DaveV talks like a pirate, me hearties!

[DaveV]

Inertia wins, and I'm still using dropbox. Maybe they'll change their minds about the public folder. Or maybe a bucket of money will fall from the sky and I'll be able to hire someone to change all my links.

The archer bounced back out of Ahepetr again:



Here's the end-of-turn screenshot, showing Ellimist grabbing circumnavigation.

I did check; Ellimist is Perpentach.  Still Arc/Cre/Cha?  Cre would have definitely inflated his apparent GNP if he kept it for a meaningful length of time.

He's currently SPI/IND/CRE, which matches the last time I checked, I believe. I think the GNP on the demographics screen includes culture, but the one on the graphs doesn't.


Demo and graphs dump:

[Brian Shanahan]

Graphs look very good, especially seeing as you can grow onto very juicy sea tiles yet in most of your cities to improve your finances. To be ahead in food hammers at this stage is a very good sign.

I'd say keep on the peaceful expansion for now, while maintaining your power levels at a reasonable amount, and when you've run out of land to settle, you should have yourself in a strong position to strike against an opponent.

[Mardoc]

I think the GNP on the demographics screen includes culture, but the one on the graphs doesn't.

Pretty sure culture always counts in both places. I'm not sure how I would prove that, though.

Graphs look very good, especially seeing as you can grow onto very juicy sea tiles yet in most of your cities to improve your finances. To be ahead in food hammers at this stage is a very good sign.

I'd say keep on the peaceful expansion for now, while maintaining your power levels at a reasonable amount, and when you've run out of land to settle, you should have yourself in a strong position to strike against an opponent.

Agreed. Expansive settlers are still cheaper than war. But...this probably won't take all that long, not when we're already bumping borders with the Balseraphs and have eyes on the Hippus. I suspect that our first war can be at the axes off galleys level. That's probably not enough to kill someone, but is enough to snipe a couple border cities if someone else is killing them. Chariots off galleys would be sufficient to get a kill if we hit someone early enough.

[DaveV]

Turn 75. Since I just did a demo dump, here's a stitch of the known world, before ending turn:



City screen, after ending turn:



I finished three more warriors, and am now #1 in power. I should be ready to attack Ahepetr in 3-4 more turns.

[DaveV]

Turn 77. Dreylin obviously wanted to settle a city here, too:



Even with his OP worldspell, he'll have trouble budging bronze warriors with +50% defense bonus. The city name is pushing the boundaries of AI diplo: your guys in a crow's nest keep watch, but you don't mount cannons there. Maybe Dreylin will interpret the name completely differently. In any case, he's a level-headed guy who isn't going to tilt because of one sniped city site.

In the northwest, I'd love to build a canal city where the highlighted warrior is standing.



In the south, the troops are massing. Next turn, they'll move next to Ahepetr; then, the big attack.



Ellimist is now IND/ORG/RAI. Raider Balseraphs are pretty scary; I'm hoping for a change in traits before he's ready to go on the offensive. At least he's not Creative, and those are not the greatest economic traits.

Edit: also, my first mutated warrior is visible in the last screenshot. Mobility is a very nice promotion. Thank you, RNG!

[El Grillo]

I think the GNP on the demographics screen includes culture, but the one on the graphs doesn't.

Pretty sure culture always counts in both places.  I'm not sure how I would prove that, though.

The Python file for the F9 screen (CvInfoScreen.py) calls pCurrPlayer.calculateTotalCommerce() for the demographics screen and calls gc.getPlayer(iPlayer).getEconomyHistory(iTurn) for the graph. I checked what the DLL stores in that getEconomyHistory value and it's the results of calls to calculateTotalCommerce().

So the two are the same. The formula for calculateTotalCommerce is:
net gold + beakers adjusted for KTB, prereqs, and the free beaker + culture + espionage

Hope that helped!

[DaveV]

Thanks, El Grillo, that makes a lot of sense.

[Mardoc]

Even with his OP worldspell, he'll have trouble budging bronze warriors with +50% defense bonus.

Definitely.  We're getting into the era where what matters on the worldspell is the bonus movement, more than the strength.  He may have a window after he gets Bronze - but then again, he might not.  Depends on how long that takes yet and what progress you make in the interim.  And in any case, if he comes with worldspell bronze warriors, he'll only get Crow's Nest, not be an existential threat.

In the northwest, I'd love to build a canal city where the highlighted warrior is standing.

Heh.  .  Yes, that's a good spot.  There's probably a dozen good spots just on your screenshots so far - it's a good map to be Expansive!  

In the south, the troops are massing. Next turn, they'll move next to Ahepetr; then, the big attack.

Fingers crossed!  

Ellimist is now IND/ORG/RAI. Raider Balseraphs are pretty scary; I'm hoping for a change in traits before he's ready to go on the offensive. At least he's not Creative, and those are not the greatest economic traits.

True.  At least a change before he starts building adepts.  Best way to handle raider Balseraphs is to hit first

Honestly, ORG is pretty scary, too.  Command Posts are a huge step toward insta-mages, and they stick around even if the traits don't.  Given how Ellimist is doing in general, it seems we'll have to fight the Balseraphs sometime before winning, the question now is mainly on what's the best time.  Maybe we'd rather absorb someone small like Dreylin first.  Maybe we'd rather hit Ellimist while he's still building Command Posts and other infrastructure instead of waiting for him to assemble a critical mass of mages, though.

How's the tech situation going?  Would it be plausible to slip in Hunting/Animal Handling soon so we can get some Hawks up and take a look at Ellimist's cities and army?  Bronze Chariots can be a good jump point for a war, especially since you only need one Siege Workshop and can otherwise build warriors and upgrade them.

[Old Harry]

Can Elimist build anything with raider now that would be scary or upgrade later and be scary?

[Mardoc]

Can Elimist build anything with raider now that would be scary or upgrade later and be scary?

Well, yes.  Warriors get the Commando promotion, and can upgrade into almost anything unlocked later.  Mainly it's a question of numbers, though - it's a lot easier to defend against a couple commandoes than a horde of them.  If he crash builds a big army just to save the promos for later, that will hurt his economy and expansion until he's actually ready to invade, so I don't worry much about that.

The bigger question is whether he has the ability to build adepts.  Balseraph adepts with Commando mean puppets with Commando which means spellcasting from absurdly long distances.  And Balseraphs have Mind mana, so adepts aren't even negative GNP like most armies.