[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[Cyneheard]

I've heard somewhere that the NFL is the most equal in US sports, from a small-market to large-market competition. I think the least equal was the NBA. Although I have no idea by what basis that was judged

Football's revenue is more dependent on national TV rights than the other sports, so the small-market teams get more equal pieces of the pie. No one dominates TV like the NFL. And the rules are much more equitable in revenue sharing and in keeping the large-market teams from spending their $$$.

And everyone "sells out" their games - stadium revenue isn't nearly as divergent as, say, baseball.

For baseball, the $ comes more from local TV and stadium revenue - the Orioles may sell out 10 games a year, but the Yankees sell out 75-81, and get 2-3x a ticket to boot.

[pindicator]

Turn 159

As we noticed from civstats, Azza didn't fair too well on the IT. He lost another one when I was trying to sort out the tech changes.



When I opened the turn I had an offer from WilliamLP: sugar for silver. Thinking that maybe he had canceled our stone & wheat for silver deal, I took it figuring we could always cancel if we didn't want it. Then when I looked at the active trades, I realized that we were getting Silver from someone else and now we have two incoming.



I also noticed that we don't need that ivory from Black Sword any longer, so I canceled that deal. We can decide whether to cancel the deal to Old Harry or not, but I think I'd rather just cancel the deal to WilliamLP in 10 turns and then negotiate for gold. Speaking of which, I didn't offer to trade Black Sword spices for gold since I didn't want to figure out what would be realistic, so I left that one to you scooter



We popped our GS bulb! Printing Press finishes at end of turn at break-even. Then we get to head towards Astronomy, and not a moment too soon. (It seems like all our neighbors are headed that way now.)



Thought that Lions deserved a little attention. Once it's library finishes, I'm thinking about just sending it straight to National Epic. That should be about 10 turns away.


Tech Update. Some of these are probably ones that were teched a few turns ago but I missed, but here's the changes I made to the spreadsheet.

• Bacchus got Civil Service
  
• Azza got Engineering
  
• OldHarry & Fintourist got Banking
  
• Black Sword got Construction
  
• Commodore got Calendar
  
• dtay got Drama and Music (I must have missed at least one of these before
  
• Mackoti got Compass
  
• Lewwyn & Bigger got Aesthetics

We have tech visibility on OldHarry/Fintourist (Economics) and dtay (Military Tradition). So dtay is hoping to romp one of his neighbors with cuirassiers. His best bet is probably to go after Black Sword.
Commodore and Mackoti both are teching down the Astronomy line.

[scooter]

Two stray comments:

1) I did notice the ivory deal with Black Sword awhile back, but I figured we could keep it active so that he didn't turn around and trade that ivory to a rival or something. However, ivory is so readily available at this point, and Black Sword could very well become our enemy at some point, so I don't think that's really all that valid anymore. So I'm fine with that.

2) I kinda want to cancel that Old Harry deal. They're much more serious competition to win than WLP is, and we're giving them Stone which is pretty valuable. I guess the flip side of that is a strong Old Harry is probably good for us since he's neighbors with mackoti, so now that I actually type that out... I dunno. I'm waffling here, but I guess I'm thinking let's just cancel and re-offer for gold in 10T.


Okay, Black Sword is in HR, so he doesn't NEED the spices that badly. So we can't get a whole lot of gold from him most likely. However, he really doesn't have a ton of luxuries either. Here's all he has, including trades:

ivory
silk
whale
gold

Black Sword has 6 cities that are double-digits in pop, so I figured about 6gpt sounded reasonable enough that he would accept. However, he's deficit teching right now, so I asked for a flat 60g. Hopefully he just counters with 6gpt.



As pindicator pointed out, Dtay is working on Military Tradition now. I'm rooting for him to try to hit Black Sword with Cuirs. That would definitely open us up to piling on for the islands.

[antisocialmunky]

Who watched the Seahawks/49ers game? That was probably the closest game I've ever seen.

[pindicator]

Just a crazy 4th quarter to that one too.

I've played the turn but will have to report tonight after work. Highlights are:
•We have Printing Press
•Our newest city, Utes, just was founded, making me rename PAC South to UTAH.
•Optics done at eot
•Lewwyn is scouting us out, so i sent a knight to repay the favor

[pindicator]

Took a peek at the next turn and mackoti's GNP is still insane, post GA. We're around 750 GNP and 3rd overall. He's over 1000. He 1-turned Gunpowder this last turn.

I vote for 60 zerkers on 20 galleons

[pindicator]

Hope you can play this turn. If you're still out there...

[scooter]

Took a peek at the next turn and mackoti's GNP is still insane, post GA. We're around 750 GNP and 3rd overall. He's over 1000. He 1-turned Gunpowder this last turn.

I vote for 60 zerkers on 20 galleons

That makes me a little nervous. I'm assuming he used the GA to get Oxford into that absurd capital he has. I'm unsure how quickly we hit the panic button, or if we stay the course.

Hope you can play this turn. If you're still out there...

Yep, I'll get it tonight - no problem.

[pindicator]

Nothing needed for the Oxford plan - and the workers that need to chop are already in position

[scooter]

Turn 161

Lots to cover this turn. I logged in to be greeted by this peculiar offer:



Effectively he's asking 200g for this city. Here's the city in question:



Not a bad city, but squished by Bacchus culture. Bacchus just lifted a city south of here anyway (as evidenced by the lack of a city down there on the map), so that's a total hot zone. He's just looking for cash to survive I guess. I don't think we should capture this city, let alone pay for it. How about this:



I'm really starting to think we should settle this city accompanied by Knights and Zerks, then take Zapotec & Angkor Thom, and maybe some other retep stuff. Why WLP hasn't taken this stuff I'll never understand, but what's retep gonna do, throw rocks at our Knights? Just an idea. It's not something that can be done in the next 10T, and logistically it would be a bit of a nightmare given that all our troops are quite far away, but I think it's worth discussing. Anyway, if you guys need more evidence of how fantastic pindicator's Oxford plan is, here is all you need to see right here:



Look at the bottom of that page. Trailblazer's university is done, and it's now accumulating overflow to dump into Oxford (to be accompanied by a pair of 3rd ring chops). The other 6 universities are flawlessly lined up. The two cities that say 4T are going to be sped by 1T with chops. Just fantastic stuff . I did my best not to screw it up.



Swapped into the workshop setup here as called for by our plan. Here's a look at our next city:



I left a note here to settle the city AFTER those 3rd ring chops get deposited into Oxford. First, that sign should say T164 rather than T163, and second I deleted it after this screenshot because it was unnecessary and confusing. Two more random domestic notes:



I grabbed a farm from Lions for just this turn, giving Lions a coast. Lions is going to grow regardless. Next turn this could pick up the workshop instead, since both workers are free to finish it next turn.

The second thing I missed a screenshot for. There's a worker southwest of Orioles in that vast stretch of plains that 49ers and Sonic share. I'm a little torn on how to improve those. I'm not convinced we have enough food between those cities to workshop them all, so I think we slip in a farm or two. However, I think the much greater need is chopping that jungle down by Browns. Also, we do need a road between Orioles and Sonics/49ers region, because the transportation between those regions is really awkward, which isn't great since Orioles is our military pump. So my tentative plan there is to road that tile (which I started), then take the roads down to the Browns jungle tile that it can reach in one turn and chop that. Also, I did some coast/cottage juggling so that Browns can use the rice for a couple turns while it waits for more improved tiles and/or the trading post to complete.

In international news:



While editing this screenshot I became oddly hungry for a Baconator. Culture defenses being gone + flat ground means this city is not long for this world, but Bigger is not exactly coming with terrifying numbers here. He's got a few reinforcements coming, but I don't see any Knights, and I don't see many Maces. This war will be a slog for them, I think. Although, last time I said that they promptly captured several cities within hours of that post . So what do I know. Also in international news, here we are with all the golden ages over:



Our GNP goes up to 3rd at break-even, but doesn't get any higher than 3rd even at 100%. One caveat is that we'll see how it looks when we have added 6 more universities & Oxford. On the other hand, mackoti's GNP is truly terrifying. Why? This:



Science is off. Or at least, it's below break-even, and yet he's 5T away from Astro and beating us in GNP. I'm not quite sure how he's doing it. Well, I kind of do:



Sigh. Anyway, freak out? Another sign:



He's dipping off that a bit with golden age over, but that's still terrifying.