Nerds in Space

[Whosit]

Zara has put up zero fight so far. I've seen two Frigates so far, both toward the end of the turnset. (One appears to be keeping the cultural defense of those two barb cities down.) The most units I've seen defending a city has been three or four, mostly riflemen with an occasional longbow.

That's good news. We'll definitely want to continue the fight until we take that other oil spot, but maybe we can just keep beating on him until he launches an actual counter-attack, or until he's dead. Or at least crippled.

We wouldn't want to take him as a vassal, right? He's not cool enough for the nerd club.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

So I just opened the save between mine and Whosit's set. Sure enough. Stupid Ethiopian oil city on ice. Size two. We both missed it. Oh well.

And Whosit, nerds love vassals. Someone's got to alphabetize all those Magic: The Gathering cards, grouped by series and attack value. Like I'm supposed to do *that* myself.

 

[Whosit]

And Whosit, nerds love vassals. Someone's got to alphabetize all those Magic: The Gathering cards, grouped by series and attack value. Like I'm supposed to do *that* myself.

I suppose that's true. And, sometimes, you can get the Vassal to pick up the tab on those new sets.

Well, Zara is on of the AI tech leaders. If we minimize the damage to the rest of his core cities and just take out his icy nonsense, could he be useful tech-wise? Maybe order him to research the techs that would otherwise be back-fill for us? That's the kind of precarious balance with acquiring vassals, I think: If you're not going for Conquest, getting a Vassal who's not just a drain on your economy (increased maintenance).

 

[mlinneak]

I see I am up now

Nice set, Bindamel.

I should be able to play tonight after work, so any additional comments would be great

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

so any additional comments would be great

Yeah. Don't make an ass of yourself. Now, wasn't that helpful?

 

[Brian Shanahan]

I see I am up now

Nice set, Bindamel.

I should be able to play tonight after work, so any additional comments would be great

Lurker comment: I believe the consensus is to act the dog in the manger and take Zara's oil, without taking out too much of his core, and then capping him for the juicy backfill techs he'll research for you.

 

[mlinneak]

[Mom]What in the world are you doing, mlinneak? Why are you playing on the computer so late? You have to get up for work in the morning!

[mlinneak]I'm not playing, r-tard! I've teamed up with a group of highly technical though not fashionably inclined brilliant minds to conquer the world through technology and space flight!

[Mom](exasperated)You mean you and your nerdy friends are playing some kind of role playing game! Role playing is still playing! ...And I'm not an r-tard! Don't speak to your mother that way! Turn around and look at me when I'm talking to you!

Spoiler :

 

[mlinneak]

[Master Shake]These water maps are great for my tan, but I'm going to need some more money.

[Meatwad]Frylock, have you seen Saladin? I want to show him my new puppets!

[Frylock]Saladin's dead. You killed him.

[Meatwad]Oh.. well, what about Zara Yaqob? I think he would love to play with me and my puppets.

[Frylock]Meatwad, Zara Yaqob hates you! Everything you touch either dies or gets killed!

[Meatwad]Everybody hates me 'cause everything I touch either dies or gets killed! (cries)

[Frylock]Shake, what are you doing now? You're supposed to be helping!

[Master Shake]I am helping. I've kept our secrets safe from the enemy, just like I planned!

[Master Shake]Besides, look at all these people standing around. It's their job to serve me! They should be doing everything I tell them!

[Ignignokt]You're too inferior to ever travel in space. You might as well just sit there and watch while we destroy you utterly at our leisure.

[Err]Yeah we're gonna destroy you! You are gonna die!

[Frylock](relieved)Thank goodness ruff_hi is up next to help me sort out this mess.

 

[mlinneak]

Zara will not capitulate yet but we still need to take out two of his cities. We have to wait for Debre Tabor to grow - it's working clams so that should be soon - and get some units up to Kubar, some are on the way.

There are a lot of units and workers that probably need to be shuttled around and several outdated units we may want to either consider upgrading or building replacements for.

Edit:

-Research continued into Industrialism, there are 2 turns left on that
-Took Harar from Zara Yaqob and Zeila and Minoan from the barbarians
-Continued building units in most cities unless they had really poor production and no barracks, queued theatres to help with culture in all three newly conquered cities
-Lost just a few units, and managed to take out several of Zara Yaqob's Frigates
-One of our fishing boats was pillaged and will need to be replaced
-A great scientist, Plato, was born and is waiting for the group to decide what to do with him
-There was also a fortified great general from someone else's set that I left because I was unsure if there was a purpose he was being held for

That pretty much sums up the set - taking the three cities and letting the units heal, along with unit shuttling was most of the play.

 

[Whosit]

One of the more entertaining sets lately. Too bad I have no idea what actually happened!

Edit: Cross-post, but still.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

Okay, I admit it. I didn't recognize any of those characters. Google says I have to watch Aquateen and the Hunger Force, though and--like a good little sheep--I do whatever google says.

Roster:

• Bindamel
• Ozbenno -- OOP
• mlinneak -- Just played
• Ruff -- Up now
• Whosit
• Rex

BTW, mlinneak, I finally clicked the link in your sig. Your husband's article is funny, but "Hitler Loses a Cultural Victory" is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

 

[ruff_hi]

Roster:

• Ruff -- Up now

sorry - my jumping in should be viewed as a once in a very long while sort of thing.

PS: google says give all of your money to ruff

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

fine. Having been abandoned by longtime friend, Ruff Hi, Whosit is up.

And no dice, Ruff. I only listen to Google when He speaks directly inside my head.

 

[ruff_hi]

fine. Having been abandoned by longtime friend, Ruff Hi, Whosit is up.

hey - I always said that you should treat me as erratic ... hmm - maybe that didn't come out right.

And no dice, Ruff. I only listen to Google when He speaks directly inside my head.

http://tinyurl.com/yafg9kx

 

[Whosit]

I'll pick it up in a couple of days. Hopefully my PC can handle the war sets.

 

[arkenstone]

well it looks like Zara has a lod of cities and might be very powerful!

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

I'll pick it up in a couple of days. Hopefully my PC can handle the war sets.

Can we take a swap? I can play tonight. Plus, I'll have lost the war by the time I hand it off, so none of that pesky modern age war bogging down your slow-as-molasses computer.

 

[Whosit]

Can we take a swap? I can play tonight. Plus, I'll have lost the war by the time I hand it off, so none of that pesky modern age war bogging down your slow-as-molasses computer.

Not a very compelling reason to swap a set, but, sure, knock yourself out.

Just, don't knock our team out.

Remember, take out his ice/oil cities, and then see if he'll give up. If not, we'll just have to take him down a city at a time and hope he'll capitulate before he becomes useless to us.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

Well, I played eight turns last night, all before seeing Whosit's note to go north, then across. I'm not sure Whosit understands how far across we'd have to go to get to oil, though. That's a lot of water slogging. Anyhow, I did go north...ish.

The reason I stopped was to gauge the groups thoughts on something. We're now at about 4 unhappy from war weariness and five from emancipation, which is really starting to take its toll.

Fortunately, we're not getting left behind on tech, but we're only researching about 1000 beakers per turn. We're now into the 13-15k per tech range and I don't like going that many turns between tech. My fear is that Joao has spent all this time building infrastructure and is about to punch the accelerator.

So, I'd like to wrap up this war, swap civics into tech-friendly mode and start the race.

Unfortunately, though, Zara isn't playing ball. His power graph is just about even with ours and all his other metrics are about second or third in the world. Parity with us. He feels no need to capitulate.

Worse, he seems to feel no urgent need to make peace. The best he'll give us for peace is 650 golf and 11 gold per turn. No techs. No cities.

I've taken three more of his cities (two were size 16) and none of his graphs seem to show it affecting him. Commerce and production haven't really budged downward.

He still hasn't countered and, him being even in power, he must be keeping all that defense in his core cities. Meanwhile, we're getting killed in unhappiness and losing as many units as he is. (Those one tile islands are brutal. I didn't realize that you can't use siege from a ship.)

And now he's got machine guns sitting on top. I'm seeing diminished returns on this war. At this point, I'm not certain I see any value in even taking out his arctic oil. It'd take 10 turns just to get a transport there and that's the direct route.

So here's my proposal...

Make peace now. Take the gold. We birthed a great scientist who can start a golden age. Do it, flip the civics switch. From there, we can build a few more units if we want and regroup with some force, though I don't see any value in taking out Zara when I really believe Joao is going to run away.

I'll wait to hear other opinions before playing.

 

[Whosit]

Hmm, I guess I didn't realize how far his other city is. Maybe we should make a beeline for Industrialism so that we can train Marines? If you feel that Joao is the fish to fry, alright.

Civics: If we are planning another war, Police State would be good. We're probably not close to Fascism, are we? Building Mount Rushmore, Jails everywhere, and Police State would eliminate War Weariness completely. Can we afford to leave Slavery? It's really the only way most of our cities can produce anything, although most buildings are more and more expensive now.

Wait, we don't want Police State because we still need Representation, right? Hmm. Nationhood is a bit less useful when you get to Infantry, since they cost 2 population instead of 1. Emancipation is really just useless since we don't have any cottages to grow! Why do the AI have to feel compelled to always switch to it??

Blah, can't remember what we're in. If not Police State, we at least want Jails everywhere, and build Mount Rushmore to minimize War Weariness. Dunno what to do about Emancipation, though. We don't want to run the culture slider.