[Spoilers] Haram hopefully reports

[scooter]

What are your plans regarding civics?

I really don't know, and I'm struggling with this. I keep changing my techs because I really can't make up my mind.

I don't think I'll be going back to Bureau. Right this minute it's worth 200b/turn in the capital vs Nationhood after adjusting for the higher costs, but that'll gradually go down as costs go up while the bonus goes up only slighlty (as a couple Villages convert to Towns). Free Speech is even better, as the capital will be at 14 towns in less than 20 turns, which combined with the lower cost and towns throughout mine and Dreylin's land means that Bureau is worse than FS. Though that does require me grabbing Liberalism before this GA is over. I don't think I want to stay in Nationhood. Drafting gets less attractive in the Infantry era, especially with an empire tilted towards hammers.

Religion - probably Theocracy. I don't think getting a 4-man GA is especially likely to happen, so I don't see much point in Pacifism. There will be more fighting, and the xp would be useful. I haven't done the math though on how many beakers Free Religion is worth, though, and it's worth considering if I'm thinking about grabbing Liberalism anyway.

As for eco column - I'm leaning towards sticking with Free Market, but I keep going back and forth. Part of it is driven by Mackoti, whose tech choices I've shadowed a bit. He started on SciMeth, and I wasn't sold on other things I was considering, so I swapped to it as well. I'm afraid if I don't shadow him, he'll snag Kremlin AND the Physics scientist, and I think I definitely cannot afford to let him have both. Kremlin isn't nearly as useful to me as it is him, but the denial value would be massive, so I'm tempted to make a run at it. That said, it also requires Democracy to use UniSuffrage, which I definitely won't get to before this GA is over.

So basically I have to choose one of two routes, and I haven't decided yet.

1) Get Communism, try to snipe Kremlin from Mackoti (I can get there a turn quicker I believe), revolt into State Property on last turn of golden age. Eventually get around to Democracy and burn a turn of Anarchy to get into UniSuffrage. I'll have enough towns by then to benefit from UniSuffrage's extra hammers too.
2) Ignore Communism, but ensure Mackoti doesn't also get Physics scientist. I do have a scientist of my own available to bulb it.

One problem is going this route will likely prevent me from getting Liberalism in time to also revolt into Free Speech. So... I'm leaning towards #2, but man is it a challenging decision.

[scooter]

I'll give you all a half report. I'll just do the good stuff that we care about most. The rest will come tomorrow - especially since I have yet to finish the turn.



Dreylin burned his entire Knight stack (besides the GG) killing the hill as I kinda hoped. I do regret not giving the last two Rifles C2 and including the Treb. Would have been nice to make him work harder for it, but all in all this made the rest of the turn easier.



The battle of Rice was first. I decided for this turn I'd use a lot of my low-xp conscripted Rifles, saving the health of my strong rifles for more important battles while also giving myself a better chance at getting them a second promotion. This led to me rolling the dice more than I maybe needed. It went a little below average on the whole turn, but I can't complain too much. The battle:

c1 rifle vs cg musket: 72% LOSE
c1 rifle vs cg musket: 72% WIN
c1 rifle vs cg lbow: 88% WIN
c1 rifle vs cg lbow: 88% WIN
rifle vs cg musket: 77% LOSE
c1 mace vs cg archer: 88% WIN
3xp Knight vs c1 axe: 90% WIN
5xp Knight vs redlined Musket: 99% WIN
5xp Knight vs redlined Musket: 99% WIN

Keep.



I definitely had higher hopes than that for infrastructure, but I guess if I had to pick 2, those may as well be it. Still feels nice to take a city.

So Dreylin finished Astro last turn, and he upgraded a few Caravels to Frigates in the north. Probably a good move on his part, so with him emptying out Waffle a bit, I decided to use some Frigates to wipe out some of his navy in order to give him fewer upgrade options rather than take Waffle's defenses all the way down.



Not all could reach, but I gave a few Frigs Nav1 to make sure I could take out as much as I could.

4 Frigates vs 4 Caravels: 99%/each WIN
3.8h Privateer vs Caravel 45%/5%with LOSE

Disappointing to lose the last coinflip there. Still, I redlined it enough that it'll be an unattractive upgrade target. More on this area later.



Basically what he chose to do was clear units from Waffle -> Coffee while moving the rest of his cats up towards Coffee. Makes sense. So here's that battle along with nicking that stray Praet.

0xp rifle vs cg musket: 29% LOSE
0xp rifle vs cg lbow: 57% WIN
1xp rifle vs redlined musket: 99% WIN

Mace vs Praet (infield): 99% WIN

Much better haul here.

Overall I'd say it was a solid start. Tomorrow I'll get into my tactical decisions to set myself up for upcoming turns. Until then, I'll leave you with T165 final body count for both sides.

scooter
*8 rifles
*1 privateer
*1 treb

Dreylin
*2 catapults
*8 Knights
*4 Muskets
*3 Longbows
*1 Praetorian
*1 Axe
*1 Archer
*5 Caravels

I'll take this hammer exchange, especially since I'm still adding Rifles. Good start.

[scooter]

The rest of the turn... So the main development of this turn was this:



I suspect he'll continue to upgrade Frigates. So I won't be able to bombard Coffee, and I'll have to be careful with my Galleons. I do have a couple Ship of the Line coming, but they're slow moving. Anyway, I suspected he was moving his last mini-stack towards Coffee, and that turned out to be true.



4 Catapults this time. Not that many hitters, but enough that I should be careful. I did add 3-4 more Knights to this tile after taking this picture. I hope he does attack again, but I may have added enough to accidentally dissuade him.



These guys are coming too - carefully out of reach of his stack. The idea is to move 1E on T166, meaning the Knights can hit Kettle on T167. It would take the river penalty, though, but these guys won't.



These are all my 5-move Galleons. I'll have the option on T166 whether to move onto either the hill next to Coffee (reinforce that stack if it gets hit) or to the hill 1S of Kettle. The goal will be to put enough on each hill next turn that both cities fall on T167. If Dreylin plays it perfectly, he should be able to delay one of them, but I don't think he can save them both.

So that's where we stand. Here's a city you should pity.



Poor citizens of Arnor. It's a stub fishing city AND easy to transport Rifles out of, so it's made for an ideal drafting camp. I'm easing off the throttle on drafting a little of late (2/turn last two turns rather than 4 each), partly because all the ideal spots have been drafted to death. I was going to spare my Moai city until I noticed this past turn it grew onto a Spy (all usable tiles worked)... So I gave those worthless spies some Rifles and told them to GET WALKIN MATEY.

[scooter]

[scooter]

What are your plans regarding civics?

I'm now like 90% sure I'm going with HR-FreeSpeech-Caste-FreeMarket. I'll probably eat a turn of anarchy later to get into UniSuffrage. The only thing I'm unsure of is whether I want to go with FreeReligion too. I went through my cities and it's worth roughly 150bpt as opposed to Theocracy. Now that I think about it, that's before accounting for the Town bonus I'm about to get or Dreylin's land. So yeah, I may go with FreeReligion as well.

[Haram]

Thanks for your thoughts on civics and for the detailed updates, Scooter

[Commodore]

I found your last update rather boaring.

[scooter]

Thanks for your thoughts on civics and for the detailed updates, Scooter

I found your last update rather boaring.

BOOOOOO.

That's all I've got. If there are any other boar puns I could have used instead of outright booing, I sure couldn't think of any.

Few more thoughts on gameplan while we wait for TBS to roll the turn.

I've more or less decided now. Unless something changes soon, I'll likely go into FreeReligion at the end of the Golden Age. I can't see Theocracy making sense unless I have a concrete plan for another hot war. This may be my last real war unless Mackoti or TBS want a piece of me at some point. I've got a good enough position that could theoretically allow me to go for the win, but the problem is my competition is mackoti and TBS - for my money the best two active players on this site right now. Judging from Civstats, both of them are putting full effort into this game right now. There's just no chance I'll keep up with that. They're too good and too committed. I've played a this-era game against Mackoti before, and it was so exhausting that I didn't touch civ for 18 months afterwards. I've put a lot of effort into this war, but my time waxes and wanes. I'll have a turn somewhere where I'll mail it in, and I'll login to find a key city razed.

So my plan is to finish conquering Dreylin, and then I'll turtle and tech unless an opportunistic snipe materializes. I think both Mackoti and TBS have higher potential empires, so they'll almost certainly pass me unless they keep fighting each other, but I think I can do enough economically to at least force them to work for it.

One caveat: if either of them try to really hurt me, I'll be perfectly willing to tilt and fight back and hopefully ruin their chances of winning. I'm stating it here in advance before either has done anything so as to not seem like I intentionally joined this with the goal of kingmaking. I'm not going to try to kingmake, but if I'm goaded I'm not going to hold back over fear of the game outcome. I think they'll both mostly leave me alone, though.

[scooter]

In case it's not clear - I think my theoretical path to winning involves using military force on Mackoti and/or TBS. It requires getting Destroyers and Infantry before either of them and making them miserable until they say Uncle. Which knowing both of them... It would not be easy. It also would require an immense amount of work and probably staying in Nationhood. That's the part I'm not super interested in, and that's why I'm going to (hopefully) default to turtling after this war.

[Old Harry]

I'm so on-board with this thread.

Sorry