Turn 109
I didn't think as hard about this turn, so here's a much more up-to-date...er, update.
Thank goodness for this, my culture and science rates were appalling while I was out of Trade Confederation. Running a civ based on trade was sort of my hare-brained scheme for this game, and while I've found that it's very flexible and lets you grab science and culture on the cheap, it also somewhat handcuffs you in terms of governments. One economic slot is basically always devoted to TC, and with Colonization in place I can't also run meritocracy. As a result, my rates lag. Merchant Republic will alleviate this a lot, and I'll unlock that within 10 turns (need to research and upgrade 2 caravels first). There's also a few more monuments to build, and if I could squeeze in a campus or two at perhaps Actium and Leyte, my science will be just fine and the trade stuff will just be gravy on top. But where the hell do I find the time to do that? Next turn I think I'll offer a renewed DoF to Sullla/Singaboy, maybe they'll bet they can build more than me in 30 turns and crush Woden and I easily at the end. They'd be right - except they don't know that I will soon have the Venetian Arsenal! :shh:
Before I swap policies, I do one more purchase at Navarino:
In 2 turns the final tile will be picked up by natural growth, ready to be chopped shortly thereafter. I realized last night, also, that as I chop the stones and forests, the yields of those tiles will change and my numbers on the jungle chop will be slightly off (plus I'll lose 1 pop from the settler). But I have 33 spare production in hand, plus the natural production generated at the end of t114, so I remain confident that if I don't finish the wonder on the turn itself, I can finish it at the end via natural production.
Does production happen at the start of turn, or the end? There's a 1% possibility that Sullla is aiming to finish at the start of turn 115, and if I were to lose out in that scenario because of
turn order I shall be extremely
put out. Slim possibility, so I'm not actually worried about that, just curious.
I go ahead and put the chop government in place:
We are T-3 turns for Operation Constantinople. All the builders are in place, all that remains is to finish pre-building that settler for one more +50% boost.
I get a rare break of good luck:
Japper had one more crossbow than I thought, and mutilates my sword - who scrapes a survival with 2 hp! Phew. They don't get much closer than that. Chastened, I withdraw the sword. Advancing over those hills into the teeth of Kinsasha's defenders is a fool's errand, I'll slip around the other side of the mountain with my xbows and knights and support Woden.
I also get eyes on Japper's former city:
Victory has almost completed a circumnavigation of her own at this point.
Diplomatically, Cornflakes came up with another envoy and put it in Geneva, once again removing it from the war. This must be the part of the tree where he gains a bunch of envoys - nothing I can do about that, although I'm generating envoys faster now thanks to Monarchy. Geneva wants me to build a Holy Site (so does Lisbon), which ain't happening. If we allowed cheesy city-swapping, I'd be able to ask to borrow one of Woden's cities long enough to fulfill the quest, then trade it back. That sort of goofiness is rightly banned.
The other diplomatic news was this offer from the Archduke:
You know what? Sure. I accept.
1)I'm not sure if this grants him +3 CS against me, or if that's only in R&F. If so, he has to fight Woden most of the time anyway.
2)I could use the gold, honestly.
3)I really want to be friends with Archduke and Emperor. In my opinion, their team holds the fate of the game in their hands - whichever team they attack will lose, all but certainly. Who wins depends on how well Archduke and Emperor manage their attack. Anything I can do to make it so that they're on
our side and not on Rome/China's, I will do.
This does raise the possibility - Germany is exploding in science (extra district campuses!), culture (meritocracy with +2 culture per city thanks to Germany's ability!), and gold (so many commercial hubs!). He's got awesome production, and his buddy Russia has one of the best late-game UUs, the Cossack. Is it possible that after this war, it'd make sense for Rome/China to
ally with us against Molotov-Ribbentrop? I'm not closing my mind to the possibility. If the game continues on present trajectories, we may need a diplomatic revolution...
The other major news of the turn, I forgot to take screenshots of! Jutland is founded. It has 5 turns to growth from its marsh, then I'll harvest the marsh to get yet more pop, and work on walls to be chopped into an RND/trader. Then it's a maritime shipbuilding city, all the time.