Dare you enter the Whizzard's Realm? Magic and Mysteries abide.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

My mistake, but couldn't scooter do the same thing with overflow? I don't think it makes sense to consider it solely in your favor, so I left it out of the calculation. The other critical factor is getting to Democracy quickly enough to be competitive. If they get to Democracy even 4t after you, and the GP out of UU isn't a GE, there's no way to make up the difference outside of maybe whipping at the penalty rate. I don't know when they started on Democracy or what their breakeven rate is, but I think there's a real risk that they're only a few turns behind, or possibly even ahead on the tech...

I dunno, I know I'm less experienced here, and this could just be paranoia. Since you're still 2t away from having to put beakers into Democracy, I figured it was the only time to bring it up. What are your thoughts?

They could, although I doubt they would do it to the extent that we would. UNLESS they get warning and try to maximise hammers. However it is easier for us to do, and we have less tiles that make hammers to use kinda thing - essentially I would weight that as they will probably roll 40ish base hammers into it, we are looking more like 80. 

So I will be whipping this turn to size 8, then we get re growth then whipping again to size 6 and storing all that overflow whilst wealth/research building. In the 5ish turns before we can start the build it will go for max growth, and likely be size 9-10 before going and starting building. 

At their current cap size whipping down like we are is awkward for them. They have not the big 6 food corn, nor the free food and they need a higher pop to max out hammers on mines.

To be honest, the path is still the same whether we go SoL or Oxford tech spam currently. You're right in that the difference happens when PP is completed. The major factor there is that we would need another city with a University to complete OU, currently SM/Isen have, tower would have, UU/Bubaxton can whip to completion any time. So getting a 6th university would limited us a little there. 

On the overflow plan, this would land us with the 200% bonuses OU in about 3-4 turns regardless of a GA. It is only 360 hammers. Currently that is 100% more of the 30 base, 45 beuro boosted commerce, plus the improvement on the rep bonus and UoS bonuses. So looking at non GA boost at full tech of 55-60 sci/turn currently. Break even is around 75-80% currently, so say 45-50 sci a turn extra in 3-4 turns. This we could quickly scale up too as tower takes the villages and towns from the other helper cities. 

You're right, this could be a more productive path. If we ignore the 2800 beakers needed for democracy, we then look at getting MT/gunpowder/RP/Rifling for cavs in what... 12-15 turns? We become less of a target this way too. We have at least enough needed for the next 6 turns, and if going Oxford we could save after PP and turn back on once we have built Oxford... I don't know what to suggest currently. If only we had an estimated research time for Scooter. Will have to look on in more detail once in game tonight.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'm inclined to lean towards the riskier path of democracy-SoL than the safe path of military/OU, we can pick up on anyone powering up for aggression by monitoring the EP screen. Scooter has Mackoti to worry about, and he can always pick up the Kremlin as a consolation prize.

A danger I'm worried about, in the long term, is when do we go for Scientific Method. Obsoleting monasteries will suck, but there are alot of important techs past that spot. Like Airships, they're going to be pretty important this game.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I spent a lot of time mulling this today, and this turn confirmed things. I'm getting really worried about Scooter. He is spending gold, and his gold stocks only dropped by 50 to 120 this turn. We do need to beat him to Democracy as El Grillo (and his very useful and well calculated post) said really to stand a chance as he has that spare GE, and a better hammer spot for the beuro cap. I cannot imagine he is saving it for anything else... Kremlin is just so far away currently. So I looked back to work out when he got PP as it was from the GS. He has already had 7 full turns to go towards his next tech and I am sure he had some gold left over too. But that drop by 50... He has to be building wealth/research, from 33 he did that a lot. I don't know how else he is getting so much tech as I didn't see any gold on the trade screen, and we a similar 16 cities but lots of spiral minuret gold we are at -67 at full tech. Going full tech signals that he probably has enough to reach his intended target.

I then tried to work out how much we are beating him by in raw science and well... It's not as good as I thought at all.

Imagining him going for democracy, I stripped out all the KTBs by selecting MT.

Only 80 ahead. Then I checked esp/culture.

We are making roughly the same esp, but 3-4 times as much culture as them. So we are likely inflated by 66-75 gnp from culture. Which leaves us with comparable GNPs. Stripping out the KTB on PP (3 civs) has a near 100 GNP decrease. I think going through these techs has made me underappriciate how much GNP scooter seems to have. Regardless of Mack aggression, if he went direct for Democracy I would expect him to probably get it at the end of that gold reserve. That would be something like 10 turns to research it, which with a gold stockpile and that GNP is doable.

If we commit down this road and we have like 2k beakers invested in Democracy that is a huge input for a dead end tech otherwise. It has also delayed us getting up one of the best NWs. I am really doubting our ability to get this now. He threw a very well timed GA that has leapfrogged him with some very nice targeted bulbing. 

Essentially I think Scooter will reach a tech in 3 turns when his gold stocks will be down. I think it is most likely to be democracy. I set up the workers for us still trying for it, but I think even if we roll a GE we have a very slim chance of landing it. I think this is a bit like wanting every cake in the shop and instead needing to choose what we want. We got the monk trio, and taj. We missed lib and now probably SoL. But we can hammer our way home with the AP hammer bonuses.

Going on your above post, I think we should now push on for cavs and then cheap org factories. Agree we want to hold out on SM for a while. We loose the gold and sci bonuses but not the hammer bonuses. Probably we would want at least assembly line and railroad before scientific method. But then it locks us out of the GS physics bonus, and delays SP. Difficult.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I logged in to take a quick look, you are right that SoL may no longer be tenable. In that case, the consolation prize is not a terrible idea: we have an excellent opportunity to scrouge off the corpse of RMOG's empire. We are a good 3 turns away from getting espionage vision on Scooter. We're 15 turns away from a great person (8 turns if we switch into pacificism, but that messes up alot of other plans). Ok, I think we should switch to plan B before we sink too much opportunity into plan A.

Also, do we really need markets in Sadrith Mora and Isengard? Might we switch to barracks and stables instead, to prep for a build up?

Alternatively, we could build an explorer, and send it east, to get vision on the battleground between Mackoti and RMOG. This could let us gauge how much time we'd have before we can vulture on RMOG's corpse. I'd also suggest we gift them gold and silver, and ask for open borders, we want to prop them up for as long as possible. We can even gift our only source of silver now: we have such a ridiculous amount of happy that we won't miss it for the few turns it takes to connect a second source.

Finally, I'd like to sneak a theatre into Durmstrang, just to reinforce cultural control over the tiles to its east, and nail down any possibility of someone forting through from the southeastern ocean. But this probably isn't necessary, as the area has a good chance of falling to Mackoti.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I logged in to take a quick look, you are right that SoL may no longer be tenable. In that case, the consolation prize is not a terrible idea: we have an excellent opportunity to scrouge off the corpse of RMOG's empire. We are a good 3 turns away from getting espionage vision on Scooter. We're 15 turns away from a great person (8 turns if we switch into pacificism, but that messes up alot of other plans). Ok, I think we should switch to plan B before we sink too much opportunity into plan A.

Also, do we really need markets in Sadrith Mora and Isengard? Might we switch to barracks and stables instead, to prep for a build up?

Alternatively, we could build an explorer, and send it east, to get vision on the battleground between Mackoti and RMOG. This could let us gauge how much time we'd have before we can vulture on RMOG's corpse. I'd also suggest we gift them gold and silver, and ask for open borders, we want to prop them up for as long as possible. We can even gift our only source of silver now: we have such a ridiculous amount of happy that we won't miss it for the few turns it takes to connect a second source.

Finally, I'd like to sneak a theatre into Durmstrang, just to reinforce cultural control over the tiles to its east, and nail down any possibility of someone forting through from the southeastern ocean. But this probably isn't necessary, as the area has a good chance of falling to Mackoti.

I did actually have them on barracks before. I was musing where to go. Basically we get PP, quick Oxford saving moderate amounts of gold (circa 800 max, about 12 turns worth) then continuous full tech. Markets were as happy boosters - we have 50 turns whipping anger in both already. 

Explorer isn't useful - we don't have OBs with WK or Scooter. We could send a spy but they are slow. Note that they signed peace either this turn or last turn. Didn't check but assume that they have a 10t deal. 

Now careful with Durmstrang - it cannot claim any more tiles east due to the way culture works off islands. It can compete for that rice, but nothing else. With the university complete Ing this turn it will be making 9 culture a turn and get third ring borders in about 6 turns. I would Ben surprised if they coulda compete with that without using their artist on a bomb.

[El Grillo]

Advisor screens:

City screens:

[El Grillo]

A couple thoughts:

mackoti and RMOG indeed made peace, after mackoti captured two Dutch cities. One hypothesis is that these were island/coastal cities and mackoti isn't interested in advancing further overland right away. Given how much power he's accumulated, I expect him to return after the forced peace expires and he's marshaled his forces. The other hypothesis is that he's going to wheel his army around and hit someone else in a surprise attack, which honestly could be any of his neighbors; none of them have a competitive power rating at the moment. However, I think this is less likely, because it's inherently riskier to leave an aggrieved neighbor at your flank. The nightmare scenario is mackoti capturing the SoL somehow, but I think we can trust scooter to not fall prey for such shenanigans. mackoti could also take his forces across the central seas and hit Alhazard, but that seems like it would stretch him defensively and open the door for you to snap up the lion's share of the Ottoman land.

You both have already pointed out the Aztec gold and teching situation, I hadn't realized it's been 7 turns since they started on Democracy. No skin off your backs, saving gold while finishing Oxford sounds good (and it looks like mackoti and Alhazard are also on that plan). Does it make sense to go for the full SPI/war civics combo of drafted rifles and Theocracy-boosted siege/mounted units, skipping stables? Replaceable Parts also opens up better tile improvements, and it's technically possible to grow tall and get to Assembly Line for ORG factories without teching Scientific Method at all. There should also be a decent amount of KTB on Astronomy at this point.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

A couple thoughts:

mackoti and RMOG indeed made peace, after mackoti captured two Dutch cities. One hypothesis is that these were island/coastal cities and mackoti isn't interested in advancing further overland right away. Given how much power he's accumulated, I expect him to return after the forced peace expires and he's marshaled his forces. The other hypothesis is that he's going to wheel his army around and hit someone else in a surprise attack, which honestly could be any of his neighbors; none of them have a competitive power rating at the moment. However, I think this is less likely, because it's inherently riskier to leave an aggrieved neighbor at your flank. The nightmare scenario is mackoti capturing the SoL somehow, but I think we can trust scooter to not fall prey for such shenanigans. mackoti could also take his forces across the central seas and hit Alhazard, but that seems like it would stretch him defensively and open the door for you to snap up the lion's share of the Ottoman land.

You both have already pointed out the Aztec gold and teching situation, I hadn't realized it's been 7 turns since they started on Democracy. No skin off your backs, saving gold while finishing Oxford sounds good (and it looks like mackoti and Alhazard are also on that plan). Does it make sense to go for the full SPI/war civics combo of drafted rifles and Theocracy-boosted siege/mounted units, skipping stables? Replaceable Parts also opens up better tile improvements, and it's technically possible to grow tall and get to Assembly Line for ORG factories without teching Scientific Method at all. There should also be a decent amount of KTB on Astronomy at this point.

I had a look around rolling the turn pre work this morning. Swapped back to barracks for those 2 cities. 

Mack has already declared on Mistolin last turn. No cities fallen yet. Perhaps also to take that sea's cities between them too?

I think there is a chance that we can jump in here and get somewhere. They are in trouble. They recently swapped out of slavery and won't be able to get back into it for a few more turns. They only have 1 longbow in their gold city and the galleon protecting. With a couple of caravels and a couple of knights we could take this, land one turn and attack the next. Their core is lightly defended. 

I suggest we build knights in SM and Isen, and caravels in Hogwarts and Bubaxtons next. A knight in MB. We will soon have a road into their empire too. Perhaps we can take land base cities? It depends how explosive their war with Mackoti is, but I think an extra gold island is certainly possible.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

My feeling is that opportunistic sniping isn't the right idea just yet. The second gold city doesn't add that much, and stretches our defences in the area even further. Without Astro our own, a single Mist galleon on a revengeance mission can shut down the entire area. Unless we can neutralise all Mist cities in that body of water, I'd rather leave Mist's focus on fighting back against Mackoti. And then plan B of going for MilTrad just got even better, as we now have two weakened neighbours we can easily pick off. We can easily wrest the Mistlands out of Mackoti's hands, keep them, and make them productive.

The worry is that if we pull off a successful invasion on one or two of our neighbours, Scooter is guaranteed to try to invade and interfere before we run away with the game. So we had best keep a close eye on Scooter's acquisition of Astro, his border city of Mobility Wins, and any potential forts to the north and northeast. But we can worry about that later.

[El Grillo]

Advisor screens:

City screens:

UoS finished, which will be worth a very respectable 58 base bpt. Between it and SM, it's basically a Statue of Liberty with a distributed hammer cost (550h + 550h + temples/monasteries vs 1500h), no tech cost, a faster payoff, but worse returns lategame after monasteries obsolete. 5/6 universities will also be done, and it looks like WT will store overflow while Barad-dur whips the 6th one.




I agree with Nic that attacking the Ottoman gold island would be too risky without Galleons, but I noticed that Alhazard hasn't settled his polar region yet, and with the war with mackoti occupying his attention, it might be possible to attack his core with an undetected group of 2-movers. It would admittedly be a sizable worker turn investment to road all of that ice, and I'm not so sure about going in with knights, since mackoti could easily overpower them with his cataphracts. I don't think he would benefit from actually fighting you, but I'd hesitate to leave him an opportunity for good attacks while the cities are in revolt and there's no culture to slow him down. Seeding some military prebuilds (and maybe a spy or two for the Aztec border?) definitely makes sense.

I also took the liberty of renaming the three newest cities, since they've been sporting default names for a few turns now :3