[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[ljubljana]

yeah you are definitely correct lol, even i am capable of recognizing the overwhelming probability of that. you would THINK that, well, as per the logic by which we took this combo in the first place, we should look so obnoxious and inedible that even if they do feel so boxed in that they have to attack someone to compete, the route that runs through attacking us would not suffice for this and would only set them further back. that's for sure what i'd think in that position, while very hungrily eyeing whoever is on the OTHER side of me........... i just hope they actually have another neighbor and the land doesn't just end here with everyone else 30 tiles to the south of them

well, score one for PRO right? we deeeefinitely would not be able to reach this far before copper hookup without it, yes? and AGG is about to contribute a chopped ikhanda (of already non-negligible 0.6 gpt savings) into triple-promoted archers to lock down this border? i guess maybe we should be feeling ok about these picks given how the expansion phase has gone so far honestly, and given our luck in nor bordering anyone CRE and being in position to steal a march culturally on our close CHA neighbor. plus at least one of our neighbors in gingac has been sufficiently fucked with to drop a reeeeally ugly copper plant and chop out unnecessary units before taking the triple-food spot next to the capital (there's a fish in the fog too that i forgot to screenshot), and it's the neighbor we are most long-term scared of so it's very nice to set them back

[ljubljana]

oh one more question: we BOTH have to defog a route to the other player's trade network for us to be able to trade, right? so even if we defog a coast route to GT it won't help unless they do the same?

similarly, if sailing is the one thing keeping us from trading with ginger now, and we do not urgently need it but they'd get +3 free commerce from international TRs..... we should be DELAYing it as much as is practicable yes? eventually they will defog routes to other players i suppose but as of now i think it's realistic to imagine that getting sailing would hand gpt to our rival...

[williams482]

I'm pretty sure that you getting a valid path to them gives you trade routes, and they'll need a valid path to you in order to get those trade connections for themselves.

[ljubljana]

ok, and then we both have to have one with each other in order to exchange resources? wild that a civ can have a trade route to us without the reverse, but ig that fits w the generally inexplicable onewayedness of TRs in this game lol

leading candidate chariot name: 恐怖 = kyoufu = terror, what i hope that our units will inspire in these nerds further chariots can be named similarly life-affirming things like 狂気 (madness), 執着 (obsession), 悩み (anguish)

archers will get something zulu-flavored but no ideas yet....

[aetryn]

If either of us has a valid Trade Route to each other, both of us can propose resource swaps in diplomacy. We only get trade routes in our cities if we have a valid trade route to them, and if they haven't defogged they won't get them in return. But they can still propose resource trades.

[Jabah]

I am pretty sure that to exchange resources you only need one of the player to have a trade connection. I think I remember resource trade between continents once the first player discovers astronomy. Obviously it is not the case for trade routes that are checked for each player.

[ljubljana]

i see, i see. not much reason to delay sailing then, and we do eVENtually want a lighthouse in our two depressing coastal cities lol.

ok, i'm starting to get the idea re currency: if we need writing before monarchy anyways, all the religious techs sum to a similar amount as math, so it is not way more beakers to get to currency as i thought, just somewhat more.... and currency requires no effort from us to produce benefit, and that tech path just puts us next to all the essential shit - CoL, Construction, Calendar are all super high priorities after Currency and if we did Monarchy first it would take a gigantic amount of effort to get there. okayyy alright fine... but we like NEED a way to deal w the happy crunch we're going to get smacked in the face by if we go that route...

i am still pretty tempted by taking a flyer at Polytheism after archery if hinduism is still on the board. but it would take about 6 turns and delay pottery and i am SURE this is late enough that 5 or 6 other people are thinking the same thing lol..... people who don't lack essential start-unlocking techs from taking an archery diversion

[aetryn]

i see, i see. not much reason to delay sailing then, and we do eVENtually want a lighthouse in our two depressing coastal cities lol.

ok, i'm starting to get the idea re currency: if we need writing before monarchy anyways, all the religious techs sum to a similar amount as math, so it is not way more beakers to get to currency as i thought, just somewhat more.... and currency requires no effort from us to produce benefit, and that tech path just puts us next to all the essential shit - CoL, Construction, Calendar are all super high priorities after Currency and if we did Monarchy first it would take a gigantic amount of effort to get there. okayyy alright fine... but we like NEED a way to deal w the happy crunch we're going to get smacked in the face by if we go that route...

i am still pretty tempted by taking a flyer at Polytheism after archery if hinduism is still on the board. but it would take about 6 turns and delay pottery and i am SURE this is late enough that 5 or 6 other people are thinking the same thing lol..... people who don't lack essential start-unlocking techs from taking an archery diversion

Also assuming we have any forests left by the time we finish Math, it makes chops better too!

Hanging Gardens is also good, but I pretty much guarantee we aren't going to get it this game (MJMD loves it, and I can also see anyone with IMP trying to crank out as many settlers as possible and then rush building it with chops).

[Tarkeel]

I am pretty sure that to exchange resources you only need one of the player to have a trade connection. I think I remember resource trade between continents once the first player discovers astronomy. Obviously it is not the case for trade routes that are checked for each player.

Yeah, diplomacy trade only requires a one-way route, for city trade routes it's actually calculated per city (in the rare case of a fractured tradenetwork).

[ljubljana]

Yeah, I'm not going to bother with HG with neither stone or industrious. The only midgame wonder I'm seriously taking a look at is MoM I think.... we'd probably settle a filler city just SW of the capital and aim to just straight-up chop 10 forests into it

but.... while i understand that it is pretty much considered one of the power wonders even after the CtH nerf, i'm not sure i fully understand why? we probably can only boost 2 golden ages with it, so in 8 extra GA turns we'd have to make up 300 hammers (marble) for it to pay for itself, so working an average of 300/8 = 33 tiles with at least one hammer - it could happen, but not by the time we hit calendar i don't think, and i'd guess the hammer investment doesn't pay off in most cases until somewhere in the second boosted GA. and then 8 extra turns of GA commerce is significant obviously but in SP it never seems to amount to more than like one tech tops (although the logic could be different in MP when most of everyone's income is going to city maintenance so a fixed percentage increase of raw commerce represents a larger percentage beaker increase?). it seems like it will clearly be a net positive over its lifespan, but waiting for 2 GAs might represent, like, a 50-turn payoff horizon... is that really likely to be better than the opportunity cost?

i shouldn't say this out loud but i have a horrible fear that gingac is about to found a religion in that border city and culture-crush us. if that happens with us having committed to peace for the time being i might cry. or i might uncommit to peace lol. it would certainly piss me off enough that i imagine it's considered an Aggressive Foreign Policy Move to do that kind of thing, hopefully of the sort they would want to avoid so as to not further antagonize us lol