[PB70] Charriu tries to promote the arts again

[Charriu]

The song



Music: Alex Moukala - Final Fantasy VIII 'Attack on Dollet' OC ReMix

Final Fantasy VIII was actually the very first Final Fantasy I played and I still remember the opening phase of the game. Especially the moment when the original played. Great spectacle for it's time.

Alex Moukala manages to amp up this song even more. The addition of a choir is a great choice, but what really turns this song up to 11 is the pounding drums and other percussions. Those add so much more brutal force to the piece. No wonder Alex Moukala is also contributed to some Hollywood productions like Ben-Hur (2016), John Wick 2 and Avengers: Endgame.

This is yet another arrangement you can find and download from Overclocked Remix.

T104:

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The echo of the trade embargo showed its ugly face this turn, but let's start from the beginning. Directly after the embargo was set in motion but before T104 I communicated with Mjmd.

Charriu: Hey, by now you may have noticed that we closed borders towards you. I know this is awkward, but I wanted to let you know that I still do not seek an open war between us. We closed borders because:
We fear you are becoming too advanced!

I would hope we can keep a healthy border despite that.

Mjmd: I'm becoming too advanced. Your tech is much better. I thought broadly you, Scooter, and I were about even and I don't have a Bing to expand into. SD GLH economy isn't quite same level but its not like SD is easy meat ever

Charriu: I was only trying to find the adequate Civ AI response to trade routes. I see myself opening borders to you again in the future, when I am closer to your current empire level. I too see Scooter and you on the same level, but your recent 7 city+Hanging Garden move is somewhat intimidating.

Mjmd: Scooter has multiple wonders, a banked GE, and will probably get more of bing than you if he moves sooner than you're ready. You have an academy and great library. Your tech rate will blow mine away. While my play was good, it's hardly game breaking. And not out or line with what you two are doing

Charriu: I do agree with you about Scooter. He has the longterm strongest position, mainly because of the easy expansion target in Bing.
I also agree with you that your move wasn't game breaking. I'll be very honest with you. When you dropped that play people were somewhat panicked that you would run away with the game. Public opinion was that something had to be done against you. In the end I was happy that the smallest possible measurement was taken.

I know this won't help you or will make it better for you. I think what will happen is that public opinion about you will cool down in the next turns and I could open borders with you again.
In the meantime would another NAP ease any security concerns of you?

Mjmd seemed very angry and I tried to calm things between us. I truly meant the last things I wrote. One big mistake in my diplomacy here though is the AI quote at the beginning "We fear you are becoming too advanced!". That was understandably aggravating and I will soon tell that Mjmd. This was uncalled for by me and I did not consider enough how it would be perceived on the other side.

Well then came T104 and according to PBSpy Mjmd razed a city of mine.

Mjmd: We fear you are becoming too advanced!

I have no further aggressive plans. If you want that spot back I take payment in gold, but without a deal I do have a settler on the way

Charriu: Which spot are we talking about? I'm willing to negotiate if I know what happened. I'm just not at my PC and therefore don't know which city you razed

Mjmd: I mean most of your empire on my border is safe. The banana city. I thought I took a picture but evidently didn't

At least he didn't raze Shimomura. Instead he razed a rather young city. I knew I had an axeman in there. I also remember not seeing anything in there last turn. He must have roaded at the border and used chariots. I knew I have nothing in the area to compete with him and a war would hurt me more then him. So I was willing to negotiate.

Charriu: I thought as much. Do you have a deal in mind? I'm also willing to open borders again together with not entering your territory and a NAP

Mjmd: Open borders and 400 gold (200 / city I could settle in that space). I'm also fine with you keeping a scout in my territory, you dont have to stay out

Charriu: Uf that's harsh man. You know I don't have that much at hand right now? Is there any way to lower your gold demand?

Mjmd: You can pay 40gpt as well. Someone might point out it was harsh organizing a trade embargo while clearly being ahead in tech. So I'm trying to even us up in tech

Charriu: Just to be clear I understand that you are angry. I just wanted to make clear that I did not came up with that idea. On the contrary I talked the others out of dogpiling you.

I think I should be able to pay 40 gpt. But I would ask you to be merciful. Is there anything else I can give you?

Mjmd: Open borders is fine. No more required

Charriu: Thank you. I will make it up to you

Mjmd: I had sent a peace treaty. You can decline that and send back a gpt offer. I'll turn my settler around

Charriu: Oh sorry I misunderstood you. I thought you were moving away from the gpt demand. I will pay, but I think you are being too harsh for the damage I caused you.

Mjmd: Nope 400g in whatever payment plan you want and open borders. It's a bargain for essentially a 3 city swing. You get 1 city and I dont get 2

Charriu: Like I said I will pay

Well that the trade embargo turned out great. Here is the situation on the ground when I got to the turn.




As expected Mjmd used a newly build road and a chariot to raze my city. I don't see his settlers, but I trust they are on their way. My settler most likely will be to late (my plans show me resettling this city in T110. First of all what went wrong here. I just had underestimated Mjmds speed to react to the embargo and left only 1 axeman in the city, which was careless. He also had another chariot in the area as you can see, so even if the axeman would have won the city was dead. The tragedy in here is that I just chopped a forest in T103 and together with working the iron I could have just produced a spearman and the city was safe. But I was to sure that Mjmd wouldn't be that fast. So loosing this city is totally my fault. Another option would have been to delay the embargo further until I have a spearman there, but I didn't want the others to wait that long for a reaction.

So what are my thoughts on the deal. It's quite ambivalent. Clearly Mjmd is also not ready for a big war and/or doesn't want to fight one. Otherwise he would not have granted me the possibility to resettle. Then again I think he totally overreacted to the trade embargo. I mean we all know the talk about "small wounds" here at RB. But I would argue the embargo wasn't even a small wound rather a nuisance as Bing, that stubborn goat, refused to close borders. On the other side I have to admit that this was a great play by Mjmd to lift the embargo partially. In the end though I think his demand is to harsh. I would have been ready to pay even 200 gold. This harsh deal though I will remember for this game and there will be some payback at a later time. Should I end up in a kingmaking position I will not have a problem to give the win to Mjmds enemy. I mean even before his action he must have noticed that I wanted to make it up to him. But no he was out for revenge.

So in summary another good play by Mjmd that may have lasting impacts for the future. Well played.

Now there were some more reactions from the others. First of all Scooter.

Scooter: Did Mjmd just burn one of your cities?

Charriu: He razed my most recent city and demands 400 gold and open borders. Said he has settleds at hsnd to deny me the spot. I did not anticipate him to react that fast to this mild punishment we put on him

Scooter: Yikes. Are you able to block further advancements?

Charriu: No, I will pay up and resettle. That way he does not gain 2 more cities in that area.

Scooter: Oof

Charriu: I mean do we want him to have 2 more cities. I think not. 2 more good cities that is

Scooter: Are you sure he wouldn’t get them anyway

Charriu: I think I can prevent that. If he takes my gold and settles anyway then that is a total dick-move. And people would remember that

Scooter: Yeah I would just recommend getting it certain. He seemed very mad about the OB situation. And 400g more than wipes out the embargo sadly

Charriu: Absolutely, he totally overreacted. Well at least now I know who to lean towards to if I am in a kingmaking position in this game. ? But I think 400g is worth it if I can prevent him having 2 more cities in a great position to attack me.

Scooter: He sent me some quite unhappy messages and I thought it was because he saw my trireme and assumed I was going to pillage because otherwise why be so angry over a few gpt. And then I found out it really was the OB closure

Charriu: I'm mean we all know the "small wounds theory", but we didn't even attack him. Geez.

Just to be clear I think Mjmd is honorable and will not betray the deal. He showed honoring his deals in the past and I do not suspect him to dishonor them now. Lastly Bing turned up.

Bing: Only moved the skirms forward on the offchance but I head that's all between you and MJMD for now.

Charriu: Yes it's only a short episode.

So much to your previous message of "Yo, just wanted to say I am not planning to attack you (ever really) given that your other neighbour, MJMD, is popping off.
Wouldn't want to weaken his neighbour.". Bing is such an opportunist. Just to be clear I will not remove any defenders on the Bing border. I would rather Mjmd conquers all of my land then give just one city to a trickster like Bing. He does not deserve to be rewarded for this behaviour.

[Charriu]

The song



Music: Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra - E.V.O. 'In Admiration of Nature'

Now you are probably wondering, what is E.V.O.? This was a strange, but interesting SNES game. In it you take control over an animal way back in the prehistoric seas in a sidescrolling View. You have to kill other animals to get EVO points. Those are used to develop your animals body parts totally unlike evolution, but that's what the title is hinting at. Eventually you move through the planets eras and can also develop feet, go to land and eventually even flying. Cool concept for a game I have to say.

The music as you can here is also very nice. This is mainly just an enhanced version of the original, but with a rarity of a game like this you are happy with every orchestral arrangement you can get.

I mentioned this in the past, but this is one of the rare Audio-CDs from Japan from the 90s. Good luck finding it.

T109:

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After somebody had to raze my beautiful city I resettled Matsumae this turn renaming it to New Matsumae. This time I came prepared with an axe and a spearman. Unfortunately because Mjmd had to declare war this also bombed our trade bonus. Therefore we don't get any trade routes from each other for a while. Great job. Also take note of the galley south of Kirkhope. It is conducting a blockade hopefully it cuts of some trade routes, but you never know. Did a similar thing on the other side. Despite the payments I had to endure I still finished Drama in T108 and started Theatres almost everwhere for desperately needed happiness.

Since Bing also showed that one cannot trust him, I am now protecting my workers at the border with an axeman and he did the same for his workers with a skirmisher. Bing actually finished Iron Working in the last turns and spawned a scientist, which he used for a golden age to finally finish Mathematics and then Currency I presume.
The others were also busy. Superdeath finally spawned a Prophet and constructed his shrine. Scooter founded Judaism and is probably preparing for a golden age to swap into Organized Religion. I also told Superdeath what happened between me and Mjmd

Charriu: You probably noticed that Mjmd burned one of my border cities. I had to make concessions to him in order for him not to continue towards me.

Superdeath: What kind of concessions? Nothing monetary I'd hope

Charriu: Unfortunately yes. Otherwise he wouldn't have gained even more good cities

Superdeath: More cities he is unlikely to afford easily with our embargo

Charriu: But does it have to be my cities with noce river graslands?

Superdeath: Gotta defend ur cities man!
?

Charriu: Oh and Bing seeing one city razed immediately moved some skirms towards me hoping to gain something. So much for him being a reliable help. Didn't declare war though yet

Superdeath: That's bing

Charriu: Yep at least he made his position clear. That is never trust him

Superdeath: Yep. Do you have HBR?

Charriu: I do. Anybody else has it?

Superdeath: Was curious who had it. Nah, just you. Archery as well? Or is it just bing and I assume, scooter

Charriu: No Archery yet. I researched Horseback Riding for different reasons at this moment

Superdeath: Ic

Knowing Superdeath and the meta, he probably thinks that I am teching towards Guilds to enact revenge on Mjmd. Typical. That's exactly one reason why I do not like MP games that much anymore. It's always the same. Of course I am not researching Guilds because that's just boring. I did Horseback Riding now to be able to build stables and then later War Elephants.

[Charriu]

The song



Music: L'Orchestre de Jeux Vidéo - Sonic 1 and 2 - Live Orchestra

How can I not have posted anything from Sonic. And it's the OJV again. Loved that little SEGA jingle at the beginning. You will find a lot of great pieces from both games here, but my personal highlight is from 2:49 onward. Really lovely. Also that sax from 4:30 onward is awesome.

T112:

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Hey it's another city. Nakamura is named after Masato Nakamura, who didn't do that many video game OSTs, but the two he did were very famous as they are Sonic 1 and 2. And we all know who did Sonic 3.

Mjmd and I agreed to a 5 turn NAP after the peace expires just to improve border resources. Since last time I posted I finished Meditation. Mainly to able to spread religions as I explained previously. But the monastery in Tin will produce 3 beakers each turn after I settled another Great Scientist there this turn. Nice. And because the Apostolic Palace was finished for Buddhism I also started a monastery of that in Uematsu. those 2 extra hammers are very welcome there as is the additional culture.

Bing started a golden age and just finished Currency thanks to it. But the fact that he needed a golden age to lift himself out of the hole he dug himself is also very telling already.

[Charriu]

Question for the lovely lurkers:

As you know Mjmd and I have a 40 gpt deal running. If Mjmd does not cancel the deal this turn T115, he would gain 40 gold when he rolls his turn. Now when I get the turn still in T115 I could cancel the deal and would get the 40 gpt back, therefore we would have generated 40 gold out of thin air. Did I understand this correct. Remember we are sequential.

[Charriu]

The song



Music: Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra : SCORE Game Music - Journey - I was born for this

Wow, just wow. I mean we all know that the Journey soundtrack is amazing and the game itself is real art. Of course this is mainly close to the original, but it is so well performed. And I haven't even spoken of the vocals by Sabina Zweiacker. She is the star of this piece and in my opinion her interpretation is better then the original. Even the composer himself was amazed by this performance as his own comment under the video demonstrates.

T116:

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And another city founded. Wintory is named after Austin Wintory, who not only did some film soundtracks but also a lot of video game OSTs. He's best known for the games at Thatgamecompany he worked on like Flow and Journey. After that he also did the soundtrack for The Banner Saga, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Abzû.

Wintory will be another production site at the eastern coast. The game itself gets into a more annoying state. Bing finished his golden age and got a good chunk of tech out of it. Not enough to get close to the others, but enough to get his economy up. Problem is I lost tech vision on him because Mjmd built ORG-powered courthouses and is investing more espionage into me and probably the others too. I too have some courthouses under way, but it will take some time. But not only that Mjmd also took the Great Artist from Music. I had planned to go there myself, but at a later stage. Well at least now I don't need to tech Music that fast.

I myself finished Metal Casting and started forges in some cities. Mainly for the 2 extra happiness, but the extra hammers are also welcome especially in my production cities. I also got a random spread of Confucianism in Kondo and Judaism in Koshiro. Nice another religion. After Construction I will start the sprint towards Education. According to my micromanagement spreadsheet I should have it in T135. And yes I still do the micromanagement spreadsheet. I'm really proud of that thing and it works great.

[RefSteel]

Question for the lovely lurkers:

As you know Mjmd and I have a 40 gpt deal running. If Mjmd does not cancel the deal this turn T115, he would gain 40 gold when he rolls his turn. Now when I get the turn still in T115 I could cancel the deal and would get the 40 gpt back, therefore we would have generated 40 gold out of thin air. Did I understand this correct. Remember we are sequential.

I haven't tested this myself, but I believe the way it works is: You don't actually get anything back; you get free gold out of thin air because you never actually lose it. I think (again, not tested) a gpt deal doesn't transfer gold from your treasury to his each turn; it increases his income by 40 gold per turn, and increases your expenses by 40 gold per turn. His gold gain comes at the end of his turn, and your expenses are processed at the end of yours, so if you accepted the deal on your turn and he cancels it on his, 40 of your gold vanishes into thin air, whereas if he accepted the deal on his turn and you cancel it on yours, he gets 40 gold out of thin air. If I'm indeed remembering correctly, then it's possible to exploit this to preposterous extents via multiple gpt offers and war declarations - but it's also possible I'm completely confused. I might try it in a hotseat game to be sure.

[EDIT: Also, thanks for the game music selections and the thorough reporting!]

[Charriu]

I thought as much. Just a thing one needs to be aware of in sequential so as not to accidentally exploit it.

Nice to hear people are enjoying the music. I can't agree though about the thorough reporting. I have a feeling I could write a bit more.

[Charriu]

The song

https://merregnonrecords.bandcamp.com/tr...-zanarkand

Music: London Symphony Orchestra - Final Fantasy X (Piano Concerto​)​: I. Zanarkand

Another piece from the outstanding Final Symphony Concert. Final Fantasy X is an interesting case as this is exactly the game where the baton was given from Nobuo Uematsu to Masashi Hamauzu. In my opinion Hamauzu is filling those big shoes excellently.

The piece itself is an arrangement of Final Fantasy X into a piano concerto. By the way if you happen to not know some of those terms I through around here just ask and I will explain them. With the piano already being very present in the OST (just think the famous Zanarkand theme) this format is actually very fitting. You will probably find a lot too love in this piece and I don't want to spoil it all for you.

You can buy this piece directly from bandcamp.

T125:

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Oh boy feels like ages that I last posted. So what happened in the last 9 turns. Well quite a bit:

- scooter went for Paper and finished University of Sankore. Great more science with buddhism. I will probably spread that religion and switch into it.
- Mjmd is in a longer golden age. He also finished Parthenon.
- Superdeath is also in a golden age and switched into Bureaucracy.
- Bing has built a swordman.




As for myself since T116 I finished Construction, Archery and Civil Service and I am now on my way to Education, probably finished by T134 thanks to a bulb from a scientist. Two more cities will be settled in the future. T131 will see the spot on the marble island being settled. Scooter gave me the go to settle it. In T135 I will settle the last city in my territory near the cow.
Both my borders are peaceful right now. I had a few short NAPs with Mjmd to connect our border resources. Slowly more units are stationed in the border cities but nothing to be worried about. Bing now has 3 skirmishers in each of his cities.
What do the graphs tell us though:




I'm happy to see that I stay close to scooter, who not only has 5 more cities but also Representation at his disposal. Also Bing only managed to be better then me thanks to a golden age, which is great. Although his economy is getting better.




I'm doing way worse in production then scooter, but with IND I would have expected as much. Once again good to see that I'm equal on production with Bing, who has 4 more cities.




Most likely my worst stat, but what did you expect when everybody else has at least 4 more cities. Then again with 4 less cities I'm actually not that bad.




Pretty equal.

As for my maintenance. Right now I'm loosing 135 gold each turn and running only gold I am making 82. What about the others. Well

Maintenance:
1. Superdeath 125 gold
2. Charriu 135 gold
3. Mjmd 159 gold
4. Bing ??? gold (He isn't doing binary research, so it's not easy to judge him here)
5. Scooter 226 gold

Gold per turn:
1. Mjmd 394 gpt
2. Superdeath 177 gpt
3. Scooter 105 gpt
4. Bing 84 gpt
5. Charriu 82 gpt

Yes I do have the worst gpt. But that's not the whole picture. Keep in mind that thanks to specialists and settled great people I am doing 73 beakers per turn every turn no matter the slider. Those do add up quite a lot over time. Of course my biggest weakness is that I have the lowest amount of cities and therefore production queues. Speaking of those let's have a look at them:




As you can see the capitol got a few more cottages. I still need to grow those but once they developed it will be a good capitol. To increase my happiness here I had to built a (very cheap) theatre and as you can see right now I am building a forge mainly for the 2 happiness. One funny thing I do every time I do 100% science is swapping tiles with Kondo in the south to get the more developed villages to the capitol as it has a better science modifier thanks to the academy. You can also see that there are still forests here, which I will use to chop out a university later. Oh and just on the turn roll my 5th scientist spawned. This time though it will be used to bulb Education in a few turns.




Kondo right now is in the process of switching from a pure commerce city to a mixed commerce and production city. You can see the lumbermill in the south and a mine. Another lumbermill will be constructed on the forest west of the ivory. Thanks to the forge it will get to a respectable amount of hammers.




Unlike Kondo Shimomura is already done with the important buildings and is ready to produce units for the foreseeable future. It has some additional hill mines for more production in the future.




Uematsu is coming along in a good way for a pure commerce city. It already has a market to produce me some more gold and of course another happiness. For the same reason a forge is constructed here. I know some people would see the forge as a waste in a hammer poor city, but I think the 2 extra happiness will be worth it in the future and hey at least the forge helps with whipping. Another difficult job for Uematsu will be to jumpstart the conversion to buddhism which thanks to PHIs new monastery bonus is made easier here.




Ah Mitsuda my proud Moai city. It already has a the important buildings like market and forge down. I will also built the settler for the cow city here.




David Wise is small, but for its size it has quite a punsh in terms of production. After the stable it will turn to mainly unit production, which is desperatly needed here in the north.




Kikuta is doing exactly what it is meant to do. Culture pressure towards Bing. As you can see I recently took over the important first ring tile from his city. Other then that this is my hammer poorest city in the whole empire. Longterm it desperatly wants buddhism and those AP hammers, but that's a bit away for now. As you can see I am working 2 scientists here over the coast tiles. With the city at its happiness cap those scientists are better then the coast tiles.




Kirkhope will play an interesting role in the future. As you can see the happiness buildings theatre and market are already done. The forge will also be built some time later. Right now its building the settler to settle the other spot on this island. The interesting part though is the following. With its immense food surplus I will run a mixed pool of specialists in order to spawn a specialist to trigger my first golden age and another hopefully non-scientist person in the future for a second golden age.




New Matsumae is back and already has its granary and theatre. The last one was desperately needed as I am loosing culture ground on the banana tiles 1S of the city. That's also the reason why I haven't built a road there just to be sure. Of course another reason for the theatre is Globe Theatre which is started just this turn. To ensure a faster built process of the national wonder I am borrowing the iron from Shimomura for a longer time. Good thing about Globe theatre though is that you can just go crazy with whipping overflow hammers into it. By the time the unhappiness becomes a problem the wonder is most of the time done.




Koshiro started it's job to develop capitol cottages. The Jewish Monastery is mainly so I can spread that religion too. Longterm the city also wants a market.




The latest border city towards Mjmd, Nakamura just finished a lighthouse with this turn. After that it will get the usual library and theatre as most city do get them.




And last but not least the 9 turn old Wintory. The food sitution will improve once the farm 1SE of it is finished, which then will bring the wheat up to 5 food.

That's it for my empire. I think I will do a few more reports about the other players empires in the following turns thanks to a map trade I got from Scooter. I will close this report with the latest diplo interactions:

This is from when Bing started his golden age:

Charriu: Congratulations to Apostolic Palace. You probably noticed Bings Golden Age. Thanks to that he will finish Currency next turn.

Scooter: thanks! and yeah I did. wasn't he just on math still like 2t ago?

Charriu: Yes, before the Golden Age he finished Iron Working. Then in the golden age Math and now Currency

Scooter: did someone loan him money

Charriu: Last time I checked no

Scooter: I don't know how he could afford it otherwise. ok

Charriu: He didn't receive direct gold gifts in a bigger sum. But I forgot to check gpt deals this turn.

Scooter: ok. maybe I'll check later today when I get another chance

Charriu: Bing only gets Incense from Mjmd.

Scooter giving me the marble island.

Charriu: About that marble island between us. Don't you want to settle there? Because my borders will pop soon. It won't deny you the spot yet, but it makes it awkward.

Scooter: you can have it. I was considering it recently but it seems awkward and challenging to share that island. I have two on the marble facing Mjmd so it's all good

Scooter noticing the music artist being snatched by Mjmd

Scooter: I'm hoping that artist I saw in the event log was not Mjmd swiping the music artist

Charriu: I will check that

Scooter: 90% sure it was. I was starting to wonder when you were going to take it

Charriu: You are right. He did take the Music artist. I had plans to go there, just not that early. Other techs are more important for me.

Scooter: bummer

Scooter initating a map trade

Scooter: I picked up paper. It's pretty low impact at this stage, but interested in an in-game map trade? And/or do you have any concerns about map trades. I haven't traded with anyone yet fwiw

Charriu: We can certainly trade maps

Scooter: Do you have a preference on the order? For example I could try to swap with Bing first and you could get his map that way. Not sure how much difference it really makes though in open borders + diplo where everyone is pretty thoroughly scouted

Charriu: Bing hasn't scouted my territory. I would like it that way.

Scooter: ok, he already accepted a map trade with me. i sent trade offers to mjmd and SD too. so i'll send you the trade offer last

Charriu: Thanks

Fear of the Mjmd

Charriu: By the way I lost tech view on Bing because Mjmd built ORG courthouses and I somehow need to be close to him for graphs

Scooter: Yeah the courthouses are causing me headaches too. Should have some of my own soon at least

Charriu: Same here. Mjmd is investing 13 points per turn into me

Scooter: So, I'm increasingly concerned he's getting to the point of not possible to catch. My fear with a plan of splitting Bing is he just piles on you from behind and then it's a 2v2 that we will struggle with, and it leaves SD as the big winner as he can pick a side and decide things. What if instead I got Astro as early as possible, and you and SD headed towards Knights, and we 3v1'd him. I can take the islands and provide naval support (and I can supply some CKNs), and you guys could collapse on him by land. Just spitballing here but I'm trying to figure out a way to catch him before it's too late. (I haven't discussed this with SD or anyone else, wanted to get your feelings first)

Charriu: I'm also concerned about him. Right now I'm investing into some Horchers, war elephants and catapults for general defense. I'm far away from astronomy

Scooter: astronomy is tricky. I can get it within 20T I think, but it requires me to Liberalism it. which I imagine others will have interest in. I can liberalism even faster, but the pause for compass/optics makes it harder. 20T is a rough estimate. i'd hope for faster

Charriu: My plan was to pillage cottages in Bing's territory to keep him in check. But same could be done with Mjmd. Kill his cottages and you throw him back a lot

Scooter: sure, I just know with his population it would not be difficult for him to whip an army and strike back quite hard. And I can try to participate, but pre-astro I can only provide so much with Galleys moving 2 tiles and holding 2 units and vulnerable to Triremes

Charriu: Yes, but does he have the techs for those units?

Scooter: I think he could get them in 1-2 turns if you've seen his GNP lately. My top concern here is the chance that even my plan would be too late

Charriu: Have seen it, but remember he is in a golden age

Scooter: sure, but that's goign to continue for awhile

Charriu: True

Scooter: 36 turns of golden age is super plausible and ending at Taj and tacking on 8 more is also very realistic. Basically I think he's going to greed and go straight to nationalism. i'm hoping an astro Lib could punish that but it only works if I can actually get Lib and compass/optics without someone beating me

Charriu: The other problem is that guilds are not on my tech plan right now. I actually was planning to go Civil Service, paper, Education and gunpowder. Could have gunpowder around T141

Scooter: not necessarily a huge problem. Guilds was just an example, but gunpowder would be good too. Guilds is more likely to be Superdeath's target maybe

Charriu: I think for guilds i still need monarchy, feudalism, machinery and then guilds

Scooter: yeah pretty far away then. I think there's a lot of value in us collectively taking different paths as we can trade units if need be

Charriu: Good point

Scooter: for example, I can give others Galleons. to zoom out, I'm basically at the following fork in the road. I have:

- teched paper already
- gold in the bank from trade mission
- scientist popped that can bulb most of education
- another great person dice roll in a few turns that's either a scientist (bulb philosophy or the rest of education) or a prophet (shrine)

So, I have a good path to liberalism. If I'm playing solo or no diplo, I'd probably just take nationalism and try to take Taj myself.

But if I had coordination, I would greed a little and try to slip in compass/optics and get Astro instead and try to knock the leader down a few pegs
but obviously that requires buy-in from you and SD. I'm hopeful it sounds appealing to both because you guys would get more spoils from a divided Mjmd. but it needs to make sense for everyone in a way that doesn't result in someone just buying out of the war immediately
maybe think about it a little and let me know what you think. I don't have to decide right now, but relatively soon.

Charriu: I'm open for a bit of revenge on Mjmd. Also worthwhile. Checking out which of his wonders are in coastal cities for a surprise attack with razing.

Scooter: Yeah absolutely

Charriu: I have a scout on the way through Mjmd and could check that out.

Scooter: I have his maps now and will trade then to you, so that will resolve it. Feel free to login and request, I forgot

Charriu: That solves that

Scooter: If you do I’ll accept when I play tonight’s turn. Assuming it happens

Charriu: Will do next time. Shouldn't be the most important stuff right now

Scooter: Ok. I can feel SD out on this topic too soon if you want?

Charriu: How good are your relations with him. Does he trust you?

Scooter: Pretty good. I get the feeling he’s just fence sitting for now

Charriu: Also is he hiding his gold income? Gets gold every turn but always shows 0 gpt

Scooter: I’ve wondered. Def possible

Charriu: Shrine can't give him that much yet with maintenance in play

Scooter: Yeah Hindu isn’t super widely spread yet

Charriu: Yes. I also had a good laugh when Bing turned jewish. By the way congratulations to apostolic palace. Glad I have a Buddhist random spread

Scooter: Thanks. I was hoping to have a shrine earlier, but awhile ago I missed a 93% prophet spawn and got a 7% engineer instead I’m enjoying the PHI monastery boost

Charriu: Me too. ? Makes it easier not to run organized religion

Scooter: Yep. OR seemed kinda pointless to me this game. Would like to see someone go Gandhi + AP and really go wild with it

Charriu: Yep and throw in Egypt to make sure to get religion and a fast shrine from UB. The building bonus is also very nice though from OR

Scooter: It is yeah. In my case I got forges cheap and early too so it felt more ignorable. But OR for SPI players is great obviously

Charriu: Forge is the true star with IND. Getting those earlier then the rest generates way more hammers then any other trait building bonus

Scooter: Yep. Making whips better on a food heavy map was super helpful. Plus the happy

Charriu: Doubly so because forge also gives 2 extra happiness

Scooter: Yeah exactly

Mr. Scooter and Dr. Charriu are investigating what the others teched.

Charriu: Just checked. Only Great Wall and Stonehenge as well as Hanging Gardens are in Mjmd coastal cities. Mjmd might also have teched Machinery. He may be on his way to Guilds himself

Scooter: Yeah not really anything super juicy. So someone finished machinery? I poked at SD a bit yesterday. He was interested but non committal. He admitted Guilds was in his plans but seemed to imply it wasn’t the ultimate goal

Charriu: Yes, I doubt it was Bing. He probably teched Monotheism and promptly switched into OR

Scooter: So it could be him. But likelier Mjmd. I’ll ask SD

Charriu: No I already did

Scooter: Ok good. I’ll leave it be then

Charriu: I think Mjmd did machinery

Scooter: Interesting. Nobody even has monarchy let alone feudalism though right. So he’d have a little ways to go. Though I think he’s teching quite fast. I think more likely he wants to be able to get caravels quickly if needed. He’s quite concerned about me navally

Charriu: Yes nobody has monarchy yet and therefore no feudalism. But should he go for Guilds it's better to have more time to prepare. Caravels might also be likely

Scooter: Well we will know if monarchy or compass drop soon

Charriu: Yep

[the next day]

Scooter: did you ever hear back from SD on whether it was him or Mjmd that got machinery

Charriu: He didn't say outright that Mjmd teched it, but the subtext implied it

Scooter: ok. yeah he refuses to give straight answers sometimes. feels like a waste of time talking to him at times. Think he just intends to sit on the fence this game
guess I will stay tuned to see what mjmd techs next then

[next day after Scooter had a successfull diplomatic victroy resolution from AP]

Charriu: Congratulations to winning a diplomatic victory. ?

Scooter: Haha I was surprised the prompt came up and was curious so I hit it and laughed

Charriu: Funny thing happened. After the turn roll I gained tech vision on Bing again. I will probably loose that again after his turn. He's teching Construction
And somebody got Monarchy

Scooter: Someone got monarchy. Yes. I assume Mjmd. Prob guilds then. Both he and SD are in GA so if we see one go HR that’ll answer. Actually I think that should be visible right. On diplo screen

Charriu: You mean the 'adopt civic' deal? That only works for civics you have too

Scooter: ah bummer

Charriu: I have the first war elephant ready and am showing it to Mjmd hopefully that discourages him from attacking me with knights.

Scooter: if he did get monarchy then you are safe to assume that is his plan

Charriu: Oh could you check how many people have Construction next time you are in?

Scooter: 2 I noticed it this morning because I thought it was 1 very recently

Charriu: Ok one is me. Bing is teching it right now, so the other is either Mjmd or Superdeath

Scooter: I sort of doubt monarchy and construction are both the same person it seemed like they happened the same turn, though I'm not 100% sure

Charriu: Good point. If we know one we know the other too

Scooter: but the 2 of them landing machinery/monarchy/construction in the span of a few turns is telling. I asked SD about a dogpile and he was incredibly non-committal
and said he needed like 25T. And Mjmd hasn't exactly asked me if I was interested in splitting SD

Charriu: Oh SD lost gold this turn, so he must have run 100% beakers

Scooter: yeah if I had to guess I'd put Mjmd on Machinery/Monarchy and SD on Construction mostly just because I think SD's tech capacity is mu;ch lower

Charriu: Would be my guess too

Scooter: have you signed any NAPs

Charriu: Only a short one with Mjmd to improve border resources which is running out in T124

Scooter: well it happens to be t124 right now

Charriu: Bing is as talkative as ever and I don't trust any NAP with him anyway.

Scooter: I have one with SD until T150 and a deal to not accelerate naval ships on the body water between us with Mjmd until T135

Charriu: And SD needs like 25T for a dogpile. Interesting.

Scooter: yeah I would bet he also has one with Mjmd until around the same time and he's waiting to see which one he wants to join

Charriu: Probably

Scooter: one other small detail that I found interesting. SD told me he had a deal or at least proposal worked out with Mjmd in which they'd fight a phony war with old units and get each other Heroic Epic. mentioned this the other night, which I thought was interesting as it suggested they've worked together maybe more than I thought

Charriu: Mh interesting. Let them do that. It kills their trade routes.

Scooter: yeah it seemed like a weird plan to me lot of effort for something you could just unlock via actual war

Charriu: And we know whith whom we could do that. ?

Scooter: yeah "no i dont want to join your dogpile until i can fight a phony war for heroic epic" ooooook I'm generally a little mystified as to why he's not more enthusiastic

Charriu: That phony war will hurt SD more then Mjmd

Scooter: in my mind he would be by far the biggest winner of a 3v1

Charriu: I would agree with that. And to be honest with you I would probably also gain more from such a war then you

Scooter: yeah. my only interest is keeping him from running away. if he doesnt want to do that I'll just go take land in the other direction
i mean sure I could grab a couple islands I guess the value of those is pretty limited

Charriu: My guess is we wouldn't be able to conquer Mjmd in one go anyway and it would turn into a war of attrition. Therefore pillaging his cottages is probably the best way to hurt Mjmd in the longterm.

Scooter: a limited conflict would even make some sense basically hold the knife to the throat in terms of threatening razes and use it to force a NAP sign, then turn around and hit Bing while he recovers. but idk, if he's beelining guilds right now this may be moot a part of me wonders whether SD told Mjmd about my proposed plan and that's resulting in guilds priority from Mjmd

Charriu: Mh I wonder which information we could give SD to test this hypothesis.

Scooter: I wondered whether I could fish it out from the other direction ask mjmd if he wants to split SD and see if he accuses me of playing both sides

Charriu: Worth a try.

Scooter: might give it a try sometime soon. will think about it. SD basically said no without saying no to my idea. definitely came away from my talks with him feeling like there's things he's not telling me

Charriu: SDs answer to this: "Either you or Mjmd got Monarchy last turn."

Guessing him?

So either SD is hiding something or he has no plan what he is doing in this game. ?

Scooter: WHY NOT BOTH

Charriu:

Scooter: Obviously he’s being evasive for the sake of being evasive

Charriu: I just teched archery ? he just said

Scooter: It’s possible construction was a couple turns ago. Wait shouldn’t bridges be visible

Charriu: Oh yes good point. Will check that soon again

Scooter: I have a moment, so I'll check now

Charriu: Thanks

Scooter: lol waht everyone voted for me hahaha i thought you were joking

Charriu: Congratulations again

Scooter: are bridges not visible until you unfog i guess?

Charriu: Yes, but I have a scout in Mjmd territory. Will check too

Scooter: ok. yeah I don't have eyes on either of them my scout that just got to your borders is headed to mjmd's land which will be its new permanent home

Charriu: Interesting. I see no bridges for both SD and Mjmd. But Mjmd only has diagonal river crossing, which never have bridges. Very curious if Mjmd did that on purpose. If yes, then genius move. But I will keep an eye on bridges while my scout is in his territory.

Scooter: I would be absolutely shocked if that's intentional. that suggests to me it was likely Mjmd who got it I guess it was definitely not Bing right?

Charriu: Definitely not. I got tech vision on him

Scooter: ok. i'll dig through old screenshots when I'm back at my pc and see when's the last time I took one of the tech screen

Charriu: For Constructino. I doubt Bing was able to go for Monarchy. Because he recently got Monotheism

Scooter: we know this for sure:

1) SD says he just completed Archery
2) Someone JUST completed Monarchy

Charriu: That's for sure and Bing is teching Construction

Scooter: We also know:

3) Someone completed Machinery like 3T ago
4) Someone completed Construction recently. It's likely to be Mjmd

Charriu: Machinery can also be checked via watermill or windmill builds

Scooter: man if all 3 are Mjmd I'm going to be sad his tech rate will be even more blazing than feared if so also could probably be checked by lumbermill tile yields idk if either player has built any

Charriu: Bing has built some, but will check those too

Scooter: i can't fathom how he could have completed machinery

Charriu: I doubt that too. Just wanted to let you know

Scooter: fwiw Mjmd is spending pretty heavily on me with EPs because "I don't want to spook my neighbors" so I have to put everything into him just to keep sort of pace. and he has tech vis on me so I won't be gaining tech vis on anyone anytime soon despite having a couple courthouses now

Charriu: Superdeath has also built a good amount of courthouses

Scooter: yeah he started spending on me recently too

Charriu: SD has tech vision on me too. Oh equally important for the guilds part. How many people have Horseback Riding?

Scooter: last I saw just 1 obviously it's easy to backfill that when ready

Charriu: Yes, but people do it before Guilds to prepare some horchers to upgrade to knights

Scooter: right

Charriu: But I'm not afraid. I know who teched Horseback Riding

Scooter: but even if Mjmd has machinery/monarchy, that's still 1k beakers at feudalism and more than that for Guilds so slipping in HBR between Monarchy/Feud feels about right going to be funny if we go through all this hassle to figure this out and then one of them GA-revolts to HR later today one thing I am pretty certain of from talking to SD is he's angling for Taj. To clarify, he told me this a couple days ago:

"Honestly, I think I can beat him [Mjmd] to Taj so long as he doesn't have a pocket engineer"

Charriu: But just so we are on the same page. You also know who teched HBR, right?

Scooter: you've had it for awhile right

Charriu: Yes. ?

Scooter: that's what I thought

Charriu: Mainly so I can build War elephants

Scooter: right. because I definitely remember realizing you had HBR but no archery which was funny

Charriu: I have Archery by now

Scooter: ok

Charriu: By the way you will be happy to know that I plan to spread buddhism and eventually convert to it. Sweet sweet extra hammers. ?

Scooter: nice. hoping I get lucky and finally get a shrine in a few turns. something like a 35% prophet dice roll coming up shortly I've missed on like 3 chances to get one already

Charriu: Should you think about spreading buddhism to my cities then I advise you to gift the missionary to me before that. That way it will never fail spreading.

Scooter: right. I was just reminded of this a few weeks ago after I made a comment in my thread about being glad that one of my 90% odd spreads succeeded someone pointed out that I was fretting over nothing

Charriu: Yes, but recently I noticed I have to give that same treatment to corporate executives

Scooter: I poked at Mjmd and he sort of confirmed he got monarchy

Charriu: Uh interesting. Means he probably will switch into HR next

Scooter: yes

Charriu: But it also means he rather quickly teched Machinery and then Monarchy

Scooter: I framed the question somewhat jokingly as a "obviously this is on the way to guilds" and he sort of questioningly replied that monarchy is to change civics
so I took that as confirmation unless I guess SD got machinery as machinery, then 2ish turns, then archery does make sense

Charriu: It probably is. No reason in hiding it, if you switch next turn anyway I mean Mjmds comment

Scooter: right. Maybe Mjmd was construction and monarchy and SD was machinery-archery the latter makes sense as a duo to unlock xbows

Charriu: Well construction is eventually confirmed via bridges

Scooter: right I just want to make sure Mjmd wasn't all 3 of the mystery techs which would be downright disheartening in how fast it would be

Charriu: true. Still no bridges visible and the forest both Mjmd and SD have do not show any lumbermills.

Scooter: ok. 2 players have civil service 0 had it last night. was either one you?

Charriu: Yes one is me Can't be the same player who teched Monarchy last turn

Scooter: SD sort of fits I guess he teched archery last turn, but the vast majority of that would overflow so it would be equivalent to 2T'ing it, which with his gold stockpile seems reasonable

Charriu: That could fit

Scooter: it's also on the nationalism path which I know he is pursuing

Charriu: We can check that via food income from farmed resources, right?

Scooter: true. I really need to get a couple more scouts out

Charriu: Wait for Explorers from Compass. Build them with a barracks and enjoy the new sentry unit

Scooter: I think I've built like 7 of them in my life, but yes. I'll have compass shortly and will do exactly that

Charriu: Superdeath made it easy for us and switched into Bureaucracy, but I also noticed that his farms produce more now. I'm also pretty sure that Mjmd did not tech Machinery. Reason is I saw him building cottages on grasland hills. Why would he do that if he can build windmills.

Scooter: So I think our tech guesses are correct

Well that was a long one. If you remember in the discussion we were trying to lift some information from Mjmd. Here is what I discussed with him

Charriu: Hey are you feeling better again?

Mjmd: Mostly yes

Charriu: Good to hear. Then I will get back to you when you give a "yes" to aboves question. ?

Mjmd: I'm 95% it's mostly scratchy throat

Charriu: Ok, just wanted to say. You may have noticed War Elephants from me. I just wanted to ensure you that I am only building up defensive capabilities

Mjmd: Fair enough. I probably will be building some more units as well as a few cities just dont deserve markets

Charriu: Yeah, you know in the past I had some bad experiences with chariots attacking me. ?

Mjmd: I vaguely remember it successfully breaking a trade embargo ?

Charriu: Oh yes. I remember you were in that PB too. Awesome game. ?

Mjmd: I know I look good now but eventually I'll be out of gas and not have a long term economy. Scooter colloassus and has monk wonders coming online and is farther down the tree. SD has shrine and glh. What fun bulb things / long term plan are you on? Not a question I expect an answer to per se, but just how my mind is turning I may have run MoM economies before and the main problem is GAs end.

Charriu: Yeah, you are in a good position. I wouldn't count your cottage economy to short though. It will carry you even further.

Mjmd: Im hoping it keeps me competitive, but it's not like other people cant cottage plus have other things lol Also I'm curious which non bing person will launch a ga so people can be worried about them. Soon I would think. We have 3 phil people

Charriu: Superdeath just launched a golden age. Didn't you notice

Mjmd: I played a morning turn so no lol

Charriu: About my tech plans. I'm currently teching Civil Service and am looking at my UB, which I really would like to see in action.

Mjmd: Makes sense

Charriu: Speaking of Superdeath. What is he trying to hide? Constantly running 0 gpt, but still gaining gold.

Mjmd: Ya I'm not a fan of that....... Scooter seems to be worried I'm going guilds to knight you. He is operating under some interesting assumptions

Charriu: Oh interesting. How did he get that idea?

Mjmd: Well I'm also operating under some assumptions and multiple conversations lol. And I figured if you were building elephants maybe that was why

Charriu: I had planned to build war elephants for a long time. Just to discourage my neighbors trying to knight-rush me. I figured I can't justify going for Education with just axeman and spearman as defensive units. So I needed something a bit better then those and when I say long time I mean from the beginning of the game, when I chose this civ and leader combo. ?

So a few notes here first, why was I so open about my tech plans. Simple Mjmd has tech vision on me. That way lieing is worthless and he will see what I am teching very shortly any way. I haven't given that much information away, but may gained some brownie points.
Second, I tried to sow some dissent between Mjmd and Superdeath by bringing up something Mjmd doesn't like: People doing tricks with the slider.
Lastly my attempt to faint knowledge about Scooters plans isn't that good in hindsight. Mjmd probably knows something is up. But that's just my gut feeling.

I also had some diplo with Superdeath, but that is mostly covered in the Scooter diplo.

[Qgqqqqq]

What re your plans?

[Charriu]

The initial plan was to go Civil Service - Paper - Education next for my UB. Then Philosophy - Nationalism - Constitution for Representation. But things are getting in motion. Will let you know as soon as I have something concrete.