[PB62] Tarkeel and civac feel the need for speed

[civac2]

Indianapolis



Now, this is a city. Two high-powered food sources and another 6yield tile. Grows some cottages for Spa for the time being but should become a production city down the line.


Kyalami



Settled for the gems and as a border fortress against Mjmd. Could use another spear.


Nurburgring



I considered this city a blunder at first when we were losing money at 100% tax. But it in a way having a whipping post that doesn't whip off river hamlets is nice. The economy is also doing OK now; these maps are so rich it's hard to kill it off for good.


Sochi



We considered this city as our second and it turned out to be the ninth. Correctly, too. While it has decent potential it is a hassle to develop with the second food source in the outer ring and a lack of forests. Development is further set back by it whipping the galley for Iceland.


Jerez



More greed. Will stagnate on size 1 until it has built its granary (with the help of a chop) and the border expansion has grabbed the rice. These events coincide nicely.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 82 (825 BC)
After sacing gold for almost 20 turns we finally researched Sailing T77. Sochi whipped out a galley the next turn, picking up a settler that was deposited on Iceland, to settle Ile Notre-Dame on T81.


Superdeath also managed to squeeze out a tech, picking up IronWorking on the same turn. We spotted his settler coming north into the area we're baffled he hadn't already settled, and used the 2 chariots we had in the area to keep him honest, but we don't really want to fight.


After saving gold for the last 5 turns we're ready to burn another tech, getting Writing next turn. Silverstone has grown into unhappiness, ready to whip out a library next turn. Our goal right now is CodeOfLaws, going there through Priesthood. This gives us cheap courthouses, a religion, and most likely a scientist-triggered golden age on the horizon.

Naufrager seems to be steamrolled by Mjmd, losing both of his coppers recently and is now down to 3 cities. I'm not sure how much Mjmd is getting out of this war though, as he's still stuck on 6 cities, same as Vanrober has been for a while.



Île Notre-Dame is an artificial island in the Saint Lawrence river in Montreal, built for the 1967 Expo. It houses the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which despite the name is not a permanent race track, but actually a public park for the rest of the year.

[civac2]

Something intriguing happened this turn. We researched Writing as Tarkeel indicated. We had 13 beakers invested from overflow and Sid pity beakers while saving. At 80% we put 108 base commerce towards Writing which comes to (108 + 1) * 1.46 = 159 beakers. This is exactly enough to clean up the 172 beakers Wrinting costs with these settings.

However as you can see we somehow gained 3 beakers of overflow (lower left corner).



What I think happened is that someone researched Writing this turn and we got an additional KTB bonus. That would exactly have the effect of granting 3 beakers of overflow. Tarkeel tells me that Pitboss turn rolls are processed by randomizing player order and then processing the player turn rolls sequentially. I seem to remember reading something like that too. That would be consistent with my explanation above.

Oh, there was also a turn of Civ played. Mjmd is still running around in naufragar's territory with 4 of his 7 chariots. Presumably, the other 3 met their maker. We played before both so it's possible naufragar loses another city this turn.

Vanrober is committing to a serious military buildup.



At least, that's what I thought at first. His production is equal to ours. So maybe he is just investing natural hammers into making units the way we are doing it ourselves. Every spare hammer in our 7 old cities goes into an axe or a spear, no whips.



We are tied with Vanrober in production as mentioned. If it was someone else we would be first. We are also 1 food short of doubling the number two now. Library whips are lined up in some of the big cities so that will change.

[Tarkeel]

We recieved an offer from Superdeath for our war with Mjmd for his war with Naufragar. Our paranoia regarding Superdeath in this game has been pretty obvious, so on the face value this is a good deal. We don't want to fight either Mjmd or Superdeath in this era though, and have no real incentive for doing so, so instead we're sending fish back to Superdeath. Mjmd did accept our offer of open borders, which should boost his economy but hopefully give us some peace.

The way I see it, he's going to slam those praetorians into someone, and I'd prefer it to be someone else. Naufragar would give him contact borders with Mjmd which might lead to further bloodshed as those two are unable to trust each other. There's also the question of how far we can trust Superdeath; he didn't accept our open borders offers so this might just be a way for him to move our forces in another direction and then strike us. For now we're keeping the garrison in Zandvoort in place while stacking excess axes on the gold tile south of Monaco, where they can best reinforce in several directions.

We also had a good discussion about where to go after CodeOfLaws and Monarchy, and we quickly agreed upon two medium term goals: Guilds for knights or Engineering for Citadels. MetalCasting and Machinery are on the path for both, and forges and crossbows would serve us well. Maths and the three C's don't hold too much sway on us in this game which feels weird.

[Ginger()]

11 cities and second in GNP while 0% 

[Tarkeel]

If you look back on the city shots Civac posted you'll see that just about every city is only working cottages and food; the only non-resource mine we have is the one Fabled left us at his capital. We are starting to build a few more now though, but we're still extremly commerce focused.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 85 (750 BC)
Naufragar's fall continues as Mjmd burns another city. I'm not sure what Mjmd is playing at as he burned the Pyramids city. Now his economy might not be able to support too many more cities but we just gave him a lifeline with foreign trade, or might not have had the forces to keep it, but this is a costly war for not much gain. Our scout has been mapping out Mjmd some:


That is one scary late-game capital! The only tiles that aren't riverside are the hills 2N and 2S. Superdeath on the other did send back fish but is refusing open borders, so we'll have to treat him as potentially hostile. He did signed open borders with Mjmd, so it was one of them that got writing. Someone has math, which is most likely Vanrober. We on the other hand will finish Meditation next turn, and most likely found the first religion of this game. On turn 86. This has been one crazy game so far.


Silverstone whipped our first library last turn, and Monaco will follow next turn, then Spa and probably Zandvoort down the line.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 86 (725 BC)
Buddhism is founded in Spa, which was 4th on our prediction list. It's not the worst place to get it, at least no neighbors wil be too annoyed. We settled our twelfth (and probably last for some time) city. It will need border expansions to be worthwile, so a team of workers has already chopped out it's monument:


Out scout spotted Mjmd's victorious chariots heading back home, and will try to shadow them:





The Paul Ricard circuit is located on the French riviera has been a favorite place for the teams to run winter testing, and has been hosting the French Grand Prix since 2018. Those insane blue and red swirls are abrasive coating on the run-off areas, designed to slow down cars and punish the tyres.

[civac2]

We dropped from 29gpt to 15gpt after the founding of Paul Ricard and the library whip in Monaco.   Not sure why it is that much. The city increases total costs by 13gpt but should also add yields of 5gpt. The whip should only lose ~4gpt.  Anyway, the point of the city is to grab the silver as mentioned before. We are at the happycap or beyond in nearly all of the 7 old cities.

[Tarkeel]

There's something wront with the unit cost display in the economic advisor:


Note that unit costs are listed as 10 in the overview (which adds up to 122 total), but the pop-up details list 19. That tracks better with what we're actually paying in costs; 147-122-9 = 16.


Unit counts for the record.