[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[Krill]

Turn 137

I've not been well over the past few days, but thankfully feeling better today. I've played the turns, and probably given them as much time as they deserved rather than be sat pouring over data and overthinking thee situation. That means that the T137 and T138 reports will be lower in word count but still has pictures.




Due to the change in turn player (BeardBeard retired to AI), I reoffered OB to his replacement. Naufrager accepted, so I've brought the work boat back to run through his culture.

You will note from teh event log that OH/Hitru triggered their second GA to revolt into Mercantilism and Serfdom. Big turn for them, but it means that I can use my first GA to reply and react to their end of GA civics. If they go back to Slavery then I could try for the Chemistry bulb and cut them off with Frigates, and if they stick with Caste/Serfdom then I think they are opening themselves up to my whipping out an army. OTOH, they will be reinforcing their own momentum and can build FIN banks at this point, but I'm not expecting to finish Banking before eot145, so I might get crunched between wanting to cram down Stock exchanges and building an army.

I think AT built Parth, which is a very good thing from my perspective. Don't want OH/Hitru getting anything TBH.





Speaking of AT/Adler, I've found them to the west of GKC. That just leaves DS, Gav, Commodore and Mouseferatu/BaII to find. I've sent them OB. It looks like GKC has been squashed from both sides (but through his own lack of expansion).









It looks like many players are not scouting particularly well. I want to know if it's to do with the map layout making weird coastal paths that isolate some players, like I've got: I had to expand to Seahouses to build a boat on the other coast, otherwise I would have to float a unit between Elka'ds continent and ours, through a one tile ward coastal passage, to to send one the long way around to the area south of Sneatonthorpe.





The fish net at Kettleness is toast, but the trireme from Sneatonthorpe can attack the galley the turn it reaches the Kelling net. And the trireme from Kettleness is back up (if I was logged in at turn roll I could theoretically move before the barb galley and kill it a turn earlier.





Path to SD is confirmed. I'll unload a unit on T139 and then judge unit movement. I'm getting woard the point where I may be able to use a land unit across roads to speed up circumnavigation.





Made a mistake, should have started a workboat in Skinningrove this turn but didn't. Woops. That'll delay hooking the Kettleness fish a turn.








Considering that OH/Hitru are in Merc, they have 27ish unaccounted for pop that costs them nothing except in civic cost, so we can no longer judge output the lens of population.




The GNP number is, well, not worrying but the weak link. I'm committed to using Stock Exchanges to fixing that, so in the GA I will have to build some SE. In which cities, now, that's the main question, but I'll answer that on another turn report.

[Krill]

Turn 138




Couple of thoughts: it's possible that AT is in a GA and not seen it start as it occurred before I met them, but...why CS for Bureaucracy?

OH/Hitru get circumnavigation. Early work boats for you. I've counted tiles and I'm closer than I thought. Rusten in Merc means I'll get atleast a 1.28 modifier on both Guilds and Banking, which is 2630 base beakers for both. More on this later.








I've uncovered 83 columns of tiles. The map is 128 tiles wide, so I have 45 tiles to go. If I got a straight line, I could have it done in 9 turns with both galleys, but I've also got the chariots and scouts as back up, and I'm insured to some extent against nasty little blocks of land stopping galley movement. With any luck I'm on the final stretch, but I'll believe it when I see it.





Two scouts, two longbows and an archer. Streaming north, but against an unknown number of knights all they will do is buy me some time and give OH/Hitru more GG points. But I need information if I'm to respond effectively. I don't have any plans other than get HE, build Xbows and WE right now, I'll amend the plan as I gain a better understanding of the situation.





Not the best screenshot for explaining the following point, but it's what I have to work with.

I'm not sure if I should go into slavery after the GA. By that point it might be worthless except getting boats out of eastern island cities, and I may be better off with the hammers from watermills and windmills (windmills in particular might make working none caste workshops via an Engineering bulb valuable because of freeing up food).

One factor affecting this is that WT could build the NE before the GA (or mostly build it), and then I'm able to rely on 38gpp/t from that city. Another is if Chemistry bulb is considered less valuable (if I have a solid breakeven bpt from Stock Exchanges, it might only be worth half a dozen turns or fewer, or if I'm forced to go to Paper for Privateers I can only bulb Education), which pushes me away from caring about Serfdom.

In one respect I'm actually grateful for OH/Hitru triggering their second GA at this point: it means I don't have to second guess how they act, I can discern their strategy from their civic choices. Rusten will just swap around whatever he needs and that's his advantage as SPI. If it weren't for the overbearing weight that OH/Hitru will have on the map with TBW's land, I'd probably feel more forced into Slavery to deal with boats from Rusten, but if he is paying attention (and given that he'll see me declare war on OH/Hitru in a few turns it's hard to miss) then he'll know he has free rein to absorb 2MN.

HR, Vassalage, Merc and Theocracy are no brainers IMO. Owlthorpe can spread religion itself with a single monastery, so OR is just expensive for limited immediate benefit. The tech path through to Theology is a little less stressed now I already have Aesthetics, but I'm probably forced into an immediate GA and revolt after Banking, and wealth builds to make up any deficit in output: T1 Calendar>T2 Compass> T3 CoL> T5 Optics>Bulb Astro+Engineering>T7 Theology.











I have to pick up quite a few scientists from T139, which affects the amount of base beakers I'll be generating. I'm expecting to make a minimum of 700 base beakers once I restart research, but 725 is not unrealistic. Add in the effect of the scientists in the few turns saving gold and I think I only need 3 turns of max research and a turn of breakeven to reach Banking. 4 turns of saving gold is the maximum I think I'll need, but it is quite possible I go with only three and try to reach Banking eot144.

The gpp game is just broken due to that barb galley. I'll have WT and Westminster where I need for the Astro bulb GS, but Oakenclough is about to run a massive food deficit to force out the 400 point GS in 6 turns so the Engineering bulb is open rather than the Paper bulb. Kettleness will not be able to do anything unless I change everything but even then I don't see how I can get any GP from that city during the GA now. I was pushing it just with the delay.

The important thing to note here is that I'm playing this game for a space victory. Everytime I feel that I'm losing control, I remind myself that I've never had any in the first place, I'm keeping up with OH/Hitru and I'm yet to start putting into place the advantages that I'm supposed to have.

[Krill]

Report to come later (after lunch) but I declared war on OH/Hitru this turn. I've just sent them the PM.

I also had a reasonably large stroke of luck when I logged in.

[Thoth]

[darrelljs]

Fortune favors the bold !

Darrell

[Krill]

Turn 139 - war declaration on OH/Hitru

This turn has been coming ever since OH declared war and started taking cities. But first of all, I have some very good news:




Not the Pindicator GA (which should be helpful in counterbalancing OH/Hitru's aggression unless he decides to fuck himself and focus purely on GKC), but the Toaism spread into Lucker. Perfect citym and fully supports the forge build. Between Owlthorpe and Lucker I can spread religion to every city that really, really needs it ibn the GA. I'll probably still build a monastery: I expect to have enough "dead" turns where I'm limited by missionary limit that this should be almost trivial. So this is really another push towards wanting to end the GA in Theocracy, just as I'm starting to waver on when was the right turn to trigger the GA.

I also lost the fishing boat at Kettleness but the the galley should be dead next turn unless I lose a 91% battle.

Oh, and for shits and giggles: Pin did his big civic revolt, but he doesn't have state religion. Whoops.











For information purposes.





There are four C2 preats 1E of Rome, plus a warrior in the city. I've left my scout in the city, so there are 6 defenders.

OH/Hitru have 4 healthy (and 1 damaged) knights and a HA to attack with. The preats should have odds on defense, as I believe that none of those knights have promotions to take, but if there are units on boats Rome could fall this turn.

And as that is a sentry HA, they will know that I can get 2 longbows into the city next turn. Rome might be brute forced this turn, if they have the units, because it's a somewhat easy clean up for them to take every other city but if I can cram units into the city then it could hold.

Looking much further ahead: if OH/Hitru don't take Rome then they can't take Ravenna and they are going to have to figure out a method of defense against an amphibious invasion without any food reources at Arpinum or Antium. Rome's the key city to how this war rolls out.

Unfortunately unless TBW is going to whip longbows in every city there isn't much I can do, and it looks like he isn't even bothering to do that. I expect Antium to fall T139, but the question for me then becomes: does he chase Arpinum and Setia and Stricum, and give me an opportunity to slow him down with cheap longbows floated over on galleys?





It doesn't look like I'm industrializing, does it...the expectation I have is that I can't stop the TBW invasion. Perhaps I can increase the Incan losses. Maybe I cause a delay by making them lose siege. But really I'm gearing up to counter invade and fight off boats, giving no opportunity to counter attack me.

That means I need a stack to gaurd then press up the isthmus, and probably need a navy to push through HoT (if Rome falls, and I'm late to Privateers things could get nasty.

As it is, I could really do with a few more 3 move galleys to transfer troops up the coast from the east, but when the choice is troops to fight with OR troops to transport, it's not much of a choice.





I've been hoping that I'd get a Toaism spread into Owlthorpe, but I believe that this spread is actually even better: I can still get a missionary out of Wormelow Tump, but Lucker can start missionaries, with prepared overflow from a walls (needed for Castle), on the first turn of the GA. Owlthorpe couldn't manage that.

As the forest will be chopped on T141, the forge will complete eot143. Add in a workshop on T145, then I have the option to steal tiles from Seahouses to take production from current 13 (after forest chop) to a GA+Merc boosted base 23 to a perfect base 32 in the GA. Cue the quote: Better to be lucky than good.

This means that I can get religion spreads into Sneatonthorpe, Seahouses and Scarrow with relative certainty compared to previous plans.





With the above Toaism spread, and the loss of the Kettleness fish net, I've had to reevaluate the GA plans in line of the expected GA start.

I still need a missionary out of WT, but the order of the GS is the bigger problem. I intend to push as many hammers into the NE now, because I think I was overly optimistic with the number of turns to Banking. Right now I know of two players with Banking, and demographics shows only those two players have Guilds, out of the players I've met. If someone (Pindicator etc) doesn't get Guilds in a next few turns I won't see any change to the current 1.28 modifier (short of an Astro bulb). I will need 2675ish base beakers, and I'm capping out at 650 this turn. That's still 4 turns of max research, best case, even if I can see some growthin bpt (which I will, new cities are growing onto coast). Still, that is 1400 gold needed.

At current rates that means saving gold for a further 4-5 turns (probably 4 turns and finish at breakeven if needed). That is restarting tech T143, and Banking eot146. I want to call it pathetic, but relaly this is the consequence of cities moving off coast onto mines which is why my MFG is now fixed (I wanted to say recovered, but it's always sucked).

I can finish NE eot146, but I would need to have 80 gpp in the box to be able to one turn a GS (size 14, work fish and clam, 12+1 scientists +NE gpp = 120gpp/t at -10fpt). There is 56 in the box, and I could get WT to generate the additional 24 points necessary for the one turn by running a food deficit on T146 (8 scientists, fish, clam, lake*2, plains hill mine*2 at -8fpt). Between these two turns the food box would be almost exhausted, but growth at size 13>14 saves 23 food in the granary so I know that this is possible.

There is going to be about a 1% chance of generating a GA, but this affects an Engineering bulb, not the Astro bulb because I can still get the GS out of Oakenclough and Westminster in time.

I know that this is a lot more micro focused than some lurkers have said they've wanted, but unfortunately the who strategy of fitting in an Astro bulb, Mercantilism revolt at start of a GA and Theo revolt at the end, and the religion spread to make use of it, all hinge on what WT can achieve. Screw up the micro even a little bit and it all falls to pieces.

After the first GS, I don't want to pump missionaries after the Owlthorpe missionary, I'll put WT back onto GP duty: At food neutral it still runs 6+1 specialists, to make 66gpp/t, so it reaches 330gpp by the last turn of the GA! If I accept running engineers and scientists, then it should reach 500 points within 10 turns of the end of the GA without Serfdom.

Cramming the NE in now is almost certainly the right move IMO (and shows just how foolhardy the Quernmore/Oakenclough city placements are). If it frees my civ from the shackles of Serfdom to allow the freedom of Slavery then I go for it.

Shame I don't want to go into Slavery as none of the cities I would whip are anywhere near where I would be fighting.





Westminster will stay on straight units and get the SE later despite being a good science city. Owlthorpe can build a unit prior to the GA, and then probably the SE via overflow before going straight into missionaries. Wetheral ignores the SE: I want it, but units are more important. Scarrow should never stop growing and needs to get plains cottages down to throw out a critical SE in the GA and finish the forge (but health is an issue and that means a grocer is needed for health from sugar and wine, I'll need to trade for banana). Aldeburgh is about 10 turns away from the front for fast movers, so that either builds HA or a barracks, probably barracks because it'll need to through out a few knights yet it'll 2 turn an SE at the start of the GA. Huxter and Catfish I need to sit down and work some micro for, simply to overflow maximum hammers into SE. Seahouses doesn't need explaining: HE unit spam should help bulk out the isthmus stack.

Timble is a none entity and I'll decide later, but it actually is a good commerce city and crap production city so really ought to prioritise the SE. Sneatonthorpe will finish a barracks and colosseum over 3 turns than spam HA until knights are available, and will probably delay the SE until units are in hand. Oakenclough will probably drop hammers into the SE whilst producing the GS because it could just about finish it at the end of the GA, and that makes more sense than finishing that Xbow when Seahouses is building an Xbow per turn. HoT is one hammer short of a lighthouse (shocker at the bad micro), the rest of the cities are just about core infrastructure and need to get lighthouses down.

Defense against Rusten is going to be sentry caravels, metagaming and diplomacy: fish-fish offered turn I bulb Astro.





Something I've not mentioned is that I need to fit Meditation in before I trigger the GA, so that's an addition 80 base beakers I need to find. Not a huge problem in the scheme of things. What I think I'll end up doing is funnelling the first turn of maximum research through Meditiation to see if anyone completes Guilds in that spare turn.

I'm actually quite impressed with how Hannibal manages without courthouses due to the cheap libraries and slightly cheaper markets. In other circumstances I would be looking at spreading religion really hard right now, to try and use the GA to force out both SE and courthouses and I'd be owning the entire Rennaissance era given the triple bulb plan basically puts me on par with OH/Hitru (Guilds, Banking, CoL, Compass? equals two GS bulbs into Astro, I don't think they have Aesthetics or Lit, possible Construction either so I don't think this is an unreasonable statement).





Confucianism is spreading ridiculously well, given the late founding. That'll be the shrine benefit.





If I don't swap into Slavery at the end of the GA, then I'm fairly sure that between Rusten, OH and myself we'll be pushing for 40% of world pop shortly. And keep in mind that with Serfdom I can quite easily fit in another 2 good cities and 2 filler cities, plus try and claim a few islands towards Pindicator (I'll have the units and galleons available so it's opportunity cost only).





Given that Pindicator and OH/Hitru are in a GA...if I were to trigger a GA this turn, with current population...I'd pick up an extra 100hpt or so. Couple of forges finish this turn as well, it's not unreasonable to think I'm pretty close to OH/Hitrus MFG output outside a GA. I've already acknowledged that the beaker situation seems in hand as well, which is why I'm really giving thought to not swapping back into slavery if it looks like I don't need to for defensive purposes. I can cycle cities onto Stock Exchanges and Courthouses as and when seems appropriate and everything else can go into military, with a quick spurt at teh start of the GA to cram them down in the important cities.

I might want the opportunity to whip certain infrastructure to completion, but even the new cities are growing onto good tiles (plains cottages are good tiles given the value of Emancipation affording future food). I might want to whip units, but...where? Even Lucker should have 20 base hpt+1fpt through a forge at the end of the GA and makes more hammers by not whipping. Kettleness? 16hpt+3fpt and 4-6 cottages. Kelling? 11hpt+5fpt and 3 cottages. Skinningrove: 15hpt+4fpt. Kettlewell? 12hpt+2fpt but works 8 cottages. Hell, there is even an argument that caste might just be worth it, but I'm ruining the basis for that argument by cottaging every tile I can do.

It's just that power differential and TBW not whipping that might fuck everything.

[Krill]

Question for lurkers: how does vassalization work in an MP environment? I ask because with AI diplo it might actually make sense as a mechanic, if the stupid splitting off cities to make a new civs didn't exist.

[Krill]

Trololol. OH asked me to log in to verify a bug. More on that tomorrow, but both Rome and Antium were captured. And rival best soldiers increased 8K.

OH just captured 2 cities and kept 12 pop, which is 6K, and settled a new city. No one bulbed, no one drafted, so that has to be him. I don't think he lost any units? I can't say that was luck, but I'd have thought he must have used units off boats, but swords would have been a bit lucky even if they had amphib. And my scout took no collateral damage so I don't see how Xbows were used.

[Krill]

Ugh. Might have a problem.

There is one obvious reason OH lost no units. That there were no battles for him to lose.

When I logged in there were two preats by my longbows. They could only have come from the 4 unit stack. Then there is the galley which could have taken th other two.

But why not defend the capital, a size 9 city?

I'm struggling to come up with a rational answer, but that could be that I'm working off incomplete information, but there is one reason: TBW could be trying to throw his game from where I'm standing, it's either that or incompetence and I'm not sure which is worse...

[Krill]

Turn 139 - Turn 140 interlude

I got a PM from OH asking me to log in to check a bug with diplomacy. This is what I see:




So this wouldn't be obvious, but because of the changes to the peace treaties, I should not be able to sign peace with OH, and therefore he shouldn't be able to make this offer. But he can. OH confirmed that he is not able to offer peace without the war dec though. I can't call this a bug though, as this may well be the intended implementation according to Charriu.

Now we hit a bit of a bump in the road that might require a public ruling because other players need to know about this. But an additional twist is I never coded this, or had any input into this implementation, it was entirely Charriu. Who might not want to change it.

I'm not even sure of what all the consequences are, but it looks like there is still a way to create game enforced NAPs.





I didn't realise this at first, but I was looking at this screenshot for an hour and it finally clicked. I knew that there were two preats underneath my longbows from checking whilst logged in, but there are no galleys visible, so they must be the same ones that should have defended Rome. Here is what I wrote last night:

But why not defend the capital, a size 9 city?

I'm struggling to come up with a rational answer, but that could be that I'm working off incomplete information, but there is one reason: TBW could be trying to throw his game from where I'm standing, it's either that or incompetence and I'm not sure which is worse...

I have to be honest and say that I don't think TBW is being malicious and throwing the defense. I just think he is incompetent, it's just hard to see the difference from my position because the moves are the same.

Specifically, he couldn't have lost Rome last turn unless OH got extremely lucky, like one time in 10,000. And he could have whipped the city for a longbow, and then there would have been 3 longbows, and he would have held the city long enough to get another 2 units out, minimum. Then you consider how many more whips that would have enabled in his other cities? He would have greater military resources available at every point of the game onwards if he stood in the city. If he was trying to throw the game, he wouldn't whip his cities, and he wouldn't defend them so he died quicker. Which he is doing. If he were incompetent, he would play in a manner that gives him suboptimal output and chance of victory. Which he is doing.

So I can't be sure, but given what I've seen from reported Badgame PBs, and what I know of the group, I know this: they are amateurish to the extreme, and they regularly play drunk. And on that note I hold my hands up and accept it's probably incompetence.

I think TBW is trying to retreat to the islands with whatever military he can salvage. The problem this leaves me is that I can't defend his cities as I lack the units. Which, in short, means my whole strategy of slowing the invasion isn't going to work.

Which means I'm going to be forced to attack into TBWs cities, just as OH starts reaching them. Which fucks all of my timings.

But it gets so, so much worse.

I can't get my longbows out now. They are going to get run down by knights because I lack Engineering. On T141 I would have them either in Ravenna, or on the tile 1SE, but there will be a knight stack on the grass hill this turn, and then Ravenna dies on T141. So...incompetence. I'm seriously considering reoffering that peace treaty and war dec on TBW now, just to save a few units: this is probably better for me when I can't reliably kill anything of OH's and I'm damned sure TBW is too incompetent to cause OH any losses either.