[PB56] Lazteuq's Cool Facts about Space

[Lazteuq]

Turn 96
Civac got the Pyramids. I only got 81 failgold. Currency should be T101.

Wonders:
-Great Lighthouse would have been good, that window is past.
-Colossus sounds alright, but I bet one of the FIN leaders will beat me to it by miles.
-Statue of Zeus could be good for becoming the ultimate cactus.
-With PHI's fast Universities and the Stone bonus, I should get Oxford relatively early. If I get that far anyways.
-I'll definitely want Moai on the island city.

I'm getting a bit worried about Gira being opportunistic with Keshiks. I can definitely imagine a quick strike on Antioch or my upcoming new city. I should probably have a second archer minimum in these border cities. Also going to send another exploration scout by Karakorum to keep Gira honest.

The location Noble planted Standstill is really frustrating, because it limits my options for additional cities even if I take it.
I'm confident I could build up enough chariots to take Standstill, I'm just unsure if its worth the investment.
I'm worried that Amicalola and Noble have reached a stable border arrangement and don't want to attack eachother because they're both too strong. That leaves me as an obvious outlet for Noble's extremely high manufacturing and food output.

Tech:
It's disturbing that we're already only about 30 turns from when Knights start showing up. Maybe I can trust the horse supply from Amicalola well enough to go for Cataphracts after all. The good news is, I can go for Guilds beeline without messing up the Astro bulb opportunity later. I just have to avoid Civil Service for a long time. I really want to try cataphracts+galleons. Then Guilds leads to Gunpowder, so I could add Privateers to the mix, all without ever researching CS! (am I forgetting something?)
I'm sure I won't be first to Knights even if I beeline it, but I could probably still make an impact.
Before any of that, I need more happiness, so Monarchy is in order. Only 1 calendar happy(Dye), so Monarchy is definitely more profitable than Calendar. Right now the happy cap is only 6.
Still need Iron Working too.

Space Fact 35: Some of the Apollo moon missions were cancelled due to budget cuts in the late 1960s. To avoid wasting some of the equipment which had already been built, NASA made other missions, including the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, where a US spacecraft docked with a Soviet one in 1975.

[Lazteuq]

I played some singleplayer CtH last night and realized some things:
-I WAS forgetting something: Galleons and Privateers also require Paper now. oops.
-Also the Astro bulb path requires alphabet to be taken care of, and I have to carefully avoid Meditation because of Philosophy. I should know this stuff, but it's been a long time since I did an astro bulb on a singleplayer isolated start.
-I don't think War Weariness is balanced on larger maps. Actually I don't like the mechanic at all, but I find it especially annoying when the unit and city counts are higher. It's harder to counter WW because you have more cities to keep happy, while the WW is also higher because more units are built and die on larger maps.
-I think PHI is better on smaller maps. Partly because buildings like Academies are better when you have less cities total, and partly because the impact of a single bulb or trade mission is proportionally larger.

Currently I estimate I've fallen 5-10 turns behind the middle of the pack. I think my tile micro is good, but I struggle with choices of what to build. For example, I don't think I had enough workers here because I've been working a lot of unimproved tiles. On the other hand, if my settlers were slower, I might have lost even more land to these CRE neighbors.

[Charriu]

You are right about galleons needing paper. But privateers shouldn't need paper. Have to check this myself

[Lazteuq]

Ah that's interesting. I was just making an assumption. I verified in WorldBuilder, you are correct, no paper necessary. Going on the Guilds path means Privateers are only one tech beyond knights, plus Astro of course.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 100!

My recent economic recovery has been pretty successful, but it comes at the cost of falling far below average in military power. 3 cities have Barracks now, it's time to grind out some units.
Noble continues to pile units on the border. I fear an attack is imminent. I think Noble might be overestimating how many units I have in reserve. I would have attacked already if I had perfect information.
Mjmd declared on Vanrober. Meanwhile Amicalola has fallen behind in military power, just like I have. Not looking good for slowing Noble down...

Just whipped a library in the capitol and will soon have one in Nicaea as well. I'll probably enter a golden age soon. I want to time the Hereditary Rule swap at the end of the GA. Of course someone will probably attack during the GA and force me to panic whip.

I parked 3 cannonfodder chariots in Angora and moved a second second archer back to Nicaea because Gira is making me nervous with that 4 keshik stack. If Gira simply wanted deterrence, they would have put archers, axes, or spears in Turfan. Not Keshiks!

I'm up to #7 in crop yield. I suspect #8 is Jowy. Still #9 in Production.
Sorry Charriu, I won't have lumbermills this game. I've already chopped all but two forests. However, I did use lumbermills a lot in a recent singleplayer game, and it was definitely effective. Far better than workshops for medieval times.

Tech path idea:
-Finish Currency
-Polytheism
-Priesthood
-Monarchy
-Feudalism
-Iron Working
-Construction
-Metal Casting
-Machinery
-Horseback Riding
-Guilds
-Profit???
-Alphabet
-Gunpowder
-Bulb Astro
-More Profit???
-Code of Laws
-Civil Service
-game will probably be over, who am I kidding.
I don't think I'll need anything on the Aesthetics path. Eventually Calendar would be nice.
If I collect more great scientists, I might get Education and build cheap Universities, but I don't think I'll have that luxury.
I should eventually try to get a Merchant or Artist for a second GA. That either requires Caste or building a Market at least.

Space Fact 36: Mercury orbits the Sun at around 50 km/second. This is fast enough for relativity to have a noticeable effect on Mercury's location in the sky. Astronomers in the 1800s couldn't understand why the orbit was always drifting ("precessing") slightly.

[shallow_thought]

Hey, you're still reporting, you seem cheerful and you're not reduced to moaning about the other players.

I call that break-even, maybe  .

[Charriu]

Sorry Charriu, I won't have lumbermills this game. I've already chopped all but two forests. However, I did use lumbermills a lot in a recent singleplayer game, and it was definitely effective. Far better than workshops for medieval times.

Oh don't worry. I was in a similar situation in PB52, where I had to chop out an army

[Lazteuq]

Yeah, break even sounds about right. The turns are still fun to play, and I haven't lost motivation because there are still interesting things to do.
I could complain about the map more, but I think Superdeath has been complained at enough already. Apparently other players in the PB59 thread have some issues too.

I just signed up for PB59 (the big one). I thought it was pretty funny when Mackoti called this game a "starcraft variant of civ4". Despite my unfortunate situation, I kinda like playing with small land areas per player. I think PB49 was a great example of a tightly packed, asymmetrical map working well. Is that controversial, or was PB49 universally considered good?

I suspect my situation here will continue to look like yours in 52, Charriu.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 102:
Gira did a lot of 2pop whips, and that Keshik stack from Turfan is heading south. This is probably an imminent attack on Jowy. There's another stack farther into Gira's territory south of Karakorum. I estimate Gira has about 15 Keshiks total. I tried to send Jowy a diplo message warning with 2 gpt, 1 horse, and War with Gira. Ideally, Jowy and Gira get into a long war of attrittion, leaving Gira technologically backwards, and then I backstab Gira and take a bunch of land with superior units. That's one option anyways.

Noble killed my scouting archer on a hill with 15% odds. Now I don't have vision into Standstill. I had pulled one of the archers back because Gira was making me nervous. Now I don't need that Archer, and I don't have the vision either. Noble has enough units in Explore that I'm actually worried about a 2-pronged attack now.

I have a dream of razing Counterspell and settling my own city on the inner coast. I'm sure Noble would see me moving units over there and react. It's frustrating to not have any depth. Even 3 archers in the city would make it exceptionally expensive to take with chariots. I guess I could move units through Gira's land to be sneaky.

I think I'll start up the golden age next turn and finish Monarchy at the end. My empire's production absolutely sucks, I'm only just now building a decent number of mines. I'd like to get some units slow-built with the GA-boosted production. Hereditary Rule will work wonders, since most of my cities are border cities anyways.

I feel a bit bad for causing this perpetual war turnsplit with Noble. I do believe it is important though: I'm keeping a lot of Noble's units tied up on the border. If I were to make peace with Noble, he would be free to send an army toward Amicalola, who is quite weak.
Now Vanrober and Mjmd are seriously fighting, which means Amicalola is free to focus on Noble without worrying about a Vanrober backstab at least. I'm not seeing increases in power yet though. I worry that Amicalola will just build infrastructure and Noble will keep developing his huge territory. He hasn't even filled in all the land yet!

Space Fact 37: There is a network of RADAR stations all around the Earth called SuperDARN which measures the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. They are sort of like military early warning radar, just targeting different things.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 103
Noble offered peace. His ~10 axes and 3 spears are definitely a threat to my planned golden age. They aren't that much of a threat in terms of actually taking cities, but I would lose productivity and specialists from defensive whipping. The timing of his peace offer couldn't be more perfect since I want to start a golden age now.
I sent the peace offer back to him after looking around. I chose to not start the GA yet, to wait for his response.
It takes like 6 turns for units to cross his expansive empire, so I suspect Noble will just keep those units on the border even if we're at peace.
I'm a little worried that Amicalola will cancel the horse deal if I make peace with Noble.

I took a Silk for 7gpt offer from Gira. I figured that's actually a great deal for now, since every single city could use more happiness. I'll probably cancel it once I finish Monarchy.
On the other hand, I lost track of Gira's Keshik stacks, so it's still possible that I'm the target. They might strike the poorly defended southern 3 cities of the empire. I would be totally crippled at that point. Any amount of success depends on me staying at peace for the next 20 or so turns.

Space Fact 38: The face of the full moon usually looks the same to the naked eye, but it does wobble slightly. That's because the moon's orbit isn't perfectly circular. That's also the reason why the moon sometimes looks slightly larger than normal.