[LURKERS] Mr. Gradgrind's Review

[Commodore]

On the other hand, waiting would probably let Scooter fight at a tech advantage. It's mainly a question of whether it's worth giving Dreylin time to consolidate his gains

Almost certainly not worth it, but inertia is hard to kick.

[GermanJoey]

On the other hand, waiting would probably let Scooter fight at a tech advantage. It's mainly a question of whether it's worth giving Dreylin time to consolidate his gains

Almost certainly not worth it, but inertia is hard to kick.

I agree, they need to figure out how to get a few dozen buckets worth of toy army soldiers up there, pronto.

Speaking of wars, whatever happened to Donovan's invasion of REM? It's already 3T past when he was originally gonna declare, and the latest screenshots show that he's already ended turn...

[Fluffball]

I think DZ was concerned he didn't have the forces to do anything to golden-age REM and his increasing defenses in the border city, and probably scared Dreyote would turn their focus on him when he lost half his power. He was pretty hesitant to attack REM in his last posts regarding that. I think he missed the opportunity if he was going for a it a long time ago, and it's probably not a smart move at this point.

I can't wait for the next few turns, sculla are playing a single player colonization game at this point, and I want to see them get into some "diplomacy".

[Fluffball]

This is getting crazy, it looks like it may be 8 rifles and a cat against 2 grenadiers and 2 rifles, heavily promoted IIRC. If dreyote moves on that I think they may call off the assault on sight and sculla reinforces, but that will have massive implications for the region.

If dreyote waits that extra turn, I think they take control of the entire region and sculla accepts peace.

[El Grillo]

Grenadiers only get the +50% bonus attacking into rifles, so that fight may be close to a coin-flip if they fully commit, even with only the first batch of attackers. A raze there would certainly raise eyebrows among the other players.

[Fluffball]

Grenadiers only get the +50% bonus attacking into rifles

Oh you're right, that actually changes things quite a bit in my prediction. This is going to be a bad day for sculla I think.

[GermanJoey]

Wow, REM's tech pace has really recovered thanks to the SoL. I was wondering if that damn thing was too expensive to be worth it, but looks like payback time will be pretty quick. It seems like he's only about ~1500 beakers behind Sulla/Scooter right now, without having cashed in as many bulbs. (although I'm not sure whether there's any good bulb targets left... maybe Physics or Electricity en-route to Industrialism?) They've got roughly equal bpt after expenses, but team Germany is building a lot of wealth while it looks like REM is not. It's hard to say whether one team or the other is running more specialists, though (not counting the SoL free ones).

I wonder if REM should even bother hooking his coal up. (and just throw a windmill on it or something, you lose 2h but gain 1f1c). He's Japan, so he doesn't need it for his Coal Plants, and thus Factories+Power would only cost him 3 health (5 w/ Oil) instead of 5 (7 w/ Oil). His city of Perry is size 12 w/ 6 healthcap remaining, without a grocer, so that'd get him to size 15 unhindered... pretty good. He may need to get grocers anyways at Combustion, but it at least buys him some time. Others may just need to get grocers out right away or start shedding pop.

edit: rather than make a new post, I totally forgot the German UB Factory gets 4 (!) Engineer slots! that's 5 total w/ the one from the forge, up to 8 engineer specialists with an Industrial Park. There's gotta be something snazzy you can do with all that... Pentagon, Ironworks... and Cristo Redentor is on the table (and they're Spi! switch civics every turn!)

[Fluffball]

Do you guys agree with Sculla's increasing skepticism of Dreyote? I think they're looking at where Dreyote is right now and assuming they'll stay that way, but I wouldn't be surprise to see Dreyote seize a THIRD player's land while simultaneously building up the core.

I personally do not like their long term prospects, but then I am not nearly as warlike as they are being. I would never have seized Gaspar's lands and I would be solidly in last place instead of arguably first.

[Epoxy]

What is Donovan thinking with his city plant on the stone island near Dreylin? Would it be more sound for him to settle another city on the island and try to push there instead?

Do you guys agree with Sculla's increasing skepticism of Dreyote? I think they're looking at where Dreyote is right now and assuming they'll stay that way, but I wouldn't be surprise to see Dreyote seize a THIRD player's land while simultaneously building up the core.

I personally do not like their long term prospects, but then I am not nearly as warlike as they are being. I would never have seized Gaspar's lands and I would be solidly in last place instead of arguably first.

As long as Dreyote aren't called on their wayward expansion such weakness won't matter immediately; the scepticism is justified but immaterial if Scooter/Donovan don't directly respond. An important moment on that front will be what Scooter decides to do when they have access to infantry. As long as there are still unclaimed areas of the map I don't think the non-Dreyote players will attack each other—so Dreylin and OT4E will have to continue watching their backs. The exception is REM, who might want a piece of Pindicator.

We need a new antagonist!

[The Black Sword]

The SoL is obviously a great wonder and I'm surprised REM had no competition for it. It's like +2pop per city, 1 for the specialist and 1 for the (Bio) farm that feeds it. That said, Dreylin/Ot4E are still leading IMO. I'd be very curious to see both REM and Dreylin post demos and the city list screen to compare their relative output. You have to be careful that you're not double-counting wealth builds in both GNP and hammers and for food you need to take into account the relative populations and the Kremlin factor. The most important point for me though is that Gaspar's land is still contributing very little to the Khmer yet, the cities are just coming out of revolt, at relatively low sizes and you should expect Dreylin's output to increase much quicker than their rivals in the near future.

Another thing I'd love to see is an analysis of the payback time for Assembly Line. It's an expensive tech that unlocks expensive buildings(for non-Org/Germans) and I'm not automatically convinced of it's strength.