The big turn is here. I feel a bit stupid calling it the big turn: nothing actually happens unless I screw up and lose two turns to revolt.
This is the before the revolt, but after the whips. After the revolt it reads a straight zero on everything.
Please note I didn't screw up the formula, it is a single turn to revolt two civics with 16 cities on a huge map: I am not pulling an OldTourist move a la PB18 where they settled the city to push themselves over a revolt threshold, and then revolted for two turns without checking the screen.
So...I have iron. Rusten has land and spices (he seems to have all the things no one else does, another indicator that 2MN is living on created land and borrowed time).
I've also had to change settling/transport plans. I'm worried that barb galley is going to block the single tile access to the islands. I'm trying to bait it into an attack, I have a 2/3 chance of victory on defense and gaining a 3 move galley, a 1.2% chance a flawless loss that completely fucks me anyway, or a 30% chance of a decent shot at clean up (if the first galley loses but gets in 1 hit, follow up galley has 80% odds of winning before the barb can promote). If I don't lose the galley then with chaining I can do some rather boring to most people but interesting to me moves which gets Sourin settled T124 (Crabs hooked from Catfish T128) and Widewall settled T125 (Can't hook crab until T131 so a worker needs to hook the wheat on T128 which is actually possible). The sheep would be hooked T125 at Papa Wastray though.
Of course, lose a galley and all this goes to shit
Getting to the limits of my monitor now. But you can just see Elkad has settled on "Our" continent. And the workboat is going to move NW and fog gaze so see if there is a route west. There are way too many north/south barriers for my liking, and at some point I'm going to reach the world wrap which usually needs hand built archipelago to provide a coastal route for circumnavigation. I'll need to find it.
I'm not taking the 80% shot. I win? Get a sentry chariot. I lose? I lose a unit in the search for circumnavigation and I'm not taking that risk. Not at 80% (I'd take it if I had a 95% odds shot, but that doesn't give 3XP.
Iron at Southease, at Owlthorpe...and settled on it at HoT. Bugger. Could have done with the hammers at HoT. Owlthorpe will not work the iron for a long time, but will do after all cottagable tiles are worked...after Emancipation.
Settling Oakenclough now just feels like a mistake. Should have planted 1W of hte sheep, and I could have done so much more with the city, given I have no plans for the other city (Quernmore). Cost of neglecting IW, which is a cost of being low on food limiting cottage use...but that's not an excuse. I should have dot mapped better and recognised the greater use for all the other settlers I needed to build. Are 7 FIN coasts and a grassland really worth that much? No. This is the same argument regarding Widewall location, just as valid on T100 as now.
On the brightside, Skinningrove has an iron to work (it will speed the lighthouse to complete at size 3 eot132). Going to use 3 workers to mine everything then get the workers out to improve other cities. Mining a forest hill in Serfdom takes 4 worker turns, so makes more sense to do it now when I've got to get tiles chopped for granary and a lighthouse.
This is bad. Gotta grow, and quick. I have to say that this is concerning, but 50 pop spread over 20 cities isn't actually that many. It depends on if it's centralised in coroe cities, or if he is just "further ahead" in growing his new cities (usually it's a bit of both).
Joint top in land area this turn, next turn I will be #1, over 7% world land once borders pop. Third place in food is on about 270, after borders pop we'll see who is third.
The most important thing I wanted to find out this turn was the galley outcome.
Oh, yeah. Perfection. Full speed ahead on settling the last two island cities, but this turn is all about the destruction of mine own GNP.
Here is the before F2, with specific civic cost pre-city settling: 10/15/16/10/11.
Here are the new cities: all of them are going granary into lighthouse, some will finish quickly, others...not for a while.
Sufficed to say that I am not regretting the Alphabet detour one bit. Skinningrove and Kelling will get granaries and lighthouses extremely quickly, working fish then a metal/hill mine before swapping over to the 3 food lakes in preparation of the GA. Backaskaill and Papa Westray (much better name than "Backaland") will be stuck working mines and pastures to get the granaries done ASAP, and be grateful for the multiple food resources.
Here is a new world map:
It is worth noting that I have an undisputed leader on land area, but I've not been tracking city count. I feel I am up there with Rusten and OH, but doubt I am ahead of them. Probably a few cities down. I am extremley far from circumnavigation. It will take the galley by Borsche until T133 to leave his culture and head east (the scout followed because I had no idea what was up there, turns out the scout is a waste of time right now).
Anyway, cities:
Westminster, screwed into the ground with no decisions made regarding what it is supposed to do. HE, Moai, NE, to cottage or not to cottage, make up your goddamned mind Krill.
Growth now is to make it easier to blitz down the 200 point GP in teh GA, (it only has to stay ahead of WT, which isn't exactly difficult to achieve) but even this seems dumb and unfocused.
Wormelow Tump will lose whip unhappy in 4 and 14 turns. Aiming to steal the fish back in 2 turns and work maximum scientists (6 is food neutral if I keep the food tiles). I want to run down the food bax in a GA, but I'll have to do it dirty (give up the 3 food lakes) because I can't get the city big enough due to unhappy issues (that worker and settler whip are coming back to haunt me if I can't trade for more happy). Unless I time growth into unhappy right before the GA and use HR...avoid growth at size 10 means only a single turn carrying an unhappy citizen due to 13fpt, 40/40 +13 > 33/42 +11 > 23/44, but then we have the issue of not having maximum food stored. Bring it forward 1 turn would mean 32/44 and -4fpt, size 12 and 336gpp, which is plenty.
Going to have to cram mines and workshops down (and hook the marble). NE needs to be built after the 300 point GP.
Market>Barracks>units. Picks up the wheat at size 8 (hammer bonus) and Westminster needs to delay growth due to unhappy.
I hate this city. Barracks into units. TBW has lower power than me so I'm not going to rush out the CG1 longbows.
Barracks into units. Growth onto cottages. The cottages will be built in time (yay serfdom).
Ugh. Moai actually fits here: lowers the food cost of the 500 point GM/GP, opens up an extremely low odds DR push, and best of all, it has nothing else to build after this work boat. Add in a Harbour and it is going to be an important high XP boat building centre, far from either front line but in the right place to deal with Rusten.
I don't think it is a mistake to have ignored Moai. Different leader picks may have rushed it, and I would have had a quicker galley at the capital for circumnavigation, but at what cost to expansion? I'll build it here for the good old GA Moai shot.
Both cities finish a workboat, Huxter finishes an MP archer for Catfish, then I'm going to be looking at getting longbows out of these cities as they share the food to grow to the happy cap (4 whip unhappy in Catfish, wears off eot122, 3 in Huxter, wears off around T126?) I need the coastal tiles, as you can see from the extremely poor gpt. Unfortunately, I'll probably end up having to ferry longbows over from Westminster, as Rusten is probably a threat from an Astro bulb (I can't rely on one longbow per city, but I should be back in Slavery before Rusten gets Astro, if not...uh oh).
HE. Due to that, going to watermill every river tile. Awkwardly means I need the market (thankfully I do have turns and food to grow), but I still have to push out the galley next turn.
Grow to size 5, pick up the wines and give up the fish, and just build MP archers (emergency upgrade for coastal cities).
Going straight onto a longbow sans barracks here. The worker will mine the last grass hill then improve. It'll be slow at 2hpt, but it'll be there if I need it. If I don't, I can slot in the barracks during the GA and push it out with the mines. Probably going to cottage the flatlands in preparation for Emancipation, but that is way down the list of things to do.
Need to decide by size 8 if I am going to build Saltergate ASAP, or just grow Sneatonthorpe. If I build Saltergate and hand over the crab, Sneatonthorpe stagnates at size 8 (any higher is just coastal tiles). Walls next though.
Personally, I reckon growth is better, and mine the hills. I want this city secure. For that, I want longbows in it behind walls. Saltergate will probably have to wait until after the GA (not like it picks up any food tiles, and that city location goes Granary>Barracks>units).
Micro suggests GA on T132 allows a GS as the 300 point GP, more realistically, it would continue to chug along on the 400 point GS with the library slots.
Going to build a longbow here as well.
Long shot for the GG points. Wheat is hooked next turn, then going to be spamming a few cottages to grow onto. That will only require 1 worker, so the two workers spare will head over to help out at WT.
The southern link road is almost complete. Growing to size 4 to work 2 artists, and then drop onto the wheat and grass hill mine, with a single forest chop for the lighthouse. Then chopping the library and just growth. I need to find an MP unit for here actually.
Don't talk to me about HoT. Still miffed about the iron. I can't even chop teh forest to get teh granary at size 1 due to the galley positioning. Really regretting HoT and Oakenclough positioning.
Granary eot124, growth@2 eot128. Stuck on a lighthouse.
86 pop...and I need another 10-12 cities until I hit the conquerors plateau.
Here is the before F2, with specific civic cost pre-city settling: 12/17/18/13/13.
I kept this at the back of my mind, but it's worth saying: there was an argument for revolting into HR/Serfdom, rather than vassalage Serfdom: don't need markets. Breakeven is now around 127bpt, so the new cities (all 5 of them so far) have cost me 15bpt...when I've also whipped off coastal tiles in that time.
Read this and weep (at the incomprehensibility).
No one has spare happy to trade for wine or ivory.
Not giving full resource lists, just showing this for gpt.
And saved gold.
Rusten revolted into HR/Slavery/Mono whilst I was playing, and top crop yield jumped up to ~400.
I look forward to seeing their starting areas.
Max bpt is 390 as of this turn. MC is a one turn tech at 90% now. If I save gold for 5 turns on Machinery I expect to generate minimal beakers, but I will probably need base 520bpt to two turns it. I might actually reach that (it's 30 pop working coastal tiles or scientists). Possibly eot130 for Machinery?
I'm still scheduled to revolt into Judaism, as no other options are present.
When borders pop definitely going to be over 7% land area, but Pin has overtaken Rusten! More credance to the OH/Hitru started in confined area hypothesis. Hoping for 9% world pop by T130.
No one likes graphs, but Rusten has been finishing courthouses, his GNP spiked (Monarchy with KTB), TBW has naff power and not much else that is really obvious.
Nothing much to say: struggle to Banking, then see what I can do.
I am a moron. C'mon, sing it with me: Krill is a moron.
I sent a workboat the wrong way.
Not this one, one for a seafood at the islands area. Also AT got the GL in addition to Collosus. Weird flex, to obsolete your own wonder that is keeping you running, but OK.
This all looks rather conquerable...
This all looks rather annoying: back south we go.
Rusten has Calendar. Preparation for the Astro bulb.
Keep in mind I have 8 workboats floating around and only one of them is a scout.
Oh look at that, 7% world land area. Lets bump it up to 8%. And MC is already down to 80%.
Been a bit preoccupied with PB47. As PBSPY information is public knowledge, it is not a spoiler to comment that GKC has been having a difficult time of it in that game, because of me. I wonder if that is bleeding over into this game (he has been lagging to play turns) but he also has PB45 to finish up (which I think he will enjoying a hell of a lot more).
As it is, I haven't been wanting to think about this game myself.
Go knows why 2MN declared on SD. And religion hates me: I will not be spreading Confucianism under any circumstances.
Rusten going to put a filler city 2N of the gold? three spices, plains hill sheep, grass gold and an irrigatable grassland and limited overlap is filler for him but looks like good terrain for me.
Found OH/Hitru, and TBW is really squashed at this point. Every city is reachable by galleons, so Astro bulb, galleon whips and then CKN/swords off boats is probably the route to try and take everything in one massive rush.
This is why I'm unhappy with this game. This sodding island has been doing my head in for days.
This is what I wrote previously:
Part of the decision about how to dot map is defence, another is the yield from the cities themselves, the third is something a lot of players seem to miss, is the time it takes to get from founding to profitability.
The north island is easy, but I’d still disagree with founding on horse: I think founding on the plains hill is the better choice: trade 2 coastal tiles and a 1 hammer plant for 3 coastal tiles and a 2 hammer plant, and the hill defence bonus, plus the opportunity to share the crab with the northern south island city. It also allows us to specialise the cities much more effectively: the plains hill city can be the “production” city on the middle island, and the northern clam/fish city just gets minimum infrastructure (Granary/Lighthouse) and is a fishing village, which whips the more expensive infrastructure after the GA (Stock Exchange, courthouse, possibly market for happy). This limits the cost of improving each city, and maximises the value of building a forge, dry dock, harbour, later on factory, power plant, etc. in just one city.
The south island is harder to split. tl;dr I’m not sure if it makes more sense to found 1W of the wheat, and orphan 3 food resources to create a single decent city, plus the grass hill city that splits off the crab. I don’t really see a way to make a triple city island into anything other than a bunch of fishing villages that have a bit of production but can’t build infrastructure, and get stuck between Rusten putting pressure on me and a need to develop, all the while sucking up defenders from the mainland. I’m leaning towards a two city solution, if only because I need to get the settlers out now, and there are other city locations that require settlers (after the current settler blitz I still need 3 for the mainland now and 2 fillers a bit later, Wetheral settler is the third settler for the islands, but then the extra settlers aren’t allocated).
The single crab city reaches 18hpt with a forge engineer. Higher if I lumber mill the forests and don’t chop. But it needs all the land tiles to do that. The fish/crab city would then max out at 10hpt with a forge engineer, and the wheat/crab reaches 6 hpt with forge engineer, and they can work 13 coastal tiles (and ocean fish). OTOH, 1W of wheat can reach 15hpt and work 10 coastal tiles: slightly lower total yield (especially as there are a few extra trade routes, and food for specialists), but it’s a hill city and I only need to build one set of city defenders, one set of city infrastructure. There is still the possibility to swap two grass workshops between single crab and 1W of wheat (as opposed to three with the fish/crab), so it is possible to swap 1W over to a reasonable production city and still build some infrastructure in single crab city (because it can’t be whipped that hard it would need to build the Stock Exchange/courthouse.
One reason I like a two city solution is that I can use the wetheral settler for the 1W of wheat city, and the crab I would split off for the other city can still be used by the plains hill city on the middle island. This should help speed up the development of the islands, which shortens the number of turns until profitability (howevery you want to defenine that: yield into tech, ability to defend themselves etc).
I need to weigh up if I need a naval production city in that area, or some cities that just provide gold and beakers. Naval production in the era of frigates and destroyers is not something I’ve looked at closely, and it is tied in with Aldeburgh and WT, plus the other island cities.
There is another point which I didn't recognise before: If I go with a one city solution, I will be leaving an area for Rusten to settle. But that's actually irrelevant: If Rusten comes along with units off boats, I need to have units to defend. If he comes along with units and a settler, I still need the same units to defend, and raze an intrusive city. So settling the fourth city, for the overlapping crab is actually stupid. It doesn't gain me anything.
Instead, I should have used the final settler to claim the plains hill sheep/clam city east of Westminster. It's not too late, I can send the settler back and I'll only be 3 turns slow on getting it settled. I'll leave the grass hill unclaimed, and just plant a single city on the southern island for now (a filler city is still acceptable later on).
This does affect where I plant the single city. There are still only two city locations that make sense, for fish/crab or crab/wheat. The difference is 2 workboats versus 1 workboat, 7v6 fpt pre-lighthouse, 9v7fpt post-lighthouse, 8 coast versus 10 coast, 1 grass versus 1 plains tile. And flatland versus hill.
And you know what? Fuck it. It's not worth stressing over
I'm settling for the fish city, because I can get a workboat out now to hook the fish much fast than I can get the wheat and crab hooked. I'll chop the two nearest forests (30+16) for a granary now I'm not settling the second island city, but they can wait slightly: can't really do it before size 2, and I'll have both workers on the island to mine the hills and do the chops, then get returned to the middle island.
The workers will be unloaded into Pap Westray on T124 and can immediately move to hook the sheep. I'm not sure if I even need two workers to improve widewall, I can actually make it work with a single worker. Which means I can keep a single worker to get the mines, pasture and forest chop done as efficiently as possible for the middle island.
The settler fuck up rectification is easy. Reload onto the three move galley T124, and move to 1tile SE of the ocean galley. Ocean galley moves underneath, chain the settler, return back to ocean tile, T125 unload into Huxter and run towards Escrow city tile, settler 3 turns late on T126 and then do whatever is necessary, use the newly built wb from Aldeburgh for the clam at some point, and build two more workboats from Aldeburgh for Widewall.
Do I like this? No. But I'm drawing a line underneath it all and saying "Good enough".
4 cities grow eot, plus border pops in 5 cities.
Getting MC this turn to start a forge in Seahouses, then saving gold for Machinery.
The next two turn reports are being written after a few days at work, so they will be rather bare. OTOH, nothing has happened other than I started working some new fish tiles, so...
Another Engineer, but MoM and GL have gone. Maybe this is Rusten bulbing Engineering? Or Gav or someone "lucking" into a wonder that they don't really want?
Also, I hate religion sometimes. I've been wondering if I actually need to delay the GA so that I can get straight into Theocracy at the end of the GA, and just suck up spreading religion (40 hammer missionary or 60 hammer barracks), as I have no idea if and when I'll trigger the second GA ( but I have the plans for how to trigger it). But I still need to spread it, and that means I get a random spread into a decent production city to build a monastery, or I pay through the nose to run to run OR at the start of the GA for no hammer benefit.
The workboat sails on.
Borsche is trolling me with the potential quick galley pass, but he is going to have fun taking that city.
Because of the problems with the galley movement, and that I'm rushing for circumnavigation, I'm not going to bring the galley "back" to pick up the third unit. This scout can just doss until I can send a caravel to pick him up.
Micro mistake, grew WT one turn too soon.
102 pop = 7.52% world pop, so still looking at Rusten being 50 pop ahead. Given 50 pop eats 100 fpt, then we're probably growing at a similar rate now. I'm also back to being 12-13 turns behind in growth, due to being stuck building/whipping settlers.
The new information available this turn is that I finally got graphs on Rusten, so I can compare the two players that are leading this game.
First of all though, Widewall.
I shall speak no more of this god forsaken place.
This looks crap Elkad, was it really worth it?
Note started running scientists in WT because it is happy capped and I can't find anyone to trade happy with.
OH is now second in population after Rusten has whipped 16 pop away (plus a turns growth).
He might be about 50 pop ahead, because teh grpahs are quite interesting...
We know they have been dueling in score, but score isn't everything...
That GNP shows the output from the GA, but they triggered it so early...is that going to bite them in the Rennaisance when I'll be able to trigger a cheap second GA to get into a good set of midgame civics, and they have to suck up the cost to revolt into Merc or trigger a third GA too early, and have to waste turns getting into late game civics? And how are the costs for them compared to Rusten? Who has the true highest bpt, ignoring costs?
I don't think they are significantly faster researchers than me at this point, and I imagine the double Astro bulb plus GA into Stock Exchanges/Merc at least keeps me in touching distance. I'm just at a beaker deficit right now, but then: KTB.
OTOH, this is obscene and I have no response to it. I think that if I mined and worked every hill in my territory I couldn't get close to this MFG right now: This is terrain, pure and simple, I lack food and hills (and to more sceptical: counting hills shows this is hyperbole, but only just: working every unworked hill as a mine would give me ~130 hammers extra and would require about an extra 15 pop points and to reallocate a further 15 pop from cottages and coast). That figure for OH is actually close to the limited I can acheive here without forges or cottaging plains tiles).
I swear that during the period of T60-T80 both of them exploded across the map, gettingh more cities, more food resources and more happy to enable it. I hope they both documented because I want to see how they did it, and what was the most important factor:
Powering up to hit someone, so we are all on a clock right now.
Not that this matters...
Both OH/Hitru and Rusten have courthouses down. I imagine a good number of those whips for Rusten were courthouses. I need to keep an eye on this, because I this is what's going to make me swap over from whipping units into courthouses, if they turn it on me. And GKC is already annoying me.
I already know that Machinery will be a 2 turn tech, due eot130 with an unknown amount of gold saved. I don't know when I'd want to trigger a GA if I decided to grab Theocracy as well: but I can't deny I'd be using the opportunity to grow new cities. But I'm growing only in new cities now, I'm hitting the happy cap again in the core cities. I think they other two...aren't at that position yet because they seem to have more happy (plus religion), but I'm not certain that's entirely true.
Slightly frustrating turn this, but it's mostly frustration at myself.
I got a bit of a duff random event, but the jokes on the game!
You know why?
Mwahahaha. A free 2.5bpt for nothing! Actually, this is a dud compared to the horse whisper event that can give you 1fpt per stable, but then I don't have HBR so that would be a useless quest for me. I think I'll get the reward in my capital, unless someone else completes it this turn and they process before me.
I took a wrong turn with the galley. I thought there would be a path across here, but obviously not. I can turn back and head north, or push west: I'm going to head straight west and see if I can speed up circumnavigation or not. I'm not hopeful, as I know Pin razed a GKC city and that means I'm less likely to find a navigable path that does not rely on OB which I am unwilling to give. If I head north I'm just looking to see what teh area is around TBW for when I attack him, but right now I have to focus on other concerns...
The workboat is going to head west as well, but at 2 tiles per turn compared to the galleys 3, it would take 16 turns for them to be on the same column of tiles, give or take deadends. If I can't get the galley past GKC, then it will head back to Pindicator and explore from there (or have to rush if the workboat is killed).
This is what is frustrating me.
I know I'm behind on the route to Astro (in the tech race in general compared to Inca/India), but I need to be mindful of the opportunity Rusten has of bulbing Astro before me and boating me with galleons. I'm going out of my way with a Banking rush, and leaving myself open to losing the newly settled islands. In fact I'm probably going to have to find 1000 hammers worth of longbows just to have a half decent city defence force, and keep in mind: I can't whip until after the GA is finished, so I'm being squeezed out of having any choices with religion. Which is right annoying because I don't think I've had any real choice in that area.
The easy counter to Rusten is Paper, and I'm probably going to get hold my hands up and say: I'm screwed and forgetful, as I forgot that Paper requires Civil Service OR THEOLOGY. I can't bulb Astro if I research Theo, so I can't revolt into Theocracy at the end of the GA. That means I'm stuck build barracks where I need, or delaying the GA way too long: if I delay, then I widen the window of opportunity to get invaded because I delay slavery. The GA must come as soon as I think I will finish Banking and revolt into Slavery/Merc on the last turn of the GA.
It's easy to say that Rusten would be unlikely to invade if he has easy continental targets, but I can't take that risk: I have easily conquerable holdings I need to defend, if Rusten took them he would be able to push me far enough back into the pack I'd never be a threat to him, and I'd be unlikely to take the islands back (but I couldn't invade anyone else with him right on my doorstep so it'd be a forever war, which Rusten couldn't afford given OH/Hitru's relative position ahead of him).
But this does raise a slightly interesting (on paper) situation: Does Rusten himself ignore Theocracy until after an Astro bulb...or is he planning to try and lock down Lib into Astro?
Some city overviews:
Actually running an artist for 3 turns. I think it works out slightly better over the turns to size 3 (behind by 6 hammers in the push to finish the granary, but up in commerce and food to the extent that a 1 turn faster granary from sheep first couldn't catch up. Work the clam once borders pop (also means I lose the work boat faster so save in unit costs as well).
Focus on great people for a moment.
I get the 200 point GS here. Take the wheat back next turn, run max scientists, pop it out eot134 without a GA. I don't want to push the gpp too hard though, as it's more efficient to run them in the GA. OTOH, I need it to stay ahead of WT:
I've offered a trade of wines for gold to 2MN, as I think he is roading a second gold tile. I don't know if he will take it, I doubt it. Maybe he asks for gold for wines+ivory, I'd still give that. I'd be at risk of losing teh trade route if Borsche declared war but I'll take the risk. Whip unhappy wears off ina few turns, and I want to run this city at size 13 with 9 specialists in the GA, but I can't ensure that will happen. Still at size 11 and 7 specs that would be enough to finish a GS in 5 turns, not counting what it will accumulate now just to stick to the happy cap.
These two cities will push out the GS quicker than I can reseach Machinery, Calendar, Compass, and Optics. I'm beaker limited (or cost?) rather than anything else. With that in mind, both of these cities will have secondary goals: Westminster to hammer out those longbows I need and WT will have to prepare for the NE build, or be converted into a makeshift Privateer pump if everything goes wrong.
Late edit into turn report:
2MN offered gold for wines and 5gpt. Gold is not actually worth gpt to me right now: it would lift the happy cap in WT and that's it. Westminster is limited by food, not happy, Seahouses will also have enough happy cap from forge and the whip wearing off. Sneatonthorpe would benefit in 8 turns or so...just in time for HR to solve problems there. So I'll reoffer with wines and ivory, no one I have contact with is trading him ivory so I'll see if he bites.
I've already started Moai. Aldeburgh is going to be limited by Oakenclough struggling to 400gpp, so I don't need to focus on gpp here, I think it makes more sense to focus on hammers to fit Moai in ASAP, then food to grow to happy cap, and lastly gpp. I want to work all the Moai powered water tiles and specs in the GA though, and after the GA I need to focus on making triple promo boats, with "excess" pop just keeping up with Oakenclough in the push to 500gpp, and after Oakenclough has limped to a GS, then work max specialists (probably 4 merchants, engineer and Moai gpp for 16/turn and now overlap on type with Oakenclough).
I need 40 food to reach the happy cap (strictly speaking, 64 if I intend to grow to size 14 to use the HR happy from the start of the GA). Given I will want to work all the tiles and max specialists, I figure working the ocean tiles now isn't wrong.
Anyone see the worrying part of this screenshot?
Look for purple
Couple of thoughts: Banking rush should have a high payoff, but I have a weakness in that I can't manage my costs right now. OTOH, even if I had finished CoL, I don't see how I could build the 120 hammer city improvements; triple whipping SE after a GA lines up a lot better than struggling to build courthouses now, and thy would likely pay off from a similar point in the game for me, in this position.
This is not true for every player, and OH/Hitru and Rusten are now piling EP onto each other fighting for tech visibility whilst managing city costs as they grow. They are building their own windows of opportunity, via OR whipped court houses, to absorb a neighbour with Engineering/Guids/Astro, and I'm going to be stuck building when they attack. Consequence of this slow start.
Another point: Which techs are widely known?
GNP@0%: 176, 100%360, 462bpt Machinery - 2 players
323 CS - 0 players
342 Construction - 1 player, 2MN (observed cats)
323 Compass - 0 players
397 HBR - 6 players?!
397 Calendar - 6 players (Borsche, Rusten, OH
342 Aesthetics - 1 player (Elkad, SoZ, but he didn't get GL or Music artist, did he?!)
342 Theo - 1 player, Pindicator, can't Astro bulb.
434 CoL - 8 players, I don't have priesthood so this is a 1.2 modifier, so all but 1 player has this.
416 Priesthood - 7 players which means the Astro bulb is not going to occur for most players if they grabbed Mono (but then religion is screwed in this game...)
434 Meditation - 8 players.
.
By my reckoning, a double Astro bulb will provide the same number of effective beakers as it would take to research HBR, Construction, Aesthetics, CoL (from 1GS) and Engineering (from the second GS) with a bit of spare change, taking into account KTB and prequisite effects. I still feel that this is a right move, given the importance of Galleons to invading TBW. But I need to be wary.
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Further projections: Take this with a pinch of salt, it's assuming I'm not being poked by anybody. This is not a specific plan, just working out rough timeframes.
Current costs are 284gpt. Current max bpt is 485 base bpt. tl;dr, because this is reasoning: I can grow around 50 pop points in 10 turns based off excess food and current city sizes. Assume I trigger the GA T136, what happens?
Well, I'm already expecting Machinery eot130 with limited gold. I expect to have saved 600 gold over the following 5 turns, this is an underestimate IMO. 50 extra pop costs me 0.54 gold per pop due to civic costs (assuming OR at High cost), so this is ~25gpt increase in costs, and city costs I can't calculate, but assuming inflation I'll expect it to be around 50gpt for the city maintenance. Unit cost and supply will not change, so 360gpt in total costs.
An extra 50 pop, plus a golden age should push my max bpt to around 750-800 on the first turn of the GA (and as costs are constant, the GA commerce goes straight through beaker multipliers). Assume 750 bpt, and that OH/Hitru and Rusten beat me to Guilds but not Banking, this is 960 adjusted bpt into Guilds and 900 into Banking. So Guilds requires 3 turns to complete and at maximum research would mean Banking completes on the fourth turn at ~60% research.
I need the last turn of the GA to revolt civics, so that means I would have 3 turns in a GA to save gold. I've counted which tiles would have the GA output, on T136 the GA would increase max gold up to 250gpt minimum. Possibly more, it will be clearer as turns pass.
I expect I need at least 1000 gold saved to then run 3 turns of max research to finish Guilds: The difficulty is that I probably will not need to run more than breakeven on the turn I finish Banking. I'll need to see how my gpt improves on each turn, and then probably wait a single turn to have leeway (also, every turn I stay in Serfdom pushes up the GS out of Oakenclough by two turns). None of this takes into account the beakers generated by scientists either: Oakenclough will generate over 75 beakers (sits at size 9 with full food box, size 10 is unnecessary), WT will make over 100 beakers: Guilds might actually be a 2 turn tech in the GA (but Guilds+Banking would still be a 4 turn tech).
So I could trigger the GA T136, save gold for two turns to get me to a minimum of 1100 gold. Start research T138, finish Guilds T140 and Banking eot141. I'd have 2 turns of GA remaining to start on Stock Exchanges which seems good, and revolt civics on T143. Move stuff forward for each turn of GA I don't need to spend saving gold. FWIW rough estimate had Banking eot133 at best without MC/Alphabet research via a bulb, so the speed feels congruent with that (GM bulb is at best 4, more likely 5 none GA turns of tech, Alphabet and IW would have delayed 5 turns as well. Doesn't mean it's good enough or the right move though.
Hallelujah I am saved. Massive event (but not the library quest).
But where did it go? Is it in a usable city?
I can make this work with OR at the start of the GA. If I workshop and mine everything, then I can get WT to 23 hpt out of GA: I might be able to fit in a forge (In GA with OR that would be adjusted 40hpt so it's not a joke) so with the merc specialist that would be 31hpt. I could get every city converted from here. I think the forge fits in with the GS push as well, so I can get the missionaries into place for buildings whips (stock exchanges and courthouses, but mostly for the courthouses).
That rounds out the GA plan: revolt into Toaism, HR/Vassalage/Serfdom/blank/OR at start of the GA, revolt into HR/Vassalage/Slavery/Merc/OR at the end.
Didn't pick this for the obvious problem it could have given me Prioesthood and screwed the Astro bulb. The +2 beakers landed in Timble of all places.
GKC gets C1 on all his Xbows.
I don't worry about the barb galley, it can't attack. It will float around clockwise, I'll keep my galley out of reach and then run past it. Lead it towards GKC.
Borsche is stacking up on HA,
Looks like there is a jumping off point for a naval invasion, so all these islands are frontline cities and need castles.
120 pop.
OH (and Rusten) have at most 159 pop more, and I should reach 8% of world landmass eot. I'm catching up, but slowly, so, so slowly.
What this doesn't show is that Machinery is now a 2 turn tech, so I will restart research on T129. I may be able to drop the slider as low as 80% on the second turn, see how much gold is saved.
:banana:
Rough guess from totting up growth times onto food resources, I reckon I will be at 420 food by T133-ish, and then go slightly beyond it (the use of specialists confuses the situation slightly, as I should be running almost 15 specialists at that point anyway). At this point I'm slightly more interested in the total population, once I reach 10% (if no one is at 11%) I'd probably call it a day in terms of chasing growth, and focus more in the tech and MFG issues.
