PH17: pholkhero and the Holy Grail

[Whosit]

OK, sounds good. I guess I'm up next, though I'm up in another game first, I think, so it'll probably be a couple days 'till I play, but here's my "got it." I'll do some deficit research to try and get Rifling in faster, then see about upgrading to Cossacks (though that might be for the next player). Hmm, I wonder what persona I will take this time around.

So long as Capac doesn't have Rifling, the best he can field are Musketmen and Knights, which should not pose a threat to us so long as we have sufficient Cossacks.

I plan to fire off the GA to get us to Rifling more quickly. I'll see if we have more discussion on Civics. Theocracy and Nationalism would be a good combo so that we can get 1-promo drafted Rifles. Do we have anything approaching a Globe Theatre city? I'll take a look at the save and see what we can do. Right, it's Scithian. Is whip overflow really the best way to do this? You may be right, but I want to know if there are other options.

The specialist situation in St. Pete is wacked out. A Spy, Scientist, and Engineer?? 2 Artists (to try and get some of our tiles back) and a Scientist, I guess. C'mon, the city is starving already, we need more culture there!

ESPECIALLY BECAUSE WE LOST CONTROL OF THE HORSE TILE!! That is COMPLETELY unacceptable! Hence, the yelling. I will drop the Treb build, hire Artists, build a temple or two there, and elsewhere, so that I can build the Hindu Cathedral (we're still getting Marble for double production). +50% culture should let us get those critical tiles back.

More edit: I'll whip the Hindu Temples in St. Pete and Moscow. Yes, Moscow. It has enough food to grow back quite quickly. I'll then whip the Cathedral in St. Pete as quickly as possible, then do another Temple-pair, Cathedral if necessary. Again, we CANNOT lose our source of horses! We still have 49% control in some of the important tiles, and 40+% control in others, so if we act quickly, we may still be able to regain control. Why this has not been made a priority, I do not know. It is all I can do NOT to play right now to fix this. Also, I have to be somewhere like 10 minutes ago, so that, too.

 

[mc-red]

Horsies must have gone on that last turn as I was building cruisssires without any problem.
Didn't notice the governor assign the spy in St Pete's must have been on the last growth.

 

[mc-red]

I don't think we should whip moscow if you trigger GA it will be a waste.
There will be enough hammers during GA to build it quick enough.

Better to use caste in GA to run caste artists where needed.

 

[mc-red]

@whosit
Those comments would have been more helpful at the beginning of my turnset

 

[mc-red]

Do we have anything approaching a Globe Theatre city? I'll take a look at the save and see what we can do. Right, it's Scithian. Is whip overflow really the best way to do this? You may be right, but I want to know if there are other options.

Remember to stack whips and then globe will come out very quick.
HR will prevent any extra unhappiness.
When globe is done the units can move away.

Whipping directly incurrs penalties and is food inefficient as the population has to grow very large.

There maybe a forest to chop to speed it up...

 

[Whosit]

Well, I'm pretty sure I've complained about the cultural pressure on St. Pete at least once before . . . . I won't bother with Caste System because St. Pete will starve too far. I might as well whip away the "excess" population before it just starves away. Yeah, I'll wait to see Moscow's hammer output before whipping it. But this is an emergency, so I make no promises.

Also, you know that you can edit your posts, right? You can do that when you have small comments to add that you forgot before.

 

[mc-red]

Yeah sorry about the post spam.
You can whip a temple in Sythian as the extra unhappy will be covered by the temple.
Won't get as much overflow but it will save Moscow

Edit:
Have to agree with military option by Nocho below.
Also, I thought about Nationhood a lot but for this game it is not best IMHO.
I think Moscow is now on the way to be a monster Beauro cap. Two watermills and a workshop on the three riverside grassland farms will
really round it out.
We are a land target for KK and he is extemely untrustworthy. Having our back covered is worth the hammer inefficiency of whipping in globe city.
We can easily set up Sythian for a two-three turn perpetual fully pomoted cossack whip.
Theocracy I agree is a no brainer and caste a no go.

 

[nocho]

Sorry but am out of town so couldn't comment till now. Looks like it's going pretty well, just 14 turns away from cossacks! Do I understand correctly that we have no horses anymore? If that's the case, I think the answer should come not from building cultural stuff, but just taking out Tiwanuka (or whichever is the city causing the trouble). Can't look at the save, but we should have some decent force already for a directed hit-and-run strike on that city, don't we? Maybe even raze, it was awkwardly placed anyhow. I guess with cossacks HC is the first victim anyhow. Culturally it will be too difficult to get that tile back and I'd rather spend the hammers on military anyway. So get that culture away by force and then just try to hold on for a while. Again, can't look at the actual save but hope that it could work out like that.

I think generally we have too few food to make caste worth it btw. Maybe Moscow can hire some scientists to get too rifling sooner and to make it pop some GP sooner as well (it has the NE after all).

 

[pholkhero]

I think the answer should come not from building cultural stuff, but just taking out Tiwanuka (or whichever is the city causing the trouble).

i like this idea a lot. hurting HC is most important right now i think...i don't see a path to victory unless we get the ball rolling on war. we can't get stuck thinking about small term gains and lose sight of the big picture, i think.

seems we're agreed on civics so i won't comment on that.

but re: whipping, i always used the rule of thumb that once a city gets over 8 or 9, the whip is just too inefficient with the pop lose and time to regain it.

 

[Whosit]

OK, points made. Will play . . . hopefully sooner rather than later, but I got a lot on my plate this weekend.

 

[Whosit]

Well, I've experienced a bit of a time crunch. It'll probably be a couple more days before I can play. If you guys want to wait, great, if not, I can swap with Talamane.

 

[pholkhero]

Tally, you out there? please play if you can; a swap is fine with me

 

[Talamane]

OK, will do. Will post some comments/suggestions this evening.

 

[Talamane]

I have time this afternoon to take a good look at this point in the game.

 

[Talamane]

Brainstorming here.

A KK (allied?) war against Izzy, wipe her out and take the horses near Seville. I mean we are gonna take them all out eventually, right? KK and Izzy still hate each other. The down side to this is a two front war eventually with HC and not much improvement in finances, in fact, hanging onto to any of her former cities would be quite costly.

OR

A QSH (allied?) war against HC. We would have to take out Tiwanaku and the capital to relieve the cultural pressure on St Pete. Taking these cities would be very lucrative, since they are both religious (I dont think Islam has been spread very much) shrines. There is still bad blood between QSH and HC. The downside to this is that KK must have picked up a bar of soap while showering with HC and evidently liked it.

After rifles, I would like for Bohr to bulb Chemistry and tech steel, so we can have cannons ASAP. We are going to need them.

The horse tile is 49% Russian, but it will take a surprising amount of turns AFTER a cathedral before we would get it back. It depends on the competing rate, and my money would be on HC's cities even after a cathedral.

Comments, please.

 

[Whosit]

Hmm . . . . If we're going to gun for Horses . . . Going after Capac would be the most direct route and I would favor that unless we were absolutely guaranteed to take Spain down with no problem. Too tired to have better suggestions now. I'll have to look at the save again.

 

[Talamane]

The problem with Spain is that it is too easy (or not). It doesn't buy us anything, really other than a secure source of horses. I would rather we just use rifles and cannons and get to it (HC). Use our limited supply of cossacks to deal with big stacks of enemy siege.

First turn into my set, guess what happened? That's right. Remember that bar of soap? Well, KK and HC signed a defensive pact.

Should i try to sell RP if some good trades come up? Constitution is out there, and QSH is running US. Emancipation anger is at -1 right now.

 

[nocho]

Bummer about the DP between KK and HC. Obviously we shouldn't declare now on HC. Rather just wait for either one (likely KK) to declare on Izzy which cancels the pact. I don't see much merit in taking on Spain, it's far away and would kill our shaky finances through maintenance. So I'd rather turtle away to rifling and steel, preparing for some future onslaught on HC, when the situation is more favourable.

 

[Talamane]

Happy Thanksgiving!

309 - 1445AD - change to 2 artists / 1 sci in St Pete. It WILL shrink. Kept the treb build and queued up a temple.

310 - 1450AD - HC and KK are now full buddies. Defensive pact they sign. Reconfig the rice tile so Yaro can use it.

312 - 1460AD - horse available from KK, wants arm and leg for them. Izzy has horses too, good luck with that.

315 - 1475AD - Globe being built without a forge, so it is rushed. Scythian has no 'duct and it will need one, maybe a grocer instead? QSH has democracy and is no doubt building SoL.

316 - 1485AD - I decide to give up our monopoly on RP. Sell it to HC for 670 gold & world map. Mil Trad and Lib (still paying off ) to QSH for Constitution. Sell RP to QSH for Economics and 80 gp. LOL, KK will sign a defensive pact, but I just don't feel right joining that club. I revolt to representation, but not to free market.

320 - 1500AD - St Pete starts on mandir. It should build Hermitage after.

Build lumbermills where possible. There is a worker on goto to Rostov to do this.

I suppose we could change civic to free market. Sorry about that.

After rifles, chemistry, bulb it with Bohr in Moscow, then steel. Tech rate is 70% with Moscow on wealth.

 

[nocho]

Mmm, not sure about the RP deal, but well that's history now...

HC has a power rating of 1.2, so if it were not for the defensive pact with KK I'd say we attack him now... Maybe the following plan could work out: declare on Izzy, then ask KK to join the war. Given our relation that should be possible. KK's declaration will break the DP with HC, so then we can declare on HC without a KK backstab. Izzy will have her hands full with KK so she won't bother us. Meanwhile Qin seems to be willing to fight someone as well, he might join us against HC (although we may not even need his help)...
I'd maybe try right away, before HC hits rifles.