[SPOILERS] Rusten enters uncharted waters

[Rusten]

This was the turn my combat rolls took a turn for the worse, but it had to happen at some point. I believe I lost 3 (maybe it was even 4) out of the first 7 ~85-90% battles trying to take 2metra's capital. Delays the capture by a turn, but not a problem overall. All that remains is a badly wounded elephant and spear.




I did however win the most important battle of the turn. 2metra tried to be clever and setup to retake a city while using his cultural advantage, but he forgot to take into account a galley from the fog.




I won the 95.9% battle and in turn got to kill 2 war elephants that I otherwise wouldn't be able to reach with pikes. A feelgood moment.
The 3rd unit in the stack SW of the city was a HA that was easily taken care of by a knight. A nice bonus to surprising him this way was being able to capture a big stack of workers on the desert tile.




Next turn I will take all of his remaining cities except for Adulis. But Adulis is on flatland guarded by mainly CR promoted axes, so that's not going to be a big obstacle either. Addis Ababa is almost completely empty (WE finished end of turn) because he tried to take out one of my stacks with collateral last turn. My units held strong and I lost almost nothing -- the Urukku pikes are so strong. I will start building some more now that I'm close to drafting. They synergize very well with a musket+treb stack. I didn't check the combat rolls for that 2metra counterattack so maybe my bad luck this round was karma for better rolls there.

I think I might be able to squeeze in gunpowder the turn my golden age ends, which paves the way for theocracy+nationhood drafting until the cottage civics are ready. That's basically 5* free muskets per turn as I'll mainly be drafting coastal tiles. The emergence of drafting makes me think DS next is the way to go. I hate having him around strategically, he's too close to my core and his lands would be so safe once captured. Would be a big win. My only worry is that OH takes out Borsche in the meantime denying me the possibility. Then again if OH does that I can attack him from a favourable position so maybe it's not a worry.

*Yes, 5! Thanks to being on a huge map.

[Rusten]

Borsche has so few units (and no engineering) that it would be a crime not to punish. Sorry superdeath, you're going to have to wait 10-15 turns for my help.
I think the best way forward is to run over Borsche with knights after healing up while drafting an army of 1-movers (starting to draft muskets 3 turns from now) to attack DS with in 10-15 turns.

I wouldn't be worried about SD if it was just Dark Savant, but a wild Commodore has appeared.




All that remains of Ethiopia is a size 1 city. I could've perhaps put enough knights in place to capture it next turn, but that would include a lot of wounded ones so I figured I'll wait an extra turn and use the trebs to bombard the culture as well. It makes no difference to me if he's eliminated next turn or two turns from now. Better to start healing my knights.




Too many cities to talk about so I'll just leave you with the F1 screen. If I could've joined a 7-10 player pitboss instead I would've.

[darrelljs]

If I could've joined a 7-10 player pitboss instead I would've.

But then you'd only be able to draft three times per turn!

Darrell

[Rusten]

If I could've joined a 7-10 player pitboss instead I would've.

But then you'd only be able to draft three times per turn!

Darrell

Don't ever change, Darrell. Your dry humour is just right for forums.
I already have 41 cities and that number is only going to go up.

Eliminated 2metraninja this turn and will likely attack Borsche 2 turns from now. Got enough EP on him to have complete city visibility and it's a skeleton army -- partly thanks to 2metraninja. Borsche is even producing wealth in multiple cities right now. Somewhere in England OH is tearing his remaining hair out. 




I need 3 GPs for my next golden age, I already have a GM idle and a "guaranteed" GS coming in Eel.




The exciting end of turn question is whether I manage to dodge a great scientist in Walrus. Any other type is OK.




If I get unlucky the backup plan is Tubeworm, which will only have ~10% chance of a GS by the time it fills up the GPP bar.




I started on the Taj this turn and noone else has Nationalism. The only one I can see teching it any time soon is OH and I don't think there's any chance he's getting a GE so the wonder should be pretty safe. I'll easily complete the remaining GPP during that 8t window, but even without the Taj it won't be an issue honestly. I wouldn't start a 3rd golden age yet even if I could. Gavagai is the GE wildcard, but I met him this turn and his tech is way behind, so no danger of nationalism there either.

Controlling GPP is very important for the mid to late game. You don't want to sit there 50 turns from now and be reliant on a coinflip to enable a golden age or not, predictability and contingency plans are key. If I get an artist or a prophet in Walrus then the Tubeworm great person will likely be pushed back in favour of a city which has a higher chance of getting an engineer. If Walrus gets an engineer then it will be saved for later and Tubeworm GP will be used for the golden age. I'm working on a plan that spawns a GE for the Statue of Liberty later. I have 2 cities that can both easily get at least 1/3 odds by the end of Taj Mahal golden age I believe.

[Rusten]

I got an artist GP. So not the worst (GS) and not the best (GE), but completely fine.
These are the "GE cities". Especially Anchovy thanks to the random event earlier in the game (free engineer specialist).






I've hit the 'conquerors plateau' a while a go. Settling this filler finally and it only cost me 1 or 2 GPT.




Small cities like this will be hugely profitable with drafting and the religious buildings. If I get all 3 (UoS isn't far off) then this game is mine to lose tbh.

I'll be sending my knights in 2 stacks, the first one will go for Proscuitto and will have ~15-16 knights in total IIRC. It will bypass the other city as that one is on a hill with 6 longbows (which is the majority of his empire defense).




The second will be about the same size and head NE. I've also got a small force headed for Chorizo (top right corner). Plenty of knights to reinforce, but not entirely sure if I'll be sending them NE or NW (or 50/50 split).

[darrelljs]

How many turns until Democracy?

Darrell

[Rusten]

How many turns until Democracy?

Darrell

I'll check a little more closely next time I log in, but I'm fairly sure it's less than 20 turns away at current pace. However, that doesn't take into account UoS (4t away), Taj Mahal (~10T away), capture gold (Persia) and captured Ethiopian cities coming out of revolt and growing. I imagine it will take about 15 turns, where I'd guess under rather than over.

The screenshots have PP listed as tech, but I think I'm going constitution --> printing press --> democracy. Another something I have to look at more closely, but representation should be more valuable than the village+town commerce right now. That will change quickly once the cottages grow with emancipation. Constitution should take about 6 turns from now, after which I'll have drafted 35 muskets. I'll have to make a decision at that point whether I want 5 more turns of drafting for 25 muskets (representation will definitely be swapped into immediately) or immediate emancipation.

[Rusten]

One thing I really miss in this mod is the improvements column in the statistics screen, but fortunately I think Charriu has added it to the BUG version for later games. I'm going to have to manually count towns (and villages) one of these next turns to quantify emancipation vs. nationhood. 

[Rusten]

TBH I will most likely delay democracy until after astronomy-chemistry, because I need some turns to mature the cottages before universal suffrage becomes worthwhile. Constitution for emancipation and representation is the big economic tech right now. I don't have that many towns just yet. Enabling emancipation with just constitution as opposed to democracy is a nice buff for cottages.

My pace was faster than I let on in the previous post. I could finish constitution in 4 turns at 100% science, but it dropped again after declaring war on Borsche as I lost all my trade routes temporarily. I'll get them back in 2 turns after taking his coastal city that blocks passage. Still 12 turns for Taj, but I'll probably adopt OR after leaving nationhood so that will speed it up a turn or two.

Big activity spike in OH's thread.

[darrelljs]

I did not realize that Emancipation moved to Constitution. That really does change the cottage economy.

Darrell