[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

Tech thread, November 1.

And I'm reasonably sure AI's been a better defender than Dhal was. AI plays longer turns, at least.

Yeah, I remember and read again that discussion. It did not really reach a conclusion in my eyes so I just assumed that things had solved themselves. I somehow trusted that if AI would be in control many players would raise their voice against it.

I have to say that as BGN I would not be comfortable with fighting against an AI. Maybe if we were only talking about an 1-tile island or something like that. So far I have always liked BGN, but now I'm a bit disappointed.

Reg the play level you might be quite right. Although Dhal did whip defenders in PB13, which is a fair bit better than 2 pointless revolts performed by AI..


Overall I think now after experiencing PB13 & PB18 I have to just recognize that I have generally too high expectations reg how people will play out a losing situation. Everyone just can't be Mardocs. And btw, even though Azza generally gets critique for many things I appreciate it very much that he logs in pretty fast every turn and whips those defenders that he has the ability to. It's not a pleasant job and many others after losing simply don't care enough for those random people in the internet and just happily screw the game.

Yeah sorry Fintourist; it was always a "hi, I can help if needed" offer but there didn't seem to be a need - or at least the Tech thread got distracted by "retire to AI" mechanics and the original issue got lost.

On the plus side (for me), I can go back to lurking...

Nah, it's not your fault at all. People including us should have just paid more attention and asked Gawdzak to just whip and fortify defenders or something like that. And as said, I think BGN should have raised his hand that this is not ok, as it's now evident that he is really fighting against AI.

[Old Harry]

We need to make our tech path decision soon.

I'm actually pretty sanguine about dtay's military techs, his primary target has to be Krovice, as he doesn't have the Galleys to hit us with a decent force, he wouldn't get much benefit if he did and getting Astronomy is only going to hurt him. If he was heading towards steel instead of Cavalry I'd fear the Ironclads, but he's a long way from that (10-15 turns at a guess).

BGN is pretty busy with his various neighbours, and if he wanted to hit us it would just be our new cities which wouldn't really hurt too bad.

Pindicator will be busy eating Cynheard for the next ten to fifteen turns at which point we may need to worry a little, although not too much, because his coastal cities aren't production powerhouses (and the new ones - which will be - are going to be in revolt for at least ten turns yet).

With our current EP knowledge advantage I think it would be a bit of a waste to go defensive, we should get enough warning of ill intentions from our neighbours that I think we can risk a Democracy push. If we make sure we've banked all the cash we need for it before we start then we can get Gunpowder, Astronomy and Chemistry fairly quickly...

The best reason against I can see would be if BGN has got Constitution already (Edit: He hasn't). I think he's got Nationalism, Paper, Banking, Education and Economics. He's been saving cash on Printing Press for ages, so I think we can beat him to Democracy (Edit: he has 4500 gold, so we're pretty even if he is going for it ). Hopefully if we get there first that'll put others off competing for the wonder . I haven't seen any Great Engineers born recently, but I need to have a look back through the log. (Edit: Tesla got born in a far away land last turn - does that mean it's in a civ we haven't yet met (Zanth or Q) or in a city we haven't uncovered? If it's the latter then Boldly could have got him .)

[TheHumanHydra]

I think it'll say that even if it's just the city you haven't uncovered.

[Fintourist]

Super quickly (it's 3 AM in Finland and I need to still head home from work...)

- I'm not really worried of being attacked either
- I'm worried that in 20-40 turns there is somewhere nearby a fight going on and we would like to either pile on someone and improve our position further or stop dtay or BGN getting too strong if they start gaining more and more land. And we can't.
- Currently our best offensive units are knights, that's something what players in the middle of the scoreboard can build already too. They won't really give us any unique chances or an edge that helps us win battles
- Building a real army and organizing it logistically into a right place does not happen fast at this point --> Getting fast all the relevant techs with saved money and whipping a round is not really enough IMO. It's a longer project
- The best way to prepare us for future battles is IMO to start building Galleons, those won't obsolete for a long time
- As discussed navy should become pretty damn important this game soon anyways
- If we want to postpone mil techs and still build an army, getting Rifling+Mil Trad later and spending some money for Cav upgrades is possible I guess, but I don't want to spend enormous amount of gold for upgrading both Galleys and Knights (as said, that sounds too slow as well)

As you can see, I vote for Astronomy bulb, then we can divert for the pure economic tech path if you wish. Some additional reasons:
- Using our Great Scientist for Astronomy does not delay Democracy/Corp too bad because we would not get help from a 2-man GA soon enough anyways and IIRC there is nothing we can bulb on our way to Demo (might be wrong here).
- Astro should be just a bulb + one turn of research (max 2)? Yeah, it affects our SoL ETA, but there is a fair chance that other reasons will decide that race (like that Great Engineer)
- I'm ok with delaying our next GA and getting it in e.g. ~30-50 turns. Reason 1: Our Mardoc+Azza gains are not yet fully consolidated and would not get the max out of GA yet. There are lots of tiles that we are not yet working. Reason 2: If we are not going to win this by Domination, having 2-man and 3-man GAs still in reserve might provide us the tools that we later need for a space/culture win attempt
- Getting Astronomy might force dtay to research it too and I would be happy to see his Colossus obsolete
- Let's settle Commodore's bounty island :P I like it from military base point of view as well.
- Observatory for Alfie is nice too, but this starts to sound too much like a desperate sales pitch. The big reason is the military/navy preparation for future.



Too tired to find more arguments to support my view :P

[TheHumanHydra]

Observatories are another of the major beaker-multiplier buildings.

[Old Harry]

Turn 161

Commodore's bonus island isn't game breaking . Another silver to trade could be handy though. Which reminds me, we've got a spare gold at the moment, we could trade it for cash somewhere...


The next new city is Poppet - working the fish and chopping two forests into the granary means it'll get a quick start.


Pindi has nicely forked Arrakis and Sietch Tabr. If Cynheard had even a handful of cats though this fight would be over .


We can put 1892 beakers per turn into Astro. We'd be first to it, so no bonus beakers. Our GS will put 2370 beakers into it. It costs 4312 beakers. So we'd only need 50 extra beakers to 1-turn it. We have seven cities growing this turn and one that we need to whip (there are another two that we could whip, but don't have to) so next turn the scientist will produce 15 extra beakers. I'm sure we can find 35 extra beakers from somewhere if you want to 1-turn it next turn. Alternatively we can finish Nationalism and overflow into it the turn after.

Marmalade and Rocky are building Galleys to auto-upgrade to galleons. Do you know where you'd like to stage them? Izzy and Nina could start on Galleys too next turn, but they have Barracks, so more cats are probably the better bet.

Nationalism is 3880 beakers, Constitution is 5175 and Democracy is 8452. We're making 1892 bpt at 100%, losing 691 gpt and have 4603 in cash (plus capture gold from Azza).

If we finish Nationalism next turn and 1-turn Astronomy eot163, we'll have ~4000 cash. Assuming no known-tech bonuses on Const and Demo they will take exactly six turns and use up 4150 cash, meaning we can start the SoL on t170.

Demos and power

[Fintourist]

Commodore's bonus island isn't game breaking

Well, too bad. Let's settle on the hill S of deer anyways? I like the vision that island city provides and overall controlling that water between us, dtay and pindicator seems valuable. Our first Galleon comes from Marmalade powered by two individual 1-pop whips?

If we finish Nationalism next turn and 1-turn Astronomy eot163, we'll have ~4000 cash. Assuming no known-tech bonuses on Const and Demo they will take exactly six turns and use up 4150 cash, meaning we can start the SoL on t170.

Fine by me, these are the moments where I wish we would be SPI. Switching between Caste and Slavery would have been awesome already for a good while and Represeantation is a clear boost as well. Thank god we are not working that many specialists so I'm not pulling all my hair off.

Zucchini will try to grab SoL? Any overflow tricks planned? If we go for a wonder we might as well do our best and try to actually win it.

How are our units positioned re Azza? I might have a chance to log in this turn, but I'm not sure yet..



EDIT: I'll come back to staging question

[TheHumanHydra]

Heh, I still think that island's sweet. Also I think I'd attack out if I were Cyneheard.

[Fintourist]

Also I think I'd attack out if I were Cyneheard.

Yeah, Unfortunately I think pindicator has just a bit too much unless Cyneheard has further knights in the fog.

Assuming a simple top-down fight order:
- They have equal number of full strength knights (7 vs 7), but pindi has slightly better promos (unless Cyneheard has saved those).
- First 2 maces after that won't get odds against 2 slightly wounded knights so pindi should win roughly 6 out of first 9 battles
- After that Cyneheard has 1 mace, 1 spear and 6 weaker units to throw against those 6 survivors + that wounded chariot

Mmmm.. it would be a really close case and I can see it ending horribly for Cyneheard if pindicator just gets couple of easy wins and has couple of knights still standing strong after winning 6/7 out of first 9 battles. However, if Cyneheard gets lucky and wins e.g. 5 out of first 4 battles he can clean up the whole stack. Yeah, if one feels like gambling this is a place where couple of good rolls can really turn the fight upside down. Already couple of extra units (preferably knights or cats as OH said) would make this a go-decision for Cyneheard.



EDIT: This is exactly that type of a battle that dishonest PBEM player takes and completely destroys his opponent by testing 2 or 3 attack orders. I'm happy we are playing Pitboss

[Mardoc]

wins e.g. 5 out of first 4 battles

Man, that'd be some trick!

Speaking of battles, how's the Azza-war coming along?