[SPOILERS] TT tries yet again to not be terrible

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ok, turn 186 report (hopefully my final for a bit) in 3 parts:

first, the war that isn't a war.
the bad news:

at finally cut off horses and iron, and he gets the hook up from Jowy. *$)$*@). I should have seen that coming. I would be pissed if 2metra or commodore was giving cornflakes iron, but I can't blame Jowy here - he is essentially an observer at this point anyway, he's really far behind, and there's no way cornflakes will attack him at any point for the rest of the game (pretty much) anyway, so he's got nothing to lose. anyway, I can't offer him anything to cancel the deal (same 10 turn rule as before, this trade just happenned this turn) so I have only one option - I routed all nearby spies towards Jowy's Iron mine (he only has one source, thankfully). the first one will arrive in 3 turns, can disconnect in 4. . I also have a 2nd en route in 7 turns and another in a border city that completes next turn, just in case the first one fails or is caught. I have no idea how many EPs it cost to disconnect iron, but I started putting eps on jowy just in case (took them off AT, have 20 EPs going into Jowy and 20 into cornflakes). TT, pay attention to eps, you may need to put 100% towards jowy for a bit. plan is to get enough spies that you can continually disconnect it until jowy gets the idea.

I thought about offering him techs to declare war on cornflakes, but forgot to do it. you might try that (since war is the only think that can break up the trade).

anyway, we need steel ourselves, badly.
we are accumulating cash (thanks to free market, the situation gets bad in mercantilism).

to fund steel. I offered the same thing to commodore for education (300 +20gpt, since he doesnt have as big of a stockpile) but probably should be willing to accept less for education if commodore counters. frankly im willing to let them catch up in tech if it will get us closer to military parity with cornflakes and AT (at now has grenadiers, cornflakes has cannons).


I fully expect cornflakes to refuse this. I also failed in getting military science from AT. I did get whales for gold from AT (which is great for us, he only has 1 source of whales, we have 3 sources of gold).

trying to up the happy as more drafting will be needed soon:

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part 2: the economy (also, how TT can prevent from completely crashing our economy once again hehe):

we're actually #2 gnp now, which is amazing (AT is #1). that is only because everyone is doing shit, I think our breakeven is only 30% or so, and thats with free market - probably 10% with mercantilism.

anyway, lets go city by city:

this is probably 25% of our economy, even outside of bureaucracy. the customs house is kind of a luxury (need knights) but will be a great boost, as we are relying on trade routes right now and this city of course has the best ones.
IMPORTANT: ANKOR is just for fail gold here, DO NOT let it finish. heheh.
note that this city will produce a great person within 10 turns. 25% chance of a priest, 20% chance of engineer, im hoping for one of those 2. not sure who you could safely send a merchant to, but a trade mission would be useful if we get a merchant.
I would eventually like to build oxford here, but we are so far away from universities being a productive use of hammers in any cities, lol.
here is where ankor will actually be built:

im putting turns into the capital for fail gold because at the moment its not producing many hammers anyway. I had to whip away pop - I whipped both hindu buildings and the forge for maximum overflow into ankor. now that they are built and we have chemistry it should be no problem popping it out once we grow onto the mine and 2 workshops. I would probably let the jewish temple complete, and extra fail gold accumulate, then switch over to ankor here. then you can hire 5 beefed up priests in the national epic city for a 97%ish chance of a shrine . actually, i'd like 2 shrines (eventually). here's why:


first of all, the spiral miragnet alone will immediately net us, I dunno, 50-60gpt, so thats awesome. thats why I drained our cash reserves to complete divine right and had to switch to free market to replenish it.
it produces ok cash, thanks to the town that can only be worked by this city, but the cash buildings need to be built as it will be a great cash producer post shrines. It is the hindu and jewish holy city!
hindu shrine is first. hinduism is in all our cities. and honestly if we were a little more secure militarily I would be building hindui missionaries for jowy's land. maybe one day. but we can also build the jewish shrine with a second prophet. honestly, judaism isn't spread that much - but we can spread it to all our cities whenever we have the luxury of producing missionaries.
once we have both shrines built, wall street will be very nice. unfortunately, though, that requires corporation, which we won't be able to research until we have cannons, at least.

Now, here are the cities I converted to cottage factories:


futurama fry has riverside cottages, alone with a bank, grocer, and market! yummy. the only thing its missing is a customs house, but I had to stop for knights for now.


this is #3 commerce city now, but will move to #2 once the bank completes. the key will be laying off whips and drafts to grow onto the cottages and workshops, which is hard to do.


I actually drafted off the spice tile after taking this picture :/. again, the key here is patience, growing onto the non-riverside cottages and just letting them mature. I have a a 3rd ring tundra chop the same turn the bank completes that will help with the grocer (1 pop whipping for overflow is ok, your call). the plains cottage here is kinda silly, but we need commerce, so why not?


potential. unfortunately the hammers are lacking, and I had to build a courthouse here too, so just getting the hammer buildings (hindu temple, monastery, forge) in place has taken forever. it still needs a market, bank, grocer (probably in that order) but will be quite good once that happens and it can grow onto the non-river cottages. I've put signs up for recommend worker actions. probably cottage over the farm 1N of the city too, but save that for last.

ok thats it for cottages. here are some other interesting cities:


ok, I couldnt secure a marble loan. but this thing has to be built anyway. I might have whipped a knight here for overflow, not sure. there's a chop coming in next turn, so the epic should complete in 3 turns, not 5. then probably just product military out of this city for the rest of the game. for now, knights.
note that the tile 2s of the city has to be a farm - if we ever found the open city site south of here (currently jungle) it will be needed to irrigate the corn there.


this is our globe theatre city. I point this out mostly to show you why you should NEVER build globe theater in the same city as national epic. its a good thing I took over when I did, you would have gotten almost no use out of national epic if you had built them togethor. I have been forced to draft this city every damn turn, and even though it regrows quickly, its probably 80% regrowing from the drafts, and has gone from size 12??? to size 6. I even was forced to not draft for a couple of turns to let it regrow. so I guess just keep drafting and let the city be that - a continual muskateer pump, and not much else. if we ever get enough security to revolt to bureaucracy again, it can regrow very quickly.

so thats that. the other cities are just farm/workshop cities pumping out knights - they have a granary, courthouse, forge, both hindu buildings, and barracks built. a few have libraries that you built. no specialist except the 1 in the capital . actually I think we may be able to lay off whipping soon, you can even revolt to caste if you want (for increased workshop production) for 5 turns. but we cannot leave nationalism. I think it would be a TINY boost to our economy if we switched to bureaucracy(not even positive of that), but we can't afford to give up drafting right now.
the former azza\cornflakes cities are are out of revolt and working on hindu buildings, courthouses, forges. the border cities also has a wall going up soon. I have buildings queued. once they finish those you can build barracks and probably just use them as military builders, since they are so close to the border. again, if we ever feel safe from cornflakes we can build libraries there.

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part 3: military situation

unfortunately, I forgot to take pics. and sunrise had a power outtage so I can't log back in. (I was lucky to log back in and repause for 2 metra before the outtage so we won't have to reload). So this is mostly from memory.

if cornflakes hadn't gotten iron from jowy, I would feel pretty secure now. as it is, we're strong, but its still dicey. cannons are scary. we have almost 3 rows of units in the border city, grumpy cat. 6 cats? 1 mace, 5-6 knights, and the rest muskateers. also have about 10 muskateers and 3-4 knights either within range or on their way to the city. I have a few in sentry position around the city that can get back really quickly.
I drafted the max (4) cities this turn for the first turn in awhile - TT, ne prudent but don't be afraid to draft in cities that don't already have draft unhappy. and of course every turn you're able in the globe city. don't draft in the national epic city, though, and try to avoid drafting away cottages in the commerce cities if at all possible.

I also have 4 mmuskets in the northern, most eastern city - there is a cornflakes city isolated in the tundra that I didn't raze. I did that intentionally, its crap and I thought the maintenence would hurt his economy more than keeping it would help. not sure if that was a mistake or not, really. but if grumpy cat sees war you can bring them down.

if cornflakes and 2metray actually come to arms when their peace treaty wears off, that will be a great relief - provided 2 metra can kills plenty of units and a few cannons. if its a faux war, that will be scary. if i was in 2metras spot I would just give the city abck to cornflakes and retreat, but I hope he doesnt do that.

at this point I kind of feel like only 3 civs are relevant - ours, AT, and cornflakes. cornflakes only because he has a steel monopoly - his tech rate is shit, thanks to all the cities I took or razed, and once us and and AT get steel he will quickly be as irrelevant as commodore, hehe, if he can't regain some land before that.
AT also has grenadiers now. I don't think he wants war yet, but if he builds up a large enough army he can do damage to us. I would hope he would rather go after cornflakes or jowy, but be cautious. unfortunately I had to move my reserve force towards grumpy cat once I saw cornflakes got another iron source, but if at does declare, we can at least do some damage along the new front near grumpy cat, and do emergency drafting on the border (which isn't far from our globe city).
I think for the moment we have no choice but to hope and prepare for peace with AT, as cornflakes cannons will be too much of a threat until we get steel ourselves.

I have set our research to steel, but not put much into it (0% rate). you can keep that up, or switch to a cheaper military arts - for curaissers. they, at least, can do flanking damage against cannons (I think??? or are cavalry required???), and we might be able to trade it for military science with at, and grenadiers. or just keep the course for steel. im not sure which is the best move, to be honest.

both at and cornflakes are researching replaceable parts. which is probably a good sign, tbh - they aren't cooperating with tech. both see each other as a threat, I think, which is good. also if we do get chemistry we can probably get a good haul off of it with AT (maybe replaceable parts and military science?? that would be nice). anyway I would like to be able to research corporation, as the extra trade route + all street would be awesome for our economy, but we have to catch up military with both of them first. so steel or military arts are your only 2 options, I think.

don't be afraid to sell techs to jowy, commodore, and/or 2metra to do so. all 3 of them are prettty damn far behind (neither jowy or commodore even have education), and if that cash helps us catch up militarily, its worth it.

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honestly, I was having a ton of fun in this game, so thank you for letting me play for so long . The only reason I need to stop playing is that I'll be needed again in pb8, and I just don't have enough time for 2 pitbosses at once. At least, if I did, the lurkers would hate me as neither would get any reporting. But I'm invested now, so I'll still be logging in on the weekends to look around and offer advice, hehe, and can play a couple of turns here and there if you need me too. You should really enjoy the next 30 turns or so, we're in a pretty good spot, I think .

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pretty once the reload situation finally gets worked out that I accept this. as much as I don't want anything to do w/ google, and would love to see 2 metra and cornflakes at war, the gold is too valuable. I'll try and sell google immediately to cornflakes (along with some cash and iron) for steel. if he refuses, I may just sell it to him for something miniscule (or if I just liberate it, does that give me another 10 turns of enforced peace? totally worth it).

ill be frank: we need cannons, BADLY. if we had 15 cannons right now I would be pretty damn confident that there's nothing anyone but AT could do to keep us from winning (and maybe not even him). but we don't have steel, so every effort needs to be made to get us steel asap. I cannot stress how critical that tech is right now to us.

i have a free night, if this crap gets worked out tonight ill play the turn.

[Twinkletoes89]

I agree with you on the steel front, not sure how we'll get it but it is what we need. That would/should at least allow us to hold what we have taken in the short term.

Is the economy still struggling? I know that it is likely my earlier play which may have given us this handicap but hopefully its not fatal. After all its easier to recover an economy than expand in territory and holding azzaland is going to be helpful if we can get it up and running.

My major worry is if AT and Cornflakes decide to take a pop at us given that we are kind of the top 3 right now - Cornflakes goes after Azzaland and AT goes for our core. One hopes they go for Jowy or 2metra instead.

Anyway, my laptop is on the mend and I have received my final degree result now so after a couple of days of celebration and relocation I should be able to ease your pitboss burden.

For anyone that is interested/cares. I got a first class degree in Politics and International Relations

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ok, I'll play the turns through the weekend, you can take over on Monday then . Glad to have you back, congrats on your degree.

economy - its on the mend, improving. we are about 25% breakeven research rate atm (in free market, lower in mercantilism, which I'm scared to switch to but can as of the next turn). spiral miragnet completes in 2 turns, that will help. im also selling techs to backward civs haha, that helps. and the paya will complete in 7-8 turns, we will get a large amount of fail gold, which will help, and then some time after that will get at least 1 shrine which will help as well. so we're getting there, but its still a work.

as for the war, well im going what I can, building knights and max drafting muskateers where possible. cornflakes will have a blood bath on his hands if he tries to take back his land, I am not short of military over there, even if I am missing cannons.

AT has only shown peaceful intentions so far, and thank God for that. If he did declare the southern part of our empire would indeed be vulnerable, but we now have a border by him near the cornflakes border, so we could also wreak havoc on him. Not sure either of us could benefit from that war yet, tbh.

cornflakes and AT both have steel. now AT and 2metra have grenadiers (AT gave it to him). we need steel more than grenadiers (rifles would be better, since they can be drafted).


for those of you not paying attention to civ stats, here is what happenned:
2 metra offered me this deal, only I had to take google as well. I was all set to do so and immediately give it to cornflakes, but the game was paused and we ended up having to reload anyway. apparently he made the same deal to Jowy, who immediately gave it to cornflakes :/. well the good news is the deal was still up. I took it greedily. if 2 metra didn't want to offer that without me taking google, tough, he shouldn't have offered the same deal to me and jowy


I also offered gunpowder and divine right to jowy. he doesnt have much, so I offered him a payment plan - 35 gpt (he only makes 38 gpt lol). frankly would be willing to throw in education as well if he counters. right now im willing to treat jowy like a backwards AI in alpha centauri - I'll sell him techs at 25/ pop all day


trying to work out something w/ commodore. he turned down 500 gold for education, ill try 400, probably would go as low as 300.

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umm, ok. how would he know if I accepted or not, with nothing on the table? lol. he'd have to at least offer steel, though.

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has anyone ever done this?

I build a road connecting Jowy and AT with my workers

I really hope both see it, and wonder wtf I am doing. its just to keep a straight road connection for my spies from my empire to Jowy's Iron source, so I can keep him from providing cornflakes as much as possible.

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from civ stats it looks like jowy accepted my last trade deal. 400 gold (100 upfront, plus 30GPT) for educationa nd gunpowder. yeah, thats lopsided in his favor, obviously. but I don't mind levelling the playing field here to catch up in military tech w/ AT and cornflakes. figured better to jump on this before one of them figures out they can squeeze gold from Jowy. and I squeezed about all possible, I think he's only making 36gpt at 0% science, and only had like 104 built up.

now if I can just get some gold from commodore I will have made the rounds.