[SPOILERS] Pindicator emerges from the wilderness to play pb74

[pindicator]

196

Sorry, my updating has poor lately. I've been playing the turns late in my day because I want Hitru's input on these turns and that's the best time for us to line things up - then when I'm done I go straight to bed. Caused me to miss ending the turn when we first declared on Plemo - too tired and missed that detail.

The Plemo war goes about as far as we've wanted to push it. We took Doebry and sat back, and then tried to figure out what Plemo was doing with his moves on t192:




He just moved his galleon up right against our frigate? We had to sink it - too many cities in range were empty - but our goal wasn't to push against Plemo here. We just wanted to give the appearance of jumping in to take his island cities. Considered offering Plemo a message of Peace for War with Tarkeel/Civac and 5g to signal the turn, but there was too much risk that he would actually take the deal to save his own skin. We really want Plemo to throw in against Tarkeel's stack and then invade Tarkeel/Civac.

Which is going about as well as we can hope for. This is from this turn:




Tarkeel just burned one city of PLemo's and is moving forward to threaten the next - but Plemo probably has his number here. I'm hoping Plemo throws in against Tarkeel's stack this turn, but more likely he will wait for Tarkeel to advance another turn first.

Also, Commodore has been capturing coastal cities, leaving the mainland stuff for Tarkeel:




Plemo made a smart choice to empty Tonsburg this turn and evacuate those units to his mainland. Looks like Comm took the city. But I think Plemo is trying to slow Comm as much as is possible while waiting to make his strike against Tarkeel/Civac's force.

And I'm not quite sure what is going on at sea, but this turn we had this to contend with:




I was able to stuff Wardlaw reasonably full, and sank his privateer with our frigate - but at the cost of a frigate. Still, I'm hoping that discourages him from moving forward with those galleons. I'd also be shocked if there were actually any units on those galleons - we can already see 9 berserkers in Plemo's stack in his homeland.

Anyway, next turn we move to staging tiles. I guess I haven't shared that plan yet. We'll save it for next post.

[pindicator]

197

Plemo offered us a peace deal. Not quite yet - we declined.

Staging for next turn's invasion:




Red circles are his scouts - I believe the northern scout has been stationary while the southern scout has been bouncing between Cirque de Towers and its spot. If I'm right then the knights have dodged his sentry movement.

Start of the war we take Splendid using a unit in Powell Butte, and that should open a little more culture up for us.

Knights are self-explanatory.  We road the tile NW of them and they'll move to fork Camel Up and Kingdom Builder.

Boats are a little more involved:  Workers in the area will converge on the fort sign to build a canal between Perpetua and Glacier Peak.  Unload the boats into Glacier Peak and the slow units then go NW-NW-W along the roads.

We snooped around a couple turns back and saw Tarkeel does not have much in the south:




So the plan is for hte knights to do most of the initial work against cities. We might need to use the cannons against the capital if he amasses enough there - but more likely we save our cannons for if his big stack comes south. Held off whipping this turn - we'll show our hand next turn.

Tech plan: do we go for Nationalism and drafting or straight to Rifles? Being debated now.

[pindicator]

198

Plemo did not hit Tarkeel's stack and lost two more cities, so sadly we were not going to have our dirty work done for us.




Need to capture the south before his stack gets back, and then whip enough cannons between now and then to handle his stack.

[pindicator]

And the game is dead. Grats Comm, you solved the turn pace.

[pindicator]

So we fucked up.




For starters, I forgot Tarkeel was Germany. And Hitru forgot the UU changes for Germany in CtH. So when we saw a bunch of whips last turn we didn't think too much of Chemistry finishing - but now seeing a bunch of Pinch Grenadiers we're pulling back and offering Tarkeel peace for his city and 400g. I could go up to 600 i think.

Anyway, I really regret the war now. Now we're rather stuck into fighting Tarkeel next. The economy is starting to take off a little - and we're probably going to have to stymie it with whipping units. Stupid move to attack Tarkeel when we really were counting on Plemo doing a lot of the work - I should never have pulled that trigger.

[pindicator]

201

Tarkeel took the deal.  We are back at peace, and this time plan to stay there for a while.




Here's to another 200 turns.

[pindicator]

Had a serious look at the next Golden Age this turn. (Also, i need to start showing off some cities.)

To start, here's our National Epic city, Amicalola's old capital, now named Cape Perpetua.




After building Forge > Library > National Epic, we hired 3 specs and then fit in Drama quick so we could build a cheap Theatre here to run 5 specialists. After the zig finished a few turns back it went up to 6 specs or 38gpp/turn. The next great person is due in 5 and will kick off our second Golden Age (Great Priest from Cispus is sitting in waiting at The Cathedrals). The city also grows in 5 turns and we'll hire a 7th specialist then.

The plan is to revolt into Caste & Pacifism for our golden age, and Perpetua will be generating our 700-level Great Person for triggering our 3rd GA. Who will generate the other 2?

First will come from Cefalu:




Prize city of the east, Cefalu is going to workshop a lot of its tiles - later. First we need it to kick out a great person. We've set it on max growth and when GA#2 kicks off in 5 turns we'll be at size 13 with 36/44 food. We'll run 9 specialists at -4 fpt for 2 turns, then hire all specialists at -24fpt for 1 turn to use the remaining food up. Then it's 2 turns of starving to get to 500gp points at eot210. I think the plan is to run artists to help push back borders.

After Cefalu gets the great person then we want to get out of Pacifism if possible. Not sure what what we're swapping into.

Second GP will come from Koko Head:




An almost-max-food setup here will get us to size 13 and 35/44 food but we only need to be at 30. In fact we want to be exactly at 30 because anything more will be wasted. We'll run a food-neutral 5 specialists for 2 turns, then run 10 specialists (-10fpt) for 3 turns. After that it's 2 turns of starving the city on max specs. This along with the 15 Great Engineer points already in the bank gets us to exactly 600 GP points. Pre-edit: Just redid all this to allow us to get out of Pacifism faster.

We need to be at 32 food and size 13. We'll run a food-neutral 5 specialists for 1 turn, then a 6th specialist for -2fpt, and then 10 specialists for -10fpt for 3 turns. Then it's 3 turns of starving down to reach 600GP points at the end of the golden age, eot213.

The Third GP comes from Perpetua itself. At a steady 7 specialists it will be at 660 points at the end of the golden age, and reach 700 Points the turn after we end our GA. We think we'll need a bit of a break between due to not being ready for later civics, so I think this works out.

During all this the capital will be churning along:




Fired one of the merchants to get the harbor done this turn (oh, we finally discovered how good harbors are on this map), but we'll hire him right back. The idea is to hopefully get a GE or GM sometime around Railroad and hopefully land a corporation HQ. We'll be sitting at 534 GP points at the end of the golden age, but I might shuffle some tiles and try to get another merchant going here, or maybe a little strategic starving. We'll see.

* * *

Also, there's a bit of a Gavagai situation going on. He's declared on Commodore and while I can't see exactly what they're doing I do know that Plemo has taken advantage of Commodore shifting his focus away to retake 2 cities. I can see Gav is 3 turns away from Combustion and so I'm guessing that's the emergency. Commodore told me to stop trading with him in a diplo message, though looking at F4 I can see the whole world has open borders with Gav. I did send Miguelito a stop trading with Gav suggestion: if we both stop trading with him then he'll lose most of his overseas routes as Comm, Mig, and myself have most of the cities offshore from the main continent.

I also did my suggest to Commodore that I could loan him funds to also get to Combustion. Right now Comm is burning to get to Railroad in 2, and after that he'll be pretty dry for getting to Combustion. I think it's in my interest to have Commodore as a counter to Gav while we try to catch up, so we're thinking of loaning something like 1500 or 1600 gold to Comm next turn - only the Civ4 diplo interface being as it is we can't actually suggest a loan until he is earning money. But he can suggest one, so I tried all kinds of silly messages to suggest to him i would be up for loaning him funds: 10g from him for 1gpt from me. 10g for me from Gold resource from him. Gold resource for Gold resource. Anyway, we need a standard "i am willing to loan you money" and i propose Gold Resource for Gold Resource (or metal luxury for metal luxury).

[pindicator]

202

So where are we at this game?

Gavagai has set off the seismic transition of going from wooden navies to metal; EP shows him 2 turns away from Combustion. War was also declared on Commodore but I don't see any action taking place - Comm retreated from attacking Plemo and went ... Somewhere. Cannons are no longer streaming North through German lands, and now are being directed straight to galleons to take them overseas.

Comm for a second turn in a row sent me an offer with him giving me 10 island cities in exchange for a Sheep. No idea what this means, and while it would be momentarily hilarious if I accepted this it would also be completely outside the spirit of the game (and letter of the rule). I hope there is some meaning he is trying to convey that is escaping me - right now my best guess is that Gav is the wolf and these cities would be the sheep to the slaughter once Gav gets Combustion.

I was also disappointed to see Miguelito turn down my joint proposal to stop trading with Gav. Even though Comm is demanding I stop trading and go to war that's pretty much like asking me to throw rocks at the police to stop them from arresting someone: I'm just going to get my ass beat and the thing is going to happen anyway. But if you can get a group throwing rocks with you ... Anyway, not my most positive metaphor.

Commodore did cut his spending back to get Railroad done and that left him with some positive income. I offered him 700g loan for 90gpt. I'm never quite sure what I good rate of interest is in this game, but this is just under 30%. Perhaps I should have offered to give 750. I want to give a good deal so that he'll accept and get to Combustion faster but also want to profit off this because we have to get our economy running.

Our economy is starting to take off too. Philosophy finishes in 1 turn then it's a 2t Economics followed by a 3t Replaceable Parts. After that we could go for Rifling or straight to Railroad. That depends on Miguelito. Magic Science is almost out and now we get to see if Mig wants to work together or if he sees us as his next best expansion target. With peace given to Tarkeel the units are shuffling east to show him this would not be an easy conquest. Hitru guesses he's 4-5t away from Railroad. I don't think we'll be that far behind, thanks to our upcoming Golden Age.

We are continuing to play the long game. Offered Tarkeel Open Borders and World Map swap. Invading him was such a mistake, at least we were able to get ourselves out of that war quickly. If we had been a bit more patient that Plemo v Tarkeel clash may have actually happened thanks to Gav attacking Comm. Anyway, it's all hindsight now. Plan is to try to stay at peace and maneuver the diplomacy game to keep Commodore engaged as the anti-Gav counterweight. Biggest threats to that are Mig thinking he has to expand through us, Tarkeel wanting revenge, and Commodore losing hope.

[pindicator]

203 - 204

When it comes to Plemo vs Us, it seems we win that fight.  At least, in Tarkeel's mind:




He's got absolutely nothing in his northern border with Plemo, and Plemo is actively resettling/recapturing the cities that he lost.

With the Gavagai situation unfolding I don't think we're attacking Tarkeel ... well, not for a long time.  But I don't blame him for hedging against us so heavily.  And it's making us move most our cannons north now, so that we've got something like 15 of them up here now.  Hope to double that by the time the truce is up in 7 turns.

Speaking of the Gavagai situation, Comm responded to our loan offer with asking for 1050 for 120gpt back - a more modest 15% - and also for us to cancel borders with Gavagai.  I was a bit wary of the second part of his ask.  If Mig doesn't cut OB then we really aren't doing much, and Gav was our #2 trade route recipient.  But I agreed, and we only lost 17bpt at max with losing Gavagai's routes.  So not bad at all.

I'm less encouraged by Miguelito not doing anything against Gavagai.  He wouldn't close borders, he wouldn't respond to my offer for us both to fight Gav in 20 turns.  Ginger seems to like to keep his head down and tech away until he has an edge, but I'm not sure he's going to get that here.  Maybe he thinks he can get to Combustion in time?

Gav took 3 of Commodore's cities on 203, and as I was finishing up 204 he was playing and taking more.  This is from our 203:




Clearly that island is gone, and if the islands to the  northeast also fall then Commodore will having nothing but open sea between his core and Gavagai's fleet.

Right now I'd pick Gavagai as favored to win 60% to 70% of the time.

Since we're in a lull in active play, it's well past time I showed off the empire.  Let's start with the core this turn:




I showed a picture of Goat Rocks in the Great Person update.  Finisterra and Cispus Pass are the jewels of the empire.  Basa Verde and God's Thumb have our drydocks and have been pumping out frigates - though I'm taking a moment to make sure everybody has their cheap Library built before the golden age starts, so a little pause in frigate production right now.  I plan on also turning the island cities of Kodiak and Pantelleria into ship producers as well, once they have the basic infrastructure in place.  The Palouse and Mather Point are the commerce cities and have started on Universities - if we're going to go long in this game then we need to get Oxford built.  Cathedrals is the unit pump in the northern core.  And there's a lot of filler in the core:  cities like Three Sisters, Indian Heaven, Saddle Mountain, and Eagle Cap.  All these spots just don't have enough food to be strong cities, and so they are left making the missionaries and workers and a few units here and there.  Not strong enough to build much more than the basic infrastructure of Library/Zig and maybe a Forge.

Oh, that leaves Esteros d'Ibara.  I have no idea what to do with this city.  I think it needs to be a commerce spot but it just hasn't had the food to grow onto cottages.  Maybe we can change that.  However, when Steam Power comes online it's also going to be one of the biggest winners for riverside hammer tiles.

A closer look at our best cities in the core:




Finisterra has been a fantastic city and it's been very painful to have it basically offline while it builds Ironworks.  Very much looking forward to that finishing right as our golden age is being kicked off.  We will need to get a University here as well for #3 out of 7.  Originally I had wanted to get a drydocks and pump out navy, but with the world quickly switching over to metal boats I'm not sure that's going to be as good of a solution.  I think we'll focus on land units instead.  We will want a lot of cannons.

Expect to see this city again soon as we go into our golden age(s).




Cispus Pass has been the resolute unit pump all game long.  My only regret is the city does not sit on the river and so we can't push it to stratospheric levels with a levee.  Indeed, this will be one of the few cities that I do not built a library in just because it is too valuable at pumping out gunpowder units.  This city built most of the knights we used in our wars, and now it's making mostly cannons with the occasional musket.  It's really a shame that we got the free specialist event in this city and not any other, but it's managed to get us one great person (which will be half of our upcoming golden age).

Next turn we'll look closer at Amicaland.

[scooter]

Right now I'd pick Gavagai as favored to win 60% to 70% of the time.

How would you distribute the remaining 30-40%?