[SPOILERS] By the Rivers of Babylon, FIN has no effect (on krovice)

[Krill]

How do you feel about the RtR Creative?

Something I wrote for PB24

I learnt this recently: to really use CRE without cheap libs well, you have to focus on the changing your dotmap and play style to grab as many resources with each city as possible. You have to be greedy, none of this overlapping BFC crap to share food resources. You be greedy and grab every food resource possible...just don't ignore cottages and defense to do so. I think CRE is perhaps the easiest of the early game traits to use OK, but the hardest to use perfectly, because you have to understand the long term implications of your dot map with minimal information. It's a trait that relies much more on macro skill than micro.

I don't think that CRE is all that weak, not to the extent that base BtS PRO is. The issues with it are that it is somewhat boring and there aren't many tuning levers to use. I do believe that +1 culture and cheap libs makes the trait generally stronger but it's a very front loaded trait (like IMP). I think that returning RtR to that is probably necessary.

Redesigns of the colosseum and theatre may be enough though. For example, the integration of the colosseum into the HE build path gives it some relevance to the game, but it would need another effect to be so valuable in terms of trait buffs. The theatre though, I don't see any real way to buff it other than how it will be in SMEG mod (Delete Drama, move Theatre forward, give it incense happy doubler, put GT at Lit). I believe if those were done (with the colosseum buff being essentially whatever the community deemed enough that wasn't completely insane) then CRE would be fine at +2 culture/turn and no cheap libs.

The question is, which is preferred?

[Krill]

I think just need to make sure that the beaker costs don't favour oil or uranium as the required resource.

Are you saying that the uranium path should be just as fast/practical as the oil path? Im not sure i agree with that, and im sure that history doesnt agree...

With the repositioning of Destroyers and Transports from Combustion to Artillery, it's worth looking at hte tech tree again.

There are only 4 paths through that section of the tree. Artillery>Rocketry, SP>AL>Ind, Steel>RR>Combustion, and SM>Physics>Electricity>Fission.

Artillery is necessary to unlock DD. That requires Steel and Physics. Ignoring all other techs that aren't needed to reach Rifling, Steel and sail boats ie Astro, what's left? Assembly Line and SP are unresearched. So it really does come down to knowing if you have oil or not, which you see on the route to enabling DD.

The question of timelines and which tech path you take to enable a resource has absolutely zero to do with realism. Fission and Combustion themselves sit at the end of tech paths that have no mandatory prerequisites: it's possible to research Fission before researching Steam Power FFS. You don't even need Chemistry, or Engineering to research it.

[Krill]

BGN offered peace. I immediately declined. I'd love to offer him peace for all his gold, gpt and Q lands but I somehow doubt he'd accept that, and it's against the rules.

EDIT: BGN also deleted his chariot in dtay's land rather than give over XP.

[Krill]

I offered BGN peace for 3000g and 1000gpt. Obviously he's not going to accept, and I doubt he's going to understand the meaning: I want him to lose resources. I doubt he'd lose much more than that from any war with us unless OT invaded him whilst he was distracted.

I also gifted some of our army to Wetbandit; a few rifles and muskets and about 7 cannon. wetbandit is not going to research Steel anytime soon, and whilst BGN has open borders with wetbandit our units are going to be a bitch to keep safe over there. Gifted units though aren't so easily taken out by roaming cossacks.

BGN also has ironclads out. This is something I expected, but I'm not going to reactively research Steam Power. C2 frigates have decent odds against C1 ironclads in numbers, and as the waters noth of BGNs coast aren't culturally his, he will suffer WW fighting there. I don't care about WW, the important cities we have already have jails and we are in PS so we don't get WW, but if this war drags on and we keep it bloody (or rather we just keep on attacking BGN) then he may run into happy issues. Note we don't even need to kill units, we just need to hit his units and he receives WW.

[Krill]

Ho fuck Pindicator ain't gonna last long.

Maybe BGN should be focusing elsewhere if he wants to win the game.

Pity, that.

[Krill]

No picture updates: There's nothing much to report this turn except that BGN is starting to use ironclads. Which are pretty useless atm, what with the fact they move 2 tiles compared to the galleons 5 tiles. I'm going to have all the galleons past his ironclads and north of Xenu in 2 turns along with all the units used against Ruff that are still alive (ie 90% of the total units used). Probably be worth a picture next turn.

Economy wise, I'm still thinking that saving gold for the next 9 turns is the best option, we'll end up with 18000 gold using the most recent estimates, so probably about 18 turns of research at 100%. That'll probably increase if I gift units away to lower costs, attacking BGN shouldn't affect it with WW not that bad at all.

I believe that with frugal library and observatory builds in certain cities we should reach 2350bpt excluding growth. I'm not drafting except for MG at present. We should be able to use all of that old to research to Arty and Combustion, assuming 4 players have researched a tech before we go for it. The right choice is to go for SM first to discover if we have oil; if we do, then we can still decide if we want to head for Fission or not but I don't believe it would be worthwhile.

So if we have oil after researching SM, I think the correct route is SP if we can build levees in a few relevant cities and check for coal (IW will be completed by that point), or straight to Artillery if we need to build artillery or anti-tanks. Physics alone for airships is good but gives naff all economic bonuses. RR after SP also gives us a pretty large hammer boost and makes coastal city defense a peace of piss, along with Machine guns to be immovable objects against amphib assaults. After that we should head to Artillery then finish with Combustion.

What happens if we don't have oil? Well looking at our tech pace the answer is that we're kinda fucked. We have to head immediately to Physics to chek for Uranium. If we lack that as well then we do this and forum ban Commodore from making any more maps:



If we have Uranium then we need to find a way to get to Industrialism and Fission. We'd be able to draft inf at AL, but we'd not be able to build tanks and frankly we'd be pretty far from them compared to BGN, no chance of getting there even 15 turns after he does. In fact, I'm not even sure how to play the game out with uranium but no oil, as we'd be researching techs I doubt many people would have at that point.

[Mardoc]

Gah! I hate that gif! The conveyor is wrong!

[Krill]

Get trolled.

[Krill]

In all honesty I'm still wondering how long my burning desire to make BGN lose for his atrocious strategic decision is going to last. Although I can already feel it being replaced by the thrill of a challenge that is going to end in my vindication and a Pyrrhic victory at best for BGN. I can only hope that he tries to attack my core, the WW he'd receive would crush him.

[Krill]

Offered TBS 9000 gold for 1020 gpt. If he accepted and did not renege we would gain about 1 turn of saving gold from teh deal. I considered offering hte same to OT but they are running deficit this turn.

Off to work now.