Are you, in fact, a pregnant lady who lives in the apartment next door to Superdeath's parents? - Commodore

Create an account  

 
[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

(September 30th, 2021, 14:05)Rusten Wrote: Yeah, we can wait. Just make sure we're safe from civac now and things are looking good.

Economical infrastructure other than the most important ones should wait. Units are more important. By the time they pay back our game will be more influenced by whether we can take (and hold) possessions.

I hope this list finds your approval:


Whipping a lot of drydocks and frigates. Taoist missionaries are important for 2 promo ships, in particular ironclads. But we have only 2 monasteries, and they're not ideally positioned. Also Bonfim wants to finish its Salon.
Banks are for Wall Street. Never managed to get unis up for Oxford, we have the one in Bonfim and the one finishing in Corta Cana, and then one or two where I sunk a number of hammers into to whip eventually, but the cities are now busy with military.
While the whip is cracking, I am relenting a bit on the draft. I fear we will be forced to research Rifling immediately after Steam Power. So before that I'm pumping cannons in the off coast cities.

Meanwhile:


Ichabod (Hammer) bagged the Physics scientist, that seems ok. Frozen (Vicky) got Steam Power and Corporation already scared . I think however that he can't have a GE, and that would mean he's just going for infantry, which would be great tbh, keeping his juicy land safe(-r) from Picc's greedy hands. But I can't 100% rule out losing Mining. Little we can do, really. I have been reconsidering a Kremlin run because we're whipping so much, but we also really want to get into Emancipation soon, and it doesn't feel like we have the excess gold for rush buying. contemplate
Reply

While waiting for Mjmd to play I want to discuss a bit plans for the immediate future.
I'm really tired though and might ramble, bear with me please.

So the upcoming turn is the last one with Wellerman in revolt. My original plan had us starting a GA when that's over, and pop 2nd or even 3rd ring immediately with caste artists. But as has transpired, I'm really afraid of civac, in particular his navy, right now. From that follows that we want slavery at least until we get a good number of additional frigates and the first ironclads, while also drafting rifles. Now the envisioned GA had us running caste and finishing with Emancipation, so there's the first conflict. As you could see in F1 we are also drafted and whipped pretty low. Most relevant hammer tiles are still getting worked, but we would miss out on a ton of GA commerce on coasts.

What do we want a GA for, besides the border pops in Mjmdland? Basically we are falling behind economically. We are running for Mining and have to clear the techs of Rifling, Constitution, Corporation, Railroad for that. Maybe fit in Democracy, possible divert to SM->Communism.

We currently have a GS, 2GM, and 2GE. The GEs are meant to build the Mining HQ and Wall Street. Paraná will get a mixed scientist/spy/priest/engineer in 14 turns, before accounting for the GA bonus.

So what I want to propose is to fire the GA now, but stay in slavery because we need to whip that fleet(s). Tech path Rifling -> SM-Communism -> Consti-Corporation -> Railroad. Maybe Rifling later. We could or could not rush Kremlin instead of Wall Street, but the real catch would be the spy, who most likely would enable a 3 person GA to follow not long afterwards, where we would finally get democratic civics, and industrialize.
Civics during the GA would be HM* - slavery - Nat** - FM - Theo, and that would be what we end it with as well.
*probably better than Rep, because we have few specialists and it has less upkeep.
** It's tempting to go FS instead, at least for a couple of GA turns. Because 2pop drafting during the GA is hurtful.
First need to check whether Communism is safe, but I think it is.

It feels a bit like a wasted GA, with no major civic changes and on low pop, but I feel like if we wait until we don't want to whip anymore we'll just keep wasting those GPs' potential, and we really could use a boost right now, even if suboptimal.

Variations of it have us delaying Communism until after Railroad, hoping that no one goes for it or if we lose it, that we'll get a 3rd GP for the next GA [it]somehow[/it], although it's unclear how and if it's through Paraná it will be slow. We might want to research Democracy to get US at the end of the GA, and Emancipation if we think we can afford to lose the whip.


After rushing Kremlin slavery is on a whole new level, however if everything goes as planned we'd end up with the weird combination of Kremlin and Mining Corp while achieving nothing for commerce.
By making slavery more awesome Kremlin also makes Emancipation less interesting, and also Nationalism, because if a 2pop whip gives 90 raw hammers, you're better off whipping than drafting a rifle in a city with a forge, and it gets full XP. But maybe the No Upkeep is still better than Vassalage or FS.


This is all not thought out too well yet, but I wanted to get the ball rolling for the discussion.
Reply

I'm a little tired, but in case you didn't know: Kremlin also discounts rush-buy. Not just slavery.
Reply

Sure, that was our initial plan for this game after all. I just fear that we're not really making a lot of money in comparison to others. So I don't see how we could afford to rush buy at a significant rate, even if we got the discount.
Of course Mining Inc also trades gold for hammers, but it's more balanced with the HQ earnings, or so I'd hope.
Reply

With all the talk of GE rushing Kremlin I just remembered that we had earmarked the forests at Malandro (Dono's old border city) for that purpose. Just have to find out where I sent all the workers; we will need a bunch of new ones anyway as well with railroad (IIRC we are still art 15 for our 45 cities). And we might consider switching to OR for 5 GA turns for the chops.
Reply

Q: How do we get culture on this island:


  1. send missionaries
  2. whip libraries (before the forges?)
  3. research Drama (540b) and get some quick theatres up. Would also help Maré Subiu, whose artist may never finish otherwise.
  4. research Music (1080b)
All cities need a border pop, save maybe the one in the SE.

civac this turn has more than twice our production. In GA, but still shakehead


GG Ramk, unfortunately my selfless quest to save you from Mjmd's fangs was delayed by Charriu stepping in. Hope you enjoyed your game.
Reply

Missionaries or libraries, while favouring the first one.

Quote:So what I want to propose is to fire the GA now, but stay in slavery because we need to whip that fleet(s). Tech path Rifling -> SM-Communism -> Consti-Corporation -> Railroad
I strongly dislike delaying railroad now that we're so close. Having MGs would make us so much safer against everything civac could send on us, and it would lock up mining corp. They're immune to collateral and categorized as siege weapon, which means no bonus for any of his units in the near future, and they even get a boost against gunpowder.
If we go for rifles then we can't 1-pop draft AND they're much weaker against grenadiers. Especially Agg grenadiers which can easily get amphibious. I do prefer drafting rifles for 2 pop over musketeers for 1 at this stage, but it's not a very big benefit, whereas Railroad/MGs really helps fortify our defenses, especially along the coast.

It will free up some of our forces and the technological advantage will greatly help against a short term production disadvantage.

edit: If going RR first means we need to delay the GA that's something I'd be willing to do.
edit 2: But I'd also be willing to fire up the GA and hope to get a 3rd going later for the cottage civics. And if we get unlucky with Kremlin/Paranaue we can just eat the anarchy (or beeline CR for über-SPI). What's the GP situation RN, what do we have sitting idle? How big of a % can we give Paranue to spawn a 3rd type? One scenario for no caste during GA and one for with.
Reply

(October 3rd, 2021, 23:07)Rusten Wrote: Missionaries or libraries, while favouring the first one.
The problem with that is that missionaries are rare, have long ways and are needed in drydocks cities to give us 2 promo ships. Also we have no galleon chain established to that island right now (who's managing that empire again rolleye ?), although that could probably be fixed. Meanwhile the cities are starting to feel pretty dynamic, just whipped the first forge. I think it will be a mix of both, with the not as urgent cities maybe getting an eventual missionary. Although nearly all of them have some commerce to make use of a library as well.



Quote:
(October 3rd, 2021, 23:07)Rusten Wrote: So what I want to propose is to fire the GA now, but stay in slavery because we need to whip that fleet(s). Tech path Rifling -> SM-Communism -> Consti-Corporation -> Railroad
I strongly dislike delaying railroad now that we're so close. Having MGs would make us so much safer against everything civac could send on us, and it would lock up mining corp. They're immune to collateral and categorized as siege weapon, which means no bonus for any of his units in the near future, and they even get a boost against gunpowder.
If we go for rifles then we can't 1-pop draft AND they're much weaker against grenadiers. Especially Agg grenadiers which can easily get amphibious. I do prefer drafting rifles for 2 pop over musketeers for 1 at this stage, but it's not a very big benefit, whereas Railroad/MGs really helps fortify our defenses, especially along the coast.

It will free up some of our forces and the technological advantage will greatly help against a short term production disadvantage.


So first off, machine guns vs. rifles.

Pros of rifles:
  • draftable
  • counter civac's immense amount of knights that I'm very sure are sitting on those 15 galleons
  • counter Charriu's Cuirassiers, which we'll need to handle in 7 turns if we want to maintain a mainland holding in Portugal
  • do well in a combined defense with cannons
  • cheaper tech
Cons:
  • extra tech that leads us nowhere before we get AL
  • drafting them at 2pop each will hurt awfully
  • we can no longer draft 2 movers for 1pop.

Pros of MGs
  • higher base strength
  • collateral immunity
  • RR is a great tech for us (railroads, Mining Corp), also greatly improving defense logistics
Cons
  • not draftable - we'll have to build them at 125 hammers each, which is over 3pop even in cities that do have a forge
  • they don't do all too well on defense against knights
  • collateral immunity isn't that important atm - we are on defense anyways, and want to hit his collateral first
  • they can't attack, so we'd need to keep drafting musketeers I guess

For me it's really the availability - how many MGs could we field in reasonable timeframe? Also we are unlikely to reach RR before the Charriu peace runs out. Your point about grenadiers is of course valid - I'll need to test whether a rifle or a musketeer would defend against an amphibious grenadier (or someone tell me please smile ). civac's GA should last 1 or 2 turns more; we will see if he switches to theocracy. If not and if he also keeps nationalism, his grenadiers will be at 3XP.

So I very much still feel that we should tech Rifling next.

On your last point, I'm not so sure that the production disadvantage is short term. We've been pretty much trapped into constant whipping units and drafting for a long time,  and I don't see yet how that will go away anytime soon. We are 5th in population with #1 crop yield, because our cities are so much smaller than everybody else's.
(Because we have a Brazilian theme here, an old saying comes to mind that fits our empire disturbingly - "Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be").
During civac's GA, our MfG is less than half his eek , and our GNP even at 100% is less than half of the leader.

(October 3rd, 2021, 23:07)Rusten Wrote: edit: If going RR first means we need to delay the GA that's something I'd be willing to do.
edit 2: But I'd also be willing to fire up the GA and hope to get a 3rd going later for the cottage civics. And if we get unlucky with Kremlin/Paranaue we can just eat the anarchy (or beeline CR for über-SPI). What's the GP situation RN, what do we have sitting idle? How big of a % can we give Paranue to spawn a 3rd type? One scenario for no caste during GA and one for with.

Ok I need to be clearer about the GA. We currently have:
1 GM + 1GS earmarked for the 2 person GA
2 GE - one for Wall Street, one for Mining
1 GM for the 3 person GA
[rant]I've said it before, one of my greatest frustrations with my game here is having all those GPs sitting around for so long without contributing banghead [/rant]

Paraná is 13 turns (without GA) away from a mixed scientist/spy/prophet/artist/engineer. Without new specialist slots (I guess we could build more temples?) and not accounting for the GA the one afterwards would take 28 turns. Maré Subiu has been building a GA at about 300/800GPP, but it would need to run 12 artists nonstop during a caste GA to finish him and that isn't quite feasible.
As said I'm not sure if we can even afford caste during a GA so in that case the GPP boost would be lesser.

So the Communism spy would enable a 3 person GA shortly after the 2 person one, around Assembly Line I imagine (unless Paraná trolls us with a second spy). Without him it might come very late or never. That's my main interest with it right now.

Of course we can gamble, tech Constitution-Corporation-RR (or RR first?), and then see if Communism is still around, but that's very unlikely. Or just accept the later 3 person GA.

So, stuff to be decided:
  • Fire a GA now with slavery, or whip some ships and hope that we come to a situation where we can afford caste? We would most likely still be drafting Rifles during that GA. Delaying the GA means further delaying putting our GPs to use, and keep falling behind on a global scale meanwhile.
  • Tech Rifling?
  • Tech path after (or without) Rifling:
  1. SM-Communism-Const-Corp-RR
  2. Const-Corp-RR-(SM-Communism)-Combustion
  3. RR-Const-Corp-(SM-Communism)-Combustion
  4. ??
Reply

Maybe whip a Salon over library? What's the current status of that UB again? I don't remember what the intended version is and what the bugged version is. Can we run a free engineer if we build it?

Reading your post I'm very torn again. I think you should make the decision as you've got a better view/feel of things playing all the turns. If you think Rifling will suffice then I'm cool with that. I'd be very scared of puttin thousands of beakers into "nothing" techs (SM, Communism, Constitution, etc) and then get attacked just as they complete, but that's for you to judge. Maybe going Rifling first and then evaluating again when that completes is best. With so much important stuff starting a GA seems correct at least. Hopefully we get the great spy.
Reply

Yes, Rifling, save some gold and then look how we follow up from there. That could well take some 6-8 turns. I'm just not sure whether to fire the GA now, after Rifling, or when? Right now we're whipping a ton of boats, and then on top we want to draft rifles... But it feels like there's just no perfect moment, and delaying it further means delaying our payback from the earlier GP generation.

The Salon suggestion is pretty good. It gives an artist slot and a free specialist, who can be an engineer, so that's neat. With a forge the Salon costs exactly 4pop (likely going for a 3pop whip); that might be a bit costly in some cities, however the difference to the library is just 48 base hammers and gets paid back in 24 engineer turns, which should be worth it?
Reply



Forum Jump: