[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[scooter]

Turn 285 - other things

Here's the other pictures I took last night.



We did complete our Scientific Method bulb which let us go straight into Communism.



And we have fairly convenient oil. The 200 beakers/turn is a bit of an illusion - we fired the scientists in Cotton Gin during the turn.



Here's the plan for Steam Engine. We get out the Grenadier with some serious overflow help, and we maintain enough overflow to complete the following settler in just 3 turns.



I offered this to BGN as discussed. We'll see if he's amenable to the idea.



So here's something. I'm kind of wondering if we ought to consider aiming for 3b rather than 3a. The reason for 3a over 3b is the ability to use the fish, but I don't think we're going to be able to regardless. Pindicator's dotmap allows him to settle the plains tile 1W of the copper if we settle 3a, and he'd get the fish first-ring as a result. If we assume we aren't going to be able to get the fish, 3b is actually a better city than 3a. It's also a less contentious spot to pindicator, and it increases the chances that he'll be happy to let this border sit. I would be shocked if he just let us have the fish when he can easily take it himself because of how strong of a tile it is.

The only downside is it sort of orphans the corn into a pathetic filler city, but settling on iron kind of was a pathetic filler city to begin with. Any thoughts on this?



Food crests the 100 mark after firing the scientists. I'm pretty happy with that food mark considering we aren't doing any whipping. Lots of food is more crucial when you're converting it into hammers.

The average non-Dreylin soldier count is 312k by the way. Above us, but not ridiculously far above us. A good share of that is Donovan whose had a soldier spike of his own. Apparently he thinks he's the target, and he's preparing accordingly. That seems like a good development overall.

[Sullla]

As far as I know, the barb city will have to build additional defenders. I also think our grenadiers could promote-heal and kill 3 rifles without much trouble.

If the original spot is still available near pindicator, we want to settle there. Settling the 3b spot won't cause pindicator to settle west of the copper, it will cause him to settle on the hill tile, and then we're forced to contest for the corn and the horses. I don't see a good reason to give up the insanely good 7 food fish tile if it's still unclaimed. I don't even think it makes us safer, since pindicator will only settle that grassland hill spot and create his own version of Radio. We will have to defend this area heavily in either case anyway.

Our food is going to get a lot better in a hurry. We have two cities on max production building settlers, and we could potentially be adding 4 more cities in the next 5 turns. Plus State Property civic will also be worth a lot of Food, plus we'll be able to fire the Artists in Radio... I think we're in good shape on that metric.

Dreylin's power is really out of control now. Sure hope Donovan is the unlucky one - he seems to think so.

[scooter]

Fair point about where he would settle in response, although 3b doesn't really have to fight for corn/horse because it still gets them both first-ring. But I seriously would not even bother trying to net the fish unless pindicator just totally ignores the spot. We'd just be netting them for him for free, because there's almost no chance we can get that tile away from him unless he just totally neglects it.

[scooter]

Took a look around ingame. I think we should offer this trade:



We currently don't have enough happy to keep Steam Engine happy if we were to leave it empty (it's +2, empty could cost -3 I think). This trade nets us a +1, and it'll be an additional +1 when we complete the spare incense plantation. We can cancel when we get our own silk hooked up. Thoughts?




BGN took peace with Donovan, so whatever that was is done. Could have simply been a pass-through-borders declaration. Anyway, he accepted our trade, which means we got a little bit of new map info.



So Gaspar can definitely see the barbarian borders. Hopefully we can still beat him to it. Our chances should be decent - if he hasn't built Grens, it'll be far more difficult for him. Fingers crossed I guess.



Also got a little bit more of pindicator's core.


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Haven't moved the units yet. I'll wait until tonight so we're absolutely sure the plan is a go, but as far as I'm concerned it is. We're fine with waiting until next turn to start moving the Steam Engine rifle, so that's no worry.

[Elkad]

Is all the oil in the water? Waiting for Plastics to get Panzers online...

[Sullla]

I had the same question, Elkad. Fortunately there is indeed land-based oil on this map:



And that's the only source of oil located on land, mirrored of course for each of the seven players. It could be a bit tricky keeping that location protected later on in the game, given how exposed that tile is to amphibious landings and the like. There's also a water-based oil resource near everyone's capital, but Plastics is a lot further down the tech tree than Combustion. Let's hope that we can continue to control this part of the map.

Scooter, I'm fine with that offered trade of incense for silks. We have another incense resource that can be connected to our trade network very easily (the tile is already roaded). If the trade goes through, I'll see about altering the worker moves slightly to get it done.

As far as moving the units go, the plan is to send the Cotton Gin grenadier up to the north and send the Steam Power grenadier off to the east to guard our border city, correct? We have the Cotton Gin grenadier, the upcoming Haber Process grenadier (eot 287), and the Haber Process rifle going to take on the barb city. It's a bit of a shame that Gaspar/Noble also have vision on that city. Hopefully we'll get there first - and secondly that they don't try to declare war on us if we do take the city first. I agree that it's a gamble worth pursuing.

Other stuff I noticed while logged into the game:



BGN's maps contained a lot of useful information. We now have vision on all 5 of Donovan's cities and all 8 of Dreylin's cities, in addition to BGN's 3 cities. (Side note: what the heck is he doing in this game?! Zero new cities after 35 turns is crazy. ) This appears to be the contested border region between Donovan and Dreylin. Staalplaat was recently founded and has been whipped down to size 1. (New cities start at size 3 in Industrial era games, if you're just catching this thread for the first time.)

Note that Dreylin also has an island city already, on the southern island between Dreylin and Donovan. That's a major break for us, as the city just as easily could have been on the island between our team and Dreylin. The maps certain suggest that Dreylin/OT4E are heavily concentrating on their south right now, with all of their cities heading in that direction and the ongoing war between Dreylin and Donovan. Then there's the Power bar graphs:



I mean, it's possible that this is some kind of incredibly elaborate ruse to throw everyone else off of Dreylin's true target. But between Dreylin's settling pattern, Donovan whipping his border city down to size 1 for units, and the mutual power buildup between Dreylin and Donovan, it sure looks like the two of them are fighting one another for realsies.



Here's another look at our own border region with pindicator. I still think that we should grab the 3a spot if it's available when our settler finishes. Not only is that an excellent city, it also mostly rules out a city plant by pindicator in the same region. I mean, where else does he put his city if we settle at 3a? On the tile west of the copper? Pindicator already has a city north of the horses, and a city west of the copper would claim virtually no new land. In fact, if we could run enough Artist specialists at our city via Caste System, we might even be able to deny the fish resource. Would pindicator really want to settle a spot like that if we're already sitting at 3a with our borders popped? With the map looking like this:



I mean, would you really settle on the red dot in this scenario? I don't think that I would. There are too many other parts of the map to claim, and with settlers being so ridiculously expensive, I wouldn't waste one of them by cramming it into this tiny wedge of territory.

Now all of this is probably irrelevant as a discussion point. We can track the production in pindicator's capital, and he has 310 production towards what is surely a settler. He will finish it next turn, and there's no way we can beat him to this location if he wants to plant a city over here. In an abstract scenario, there would be a pretty decent chance that pindicator settled somewhere else on the map. However, he has an explorer watching us on the iron hill tile, and pindicator has to know that we're roading in preparation for a settler of our own. I'm pretty sure that he will settle something in this area, and we'll have to grab whatever we can get that's left over afterwards. Maybe we'll get lucky but that seems like the most likely scenario. We'll see what he does and have to react to it.



There's also this complicating factor. Gaspar/Noble have a city just south of pindicator's captured barbarian city. These two cities are very, very close to one another at the minimum distance of 3 tiles. How that factors into this whole equation, I don't know. Perhaps pindicator will be less willing to press against us aggressively given that he already has another neighbor right in his face to the south? We can always hope.

I will try to update the micro plan with the little tweaks to worker moves (and grenadier over rifle in Haber Process) sometime tonight.

[scooter]

As far as moving the units go, the plan is to send the Cotton Gin grenadier up to the north and send the Steam Power grenadier off to the east to guard our border city, correct? We have the Cotton Gin grenadier, the upcoming Haber Process grenadier (eot 287), and the Haber Process rifle going to take on the barb city. It's a bit of a shame that Gaspar/Noble also have vision on that city. Hopefully we'll get there first - and secondly that they don't try to declare war on us if we do take the city first. I agree that it's a gamble worth pursuing.

Ah, I see your plan. I was a little turned around for some reason. I was thinking we were sending the Steam Engine rifle north AND the Steam Engine Grenadier southeast, and that's why I was suggesting the resource trade to get ourselves an extra happy. But of course we can use Haber Process rifle and make the shuffle unnecessary. So we can keep the rifle parked in Steam Engine this way. Cool. That all sound right?

[Sullla]

Yep, that should work. What an interesting turn today, the whole forum has been buzzing with activity. Hope this game is as much fun to read as it is to play.

[Athmos]

I do check for updates on this thread several times a day. This is very fun! Thanks for the reports !

[Mardoc]

Yep, that should work. What an interesting turn today, the whole forum has been buzzing with activity. Hope this game is as much fun to read as it is to play.

I'm certainly enjoying myself.