VQ08 - Washington/Emporer - Mission Control

[GreyFox]

Space parts are similar to projects, no rushing with GE or money or slavery.

Sell Fusion to Mansa???? I think we rely on Mansa to learn Fusion for us to get Fusion We cannot afford to rasie research back, and AFAICT, Freddie is the only one with Fusion, so we won't get it just yet. No, the only way to get money is to keep science at 0%.

I think the limit of spy is 4. I think we need 2 on Germany and 2 in Mali. Once MM get Fusion, he will be building Space Part. Remember that the aluminum does not speed up Engine, Mansa will be an equal threat for us as Freddie.

With that in mind, it also mean that once Mansa get Fusion, we can probably sell him the aluminum at exhorbitant prices + Hit SIngles.

If Peter is building troops up, he is likely gearing for war ... keep him friendly! Hopefully, he will atatck FReddie (unlikely, he is friendly). But I think Vicky or HC is the more likely target.

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[Cosmichail]

Likely give it a go tonight late after work. Good points Greyfox.

 

[Cosmichail]

I started out by looking around and seeing that we are in good shape. The Internet is almost done and once it finishes should get some techs out of it. The first 10 turns are somewhat uneventful so I decide to play a bit more to see if things get interesting.

They did.

We sabotage the Engine at a great cost (3300 gold) and slow Freddy down somewhat. It doesn’t leave us with enough money to sabotage Mansa but he is only building Life Support at this point. We still have Thrusters, stasis chamber, life support, and engine to build. Seattle finishes casing and we start that one on thrusters. As I am watching Nikita on tv (she’s hot too) I get our Nikita standing on the shores to go do her thing. I decide we should check up on those Russians to see where he’s at.

Illinois finishes it’s part and go to wealth for now. (wow that one is producing real good)

I also go around and putting all cities on wealth to working wealth tiles which helps out wealth somewhat.



Mansa asks for this trade but decline of course.



On the eighth turn we build the Internet which yields us many techs but alas not Fusion. It would seem Mansa Musa has not yet discovered it.







We also discover the following techs:

Refrigeration, Genetics, (really helps the health), Composites, Ecology, Mass Media, Medicine, and flight in one shot. But no Fusion. We start Philadelphia on Life Support, and Seattle on Thrusters (earlier) and Illinois on Stasis chamber. I started a coal plant in Washington, NYC to up the production in anticipation for the Engine.

We sabotage Freddy for a second time and cost almost 4000 gold. I hope that we get Fusion soon as we need to get started on the engine as at some point sabotaging won’t be effective anymore and will get caught.

We make a trade with Freddy and in spirit of Grey Fox I was trying to up the amount he was paying for the Pig. Doh he now offers spices for it and accept. My next trade is a lot better and decide we can trade Aluminium now since it’s a race for the Engine.





So we trade Aluminum for 21 gold and copper. (now that we don’t need it DOH)

We get a GP and I decide to merge him with Washington. We got a GP but yet there are 4 scientists and 3 engineers there??

Good news of the war front:




We also sabotage Mansa Musa too he has just started building the engine but has some serious production in Timbuktu. (done in 14 turns)

I begin to realize that we must start building that engine soon as we are likely to fail sooner or later at sabotage and sure enough we can’t do it, get caught and loose over 4000 gold. I put science to 100% for a few turns and might have done that for 3 turns until Fusion was discovered. I immediately start Washington on the Engine which in the beginning will take 20 turns. Philly/Illinois are still building parts as well as Seattle but they will be done well before Engine.



I decide to merge the second GP with Washington to increase production and send workers to Washington to start replacing forests/cottages with workshops to speed up production.

Mansa’s production slows down when Peter attacks him:



We also get a GE pop in Washington and I merge him as well with Washington as I already used up the other GP’s but it does shave one turn off Engine. After chopping and changing cottages to workshops we get ahead of Freddy first by one turn then we jump ahead by two turns. I try another sabotage to see if we would get caught again and sure enough we do.

In 1944 we build the Engine, thrusters, and stasis all at the same time and win a space victory.

I was going to stop at 15 turns but when I thought about it being some 7 turns left on the game I felt might as well just finish it. I hope that’s ok guys. We came from behind and thanks to space elevator/internet it brought us at the same level and managed with chopping/replacing cottages to get ahead by 2 turns and win. We started with 20 and got it down fairly quick to 11 turns and with chops/engineer down to 6 turns. Close but we did it. We did loose two spies. Poor Nikita’s but without them we would have never made it.

I will post later tonight the victory and everything else just have to get going for work.

Very much enjoyed playing with the team and will see you all in another SG.

 

[Meatbuster]

(Admittedly, I was one of the doomsayers though.)

How many times did we sabotage Fred's Engine? 3?

 

[GreyFox]

Great job!

I am completely awed by the usefulness of the Internet, it is indeed very powerful when you are trailing behind in space race. However, I think we make the correct decision to go for space elevator first, since AI will target this space wonder, and often ignores the Internet (since they are leading in tech, I presume).

This game also demonstrated the necessity of spies in a space race, and the abolutely synergetic combination with Internet. It is with the Internet that we are able to concentrate on wealth to generate sufficient fund for the expensive covert ops of La Femme Nikita. I am surprised though by the number of screenshots in your report, Cosmic, that you have research tuned to 100%. I thought the idea of Internet is to completely ignore research and concentrate on fund raising. If you've done that, you wouldn't find funding Nikita that expensive ... 3000~4000 gold is cheap when we are generating close to a grand per turn (according to your last screenshot)!

Once again, great game, prove that it is possible to win the space race peacefully at Emperor Level (albeit I did declare on Gandhi, but that's hardly an agression, more of out of pity to give hi a quick end to his misery ).

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[Cosmichail]

Greyfox I only did it for about 2 turns as I was worried that it wouldn't be found by Internet right away. We did get it via the Internet but much later than the other discoveries. Once we discovered it I turned research off completely again to save up for the sabotaging. It is effective at first but as you do it more and more you start to get caught as I was caught twice.

Once I realized we were going to get caught it meant that we needed to get to the engine asap and that's when I thought about it just researching to speed it up as at 100% it would be 4 turns. It got down to 2 turns and then the Internet gave it to us round the same time Mansa started building the Internet. My pictures weren't chronological.

Here is the rest of the victory pictures.

 

[GreyFox]

You might wanna post the replay.

 

[Cosmichail]

As requested by Greyfox here is the replay

Replay

 

[Scowler]

Wow! What a great win! And I was definitely one of the doom-and-gloomers...

And all thanks to the skill of the other players on the team. As always, a pleasure working with you!

 

[bobrath]

lurker's comment:

2. We are capitalist and seek to gain wealth in all our trades so must always gain some coin with our trades.

Now I only really started paying attention halfway through the game... but seems to me that last trade with Freddy is most uncapitalist...

 

[Cosmichail]

Yes you're right Bob, I was trying to get more coin out of him but he got me with having spices available instead of coin. Really didn't have anything else to offer him to get the coin. But the second trade was definitely in a capitalist vein 21 gold/copper for aluminum. We really didn't make the variants as such and I realized half way thru the game that the goals were set too high for an emperor game.

 

[Meatbuster]

Still, it's Emperor! I didn't play through the entire thing but thanks for giving me my first Emperor win.

Playing any sort of variant can be difficult in this difficulty, I guess. Emperor+ could be Just Win games with a goal or strategy in mind to replace any variants.

 

[Cosmichail]

Robo,

In the beginning we were isolated and unadated by barbs. It was a real tough start and some of us wanted to start again. Greyfox persisted in keeping it going and voila we made it by 2 turns.

 

[Meatbuster]

I see. So this win is GreyFox's fault now, ultimately!

Again, great game! First time I've ever experienced a buzzer beater.

 

[GreyFox]

My fault?

Ok, sorry.

Sincere apology for pushing my teammates too hard.

 

[Cosmichail]

Greyfox has also got me much more into negotiating in my games now. That's why I call him "The Negotiator". Yes it's your fault Greyfox LOL.....

You make a great team leader.....

 

[pholkhero]

You make a great team leader.....

Okay, that's all i need to know. The world IS coming to an end . . .