the adventures of cool guy boak

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I need to pay closer attention to the alerts.
MSCC popped another golden age and now has swapped into bureaucracy and free speech for a massive hammer boost. This golden age will last a while longer and will probably carry Magic into researching paper and getting privateers. Bother.

However, let's evaluate the bigger picture.
Every single city we have is a coastal city. 80% of cities have a forge and trading post, which is a 50% boost on naval production. Each city has access to the whip. We also now have 5 more cities than the borg.

They, on the other hand, do not have slavery, and only have 6 reasonably productive cities for naval production.
Florence, which is too well-defended to attack.

Bratislava and Antananarivo. Low pop cities that can barely produce naval units, but I'll guess it counts.

Samarkand and Ormus can produce, but after the golden age, samarkand will lag a bit I feel.

And of course Kiev, which is not too well-protected and is a target for the next stack, currently in construction.
MSCC cannot compete on the seas, even with privateers.

Meanwhile,



Next turn will be exciting. Two wonders together. I'll be microing GPP a lot in the coming turns to see what is optimal.
I'll probably hold off on popping the golden age, as much as it is tempting, for another 2-3 turns. Getting to around 1.5k gold would get us through phil/edu/lib during the golden age. Our lib bulb should 100% be econ. That way, we get the merchant, we can rush music, and build national epic in Verstappen to pump out a scientist to pop a third golden age, after which we grab nationalism and a quick taj for a fourth golden age. Also, econ will let us swap to free market and reap that trade route money. We probably want to drop org rel and go to free religion as well. We didn't really use org rel to the fullest, but so be it. It did help in a few key places with wonders and getting our forbidden palace city rapidly online, so it could've been worse.





Crop yield is looking absolutely devastating for MSCC. It's back to turn 125 levels for them.


Need to build a proper navy to confront nauf in a defensive manner. Prevent any incursion.
Need to watch out for Cairo's rise.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

A collection of random thoughts and micro.

Hmmmm, I have grossly underestimated tech costs. 3.1k for education and 2.9k for lib is about 9-10 turns of research. With Phil overflow, probably 9, but phil takes 2, so 11 turns total. Let's be a bit optimistic and say the golden age boosts from 630 bpt to 850. Then, the 7100 beakers can be obtained in 8 turns (prereq bonus).

For the gold to pay for the research, we currently have 696, we add ~283 a turn wo/ golden age, probably around 380 with. With a 200 capture gold bonus, we probably need 2 more turns of non-golden age 0% gold. So next turn, we still save, and the turn after, we pop the golden age.

BUT we want liberalism a turn before so we have time to switch into free religion? and free market.
So, that's an additional turn of gold saving.


Post-turn reflection: Ended turn and the unhapiness problem in Verstappen got fixed, gpt is now 300 on its own, so I was being overly cautious. probably at 400gpt with golden age. 2 turns of saving should be plenty safe. to give us 1 turn of buffer.

Also, nauf cancelled gems, reoffered with 2 luxuries for the price of 1. If he wants his gpt, he might get it, but I really don't want to do this...

Also, war weariness is a problem now, -2 happiness in most cities. Will capture the juicy 10 pop city in the north this turn after MSCC logs in. That'll be the aforementioned 200 capture gold. Then, I may consider signing peace and continuing the final phase of expansion into the mildly crappy Borsche area to prevent Cairo expansionism (I've already somewhat failed at the task by not settling that darn 2 tile island over which I declared war on him 60 turns ago. His culture now borders that island. Might as well settle there just in case, but this was a major oversight on my part. Crank out a library+monastery+stonehenge free monument should stem those borders).

The issue with settling more cities is that maintenance from the number of cities has outpaced the maintenance from their distance. Settling more is just becoming unsustainable.

Back to the topic of war, I do have another fleet gathering, with plans for 8 berserkers and 4 trebs to finally knock out the remaining island cities. It may just be worth it to pursue war to settle over some MSCC spots.

For now, small steps.

[boak]

are we currently in a turnsplit with anyone? was going to log in but I'm pretty sure we're back at war with the borg, right?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I do like myself a bit of golden age. 471 GPT is nice. Much more than I expected.

Nauf lost a city, but has quite the stack in reserve.

The GPT next turn is even better. The most satisfying thing is seeing GNP go up right before logging off.
IDK how I underestimated so hard.

Burning cities is such a satisfactory experience. (Picture from 2 turns ago)



Our stack is pretty much depleted now and needs to recover. Our triremes and galleys are taking the long journey back to restock, while our second stack prepares.

Unpleasant is the fact that MSCC is done with paper, but c'est la vie. We can spam more privateers and outmatch the borg fleet.

Oh, and @boak, we've burned 5 cities in the past 10 turns. It's very satisfying

[boak]

which side of the turnsplit are we on?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

which side of the turnsplit are we on?

2nd

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Been dealing with a lot of family stuff over break, but it's time for a long-awaited update.


Golden age demos look overbearing. 3x GNP lead over Cairo. Universities and getting Oxford are the next priority.

I haven't built up a proper sentry net, and I may well pay the price. But nauf attacking would be strange, given...

his stack is entirely here, and not on his islands or coast. If he declares war, I'll pillage one of his island cities the next turn, and my fleet will just sail over thataways.
Let's look at a few city screens in key places.

Moai statues shine best during golden ages. This production is going to get us 4 privateers in the next 8 turns, enough to stem the tide of MSCC's resurgent militarization.

Vettel is our up and coming production city which will pump out sentry privateers to keep an eye on the whole world.

Verstappen has a whopping 6 specialists, and room for 1 more. National epic needs to go here, without a doubt.
Now, a look at Cairo's lands.


I could absolutely demolish multiple cities in one turn and cripple Cairo entirely, but I don't think that attacking him is
A. In our best interest diplomatically
B. Affordable in terms of hammers or support cost
C. A nice thing to do. Cairo could've thrown a huge wrench into our plans at numerous points, but this quasi-alliance is really mutually beneficial. Moreso for him than us, but it's the only way we can really harm MSCC directly.
And finally, the borg fleet emerges.

It will be interesting to see what actions it takes. A few privateers are exposed, but if the northern one is attacked, the damaged privateer won't survive. Time for RNG and fun.
Any lurker questions/images of cities you want to see? We pretty much have map visibility on almost everything.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Generally I just like reading people's strategic evaluations. What decisions are you taking, and why? What decisions are opponents making (and why)? That kind of thing.

Is the plan generally just to maintain naval dominance and gradually ramp up the pressure on the main continent until the other players knuckle under?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Generally I just like reading people's strategic evaluations. What decisions are you taking, and why? What decisions are opponents making (and why)? That kind of thing.

Is the plan generally just to maintain naval dominance and gradually ramp up the pressure on the main continent until the other players knuckle under?

Good question.

So let me split this question into a few categories.

Recently, I've mostly been dealing with the question of "what is our win condition", and have decided to keep culture, tech and domination (read concession), open. Tech is my least favorite way to win though, so I'll talk about the other ones.

If we're going to win through culture, we need to build more wonders in our capital(s) and the city of Leclerc, ramp up the culture slider, etc. We have no impediments in terms of wonders. To take steps towards this, I plan to begin building assorted wonders like sistine and others in Leclerc to boost its cultural output, along with a couple wonders in our two main cities (Taj, Oxford). Our next tech is music for the GA, so that will keep this path open.

In terms of domination, I've developed a plan for a "permanent golden age".

Combined, replaceable parts + printing press give most of the buffs a golden age would give.
We have 1 turn till lib (after I ended turn)

Then, we grab economics. REMINDER TO SELF/BOAK TO UNDO THE AUTO-TECH CHOICES!!!!!!
The same turn, great person pops up, likely scientist. The turn after or in two turns, we get a great artist, and a third golden age for 12 turns. Afterwards, a quick construction/engineering grab, and then Nat/Press/Parts, with a third mini-golden age. This gives 32 turns total of golden age in a row, after which we only lose a few of our bonuses, which will be offset by the construction of new banks, universities, and Oxford.

Why am I talking so much about tech? Well, we can't win this game with berserkers. Yes, they more than served their purpose by being a very cost-effective attacker against port cities, yet the borg has around 40 xbows total draining their economy and protecting their coasts. To take the mainland, we need big, booming, riflemen. The expectation is to get them in 20 turns. A bit of math...

Music- ~ 850
Construction ~ 450 (6% KTB)
Engi ~ 1100
Nat - 3100? (didn't remember this one)
Press - 2900?
Parts - 3300
Sum total: 11600 beakers, so around 10 turns of research. This needs 6 turns of saving, and we have 23 more turns of golden age if everything goes to plan. GP was around 2200, and Rifling is 5700, so that's 7 turns of research, with 4 turns of saving. I'm being safe with these estimations, and since our economy will surely grow during this time and better civics will be adopted, I expect to exit this golden age with rifles, nationalism, and galleys/caravels full of them.


So, what are we going to be attacking and when?


There's residual nastiness here. These cities need to be TAKEN, not burned. The current stack is preparing to do just that, it is staging near Moai, with around 8 galleys planned, and 5 already fully loaded, with units waiting for their ships.

However, the MSCC fleet, which I forgot to take a picture of, is rapidly advancing on this position. A big showdown will happen in the next few turns which will determine whether we can continue choking MSCC, have to sign peace, or even go on the defensive.

What I don't understand is what plan MSCC is pursuing in terms of civics and the war  with me. Let me explain what I mean.


2 Settlers are ready to go to resettle those islands. But how does Magic Science expect to rebuild infrastructure there? Without slavery, those tundra cities are going to be kind of unworkable.
MSCC should pursue a strategy of domination on the continent, but it is probably too late for that. Given how many units it takes to protect from a naval invasion, it's just not possible to war on the land at the same time. However, if MSCC does manage to overwhelm my navy (I was caught off-guard by the speed of militarization, I admit), then that may change.

Speaking of decisions opponents are making, Cairo is rexing, and I believe actually on par with MSCC in city count.

My choice is to ignore Cairo for now, but this may be naive and not in the spirit of realpolitik. Pissing off an "ally" is not a good strategy when we still don't have good visibility on large parts of the map. (If you look at the minimap, that problem has been fixed vis-a-vis naufragaar). Nauf does not concern me right now, and our old fleet that has just retreated from borg lands can be easily restocked and sent to deal with his pesky little island, whose cities I would very much like to have. In fact, I most likely will stock up ships with units and prepare an invasion, even though I am not likely to carry it out.


Finally, need to settle 2 more cities...



These are mostly for strategic/map vision purposes, but the latter will be pretty decent for production (the marker needs to be 1s, by the way).

But back to your question, which I have really sidetracked from.
The plan is to vastly increase naval dominance. It is currently very inadequate, and does not protect us from all reasonable threats, or all possible threats to key assets like Verstappen.
Tripling ship count will be enough for defensive and probing purposes, quadrupling for full offensive. I believe that I will not be able to exert any actual pressure on the main continent itself until much later, but eliminating everyone's island cities should prove sufficiently detrimental to their economies that I'll manage to get MG's just as they get rifles.


If I did not see us having a solid, increasing, tech lead in the near future, I'd consider more drastic actions, like committing to a globe theatre city a bit faster, whipping out privateers asap, but there's no one putting real pressure on us, except the 10 ship stack MSCC has. Cairo and Nauf are locked in basically a stupid battle, when both could easily split MSCC (yeah, I have the advantage of nearly full map vision in making choices, but they should be able to read a crop yield graph and should be able to see the borg don't have slavery anymore).

With MSCC down aesthetics, literature,  calendar, monarchy, feudalism, guilds, banking, phil, education, liberalism, (and no engineering), with us researching 2 more techs by the time they get calendar, (10x difference in beakers too), there's no catching up for them without drastic choices and victories. Nauf/Cairo do not even have bureaucracy or paper yet, and are in a really sorry position tech-wise compared to us. I frankly do not understand what their strategy is right now, and the posturing near the rump state of superdeath by the other two makes everything all the more confusing. Only Cairo has real room to grow and expand, and the advantage of being financial over MSCC's chm. I'd be surprised if it was anything but MSCC's refusal to concede that was keeping this game going.

As long as I do not see our tech lead slipping away, we should not make extremely risky or commitment-heavy moves until we have a solid advantage in military techs - rifling and chemistry.

However, if I keep seeing too many undefended cities on the part of Cairo and nauf, this may just change.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Look at this wonderfully undefended area. Cairo could sweep into 2 cities in 2 turns with horse archers/knights.

The borg army of 40 xbows and 10 bowmen. Absolutely insane...

Capped a screenie before exiting. I do not know how much opponents know about our tech, but hopefully this should really put them on their toes. Hopefully, landing rifles on nauf's and Cairo's capitals by turn 200~ and burning a bunch of MSCC coastal cities should be enough to extract a concession from all parties involved.

Also, a lot of thought will happen this coming turn in regards to civics, and whether free market or merc is favorable here, as well as whether switching out of slavery is the right move (Not so sure...)