PB77 - Bing Bong

[BING_XI_LAO]

Scooter declared war on Yuri and fought a couple of naval battles!

I also declared war on Scooter! Unfortunately, I can't really do much, but it hopefully Cairo also declares war and no-one pussies out. My war declaration is more of a promise to the other players, both the potential allies, and Scooter (if he attacks me now, it's actually a good thing, since it distracts some of his forces away from the players who have the ability to attack him).

[BING_XI_LAO]

Whips this turn took my income back from 258 to 231, but then the two whipped shrine groceries, among other things (harbours, courthouses, castles) took it back up to 288.

I can see inside a scooter city and it has 4 trade routes, all internal, one of them 8 income.

[BING_XI_LAO]

Also Yuri has had 8 triremes parked off in a corner 'against' me for like 60 turns, I wonder if he forgot they existed.

[greenline]

If yuris holds up well against the invasion, there might still be a game. But it is a longshot.

What kind of land forces do we have currently?

[BING_XI_LAO]

16 catapults. Valuable cities have a fair amount of longbows in them. Also some axes but they're still stuck in the Lemuria garrison. Galleys so damn slow...

[greenline]

Unfortunately I don't think we will be able to hit anything but very lightly defended scooter cities with just cats + longbows. Need some kind of hitter unit.

I'm increasingly not a fan of how the CtH mod makes Galleons locked behind Paper + Astro rather than Astro. Favors tech leaders more than it should on naval maps

[BING_XI_LAO]

Unfortunately I don't think we will be able to hit anything but very lightly defended scooter cities with just cats + longbows. Need some kind of hitter unit.

I'm increasingly not a fan of how the CtH mod makes Galleons locked behind Paper + Astro rather than Astro. Favors tech leaders more than it should on naval maps

!!!
I suppose that's why everyone researched Alphabet. Goddamn.

The gaps between one unit in the tech tree and the next are much more pronounced already for ships because they gain both movement speed and strength.

Imagine if macemen got 2 speed, knights 3 speed, musketman 3 speed, cuirs 4 speed etc.

As stated, I'm only declaring war as a promise at this point.

[Qgqqqqq]

I'm not sure gating Galleons helps the tech leader. I would say it makes it harder to get to that massive powerswing, which generally hurts an early leader.

[xist10]

I do think Astro + Paper helps a clear leader more.
If your GNP is higher, you will research both techs faster and as such you will get the exclusive advantage of Galleons longer.
The others have more time to prepare, but this is not that useful.

I think the Paper was added, to make a Galleon bulb more difficult.
You can bulb Galleon relative fast, but this need to avoid Paper. SO you need about 1,5k more to start building Galleons after the bulb.

[greenline]

Galleons themselves aren't a huge power swing. They lose in hammers to whipped caravel fleets, and galleons need to be filled with relevant units to take cities. Galleons filled with axes won't do much.

Leaving galleons just on astro means any player can aim to bulb astro to try and catch up.