[PB78 SPOILERS] GT and Magic Science in the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

[Magic Science]

And now he renamed himself “X.” Will the Barbarians capture his second city and eliminate him? Poor guy.

[GT]

The Barbarians moved so slowly at the dawn of Turn 40 because they were capturing Thrawn's capital.

That's quite some news...  

I guess two barb Archers winning some lucky battles, and unable to slave new troops in time... or just underestimating raging barbarians.. (I like to play it in SP myself quite often)

[Magic Science]

And now Thrawn must have flipped Rivet City.
What a game! .
I really need to report.

[Magic Science]

And now we popped a Copper at New Tehran's "Grassland Horse." . 2/5/0 tile.

I promise a comprehensive report for Turn 41 through Turn 50 this evening.

[Magic Science]

Turn 41 through Turn 50 – 2360 BC and 2000 BC
Part 1
   
Good news! On Turn 41, the southern Barbarian Archer attacked our Archer on the Ivory and died. Our Archer was badly wounded, but he did win.
And the northern Barbarian Archer took the bait again. I guess that is good, but I have mixed feelings about this one. Another dead Warrior. No damage to the Archer.


   
Turn 42. The second half of a double-turn with Turn 41.
The remaining Barbarian Archer moved promptly at the turn roll, which prompted me to figure out why Turn 40 had been different. This is when I noticed that Thrawn had lost his capital to the Barbarians on Turn 40. Again, poor guy. . About as harsh a first game as I have ever seen. I hope he still has hope.
Anyway, the Barbarian Archer moved back 1NW again, the worst possible choice for us. The new Immortal, named Twig, had no easy shot, so instead he went to guard the Pig Pasture.
The Workers 1W of Gaugamela finished chopping, but since they were not clear to go rebuild the Corn Farm, they just added a useless Mine turn instead.
Our victorious Archer was at the minimum possible health and had to heal in Gaugamela before doing anything useful.
Oh, and Buster made it back to relative safety on this turn too. I was worried he would get run over by Barbarians on the long Road/Railroad leading to Superdeath/Naufragar’s capital. That place might be like a funnel for Barbarians.


   
Foreign affairs.
At this time, Gavagai’s Pig was still Mined and not Pastured, but his Copper was Mined too.
And you can see the signs that Delhi is where I suspected. Forests are missing from around there, and the Road 1S has changed appearance.

Goodneighbor finished a Barracks on Turn 42. A harmless build. I believed and hoped that Megaton was spendings its production on a Barracks too. I guess the difference in completion date comes from Goodneighbor working a Citizen specialist because of a different surrounding tile situation? I hope that New Tehran’s theft of tiles from Megaton does not drive the Barbarian governor to work Citizen specialists. That could cause a quicker Monument.


   
Turn 43.
The Barbarian Archer makes the worst choice for us again and moves 1NW. It did not attack the Immortal on defensive terrain and it did not step onto flat ground for an easy kill. Those are the things I wanted it to do. The northern Barbarian Archer was so troublesome!
The Barbarian Archer was adjacent to both the Pig Pasture and the irreplaceable “Grassland Horse.” Twig the Immortal could not protect both tiles at once. I was not willing to allow either to be pillaged just to give the Archer more chances to die easily. The time had come to get ready to attack the Archer on defensive terrain.
Again, the Immortal was favored to win even when attacking the Archer on a Forest or Hill, but there needed to be a follow-up attacker available just in case. Our own Archer was still too badly wounded for that role, which left the last Warrior, belatedly named Pawn.
I decided it made more sense to put the Warrior on the Pig Pasture preemptively. The alternative was letting the Archer move to the Pig tile unopposed, then attacking with the Immortal, then attacking with the Warrior if the Immortal lost. By moving the Warrior to the Pig tile first, it still supported the Immortal, but this way my Warrior, not the enemy Archer, benefitted from the defensive bonus in the battle of the Pig. This third sacrifice of a Warrior is also a questionable choice, I think. The Warrior does a better job of supporting the Immortal against the Archer this way, but there was less chance of the Warrior surviving.
???I am miserably failing to write the right words about all this. This was too long ago and it is too late now. Sorry.???
The same two Workers built a Road 1N of Gaugamela for the Warrior.

Meanwhile, New Tehran suffered the consequences of finishing Archery before Fishing. 1 turn when the Work Boat waited and did nothing. This delay actually caused unhealthiness too, which I did not expect.
And I was suddenly reminded of the possibility of Barbarian Submarines in the water, so I renamed the Work Boat “Rubber Duck.” Testing for sharks. There were none, of course.


(SCREENSHOTS FOR TURN 44, TURN 45, AND TURN 46 NOT FOUND)
My attempts to take screenshots during these turns all failed due to technical difficulties. .

The Barbarian Archer moved to the Pig and killed the Warrior, but it took 1 hit and was easily cleaned up by my Immortal.
Thrawn’s Scout was hanging out on the northern path from us to Gavagai, for some reason. Buster found it while going over there to fogbust and watch for Gavagai.
Another Barbarian Archer invaded from the southwest. Our military units waited and healed.

[Magic Science]

Turn 41 through Turn 50– 2360 BC and 2000 BC
Part 2
   
Turn 47.
The new invading Archer is adjacent to Gaugamela. By the way, I think at this point it is safe to conclude that the Raging Barbarians are weaker than they usually are. There should be more of them.
Thrawn invades with his Scout, for some reason.
Gavagai’s Scout is visible in the south. I think that he has not revealed that area before, and he can’t see the city or any military stuff of ours, but this still makes me nervous. Chariots could come out of the fog over those Roads with no warning.
Gavagai builds The Great Wall in Delhi. I feel bad about this.
Pottery after Fishing. Seems like the clear choice.
Darius III finished the Road between New Tehran and Gaugamela. Health crisis over and trade route income gained at last!
Settler training in Gaugamela. What else? There were some hammers in an Immortal too.


   
Turn 48.
Rivet City vanishes from the map and Thrawn gains 32 points on the turn roll and now has 2 cities instead of 1. He must have flipped Rivet City with culture from the relocated Palace.
Hey, he did sequence-break the game just like I imagined! A city on another continent before Sailing! .
I already suspected he was somewhere to the north/south of us, so in this region. This confirms it.
What a coup for Thrawn! He needs it. This makes me realize that not everyone has to wait for third-ring borders to flip the Barbarian cities. Some can settle only 2 tiles away. Superdeath could do this to Megaton from his side, though it would not be a great spot for him. We could do this to Little Lamplight, and it is a compelling option.


       
Turn 48.
The Barbarian Archer stays adjacent to Gaugamela on adjacent terrain, but I am not worried.

You know what, I need to post what I have and go to bed. Report quality is low and getting lower. This is most of the way caught up. See you later. zzz.

[scooter]

Any updates?

[Magic Science]

Password: summersia

And Scooter, I am sorry to have left you in the dark for all this time. The map you made for us is lots of fun and you deserve to be repaid with lots of reports. I hope the others have reported better and I promise to type up something or other later today.

[Magic Science]

Alright. Hello again. It is now Turn 109. 150 BC. It has been a long Dark Age.

A turn or so after I stopped reporting, the third Barbarian Archer died ignominiously. No other Barbarians ever attacked. The Raging Barbarian crisis ended. The First Raging Barbarian Crisis, at least.
I take this to mean that I was basically right about the immobile Macemen etc. busting the spawncap. There was a little bit of room once we human players settled our second cities, but then our culture busted the fog more and the Raging Barbarians were neutralized.
So I was a bit unlucky to be attacked by two Barbarian Archers like that. And Thrawn must have been terribly unlucky, poor guy. And Gavagai made a mistake by building The Great Wall. . Though at least he had some fun kicking the immobile Barbarians around. . I'll get to that.
This report will be a bit of recap and a bit about the modern day.


   
This is what the Iranian-Indian border looks like now. Spoilers! I don't want to dig up an appropriate screenshot from about 50 turns and 2 months ago, so this contemporary one and the POWER OF IMAGINATION must suffice.

Back in the day, when young was mountain under moon, I wanted to settle a city on the City Ruins tile that is now 1NE of Salamis. Look at all those delicious tiles! Unfortunately, Gavagai settled Delhi 5 turns or so before my Settler was ready. At first, I blithely continued with my plan to settle on the City Ruins, but as the fateful turn approached, I began to doubt.

Gavagai had a stronger army at the time, and he would certainly raze a city founded on the City Ruins if he could. My new city might survive, but it would be a bitter and uncertain fight. Also, I doubted that a victory decisive enough to make the City Ruins city (I was going to name it "New Tabriz" after the evocatively-mentioned Iranian lunar colony in Gene Wolfe's Seven American Nights, by the way) as delicious as I had imagined before Gavagai settled Delhi was likely. That is to say, even if I kept my new city, it would be difficult to control, improve, and work the Corn and Pig tiles. The resources are exposed on flat ground. The Workers would have to be protected as they worked, then the improvements protected. Always.
Also, see the "Barb Gallic I" and "Barb Gallic II" signs? Gavagai's expanding culture kicked that poor unit all around. . I was worried that, depending on how the culture conflict between my city and Delhi went, the Barb Gallic Warrior could be kicked somewhere really bad for me, and become an asset for Gavagai. You can see that its second location was on the Corn. Gavagai would kick it off that tile if he won culturally, but if I settled, then the Barbarian would block the Corn of a long while. 
I think that no Civ IV player has ever cared so much about custom-placed immobile Raging Barbarian teleportation mechanics. . It doesn't get much more obscure than that. In the end the Gallic Warrior teleported towards the origin (that might be coincidence) and did not block anything too important.

Anyway, the big idea is, settling New Tabriz where I originally wanted would guarantee a war with Gavagai. Holding the city would be difficult and expensive. If I held the city, it would take even more expense to actually benefit from the Corn and Pig, the main appeal. Also, I knew that in the long run Silver Web and Goodneighbor (I realized by this time that Gavagai would flip Goodneighbor eventually) would flip the Pig tile to Gavagai's side.
So I figured that settling New Tabriz was a good idea only if war with Gavagai was a good idea. New Tabriz would be a great first blow in such a war. Deny him the Corn and Pigs (he would have at least as much trouble benefitting from them as I would). Get a forward base, vision, unit production on the front lines, Road control, all that good stuff.

New Tabriz would make a war with Gavagai inevitable, but more likely and profitable to win (Corn and Pigs, Goodneighbor maybe). But still not nearly likely profitable enough, I concluded. Gavagai was weakened because Thrawn burned his third(?) city, but he was not weak enough. Why lock in a target now? Why not grow and expand and all that?

So after much pondering at the last second, my Settler and Workers and military units turned around and went to settle Marathon first instead (out of frame to the northwest).
Salamis was settled fifth. It was contested with Gavagai, sure, and it would be a shame to lose the "Plains Horse" and "Clam" too by delaying, but Marathon was simply too incredible to delay. Case in point: as of the current turn Marathon is now the proud home of 3 world wonders. And there will be more, I guarantee it.


   
(same screenshot again. . My Adventures With Gavagai are not yet over)

Next up was the "If You Chase Two Rabbits You Will Catch Them Both" era of my game. One of the theatres was against Gavagai again.

Gavagai was going to flip Goodneighbor with culture from Silver Web's The Great Wall. I realized that. I tracked Silver Web's culture turn by turn in the Victory Screen (Gavagai was and is the player with the most culture). 
This is about when I realized that flipping Megaton with New Tehran wasn't that clever and special, it was keeping up with Joneses. Everybody was going to flip the Barbarian cities! It was the way to go!
Did Scooter know this would happen?
Anyway, I coveted my neighbor's Goodneighbor. I hatched a delightfully devilish plan. Gavagai was distracted by Thrawn. But I wasn't. Gavagai might not have Sailing yet. But I did. I would train a Galley in Salamis (that hurt, by the way. Galley before Granary), embark two Immortals (one was promoted from the First Raging Barbarian Crisis), and capture Goodneighbor the very turn it flipped. The free flip Archer couldn't stop two Immortals!
I had honor, though, so I would take the second half of the turn to give Gavagai a chance to ferry in defenders, if he had any.

This plan failed, obviously. It was only ever going to work if I was very lucky or Gavagai was very careless. Well, Gavagai was not that careless. I tried to be really clever, but I made some mistakes and was not clever enough.

The plan went wrong when Gavagai trained a Galley. He sailed it over into my view, for some reason. Even without my honor, Gavagai had declared war in hopes of a binding Peace Treaty (probably so he could focus on Thrawn, at least at first), and he had the first half. So with a Galley he could just put another Axeman/Archer or whatever in Goodneighbor when it flipped and he would easily keep it.
I panicked and took 1/3 shot with my Galley attacking his. I reasoned that my Galley was worthless for all purposes except capturing Goodneighbor, and I had no hope of capturing Goodneighbor if his Galley lived. So I had nothing to lose.
Boy, winning that 1/3 shot felt great. Lucky lucky lucky. And so rational of me. . I think no units were aboard, though.
Anyway, what needed to happen was for Goodneighbor to flip RIGHT AWAY. It could have. Gavagai had the majority culture by then. But it didn't. He had time to train another Galley.
Then I had the bright idea to train a Trireme in Salamis. Metal Casting unlocks more things than just The Colossus, don't you know? I didn't for about 10 turns! Maybe if I trained a Trireme earlier, the plan could have worked. Probably not, though.
I never did train a Trireme. I dropped off my two Immortals on the island 1SW of Goodneighbor. It was some silly scheme to attack with more than two units when the city flipped, some from island and some from Galley, or something? Whatever it was, it ended with Gavagai killing my Immortals with two Spearmen in an amphibious attack. I was 1 turn too slow with the Axeman protector. I could have been faster.
ALSO: MY IMMORTALS PILLAGED THE ROAD AND THE MINE IN BARBARIAN TERRITORY. SORRY. I SWEAR I FORGOT THE RULE.
I think that was when I gave up the plan and conceded Goodneighbor to Gavagai. I felt pretty low at that point.

The funny epilogue is that Goodneighbor just refused to flip for another, 15 turns maybe? Gavagai had the majority culture, but the Barbarians won the 9/10 roll every turn. They even built a Monument, and at the last possible turn before they got majority culture back on their city tile, that was when the city flipped. Poor Gavagai. That was close! And he was denied the yields for so long.

Then Goodneighbor stole Salamis' "Clams" of course.

Peace has existed between Iran and India since that time. May it remain unbroken until I can draft Rifles.


   
Shortly after that, I captured Megaton from Superdeath. It wasn't supposed to happen like that, but all's well that ends well and it raised my spirits.

Simply, Superdeath built The Oracle (and took... Feudalism?) in Fuji Steakhouse. With +8 Culture he beat New Tehran to majority culture in Megaton by a few turns, and I had no chance to turn the tide of that culture war.
Of course I immediately plotted against him as I did against Gavagai, but I was stretched too thin. 
"Chase Two Rabbits And You Will Lose Them Both".
Superdeath could easily defend Megaton when it flipped, I thought.
I was feeling down about the game after making peace with Gavagai, and I thought all my Galleys and military units were a waste, all for nothing. But I dutifully took a belated shot at Megaton (can't remember what Superdeath briefly called it). And I won!
Superdeath never reinforced the free revolt Archer. Superdeath was careless where Gavagai was not. So my plan worked against Superdeath.
I landed the Immortals 1E of Megaton, which New Tehran still controlled at the time, so Superdeath had one turn of warning.
He sent this:

   
(he called it KFC, I see)
Also there was a usual silly Superdeath message about him fighting Gavagai and I fighting Dreylin.

Frankly this threat just pissed me off and made me want to capture Megaton back even more, which I promptly did. I doubted that Superdeath was bluffing, but I figured I could take him.

Superdeath also promoted his Archer in KFC to a Longbowmen. That was when I learned he had Feudalism. . But the Immortals prevailed with their +50% bonus vs. Archers. 
That bonus saw little use this game, but what use it did see was a big deal. No regret for picking Persia.
I recall that the first Immortal to attack won? That was another lucky roll, but I had backup.

Also, this was almost the same turn that I settled Artemisium on the landbridge in the north. Jimmy's BBQ didn't exist yet, but it was still a close border and another front with Superdeath. But I sent a lot of units from Marathon (it had a bit of time between Wonders to 1-turn some units) and Artemisium was fine. "Chase Two Rabbits And You Will Catch Them Both".

It was a shame to lose Artemisium's Lake Fish, which I improved, to Superdeath later, but it still makes good commerce and opens the route to Shady Sands and Sunny Boulders. But that's another story.

Superdeath agreed to binding peace shortly. That was a pleasant surprise. I was ready for battle.


   
(I guess I have the will to dig up old screenshots after all)

Another "rabbit" was Little Lamplight. Anti-Tyre was settled to flip Little Lamplight and is otherwise a mediocre city, especially for its place in the order of founding. But Little Lamplight is an excellent city. This plan, at least, happened exactly as I intended and was a complete success.
Dreylin didn't interfere. The Barbs didn't make any culture. It was nice.

Little Lamplight was important not just for its yields (best commerce in my civilization) but for its trade routes. I wanted The Great Lighthouse (observe Marathon building it), but I knew that I would need to rely on myself for my trade routes. The other players would probably embargo me. So I needed 1 island (normal), 2 islands (TGL), 3 islands (Currency). That was why I was so disheartened at failing to get Goodneighbor and Megaton (at least at first, muahahaha). I only realized later that I could settle on those 1-tile Tribal Village islands if trade routes were what I needed. But now I think that won't be necessary anytime soon. .

What is there to say about The Great Lighthouse and The Colossus? They seem like obvious good ideas on this watery map, I am IND, Marathon is an incredible hammer city. Not many actual resources, but we don't need resources in Scooter's Wonderland. . Getting them as quick as reasonably possible took some doing with whipping and Workers (chopping that island Forest, chopping out-of-culture Forests), and I don't know if anyone was close behind, but I got the Wonders in the end. My economy is booming. .

I think this is a good place to end Part 1: The Endless Past. The past keeps getting bigger and it is late at morning here.

Kick me in the head if I don't tell you all about Shady Sands and the war with Thrawn, at least, within 24 hours.

[Magic Science]

Anything you want to know that I failed to mention about the past? I can already think of some. .
Anything you want me to be sure to mention about the present/future?