4 score, and 77pb years ago (superdeath)

[ljubljana]

oooh mids and HG? you're really cleaning up the early wonders :D

how many cities have the food to run a bunch of specialists? i'm guessing probably a few given the map script right?

also, do you have a nat epic city yet, or plans for any great person shenanigans? :D i've never actually built the pyramids in one of these games (uh, obviously) but seems like a natural fit to me..... what's our tech situation looking like? anything impactful seem bulbable?

[superdeath]

oooh mids and HG? you're really cleaning up the early wonders :D

how many cities have the food to run a bunch of specialists? i'm guessing probably a few given the map script right?

also, do you have a nat epic city yet, or plans for any great person shenanigans? :D i've never actually built the pyramids in one of these games (uh, obviously) but seems like a natural fit to me..... what's our tech situation looking like? anything impactful seem bulbable?

Once i get done whipping essential infra... can grow most cities onto scientists. Going to try and get Astro ASAP, and then go for chemistry so we cant be easily blockaded.

Going CoL (courthouses .... ) -Calendar- Machinery-optics. I believe is the play.

[ljubljana]

get Astro ASAP

makes sense to me.... this is usually rushed via great scientist bulb anyways, right? if it's already synergistic w your strategy, i wonder if now is too soon to start running two scientists somewhere for one..... what do you need to to do make a bulb happen? i'm seeing that philosophy is before it in the preference list, so that means you have to avoid meditation so philo is not prioritized, or something like that....?

what infra do you consider essential on this map? also, do players typically grow up to the happy cap and whip there, or whip as soon as you're big enough to do so, so that you whip from a smaller food box? in particular as PRO i'm guessing the discounted markets probably make the list?

[superdeath]

ive whipped granaries-lighthouses-markets-harbors. (also totem pole/library) MOST cities are finishing up their harbor atm.

[ljubljana]

oh truuue i bet with PRO ictrs your harbor yields are pretty sick.... did pre-optics circumnavigation turn out to be possible on this map? maybe worth going for with your first couple caravels if not.....

how are you feeling about mercantilism btw? i know it's super super powerful on land maps with PRO but what about on water? of course there is an amazing synergy with pyramids into representation though, enough that it's quite possibly worth going there before astro, if not ASAP after machinery.... and i mean, it's not like CHA knights are ever gonna be BAD, even on a water map, right? it also goes through vassalage so if you time the GA right you could start building amphibious knights while you hard-research banking and get a great scientist for an astro bulb with GA-boosted scientist specialists..... could lead to a lot of fun for you at the expense of someone else 

[superdeath]

Oh yeah. Got both east-west and north-south. Not that having both matters.

[ljubljana]

lol, there's a north-south one?? every time i think about these toroidal maps i get more disconcerted 

also i demand screenies :D (you may choose to ignore this demand)

[superdeath]

lol, there's a north-south one?? every time i think about these toroidal maps i get more disconcerted 

also i demand screenies :D (you may choose to ignore this demand)

SO IT HAS BEEN ASKED, SO IT SHALL BE GIVEN.



Saving gold, we are "2nd" not saving we are first, but im fairly sure that Scooter has a stupid gnp. Going to likely need to steer Yuri his way. OUR best option is to draft him to Astro and try and beat him to frigates. Protecting cities with PRO/CHA totem pole longbows... which hold up pretty damn long id gather. Ignore the Export/import demo. I feel the giving away routes to those that i dont see as immediate-threat level competition is worse than the "hey, he doesnt want us to have friendly scouting/ect" of open borders. Probably not good as PRO... but eh. I need friendly relations so i can focus on expanding. We have room for another 5-7 cities that are well in our region. If someone tries to settle them, i have no off button on my war trigger. Its one thing to settle middle/up in the air spots.. but dont settle up on me. I dont like being backed into a corner. I also ACTUALLY dont like being an aggressive asshole either.




Getting various eco buildings up and running. Courthouses will be next on the list for alot of cities. Probably swap most builds over to them for whipping. Not being ORG is painful.



Our precious Gem border region between 2! players. Yuri has been lightly guarding his cities vs myself, and i have repaid in kind. Cairo has uh, been keeping a decently large garrison in all border cities with me. I dont recall attacking him in any PB, other than being one of the FEW to try and stop his culture win in... pb43?

Other than Chaco Canyon.. most cities have been settled on hills Despite some spots being better not settled there. All about working the pro/cha angle of defense. If they cant break/take my cities cost-effectively then i consider it a win.




Zoomed out a bit to include the 2fish city to the far west, which i think is the only city that Might have been settled in Yuri's sphere of influence, but might be a middle ground? But here, you can see the 6 city spots roughly ear-marked. the Iron/copper/2icefloodplains city will probably be made into 2 cities, but i REALLY dont like settling off a hill for a border region. There is a food if we settle W of the copper, and settle ON the iron with the other city. Is it worth picking up the Oasis+ ... Crab? vs having 1 larger/defensive city? Hmmm

[ljubljana]

hmmmm interesting, interesting. from a million miles away, it looks like we have significant parity here, unusually so for an RB game.... demos look good for you but i share your concern about the huge gap between first and second GNP, especially as we are nowhere near GNP #1 and therefore have little to no capacity to rein them in

what are your thoughts about the broader strategic path forward from here? normally i am on board with the "the neighbor of my neighbor is my friend" theory but in this case the neighbor of your neighbor is the most likely runaway candidate. are either of our neighbors lagging enough in GNP that we can expect to have a significant window with galleon or frigate access while they have none? i imagine that, given the snaky geography of the landmasses (so, nearly all cities reachable from the ocean) and our access to amphibious everythings, we should be able to translate an advantage in naval power to taking someone's land very quickly compared to the speed of conquests on even most water maps. but equally it will be easy for others to punish us for doing so unless they are distracted or our naval edge is huge (huger than seems likely given the parity). tricky....

have there been any wars at all so far? would be nice to know if there are any pairs of players who inexplicably hate each other for some reason and thus would be unable to work together to contain us, if we start killing someone. i guess ideally we'd want a 2v1 to emerge of two of the far powers vs scooter, and for the last player to be someone we can eat in the meantime in a 1v1, but not sure how we can make a 2v1 happen without us participating

as for the oasis/crab, i think i'd cautiously favor splitting the cities. it is far south enough that i'm not sure i reeeeally consider this a border region, assuming yuri's core is mostly NW of us and the western polar region is empty. actually, i might recommend scouting that area (maybe with a work boat sent south from snaketown) to confirm this.... given the quality of this spot, there might be others further west that we could grab to help keep the two cities safe

anyways, looks like things are going pretty well so far - expansion is competitive, food and gnp right up there with the leaders. i have no idea where the huge margin in MFG is coming from but it looks like you are growing onto some ivory and horse tiles that should fix that, and of course we're in the era where most production should come from the whip anyways. good job so far, you definitely look like a contender.... unfortunately the problem is that EVERYone looks like a contender, at least without knowing more about the numbers

what are your plans for that great scientist? :O

[superdeath]

Great scientist will be saved to either burn a GA into more GS's for an astro push, or something to that effect. Ill try and get some more pics for ya next turn.