[SPOILERS] WillPlunder as Mehmed of Arabia: Noobs meet world

[WilliamLP]

Sorry if there are any lurkers out there who want more reporting - two games going on in these stages is a lot of time invested. Who would have thought? This is true both for the days that I really feel like playing Civ and the days that I don't.

Anyway, I finished Rifling. I decided to burn my Artist on Theocracy just because it's far from useless, and I don't think I'm likely to go for the 4-man Golden Age soon. Doing it again, I would have tried to save the extra Prophet , and then gone for a 4-man one with Prophet + Artist + Merchant + Scientist. But that's a a little dependent on RNG too, so who knows.

I burned a Merchant on 1570-ish beakers for Constitution, which I'll get next turn, then Corporation I think, then try to get Communism and maybe Democracy (for Suffrage) before the end of the GA. I'm just kind of guessing at it - even in single player I haven't played a civ game this far in many years! The most I could see a trade mission bringing in was 1700 gold for Retep's capital, or 1500 for a city I could reasonably hope to survive the trip to. Scientists bulbing to Scientific Method would just be better right now, but oh well.

Retep did a mass-whip. I have a guess that it's for navy. I switched to Slavery + Nationalism + Theocracy to pump some units, especially more boats of my own. Also this finally lets the western sea cities have a chance to defend themselves with the draft. 1 pop for a 110 hammer unit... Even at 1 XP, I don't mind if I do! And I'll probably try to draft 4 times every turn now.

As has been the case for a while, I've had some chances to stab Retep over the sea but I haven't done it. After seeing what I can research when I start to go mass-wealth, I think I can keep things interesting in the peaceful game.

[NobleHelium]

What did you do with the extra Prophet again? Or are you saying you used it on the current GA?

[WilliamLP]

What did you do with the extra Prophet again? Or are you saying you used it on the current GA?

Yeah, I'm in the second half of a 24-turn GA, and I fired the second one with Prophet + Artist + Scientist. I could have waited and fired it with Artist + Scientist + Merchant, and had Prophet + Artist left to easily generate the other two distinct GPs with Caste.

(And this is if there's a way to actually select which 3 GPs are used... Presumably having them in a stack would do it, or it picks the closest ones when you trigger?)

[NobleHelium]

Selecting the ones that you want to use works, yes. If you select some number fewer than the required amount, it should take the first usable GPs closest to your capital for the rest.

[WilliamLP]

I'm facing some Civ burnout right now. I'll play the turns to the end, but I'm realizing that the amount of micro and attention to detail it would take to have a chance to win this game is beyond what I'm capable of putting in on a day to day basis. E.g. I should do some serious calculations of what military is needed precisely where, and I should have a better scouting network of caravels checking on Bandit, and I should have been managing a transport network of galleons and planning settler movements precisely.

I think there's still plenty of intrigue left in this game though, with at least a three way race.

Bandit and Retep coinflipped for the Physics scientist, and Retep won. I finished Corporation, and I wanted to get Communism + Democracy for the final free civic switch (SP + Suffrage). But I think I might be 1 turn short on that, so will have to settle for just State Property for a while.

Bandit made peace-signaling trade offers, which I accepted. I have to figure out if I'm going to accept it if he plants a city to the island to my northwest (adjacent to me, pink dot-ish for him). He has a galleon which appears it could be poised to do so.

[Plunder]

I wish I could be a better 2nd player for you.
I could take over the occational turn, but I am sure it won't be even close to the amazing job you've been doing so far. (same for the reporting ... )

Would going for emancipation be a good move? At least it could mess with some people's happiness here and there.

[WilliamLP]

I wish I could be a better 2nd player for you.
I could take over the occational turn, but I am sure it won't be even close to the amazing job you've been doing so far. (same for the reporting ... )

Would going for emancipation be a good move? At least it could mess with some people's happiness here and there.

I'll let you know if I need a sub for sure - there might be a day or two that's dicey over the Christmas break for me.

I know very little about choosing late game civics.

Government: The reason for Democracy would be Universal Suffrage I think. +1 hammer per town is fairly large. Cash rushing has its uses. Though, HR is still nice right now for the happiness bonus from junk units. It's not a problem in peace but war turns with Kuro cost about 5-6 happiness at the moment. Representation would have been really nice for this past long Golden Age but the techs didn't line up.

Legal: Nationhood is nice. 1 pop for a 110 hammer rifleman is incredible, especially on the islands that don't have much production yet. +2 happy from barracks is good too. Bureaucracy would be more appealing still if our capital were better for commerce - I've said it before but a big thing I'd do playing this game again would be to move it over land and rivers before getting the Academy + Oxford. Free Speech is also a big effect if we're willing to leave Nationalism. But I think my plan is to lean heavily on Nat for military now while building a lot of wealth and teching up.

Labor: With Emancipation, the issue is that most of our mainland cottages are already pretty mature, and new island cities are being built for production now. And Caste is pretty good for the workshop bonus. We're in Slavery now, but I'll get out (probably to Caste) before the Golden Age ends.

Economy: State Property has the reputation of being broken in a no-Corp game. I've never really used it (I don't play single player games this long) but the three benefits it gives are quite huge. Free Market is pretty good too, but I definitely plan to switch to SP before the Golden Age is over. We'll get Communism in 2-3 more turns.

Religion: Free Religion gives a flat +10% on research, which isn't that small of a thing. Theocracy is the wartime civic. Organized Religion always has uses. It would speed up Wall Street - a quite expensive build, for instance. Also factories could be coming fairly soon in this game, which is kind of crazy. With Pacifism: is a GP economy outside of a golden age a good idea in the later game as the number of points needed increases each time? I don't actually know. If a population point is producing 6GPP per turn, it isn't that amazing since scientists are the only thing worth more than 1 beaker per point after a while.

Hmm, I'm starting to question whether we really need Democracy right now. Civics at the end of this GA could be:

Hereditary Rule / Nationhood / Caste / State Property / Organized Religion

Universal Suffrage is probably better than HR, but Democracy is really expensive and the other techs around right now are really really nice. (E.g. Steam Power, Railroad, Biology, Physics, Electricity, Assembly Line, etc.)

We could also run the Liberalism civics (it's cheaper than Democracy). Free Speech instead of Nationhood, Free Religion instead of Organized. This would be better if this game were going to just be about Us, Wetbandit, and Retep sitting around and racing into space. And maybe it will be that - I don't know! There is a precarious balance of power here, maybe where any of us three (or perhaps Boldly) could play kingmaker by attacking one of the others, so maybe a stalemate really is what we're going to be seeing for a while.

One idea is to try and race Wetbandit to Radio and get Cristo Redentor (basically making us Spiritual, and so good that it's banned in some games). Retep wouldn't be competing for it since he's SPI already.

[WilliamLP]

I'm going to try mentioning PB14, just to see if I can get a post from the one below in here to add to the list. (Other than Parkin, who posted already. )

I'm actually pretty proud of the checklist here actually! We have:
- Actual Civ research and discoveries by Refsteel.
- Posts by Sullla and Mackoti.
- A history post from Commodore.
- A quote of the month from Lewwyn.

[WilliamLP]

I'm going for a couple of cities on this island:




I'm not sure if Retep's galley I just spotted is a scout or a settling party, but I suspect a scout. Retep also planted two cities this turn so it's likely he's spamming island cities.




With a serious commitment to settlers, planning and a logistical micro plan, I think I could have owned all this stuff to the north 20 turns ago or more. And the sacrifice wouldn't have been that much, probably being down a tech or two.

As it is, the islands to the east of this have finally just hit the point where they are a net positive, with most basic infra done (granary, lighthouse, forge, organized courthouse) and grown to where they can draft for defense.

Also, I didn't even know Lib was a prereq for Communism I'm so new to this part of the game. I probably should have had it much earlier to have the civics available.

Oh well, hopefully in the next PB game I play with a lot more knowledge, and being able to focus more deeply on just one game, I'll be able to correct some of these finer grain issues.

I'm really wondering how Bandit and Retep (and Boldly) are perceiving this game right now. Like who they perceive is winning, and how worried Bandit and Retep are about each other.

[Plunder]

what actually happened with that stack from boldy (?) that moved north though our lands?