[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[pindicator]

134

Charriu asks for help with the war effort.




Or as I call it: "charriuty"

Easy accept for me. Jowy and AT both refuse to do any kind of trading with me, so it makes sense to help out their enemy as much as possible. Besides, if Charriu goes then I lose a lot of foreign trade routes.

Charriu also had an impressive reconquest this turn.




I forgot that AT had originally captured this off Charriu. AT's power took another big hit; he's now sitting at around 175k soldiers - in fact, he probably is the last place figure in Demos at 173k. I can see why Charriu didn't want to give him peace until recapturing this city, but now Charriu needs to get peace from AT and turn this stack around towards Jowy.

Superdeath is ... negotiating?




So I think I get what his mindset is now. He wants me to pay him for all the lost trade routes. Once again, let me remind all of you that he started this war and almost killed me. (In fact, if he hadn't been trying to chase wonders at the same time then he probably would have.) Also, what incentive do I have to stop this war let alone pay him for it? So if Superdeath wants me to pay him 20gpt to stop a war then he needs to make that a deal I want to accept - and right now he doesn't have anything that would make me accept such a deal.

I sent him another peace offer asking him for 20gpt.

Don't know if I'll accept straight peace from him now. I'm 2 turns away from 3-promo longbows and Vassalage.

Mr. Cairo picked up Alphabet for some reason and now everybody can see his tech:



He's not far behind me at all. I'm up a classical era tech right now i think. He just got Alphabet and is up that on me, while I am up Compass on him. I've just finished saving for Feudalism and will have that in 2 turns. Really, my problem is that my expenses are just insane. -290gpt at 100% science. I need a few markets I think. But no time to build them.

Thanks to Superdeath, I really didn't come out that far ahead in the city count even after taking Gira out. Superdeath made me draw all my attention towards him and let Mjmd and Mr. Cairo settle up on me. So I'm more far-flung than they are but then have similar city counts.

I would think Mr. Cairo is able to catch me if nothing changes.

Anyway, Demos:




Now that I've turned on science it's nice to be #1 in everything. Doubt that stays true after the golden age.


PRO: 45 (1427)
FIN: 41 (1211)

[Zed-F]

So eat SD, take his wonders, and your Econ will profit.

[pindicator]

That's the next step!

I know, it goes a bit contrary to what we normally see here as acceptable strategy: to grind out the win as soon as possible and only then recover. However, I've been a part of games where doing that puts you too far behind in a hole for the early game and you can't get those key techs and then the regular expanders pass you by as they gobble up neighbors in the medieval era. So i intentionally pumped the breaks this game and didn't whip myself down to conquer Superdeath the two opportunities I had to do so (right after killing the first horcher stack, and right when I took Coos back).  Is it correct? Not sure, but I felt like over extending myself that much would really have set me back compared to Mjmd and Mr. Cairo. 

I have been eyeballing knights but I didn't quite get Feudalism as fast as I thought. I probably can still make that work with more Wealth builds

[pindicator]

135

Superdeath, are you going to push in again?




13 elephants and 6 catapults - I can handle that. Still, I did start a few catapult builds just for safety. Mostly this is taking away from a trireme build out of Coos, but if Superdeath isn't patient with his triremes then I'll start picking them off. He should stack them next turn and then I'll lose my work boat again but that should be all.

I also decided to whip forges in 2 cities - both were 1-pop whips and with rearranging tiles this was equivalent to me giving up 2 coast tiles.







Next turn we'll start either catapults or longbows in those cities. Probably catapults first.

There were a few other spots that I looked at whipping but I really want to hold off until after the GA ends if possible. I also need to get some more missionaries out - so really this is it for economic builds for a time. That's why I really wanted to get the forges out now: this is really it. I'll try for a random market or library here and there, depending on where it makes sense. But I think now I'm just going to build up and go for Superdeath. Or Wealth Builds. I may not want to wait for knights. If Superdeath pushes in now then we're going to counter-kill his stack and plan on just continuing from there.

Turn ends, and I saw something I had been dreading for a while:




Silver lining: that's close to my border.


PRO: 45 (1472)
FIN: 39 (1250)

Will FIN ever catch PRO?

[NobleHelium]

Your comparison isn't entirely fair by the way, since if you were actually FIN you'd be playing at least a bit differently when you actually have the trait.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

While that’s true, the fact that Pro can remain competitive and powerful for so long indicates that it’s been overbuffed

[pindicator]

Your comparison isn't entirely fair by the way, since if you were actually FIN you'd be playing at least a bit differently when you actually have the trait.

Very true, and I've said as much before.  There's also the fact that I picked a civ that emphasizes trade routes.  I think the better comparison is either what scooter is doing in PB53 since he's playing as Wang Kon, or if a civ that wasn't either trait would compare how much they hypothetically would get for having each trait.

But I do think this still shows how strong the commerce gain from PRO is in its current version.

EDIT: ninja-ed by GKC

[Miguelito]

What I found really telling was how Pro remained very reliable when you had to whip a lot during the superdeath invasion, while Fin dipped at that moment for obvious reasons.

Speaking of, do you have those numbers tabled? Could we have a graph?

[Gaspar]

It seems obvious from the start that a TR bonus would be very powerful early, unlike FIN all you really have to do is the same stuff you would normally do to benefit from it. Anything that does that much heavy lifting with minimal investment is going to be strong, especially when it starts working from the time you've connected city 2.

The question really is how strong you want it to be. Its clearly the worst trait in base BTS. I think the traits in base are best thought of as carry traits and support traits. In base BTS I think FIN, EXP, CRE, IND, SPI are the carry traits and AGG, CHM, PHI, ORG, IMP and PRO are the support traits. Some of those are stronger than others, I'd also suspect that PHI was meant to be a carry and SPI was meant to be support but no need to quibble. Anyway, in this mod I think PRO moves to a carry trait and probably a top 3 carry. IDK how codable it is but it might be more thematic if it only boosted internal routes. I've always supported a balance approach that tried to buff the weaker traits rather than hard nerf the strong ones, so maybe this isn't too good in comparison.

[pindicator]

136

Quiet turn. Superdeath turned his stack away, so I switched some cities to triremes and while I'm a little upset at not keeping them on triremes I think I had to play that extra safe. 30h for a workboat - meh. My triremes will be able to beat his, thanks to serfdom:



I whipped another forge, this time in Multnomah. Will sneak in some Buddhist missionaries, but only at cities that don't have a barracks. Those that do and have finished their forges are pumping out 5xp units.

AT and Charriu signed peace. Now Charriu needs to fight off Jowy, who may be running around with Maces right now.




I wonder if Mr. Cairo and Mjmd are planning their moves later in the game, or if they're just being too passive. They both have really good economies. It's a shame they aren't using them for anything yet.

Anywho, rolled turn when I played and the barb galley down south died on my galley flawlessly. So I'll be able to settle that island city on t139. It should be another net positive as it's going to give a boost to a lot of my trade routes.


PRO: 45 (1517)
FIN: 39 (1289)

Gaspar, I also like the internal route buff for PRO, both for thematics and also because it will fall off just about as soon as everybody gets open borders. So Writing, which means it shouldn't be nearly as strong as it is now. But still gives it a nice niche for quick-starting an economy and giving always-war civs some kind of buffer. Something Superdeath would appreciate right now, I bet.