[SPOILERS] Cornflakes PB53

[Cornflakes]

Good work. What do you see happening with Ligurian?

The obvious answer is that it cannot stay Carthaginian. Option A, most likely, I could declare war in 10 turns to capture, or strong-arm TBS into giving it up for another 10 turns of peace. Option B is Music GArtist to bomb Thapsus and flip Ligurian plus flip Dirty Work from Khmer. Also potential to flip Oea, but at minimum first ring access to hit with collateral T0 of a future war.

China may capture in the next 10 turns, in which case the above Option B is still valid and will likely become my near-term goal.

I'm leaning towards Literature > Music anyway due to Great Library synergy with IND/PHI/Representation. However I chose Machinery > Engineering first for safety. Crossbows + pikes + castles + road movement should be enough to point Chinese CKN and surely-soon knights in other directions. Unfortunately when I researched Iron Working 2-3 turns ago I discovered my only source of iron isolated into 3rd ring borders of Utrecht. The current peace gives me opportunity to whip a settler out of Utrecht to claim Iron.

   

I have another settler queued up in The Hague for Red Dot Island in the northwest corner of the map. With Great Lighthouse any coastal city is immediately profitable (less the opportunity cost of producing the settler). Red Dot has 1st ring fish and 2nd ring clams. Iron Yellow Dot has no food but 5 farm-able riverside (cottage adjacent to Rotterdam gets farmed), the the forest can be chopped to make granary a 1-pop whip, and Ivory will give enough production to limp out the necessary infrastructure with light whipping.

Nijmegen will continue producing navy, because with all the lakes and easy canals either navy or heavy garrisons are required everywhere.

   

Right now I have goo potential with boosted happy caps + colossus + rep specialists, but poor demographics. My primary goal for the next 10-20 turns is population growth. I will work minimal specialists during this time in order to maximize food. Then trigger a MoM golden age, and chain the 2-GP GA into Nationalism for Taj 3rd GA, into 3-GP GA. 48 turns of golden age which I'll use to tech upwards and crank out great people for bulbing. Let's say T92 launch the first GA, Nationalism around T110 for T116 Taj completion. Minimum of Civil Service for drafting maces by the time Nationalism completes, gauge the feasibility of hitting Gunpowder assisted by bulbs.

[Cornflakes]

Lurker thoughts on trying to buy Ligurian off TBS? City trading wasn’t discussed in the game setup. I would offer something like 300g + OB + gems + furs and see if he bites.

[Old Harry]

Lurker thoughts on trying to buy Ligurian off TBS? City trading wasn’t discussed in the game setup. I would offer something like 300g + OB + gems + furs and see if he bites.

Seems reasonable - no one made a fuss about the last one. Is that trade possible?

[Cornflakes]

I acquire gems from 1s of Thapsus next turn (I hit 52% culture control this turn with the 2nd ring border pop). Then I can offer gems. But I went ahead and made the offer this turn with silk instead.

[Cornflakes]

TBS responded back with a similar trade but reversed with me giving up Thapsus. Clearly he is not interested. Now I have to decide whether it is worth pressing war now or waiting. I’m set up nicely now for a MoM boosted GA, with pop grown to run specialists. 12 GA turns might be enough to get Nationalism: CoL (2t) > Mysticism (0.1t) > Meditation (0.3t) > [bulb Philosophy] > overflow completed half of Civil Service (3t) > Nationalism probably can’t quite squeeze out in the GA. But I can trigger the 2-person GA which can boost construction of Taj.

On the other hand, I approached Mr. Cairo with a war vs. TBS offer a couple turns ago which he was receptive to. I can’t divide my attention though. This needs to be either all-in war to elimination, or all-in GA teching. War requires full cooperation and commitment from Mr. Cairo. The problem is that China and Ottomans are both nearly to Knights. Meaning both Mr. Cairo and I have potentially hostile technologically superior neighbors. As much as I would like to war, I think the peace argument is stronger/safer.

Mid-term goal would be to pump out a few scientists to bulb down the Paper > Education > Gunpowder line. I can’t actually bulb Gunpowder but I can devote my research there, saving gold while/if waiting for GPP. Then Music > Military Tradition while generating a scientist and engineer for Printing Press > Replaceable Parts. Hold off on Feudalism > Guilds > Banking research until I can research those cheaply with high KTB. This would allow me to draft muskets for security, build Cuirassiers, and later build Cavalry while drafting Rifles.

[Cornflakes]

If only I had picked Russian instead of Dutch  I'm headed straight for the Russian toys but still another era away from the Dutch toys.

[Cornflakes]

Commodore whipped a bunch of cities last turn so I thought that might be HA > Knights. However research visibility shows Machinery (2) so that must have just been post-GA venting against the populace. Commodore is still a decent distance from Knights (6-12t). Scooter however has knights galloping eastward already and may be able to complete the AT conquest before Commodore gets knights. Fin/PRO has done wonders for his research. He’s banking gold at +175 in the final turns of his GA, I’m curious to see where is stands post-GA. I bulbed Engineering with a GEngineer T85 (see running log of GPP and wonders in the first post of the thread). This puts me 1100 beakers closer to keeping up with Scooter, gives me pikes and castles for defense vs knights, but delays the GA for 10 turns. The 10-turn delay is OK because it gives me time to grow and unlock Caste ... and get some pikes/castles completed in preparation for the swap out of Slavery.

   

Two new cities were founded since the last overview, one on my only iron which happened to be outside my culture, and the other on a normally-excellent-but-below-average-on-this-map island in the northwest corner. With engineering bulbed 2 turns ago I found myself with enough gold for 4 turns of 100% research. GNP gazing shows that 1 person knows Aesthetics already (not Commodore, hopefully AT who is dying). Calculating this out I have enough beakers to 1-turn research Mysticism > Polytheism > Aesthetics > Literature > Music (EOT89) back-to-back on successive turns  I'm building wealth at Amsterdam to trickle out the extra gold to fuel the last turn of research.

The opportunity cost of attacking Ligurian when peace expires in 2 turns is not worth the benefit. In order to pick up a decent city (with only duplicate resources) I risk tilting TBS, gain another direct border with Scooter, and cost 1/4-1/3 my pop in whips as I prepare for a MoM golden age. All around that looks like a weedy move  I offered fish-fish to TBS this turn, and if he mirrors back I will stand by it even if Mr. Cairo attacks (after all, the deal I sent to Cairo was HIM attacking and me giving him 6 gold ). Engineering road movement will allow my stack of 10 HA to be positioned on the rice 1S of Amsterdam where is can respond defensively to threats on any front as needed. Hopefully TBS agrees with the assessment from his perspective and can tolerate the awkward borders at Thapsus.

   

Nijmegen is the source of my next GPerson for the first Golden Age.  With the engineer hired I'm sitting at 10-turns. However I'm planning to whip-cascade Crossbow (T87) > Market (T88) > Great Library (T89: 240/350) > Trireme (T90) > Great Library (EOT91: 350/350). I will need to run a couple of citizen specialists on on the two turns I dump overflow into Great Library in order to eke out the last couple hammers. Great Library will provide enough GPP to make up for a couple turns where I have to skip running a specialists or two, such that I remain on the 10-turn timeframe for about T98 Golden Age. I will have CoL for Caste swap T1 of the GA, and CS for Bureaucracy swap by T5 of the GA.

The AT collapse to Scooter is concerning for the long-term. However a strong Commodore in the southeast will hopefully act as a counterweight to Scooter's ballooning empire. If I can remain spiky enough to direct TBS south/east at Mr. Cairo I think I stand a decent chance of being able to leverage PHI + wonders into a tech lead.

Here's a snapshot of the economic payoff of the IND/PHI combo as of the current turn:
Colossus: +17/turn ... estimated average +8/t * 31 turns = approximately +250 to date
Great Lighthouse: +17/turn ... estimated average +11/t * 31 turns = approximately +350 to date
Pyramids: +9/turn ... estimated average +9/t * 13 turns = approximately +117
MoM: denial only to date, GA turn value to be estimated once I get to T9 of the first GA.
Merchant Mission: 1300 gold 
Engineering bulb: 1070 modified beakers => 860 raw beakers
TOTAL: 2877 commerce ... say the merchant mission would have happened anyway with a naturally produced GPP and we're around 1600 commerce from IND/PHI combo by T86. I'm curious to see how this compares to Scooter's FIN/PRO combo. Maybe I'll take the time to estimate that in the next couple turns.

[NobleHelium]

Mids allowing you extra population may also act as more commerce. Not sure if you can calculate that though. Also you can still build wonders without IND, so you can't count the entire wonder as an IND bonus either. That is probably a bigger point than anything else really.

[Cornflakes]

In my opinion the 100% production of Forges is the strongest of the IND bonuses. In PB43 I chose an IND leader and only built 1 wonder all game! But I felt like IND was justified for the cheap forges alone ... moreso here, as every food-rich whipping post has decent-to-excellent production via forge-whips. PB43 was my first modded game and I didn't realize the benefit of cheaper Metal Casting. In that game I build Oracle for MC as if it was BtS.

This game I hit MC directly and unlocked Forges T45. This allowed me to boost +25% whips > overflow +75% into Great Lighthouse and Colossus. Great Lighthouse I'm fairly sure had some competition from at least 1 PRO neighbor (honestly I'm surprised I landed that at T53). Colossus is more of a tossup wonder since without IND I would not have prioritized MC nearly as much. What can certainly be attributed to IND is the commerce to date since Colossus would probably have been built around now otherwise as opposed to 30 turns ago. Pyramids happiness is a real benefit, no question, but as you say it is hard to value that. We can consider the additional Pyramids bonus to offset the discount for the fact I could have built the wonders anyway without the trait(s). I almost certainly would not have Pyramids without IND/PHI since I have never previously built Pyramids and do not value them at 500 hammer cost under normal circumstances. MoM I would have lost to high-research Scooter without the engineer rush (MoM attributed to the IND/PHI combo, not specifically IND trait).

Might as well take this opportunity to do a quick overview of the rivals and include odds of victory:

- Cornflakes (25%): Given my two strong neighbors, I have chosen to develop over the short term and try a later attack at more advanced military. I am behind in land area, pop, and number of cities to the other major contenders. But I have a lineup of strong wonders to help boost future potential. The next 20-30 turns are critical. If I can maintain peace and bulb my way to Nationalism/Education > research Gunpowder/Military Tradition then I'm optimistic about my future. Biggest weakness is the risk of tilting TBS and earning a game-long enemy. If we can navigate the awkward border tension without knocking each other out of contention then we both have a shot at victory.
- Scooter (25%): has chosen at this point to eat a weak neighbor now and consolidate/develop later.
- Commodore (25%): expanded the fastest/furthest early on with EXP/CHA expansion and happiness bonuses. This set him back economically, and it remains to be seen how he intends to proceed from here. Economy seems to be in decent shape at this time, and he is up CoL/Civil Service + Monarchy/Feudalism + Theology to my Machinery + Engineering + Calendar.
- TBS (15%): has had several setbacks, mostly at my hand, yet remains a strong contender. Somewhat on the back foot due to poor GNP which only recently spiked in the last 15 or so turns. I do not know where he stands in tech. I assume Construction + HBR so as not to under-estimate what I may be facing. Has a tougher road from contention to victory, but don't count TBS out! His rapid expansion in the beginning was true wizardry as he had 2 cities razed yet claimed more than his fair share of land against both me and Mr. Cairo.
- Mr. Cairo (10%): Weakest development in the early expansion phase out of the contenders, even with CRE/IMP traits. Cairo and I have been nearly equivalent in the graphs and expansion, yet I have come out with several key wonders while Cairo has not. Histraits have trailed off now, leaving a somewhat lackluster long-term outlook. Ballista Elephants should provide some extra deterrence/protection from hungry neighbors in the current era but I foresee Cairo having difficulty keeping up in tech. One strength though is the sheer amount of cottage cheese in his core. Nearly every tile is cottaged, almost up to towns already. Not out by any means, but needs to act decisively.
- AT (0%)  Not sure exactly what happened, but AT stumbled early out of the starting gate and never picked up steam. Contributing factors were poor development traits and opportunism from scooter (potentially aggravated by poor accelerated start choices on T0). Soon to be ushered by scooter's knights into the land beyond.

[Cornflakes]

Huge development on the diplomacy front this turn. TBS mirrored back the fish-fish  I have to trust him here, and hope that he trusts me. After mirroring the fish-fish, he requested a gift of my spare silks as a separate offer. I accepted! Maybe we can be best buddies after all. I also backed my HA stack up to the rice tile out of range of 1-turning Oea through my culture when the peace treaty expires next turn ... and backed my catapults up 2-turns away. Then offered OB so we can station sentries. 

The big question now, assuming I get the GArtist in 4 turns, is whether I go forward with the artist bomb. The artist bomb would be a direct violation of the peaceful posturing and probably result in immediate war, possibly even tilting of TBS into perma-war. This then raises the question of whether I need to hit Music now, or speed up CoL > CS. Alternatively I could use the GArtist to fire the golden age about 5 turns quicker than I can get a GPerson out. I have been planning for a mixed pool GPP for the GA so I don’t know what type would be born. But any type would be useful in its own way. I’ve mentioned previously that my plan with PHI and Pyramids is to mostly run mixed pools and use them as I get them.