[PB 64] Ginger plays as Charlemagne, famed man of letters

[Mjmd]

With hind site what do you wish you would have done differently this game?

Asking before you come back to win easily of course.

[Ginger()]

With hind site what do you wish you would have done differently this game?

Asking before you come back to win easily of course.

Pregame: 
I wish I had rolled differently and gotten a lategame economic trait like FIN/PHI/SPI/ORG (ORG is kind of lackluster on Monarch and this map in my cramped corner but it would've done decently well too). PRO doesn't cut it without islands to settle.

Early game:
built 2 axes instead of a settler and send it to the city site ahead of time. Or you know, not make assumptions about neighbors' best play based on information they may not have
also, my plan to Oracle Machinery involved me getting the Colossus, but to be perfectly honest, even if Gavagai had not declared I'm not sure I had the resources to pull that off before Commodore, or at the very least, paid enough attention to the buildings in others' capitals. So this is a hypothetical mistake that I never had the chance to commit bc Gav, but is worth mentioning if we're discussing alternative paths this game could've taken.

I also think I could've demanded my city back for peace with Gavagai after Superdeath declared. It would've been bad faith seeing I already was happy with peace before that, but it might've saved me 10 turns of pointless build up. 

Midgame:
Music/Math/Construction was a red herring, should've just gone Guilds, would've been able to convert the production of my second GA into Knights, or rather saved my second GA for bulbs and take it later for when I need to swap civics (like now for Mercantilism). I expected to need catapults for defense, but they're not efficient in small numbers, Knights would've been far superior. Additionally, Music forced me to launch a second GA to get where I needed to be (Guilds). And a GA is not more efficient than bulbing, so it should primarily serve as a means of converting GP into Empire-wide production, like for a war. I kind of flubbed that by having to build wealth to hit Guilds in time. Specifically, Music itself functioned solely as a denial and I didn't get positive value out of the 900 beakers for GP exchange. Possibly negative value since it might've triggered Commodore's invasion.

Also, in my latest invasion of Commodore I could've easily avoided a stackwipe by retreating into Aohngas, unless he had 4 workers in his capital. If I had done that he couldn't have hit me with his collateral, and I could've chilled until reinforcements arrived. Alternatively, he could've moved forward to pinch me off and force me to sue for peace, but then I would've escaped with my stack intact.

And then after the loss, I kept trying to send in more units to further badger Commodore down, even loading up my Galleys with units I could've used amphibiously. to harass his redlined stuff. This was just tilt pure and simple. Those 2 galleys could've saved 4 wounded knights or War Elephants, and I could've saved a further 3 Knights, 2 Xbows If I had pulled them back into my territory instead of charging them forward, and possibly a couple odd units along the Aohngas-Seonidh landbridge if I had retreated properly and sacked the Chariot to cut the roads. that was several turns of production lost because I was seeing red the first half of that turn. 


As for how I could possibly win, frankly I still don't fully understand. In our discord chat, Civac and I came to the conclusion that everybody was failing in their own way;
Amicalola is abstinence-only when it comes to cottaging
Naufragar has shit mfg and as far as I can tell, fewer cottages than I do. (though he's going Monk to fix this)
Superdeath just can't micro and his land is way, way too dry for to not be running Serfdom like I am, I think he's built more mines than he has pop to work with
I tripped down a flight of stairs named "Commodore", have very low mass and have hit my growth ceiling for the geography I was dealt. 
Commodore rolled a truly shit capital and then had the lovely experience of neighboring me
and GAVAGAI? well RIP bozo, he's dead. He decided the wisest course of action was to leave 6 units in the single most important cultural, territorial, and economic lynchpin of his empire, against the border with the most notoriously aggressive active player on RB these days. 

Amicalola is able to run their stupid no cottage gambit because of the ridiculous geographic luck they've gotten, with 3 island cities and a massive extended peninsula that unlike mine, opens up into a large river valley rather than a massive plains-hill range. And they're about to compound their stupendous mass with a turn 170-something, 17 city Hanging Gardens, as *finally* that aqueduct has popped up. However, that's 240gpt Darius's problem, not mine. lol
Amica and I like to talk civ theory and a while ago we came to the conclusion that the monk trinity is incredibly overpowered and underrated by most players, they're not going to just let Naufragar build up that engine. I would've snatched it myself except that it's a city-count multiplier which doesn't help me. As of this turn I have a Great Merchant, which I will have to try to sneak on a Caravel past Commodore up to Amicalola's island cities. 

I'm thinking that I might try to make a break for Steel. Engineering/Steel (bulb Chemistry) is much cheaper than CS/Paper/PP/RP/Rifling. If stuff gets weird with the GP RNG and I happen to roll a bunch more scientists, then this path also preserves the Astro bulb as I am avoiding Civil Service. I would've liked to take a turn of anarchy to go into Bureau and Mercantilism, but I won't be spending >1k beakers on CS for that privilege. So, it's 1.5k beakers Engineering, 1.7k Gunpowder, and 4.1k Steel. This is a really tall order but I don't see my neighbors reaching a counter faster, so the only risk is that someone else ends the game first (Nauf/Amica dynamic destabilizes).

[Ginger()]

t175 short report
Apparently, either teching Engineering, or my rapid rearmament back in second power at 620k and rising has Superdeath nervous—he's spending EP on me (which can only be city vis or graph denial) and resent our fish for fish, sent something like 3 sentries forward, and kept his entire stack prominently visible in Gorbachev. ALthough that last bit is probably to prevent an Ethiopian first strike courtesy of culture and roads.

I was also able to safely transfer my Great Merchant onto a two promo Caravel that can complete the trade mission in two turns. Target Persian island city should get the overseas bonus, full peace bonus, plus Bazaar and Harbor if those amount to anything. It's also a quite respectable distance away

[Ginger()]

               

Current state of local stacks

[Ginger()]

t177 quick update
Harkuf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_Harkhuf gains 1900 gold after a trade mission to Amicalola's island city. This brings us up to nice round figure of 2000 gold treasury, which we burn at a rate of a little under 180 per turn while 5-turning Gunpowder at 100%.
I've left Engineering 1 turn from completion, don't want to obsolete my Phalanx just yet.

Most cities (notably excepting the Heroic Epic with it's constant 72 hpt) are assembling shadow armies in queue, leaving Knights and Catapults and Phalanxes one turn from completion to avoid the unit maintenance costs.

Next GP from the ridiculous 100GPP capital comes in 3 turns, 35/35/15/13/2 of Mer/Sci/Eng/Pro/Art, respectively. I'm very proud of Name of the Rose, despite the unsustainable nature of a GP economy, it really brings a tear to the eye when your plans work out so beautifully

Abroad it seems that Naufragar has overtaken me in power and Superdeath has revolted into Representation and Serfdom, content with his current progress and the inability of Gav to attack, and trying to grow and tech up. Embassytown also expanded it's borders and claimed all the contested hills between me and Gorbachev's (Pyramids city) BFC

Edit: napkin math tells me that after the success of this trade mission, Steel can be researched in under 20 turns if I can dodge the chance of Great Prophet/Artist in the capital

[Ginger()]

11 specialist NE Capital strikes again!
Rolled a 35% merchant, which was by far the best outcome, although Sci and Engineer (85% sum total chance) could also secure Steel timing.

The tricky part is now trying to navigate my merchant through Commodore's lands and seas so I can get it to Kevin's Car (ICTR, peace bonus, Harbor, Bazaar, considerable distance).

I could war-peace with a small gold bribe (the stack should be bribe enough), I could risk getting hit caravels by stacking two ships together and hoping he doesn't bring 3 to the fight... idk. The mobility of his 2-promo CHM ships makes this hard to predict. I could double-move him, but that's shady. Although idk if I'm obliged to give him a shot at my merchant. Ironically if he does kill the merchant I'm forced to act immediately since my long-term plan is scuppered. And the only immediate act available to me is to smash 50 units into him. Will he go for the merchant snipe?

Mechanics question, what happens to a prebuilt Catapult *and* a prebuilt Trebuchet in the same queue when Cannons obsolete both?

[mackoti]

11 specialist NE Capital strikes again!
Rolled a 35% merchant, which was by far the best outcome, although Sci and Engineer (85% sum total chance) could also secure Steel timing.

The tricky part is now trying to navigate my merchant through Commodore's lands and seas so I can get it to Kevin's Car (ICTR, peace bonus, Harbor, Bazaar, considerable distance).

I could war-peace with a small gold bribe (the stack should be bribe enough), I could risk getting hit caravels by stacking two ships together and hoping he doesn't bring 3 to the fight... idk. The mobility of his 2-promo CHM ships makes this hard to predict. I could double-move him, but that's shady. Although idk if I'm obliged to give him a shot at my merchant. Ironically if he does kill the merchant I'm forced to act immediately since my long-term plan is scuppered. And the only immediate act available to me is to smash 50 units into him. Will he go for the merchant snipe?

Mechanics question, what happens to a prebuilt Catapult *and* a prebuilt Trebuchet in the same queue when Cannons obsolete both?

you lose the hammers invested in second.

[Ginger()]

Ok so no sneaky double overflow possible  
multumesc mack 

Well I guess we'll save our prebuilt trebs for steel and pump out all the catapults beforehand. The shadow queue has grown considerably with ~10 units hidden so far, and we're up to 28 knights. I'm so so so sorely tempted to just slam the knight stack into either SD or Commodore* with Engineering roads, but I'm going to steel my nerves and keep it in my pants until cannons.

Speaking of firing your load a little too soon, here is Naufragar's uhhh...
   
uhh... his... ritual suicide? Wtf is that Nauf? What the dog doin? 

Speaking of destabilizing possibilities, this is chief among them. I also might be underestimating Amica's tech potential given that they were sporting 220 gpt at one point and have a consistently high GNP graph. Probably hightailing it to Guilds right now. I don't really know how Amica's gold could be that high even accounting for courthouses and GLH. It has to be wealth builds to some extent, because *I have more pop* than Amica at half the cities. Something bizarre is going on is that isn't wealth builds and I would be fascinated to learn how that was sustained after the game.

I'm trying to get stone from Superdeath to build some Walls and Castles cheaply, but I don't think he'll sell because of my threat factor. 

We have vision on the boats Commodore is fielding, and if he doesn't reposition this turn in the opposite direction he's been traveling, I'll be able to safely transfer the merchant.
 *grumble* I should've just double moved and spared the drama, but I like playing my turns when the notification pops up.

[Ginger()]

   


Everyone has tech vis on me, so they have a whopping 14 turns to react, but what can they do?

Naufragar peeled that arrogant border city out of Amica's cold, Australian hands, but appears to be locked out of further gains/removals by the arrival of Amica's doom stack. The tech between then will also rapidly equilibrate as Amica is set to shortly pickup Guilds.

[Ginger()]

Hmm idk what's up with the tech screen tooltip, but Steel time actually dropped down to 10-11 turns. I guess it didn't factor the prereq bonus from Chemistry?

Not much is happening as my Civ pretty much runs on autopilot with passive production and no tactical threats. Turns tick steadily down until the capital opens it's next Great Person lootbox. Building Castles (PRO trade routes it's +2c) everywhere since Amicalola generously sent us Stone for 5gpt. Should finish it all in well under 10 turns and be able to cancel the deal.

Also, for the first time since Commodore gave me the bonk, I'm once again top power

Serfdom go brrrr