Dude, where's my civ? [spoilers]

[Ellimist]

The game is moving again, and T87 is here!

An omen of Selrahc, or perhaps from my civ for 29:



It was worth 49 gold, and I expected to see some terrain converted into tundra or ice, but didn't see any.

Demographics are looking even more fantastic than before:



I decided to delay OO for a bit longer and grab Hunting next for a few reasons:

• With Drama in hand, OO won't be needed for culture in new cities. I'll still use it in more developed cities, but those cities won't be ready to use it any time soon.
• I can research it in only two turns and immediately receive +1 happy by connecting the furs south of my capital. There's also an Ivory and Deer resource that won't be difficult to aquire.
• I don't think I'm in a race to grab the holy city, and it won't be a huge loss if someone else does anyway.
• Two of my opponents (HK and probably gt/Molach) already know Hunting, so it's one of the few techs I can research with a known-civ bonus.
• I have Festivals now and scouts aren't ideal for capturing animals. I've lost a few animal tamers and only have one left(my original "hero" unit), and he usually has to heal for several turns in between battles. Getting a few hunters on board will be helpful.
• With fur and deer already inside my borders, Hunting lodges will give +1 health and +1 happy and only cost 67 hammers. That's not a bad deal for a civ with large cities and lots of hammers.
• At some point I'm probably going to want Archery for lumbermills, and knowing both Hunting and Mining will cheapen the tech significantly. Many of the islands I can see have plains-forests but not many additional hammers.

I also haven't used Claudius the Great Bard yet. The only useful thing he can really do at the moment would be to bulb Sanitation, and while that's normally a very powerful play, I don't consider it to be right for this situation. I'm working 12 aristograrian farms in my empire, but the extra food won't make a significant difference for the cities it will land in. Sanitation will be more beneficial later, of course, but I'll be able to pick it up cheap since I'll need Construction to chain irrigation anyway. I'll get much more benefit out of Claudius if I save him for a golden age, especially with the focused great prophet strategy I'm planning on using.

My top development priority at the moment is expansion. I plan to settle the three small islands just offshore and also push 4-6 cities toward the south and southwest. This direction wasn't profitable before, but being able to tame bears, chop jungle, burn incense, brew ale, and hunt elephants will make all the difference.



The settler for the first island city is already on the way, and will settle on turn 90. These cities will be very quick to set up and won't require any worker labor, just one or two workboats each.



Morr'ta'nar, my youngest city, is doing very well right now. Two forest chops will finish the governor's manor in three turns, and then it will build culture for two turns to speed up the aquisition of gems(T94). I'm also planning to use Morr'ta'nar to build the settlers, workboats, and galleys for the islands north and west of the city.



Nubia will finish another settler on turn 91, and I'm planning to use it for A or B, or possibly E. I'll probably settle all three of those first, then sites C and F, then D and G. In general, this map seems to favor a wider spacing between cities(especially for the Calabim.)

[Jabah]

Morr'ta'nar, my youngest city, is doing very well right now. Two forest chops will finish the governor's manor in three turns, and then it will build culture for two turns to speed up the aquisition of gems(T94). I'm also planning to use Morr'ta'nar to build the settlers, workboats, and galleys for the islands north and west of the city.

Wouldn't E be better 1SW, to be able (1) to work a mined hill instead of plain forest for production and (2) a gem instead of sea. Of course, you need border popping to work both seafood (but this will be done with the inland city with will get you gems as well as you planned).

[Ellimist]

Wouldn't E be better 1SW, to be able (1) to work a mined hill instead of plain forest for production and (2) a gem instead of sea. Of course, you need border popping to work both seafood (but this will be done with the inland city with will get you gems as well as you planned).

Good eye. The real trade off is actually a bit less, and there are also some factors I didn't mention that influenced the decision to plant on the hill rather than the forest. (I'm planning to pop borders very quickly in this city, so I'm not concerned about whether the crabs are in the first ring or second.)

A mined hill will produce one food and four hammers per turn, in addition to the city tile which will produce two food and one hammer. If I settle on the hill instead, the city tile will produce two food and two hammers, while the plains forest will produce one food and two hammers. This means I'll be trading one hammer for one food until I can lumbermill the plains forest and then it will produce the same number of hammers.

I'm not worried about hammers in this city, though, because I'm the Calabim and I plan to adopt Slavery soon. I hope to have a large number of island cities, and I'll be able to whip manors for two or three population. Once I have a governor's manor here, getting +1 hammer from the city square will be useful even when I choose not to work the forest. My food surplus will never be able to increase beyond what the fish and crab provide, so working a zero food mine isn't especially attractive in the mid-term.

As far as missing the gems, I felt that would be compensated by having less coastal overlap with Morr'ta'nar, as well as having a defensive bonus from the hill. I plan to settle a mainland city with the gems in the BFC, so they won't be ignored. I'd also like to build Heron Throne in this city, so having 19 water tiles in the BFC might end up being a little ridiculous.

[Ellimist]

We've seen quite a few turns since I last posted, it's a little difficult to adjust to the accelerated pace after the downtime.

The snowball is in full swing, and the last several turns have seen my cities grow from 30 to 36 population. My 100% science rate has jumped from 110 in my last screenshot to 133 at the end of turn 91. Mardoc and HidingKneel currently have six cities to my five, but that will change pretty soon when I settle my second island city(E), followed by the cow city southeast of Prespur(A) a few turns later. Meanwhile, HidingKneel built Form of the Titan and Mardoc triggered a golden age, presumably with the bard he got just after I bulbed Drama. Oops.

I'm using a google spreadsheet to help with tech planning, and it's gotten a little crazy trying to plan ahead with the rate that things are developing. I went ahead and spent two turns getting archery, because my workers are running out of things to do and I have a bunch of plains forests I'd like to lumbermill. It will also be nice for the chops I'm about to do with my coming southeastern cities, and I may even want some archers at some point. I'm planning to finish Message from the Deep after Archery, but one reason I keep delaying it is that I don't want to alert Mardoc. If he starts wondering about my choice of religion, he might start taking steps toward getting a navy, and that could be inconvenient.

Mardoc's golden age has increased his demographics pretty impressively, even if mine are still superior to his. That may change, at least for GNP, once he moves out of Godking. My main worry is that he'll remember how important island cites can be, and send out some boats to explore the islands between us. I've been keeping an eye on the coastline to the east of his capital with my HN griffon, but accidentally moved within range of the fireball illusionist and got wounded below 50% health. Healing sucks for HN units outside of friendly culture, so I retreated him back toward Adonias for now.

[Ellimist]

Okay, we're up to turn 94 and I should probably do an update.

I think it's pretty clear that Mardoc and I are the main contenders to win this game, and thus we aren't likely to cooperate very much with each other. So my griffon up north finally finished healing, and I'm using him to pop a dungeon. I probably won't get anything significant, but something like the dwarves and lizards event would be great.




My empire is developing pretty rapidly, and even with Mardoc in a golden age I'm leading all three major demographics. Manors are a huge benefit, especially because the hammers can be spent on anything. They allow my cities to focus on building whatever I need them to build and to do it quickly. I think the biggest secret to exploiting them is to have a lot of luxury resources, and I've focused my expansion toward that goal so far. Once the happiness is available, getting extra unhappiness points can be as simple as moving a warrior out of the city.







For the past several turns, I've been debating about what to do with my navy. Island trade routes are going to be critical for economic development in this game, and the majority of the mana nodes on the map appear to be offshore as well. HidingKneel may or may not realize that, but either way his Civ usually does best by avoiding coastal cities. Mardoc is my main rival to take advantage of the islands, and I may be able to deny him access to them.




The plan would be a relatively simple amphibious sneak attack. I'd bring 2-3 galleys, each of them loaded with 4 Moroi and able to move 4 spaces per turn, and position them at Y where Mardoc can't see them. The next turn, I'd move them to Z, land the Moroi at the Banana and then cast burning blood (or build an adept for haste) to allow them to attack his capital immediately on the first turn of the war. I'm pretty sure 8-12 Moroi would be more than enough for something like that, and if I pull it off I can't see myself losing this game. Doing it may or may not cripple him, but I can afford to do always-war with Mardoc after this if I can prevent him from getting a navy.

[Ellimist]

Okay! Lots of turns to catch up on since they've been coming so fast lately.

Turn 96 had a double surprise:




Mardoc finally decided to explore the area west of him, just as my griffon finished exploring the dungeon there. I wasn't sure what to do here, but decided that it wasn't safe to delay with lizards, Loki, puppets, and potentially spiders and Balseraph military units around. I fired off my 1-man golden age, then went ahead and finished researching Message from the Deep.

Customary before and after GA screenshots:






I'd delayed founding OO for awhile to avoid tipping off Mardoc that the water is going to matter, and probably should have waited until later on in my golden age, but the odds were good it would land in Nubia and I could use the happiness there. (Nubia was size 12, and Prespur was my only other city larger than size 8.)

Sure enough:




I'm hoping that's not too much of a tip off. It probably is. I'll still hold off on building the Great Lighthouse with my Engineer, though. I definitely want the wonder, but I don't need it right away and I'd rather not start accumulating Merchant GPPs just yet either.

At this point, I had to decide what to do with the rest of my golden age. I debated at first about which civics, if any, I should change. I'd need to have the relevant technologies for them by the end of turn 102, since turn 103 would be my last opportunity to switch without anarchy. My plan all along had been to develop island cities using slavery to get the initial manors up, but my two existing island cities won't need it, and my third one won't either. My next settler will land on the northern tip of this island and settle on turn 106:




I think the winning move is ultimately going to be an attack on Mardoc, and I think the window for that is going to be sooner rather than later. If I'm not going to need slavery, then I'll definitely be going to Military State instead. Combined with Nationhood, I'll extend my current MFG advantage by another +25% on unit production. I'll also be able to draft some Moroi, and in smaller cities which have manors that will be worth free hammers as well. The trade off will be the loss of +2 exp from Apprenticeship, but for most units I'll be able to make that up with Command Posts.

Unfortunately, getting those first two experience points on ships is even more important than it is on land units, and command posts won't affect them. If I don't give them Longshoreman crew(+1 movement, -1 cargo), galleys will only be able to move three spaces and triremes two. That's totally unacceptable when Mardoc's coastline is 20 spaces away. EITB changed triremes so that they don't start with any cargo space, so the only way I can do Longshoreman crew is if I also give them the "extended hull" promotion for +1 cargo space. I'm also giving that promotion to my galleys, because four cargo space is a lot better than three.



The obvious solution was to build all my ships before I stop using Apprenticeship and postpone most of the land units until afterward, so this is what I've been doing. I'll have a total of 8 galleys and 3 triremes at the end of turn 103, and I should also have some extra time to pop the two shipwrecks off the coast of my capital without risking spawning anything nasty.

[Ellimist]

For the most part, I've continued to focus primarily on simply expanding and growing my cities. My capital was pushing the limits of its happiness cap, so I captured a Bear to dance there and obtained Enchantment mana from the Sidar:




When I captured the bear for Prespur, I saw that the nearby Bear den had accumulated quite a few of them. This didn't seem too odd since I'd seen the same thing down near Mardoc, except that they used to move away from this lair and then apparently stopped.

Interestingly, moving my unit in their vicinity must have triggered some sort of evacuation procedure.




There have been a lot of little things to notice, I suppose. For example, Harbors start affecting trade routes at size fifteen if there are no other multipliers present:




And of course the old trick of overflowing from another build into a settler to minimize the time spent not growing:




Or sometimes overflowing from a tech because the tile yields didn't work out right to finish it in one turn:




What about popping a Zealot (OO disciple) from a dungeon ADJACENT to the OO holy city? Meh, at least I can finally put a farm there.




Maybe I'll get something better from Mardoc's other dungeon...




Those last pictures are from the latest turn. So far I've extended my 100% rate from 217 on turn 96 to 265 on turn 102 and managed to finish several useful techs since then. I've gotten Masonry, Message from the Deep, Construction, Knowledge of the Ether, Warfare, and now Philosophy. I should be able to fully research Military Strategy next turn and start building Command posts on the last turn of the golden age. Prespur, Nubia, Acaia, and Morr'ta'nar should each be able to produce at least 28 hammers per turn outside of the golden age, which will be enough for a Moroi if the city has a Command Post. After Military Strategy, I'll go for Sanitation and Trade, but I'm unlikely to finish either one until I've replenished my event fund.

[Ellimist]

The dungeon north of Mardoc gave a useless disciple of leaves. At least it wasn't a bad result like trapping the unit or making it diseased. My next island city should develop pretty quickly thanks to a forest chop and two grass hills, as well as crabs and rice to feed it. I wouldn't have settled it next except that I'll need the IC trade routes after trade.

Military strategy came in at the end of turn, giving me the Great Commander. Between that, OO, and switching to military state next turn, Mardoc is likely to figure out I'm coming for him soon. I'm planning just hold onto the Commander for now and eventually use him with the Drama Bard for another golden age. My four cities that are already developed wil start Command Posts next turn now that they've finished with the final ship builds.

I'm not sure how many land units I plan to bring yet. Obviously I can bring more if I delay, but Mardoc will have more time to prepare as well. Most likely, I'll send my first wave off with some of the galleys and prepare the second wave while the first is on the way. I'll be satisfied with removing Mardoc's naval capabilities, but it will be best if I have an "out" to potentially destroy him entirely.

Right now, the plan is for the initial force to have at least three haste adepts, probably two workers, and a large number of Moroi. Some zealots or horsemen are also possible, but I don't yet have the infrastructure to produce them. Once the initial force lands and I find out how strong Mardoc's defenses are, I'll be able to pillage like crazy even if I can't conquer anything.

[Merovech]

Geez, I still feel bad that you can reach him via coast. Should be another 5 rows of ocean between you two.

[Ellimist]

Geez, I still feel bad that you can reach him via coast. Should be another 5 rows of ocean between you two.

It's not your job to keep us from fighting each other...

Besides, the majority of this is the same as a land attack except that I had to spend an extra 414 hammers to build ships. At this point my power graph has already increased significantly just from building those ships and he's going to notice that very soon if he hasn't already. Right now I'm planning to produce the rest of my "first wave" land units over the next half dozen turns, so my power graph is going to increase even more dramatically. Mardoc is a skilled player. At some point he's going to notice, maybe he already has, and he's going to realize that he's my most likely target.

Right now I'm hoping to get my units to him fast enough that it doesn't matter. I can produce enough land units to fill 6 or 7 galleys by turn 110 and I'm pretty sure he can't build a big enough navy to stop three triremes before my units offload. If the rest of his road network looks like the parts I've seen so far, I should be able to threaten multiple cities of his and basically wreak havoc across his empire.