picklepikkl embarks on the Fool's Journey

[picklepikkl]

Sure, but there are other factors to consider, like the other two rivals I have in this game who are both ahead of me in score. Fighting at tech parity against a fortified opponent with Statue of Zeus is just not a way to win. If I war Jowy, it'll only be if I believe I can hit him hard and decisively, hence my current desire to win the Liberalism race->Nationalism->Taj Golden Age->Military Tradition and Rifling.

Sian is actually a target I might consider for a quick in-and-out border war, because the geometry between The Empress and his gems city favors me so much more (particularly given The Empress's cultural control, due to the 5 artists I ran while I was in Caste System in my golden age). I'm redeploying my fast-movers to The Magician while I consider -- Sian is also 1t away from Guilds, but it's unclear what he can do with it (I don't know if he has HBR). I wonder if he wants to punch greenline in the nose?

Speaking of greenline, he founded Christianity this turn. I guess Theology gives bonuses to Paper? I don't have research visibility on him yet; I've been dumping most of my EP equally into Sian and Jowy, and only the leftovers into greenline. If I get city visibility on one of my neighbors I will swap some more EP into greenline.

Settlers start coming out next turn. My workers are already redeploying, though most of these cities are coastal seafood-scrapers. Let's see what this does to my economy -- even out of Golden Age, I'm still head and shoulders #1 GNP with research on and #1 production, which is pretty nice. Philosophy in 2t -- I decided to pursue that first so I could slap another Monastery in The Fool for yet more research multipliers.

[picklepikkl]

2-turn day, though my ability to actually play was hampered by the fact that I spent much of today in a theater LARP. Result: Nobody died, nobody got married, and my second daughter came out as a lesbian who wanted to study black magic at the feet of a faerie witch-goddess I used to bang who might have sort of been Shub-Niggurath. Good times!

Civwise: greenline's Golden Age ended (tbh, I'd forgotten he was in one). Jowy is not-so-subtly scouting my lands. First settler out and moving to a site where I will found in two turns. Worker already building improvements. On the interturn, we founded Taoism in The Emperor -- there's just something about the east side of our civ that makes religion happen. Going to send the free missionary to the capital in the hopes of a third Monastery, though I'm not sure I'd bother building the Monastery/missionaries in The Emperor for the sake of trying again.

[picklepikkl]

I haven't posted in about a week; I broke up with my girlfriend on Sunday and it's kind of killed my enthusiasm for, well, most things. I'll try to get back in the swing of this thread -- I was kind of hoping I'd go through this whole game not missing a single turn of updates.

Summary of what you missed: We're going hard on Liberalism. greenline beat us to University of Sankore, but only by a few turns, which could easily have been chops/higher base hammers in the building city/IND talking. Education came in at the end of the most recent turn, and the failgold from Sankore will get us to Liberalism in 2t more. Jowy can't beat us (still hasn't finished Paper), and the fact that we founded Taoism implies a Philosophy monopoly, so I think we've got it over greenline (Sian hasn't been researching anywhere in that tech group). I plan to grab Nationalism, chop out Taj in High Priestess, use the Golden Age to pump out another Great Person in Empress to combine with our saved Great Artist, and use two Golden Ages + Oxford to haul ass to MilTrad/Rifling and as many Cavalry as I can, then ruin someone's day (undecided between Jowy and Sian -- Jowy is more of a threat, but Sian is more likely to be easy meat).

Also, I founded four cities, so I guess in my next update I'll go over the relevant Tarot cards.

[Dp101]

I'm really sorry about your girlfriend and hope you feel better about the whole thing eventually. I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better, but I'm only a random internet stranger who knows nothing about your life. All I can say is that the pain fades eventually.

[picklepikkl]

Thank you, kind internet stranger.

Let's talk about the various things I post informative updates on, because greenline hasn't gotten to the turn yet.

A while back we got a Great Artist, Pablo Picasso. Chances are, you already know who this guy is, but he's pretty awesome. All you people getting excited about Hearts of Iron IV over in the General Gaming forum? His most famous piece, Guernica, is a painting inspired by the horrors he witnessed during the Spanish Civil War, which you might recall as "that thing that reliably happens in an irrelevant place to let me farm army experience early on."

Last turn we built a worker. M is a good letter for demons, so you might be wondering: who did I go with? Mammon? Moloch? Mephistopheles? I'm sorry to disappoint, but we went with this guy:



This foppish figure, Melchom, is the paymaster of Hell's civil servants, because of course that's a thing. And now for our cities!



City 9: The Hermit

The Fool has just learned from the Chariot and Strength how to go about securing victory. The Hermit is about that question beloved of philosophers and two-year-olds everywhere: Why? What am I fighting for? What's the purpose of seeking victory? These answers can only be found by each person looking within themself, and so the Fool turns inward, retreating from the world in order to seek answers to the important questions.



City 10: Wheel of Fortune

While retreating from the world, the Fool has time to observe the world and glimpse its larger patterns. The Wheel of Fortune (which, sadly, due to character limits is rendered on my city as "Wheel of Fortun") represents those patterns: the often-arbitrary currents of life that still somehow become fuel for meaning and understanding. Wheel of Fortune is also fundamentally a card about action: it's time to move again. The Fool can't just hold still and be a Hermit forever.



City 11: Justice

Having observed the larger patterns of the world, the Fool is now ready to decide what those mean to themself, personally, and to cast judgment upon their own actions. It is time to accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions and to decide what is right. The Fool can no longer plunge blindly into the world believing that everything will be all right like they did at first -- that path leads to falling off cliffs! Observe this card's resemblance to the art of The Emperor -- however, while the Emperor is concerned with order and structure for its own sake, Justice is deeply invested in cause and effect, along with fairness and right action.



City 12: The Hanged Man

Justice represented a point of decision for the Fool. The Hanged Man represents a kind of decision that the Fool has heretofore not had to deal with. The Chariot and Strength taught the Fool how to win; the Hanged Man is about how to lose. Sometimes, the correct course of action is to realize that you are defeated and to accept that. The figure on the card is luminous with power and seems to be at peace. This card is a mass of self-contradiction: control the situation by letting go of control, move forward by standing still, win by losing. By giving up, one is released from the constraints of the consciously constructed ego and is free to let one's true self shine.

[picklepikkl]

We may not need no Education, but it certainly helps. University builds dialed in. We need five for Oxford on this map size; unfortunately, one of the places capable of building a University in a reasonable amount of time (The High Priestess) is also where we're going to want to be building Taj starting turn after next. I'm as yet undecided on whether to go full speed ahead on Taj ASAP, finish the University first, or try to strike a balance somehow. Boy I wish I had marble, but not only do I not have cultural control over it, the person who does hasn't even hooked it. Finally finished spreading Confucianism into my new cities for the culture and OR bonuses; this was somewhat complicated by free spreads before I could do so making failure theoretically possible (one got Taoism, which at least is one I founded, and one got Buddhism, which is Jowy's and contributes to his shrine income, boo).

I have stopped my previous EP spending pattern of 3-3-1 on Sian/Jowy/greenline and instead begun dumping all 20/t into greenline, with the goal of gaining research visibility (getting Sankore-sniped wasn't ruinous, but it also wasn't great). I have City Visibility on the other two, but I confess to having no idea how it works -- I seem to have visibility on some of Sian and Jowy's cities and not on others, with no discernible pattern. Once I get research visibility I'll go back to my previous spending pattern.

[DTG]

We may not need no Education, but it certainly helps. University builds dialed in. We need five for Oxford on this map size; unfortunately, one of the places capable of building a University in a reasonable amount of time (The High Priestess) is also where we're going to want to be building Taj starting turn after next. I'm as yet undecided on whether to go full speed ahead on Taj ASAP, finish the University first, or try to strike a balance somehow.

As a general rule, it's hardly ever wrong to sacrifice in order to secure a critical wonder. The optimal path might gain you a turn of research, sure, but if you lose a key wonder, will that do more harm to your chances of winning than the optimal path would have helped? And, just as importantly, how will the other players cope with the loss of this wonder?

Besides, if you're not racing to a specific tech, you can always turn off research until Oxford is in.

[picklepikkl]

Sounds reasonable; I am kind of racing to get MilTrad and Rifling ASAP so I can go hard on cavalry, but Taj ASAP does seem best for accomplishing that, despite the inefficiency of it all. Not sure which tech to take next; I suspect I should go straight up to Music for Military Tradition so that I can prebuild cuirassiers, which will be less expensive to upgrade to cav than knights/HA/chariots, but there's also an argument for taking Printing Press, which will boost empire commerce simply by having it, and is a prereq for Replaceable Parts, which I need for Rifling.

Things that happened this turn: one of my Scouts in Sian's territory spotted a (small) stack of Knights near his greenline border. I wonder if that's a war that's about to happen? I've had no research visibility on Sian for the past few turns despite having the EP for it, which I assume means he's 1-turning techs with nothing queued up. I also noticed he had two of his capital Calendar good (silks) hooked up, so I offered him a straight dyes-for-silks trade.

Finally, and most importantly, we bagged Liberalism.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Sounds reasonable; I am kind of racing to get MilTrad and Rifling ASAP so I can go hard on cavalry, but Taj ASAP does seem best for accomplishing that, despite the inefficiency of it all. Not sure which tech to take next; I suspect I should go straight up to Music for Military Tradition so that I can prebuild cuirassiers, which will be less expensive to upgrade to cav than knights/HA/chariots, but there's also an argument for taking Printing Press, which will boost empire commerce simply by having it, and is a prereq for Replaceable Parts, which I need for Rifling.

Things that happened this turn: one of my Scouts in Sian's territory spotted a (small) stack of Knights near his greenline border. I wonder if that's a war that's about to happen? I've had no research visibility on Sian for the past few turns despite having the EP for it, which I assume means he's 1-turning techs with nothing queued up. I also noticed he had two of his capital Calendar good (silks) hooked up, so I offered him a straight dyes-for-silks trade.

Finally, and most importantly, we bagged Liberalism.

Nice. So going for a cav attack? Who is the most likely target do you think? What will you take with liberalism? The most expensive tech available I guess is Printing press?

[picklepikkl]

Any cav attack of reasonable strength is far enough out that the answer I give regarding "whose day do I ruin" now is useless; the real answer is "I attack whichever of Jowy/Sian I think I can gain the most from," which is a function both of target softness and target deliciousness.

I'm going to take Nationalism; it's the boring play, but classics become classic for a reason. It's more expensive than PP (by 200 base beakers), and Taj will allow me to produce a second GP to fire a second GA in record time, and while there are a lot of base beakers between me and Cavalry, runner-runner Golden Ages + having Oxford in a cottage cheese Bureaucademy capital in about 10 turns or so should get me through them before anyone can get to units that stack up well (what beats Cav on defense? Rifles? I think I can get to MilTrad and Rifling before anyone else gets to Rifling unless they start beelining right now, and even then my Cavs are Pinch from the word go).