[PB56] Lazteuq's Cool Facts about Space

[Lazteuq]

Sorry about leaving y'all in the dark. Hopefully Gira did a good job reporting our war for your lurking pleasure.
It's turn 57 now. Gira and I made peace last turn. I'm OK with that, as Gira spent more resources, and lost more. I only lost 2 warriors, while Gira lost 2 chariots while trying to go on the offensive. This peace treaty gives me a nice window to move units up north. I must admit this war was a strategic failure because Gira still holds Turfan.

Big Picture Stuff:
Noble conquered El Grillo/AT (IND/PHI). I guess building stonehenge probably set them back from getting copper connected or something. Fun Fact, the Inca civ was also destroyed really early in PB51! Except in that case, El Grillo was doing the destruction. Anyway, this means Noble has a huge head start on everyone so I'm already considering him the game leader. So I'm doubling down on my plan to settle my northern areas aggressively to steal some of "his" mapmaker-given land.
The elimination of IND/PHI makes building Pyramids look more reasonable. Maybe I have enough forests to make it happen, and I already want Masonry for walls anyway. PHIramids are calling me!

I'm not sure what's happening with Noble's other (farther away?) neighbor, Amicalola. They just made peace. I expect my path to victory will require me to drag down Noble somehow.
Maybe Gira's CRE+IMP will cause him to crash his economy and fall behind in tech, but I doubt it. I think this map is too small to really crash an economy hard.
It's important to remember that cataphracts are not an amazing solution to any mid-game problems. If my neighbors are smart enough to go for engineering quickly and spam pikemen, cataphracts will suffer. Also, I'll have to get horse somehow. I'm guessing there aren't any extra horses on the map, so my only option is to retake Turfan with 1 movers at some point.

I still don't know who Gira's western neighbor is. They don't seem to cause much threat for Gira, because Gira was willing to move a lot of units offensively toward me. I'll probably meet them by work boat, if they don't come to me first.

Space Fact 19: You might expect the solar wind to slow down as it is spreads out away from the sun, but actually its speed is nearly constant for any distance beyond Mercury's orbit. This speed is absurdly high: averaging around 400 kilometers per second, which is over 10 times faster than Earth's motion around the sun.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 58: I'm going all-in with taking advantage of PRO archers and walls. I'll be settling 3 tiles north of Turfan.



Here's a timetable:

Code:

59: Settler moves to hill marked with red dot. Worker moves across the river and starts a road. Axeman probably moves to blue dot, because I want to keep an eye on Noble.
60: Finish Masonry. Settle city north of Turfan, start building Walls. Worker finishes the road, so the city is immediately connected to trade network, giving +2c. Constantinople finishes archer #2, it moves toward the new city.
61: Worker moves to the cyan dot
62: Worker starts chopping the cyan dot.
64: Archer#2 from Constantinople arrives in the new city.
65: Cyan dot chop is done, so Wall should be done. (20 hammers from chop+5 from city tile)
66: Peace treaty expires. I think I'll found another city on the orange dot at this time.
68: New city grows to size 2, assuming it was working the banana the whole time.

TLDR: Gira will have to contend with 2 PRO archers, an axe, and a spear, on a hill city with walls once the treaty expires! This should be interesting.
Later, this new city may have culture pressure from Turfan, so I'll probably need monument and library. Thankfully there are quite a few forests to chop.

Not sure what to do for tech next. I want to get a library going for the early GS (only 6 turns with buffed PHI!), but that might have to wait if I get into another round of fighting with Gira. I doubt I'll be able to do pyramids with all the aggressive expansion I'm planning. If all goes well, I'm looking at 10 city sites, maybe even 11. I'm sure Gira will find a way to ruin my dreams though.

Space Fact 20: Sunspots usually come in pairs. This is because the two spots are opposite polarities, with a loop of field lines connecting them. We can't directly see these loops, but they are measured by the Zeeman Effect. (don't ask me to explain that, I ain't no quantum physicist)
edit:wrong image

[shallow_thought]

Glad to see you're still pushing. It's not been a smooth start. FWIW, this is still the only thread in this game I'm reading, so very much relying on your reports!

As far as tech choice is concerned, I think you're going to _need_ those libraries for culture, although it will be a little while before you're in a position to start one in that new plant ... and yeah, you probably want walls first.

[Cornflakes]

Space Fact 13: Tin is dangerous to use in spacecraft, because it can grow "tin whiskers". These are basically long, narrow metal crystals that can short electronics. Normally it's not much of a problem on Earth, but the lack of vibration or air currents in space means the whiskers can easily grow dangerously long. To avoid this, soldering is done with lead.

I googled some tin whisker pictures Wow

While tidying up my desk today I found a used control relay. Before tossing it I decided to take a closer look ... and was quite surprised to see actual real-life tin whiskers growing right there on the relay in my hand! It had been replaced about a month ago after being in service for 4 years. Thanks for bringing these to my attention

[Lazteuq]

Wow, I've never seen whiskers in real life before. How easy to spot were they? Do you think the whiskers caused the need for replacement?

This certainly hasn't been a smooth start, but it looks like Gira is offering an escape: Gira offered war with Noble for war with Noble. Of course I didn't accept the trade, but I sent the same deal back. I'm interpreting Gira's offer as a recognition that we have bigger problems than the city of Turfan. Maybe I'll even offer open borders to Gira and try to de-escalate the border situation. It would be a mutually assured destruction scenario if we go to war again in the next 30ish turns. Whipping both our empires into the ground for units on Turn 70 is not going to help either of us win. I don't really trust Gira here, but fortunately MAD doesn't require trust.

I accepted open borders with Amicalola last turn, probably means they got Sailing. Amicalola is a natural ally against Noble being the game leader, so I'm happy to accept trades.
It's turn 60 now, should be 6 turns of peace left. I've sent an axeman to scout out the Noble border, but I haven't seen any sign of recent expansion. Noble is not going to have much strategic depth on this border.
I'm running into the happiness limit, because my first 3 cities are all undefended right now.
For tech path, I'm thinking math->sailing->currency->calendar. Right now I'm just saving gold because I don't have a plan yet. I have every tech I need for rapid expansion, so commerce is a low priority.

Space Fact 21: Radio signals can be bounced off the moon and received on different parts of Earth!

[Cornflakes]

Wow, I've never seen whiskers in real life before. How easy to spot were they? Do you think the whiskers caused the need for replacement?

Very easy once I was aware of their presence. There were two clusters on two different solders, all around 1 mm length except one outlier about 3x as long is the rest. It is unlikely that the whiskers caused failure. The relay was replaced because it would only work when holding pressure on it. However the replacement relay experienced the exact same behavior 2 days after replacement. The relay ... block? ... that the relay plugs into was then replaced and the new relay re-installed on the new block and worked correctly. The old relay was not tried on the new block, but given identical behavior of the replacement and correction of the issue with new block I assume the old relay still functions. Even without whiskers it isn’t worth the risk re-using an old relay ... but with whiskers it has become a curiosity item.

[Charriu]

FYI A bug concerning the Byzantines was discovered. Apparently you can't build your UB the hippodrome and colosseums. I should be able to fix that when the time comes, but I would like to wait until it is really necessary if that is ok for you.

[Lazteuq]

OK, I probably won't build either of those for another 30-40 turns, so about a month.

It's turn 64. Big news is that Noble settled a city pretty close. It disrupts my planned dotmap.
Noble offered open borders and I accepted. I figured declining would look like hostility. Conflict with Noble right now wouldn't be profitable at all. Noble has enough units here to be annoying, but not enough to take Nicaea. Now I'll really need a monument AND library. Unfortunately, Noble's borders ate my forests, so now the production has to come from whipping.  

Just whipped another settler, not sure if I'll send him north or south now. Settling in the south opens up another defensive front against Gira but claims pretty good land that I don't want Gira having. North is less good land, and I'm not sure where exactly I would settle. However, I need to make sure Nicea doesn't get cut off, and I need to block Noble from claiming the land.
Now I have 4 workers. Haven't got much value out of chops yet. Demographics are pretty bad.
The plan is to run an efficient economy thanks to PRO. Currency isn't too far away. I'm not sure how to approach the horse problem though. I could try getting Maces before Gira, or maybe going for Gunpowder beeline through an Education bulb?! It's slow, but early Education would also really help with Liberalism. Muskets aren't much better than Maces though, and their tech path is very different from the Guilds path. Probably better to go towards guilds normally and get maces in the process. Also I need to make sure Gira hasn't taken my Iron as well!
The sad, boring option is to leave the horses alone. I'm sure Noble wants me and Gira fighting so he has a safe southern border. If I manage to build up a stable relationship with Gira, I might choose to keep that stability instead of going for horses.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 67:
Gira stole a worker near Turfan and then offered peace. I grudgingly accepted. If Gira really wanted a 10 turn NAP, stealing a worker from me in the process was a pretty risky way to do it. I seriously considered staying at war, but I'm worried about Noble being opportunistic and I can't afford to defend against both of them.
I'm actually not super worried about Noble attacking because we have open borders and because Noble already has a ton of land to settle. However, I don't doubt his ability to take opportunistic strikes.

I'm about to settle a city in the south, it will have good food sharing with Adrianople. Unfortunately Gira is also settling this area. CRE sure is important.

This game is really not going well.
Also, I forgot a Space Fact last time, so here you go:
Space Fact 22: The Van Allen Radiation Belts (the ones moon landing conspiracy theorists love to talk about) aren't continuous walls all around Earth. The most intense parts only cover a pretty narrow band (30ish degrees) around the equator, so spacecraft can often avoid them by traveling farther north or south of the belts. 

Space Fact 23: Sometimes space weather causes the shape of magnetic fields to rapidly change around a planet, which leaves a region of space suddenly isolated. The plasma in this region is no longer tied to the planet, so it is pulled away in the solar wind and becomes a Plasmoid. We know this because spacecraft such as Voyager 2 have flown through plasmoids.

[Lazteuq]

It's Turn 71. Nothing very exciting has happened in the last 4 turns, It's been a mercifully quiet Christmas in Sitting Bull's Byzantium.

On Turn 73, I'll have two more settlers built. Here's a dotmap with numbers that might correspond to the order I'll settle.


Nicaea (city north of Turfan) has turned out to be pretty useless, because Noble planted Explore in a really tough spot. I whipped a monument so the borders should expand in 7 turns or so, hopefully at least retaking the bananas.

Site 1 will be dangerously forkable by Noble, but I think PRO reduces that risk.
Sites 2 and 3 need to be founded relatively soon or they will be denied by Turfan's 2nd border expansion. Hopefully sites 1, 2, and Nicaea's combined culture can overpower Turfan's culture, making a conquest easier. I'd especially like to own the corn tile.
Sites 4 and 5 are the most significant expansion, but I think they can wait because I don't think Noble can afford to settle there yet.
Sites 6 and 7 are stretch goals.
Site 8 is the island spot, which I might delay by another 20 turns or so. It provides a nice luxury as well as overseas trade routes.

Gira's power has stayed relatively flat. Noble's has consistently been higher, but I'm not super worried because that's a big empire and Noble has been fighting with Amica, who isn't PRO.

Based on score changes, I think Amicalola built the Oracle. Stonehenge and Oracle are still the only wonders built. I still don't see any good wonder opportunities because I desperately need to expand. I'd love to have pyramids but I don't think I can afford it. Maybe I can at least squeeze some stone-boosted failgold out of the mids.



Here are the disappointing demographics:


I'm researching Math still. Tragically, that's my GNP at 100%!

I might attack Turfan with longbows to grab those horses! Feudalism is surprisingly early in the tech tree, so I might do it around turn 100. I could skip catapults and go for a 2 turn attack with brute force (dependent on cultural borders). If I time it right, Gira will not have their own longbows, and probably not a lot of catapults yet either. I'll have to make a choice on that idea after currency. It should be easy to hide a longbow buildup as a defensive panic. They are multi-purpose. I might stage them in 2 or 3 different cities so it doesn't look as suspicious. Maybe also a small attack in the south to tie down some of Gira's mounted units.


Space Fact 24: The standard definition for the edge of space is based on the limit of airplane flight. Methods of calculation vary, but it seems to be around 100km. Beyond that, an airplane would have to fly so fast that it would exceed orbital velocity, which is about equal to Mach 23 at sea level.