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

[Magic Science]

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?

Your guess is correct. I have no idea why it works like that, but it does.

Thanks for the reports, and . I hope you make it all the way to Advanced Flight and obsolete your Baray-Stables.

[Ginger()]

t186
       


The worst part is the plains watermill being built before a grass hill windmill. Basic micro is to prioritize growth first, and spending worker turns on the food neutral tiles that would enable him to scale up. Also, while I don't have SD's demos via EP, I have everyone else's and can subtract from the average. His power is not great, GNP has been much improved since Rep was adopted but still will only reach Knights muskets. MFG is about on par with Naufragar (who has improved recently after Guilds). 
But the key thing is that SD cannot whip and has no great people for a golden age. Commodore very much can whip and probably has a Great Scientist from his Caste GA sitting around somewhere. SD is dangerous and inventive, but Commodore is just better at that same pain train and more experienced. And of course, Mids > Colossus
All this is to say that SD is the likely target for Cannons in 10 turns. The important caveat is that Superdeath's armies are counterbalanced by Gav and his culture pressure on Gorbachev (RIP). Commodore has no counterbalance and is free to dive in on me if I invade SD. And realistically I will need Astro to secure the seas against Caravel spam. 

Likely scenario I imagine involves just paying Commodore to f-off while I try to digest Mr. Famously Spiky

We're going to shift the Heroic Epic to produce Muskets. Feels bad instead of just making more knights, but guerilla units and mobility knights will be key to making gains along Superdeath's west coast. 

Damn it, Nauf destroyed Amica's stone city, stepping on my sand castles

[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?

Your guess is correct. I have no idea why it works like that, but it does.

Thanks for the reports, and . I hope you make it all the way to Advanced Flight and obsolete your Baray-Stables.

Yes,  indeed. It's almost better that I take an in-game century to research Cannons instead of just 2-turning it at mass deficit like most pitboss economies end up running. I hope that this way it inspires a certain sense of impending doom, a tell-tale heart ticking away... 

Unfortunately I think the rest of the tech tree is out of the cards for me. So far I've solved my abysmal GNP and gained a tech lead by either leaning on the MFG tap or throwing heaps of great people at the problem. 
MFG builds don't really acquire sufficient scale until Communism or Assembly Line. As for the other pillar of my research, just like the Greek debt crisis, eventually the gravy train of specialists in the capital will trickle to a stop. The next Great Person will cost a whopping 1K gpp and take 10 turns to hatch, then 12, then 14...  

[Ginger()]

If this isn’t done in a day, I will declare war on Amica in one half of the turn and Nauf in the other and keep it that way for the rest of the game.

[Mjmd]

Please don't......

[Cornflakes]

If this isn’t done in a day, I will declare war on Amica in one half of the turn and Nauf in the other and keep it that way for the rest of the game.

[Ginger()]

Please don't......

I am utilizing the diplomatic benefits of the PROtective trait. I don’t need no OB

[Ginger()]

Both SD and Commodore researched Guilds. SD cannot whip but is probably diverting all his production into Knights at this time. I'll be really disappointed if Commodore continues to enlarge his land stack and especially if he starts adding Knights. Ironically if Commodore fields better land units, I would have to invade him as I can't leave my Heroic Epic exposed. The best disincentive would be to mass CHM boats that would make pushing past the capital into his islands a royal pain. Since he can't read my mind and know that I value Pyramids and SD's land more, I decided to risk it all and send my Zimmerman telegram
   

Yeah. Not an inspiring offer, is it? "Let me eat my other neighbor, while you attempt to vulture from powers #2 and #3"
Unstated here is that I am power #1
Well, I could just try again for his Capital. I get the impression that Civac prefers attacking Commodore although we're in agreement that the spoils of a war with Carthage would be far more impressive. Maybe I'm working myself up over nothing and I should bite the bullet and try to bulldoze Commodore, his Mahanian nightmare old veteran bag o' tricks and all. 

We are going to start emptying the shadow army from queue, as the fruits begin to rot on the shelves,
   
Case in point Embassytown is dumping out its old garbage.

This is tricky because I have to finish all the knights I have, then pillage my iron for a turn to churn out a crop of chariots. 30 hammers for scouts and pillagers will be very useful, and Muskets can keep the high production cities occupied until Iron resumes. I will need to do this in 6 turns before Steel because Cannons need iron.

   
Also of note, Dune has reached its final form and picked up another workshop, it is now size 14 and 37 base hammers, or effectively 83hpt. Literature and the national wonders have provided ludicrous value in this game where I've stagnated on 8 (well now 9) cities

[Ginger()]

Huh so SD declared before my message to Comm got through. That's pretty useful in a way

He killed a worker and moved some Numids in range. I killed a Numid and an axe.

However, the important thing that changed was that he swapped into Police State and Slavery eating a full turn of Anarchy. Well, that might just have saved his life, because combined with his massive depth that becomes a disgusting amount of trouble to fight. Suddenly I'm considering Commodore as the target more seriously. The wild card in all of this is Gavagai. Specifically, his cultural pressure and his limited stack.

My biggest concern is that Superdeath goes and easily eats Gav if I give him 10 turns of enforced peace. I could try and compete and eat Gav myself but then I have to deal with Superdeath's culture output from Gorbachev, the holy hindu (and pyramids) city. Right now Gavagai's culture is very useful against Superdeath and keeping him pinned down.

So I need to either give SD enforced peace or return an offer of peace but no treaty, which will be intensely distrusted and rejected out of hand.

[Ginger()]

I decide to play it safe (surprise surprise I pick passive) and send SD back peace after whacking some of his scouts. Commodore is in his 2nd golden age which could spice things up. Interestingly no Caste switch, so he's not interested in Astro?

Also, I question the wisdom of golden age with a Merchant and Scientist. He doesn't have a very populous empire, nor a lot of production tiles (no Moai for example). That could've easily been a crap ton of gold and a bulb. Although he might have accidentally opened up Philosophy earlier in the game by researching Mediation.