Looks like things are going well for you. Keep up the reporting!'
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[SPOILERS] Cornflakes brings the popcorn (because creativity is overrated)
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July 17th, 2018, 18:24
(This post was last modified: July 17th, 2018, 18:25 by Cornflakes.)
 (July 17th, 2018, 08:32)Emperor K Wrote: Looks like things are going well for you. Keep up the reporting!' Thanks! Turns have been coming slow lately. Seems like we get about 5 turns per week, and over the entire course of the game we’ve maybe had 4 days where we got 2 turn in. To be expected I suppose in a 6 player PBEM. But it makes me want to make it a 5 player game  . I’m surprised that Banzailizard hasn’t made a play to utilize his combat bonus vs. city states yet. In fact unless he’s recently build another unit I don’t think his military has increased in 20 turns. I’ll keep an eye on things and maybe consider a medieval era attack on Germany right as their getting their districts completed and before they have a chance to repay their investment.
Turn 44 starts off with the one warrior attacking Valletta as planned. Valletta started the turn with 75 HP, and the one attack did 35 damage knocking it down to 40 HP. I initially fortified the SW warrior as planned, and then as I thought about it I realized with only 40 HP remaining I might be able to finish off Valletta this turn, even if I still spent the other warrior on pillaging the horse pasture! A couple mouse-overs later and I was fairly confident of success. The northeast warrior was the lowest HP and did not have enough to survive an attack so I went ahead and pillaged the farm there as planned. Then I proceeded with the attack shown in the mouseover ... SUCCESS! Survived with 2HP remaining  Good thing I used this warrior and not the one to the east which had slightly less HP. Now that east warrior was able to clean up and captured Valletta. This brings me to 4 cities and 15 pop! The military will now split with half going east to protect Chess from the barbs, and half claiming the +50 from the western barb camp in the center before it disappears to a city state.Repair time on the monument is 4 turns so I'll go ahead and do that. The builder currently 1W of Chess will be able to repair the horse pasture in 3 turns by delaying the mine at Chess for 3 turns as well. Overall the pasture pillage cost 6  for 50, an excellent exchange rate!In the first screenshot you can see both Currency and Early Empire sitting at 1 turn remaining. I'll hold Currency until both campuses are complete in order to establish the district discount. No districts yet completed in the wide world yet except for TAD's 2 Lavra. Hopefully I'll get a nice head start on the first GScientist. Early Empire I will probably swap back in next turn to sync with completion of the builder at Pinochle, and the 1-turn-from-completion campus at Cribbage. Those two cities will start Settlers as soon as their current builds are complete. A scary revelation hit me this turn ... that barb camp on the east coast is 2 tiles from horses  I need to tread carefully! Looking at the healing on the warrior currently 1W of Chess. I can heal in place for +15HP/turn, or spend a turn moving into the city to heal for +20HP/turn. After 3 turns I get +45HP by healing in place, or 40 HP from healing in the city. I'm going to heal in place. That also gives me the flexibility to move after 2 turns for +30HP in place compared to only +20HP if I spend the first turn moving into the city. I find that spending a turn moving into a city is inferior to just healing inside borders unless (1) the unit is red-line and will need 5 turns of healing [4 turns just breaks even], or (2) is moving from outside the borders directly into the city thus going from +10/turn to +20/turn.
and here I thought you knew it was a horse camp all along
 Good luck!
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here
A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about. (July 13th, 2018, 17:32)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: One Night Ultimate Werewolf is my favorite party game. Never heard of Ultimate Warewolf, but reading the description it sounds much more to my liking than normal werewolf (I'm used to hearing it called Mafia which I think is the same game). For one thing I'm not very good at it which is fine, can't be good at everything and with a large group the intent is to have fun together more than anything. What I really hate about the normal version is that one person is immediately eliminated on the first night with no opportunity whatsoever to participate in the game, and subsequent eliminations mean that progressively more and more people become just spectators. Quote:But you've also got classic board games like Monopoly, Backgammon, Bridge, Parcheesi. Most of these are limited to about 4-6 players though. Haven't heard of Castles of Burgundy but Kingdom Builder but they both look interesting for a smaller group setting. Coup I have played once and remember it was a lot of fun and I think it was played in a larger group. Avalon is one game we've found works well in a larger group Family Business is another card game that I'd forgotten about until now. Only works up to 6 players, but I personally quite enjoyed it the couple times I've played. Each player is head of a gang with a set of starting gang members represented a set of cards on the table. The goal of the game is be the last gang standing. It requires a balance of working together, doing favors to (hopefully) have them reciprocated when you desperately need it, maintaining a balance of power while subtly stacking your hand, and ultimately stabbing in the back at the right time ... but not too soon lest everyone turn against you! Oh man, I just remembered another very fun game I haven't played in years ... Pit! It is a very-fast-paced commodity trading game. Each player starts with a hand of cards consisting of various commodities (wheat, barley, corn, etc.) each with a market price. The game is played by all players simultaneously trading cards with any/all other players as necessary to accumulate the complete set of one entire commodity, thus earning points in accordance with the market price of that commodity. All players are simultaneously calling out what commodity cards they are looking for and offering, trying to come up with mutually-agreeable trades, often quickly brokering a card between 3rd parties to make deals for a card they actually want. Often it's better to try for a low-priced commodity since people generally try to hold on to the high-price commodities and thus make it hard to gather them ... going to order this game right now!
July 19th, 2018, 09:05
(This post was last modified: July 19th, 2018, 10:32 by Cornflakes.)
T45 Civ Comparison
Biggest changes in the demographics other than my capture of Valletta: Russia has doubled their cultural output. TAD made use of the industrial CS +2 towards buildings by constructing a monument in his capital. I think that is a decent choice to take advantage of the city stat bonus, although with his religion founding in 2 turns I'm a little surprised it wasn't a Shrine. Looking at his Lavra district I don't see a shrine even under construction. This suggests he's not planning to take Choral Music. Judging by his high faith  output I suspect Jesuit Education instead. Germany has a settler out as revealed by the drop in population in his capital. My science rate is about to explode with the completion of the +5:adjacency: campus at the end of this turn. I'm going to have to start knocking out eurekas here in the very near future in order to avoid wasting science. One eureka I'm going to be forced to skip is TheWheel because I simply do not have a mine-able resource in my sphere of influence. Assuming I do get the first GScientist, I took a more detailed look at that portion of the tech tree: I started putting GREEN circles on all the easily achieved eurekas, intending to follow up with orange and red for difficult and nearly-impossible ... turns out there are only 4 total remaining. These aren't difficult either, just require some dedicated to them. This I suspect is the reason that Aryabhata as the GScientist is not a favorite. I'm looking at probably a 33-ish turn timeline to recruit the GScientist without any additional effort. I don't much care about the Military Tactics boost but the odds are pretty high (~75%) that it will boost MT, and thus need to hard-research one of the others anyway. The last thing I want is to miss out on either Construction or Engineering and have to start walls or water mill at the last second when I wasn't planning on it. I think that I will want/need Celestial Navigation at an earlier timeline anyway in order to get 2 harbors build in time for the Cartography boost. I will probably forego the CN euraka in order to guarantee that I get both Construction + Engineering boosted with the GScientist. This will save me a nice chunk of early game production that I can instead funnel into districts or expansion.
Had a chance to think about the upcoming build order at the 4 cities taking me through the next dozen or so turns ... all numbers indicate turns to complete starting next turn:
My Pyramids timeline I feel is very aggressive. In PBEM 10 the Pyramids was build T80, while in PBEM 4 it wasn't built at all. (PBEM 2, 5, and 7 all had China in the game which throw off the comparison). By this point in the game, the next settler will cost 200 as compared to the 220 cost of the Pyramids. I'll have 2 builders at the time which get a free charge (25/each), plus a free builder (100 thanks to 4 charges), plus monument equivalent culture/turn 60 and right there it pays for itself the turn it's built, and all future builders get an extra charge that is pure profit.
July 19th, 2018, 15:40
(This post was last modified: July 19th, 2018, 15:41 by Cornflakes.)
Some intermediate-term planning on what I need to complete eurekas:
. I will be closely monitoring TheArchduke's tech rate and progress through the tech tree.
Turn 47 brings another close barb horse camp! I'm glad I have all this military from the Valletta campaign, otherwise I might be really hurting in a few turns. Fortunately I should be able to handle the situation with only a pasture or two at the capital pillaged.
I have dispatched 2 warriors to the new barb camp in the north. The lead warrior will attack on T49, and both will be able to attack on T50 using flanking for +2 CS. Three attacks should easily take care of this camp since it is on flat land. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get there before the scout can spot me and cause an eruption. In the south I'm going to snipe the barb camp from TheArchduke for the 50 . In the east my two warriors at the capital will be on defensive damage control. One will fortify on the campus tile, the other will fortify on the PFH 1SE of Chess. I have a 3rd warrior incoming, serving as fog bust and escort to the builder on the way north of Pinochle.The builder at Valletta repairs the horse and is headed back to Chess now for a mine. Chess is completing its campus thus turn and will continue with a Settler. Settler is currently showing 9-turn build but with overflow and the new mine I suspect it will drop to 8, which makes it complete the same turn as Pinochle's. Being first in order means it will complete first and delay Pinochle's when the cost increases. I'm planning to micro it such that Pinochle will complete the settler first. The sign in the middle is reminding me to swap research back to Currency next turn since both campuses will be completed. On civics, State Property will be complete in 2, with Political Philosophy 6 turns later EOT 54, adopting new government on T55. TheArchduke founded his religion and took two solid beliefs as shown in the above screenshot. Jesuit Education and Defender of the Faith as suspected. With Jesuit Education I may have some competition after all for the first GScientist. I believe TAD completed his first campus last turn at his capital (strategic view graphic no longer has the hammer, but GPP screen still showing 0/turn) which puts him 1 turn behind my first. My 2nd is completing this turn, so even if he purchases a Library I will still be a couple points ahead of him. Mouseover of his 2nd city on the trade screen only shows a Lavra planted there so he doesn't yet have another Campus under construction. I've played a few quick turns back-to-back so I took a moment to step back and review the planning for the next dozen or so turns. I realized that I'm a few builder charges short with no build queues available at present. I want to maintain my current CH district construction at Valletta, with Settlers at Chess + Pinochle. Chess is working an un-mined hill but does have a charge dedicated to improving a mine. Cribbage has a builder in progress but that will not be able to reach the western cities for 15 turns. Valletta is currently working an un-mined hill and a grassland farm  . Pinochle need a builder to chop a forest into Pyramids in 8 turns. The only builder I currently have available is the 2-charge one at Pinochle. I was originally planning on sending that to Valletta, but that is a long haul and means I don't have anything in place at Pinochle to chop. After some thought I decided on the following:I decided to purchase a builder at Valletta for 245 . This is effectively a 4-charge builder because it will still be around with Pyramids completes. It will be able to immediately mine the hill 1W of Valletta next turn since the trader will build a road there at the end of this turn. Afterwards it will repair the pillaged farm for the eventual Feudalism boost, then wait a few more turns for the borders to expand onto the Stone [hopefully]. This will also allow the Pinochle builder to build another mine. Pinochle is currently working the 3 /1 roduction banana but the food is being wasted at the 50% housing penalty. I'd rather work a mine instead. Plus I will need the mine anyway once I chop the forest from the hill. I'm considering whether I want to purchase another builder for 260 at Pinochle. The 2nd builder would be effectively a 5-charge builder because I would be able to preserve the existing Pinochle builder until Pyramids completes to grant it an additional charge.I know I said that gold was an extremely precious resource, but the 505 would effectively net 9 builder charges (56/charge). This investment will pay large dividends in accelerating my growth curve by allowing me to work all improved tiles. I can keep up my horizontal expansion with 2 more settlers while simultaneously continuing vertical expansion with a CH + Pyramids, as well as being able to start immediately on district construction at GREEN DOT. I have 6 more resources eligible for plantations, so if I devote 6 charges returning a total of 12 gpt that is a 42 turn payback, which even if it takes me 20 turns to get those down is still less than my MG-upgrade timeline. Thus in the end I can earn back that spent gold anyway before I'll need it.
I'm itching to get a couple galleys out on the high seas. I've explored most of TheArchduke's backlines without finding another city state, providing further evidence that the remaining 6 city states are not on either of the starting continents. Given the continental setup and comparing to my local terrain I don't anticipate anyone else prioritizing a coastal site as 2nd/3rd or even 4th city location. My settler form Chess is definitely going east to the coast, and I will make sure to have the +100% naval production policy in place when I found. If I can get a dozen turns head start on galley exploration I have a decent shot at stealing quite a few extra free envoys.
I'm going to run Autocracy government at first for the extra capital yields, wonder production bonus towards Pyramids, and better policy card distribution. But I'm considering a fairly early swap into Classical Republic once Pyramids is completed. I'll have a district constructed at every city shortly after Games & Recreation completes (a couple of Carnivals) which grants +1 Amenity under Classical Republic. The main reason though for the swap is the +15% GPP production. Might as well make the most of my GPP traits. I'll have to use the Wild Card for the naval production military policy but I shouldn't need any other military policies for a long time, until I unlock Merchant Republic which is my next target government. Something else I noted in the world rankings ... Pindicator has surpassed me in culture output. I suspect he has adopted a culture-pantheon, although this could possibly be from simply repairing the monument at his recently captured city state. My monument repair is completing this turn and he captured a turn ahead of me so it makes sense that his repair is already completed. ETA on my pantheon is about T65 accounting for the Autocracy +1 . If Valletta acquired Dye instead of Stone then cut 2-3 turns off (although I prefer stone be acquired). I'm really interested to see what pantheons remain. Knowing TAD & BL's picks already, I'm guaranteed to get at least 2 of the following available: Oral Tradition > God of the Open Sky > Divine Spark > Goddess of the Harvest > God of the Forge.I think the above is my current ranking. I put Goddess of the Harvest in because it would allow me to make use of Jesuit Education without having to even build any holy sites. TAD's religion will eventually reach me via passive or missionary spread. God of the Forge only if I'm considering an early attack on TheArchduke, to build a cheap ancient/classical army and then tak advantage of my quick tech rate to upgrade as soon as I hit Professional Army. I might be able to time upgrading into a musketman army before TAD gets Stirrups, and musketmen with Oligarchy are 59 strength vs DOTF knights at 58. Quantity and surprise can prevail where strength is equal. I'll do a more complete analysis in about 15 turns just before my pantheon lands | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
/turn)
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I'd much rather pass, but at least I'll get a 20% refund + the eureka and an [eventual] free luxury from the other continent 
Who knows, maybe Germany will surprise me.