[Spoilers]C6PBEM23: Krill sidles yonder, and probably fails

[Krill]

Everything was fine with the stacked warriors. I wonder what would have happened if someone attacked them?

T155:

No update, only a picture:




Does TAD move forward next turn in the knowledge I can't attack him? Does he give peace a chance? Well, he only has the one coal to me two with a full stockpile and his units are in a defensive pose, so...maybe?

[Krill]

T156

TAD moved forward, but he will not see the Steel fortifications, or the line infantry corps until next turn. If he is to attack, Crusade is going to have to do some very heavy lifting. If he isn't going to attack, does he offer DoF or alliance? His units are strongest in my territory, yet he has extremely limited coal reserves for healing so this is an inherently unstable situation. I don't have a clue if it benefits either of us to fight now, or later (we both know the coal situation, neither of us know the oil position).

Refining due SoT160. Oh, and TAD faith bought Magellan. Santa Cruz is expected in 8 turns, and it is Darwin as the Great Scientist at 525 points (I am not racing for him, I'll take on of the other two). I'll get to Sinan one turn ahead of TAD, but as I'm going to reject whether I get there first or second, it will be interesting to see if he actually pushes for him.

[Krill]

T157

After all that waiting and expectation, it turns out that you can't declare on someone on the turn after the game was 1 turn under the alliance expires: There is a "zero turns until alliance expiry turn". So no war dec this turn.

That said, all of the troops have retreated, so I expect that there will be no war dec on T158. Where there is an offer of extending the alliance, well, I have no idea on that. I'm OK with nothing happening for 3 turns so I can see the oil situation. With that said, I'm writing this turn as if we are both going to lock down another 30 turns of peace at some point in the next 5 turns: I'll be saving gold for the next three turns anyway but I need to upgrade another melee unit to a line infantry, but otherwise options are open.





I checked north west of Ponytail, there are no (visible) boats. I doubt there is a flotilla of privateers but there could be one or two, but this is not the approach of a player about to declare war.





TAD just finished his first factory. The reality is that with one coal and two ironclads (one fleet, on singleton) this is all he is going to have until he gets Electricity and Refining. This is why I think he is going to think peace is in his interests, he can't field coal units (I'm not disagreeing with that assertion, I simply don't know who peace between us favours because peace also gives me opportunities against Whosit and theoretically greenline).

I'll note here that this factory powers six cities, his north east is left unpowered. This is relevant for future boat production.








I'm going to do the update back to front.

• Sanitation 2 neighbourhoods is hard to trigger, but Walrus has a breathtaking tile put aside, and Lumberjack has a charming tile; this is not a critical tech so can go on the back burner except for GS triggering purposes.
  
  
• Economics is straight forward as Lumberjack and Burmese can build a bank in 6 turns, and I need the gold
  
  
• Flight is harder: I need to build Oxford at MH. I don't think I will have competition for this (TAD has to go for oil, so I have a large head start on him). I've checked all the other wonders, OU is the only one that fits what I need, and it's enough to push TAD level to me if he can build it. That's a 12 turns build, and that is 7 turns after I reach 50% on Flight (but only 4 turns after I could research it, 3 with decent overflow and tile setup.
  
  
• Replaceable Parts: I should have had this, but two corps of two line infantry obviously doesn't count, so I need to either build or upgrade another melee unit: 325 gold, or 330 production. The upgrade is likely easier to achieve as I have the gold and will have the niter in 3 turns.
  
  
• Combustion: I am beelining Natural History, and Lumberjack will have the Archaeological museum in place in 9 turns.
  
  
• Chemistry: out of my hands,
  
  
• Radio: This one is long winded: I can get it if I build that breathtaking neighbourhood at Walrus, which is the inspiration for Conservation, then I use Lilja(Faith) to turn 800 production into 400 faith to buy the naturalist. It's easier (and cheaper) to just use a GS to trigger the eureka or OU to get it completely for free.
  
  
• Electricity: Building 2 privateers is easy. I would not use Drake unless I absolutely had to, but this raises the question of keeping Press Gangs for a very short period of time.

The problem here: Lumberjack is needed to build a bank (290), Amphitheatre (150), archaeological museum (290), neighbourhood (300), and Archaeologist (400). If I jig things around I can just get it to 50 production per turn. That's 29 turns!

Current tech path is pencilled in as Refining SoT160, Banking SoT161, Astronomy SoT162, ST SoT166 (might be 165), but the rest of the turns are accurate. That would mean OU SoT178, which would mean that I would need the techs lined up as best of possible, but I can't guarantee that free techs would be the ones without eurekas (I can't even guarantee that the free tech isn't flight, which would be a giant kick in the balls).







Great scientists: Darwin is worth 1000 to either of us, but it's challenging for me to trigger. Young is worth somewhere between 1250 and 1800 to me, (1000 to 1450) to TAD. Mendeleev is worth the same amount but requires I tighten tech path considerably and possibly eat the Sanitation eureka (or possibly not, as Ponytail could build the neighbourhood instead of LumberjacK). That said, I rate Young>Darwin>Mendeleev, and I'm prepared to roll the dice on getting Young after Darwin.

I'll note though: It will take me 50 turns at current rates to get to 545, so any GS will require significant number of projects to land in a time frame that matters. This places pressure on Long and MH build queues.

Great Engineer: Plan remains the same, skipping Sinan.

Admiral: I'm watching TADs faith generation, but it already looks like he is building harbour projects. This is a double edged sword: free armada, or give me an industrial era admiral to empower battleships, or try to push me to buy or otherwise invest in it...and run into a battleship armada? Easier option: take a peaceful route and none of it really matters.








Mercantilism SoT160, Colonialism SoT163 (Astronomy noted above SoT162), NH SoT167 (Archaeological museum due SoT166 in lumberjack), then cram down two water parks (Ponytail, Mullet) and get down the Zoos ASAP (Long, Lumberjack, another 290 production/six turns!) on the list as I need the amenities.

The only two inspirations that matter are Conservation (Walrus neighbourhood) and Mass Media (research Radio, which requires a naturalist...or the GS/OU process). I need to start planning for the path through Ideology, and I'm turning away from Totalitarianism towards Communism, but that means I need to get a factory down in Lumberjack as well (wanted for oil power plant, Lumberjack production needs buffing ASAP). The rest is straightforward planning for card swaps again as my culture output is looking solid and should surpass TAD next turn. The only civic I care for after Natural History is Mobilization, which is easily achievable in a 30 turn period of peace ie DoF/Alliance.





Let's list this again, because this is starting to look stupid:

• Amphitheatre
  
• Archaeological museum (These two are mandatory, no other way to trigger Natural History in time)
  
• Zoo (Mandatory as need the amenities from teh Entertainment District)
  
• Bank, (again mandatory as no other commercial district available to build it in.
  
• Archaeologist, mandatory as no where else to build it without blocking in Combustion, but it might be that I theoretically want to leave this until after OU lands). More later.
  
• Neighbourhood (it needs the housing!!)

The short version here is that Lumberjack cannot do all of these things but I need it to. Bad planning on my part, the only option is to buy something to speed it up and that's about 6-9 turns gold output for any of them.

The neighbourhood can be shifted to Ponytail. I think I'd have to buy the Zoo, but without Retainers it would not have an impact on yields...maybe better to buy the bank if that can start the yields sooner? Food for thought: The only thing Lumberjack cannot do is build units.





Walrus is easy: It is not building that canal, and the neighbourhood takes 10ish turns to build, and it is breathtaking. The amphitheatre probably looks like a bad call, but what are the other options? A field cannon when I intend to leave Grand Armee in 3 turns? A boat when I'm not in Press Gangs? Can't buy the IZ tile, and should get it in 2 turns anyway. I was considering swapping the canal for a Campus, but that's even worse! But given I need Urbanization and that is not slated to land until SoT175. I expect to swap to the IZ once the tile is claimed, to keep open the third factory slot (for Communism) and the Magnus production stacking).





The field cannon completes as I swap out of Grand Armee, then there are options. If I hope to build the water park on the lake, but that still leaves me with 7 free turns. I could build the Commercial District, but I think flexibility is key here. Neighbourhood goes on the grassland, with a forest planted south east it would get to charming even with the mine, again, can't even start until T175ish on the neighbourhood, but the waterpark and ferris wheel take time. I can move the farms around to ensure ponytail continues to grow.





Spare production queue, used for generic builds: will get the spare trader after this field cannon, it should just be in place to send to Chev, or to boost Lumberjack. I might use it for a harbour project depending on what TAD looks to be doing.





Size 10 next turn. It will have to build the bank, so there is a three turn interlude to fit in something helpful. Between Ponytail, Mullet and Burmese I probably want to use Chivalry to (half)build three cuirs.





Lilja(food) to size 10, then the harbour.





Zoo planed from T165, but I'm really tempted to build the Military Academy rather than carry on with units (almost certainly necessary due to expected oil shortages). There is a mostly build ironclad in the queue ready for if I need it, but the reality is I'm lacking on land units to fight Whosit.

On an aside, now I have Steel, I lack niter to build bombards and I don't have Refining so there is no way to build artillery, yet I still can't build trebuchets? This is really weird, because I could build warriors, but why can't I build trebs?





I'm crippling MH, but it's in the pursuit of efficiencies. There is a half built field cannon which will complete SoT160, and then there is nothing to build except units whilst preparing overflow for OU. I suspect that I do want Chivalry, so I can push a cavalry and cuir as close to completion, and then overflow out of those two into OU when not running Chivalry, but otherwise there isn't anything for MH to do.

Given teh production challenges at Lumberjack, I think I will be required to go back into Craftsmen, and that means that from T160 MH will be back around 100 production per turn.





I'm due another governor promotion shortly, but it essentially means I either put Reyna into Lumberjack, due around T175 so another 20 turns of not growing, or a relevant promotion on one of the others. I'm still thinking through what I want to do, but the reality is that I don't think any options are game changing.





Let's run through the needs and wants:

I need Republican legacy because most cities are already at 0 amenities. I need Craftsmen for production at MH and Lumberjack. NI (it's amazing) and Praetorium (everything else is worthless) are never leaving. Retinues and Professional Army will not be needed after 3 more turns because I will not have any gold or niter left, if I need them in a future, fair enough, but not on T160. Grand Armee will be done with as well, so that's one red card and a wildcard available for use.

The only viable options I see are Chivalry (but probably want all the way through to Natural History, Press gangs (put out the privateers from Long, Burmese or Ponytail?) Veterancy needs to wait until I have Electricity and a window for Seaports, that isn't now...but could be quick soon if I can get the eureka don by T163.

Drill manuals would essentially alow me to upgrade a couple of frigates to battleships, if war is happening that is very much on the table but not otherwise. Triangular trade would be worth a bit of faith and 28gpt; better than an under used production card. I think if I can get privateers out in three turns I could keep Chivalry and drop Pressgangs for Triangular Trade on T163.

Other odd choices: Aesthetics for 3 culture, Rationalism for 12 beakers. Longer term (post Zoos) Retainers comes back into play, but I think that's it for now.








Another way to track naval development. I don't think that TAD has more than the ironclads I've seen on the west coast because fo the CO2 accrual.

[Krill]

T158

No pictures, text only - TAD offered DOF, and I accepted. I understand that this means I get the opportunity for first strike on T189, TAD gets to declare war on T190.

Short version: I need cities. Attacking TAD in a few turns with battleships, my two coal to his one is probably the best way to win a zero sum game, but this is a three way fight with two interested parties: I do not want to get caught between TAD and Whosit with military alliances I can't counter. This way I can fight Whosit either on equal footing (plus significant tech advantage), or with a working military alliance. I'm shipping everything over, and other than Lumberjack on building duty, everything else can pretty much stay on military. Also I can't integrate TADs cities into my holdings due to loyalty, but that problem does not exist with Whosit.

I almost got Refining to complete SoT159 but I was a few beakers short. I'm now producing over 180bpt, and this will increase a little more over the next few turns. Aim for 200bpt in roughly 10 turns (when Venice reaches size 10, I'm probably being optimistic by 2 turns or so).

Until I know where oil is, then I can't do much more planning. If I don't have any oil things are going to go down the pan very quickly.

[Krill]

Oil in 1, and then we see what sort of game we have.

[Krill]

Any lurkers want to place bets on where the oil spawns, and who has how many, now's the time to post.

I'm going with: I have no land based oil in territory, but there is one down at Fishtail. TAD has 5, and greenline has another oil within the city limits of Urtin Duu.

[Krill]

T160

Good turn. It's worth reporting, so you are going to have to wait until tomorrow.

I'm going with: I have no land based oil in territory, but there is one down at Fishtail. TAD has 5, and greenline has another oil within the city limits of Urtin Duu.

One of these things is right, two are close, one is wrong. Have a guess.

[RefSteel]

One of these things is right, two are close, one is wrong. Have a guess.

Of course the pessimist says, "Right, you have none; wrong, not even at Fishtail; close, TAD has 6; close, there's one on the far side of Urtin Duu, but not within the city limits."  But I'm going to guess:

1) Close!  You have only 1-2 in your territory, possibly requiring tile purchase.
2) Close!  One of them is near fishtail, but is also accessible from an existing city.
3) Wrong!  He has 1-2 and can get a (second and/or) third with a new city or tile purchase or something, but not more.
4) Right!  Urtin Duu has one.

How'd I do?

[Krill]

I suspect that we might actually get a post war about the definition of close.

The report is written, but whilst I'm not a jerk, I'm not going to post it until I get two more guesses

[Jabah]

My guesses
- The wrong one --> TAD is not having 5
- Close x2 --> there is one in the desert between you in the contested area and possibly one in the ice where your not founded city would be
- Right --> Urtin Duu