[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Fintourist]

Greetings from gili islands, they are awesome. Keep pushing! lets forget economics merchant, we might want economics anyways soonish for FM civic though. Maybe printing press is our consolidation price?

We need to snipe opportunistically some cities soon.. Damn you m_h. Damn you suttree!

[TheHumanHydra]

Hi Fintourist!

Holy moley on mack's GNP. We might need to get Economics anyway just to keep up.

[Old Harry]

We need pictures of beaches!

I agree on ditching the econ merchant - if so I don't see any point completing banking this turn given that we're going to use two or three great merchants to run 100% research for 20 or 30 turns - we could switch to Mercantilism but I don't think that suits us on this map. So I guess Printing Press is our best tech after Paper (although so much of our commerce is metals, calendar resources and trade that I don't think it'll be as good for us as you'd imagine - I'll weigh it up vs Education some time soon), after which:
- Replaceable Parts improves our production (+1 to mines) and gunpowder and rifles let us shoot people in the head
- Education - Banking - Economics gives us better research rates and +1 trade routes and +25% trade bounty
I'm inclined to go for the latter anyway, as THH says, we need to keep up. But if Mack gets gunpowder we need to do something to counter his Janisseries.

Krill - if you're still reading I can't seem to see the +25% to commerce that Free Market should give in the test I set up - but the link to Mutal is showing 5gpt instead of 4gpt - so am I right in thinking it just boosts a trade route worth 4 to be 5 and 8 to be 10 but is hidden the same way the AGG discount is? Or is it doing something more complex? (If it is doing that we will get an extra 50 gpt on top of the extra 70 we'll get from the +1 trade routes!)


I wonder if we should use the Great Scientist in Agincourt for an academy or just bulb Education? Either way I'm switching back to scientists and I think the next golden age will be t165...

[Fintourist]

Uncertain about tech path. If we don't build unis, economics road has a long long payback.. And opportunity cost is also sizable: PP + RP brings a solid boost.

You mean you switch back to merchants? Academy sucks in comparison IIRC and now I would be happy if we don't get any further scientists. Edu bulb is probably not a terrible waste, but im really not sure we want to go that way.

[Fintourist]

Or are you planning mass bulbing edu+PP+economics so that we get both commerce techs asap? also a valid option, but again a bit expensive and we will surely trail Mack to key military techs.

[Ceiliazul]

good reports! no way to turn off signs, unfortunately.

[Old Harry]

Or are you planning mass bulbing edu+PP+economics so that we get both commerce techs asap? also a valid option, but again a bit expensive and we will surely trail Mack to key military techs.

Nope, we're running merchants everywhere except Cannae, for three great merchants by eot156 and a second scientist/prophet around t165.

If we get Education, then if Mack gets Gunpowder we can quickly research Gunpowder with a 40% bonus, to counter his Jans. Otherwise we head for Economics first. Also we could whip universities and try to get oxford quick since we'll be operating at 100% science for a while... (although we don't have a city that really justifies Oxford )

On bulb strategies:
1. We bulb Education for a front-loaded boost.
2. If we research Compass, Optics, Education and Printing Press a scientist could part-bulb Astronomy, which could give us naval superiority as Mack doesn't want to obsolete Colossus...
3. We save the great scientist for a second golden age and switch back to merchants in Cannae to try for a fourth great merchant.

I'm not yet sure which I prefer.

Thanks Ceil, I guess you guys don't get any uncluttered overviews then.

[Old Harry]

I just logged in to switch research to paper and end turn and Mackoti has offered a map trade. Is he trying to be friendly or is he figuring out how to hit us? The only info that he might not have already would be the location of Quantrill. We'll get a fresh look at his infrastructure (roads, etc), but not much else. Hmmm. I think I'll take it. But still assume he's attacking in four turns time... Not a lot of change on the minimap:


Although this is quite funny - Suttree settled Santiago miles away and avoided the island with two resources and the one that is all forests in favour of a one-tile fishing village. I think he's aiming at surviving to the end and making it hard to attack him, but Pindicooter can just wait until he's grown it a bit and Zerk him.


FYI if we got Printing Press in 10 turns we'd get ~30 commerce extra per turn. Multiplied by 1.25 that makes ~40 beakers per turn. Universities will get us ~15 beakers in Agincourt, Canane, Gallipoli and Light Brigade and ~10 in France and Hastings (at 100% science).

I've finally made a decision on what GP I want from Cannae t165: I'd like a scientist. We're going to run two trade missions to Ichabod on t157 and t158, and we're going to keep the third GM on ice. The GS in Agincourt will bulb Education to get us to Free Market earlier and let us start building universities. The logic is that running three trade missions in the space of two turns would just get us a crazy amount of gold (4500) which would take ages to spend. I've got a plan for investing the 3000 gold I expect by offering lump sums to trustworthy people in return for GPT (I'm thinking 200 gold for 22gpt, 500 gold for 55gpt, etc - although that may be a bit generous), but I doubt I could do that for all 3000, let alone 4500, while the bulb pays out straight away.

You guys would tell me if that was dumb wouldn't you?

[Ceiliazul]

You guys would tell me if that was dumb wouldn't you?

what? Oh. Of course!

[Old Harry]

Turn 153

International news: dtay finally completes the Taj, if we'd got a low-odds Engineer four turns ago I'd be kicking myself, but fortunately we didn't (!) Azza lost a size 11 coastal city to Lewwyn - presumably boated while he was defending elsewhere? I had a look at soldier points changes in the demos and they tell me nothing. Techwise Commodore is heading towards Astro (like pindicooter) - he just got compass - Mack doesn't have Economics yet and plako is finally out of his golden age


Very straightforward turn. Shuffled our units towards the Mackoti border, but with a few hanging back just in case he's planning to use his open borders with Suttree to snipe Hastings. I offered Suttree two happy for OBs - if he says yes we'll have two turns to spot Mackoti's potential stacks in our land.


Power and Demos