It's Clobberin' Time! Raging Barbs Highlands Tokugawa on Monarch

[Zalson]

We're behind:

theology (+20% research bonus on paper)
Paper
Printing Press
Replaceable parts

Are we going to to 100% wealth builds too? try to crank out these techs?

My concern is that JC is 2 techs away from rifles, which is bad. We also want education too for the benefit of universities.

I think we stay at war, keep teching, and rope-a-dope him. Unless you think peace is preferrable, shallow_thought.

In which case, let's found the north and maybe try to take down Willem? Or Mansa (he's got Sankore which'd be useful).

[Zalson]

I don't think we want peace with Rome, actually. He's got the following techs on us:

Compass
Scientific Method
Chemistry
Theology
Paper
Military Tradition
Printing Press

That's 13,000 beakers. Currently, we make like, what, +150 beakers on Caeser? That's 86 turns until we make up that gap.

Let's take this upcoming stack and then move in and start pillaging his territory. If we get opportunity, we start burning cities.

We have to cripple him now. Otherwise I don't think we catch up until we get to Infantry.

[shallow_thought]

Wow, we are _badly_ behind. Maybe we are better off trying to swamp him with numbers in the slavery era. I guess the good news is that it doesn't look much as if he's going to be able to trade for more tech with other people, as he's already ahead.

I haven't even had time to open the save yet, let alone take a detailed look, and probably won't get much of a chance until my in-laws have left, certainly not enough timr for serious thought. So that will be a delay of another couple of days before I can pick it up.

Are you guys happy with that, or should Zalson take the next turnset? I'm OK with that if we want to keep things moving.

[Zalson]

We can draft, too. We should do that instead of slavery for attacking units; it's much more efficient.

I'm down to swap if you'd like, shallow_thought.

[haphazard1]

Drafting for muskets, building whatever else we want (mostly siege probably) will hopefully give us enough military strength to make an attack into Roman territory. Ideally we would like to conquer cities, but if we doubt our ability to hold them then pillage and burn to deny Julius the chance to take them back and use them against us.

If we can not slow him down and Juliues reaches rifles and cannon, things will start getting very messy. Well, even more than they already are, which is bad enough. But I do not see a lot of other options. Maybe we could do something with the AP by spreading Hinduism to Shaka, Willem, and Gilgamesh and trying to cheese out a religious victory? That would not really fit our variant conditions, and might not work anyway.

[shallow_thought]

We can draft, too. We should do that instead of slavery for attacking units; it's much more efficient.

I'm down to swap if you'd like, shallow_thought.

Damn, I'm going to have to get grips with a whole new mechanic that I've rarely used, aren't I .

Go for the swap. Better than wasting 2-3 days.

[RFS-81]

Also, when you write up your report, please explain how to make good use of drafting!

[Zalson]

Roger that! Got it and I'll try to take a look tonight.

Here's a drafting primer.

You can only draft cities that, after drafting, are size 5 or larger and that have at least 10% certain percentage of your culture in them. However, this is many of our cities. Since we're on a standard map, we can draft 3x a turn.

A musketman costs 80 hammers. At size 6 with a granary, you are paying 3 unhappiness and 1 pop point for 80 hammers of musket. That is paying 15 food to grow with a granary, because growing from size 5 to size 6 needs 30 food and the granary stores half. All that for 80 hammers!

If we whipped the musketman, it'd cost us at most: 3 pop, 1 unhappiness to get at least 91/80 hammers. 3 pop with granary costs 13 food, 14 food, 15 food to get back to size 6. That's 42 food! So it is not as efficient.

However, the cost is the population we're sacrificing. To that end, there are certain cities we shouldn't draft: really high size cities, as they will take much longer to regrow. For instance, our capital is not a good draft choice: it is size 14 or 15. Growing back to size 14 takes 24 food! At a high food surplus, that isn't too bad. But since our cap is very nearly tapped out...

I'll mark the cities when I draft them and the ones not to draft.

And drafting is even better with rifles. One pop point becomes 110 hammers!

We will have a sharper hockey stick when we start drafting.

My turnset goals are to take Setia, add like 5 new cities, and draft together a big army.

[Brian Shanahan]

One exception to the "don't draft large cities" rule of thumb is grow your NE city to as large a size you can, and just draft like mad until it hit's five pop.

Another exception, if in emergency, draft!

[Zalson]

One exception to the "don't draft large cities" rule of thumb is grow your NE city to as large a size you can, and just draft like mad until it hit's five pop.

Another exception, if in emergency, draft!

I think you mean Globe Theatre city?

You can draft and whip in the same turn, too. That's like the best result for an emergency.

The whip gets built at the end of the turn; the drafted unit is immediately available. If you're really good at overflow and have lots of pop, you can even whip, draft several turns in a row.