[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

Btw, I made a rough micro until T95 or something like that (next 5 turns are probably accurate), interested for some screenshots or even a save stack? Obviously it does not have OB commerce included, are there any best practices for adjusting beakers?

[Old Harry]

I'd probably stop worrying about the beakers in the sandbox - just adjust the gold every now and then - but putting eg incense under a few farms might do the trick, or giving the AI some iceball cities using debug tools and alt-Z... If you've got an up-to date sandbox I can see if I have time...

I totally agree about CH and Cynheard being our partners and that we shouldn't help Pin out even if it benefits us. I'd like Azza to be well disposed to us and concentrate on economic techs, so there is an argument for offering him (or agreeing to) OBs, but I suspect he's heading straight for Construction after Maths and if he builds up a stack of 10-20 cats that could make things hard for us by the time our knights arrive. If he's doing that my vote is to get to Cats and Horse Archers ASAP ourselves. Perhaps even before Currency. (I think I know what you'll say to that though!)

What tech path do you see for the next 10-20 turns?

[Fintourist]

If he's doing that my vote is to get to Cats and Horse Archers ASAP ourselves. Perhaps even before Currency. (I think I know what you'll say to that though!)

What tech path do you see for the next 10-20 turns?

You know me.. Yeah, I think we need Currency, I plan to settle our 14th city on T96 IIRC and Currency will be extremely valuable. After that everything is pretty much open. Probably quick Masonry and then either Calendar or Construction. I'm not 100 % sure of Calendar vs. CoL, both are kind of solutions for our happy cap problems Also not 100 % sure of Construction vs HBR, both have their uses. I would say those are anyways our next 5 techs, unless you demand that we go for the top of the tree

Well, it all really depends on our bigger game plan. We have quite a bit of land that we can claim peacefully and I could see us snowballing hard via economic techs and then getting a very competitive Guilds and CS ETAs. However, if we go all-in with HAs and Cats we surely can outproduce Azza earlier, but my crystal ball does not quite tell, which path gives us the stronger position on T150..

[Fintourist]

Oh and btw, Azza is saving gold now and his Maths ETA was ~250 turns IIRC. So he still needs some turns (at least 3, probably even more) before he gets maths and even if we go Currency first (EOT93 for us) we are not that far behind if we want to follow Azza to Construction.

[Old Harry]

IMO:
1. Currency->Masonry->CoL/Calendar is our Knights path
2. Currency->Construction->HBR->CoL is our Conquer Azza economically path
3. Construction->HBR is our Sure to Conquer Azza path

If Azza gets Construction before or at the same time that we do then he can have five-ten cats and I wouldn't want to attack that. A while ago my guesstimate of Azza's tech rate was that he'll get Construction about t105 - I dunno if he's sped up or slowed down since, any thoughts? When do you think we'd get Construction and HBR following paths 2 and 3?

[retep]

But isn't Azza on a grudge mode against Mardoc? If anything knowing Azza he probably is going to fall behind more and more and take Madoc with him.

Isn't the economic route safer and better? FWIW I said get to Guilds and then drop the hammer.

Wait, yet again I'm saying not to blood? What is wrong me?

[TheHumanHydra]

How's Mardoc doing? One argument in favour of going now might be getting in before Mardoc does (conversely, going in with Mardoc might be an argument in favour of waiting if you want to do it that way).

[Old Harry]

Mardoc isn't doing a lot better than Azza, but founded Buddhism, so if we leave it long enough before attacking him we could get a free shrine - any idea which city he put it in FT? Offering Azza OBs and letting him scout us gives him carte blanche to focus on Mardoc, but I don't think I've read much about him being bent on revenge before - his chariot rush into Wetbandit's spears in PB14 was funny - but can you give us any other references?

So another thing in favour of going for Guilds quick is we could aim for Mardoc's shrine after Azza. Oh, and we get half-price banks too . Awww, I'm nearly convinced. Damn you Retep .

The Guilds tech path would be:
Metal Casting->Polytheism->Monotheism->Monarchy->Iron Working->Feudalism->Machinery->Guilds

But I guess we want Currency->CoL->Calendar before we start (in that order to allow time between building courthouses and forges, but perhaps we want the higher Calendar happy cap earlier?) Then Civil Service around the time we start our first golden age (possibly after Guilds, but probably before) for a HR/Bureau/Caste/OR switch. That could mean we get knights around turn 120-130 if we really push it and ignore the top of the tree.

[Fintourist]

Turn 87




- Cheater Hater and Cyneheard haven't played yet so I'm hoping we are making +59 gpt instead of +39 gpt
- Jelly Bean fills the granary with "avoid growth"
- Azza seems to trust us: Dig Up is empty
- Butterscotch whipped a library, kind of stupid timing, but did it due to growth/whip happy timings
- IIRC here are our settler ETAs and destinations:
Daisy: T89 & T91 --> NW coast & Eastern coast
Cornelius: T90 --> Island in the south
Alfie: T92 --> Deer + Silk in the south

IMO:
1. Currency->Masonry->CoL/Calendar is our Knights path
2. Currency->Construction->HBR->CoL is our Conquer Azza economically path
3. Construction->HBR is our Sure to Conquer Azza path

If Azza gets Construction before or at the same time that we do then he can have five-ten cats and I wouldn't want to attack that. A while ago my guesstimate of Azza's tech rate was that he'll get Construction about t105 - I dunno if he's sped up or slowed down since, any thoughts? When do you think we'd get Construction and HBR following paths 2 and 3?

Hmm, I hope for Azza that he gets Construction before t105, but I feel that turn 100 might already be quite optimistic for him. I think he should have settled for gold already a long time ago.

Here are my rough estimations for our tech ETAs (based on some simming and otherwise rough guesses, assuming we get OBs):

Path 1 & 2:
- Currency EOT93
- Masonry EOT94
- Calendar/CoL/Construction EOT99/100
- HBR EOT103

Path 3:
- Construction EOT93
- HBR EOT98

How's Mardoc doing? One argument in favour of going now might be getting in before Mardoc does (conversely, going in with Mardoc might be an argument in favour of waiting if you want to do it that way).

Yeah, Mardoc has a nice score and a religion, but not too many cities. We should get his graphs in couple of turns. I'll promise to post them asap and by then we should know more!

Actually I think it would be awesome if we would get in after Mardoc if he would attack Azza. I'm sure that Azza can't be taken out before we get to HBR+Construction even if we choose the economic path and it would be awesome if Mardoc would do the heavy lifting for us.. Even if we are thinking about Guilds and listening the peacemonger retep I think we will build a decent force of cats and HAs so that we can be opportunistic and also because those will surely be useful later as well.

Mardoc isn't doing a lot better than Azza, but founded Buddhism, so if we leave it long enough before attacking him we could get a free shrine - any idea which city he put it in FT?

Surely his capital as the Buddhism fell on T12 or something like that. Mardoc's capital (Friend Computer IIRC) has also appeared in Top 5 cities.

Offering Azza OBs and letting him scout us gives him carte blanche to focus on Mardoc

Nice thought, so would you accept his OB offer, probably? I think we are not going to offer it ourselves and wait until he notices that we have Alpha..

The Guilds tech path would be:
Metal Casting->Polytheism->Monotheism->Monarchy->Iron Working->Feudalism->Machinery->Guilds

But I guess we want Currency->CoL->Calendar before we start (in that order to allow time between building courthouses and forges, but perhaps we want the higher Calendar happy cap earlier?) Then Civil Service around the time we start our first golden age (possibly after Guilds, but probably before) for a HR/Bureau/Caste/OR switch. That could mean we get knights around turn 120-130 if we really push it and ignore the top of the tree.

Yeah, the path sounds realistic for the Guilds Scenario (maybe Machinery is something we want to prioritize a bit earlier so that we can build maces, not sure), Civil Service is something that we want sooner than later, possibly after we are done with CoL+Calendar+HBR+Construction? t120 is probably too soon, but t130 might be possible for Guilds.. That's quite difficult to estimate

Pindicator's misplaced turn report in the tech thread

It feels a bit lame to comment the information, but well, I saw it and now it's difficult to forget.. Well, it did not really give any information that is probably going to have much impact on our game, more of just some nice to know stuff:
- The Norhern continent seems to be (also) a 3-player continent with Cyneheard (west), pindicator (middle) and Barry Lyndon (east) on it. It seems that pindicator actually is located pretty much immediately north of us.
- As expected war with Barry has been costly for his economy, but he is on his way to Alpha as well.
- He noticed that we got Alpha, but for some reason he does not think that he would get trade routes with us

[Old Harry]

Here are my rough estimations for our tech ETAs (based on some simming and otherwise rough guesses, assuming we get OBs):

Path 1 & 2:
- Currency EOT93
- Masonry EOT94
- Calendar/CoL/Construction EOT99/100
- HBR EOT103

Path 3:
- Construction EOT93
- HBR EOT98

So we have between two and seven turns when Azza doesn't have construction to hit him... I think that's time enough to take his capital .

Offering Azza OBs and letting him scout us gives him carte blanche to focus on Mardoc

Nice thought, so would you accept his OB offer, probably? I think we are not going to offer it ourselves and wait until he notices that we have Alpha..

Yeah, don't offer it, but don't turn it down if he offers... Also lets us scout him and find out more about Mardoc.

The Guilds tech path would be:
Metal Casting->Polytheism->Monotheism->Monarchy->Iron Working->Feudalism->Machinery->Guilds

But I guess we want Currency->CoL->Calendar before we start (in that order to allow time between building courthouses and forges, but perhaps we want the higher Calendar happy cap earlier?) Then Civil Service around the time we start our first golden age (possibly after Guilds, but probably before) for a HR/Bureau/Caste/OR switch. That could mean we get knights around turn 120-130 if we really push it and ignore the top of the tree.

Yeah, the path sounds realistic for the Guilds Scenario (maybe Machinery is something we want to prioritize a bit earlier so that we can build maces, not sure), Civil Service is something that we want sooner than later, possibly after we are done with CoL+Calendar+HBR+Construction? t120 is probably too soon, but t130 might be possible for Guilds.. That's quite difficult to estimate

Oh yeah, HBR and Construction need to go in there somewhere too . Building Courthouses, Forges, Cats, Stables (in selected cities) and spears and pre building Axes and HAs to queue-upgrade and overflow into Maces and Knights seems to be the order of the day. In fact we could pre-build Stables, Cat, HA and Axe in a few cities, meaning four whips and an army goes from nothing to huge in a very few turns. The overflowing hammers from that *should* complete a couple of extra Knights.

Pindicator's misplaced turn report in the tech thread

Bad Fintourist

- As expected war with Barry has been costly for his economy, but he is on his way to Alpha as well.
- He noticed that we got Alpha, but for some reason he does not think that he would get trade routes with us

Because we won't give him them?