[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[Ginger()]

Short update this time, t142-143.
Mjmd's power is still spiking, he and I assume SD recently researched Engineering, and he just built Parthenon. My guess is he golden ages with Caste and ends up in more modern civics like Theo/OR/Merc. Odds are he builds the Shwedagon Paya for Paci at the beginning and Theo at the end? He's not cashing his great merchant, and he's saving up a lot of gold, so that's my expectation.
This could be a unique opportunity to strike Mjmd (top power Mjmd), but I don't think I can win in a war without some Crassus Error from him. I'm confident in my buildering skills though, so unless he conquers someone, I should be able to stay a step ahead of him. However, Cornflakes will eventually dwarf us all so my dilemma remains the same. I can predict the future and it reads Engineering, Gunpowder, Chem, Mil Sci, Commando factories. TGL and Music Artist are a huge problem, enabling a golden age and a Chemistry Bulb.

My diplo situation hasn't changed:
Capricious SD is my natural ally, if he commits to CF, I should probably follow suit. 
Mjmd and I have a long border with little depth but its reasonably deescalated with Open Borders. He's been overtly friendly, but geography is whispering the 7 Kill Stele in our ears.
BING is weakest neighbor and likeliest food, but the prizes I'd gain are limited to GLH, some undercottaged land, and a much longer Mjmd border.
CF is big threat and has better rewards for a war, although the logistics for the war are Not Great, with a narrow invasion route, and I'd have to keep a wary eye on Mjmd. 

I swapped into Serfdom as it was worth around 20gpt from farms, and I wanted to restrain myself from whipping to store some fat for Police State Knights. 
Civic switch is a little bit complicated by losing my silver to Mjmd's culture, but the plan is still to swap into Police State/Slavery/Merc/Theocracy once banking finishes. Theocracy swap is a bit of PIA as I still want the OR bonus for Spiral Minaret and Sankore, losing OR will likely cost a turn or maybe even two on each of them. Each turn without either wonder is ~60gpt lost. I'm very happy with the Divine Right bulb. Nobody is going to tech DR so I'll have a head start on anyone try to take Taj, running a lot of GPP mixed pools right now, with about 3 set to hatch a new one in 20 turns. If I get prophet I wonder if it's worth shrining for ~20 gpt. Doubt it but not sure. It's insurance against someone else adopting AP religion I guess.

I'm very, very pleased by the domestic developments. The post-GA AP industrialization has been incredible, and I'm comfortably on top of all demographics except The Important One. 
However, the diplomatic/strategic situation is not great, with shaky allies, competent main rivals, and no convenient food. I'm also starting to build a respectable navy. Although Chm Mjmd will be massing 2 promo Caravels after his golden age, and I might have to tech-trap him with Astronomy. It's either that or go for more economic techs up the rifling line, where I eventually lose out to CF.
SPI has been very good to me, allowing me to avoid making concrete plans for the future and being flexible with development/units.
PHI has been impressive but probably less so than an empire-wide modifier like FIN or ORG
My great people total has been:
1st (Engi) -> Mausollos, 300 base hammers (I had marble)
2nd (Sci) -> Academy ? No clue but probably a fair bit by now.
3rd (Sci) -> Golden Age
4th(Merchant) -> 1300 gold
5th(Merchant) -> 1100 gold
6th(Artist) -> 1250 beakers into Divine Right
The next 3, all dirty pools, should arrive in around 20 turns.

[Ginger()]

Next turn (147) it's swapping into Slavey and Mercantilism. In 6 turns its (Police State?)/Theocracy/(Decentralization?). I'm really not sure about whether or not to stay with Rep for the passive gold or lose about ~40 gpt (and GPP) by swapping into Police State for 5 turns of heavy knight whipping. I don't think Mercantilism is worth it outside of Rep, though with Rep it's incredible. Engineer hammers, compensates the TR loss, and gives GPP. About Great People, I've got roughly 3 20% rolls to land an engineer, fingers crossed. This would secure Taj, and doubly it would send a signal allowing me to sandbag the Taj for later. One possible problem is if I roll a double prophet and engineer, I still need to launch my second golden age before researching Nationalism, otherwise I obsolete the precious MoM. The nerf to that wonder, though 100% deserved, is a real pain in my neck now.

Mjmd just launched his golden age (I'm still top MFG by +20%   ), but no Swegadon Paya and he revolted to OR (and only OR) at the beginning, so *shrug*. I guess he hard techs theology instead of building the wonder? I can't see him not ending in Theocracy, but I would be very happy.

Superdeath has 26 Knights and 8 Horchers on the triple-point border with CF and Jack. Whew lad that's a lot of Knights. I'm praying he slams into CF. I am thinking if there are any ways to influence that decision but I doubt I can. Any threat related to him dowing Jack is a blatant bluff with nothing of mine to back it up and might just insult SD. Any offer of support against Cornflakes won't be real for at least 10 turns as I'm still erecting the final bits and bobs of infrastructure. And theocracy only comes in 5 turns. I'm pre-building in a lot of cities, but about half are still rounding out infra (I'll probably make only 2 banks, in Rome and Arretium, because they're prohibitively expensive but it'd be stupid not to make them)

I've taken out some loans to finish Banking and HBR in one turns and also largely to hide my true GNP, which is probably still world's best, though not by an awful lot. 

Big dilemma is whether or not I want to use Police State in 6 turns or keep the passive tech rolling. I feel like my choices after the obvious HBR and engineering completes are Straight Steel beeline, Steel and Draft/Taj, or Draft/Taj and Edu/Econ followed by Steel Lib.
The advantage is speed of military deployment versus denial of economic first-tos to opponents. Astro is also of interest as it would greatly help picking apart Mjmd.

[Ginger()]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
AHHHHHHH
Amazing
lets hope this doesn't swap one runaway with another

   



   
   




And because I'm just feeling so good right now, here's some demos to brag
   

And another look at my beautiful capital
   
Holy shit that Bank is ridiculous, drops down to 30 gold at break even. WOW. Maybe it's actually worth whipping that. Ordinarily I would never, but hot damn that's a shrine and half.

Speaking of shrines, is it too late for a shrine to pay dividends with Market and Bank? Christianity will be spread to around 20 cities, so 20*1.75 = 35 gpt from a great person. Assuming the game lasts another 70 turns, that's 2400 gold, but backloaded unlike a bulb. Probably silly and I should just golden age, but with PHI and GPP abundance the temptation is very real. New long term plan now that CF isn't immediately going to run away with the game is to get another golden age and either Taj or chain the 3P GA to get to Cannons, and then I'll just make a stack of 30 cannons and invade someone . The new short term plan is to swap to Police State, Decentralization (Merc is too expensive without Rep), and Theocracy in 5 turns fix my current power deficit so I'm not paranoid, then in 10 turns swap to Rep, Merc, Serfdom (Caste if Golden) and hopefully launch my 2 person golden age.

I can't directly ask lurkers if they would shrine a well-spread religion late game, but I can ask if any of you ever had regrets after doing it? Or wish that you had?

[Charriu]

About shrines in late-game: It's not about gold alone. Let's say you are running a deficit of -50 gold at 100% science and the shrine gives you exactly 50 gold. That would allow you to run 100% science for the future. So don't just think about the shrine in terms of gold, but also in how much science it gives you by running more 100% science turns. After all the shrine gets gold modifiers every turn no matter the state of the slider.

[Ginger()]

I open the turn to this...
   
Huh. Wat?

All my gold and gold per turn for copper.


Is this a threat?
What's he threatening me with?

Is this an offer of alliance? 
uhh, not entirely sure what that gets me.

Does he want all my gold to research something (Engineering)?
Well copper won't cut it. 

Sorry to sit on the turn like this but I can't really make my move until I figure out what the hell this means. (I was planning to move my stack forward and nibble but I'm not sure I should). Maybe that was the goal? induce indecision?

Charriu, I don't appear to be getting my Sankore beakers, my passive bpt is still around what it was last turn, when it shouldve shot up to ~200. They are showing up in the city screen. I don't remember this happening with AP though maybe I didn't notice it. Is this a known bug to have a turn-delay on the wonder effect?


EDIT:
Made up my mind; I'm not moving in/vulturing until I see sharkfins. Too much potential for it to blow up in my face.

[Charriu]

That is interesting. I'm pretty sure Sankore worked in the past PBs like PB59

[Ginger()]

That is interesting. I'm pretty sure Sankore worked in the past PBs like PB59

Yup its, broken.
   

Note the % modifier bonus is being displayed but not the yield from the building. 
I'll wait until next turn see if it changes. Losing 60 beakers sucks but it's not going to significantly impact the game, so oh well. 
(Damn it this will happen with SM too, won't it?   Where's my 120 commerce?!")

[Charriu]

That's very strange because I never touched Sankore knowingly. If it works next turn I assume it is some specialty of multiplayer.

[RefSteel]

Oh! I've actually seen this before, way back in PB3! As far as I know, no one actually figured out what caused it, but at least I can confirm it existed in base BtS, and is therefore unlikely to have anything to do with CtH changes - and offer some reassurance that it should correct itself, as it did for us. In fact, in our case, it actually self-corrected mid-turn! If you want to look into it (and/or try to correct it) further, I would suggest trying a few things:

1) Log in again, see if the problem is persisting.
2) If it is, maybe change tiles worked, specialists hired, build orders, or the like, and see if that updates it (then of course change them back; it won't stop working correctly once it's started).
3) If that doesn't work, take a screenshot showing the number of beakers you currently have invested in the tech you're researching and your current bpt rate. That way, if it corrects by next turn, at least we'll know if you got the right number of beakers IBT.
4) If you have the chance to log in after one or more other players has logged in and ended turn (I don't remember if you're in any turnsplits though...) you could try that and see if it corrected during (due to?) something that happened during their turn.

Sorry I don't have any more to offer on this one; almost twelve years later, it's still a mystery to me!

[Ginger()]

247/1560 currently bpt is 154, 7 turns to completetion with a 41 beaker last tick. We'll see it next turn. (hasn't fixed itself on my repeated logins)
542/1560, bpt 224, 5turns, 94 last tick, I doubt that it fixed itself on the interturn, at 195 beakers invested, that looks much closer to 154bpt modified by KTB than the 224 bpt I currently enjoy.
Speaking of enjoyment, between Merc Rep and Sankore, my GNP now beat's Mjmd's in GA
Hi ho, off to steel we go lads.

Ofc the culture from temples and monasteries and 6 wonders probably has something to do with it.