[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Looks like we could turn on tech t83 (when the library in Alfie completes) to get Alphabet t87. At that point Currency will cost 120 beakers less (~360 I believe) but will be worth another 20 gpt (if we can meet some more people) at least.

I guess we'd want Masonry straight after Alphabet for stone for Moai, so on t89 we'd need to decide:
- Construction->HBR,
- Currency,
- Calendar or
- Aesthetics->Lit/Drama->Music?

The only trouble with Alphabet is that building wealth gets you the library bonus when the cash is converted to beakers, while building research doesn't. It's certainly not a big problem, and the IC trade routes are far more important to us. It also means we don't need to settle the tundra island in the south in such a hurry, although I'll bet there is a precious metal to be had down there, so scouting it is still important.

Anyway PB13 is back up and running, so I probably can't fit any more sandboxing in here for a while...

[Fintourist]

Turn 81

We were missing a city name for "I" so I went with "Izzy".. Happy to rename it though! Btw, I always forget to check your worker names..




Izzy will get a WB, granary and a galley quickly chopped/whipped. You can also see that our capital whipped the settler for "Jelly Bean". In the north we are completing two work boats. As a reminder, Englbert and Gertie will pop borders eot82 and on t83 we will connect 2x fish and whales.

Looks like we could turn on tech t83 (when the library in Alfie completes) to get Alphabet t87. At that point Currency will cost 120 beakers less (~360 I believe) but will be worth another 20 gpt (if we can meet some more people) at least.

Yeah, I'm liking Alphabet more and more and turning tech on T83 is the way to go I'll probably check if running 20 % on T82 or something like that would allow us to finish it eot86 though.

I guess we'd want Masonry straight after Alphabet for stone for Moai, so on t89 we'd need to decide:
- Construction->HBR,
- Currency,
- Calendar or
- Aesthetics->Lit/Drama->Music?

So many attractive options! CoL can also be added to that list.. I liked your top-tree analysis, Gertie with Moai+Globe is a great idea! I think potential music artist and those wonders are probably not big enough attraction that we would like to immediately prioritize the top of the tree though?

The only trouble with Alphabet is that building wealth gets you the library bonus when the cash is converted to beakers, while building research doesn't. It's certainly not a big problem, and the IC trade routes are far more important to us. It also means we don't need to settle the tundra island in the south in such a hurry, although I'll bet there is a precious metal to be had down there, so scouting it is still important.

Yeah, building research is not too attractive. Luckily Alphabet is potentially so strong that it equals passive currency benefit + 10gpt from wealth builds without actually spending any hammers Negative aspect of alpha is that other civs will see our techs, but hopefully it does not matter too much.. One reason I like Alpha is that it can also create us some friends. Cyneheard and Cheater Hater should realize that us providing them early OBs is an enormous gift and hopefully we can establish friendly relations that allow us to focus on eating Azza (and Mardoc)..

And yeah, I think we want to take control of those islands early even if we would get a decent amount of foreign trade routes. When we get Currency it will be likely that we need to use domestic trade routes again unless we want to trade with Azza/Mardoc or manage to scout new players. And as you said, there's a fair chance that something delicious can be found there and it would be nice to finalize our pretty greedy western border..

Btw, Alphabet is 430 adjusted beakers, but maybe you ment that it is close to 250 raw beakers (although that's a bit too little as well so I'm probably missing something)? Pre-req bonus to Currency should save something like 60-70 raw beakers (so in essence 1-2 turns of research).

A part of me also likes early Alphabet, because it differs from the usual Currency-beeline mantra and it's more of a use-your-own-brains choice

Anyway PB13 is back up and running, so I probably can't fit any more sandboxing in here for a while...

I think I'll log in shortly there and accidentally exit directly to desktop..

[Fintourist]

FYI, I did a very quick sandbox run and we will finish Alphabet easily EOT86

[Old Harry]

I like Izzy, this is the rest of the list as far as Z. You should bookmark this post .

Indigo Izzy
Jelly Bean
Kirby
Lucky
Marmalade
Nina
Ophelia
Pickle
Quentin
Rocky
Snowdrop
Twinkle
Uncle Herbert
Velvet
Wilbur
Xander
Yummy
Ziggy

Alphabet by EOT86 is excellent. We need to log in first on t87 so that we can offer OBs to Cyneheard, Barry and Cheater Hater and get it accepted that turn...

I guess we'd want Masonry straight after Alphabet for stone for Moai, so on t89 we'd need to decide:
- Construction->HBR,
- Currency,
- Calendar or
- Aesthetics->Lit/Drama->Music?

So many attractive options! CoL can also be added to that list.. I liked your top-tree analysis, Gertie with Moai+Globe is a great idea! I think potential music artist and those wonders are probably not big enough attraction that we would like to immediately prioritize the top of the tree though?

CoL needs to be on the list - it requires Currency though, and we could delay that for the other options... so:

. . . . . . . . +---> Aesthetics -> Lit/Drama -> Music (First-to route)
Alphabet --+---> Construction -> HBR -> Currency -> CoL (Conquest route)
. . . . . . . . +---> Currency -> CoL -> Calendar (Economic route)
. . . . . . . . +---> Calendar -> Currency -> CoL (Happy Economic route)

Our choices are to try for first-to bonii (specifically SoZ in Hazelnut and music artist) and a way to pop borders, short term conquest, or the economic route (depending on the food and growth situation Calendar first might be better). I assume that the economic techs are needed straight after first-to or conquest. But if we go economic first then conquest and first-to are probably out. I agree that the music artist isn't quite enough to justify the top of the tree just yet, but being able to build culture is magical and we could get there pretty quick... Actually, could we time Aesthetics to come in in one turn just when we pop borders in Hazelnut and get a bunch of overflow and chops coming in? SoZ for Amphibious attacks is going to be strong later on. We need 10XP so Barracks, stable/Theocracy and West Point will do it, but with SoZ we could attack earlier...

Btw, Alphabet is 430 adjusted beakers, but maybe you ment that it is close to 250 raw beakers (although that's a bit too little as well so I'm probably missing something)? Pre-req bonus to Currency should save something like 60-70 raw beakers (so in essence 1-2 turns of research).

Ooops, I was going from the changelog, but that'll be for a Standard size world...

A part of me also likes early Alphabet, because it differs from the usual Currency-beeline mantra and it's more of a use-your-own-brains choice

Also it made us a bit of cash in PB13 ...

[Fintourist]

We need to log in first on t87 so that we can offer OBs to Cyneheard, Barry and Cheater Hater and get it accepted that turn...

Yeah.. At the moment turns are rolling when I'm sleeping, but I guess that's a good reason for setting up the alarm clock for 4 AM.. My gf is going to murder me if I do that

Btw, it looks like Barry's days are soon over and our northern neighbor will be a strong pindicator instead Pindicator took another city this turn so Barry is down to one final city now.

so:

. . . . . . . . +---> Aesthetics -> Lit/Drama -> Music (First-to route)
Alphabet --+---> Construction -> HBR -> Currency -> CoL (Conquest route)
. . . . . . . . +---> Currency -> CoL -> Calendar (Economic route)
. . . . . . . . +---> Calendar -> Currency -> CoL (Happy Economic route)

Yep, that about covers it Or wait, shouldn't we grab Iron Working so that we could have some fun with jaguars..

I feel like our aggressive expansion (enough room for 20 cities) and potential of Azza and Mardoc crippling each other justify the economic route, but as you said, HAs+cats won't be especially effective in 40 turns anymore and then we are most likely targeting towards maces/knights/cats. So if we want to grab more land this early we don't have time to prioritize our economy.. Hmm..

Early-ish Aesthetics for 200-hammer-3-XP-SoZ in Hazelnut could be a nice play. I'm not sold on that yet, because I'm not sure that the reward is big enough considering our other options (beakers are the main bottleneck, but getting 200 hammers in H also a decent investment). But I would love to have a bunch of amphi units to use and I see that you like the plan so I'm not completely against it. I still need some persuading though...

[Old Harry]

We need to log in first on t87 so that we can offer OBs to Cyneheard, Barry and Cheater Hater and get it accepted that turn...

Yeah.. At the moment turns are rolling when I'm sleeping, but I guess that's a good reason for setting up the alarm clock for 4 AM.. My gf is going to murder me if I do that

THH will be awake! If he can't log in we probably only need one of them to fill our routes up anyway...

Btw, it looks like Barry's days are soon over and our northern neighbor will be a strong pindicator instead Pindicator took another city this turn so Barry is down to one final city now.

Aw, crap, PB13 all over again . Can you tell if the Holy city got captured or razed? How do we approach Pindi? We could hold off contacting him until we have a bunch of SAs in place, then offer open borders to scout and pile the EPs on? With a powerful northern neighbour we want to get our power rating up early, so I'm inclined to go for the HA/Cat warpath.

Early-ish Aesthetics for 200-hammer-3-XP-SoZ in Hazelnut could be a nice play. I'm not sold on that yet, because I'm not sure that the reward is big enough considering our other options (beakers are the main bottleneck, but getting 200 hammers in H also a decent investment). But I would love to have a bunch of amphi units to use and I see that you like the plan so I'm not completely against it. I still need some persuading though...

I think we need to figure out Azza's tech rate, once we know that we know how easy it'll be to conquer him. If that doesn't look promising then it's 1st-to or Economy... With Pindi up north Amphi units become more and more attractive, but I just don't see him leaving us an opportunity to Ichabod him, so who knows...

Edit: Is the 16 turns for Maths accurate? If so that's a terrible tech rate .

[Fintourist]

Aw, crap, PB13 all over again . Can you tell if the Holy city got captured or razed? How do we approach Pindi? We could hold off contacting him until we have a bunch of SAs in place, then offer open borders to scout and pile the EPs on? With a powerful northern neighbour we want to get our power rating up early, so I'm inclined to go for the HA/Cat warpath.

I'm not feeling terrible just yet, I'm still crossing my fingers that pindicator had to invest a lot for this conquest (this early creating an army is costly). And we also have a chance to get quite a chunk of land peacefully and with Azza I feel we have a neighbor that we can realistically conquer ourselves when we run out of room.

I would imagine that we will meet pindicator automatically thanks to our coastal cities and I believe that's fine. With Cyneheard, Cheater Hater and pindicator we would probably have enough trade routes to fill our cities (and they could all pay for OBs...)

Re holy city: I would bet my money that holy city has not been razed, but I can check that from reli screen next turn.

I think we need to figure out Azza's tech rate, once we know that we know how easy it'll be to conquer him. If that doesn't look promising then it's 1st-to or Economy...

Edit: Is the 16 turns for Maths accurate? If so that's a terrible tech rate .

Yeah, Azza is clearly behind us when it comes to tech, probably maths won't take quite those 16 turns, but he is definitely not finishing it during the next couple of turns. He has not settled his gold yet, which is at least a partial reason for his slow research.

With Pindi up north Amphi units become more and more attractive, but I just don't see him leaving us an opportunity to Ichabod him, so who knows...

Yeah, I don't think he would be equally vulnerable.. I would imagine that if we attack pindicator it means that we have already conquered our own continent and we are invading with 100+ units, which we could as well just drop next to his coastal cities. That being said, maybe Cyneheard will settle all the coast next to us and we don't really end up bordering pindicator.

[TheHumanHydra]

Three things:

1. I actually can't log in right now ... sorry guys; I never ended up getting it set up before and I'm in 'low-bandwidth zone' for the summer again.
2. Strong neighbour over water does make an argument for amphibious-units wonder, however ...
3. Conquering own neighbour is probably realistically the best way to compete. Snowball effect might argue for conquering now if feasible and the investment itself doesn't sink us (presumably not).

[Fintourist]

Turn 82

Just extra quickly this time:

- Work boat armada in place
- Barry did indeed lose his holy city last turn, it was not razed so pindicator will be the owner of Hinduism
- Have I mentioned that it was TBS who founded Judaism?
- Mardoc has walls in his border city
- We killed a barb warrior, barb spear is being surrounded
- "Jelly Bean" is going to be founded next turn (settler in place on the plains hill east of Alfie)
- Last turn of saving gold, next turn we start pushing towards Alphabet
- I expect us to claim the mountain tile in the west in 2 (max 3) turns, currently Azza still has 53 % culture there

Next turn I promise overview shots, demos + graphs (+ anything demanded)

[Ceiliazul]

Next turn I promise overview shots, demos + graphs (+ anything demanded)

too easy! ahem:

I demand the blood of 2 azzan workers and a cheater hater fishnet.

failing that, predictions for the next twenty turns, both global and regional. who dies, who will rise? and how many turns will Parkin be playing by t100?