RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Gandhi of Korea (Broker33 & plako)

[plako]

What are your plans right now?

Are you planning to build a few more cities in the emptiness between you and slaze (or rebuild the razed city). From your last SShot, there seems to be a lot of (river) grassland, but not that much bonus food.

I usually don't make very long term plans. However short term I want Oxford up and running on our capital and then beeline towards Steel or Rifling with the aid of running lot of specialists on our farmed cities. This hopefully takes care of our economy and enables strong enough troops for our protection until someone gets Infantry or MGs. Currently I'm still thinking we should go towards Steel since Chemistry is quite useful to us.

I'll try to fill the void as soon as it seems economically feasible. Actually I just founded a city on the island east from us, but I feel we shouldn't rush too much.

A bit longer term I really hope we could get some of the food/production corporations, but it might be we're teching too slowly for them + getting Engineer isn't that easy.

[plako]

Previous turn I whipped 6 Seowons and now I started Oxford in our capital. We converted to Pacifism and Caste and run mainly Merchants in 4 cities on the island. Furthermore we get Great Person out from the Great Library city. Depending on the type I'll use it for Golden age, trade mission or bulb (Printing Press).

I also turned reasearch back on and to finish Engineering. It seems that HRE has already Rifling so we need something and soon to handle that potential threat. Gunpowder is probably next after Engineering and then we need to decide between Rifling and Steel. We also might had to consider Nationalism to enable drafting, if HRE starts to raise big army. Drafting muskets is not ideal, but if nescessary we had to do it.

I also found one of Dantski's main land cities that gives 1500 gold that I'm taking next turn. Next Merchant will definately travel towards Niani. I'm pretty certain it gives at least 1700 gold.

When running 100% science and handful of specialists our economy seems quite a bit better. Only HRE+India with their Golden ages are ahead:


Pictures from our cities:

[plako]

We got Great Artist so I initiated Golden Age. India's power has been rapidly raising and now they've even adopted Nationhood. Probably they'll reach Rifling soon and presumably attack Ottomans. We haven't had much communication lately.

Furthermore we ended our trade mission for 1500 gold.

[plako]

There is intresting diplomatic developments. Ottomans are really suffering against India and Inca and it seems will get severly cribbled. On the other hand HRE has been getting very powerful. Especially their economy is quite impressive. They've had Rifling quite some time and supposedly soon Steel. Furthermore I got this email from them:

Sorry for the awfull long delay.
Both DMOC and me are a but short on time and put all our time in getting the most out of our GA.
We'd like to sign a new NAP with you guys untill t240 or t250 if you're interested.

We also like to tell you that we have visibility in Slaze's city's and could provide you with intell should you be ready to start moving again.

Hope to hear from you before t220!

On the other hand Dantski sent us this:

War with HRE is imminent. 3 turns left on our NAP and they have now closed borders without any communication. Unless they screw up horribly I will likely be losing cities as I only have a few muskets and catapults vs a Rifle led attack.

Any assistance would be massively beneficial.

This all seems very beneficial to us. In best case scenario rest of the world is fighting while we're building up our economy and filling up the land. However I'm not sure, if we can avoid taking active role against HRE.

I also decided to go towards Rifling 1st. We get minor tech discount because HRE+India know the prerequisites and we get Printing Press and option for Economics to improve our economy.

Usual screenshots. Because of golden age our numbers look too good:

[spacemanmf]

Nice research rate, Golden Age fuelled or not. Should be nicer when Oxford Uni completes too.

Is the site marked 'C' the only planned city site on the mainland?

[plako]

Nice research rate, Golden Age fuelled or not. Should be nicer when Oxford Uni completes too.

Is the site marked 'C' the only planned city site on the mainland?

There is another SW from the C and there is room between Carida and C although no resources. However slaze might become intrested in these spots later.

[plako]

sigh. Game has been paused since Saturday and I feel some withdrawal symptoms. I hope this doesn't come norm to have 3 day pauses. Athlete should try to find a temporary substitute player in cases like this.

Meanwhile I sent the message below to HRE concerning their NAP request. It is quite truthful describing my general feelings on things. I'm actually hoping that HRE becomes strong enough to fight against India and this would give us a chance to catch up them.

I've been considering what we want to do from here on in this game. I would prefer being in economy build up mode over warring. I see that your preference is probably a bit different now that you've converted to warring civics.

Depending on your target our opinion varies. Slaze helped us a lot in a war against Whosit so I really hope he isn't your direct target. If Dantski is your target, we've also some reservations concerning NAP. He didn't sign NAP with you while we were warring against Whosit (and you). This probably tied up some of your troops on that border. Although Dantski's favor didn't help us much I feel we should do a favor of similar magnitude to him and tie some small part of your troops on our border. I'm open for suggestions how this could be accomplished between turns 220 and 240. Even if NAP might not be possible we can definately sign similar deals we had during Whosit war e.g. something to prevent surprise attacks so that pre warning must be given 3T before proceeding.

All in all, if you keep the number of troops on our borders on medium level i.e. high enough so that it doesn't make sense for us to try anything, but small enough so that we don't feel threatened, we essentially have no incentive to start building an army that could seriously threaten you while your main army is elsewhere.

[m4gill4]

I like your email to HRE. It's amusing to witness the diplomatic contortions you are having to go through in order to reconcile your honorable feelings towards Mali while acknowledging the realpolitik of the situation.

I chuckle, but that's not to say it's a bad message, probably it's as good as can be done considering the complicated diplomatic situation.

[Adlain]

We want nukes!!!!

[plako]

I've started to build some settlers to start expansion again. Dantski took a spot in the most easterm island that annoys me a bit, although we didin't have any agreements in place. There is also a barb city in the former Jowy Island that I hope I can capture.

PP got ready and since Oxford is just 3 turns away I decided to start collecting gold again although that wasn't totally nescessary.

Athlete seems to be retreating and not yet had critical mass to take a shot against India's stack.

edit. after taking theshots I switched our research to banking. We get it in 3T at 0% research.