P3-02 - Hostile Takeover Inc.

[nocho]

Forgive me my ignorance, but what good does caste do at this point? We hardly have the surplus food to run extra specialists in any of our cities (apart maybe from Volcanic Office). The only use I see now is the odd artist for a quick border pop in new cities. The extra hammer for workshops can't be the reason either as we have a lot of unworked mines still to increase production. They must be unworked precisely because of our relative lack of food again, a thing workshops won't help much with.
Pacifism would be nice, but OR still has its uses, so I guess I agree with Meiz about waiting with a civic switch.

I think we need some heavy chain irrigation. Unfortunately some cottages and hamlets have to be bulldozered for it but I would want to get MO's rice and VO's wheat irrigated asap.

Don't know whether to fear Roosey, he normally doesn't bully that much around but we have slipped a bit in power.

Guess I'm up next so got it, probably for tomorrow evening. I guess it's basically question of continuing building up, bub part of education and head towards lib. And maybe steal some more techs like construction or feudalism.

 

[Meiz]

I'd steal Machinery next, because it's on the way to Optics. That should be our next priority after Liberalism.

 

[Pindrus]

I have also received a memo from the strategic planning committee requesting that its long-term plan to cultivate the training of aspiring engineers be implemented. While much of the memo portends future achievements which are hard to describe with current terminology (what is this "Mining Inc?"), they make a compelling case that absent the great works that usually draw engineers we will require special attention to see that our coming needs will be met.

We must fire the middle-managers responsible for security and observation! The San Francisco Incident will long be a blemish on our otherwise impeccable record.

Also, don't forget that company policy specifically forbids the collection of governing authority in a central, inefficient, bureaucratic body.

 

[nocho]

Does that memo from the strategic planning committee also say something about civic changes? I'm a bit in doubt about whether adopting pacifism. If we do take pacifism a next GS may be in time for bulbing part of liberalism. But shouldn't steal machinery then in the mean time...
And are there any more opinions regarding the caste/slavery issue? I voiced my doubts about caste, but OTOH IIRC a civic change to pacifism+caste is only 1 turn now.

 

[Pindrus]

The committee remained deadlocked on reorganizing the labor and religious systems in place for 2 votes, but with a third a slight majority was in favor of the shift. Most of the group's long-range strategic plans call for developing, founding, or otherwise *acquiring* a branch office dedicated to harnessing the best and brightest minds from a variety of professions. Even if science is the current focus, soon we will want flexibility to pursue business and possibly even the arts.

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I can see it both ways... In my offline games I tend to delay adopting pacifism/caste for the lures of 25% production or , but often end up delaying or losing the lib race. In this situation we have only a very rough picture of the progress of the other civ's, so I'd lean towards making a sacrifice to speed Lib.

Though, on the other hand, if we delay a switch and get uni's up under OR while infra in new cities (should found 1 more) we have a chance to change civics under a Taj Mahal-induced GA (assume we take Nat with Lib).

 

[nocho]

Ok, I'll make the switch then to pacifism+caste, unless somebody objects within a couple of hours (hope to play within 2 or 3 hours or so). I'll miss the though...

I'll hold off on stealing machinery as it makes a bulb of lib impossible at this point I think. Will have to see though how it works out timing wise with the next GS and how many turns edu takes after bulbing part of it with the current GS. May try to steal feudalism then for LBs, for if Roosy gets weird ideas.

 

[Meiz]

Guess i can't vote second time? . Our newly built cities will take a long time to develope and Paulus's island city will become completely useless. And as nocho mentioned, we really don't have extra food for specialists quite yet and those cottages would need to be worked.

 

[Pindrus]

Silly idea--we could save the trees around Golden Farmers for National Park... It won't be a great city in any case.

And if we snag Lib and Taj we can swap back to slavery for a bit pretty easily. The island city is mostly for trade routes anyway... Even with the whip it will be marginal.

 

[nocho]

We could also only switch to pacifism and stay in slavery... And make the major changes once we have a GA. When we reach liberalism we'll want to switch to free speech anyway.

 

[Meiz]

We could also only switch to pacifism and stay in slavery... And make the major changes once we have a GA. When we reach liberalism we'll want to switch to free speech anyway.

That would be good, why didn't I though of it?

 

[nocho]

After long discussions the board had to reach a decision what civics the great enterprise Hostile Takeover Inc. had to take. An unassuming board member with the curious name of nocho was functioning as rotating president and he took the salomonic decision of just only adapting to pacifism while laying the promising concept of caste aside for the time being seeing as it was that the food situation of the enterprise was not such that any more specialists could be hired than what could already be achieved with the current infrastructure, foremostly the libraries. Seeing that a rabbi was being trained to spread the word of the lucrative branch which was called judaism, the change to pacifism was delayed one turn. From there one things went on without too much excitement.

920 Rabbi finishes in our new HO and start a forge. Switch to pacifism, keep slavery.

940 We come out of anarchy and hire two scientists in HO which with the 2 from the GL gives the next GS in 14 turns, not bad.
Also we found Ore Office in the south west, unsurprisingly close to a source of iron ore.

960 Paper is in and switch to education. Bulb 1692 beakers with the GS that was hanging around still.

980 Naval Ops builds a quick workboat for Fishing Post.

1020 Hope nobody minds, but decide to build Maoi in Naval Ops. It has the production for it and with HE already there it will be just huge as a military center.

1050 Education comes in. Start on liberalism. I suspect something and a quick search on the site confirms that the next GS will bulb stupid compass instead of lib. However, the spy at hand makes short work of that stealing compass from the Americans. With 50% stationary bonus just at 65% odds, but succeeds!

1090 Thinking that I researched enough beakers into liberalism for the GS to finish it, I switch to machinery. Going to optics quickly will now be priority.

1110 Maoi finishes in Naval Ops. A settler was recruited from among the present tourists in TO using the whip, heading towards the marked site.

GS comes in and bulbs liberalism! Take nationalism as a freebee, not really much discussion possible about that I guess, the only remotely interesting alternative would have been Gunpowder, but that was already 1000 beakers less.

1120 Finish here and handover the save so we can start discussing civics again . We could even consider nationhood maybe for the increased spy points, the happies from barracks and drafting of course. Maybe more worthwhile than free speech atm, as we don't have many mature towns yet.

Not many pictures this time, it was mainly pressing enter. Did whip and build as much infrastructure as possible and as promised in a previous post did quite some chain irrigation, bulldozing some hamlets in the process.

One more pic though of the demographics. Nothing too spectacular but I was happy to see we're number 1 in land area. No monster civs out there yet.

 

[Meiz]

Solid gaming as always, nocho. Now to get those caravels asap! I do agree on Nationhood over Free Speech.

Roster
PaulusIII
Meiz
nocho - Just played
Pindrus - UP
Loki Strikes
Ralph Jackson

 

[nocho]

I forgot to mention FWIW that Roosy adopted mercantilism during my set, so he must have banking already. Obviously he's been researching the lower halve of the tech tree, IIRC we have aesthetics, paper and philo on him, while he has something like 4 lower halve techs on us.

Indeed get those caravels out asap, I think we must be in a good position for some tech trades once we meet more AIs.

We can and should still build the NE, I suppose in HO. After the forge finishes I would configure it a bit for hammers to get it quickly, maybe even dropping the 2 hired scientist to work 2 mines while building it.

Of course we also want the Taj. If HO is on the NE I would maybe try in the new Riverside Office (former GHO) or in mining operation which have decent though not spectacular hammers. I don't think we're in an extreme hurry to build it as probably we're the only ones with nationalism for a while. Naval Ops has better hammers but I would reserve it for spitting out macemen at an impressive rate (with HE and Maoi). We may want to start thinking about hostile takeover of our continent...

EDIT: On a side note, we've got two spies stationed in San Francisco, it's probably better to retreat them before they get caught. After stealing compass there are not many EPs left so nothing worthwile can be done anyway. We even lost sight of Roosy's power rating. We thwarted some of his espionage actions during my set by the way.
And after building the NE I'd hire an engineer from the forge for the low odds chance of popping a GE one day.

 

[Pindrus]

I have the save.

Not sure about Nationalism vs. Free Speech. We should definitely switch to one of them (probably during the Taj GA?). Nationalism has nice synergy with our UB, but I'm not sure how much we are pushing happy caps (at work atm). It would be tempting to try and culturally-convert San Francisco though (Hermitage in new RO?), and we lost a tile in the new HO as well. Overall I think Nat provides more flexibility and that would likely be my default. Probably also switch into Caste and try to get a Merchant during the GA?

Having missed the GE wonders, I'm thinking our next real opportunity is the Ironworks, which opens up 3 (I think) slots. Certainly will run a engineer spec, but the chances won't be that great--even the artist pollution from the Nat. Epic itself would make for what, a 60% chance if we only ran an engineer?

I still defer to Paulus to interpret the rule against pre-corporation aggressions. Will build up some forces from NO, but won't play a real war-prep set (do we even have construction?).

I will continue on to optics, but what after that? I think it fits the variant to go astro and try to claim resource-supplying outposts across the world. At this point I'd probably beeline for sushi.

Will play tonight (GMT -6) and hopefully secure the Taj and meet some other candidates for corporate acquisition!

 

[nocho]

The Taj induced GA will indeed be the moment for civic changes, none of the possibilties is that pressing to be worth anarchy right now.

Good point about the engineer slots from ironworks. Honestly would never have thought about that! So after optics a beeline towards steel may be a good idea, not least because of cannons but as well as it opens up ironworks. Will need 6 forges though (some are in progress atm).

The nice thing is that until then we'll probably get a few more GSs, which can be used for partbulbing printing press (which should be bulbed out of the way), chemistry (on the way to steel) and maybe even astronomy itself. That bulb list really is useful! In the mean time we should be able to get construction and engineering in trade and self research gunpowder.

I'm not against selfresearching Astronomy first though, as intercontinental trade routes must be a welcome boost to the economy. But going towards steel rather soon would be a good plan I think.

 

[Pindrus]

Will play shortly--Also may consider switching to Free Relig. when we meet other civ's so we don't take the diplo hit.

Roosy already has Optics, so maybe he will meet other civs and trade soon? He is also running Merc, so our OB with him is only good for diplo

 

[PaulusIII]

You know he will have discovered another civ once he wants to trade techs. Make sure we don't trade away Education quickly, so we might be able to get a shot at the free GM from Economics. (and save him up for Sid's Sushi)

I'll be away until Monday so please take over from me if I'm up in the meantime.

 

[Pindrus]

Summary:
A new era of commerce, trade and tantilizing opportunity has opened for Hostile Takeover Inc.! Our

Turn-by-Turn

IT (1120 AD)
Some outdated police units were decomissioned to the private sector to fair savings. Our undercover agents posing as casual merchants were withdrawn to monitor our own offices. And the citizens of New Riverside re-organized themselves for more efficient productivity.

Turn 1 (1130 AD)
Some large religious building that the people call "Notre Dame" was constructed somewhere across the globe. Our citizens are too engaged in commerce to care much for such trivial pursuits.

Our last new branch on the mainland was also founded, dubbed Perfume Emporium for the nearby resources.

Turn 2 (1140 AD)
Citizens in New Riverside begin to craft the tale of our own CEO Shaka and his meteoric rise from small-town chief to head of a global commercial empire! Surely it will inspire future generations to achieve similar, if lessor, greatness. Rumors from abroad also tell of a fearless military leader achieving great fame, and our people rejoice in their own peacefulness... for now.

Turn 3 (1150 AD)
Aha! Indeed it appears that belligerent foreign powers seek to steal the wisdom of our own great barons of commerce!

Our engineers have learned to harness powerful properties of force, leverage, and mechanics and turn to the task of bending light itself. Because our scholars are so talented, they switched back and forth between using their talents in the marketplace and in our newly constructed universities to maximize their output, retain sufficient currency reserves, and keep open options for research.

Turn 4 (1160 AD)
Roosevelt has his own eyes set on worldwide exploration...

Our negotiators take advantage of the situation to renogotiate a deal in our favor.

Turn 5 (1170 AD)
Proof arrives that there are indeed other civilizations beyond our shores.

The Dutch envoy arrives from the northwest and has founded a belief called "Christianity. The title of Sea Expedition office is somewhat ironic, for it is not where a fleet of exploration embarked, but where a foreign ship was first sighted!

While fairly advanced, he still misses some critical pieces of knowledge.

Turn 7 (1190 AD)
What a poor excuse for a leader! After a brief conference a board subcommittee grants this request and, with an improvement in relations, we will be able to designate a proper time for military engagements on our own terms.

After:

In some offices, citizens are beginning to be disgruntled with the lack of luxury resources and entertainment. As no acquisitions are imminent, we are forced to take alternative measures to maintain productivity.

Turn 8 (1200 AD)
Yet another sabateour is apprehended, luckily before any damage was caused.

The board was faced with a difficult decision. Our neighbors were now willing to engage in fair exhange of ideas, though Hostile Takeover had yet to encounter any other future acquisition possibilities. In order to maximize the return on exhanges it would be ideal to monopolize certain sectors, yet to meet potential trading partners we first needed to venture overseas ourselves. In the end, thinking they were not too long for the world, we shared secrets of education with our American counterparts. Research was directed to the science of astronomy, though resources were allocated purely for the generation of wealth. Unfortunately, a memo from an absent board member arrived too late to be considered.

Turn 9 (1210 AD)
More branches were experiencing slight unrest and yet further shocks were delivered to the labor market across a broad swath of sectors

Turn 10 (1220 AD)
Men and women gathered at the docks of Naval Office and Ore Operations to see off entrepreneurial overseas expeditions. The Board itself was present to wish the adventurers speed in identifying unknown potential partners abroad!

Turn 12 (1240 AD)
The Americans' own explorers have sent word that the world is round! We shall see what their cities look like upon their fleets' long-awaited return...

Turn 13 (1250 AD)
Another foreign vessel is spotted, this time by the fisherpeople of Fishing Post. It was commissioned by Darius of the Persians and brought tidings of peace. Also, an appropriately-named great person is born in a distant land.

And our own sails take us within sight of another set of borders... Who would this new face be?

Turn 14 (1260 AD)
Aha!

From the ships sent to the west, we have also made contact with yet another leader.

Turn 15 (1270 AD)
A detailed report from the Entertainment and Euphoria subcommitte is grim and further labor reallocations are called for...

Earlier reports of military engagements are confirmed. Apparently the Dutch are less peaceful than initially believed...

Turn 16 (1280 AD)
Apparently opposing researchers covet knowledge of the state currently held by our own sages... Perhaps word leaked out of the top-secret construction site at New Riverside. We must redouble efforts to maintain the project's secrecy!

 

[Pindrus]

Turn 17 (1290 AD)
And our intrepid sailors make contact with a final counterpart sailing on the coast.

Having met all foreign entities and, apart from a general disdain of the inwards-looking Japanese, witnessed amicable relations, an initial round of knowledge sharing was initiated.

Pre-trades:

Trades:

Post-trades:

Possibilities for maintaining harmonious relations appear likely with an adoption freedoms in religion and markets.

Our Espionage Division also reallocated its agents assignments.

And our adventurers bring sightings of possible foreign acquisitions. Can Hostile Takeover Inc. be the first to claim these lands?

Closing Thoughts

I've been stockpiling gold, waiting to see what the tech situation was. At this point we could either fully fund Astronomy or wait one turn and attempt to snatch Economics, or head for Gunpowder.

After finishing the NE in New Head Office, I continued to run an eng spec alone for a long-shot at a GE...

A GS could help bulb Astro (I believe) to have a shot at settling the open islands before competitors.

Next turn we can trade Edu to Darius for Banking & change, and also see if anyone else has Economics. Many great people were born in my set, including a couple merchants, so it's possible that the free GM is already gone. Hopefully giving away paper to Roosy didn't ruin our shot at it!

Aside from the hate on Japan, the only acrimony is between Roosy and Louis. I would lean towards cancelling OB with FDR and opening borders with the Mali, Dutch, Persians, and French.

I've had to apply the whip liberally on infra to keep under happy caps. Some of our garrison troops were reallocated to provide a police force, and more can yet be, now that FDR is at friendly. Naval Ops finally got around to starting some land troops, though under pacifism and with Roosy pacified I didn't prioritize military. Keep an eye on Volcanic Office especially.

I'm worried that we may miss the Taj. Darius already had Nationalism when I met him, and Mansa got it towards the end. Darius has only 3 cities, but one is on top of marble Not much to do about it, as New Riverside is already working near max hammers. It could possibly by optimized to shave a turn or two off though.

We are also close to unlocking Oxford, which should probably go in Riverside. Last 2 uni's can probably be whipped soon.

Roster
PaulusIII - Out until Monday, skip/swap if it gets around by then
Meiz
nocho
Pindrus - Just Played
Loki Strikes - Up for some diplomatic excitement!
Ralph Jackson

 

[nocho]

Looks like an interesting set! A save would come in handy though...