[Spoilers] Ibuprofen and Eyeglasses: Thoth plays a Middle Aged game

[Thoth]

Scooter built the Great Library so I'm 5 turns to Guilds with the failgold. 2 more turns to great person.

[Qgqqqqq]

In awe of this tirnpace.

[Thoth]

Scooter spawned a GE on his last turn so I'm guessing that's MoM built on his next turn. I pop either a GE or GM next turn and then I need to do some careful thinking depending on what it is.

[Thoth]

Got my Great Person.....a Great Merchant.

I'll use him for a golden age in a few turns once I've got Guilds and Philosophy teched.

Scooter's GE is still unused and all of MoM, Sistine, and Notre Dame are available. Not sure what he's going for here I'd happily GE rush any of those three wonders. Possibly a Gunpowder bulb? Seems odd as America doesn't get anything special with GP and it blocks an Astro bulb. Other GE worthy wonders: AP is good with cheap monasteries and Theo is cheap to tech, Taj Mahal is excellent as always but he could have MoM and delay Nationalism until he's started his 3rd GA, Sankore? Good, excellent if paired with AP.


Stalemate for the moment on the Yuris front while I bring up some more seige. Managed to burn one of his flatland cities that he'd left empty but there are 14+ units in his hilltop capital and a 5-6 unit garrison in Engineer. I could walk around his capital to burn the other flatland city but that would leave me open to a counter offensive with my army out of position so it'll have to wait.


And I've got 2 galleys positioned 3 tiles away from Scooter's city of Second Chance (his replacement for the capital I burnt). He's got two longbows in the city right now, I'm curious to see what he reinforces with.

[Thoth]

Damnit.  Pindicator finished University and birthed another GS. 

So either a Printing Press bulb if he's been working lots of cottages (possible from his gnp) or a Golden Age.  Liberalism is 1630 beakers.  Assuming Pindicator's max beaker rate is around the same as mine at 200 bpt that's around 6 turns so he'll need 3-4 turns of cashing first meaning Lib in 10 turns best case scenario.  If he chooses to bulb it will take a turn of teching to get to PP but he should get that turn back while teching Lib due to increased commerce.  If he goes for a Golden Age I would expect him to be able to get to Lib in 5-6 turns.  So Galleons a turn later either built/whipped or upgraded via golden age commerce run through cheap Protective Marketplaces.


So 5-10 turns until Pindicator galleons if he's going that route. 

Think it's time for a Fish-Fish offer.   


I've got a few turns to go yet but I'm hoping to have the Yuris war wrapped up in 6-7 turns.

My new siege train has finally gotten into play:





3 of the trebs have 9 xp and can be promoted to CR1/2/3/Barrage 1.  All of the cats can be promoted to Barrage 2/3. 




I count 14 defenders plus a catapult.  I expect to see at least 2 additional defenders, more if he pulls Engineer's garrison.

Might take 2 turns of fighting to capture but I think I've got enough with 20 hitters to push through and capture the city.

[Thoth]

Never mind all that, i must have missed a GS spawning for Pin. He's got PP and has bulbed Astro.

Fuck.


Commodore sent two map trade offers, I accepted the first and declined the second.

He also sent Fish + War with pindicator + 12 gold for same. I need to think about that and timing and I'll get back to him next turn. AFAIK there isn't a standard "let me think it over" diplo response. lol.


Yuris is moving his Engineer garrison down to his threatened city so it looks like it'll be a 2 turn battle there based on numbers but we'll see next turn.

[Thoth]

Good news: All 5 trebs survived and one can promote next turn as it had 96% odds without using it's third promo.

Which is good.....because Yuris has 8 very damaged units and a GG left so I can expect another full health whipped unit + a reinforcement or two plus some promotion healing for his remaining units.

I've still got a dozen or so hitters left plus 5 damaged trebuchets and 9 of the hitters have promotions due next turn.

But I think I might be a bit short here.


I echoed back Commodore's Fish-Fish and war with Pindicator in 12 turns.

Time to grab Theocracy, fire a Golden Age and see how fast I can get Gunpowder done. Or tech straight to Astronomy and contest the seas.....I don't fancy the notion of a slow mover invasion of Pindicator's uber collateral cats but I'll need Muskets at least to deal with Conquistadors after Pindicator Libs Mil Trad. Either way, it means I need to rethink my GP plans as I'm not sure if I'm better off with the original bulb and tech plan or if I'm better off just generating two heterogenous GPs for a second Golden Age.

No matter what, I'll be saving gold for a few turns so I've got a day or two to think.

[Thoth]

After promoting, it cost me 2 trebs and a longbow but Saver is now Lochaber Axe.





Yuris made good use of his GG and promoted almost all of his remaining units but they were still only around 4/6 strength for the most part and high CR trebs rip apart units at that strength.


The log:





Engineer is guarded by a Pikeman and two workers, Farmer has a longbow with promo in hand. Both have 4 pop so I can expect a few more longbow whips before the mop up is done.

[T-hawk]

Anything going on on your Scooter front?

[Thoth]

Not much at the moment, just some positional fighting around our border, mutual worker ganking (I lost one that he's kept so far, he's down 2 that I immediately deleted), and some naval dancing.

He's got a decent sized stack of wellies with some xbow and mace support. But only 3 cats.