[pb72 spoilers]: the esteemed gentleman's literature and book club

[Tarkeel]

I'd probably save gold while waiting to roll the dice on the engineer, but Biology is *very* expensive from where we are. I'd probably want Rifling and AssemblyLine first for defense and factories.

[greenline]

I'd probably save gold while waiting to roll the dice on the engineer, but Biology is *very* expensive from where we are. I'd probably want Rifling and AssemblyLine first for defense and factories.

Sounds like a plan. The great person will be due in 3 turns from now. Is steel a pre requisite on the way to Assembly line? We can generate a ton of gold at 0%, so it might be worth it to put another few turns into steel rather than having to chew through all those savings at 100% before Oxford is built.

[Tarkeel]

Steel is not needed for SteamPower or Assembly line, but is on the way to Railroad.
Hm. I forgot that we don't actually need Astronomy here, and just ScientificMethod method for Biology. I've played so many monk games lately that I instinctively avoid that one, but it might be worth blitzing here.
Do note that we need Constitution for Corporation though, which is needed to actually found any of the corps. That leaves us in the hole with Philosophy and Nationalism as well.

[greenline]

That last turn must have been way more brutal for Aetryn / mmjd than I realized. Turn hasn't rolled and they still must be huddling and deciding their next move. It'll be fun to read the threads when the game is over and see just what has been going on that I've missed.

[greenline]

Good news and concerning news. First off, the economics merchant is ours. So we can at least have our pick of Cereals or Sushi, whatever the great person from Dune is.




Aetryn finally cashed in Liberalism, taking Rifling. Not sure if we should be concerned. My experience with Rifles as an over land offensive force is that their slowness gives the defender plenty of time to mass a counter stack and then smoke them, even when behind in tech. Pinch phracts will do for chewing through rifles once hit with enough collateral. But I would probably have to give up a couple cities if he went at us in force with whipped rifles (Aetryn isn't in nationalism, and would need a 3 man GA to swap to it). On the other hand, this might be him gunning to finish off Xist in revenge.




Because there are several ways in which we might want to go next, tech wise, I decided to spend the next two turns overflowing a ton of beakers grabbing Meditation and Philosophy. That way, we can be flexible once we see what Great Person comes out of Dune. Whether that means grabbing Steel or Rifling for defense, or rushing MinInc, or something else.

[Tarkeel]

Good job on the merchant.

Rifles can be scary off boats, but that's not the case here. Might be he wanted defense against your phracts? Doesn't look like they're gunning for cav, but that might be an option too.

[greenline]

One turn until Dune's great person spawns.




I think we have no cause for concern from Aetryn. The push for rifling seems to be driven entirely by self-defense concerns, because Xist is doing stuff like this. Don't ask me how. Aetryn has had maces since day 1 of the war. I even saw a shark fin appear on the graph from the turn his city was razed.

[greenline]

And we have ourselves an Engineer!




Bing researched Divine Right, founded Islam in some border city. I think that's also good news. He'll be denying Aetryn the complete religious wonder trio, and he's also not pushing for Statue of Liberty.

So we have two options. We can do a push for Statue ourselves, or go straight for setting up both MinInc and Cereals. If that makes sense to run two corps. It's been more than a decade since I seriously played with corps in a civ 4 game.

I set our tech to overflow on Nationalism because we will need to research that either way for Statue or corps.

[Tarkeel]

So we have two options. We can do a push for Statue ourselves, or go straight for setting up both MinInc and Cereals. If that makes sense to run two corps. It's been more than a decade since I seriously played with corps in a civ 4 game.

Those two corps work great together; MinInc is probably more important for us though. And they are both better than SoL. Do we have a Wall Street city? Not sure if pairing it shrine is worth it here.

[greenline]

Those two corps work great together; MinInc is probably more important for us though. And they are both better than SoL. Do we have a Wall Street city? Not sure if pairing it shrine is worth it here.

We can put WallSt in Creation, which has the shrine. Only other National Wonder there is Moai, although we need a couple more banks. MinInc sounds like the more important one, so what tech do we need for that?