The Pen vs The Sword (Gandhi of NA)

[Qgqqqqq]

Would've been funny if you'd declared...

(Well, less so for you, admittedly )

[Ceiliazul]

Apparently not. Shows how much I use Explorers.

Lol.

[Commodore]

So, more than two weeks later...how goes? Got us your victory ETA yet?

[The Black Sword]

Whenever I think to update, the turn is about to roll and I figure I might as well wait and use updated pictures. Then I play a turn and I'm in no mood to report. Thus the Wheel turns.

I guess you can have a pictureless update.

My ETA is around T165, roughly 50t away. My GA is just finishing, I'm going to switch to NAT/Theo and try to get myself an army worth fearing. Then I'll switch to Pacifism/Probabaly Vassalage and get out GPs on T224,225 and 226. Hopefully the low odds don't come up and I throw another GA on T227. I'm looking at getting 9 Great Artists out to help my culture attempt. I'm not sure the 9th is possible though. It'll come from my National Park city, which is getting out an 1800gpp on T224 and then needs to make up another 4,500gpp. I'll firm up on that later. I've had to bulldoze one of my capital's towns to ensure it gets out a GP before all the other cities race past it, that was painful.

Elensefar is awesome and with the amount of culture it already generates without any tiles, it should be able to go Legendary without any help. My capital should be able to pump out around 1k cpt with Bureau/FS when I turn off tech and it'll want around 3 culture bombs. The Frontline straggler needs the most help with the other 6 culture bombs.

Currently, my food doesn't look bad, I'm the GNP leader, but I'm something like 1300hpt down to BGN, despite being in a GA. Obviously coal is part of the issue here, railroads require coal or oil too, which I hadn't realised. So, my land is an eco-friendly mix of farms and windmills . I'm not very confident in this victory attempt, given the size of that hammer difference and how long is left, but there's nothing to do but push on. Travel time at least will work in my favour on this map and I need a collateral heavy army. I need to emphasise the prisoner's dilemna aspect to the other 2 as well and show that I can kill the first army to march on me. I let dtay keep the island between us in the end, giving him a spices to let him know my intentions there and then signing a defensive pact. It's too much work for too little benefit to retake and besides, I don't want to have to build transports either.

I've finished most of the infrastructure I needed with OR during my GA. I have 1 Cathedral left to build in the capital IIRC. Anything my other cities want will have to be finished without the OR bonus. I hope to focus mostly on troop building and switch between Theo/Nat and Pac/Vass or Bureau as mentioned. If I want to build 3GD, I'll have one more OR period during my GA, and cities can use that to put up any health infra they need, which is only important if I get power. I'll try to cut down on the drafting a bit during the GA and go harder afterward. I'm hoping to stop teching around T240, where Police State and Free Speech will start to be used and Bureau also becomes more important.

I've been trying to draft BGN and Old Tourist for the last few turns on Physics and RR. Now I have enough gold saved up for run straight through to Combustion and Artillery though so I should probably stop. Combustion first gives me railroads, artillery gives me, well, artillery. I think the other two will probably go for Artillery, so I might go for Combustion, give them 1 KTB on that while I get 2 on Arty. Even ignoring the extra Communism/Democracy techs they have, I think they have a slight tech advantage at the minute.

[The Black Sword]

Heh, I just realised there's no uranium map either, it really is 3GD or bust.

You never expected us to get past T100, did you Comm?

[Qgqqqqq]

Whenever I think to update, the turn is about to roll and I figure I might as well wait and use updated pictures. Then I play a turn and I'm in no mood to report. Thus the Wheel turns.

I know the feeling

[Ceiliazul]

Can you post a victory screen when you get a chance?

Or any other pics, but don't want to add pressure

[The Black Sword]

The Old Tourists declared war on me and BGN closed borders. Not really sure what is up with either of them. BGN is still giving open borders to the Aztecs, who are surely more of a threat than me. Old Tourists sailed a fleet up the Patriot Straight pass what I termed the 'teleport point'. I didn't really know what would happen with the teleport mechanics since I had the defensive pact with dtay but I tried to take some precautions. Perhaps they were trying that but if so it doesn't seem to have worked.

[The Black Sword]

You know, when I listed my options for Power a while back, I left out a fairly important one: Embrace our Green side, no Power. I dismissed the option because it seemed crazy. But at a rough estimate, 3GD only pays out 500hpt and costs me 20k beakers and 1750 hammers. So that's roughly a 24t payback time and I probably can't complete it until around T235, where there's hopefully 30t left in the game. I might be better just putting those resources into the army.

I just finished Electricity and have to decide on another research target. The plan was Industrialism -> Plastics. The Eiffel Tower also complicates things a bit though. I'm pretty sure I can land it thanks to my GA and super-city if I go for Radio next but that delays Plastics even more.

Decisions, decisions ... honestly, I think the most likely outcome is we lose before T260 so it probably makes sense to have a bigger army for that showdown than a big Dam. I guess I might try another victory eta tomorrow.

Annoyingly, GJ finally picked up Mil Science and I have to worry about Commandos. I think he can rail inside my borders too while we have OB, which I don't really want to cancel. I'm moving a lot of my old junk units over there to stack in target cities. He has to get through all the junk and then I can clean up his valuable commandos. Hopefully that will work such that I lose at most 1 city. I don't think those units would be much help in the naval defense vs Old Tourist.

I really should connect up my second oil and gift it to Dtay too, should have thought of that earlier.

[The Black Sword]

When 20t of micro works out to the last gpp.

Now don't roll the 5% Artist.