the adventures of cool guy boak

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Assortment of random thoughts, mostly for my/Boak's convenience.

Diplomatic front:
Turn pace slowed down past week, I felt bored right now, started digging thru pbspy...

1. MSCC in turnsplit. three whips last turn. I've no clue how MSCC is managing an insane city count and managing to support an army and tech (presumably).

2. Nauf/Rusten also whipping. We also have graphs on nauf now, they're nothing spectacular. They do have a city more than we do (a situation that will rectify itself next turn).

• Hopefully they are going to samurai rush someone like MSCC, but bowmen are scary enough as is. 
  
• Would like to know if SD has hwachas. If he does, I would be surprised if they would attack him.
  
• Psychologically, SD will create hell for an attacker with his archer whipping (basically that pb where he had 40+ archers in one city, I've been doing my research.)
  
• Attacking MSCC may well be just as bad. Either way, I do not think Rusten/Nauf will gain much from an attack.
  

Unless MSCC is outright winning the game with some unknown magicks, they're not the GNP leader given that crop yield and city planting obsession. That myust mean Mr. Cairo is GNP leader. Haven't been much tracking him, but if we come across him on the other side of the stone island in the north, we can declare war and move through his lands. Speaking of which, our trireme is moving itself along, will probably scout out the stone isle and proceed with island hopping. Most surely want to be second in turn split to mess up tile usage. However, this is likely to make the timer glacial.

General thoughts about how the game is proceeding:
We're getting wonders/religion unopposed. "noob trap" and all, but we can safely mass-produce settlers with TGL and not worry less about maintenance than any other team. We're going to lock out all the early religions and hopefully Confucianism too. Next great prophet may very well build a shrine, and with currency, we can build our discounted EXP market in there.

Thinking about offering map trade to superdeath. He is going to be attacked/eaten by his neighbors anyhow, and getting map info about that continent is helpful.

Current tech rate is between 90-110 beakers depending on the micro, with -37 or so gold. Golden age will push this to 150-160. Break-even rate is 60% (this really means we need more cities, rule of thumb is a 30% break-even rate during the expansion phase.) 50-60 gold at 0%. So basically, 5 turns of gold-crunching madness should give us ~300 gold, which should allow us to 1 turn mono, 3 turn math, 1 turn gold collection, 3~4 turns calendar. These are very conservative estimates - even at current 100% tech rate we are able to 3-turn math.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Wonders, and how to not become addicted. Ranking wonders based on need.
Currently buildable:

TOA: Meh. It will help economy a tiny bit, and it is a 5GPP wonder, but not worth 350/1.5=230 hammers. (3/10)

Mids: I mean, sure, they're great, but ultimately will just be a waste of production. we could build 3 settlers and a worker with those hammers instead, and that would give us much more. (2/10)

Great Wall: Funny. (0/10)

Not yet buildable, but will be soon:
Hanging Gardens: The reason we picked the damn trait. With the source of stone nearby, we'll be getting a 100% bonus to it, so only 150 hammers. (We will hook it up by the time we start construction - Bottas is building a galley, which will carry a settler/worker then archer. Settler will also be built in Bottas. (10/10)

I think we may want to hold off on HG till our happy cap is a bit better and we have bureaucracy to pump it out in the capital. With all these wars, it is not likely to get stolen. Plan would be: revolt to HR/bureaucracy, immediately start work on HG. Slating this for turn 140-150. However, the case can be made to attempt to build it NOW during and after this golden age, but I feel like we need more cities first.

MOM - great wonder, but we're not too heavy on GPP and don't have too many cities with a really great food surplus to get them. (5/10)

Parthenon- poopoo. 1/10

SOZ - does it apply to naval units? If so, maybe, but this is 90 turns down the line, if it isn't taken by then. (3-6/10)

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Report, probably not going to post anything unless golden age is fired until after monday, I have an exam coming up then.

I open this turn to a desperate plea for help from superdeath:

He already has ivory, so he's probably afraid of losing it to the incoming nauf/rusten stack:

These are probably upgrades from axes to samurai. Scary. After the settler in Bottas, it will generally be producing triremes for the front line and that's it. I believe they will be built at a pace of two every five turns. A naval blockade of both nauf and rusten is of the utmost necessity. After the generic early-med age techs (bureaucracy/machinery/the three post-mathematics techs),
we should get compass and prep some caravels (50 or so turns down the line).

Back to superdeath though. I decided that this was not satisfactory and offered him a world map for ivory deal. We get intel, he gets to keep his happy. No harm done, opposition kept upright.

Some more graphs:




Clearly, Mr.Cairo and MSCC are the winners of whatever conflict is happening, assuming the two of them aren't having at each other.

Speaking of which, met MSCC, or more accurately, the Borg Collective as I will now call them, have met us.


Too many damn cities. Their happy cap is 7, which is pretty much what we have with ivory and silver with forges. I would imagine our cities are much more developed - every tile in our core
is improved and new cities will have tiles improved almost immediately.

In other news, city #8 will be founded next turn on a pretty decent spot:

The rice is dry, but that's ok. Probably not worth drawing irrigation to there, cottages will pay off more, and that city won't be working mines either way. All of its production will come from the cows and at most two plains workshops. Probably will use this city for some massive whipping. Also, on the left part of the screen, micro'ed Bottas to make settler 2 turns faster at the expense of 2 commerce and Leclerc's growth (it's ok, leclerc will switch to copper mine from normal mine, grow to size 7 just as whip unhappiness dissipates).

Now, a few questions:
1. What do we do with the settler popping next turn in Verstappen. I think we probably should secure the furs. There's a seafood resource 2 tiles south and east of Verstappen which can be easily worked by the new city, and furs are necessary if we wish to proceed without monarchy - we are already hitting the happy cap or about to do so in multiple cities. Also, a benefit of this spot (assuming we settle on the one grassland tile) is that there's a work boat coming back in a few turns from it's away mission. It can work the clams or crab that's there and the city will expand much faster. In the intermediate 3-4 turns before that occurs the city can work Verstappen's fish while it recovers from a bit of whipping unhappiness (Verstappen will grow anyhow, it is insane). Almost any other city plant that we have projected will need a borders pop first, yet another reason to build stonehenge and build here first.

If you can give a better city site (see post 104 for the map, I can repost it if necessary), I'll be happy to settle that first. If we pop golden age in 2 turns, settling the dyes can work as well, but I was thinking of having that be our 11th city, after fur/clam and stone island. Speaking of which...

2. What about the Bottas settler? We can try grabbing the stone in preparation for our push towards stonehenge/Gardens, but that city likelier than not has no seafood, so it will permanently be working colossus sea tiles and the one stone tile and one cottage. Not horrible, but nothing amazing either. Instead, we can go and grab the dyes immediately, but then no bonus towards what I consider the more important wonders.

3. A more immediate question: MSCC move their workboat next turn, 2 tiles.our trireme can kill it. Do we? It may be imperative to prevent any and all scouting.

A few notes:
1. Need to rename cities
2. Should calculate best moment to start GA, but intuition tells me that this is in 3 turns. Waiting any longer is just a drag - we need growth and benefits now. By then, all core cities should be operating at max pop, with the exception of verstappen (one less due to whip unhappiness).
3. Should start thinking about how to spread buddhism fast to get bonuses everywhere. Verstappen needs buddhism most, both for happiness and building contribution to stonehenge. With forge+org rel + stone + industrious, we should have it buildable in a matter of 2 turns with a single post-mathematics chop. A well-timed whip overflow from a library combined with the chop may allow to one turn it. Hanging Gardens will take about 9 turns with two chops. (Will only complete HG after golden age, so slower).

Now that I think about it, whipping the bottas settler may be prudent in order to get stone hooked up faster. Probably won't happen fast enough anyways, so stonehenge will have to built raw. Buddhism probably won't be connected in time either, but perhaps some nice whip-overflow can get a missionary out. but, it may not be the best idea to whip during a golden age.

In general, looks like the game is panning out in two tiers:

Leaders - MSCC The Borg, and us. (We will get graphs on the Borg in 8 turns. I am really anxious to know their GNP, MFG, and power. If they are 2nd place GNP or in any way close to us, they are in a tier of their own. I can't imagine how they'd be dealing with those insane maintenance costs. No wonders, no financial, nothing to bolster their economy except a large pop base. Most confusing is how they are at war. If this a serious war, that must mean they are managing troops in enemy borders and suffering maintenance. Hopefully we can keep them outteched while we scramble for more cities - catch up by 110 is the goal.

Stragglers:
1. Nauf - they've singlemindedly executed their samurai rush and will probably take SD down no matter what. Not sure if it is wise to support them.
2. Mr. Cairo. Somehow nauf presumably managed to get to machinery before him with that low-ass score and no financial. (If cairo had chokunu's, I'd be expecting more whipping and him to be the one second on the turn timer against the Borg. need to get galley down there asap and find out what's wrong). Cairo better have cho-ku-nu's soon...
3. SD - he's a goner, but he has the most island terrain to retreat into. No great lighthouse for him though, so he can't pull a plako.

[boak]

I'm back from overseas now, will post some thoughts later tonight.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I'm back from overseas now, will post some thoughts later tonight.

I didn't end turn. We can still fire the GA and move the settler in the south.

Edit:
Current course of action is to pop the GA and not build city yet, until warrior can scout whatever is down there.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Popped the golden age:



Monotheism next turn, stonehenge in 5 at the latest, a few settlers more coming out soon, which should put us at 11 by turn 110.
Library construction in most cities is a priority after this wave of research runs its course.
Our two new cities are growing well, with tiles being rapidly improved. I have sent two workers back south to prepare for the cities that will arrive there.
Adopted buddhism, happy hap went up in bottas and capital only.

Nauf and SD are whipping like crazy. SD has backlines to retreat into and settle. If need be, we should subsidize him with copper.

Also, we cannot get to the Borg without passing through Mr. Cairo's lands. I believe it is worth declaring war, but passing through without pillaging.

Hanging gardens should be built in about 15-16 turns is the plan. After then, militarization, mostly in the form of a massive trireme fleet, is the name of the game, as we proceed to CS.

Also, math after this will take around 2 turns. After then, calendar.

[boak]

1. MSCC in turnsplit. three whips last turn. I've no clue how MSCC is managing an insane city count and managing to support an army and tech (presumably).

it's insane how many cities magic science has, but lots of whipping isn't that surprising given his ridiculous CY. it'll be interesting if we can get graphs on him so we can see what his tech rate is like. I refuse to believe he's been able to support that many cities with both solid tech rate AND production.

General thoughts about how the game is proceeding:
We're getting wonders/religion unopposed. "noob trap" and all, but we can safely mass-produce settlers with TGL and not worry less about maintenance than any other team. We're going to lock out all the early religions and hopefully Confucianism too. Next great prophet may very well build a shrine, and with currency, we can build our discounted EXP market in there.

I think we're in an extremely comfortable position. I just logged in and looked at how much commerce our cities are generating... it's a lot. We're going to breeze through the next set of important techs and hopefully snowball much bigger and faster than magic science (or anyone, for that matter).

Thinking about offering map trade to superdeath

I can see that trade went through, good job.

Wonders, and how to not become addicted. Ranking wonders based on need.
Currently buildable:

Stonehenge - I still think it is worth pursuing, just because many of the cities we are going to settler in the future aren't too good on food, or need to expand into the ocean to get it, or have no forest to chop. (9/10) In the end of the day, this will save us hammers and remove inefficiencies in building cities. 80 hammers without stone, 60 hammers with.

At this stage in the game I think building this is fine and as you've pointed out, it makes sense for us now. Even if it gets sniped the failgold will help propel our tech rate

TOA: Meh. It will help economy a tiny bit, and it is a 5GPP wonder, but not worth 350/1.5=230 hammers. (3/10)

I always forget if the trade route bonus is all cities or just the one it's built in. I'm pretty sure its the latter in which case I agree, hardly worth the cost.

Mids: I mean, sure, they're great, but ultimately will just be a waste of production. we could build 3 settlers and a worker with those hammers instead, and that would give us much more. (2/10)

Great Wall: Funny. (0/10)

Agreed

Not yet buildable, but will be soon:
Hanging Gardens: The reason we picked the damn trait. With the source of stone nearby, we'll be getting a 100% bonus to it, so only 150 hammers. (We will hook it up by the time we start construction - Bottas is building a galley, which will carry a settler/worker then archer. Settler will also be built in Bottas. (10/10)

I think we may want to hold off on HG till our happy cap is a bit better and we have bureaucracy to pump it out in the capital. With all these wars, it is not likely to get stolen. Plan would be: revolt to HR/bureaucracy, immediately start work on HG. Slating this for turn 140-150. However, the case can be made to attempt to build it NOW during and after this golden age, but I feel like we need more cities first.

HG gets better and better the more cities we can settle before we finish it. Given our tech rate and the fact the other players have many more things demanding their hammers I reckon we can definitely afford to delay a little bit to get the most out of it. I would imagine that they've all abandoned the idea of trying for it anyway.

MOM - great wonder, but we're not too heavy on GPP and don't have too many cities with a really great food surplus to get them. (5/10)

I believe MOM is pretty much always worth getting. even if we take a super conservative estimate on how many great people we can spawn, I think we can squeeze out at least 2 GAs before nationalism at which point we've essentially gotten a 3rd GA for "free". I don't think we need to bust ourselves to get it though, lets re-asses after we've built HG.

Parthenon- poopoo. 1/10

SOZ - does it apply to naval units? If so, maybe, but this is 90 turns down the line, if it isn't taken by then. (3-6/10)

TGL - Great wonder, but not a necessity. (5/10). We need to settler the continent before this.

Agreed on all three.

1. What do we do with the settler popping next turn in Verstappen. I think we probably should secure the furs. There's a seafood resource 2 tiles south and east of Verstappen which can be easily worked by the new city, and furs are necessary if we wish to proceed without monarchy - we are already hitting the happy cap or about to do so in multiple cities. Also, a benefit of this spot (assuming we settle on the one grassland tile) is that there's a work boat coming back in a few turns from it's away mission. It can work the clams or crab that's there and the city will expand much faster. In the intermediate 3-4 turns before that occurs the city can work Verstappen's fish while it recovers from a bit of whipping unhappiness (Verstappen will grow anyhow, it is insane). Almost any other city plant that we have projected will need a borders pop first, yet another reason to build stonehenge and build here first.

If you can give a better city site (see post 104 for the map, I can repost it if necessary), I'll be happy to settle that first. If we pop golden age in 2 turns, settling the dyes can work as well, but I was thinking of having that be our 11th city, after fur/clam and stone island.

from our quick chat on discord it looks like we're holding off until we scout next turn anyway, but i agree we should secure the furs pretty quick, its only going to help us grow our core bigger.

2. What about the Bottas settler? We can try grabbing the stone in preparation for our push towards stonehenge/Gardens, but that city likelier than not has no seafood, so it will permanently be working colossus sea tiles and the one stone tile and one cottage. Not horrible, but nothing amazing either. Instead, we can go and grab the dyes immediately, but then no bonus towards what I consider the more important wonders.

I agree with your assessment however since I've logged in and seen how close we are to naufragar, perhaps its worth settling here if only to give us greater vision of any attempted naval samurai attacks? We're still a while off having calendar and clearing all that jungle so I don't think the dyes spot is a high priority right now.

3. A more immediate question: MSCC move their workboat next turn, 2 tiles.our trireme can kill it. Do we? It may be imperative to prevent any and all scouting.

I can only see a naufragar workboat, nothing from MSCC, perhaps that means they've retreated? In any case, I think we should deny as much scouting as possible for as long as possible. they can't really fight what they cant see so denying vision just buys us more time to snowball.

[boak]

other than that, we're looking pretty good. good job.

I'm eager to get graphs on the borg though...

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Math in two turns with a significant overflow. Calendar will only be 3 turns I think.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Sunk Cairo's ship. Can't allow exploration. Will proceed to MSCC lands next. Hopefully Cairo agrees to ceasefire afterwards.