slightly sanguine, I get indicators things might get...sanguine. Hi there, Azza-ship.


Turn: 155
Status:

[Commodore]

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Congrats.

[Commodore]

So an annoying little subplot I've neglected to mention is "trying to get back Plako's graphs". He's been pumping out the EPs thanks to his cheap courthouses, and our own courts are coming online slowly. Case in point, Coldspring here is one turn from whipping at 2-pop. Sure, it's coming before forge, which sucks, but once I grow back to size ten that puppy is good for 5gpt, and its 4gpt right now.


In preparation for Civil Service, my workers are hanging out, thumbs up their butts. Chain-irrigation is a huge huge deal for this region...that poor little lake is getting to supply some 8-9 farms at least.


Cranking military, still ongoing. Of particular note is the world map, we're going to be running out of room to expand in only 6-9 more cities! Need to fix that. Cornflakes, Thoth, either of you feel OCD enough to count land tiles and figure out if there is land in the Astronomy-fog out west?


Turn: 156
Status:

Congrats.

Thanks! I had finally managed to whip myself below Slowcheetah in score, and then this turn happened. First of all, as can be seen from the pop-up, the Big B is now an option. I'm of two minds about it...in seven turns, the Riverside GP comes a cropper. If it's a GPro, shrine, but if its a merchant we're firing a Golden Age. So to wait nets us a potential free swap, but otherwise, 70% odds on us losing 7 turns of Big B benefits. I'll think a bit more. Oh, also made that nice little red-roofed building.


I'm knocking out the Great Wall in these three turns in either case, the Bureaucracy boost enough to make up for lost time if I opt to swap. Note the lovely GPP pool filling; I'll have a GA in a reasonable time-frame in any case. Ought to be able to squeeze two Great People out of here before the Parthenon bites it, and a Great Wall can only help that endeavor. I'm not too bummed about having to build it in the cap after all.


The ever-burning need to expand is nowhere near done. Welcome Oakmont, built upon the long-cold ruins of Zaxby's. We'll manage this into a beastly production city, working a pair of 'shops and three mines for 19hpt very quickly. I believe I'm going to figure it primarily as a naval base, pumping triremes and galleys and better. Granary, lighthouse, forge, courthouse, and then figure out how mines make wooden boats...


It was a nice turn for the Zulus too, as they manage to skew the GLH points away from GM and landed a Prophet. This means a Hindu shine incoming; I basically am resigned to being Taoist-Hindu. I wonder if they'll go for the AP? That would be mixed for us. Nothing for it now but to spread the enlightened word of Taoism to the east.


Turn:157
Status:

[Commodore]

Decided:

[Thoth]

Good call on the swap. I haven't run the math, but I'm 99% certain that 6 extra turns of Bcracy commerce and hammers outweigh the 1t of anarchy.

Thoth, either of you feel OCD enough to count land tiles and figure out if there is land in the Astronomy-fog out west? lol

Not a chance. Either tech Optics and go look for yourself or draw up some war plans for expansion via other means.


I'm not entirely clear on why you're bothering to spend hammers on the GW?

2 extra base GPP and an extra boost to GG production within our borders. Woohoo. Yay.

Monastary for the beaker boost and a galley/missionary would probably be a better use for those hammers. If you're planning whip overflow shenanigans to build Moai, Taoism gets us a lot more for our whips. +5 food per turn makes for very slow regrowth.


If the Zulus build the AP, that would be awesome for us. Hindu is already well spread in our empire and AP temples and Monkhouses provide a very good ROI. Speaking of which....we should get Hindu into the Capital soon for the extra Monk beakers.

[Commodore]

Heh, well, if they do, we have Hindu there, no worries. Hinduism is everywhere. I mean, I guess we could divert to Theology ourselves and build the AP, but that seems...not the best use of precious, precious gold, unless we're gunning for a CV.

Speaking of which, thoughts on victory condition? We're not closing anything out fast, that's for sure. I'm torn between aiming for Dom or Space, though. On the one hand, domination is very difficult on this map. On the other hand, space is a hard race with the potential of Slowcheetah or Plako. On the gripping hand, Serdoa will be coming sooner or later...so yeah.

[Commodore]

I'm not entirely clear on why you're bothering to spend hammers on the GW?

2 extra base GPP and an extra boost to GG production within our borders. Woohoo. Yay.

Monastary for the beaker boost and a galley/missionary would probably be a better use for those hammers. If you're planning whip overflow shenanigans to build Moai, Taoism gets us a lot more for our whips. +5 food per turn makes for very slow regrowth.

Weirdly enough, OR/stone mean a galley/missionary are twice as expensive, the Great Wall really is dirt cheap and I fully expect to be fighting within our borders more. Monasteries will come, both Hindu and Taoist, before we turn tech back on. 95% beaker boost on already 50% boosted commerce then!

Oddly enough, Taoism would not speed up the painful process of whipping in the Moai. Thanks to the forge, it's already netting us maxed-out 19h overflows after just 1t->whip, so Moai is 4 whips away, or 4 whips away with a ton of overflow. Which is nice, and I do agree we need a baray next, so Taoism will be a big deal, but I think its okay to spread it in eight turns.


I kind of cringe each turn as I expect the three shrines to convert our few remaining agnostic cities. I've got missionaries in the pipeline, but they're needed to try and turn Hindu/Buddhist eastern cities Taoist, so I just have to keep waiting and watching in places like Oakmont here. It'll want Taoism before it tackles the big forge/courthouse pair.


Crop yield keeps being tops, MFG and GNP keep on...not. That's a massive, massive MFG, and it seems to be growing power...


...ruh-oh. See them workshops? What does this tell us, class?


Turn: 158
Status: