[SPOILERS] Lewger goes for the Bigwyn

[Bigger]

Lewwyn, we need to decide what to research after lit. I'll make sure to finish lit this turn regardless. I see 3 options:

1. Go for liberalism. This would mean paper next, then education, philosophy, liberalism. plako doesnt have paper yet, meaning the only person that could have it (and our biggest competition) would be slowcheetah.
serdoa has the most beakers but has detoured for guilds and banking and I think has given up on it. commodore has philosophy, but no paper yet. we have a lot of stored cash and still have a 1 person golden age, so i think we'd have a half-decent chance of pulling it off. we'd have to lib nationalism, of course, no chance of astronomy or anything else.
PROS: if we pull it off, most beakers. free golden age from taj. we will be able to track commodore's, plako's, and serdoa's progress and abort if we can't do it. quickest path to education and universities - sooner we can build this important but expensive building, the better - and the sooner we get oxford built in gilgamesh.
negative: we can't really tell how far aware slowcheetah is, and won't make contact w/ him in time to do so, unless he finds us soon. our workshops are missing +1 hammer from guilds and we can't build grocers for awhile.

2. accept we would probably lose it to slowcheetah or commodore - but go for nationalism (and the taj) the hard way. we need meditation-philosophy-nationalism. meditation I would take for free once we finish a library in shahnahmeh and ramhadaboiejrf. the latter has a chop coming in and will probably finish in 5-6 turns, I can whip one out in shah before then. so we'd turn research down in the mean time, park it one drama, and finish drama the same turn we get the free meditation to breeze through philosophy and half of nationalism. (drama would give us an additional discount on philosophy). we can still use the golden age to power through nationalism, and with a 200% bonus on the taj we should be able to complete it fairly quickly in gilgamesh (pretty sure we'll be at peace w/ azza by then).
PRO: safer than #1, I think we can still get taj first this way even w/o liberalism (education and liberalism are both about the same cost as nationalism w/ the rbmod). 16 turns of golden age will really help us catch up. the only way we miss out on taj is if commodore has the same plan.
negative: same as #1, putting off guilds.

3. go the safe route, mirroring serdoa. feudalism>guilds>banking.
pros: +1 hammer from workshops, can build grocers to help economy. a quick banking would allow us to whip a bank in the iliad before we revolt out of slavery, which we'll need to get wall street built there. more military units (long bowmen and knights), both of which will help us defend against serdoa. don't risk investing in goals of #1 and #2 and falling short.
negative: no free beakers, no free golden age. neither long bowman nor knights will be very useful against knights, since he's going to have pikes by then and probably won't be able to attack us ever.


I'm leaning towards 1 or 2 (maybe slightly towards 2) but need your input. you might want to log into the game if you haven't done so in a bit .

[Bigger]

btw, just realized I can cancel the furs for 3gp w/ brick yuri if need be to prevent screwing up gilgamesh. I'll log in after xenu plays and see. sorry brick.
ill still get the last furs hooked up asap, and try to trade it with brick for silk.

[Lewwyn]

Hmmm yeah, lemme log in to see first. Not sure yet.

[Bigger]

k. after xenu plays I'll log in and turn our research down to the lowest necessary to finish lit (I think, 60%). Then we'll have a few days to decide anyway since we're pausing all Easter for Azza.

I really want to know why we don't have city visibility the presets, maybe you can figure that out too.

[Lewwyn]

k. after xenu plays I'll log in and turn our research down to the lowest necessary to finish lit (I think, 60%). Then we'll have a few days to decide anyway since we're pausing all Easter for Azza.

I really want to know why we don't have city visibility the presets, maybe you can figure that out too.

Oh that cuz civ espionage screen routinely lies about the actual costs

[Old Harry]

Would declaring on plako or xenu just to cancel be an exploit or lose you trade routes/good will?

If you don't know what slowcheetah is up to it means he doesn't know about you. You could sneak lib while he's attempting to lib something more expensive?

[Bigger]

Would declaring on plako or xenu just to cancel be an exploit or lose you trade routes/good will?

If you don't know what slowcheetah is up to it means he doesn't know about you. You could sneak lib while he's attempting to lib something more expensive?

its be a little cheesy, I think. more importantly: it would lose trade routes, good will, and the needed banana's from xenu.
less would be lost declaring on plako, since neither of us have alphabet, but if we ever did get open borders we would have less of a "years of peace" bonus. I think thats one reason we're #1 in routes, we've only warred ever with azza and serdoa, and don't have OB with either of them, so we're getting nice "x years of peace" bonuses to trade routes.

I don't think its an issue though. I think xenu will refuse the deal. and if he doesnt I can move a mace into gilgamesh for a HR happiness next turn until I have time to get the last fur connected.

Im not sure slowcheetah would get that greedy, even if he doesnt consider us a lib threat he's got to take commodore, plako, and serdoa seriously. hmm.

[Bigger]

anyway since we've got a break in the game I've been thinking about our tech plan
we have 3 options - the safe plan (towards guilds), the ambitious plan (lib nationalism), and the middling plan (tech straight to nationalism, ignore lib).

1. if we go the safe plan, its pretty straightforward. feudalism next, then guilds. GP for golden age would pop probably after we finished guilds or near then, so we could use it to power through banking - or maybe hold onto it until we can get economics so we can revolt to free market as well. yawn.

with the other 2, I think we start the same: research drama next. research 90% of it, then accumulate cash until we get libraries built in shahnahmeh and rahmahdama (to get meditation for free, required for philosophy). then power through philosophy with researched turned on. even if we go for lib I'd want philosophy first - researching paper lets everyone know you have it and is a big flag that you're going for lib, and anyway delaying the paper/education chain gives us more time to be creative with our great people

2. agressive plan: I think I can pump a great scientist out of shahnahmeh by the time we finish paper, or at least by the time we're half way through education. I start library next turn, and can be size 4 in 3 turns to 2 pop whip it, then I'll do the same thing with national epic, and can quickly hire 2 scientists and an engineer with still enough food left over to grow while building a market. so thats 18 GPP a turn... hmm well I might need to whip the market in to hire some merchants to finish the GPP in time. it will be close, but if I can get a great scientists in time we can use it to bulb the rest of education, then hire 5 GPP (+2 merchants) to get any great person for a golden age to complete the taj quickly for a 2nd golden age.

if we get a great merchant for our first one we just use it for an earlier golden age... if we get a great engineer, might be worth hanging onto it to build wall street in the iliad. we'll see.
we can also build wealth as needed in gilgamesh and maybe roland or maths (depending on if military is needed) to speed up liberalism.

keep in mind also that we get a 200% bonus on all marble wonders (taj, both epics) so it won't take us long to build the taj in our beauro capital.

3. midling plan: after philosopjhy, we go straight for nationalism. we could, in theory, grab the music Great artist that is still out there for an easier golden age - I wouldnt mind building the sistene either, as I've been thinking lately our only chance of actually winning this will be a mid/late game culture vicotry. then we plow through nationalism - using wealth builds to keep our research rate high (assuming the war with azza is either winding down or finished, which it should be), and try to time the golden age to finish nationalism quickly and use the last few turns speeding up the build of the taj as well.
Then we use the taj golden age is plow through feudalism and guilds, revolting into caste on our last turn. also to pump out military to finish off whatever is left of azza .


I'm starting to like the midling plan the most, but I could be talked into the aggressive plan. Don't really like the "safe" plan, it feels to much like turtling and accepting our role as a mediocre empire :/.

[Qgqqqqq]

Why wouldn't you use the GE on Taj?

[Bigger]

Why wouldn't you use the GE on Taj?

seems like a waste when we could build it in gilgamesh with a 250% bonus to production (100% marble, 50% IND, 50% beuro capital, 25% OR, 25% forge)... plus a lot of hammers in that city anyway. wall street in the iliad will be a lot harder to build (especially with whip - for wonders, and a very low hammer city). I guess we'd do it anyway if it meant losing it otherwise. probably though we won't get a GE and it won't matter.