[spoilers] - pindicator is excited for the next Realms Beyond league mechanics

[Coin]

No need to be envious: just call on the lurkers.

Do you like any of these names?

Really enjoying the updates!

[pindicator]

That's awesome Coin!  Obviously you play a bit of Path of Exile too with that Gemling Bay / Island naming.  Well done

116

Here's my next Great Person, and what will be my first golden age:




At first we were pumping Great People right away, but then I realized I had a bit of a food bank to work with: so we're growing to 9 this turn, hiring 5 specialists because that's all our food can handle until turn 124. Then we hire the 6th specialist and run at -2 food until the food runs out. That will get us the next great person at end of turn 134.

BIG TO DO: Find another city to start running specialists in ASAP. Need to plan for the next great people now and not when I want to use them. The problem is every city I'd want to run specialists at is a city that needs to grow. I fear I may have over-whipped in spots!

In fact, I'm sure I have. The plan now is to limit whips to anything that helps growth, and only then do it for minimal population. Preferably only 1 pop whips from here on out.

So if our next golden age is coming on t135 then we have 18 turns to get ready for it. It would be wonderful to have Guilds and be ready to just pump knights at that time but I'm not sure we're going to be there with all these settlers we're pumping out. I suppose we could slow down expansion for it, but we all know that claiming empty land is usually the best path and there's lots of good land still to claim. (For that matter: I realize I have no settlers in production this turn. I really was kicking myself looking for a spot to start one, but they're all within a turn or two of growing to a good tile, so they'll be coming.)

Techs I'm going to need in that time:

• Monarchy
  
• Horseback Riding
  
• Calendar
  
• Machinery
  
• Feudalism
  
• Guilds
  

I think that's all doable by the end of the golden age. ACTUALLY! Scratch Guilds: Engineering is more important. We have a huge, vast empire and we're going to need that extra road movement to keep everything defended. So I think we make sure we have Feudalism for the Vassalage swap in the golden age: but then after that we're looking at going Construction and Engineering for the movement and the +1 to workshops.

I still don't know which civic I want in the slavery line (forget the name of the group): Caste does not seem necessary for me because there aren't that many great spots for workshops on the mainland. (However there are lots on islands!) Serfdom is tempting for the worker turns (I'm still woefully behind on workers here, and it's worse because I've given up on the usual detail of micro due to the vast size of this map) and also for windmills with the mountainous, food-low map. I don't think I'll be using lumbermills which is a bit of a shame. Perhaps the ability to build lumbermills needs to be moved up to make this an actual choice?

As for the other branches we're going for Hereditary Rule, Vassalage, and Theocracy. Wow would it be nice to get to Banking and use my late golden age as a bonus for getting into an early Mercantilism- maybe that needs to be the goal for my GA instead!

Lets talk long term naval strategy this game: with how these islands are all group together I don't think galleons are where i want to go. So I think Paper needs to be a quicker priority to get Privateers and use them as the backbone of my naval defense until frigates. Suppose we could think others will make the same read and then go for caravels?

[pindicator]

117

Changing yet again where my settlers go.

I'd like for the southern tip to get settled soon to not give TBW any ideas, but looking closer I just don't have any worker turns any time soon for that spot. (Lots of workers are coming south but they're working as they move so they aren't moving south fast.) With that in mind, I do have a work boat in the area and so I think now I'm going to take the island of Kandena next: this spot is a gateway to Gemling Island and doesn't need worker turns to get going: just that first work boat.

My tech pace feels very good right now. I'm picking up early classical techs every 3 turns right now, and even with all these new cities my tech rate continues to grow. I wonder if the best way forward here is to spam settlers or go for a measured approach of balancing growth and expansion but leaving the weaker spots as fill-in. Right now I think I'm leaning towards the latter

[pindicator]

119

We are so close...




...but is there a connection nearby?

On the east bank my work boat is way to the south, looking for a way to come west. So far he's been going the wrong direction - southeast - lending me to think there may not be a direct route but that I may be able to uncover all the columns of tiles by finding a route to the southeast of this work boat. And if you don't feel like that's enough drama: there's a barbarian galley chasing my little dude here.




The aptly named Invasion has chopped out a barracks and we're going to start building horse archers here. I don't have any particular goal: i just want a little bit of a mobile defense force. I'd like to also start building them out of some city down south, but I haven't picked that one yet. I also have the competing need of wanting to spam out missionaries now that i have a couple of monasteries down. Horseback Riding may not be the best tech, but I think we're going to start bumping into border conflicts. Really, Mouseferatu and Old Harry / Hitru are probably going to be my most stable borders: I think both sides got pretty much what they wanted in both of those border deals (though Mouse needs to die, really - he can sneak attack my capital way too easily. Ugh, that invasion is going to be a logistical nightmare when it happens.)

I love how Commodore and I have kept so close in score. It really matches the dueling nature we've had against each other in our history of games played here.

[pindicator]

121

HBR got delayed a turn, as expenses went up when I settled my 19th city: Harbinger. But our economy still climbs and climbs as we build more cheap madrassas, cheap markets, and prioritize growing cities and spamming out settlers in places with low growth. And the results are showing the graph:




Breakeven still is at 40% through it all. City #20 gets planted next turn, a settler is on the way for the southern tip of the continent, and two more settlers are currently in production for going to Gemling Island.

In the west Mouseferatu has rushed out a settler to Baresh Island, which I'm a little sad about but it's still not the priority: I can't go everywhere and while that's a good spot I still need to push south. If I can go west with one more settler I think it would be to grab Prospero Island and open up an avenue out towards beardbeard, as I suspect he could be a conquest target down the road. At least it is good to keep a narrow front there so I have the option.

Mouse asked for my stone 2 turns back at a price of 10gpt. I'll try offering him that same deal back once I finish Moai. I probably should try to get a couple strategic walls in place between now and then, but ... ugh, priorities. I'm already slim on units as it is since I've been prioritizing markets to up the happy cap and madrassas for cheap GNP boosts.

Once HBR comes in I think I only want half a dozen horchers. I want to show Hitru and hopefully scare him into building some defenses and slowing his mad econ dash a little bit.




Still short on workers, but I think I'm allocating well in the south. Spots where I could use more are in the southwest, and probably one more in the north and around Cupricon Peninsula both. Once I start landing settlers on Gemling island I'm going to want a ton of workers there too. Galleys are another thing I could use a few more of. Ideally I want a galley between every major island, but I have a single galley covering everything between the capital and Ascendancy Island, which isn't good. Will need more work boats too, but those I think I have in better order.

Golden Age is about a dozen turns away. Didn't I say I wanted to start running specialists in another city? Well I haven't figured that one out yet.

[pindicator]

122

My 20th city, Abyss:




I need some lurker help here:  the current list of Path of Exile leagues only has 8 more city names.  I have a lot more than 8 spots still to settle, even if I don't get anywhere in the south.  I'll have to think about what we continue naming with, but I'll happily take suggestions.

Just a little gold shy of getting Calendar in 2.  Actually, I'm not sure Calendar is the next tech.  Next Great Person is coming end of t134 (last report's tally was wrong), and I'm leaning more towards Engineering being my goal for it over Guilds.  However we still will need Feudalism regardless -- I guess Guilds would be the goal if I knew I could also move straight on to Banking and swap into Mercantilism by the end.  Ugh, you know that sounds like a game-winning idea actually...  Getting into Mercantilism would be worth 60gpt right now

So if it is Mercantilism then we need:

• Machinery (1367)
  
• Feudalism (1367)
  
• Guilds (2053)
  
• Banking (1367)
  

All of that will take 31 turns at the current tech rate.

Right now I'm looking at 14 turns before the next great person, and then 7 turns to finish teching Banking.  So I would have to either shave off 10 turns, find a way to chain 2 golden ages back to back, delay the golden age, or find a way to make an additional 2000 beakers over that time frame.  This doesn't look very possible right now, does it?

Let's see what we can do.

[pindicator]

123

A little bit of a dilemma. Do I continue to try to draft off the most-known techs out there, or do I go for Machinery next because that will get me windmills and watermills? I'm saving gold for the next few turns either way, but with how crunched for turns I am for the mercantilism plan I may just end up drafting more.

Also, I found out that I'm going to land on Moai at 249/250 in 3 turns. But if I hire a priest then I miss out on growing to the next level by a turn. So what is worth more: 8 hammers or 3 commerce? Seems easy: go for the priest and the hammers.

[pindicator]

124

AT finally got his revenge for that work boat many turns ago:



I offered peace. Whatever, that galley was trapped and I was unwilling to go declare war on GKC after taking his weregild, so I'm fine with letting AT get his revenge if that means we can have decent relations going forward.

Naturally I did retaliate by declaring war on Elkad




There's gotta be an east-west connection around here somewhere: otherwise the people who are on the border will have the advantage in getting circumnavigation and I know our mapmaker wouldn't do something like that........ right?




Superdeath has taken my open borders and so I'm heading west again at least...


Demos are slipping, which is concerning because I'm trying to grow




Not the GNP, which is a volatile stat: but MFG and Crop Yield have fallen to 5th.

[Miguelito]

[quote] I need some lurker help here:  the current list of Path of Exile leagues only has 8 more city names.  I have a lot more than 8 spots still to settle, even if I don't get anywhere in the south.  I'll have to think about what we continue naming with, but I'll happily take suggestions. [\quote]

You could go with expansion names: Sacrifice of the Vaal, Forsaken Masters,Awakening? ...
Maybe fitting for your expansion phase? But I suspect in the end is l it's not going to be enough either

[naufragar]

What about unique maps?