[SPOILERS] scooter tries again: back to school! (Willem of Vikings)

[scooter]

Some city naming stuff, since obviously I slipped behind on that. Here's college majors I got from you all:

History
Statistics
Law
Biochemistry
Engineering
Physics
Zoology

Neuroscience (not yet used)

I only have one left, but three cities left to name. I think I'll use Biology as I sort of split somebody's major into two. I may also use my own (Computer Science), but I'll need to omit the space to make it fit. Anyways, many more city settlements are planned in the immediate future, so get your requests in.

[Gaspar]

I majored in many things, but finished on Management, if you want to use that.

[scooter]

Okay, as everyone knows, T68 is a nice round number for a mega update . So here we go. This will be in 3 parts. First, a turn report. Then I'll go through each of the cities. Finally, I'll do a dump of the graphs and demos. Sound fun?



Well, we were greeted with a couple fun surprises. Seven does something ever so slightly confusing:



Drops a warrior up here. This seems like a way to get visibility into my city, I'm just kind of surprised he didn't snipe the worker. I'm guessing that's the point? Seven wants a safe border here because I have MC (read: Triremes) and 3-move capabilities and he has neither (I think). That or he's probably just trying to gain visibility without losing his warrior so he can know hammers invested and all that. Quite likely to be both actually. Anyways, I chose to nervously assume this means he wants to be nice to me and now I'm desperately hoping he doesn't have a Spear on that galley . Yuri:



That's annoying. However, I have a spear up there as you see. Also, I plan on having sufficient force for hooking the stone quickly. Observe:



I think he'll get the picture and run away. It's actually not possible for him to get away from my units, but I may let him live if he makes an effort. Though Yuri has ruthlessly killed a couple of my scouts just for fun, so I'm not real inclined to give him a free pass here. We'll see. Also, I COMPLETELY forgot about this guy:



I had noticed Pindicator's chariot, and then I realized this guy was still alive! I thought he was dead for some reason . So let's bring him home. Finally at EoT, the north:



I'm probably a bit behind on settling that island, but the rush is on now. I have a galley in the water and 2 settlers in production that are specifically for that island. That'll give me +2 commerce/city in IC routes so that'll be fairly significant.

City-by-city will go up in a bit.

[scooter]

Okay, let's take a tour of my cities. First, the capital:



Working on the Academy scientist right now. Probably not going to do any teching until the Academy is up, so it's gold-saving time. Also putting hammers into the Aqueduct again. I'm going to make a 1-pop whip when I overflow. The limit on overflow is the cost of the Aqueduct right? Statistics:



Pushing growth here. I need to cottage that grassland tile. I may run a scientist or two here once I grow a bit more because I have fewer good tiles here than other spots. Law:



I could be working the 0/4/0 tile over the plains river cottage, but I'd rather grow that cottage (the capital will use it later). That settler will go to the north island. Biochem:



Once my capital pops out the scientist, I'll pass Law's rice back to the capital and pass this corn back to Law, working coast instead. My general priority for commerce has been river grass cottages over coast, even though it's 1 less commerce at first. Plus, in many cities (like this one) it's a smaller cost than you'd expect. I can get the cottages awfully close to Hamlet level before the Trading Post actually goes up. I figure I can sacrifice a few commerce up front for more later and it's worth it, at least at this point when I'm not in desperate need of X tech. So that's the thinking there. Besides, those southern cottages (or at least one of them anyways) will probably be eventually passed to a southern site at some point because of all the coast available here.



Trading post will be a nice boost. Should be a useful city. I can hook that wine now too. One of my favorite cities, Physics:



Plan here is to chain-farm once CS hits and use that food to eventually work 5 mines and be a power production city. This'll be a big naval pump on this body of water. It also has a super useful attribute for coastal cities - only directly accessible by one coast tile. This makes it easier to defend. Zoology:



Settler building for the north island, which this is right next to. This city can ignore improvements for a little while and just grow onto coast which is super useful. Finally, three cities I have yet to name.



More forests here would have been cool, but okay. This is our primary naval base on the Seven front.



Gold was worked to micro Monarchy, but I'll swap back to the Bananas next turn when a farm on the bananas will complete. Plan here will probably be to chop/whip the granary, WB, and TP combo and then grow onto coast. Should be fun. I'll pass the rice back to Physics shortly.



Wheat will be improved next turn.


So that's a run through my cities. Any questions? I'll drop in some graphs next post and you'll see just how hopelessly ahead Seven is.

[scooter]

Okay, time for a quick glance at the standings at competing for 2nd place . Food:



Pretty clear trend here. Seven is lapping the field. Dazed and I are neck-and-neck for 2nd place. Pindicator and Yuri are lagging behind. Pindicator invested large resources into an early Pyramids, so I can sort of understand lagging behind a bit. Not sure why Yuri is so far behind. MFG:



Similar story. Dazed comes out of these 2 as the clear #2 in raw resources. My MFG has dipped a bit as I'm trying to grow onto newfound happy cap right now. GNP, which amazingly is the most depressing one:



I genuinely do not understand how Seven has done this given how heavy his expansion has been. He has no FIN, no Colossus, no Pyramids, and more land than everyone. He does have ORG and likely courthouses, so surely that helps a good bit, but that's it. He did just land GLH too so that's significant, but given it's AW it can't help him THAT much. Not sure how he's managing this honestly. Well done. And just for complete documentation of dominance:



Apparently he builds military too. WHO KNEW. Demos for a non-delayed look:



Genuinely impressive land area by Seven. Disclaimer: my GNP is at 0%, so it might suck 15% less than it appears here. But yeah, the race for 2nd place is most definitely on. I would hope everyone notices this... If so, a bit of nagging by everyone would be more than enough to settle things down (remember, all 4 can reach him), but I wouldn't count on it.

That said, not giving up, in fact, this is rather motivating to turn things around and at least give him some semi-worthy competition. You can do fun things militarily on this map as the Vikings. I can give that a shot. Maybe. Not sure yet.

[scooter]

T69 brings back weird turn titles

First, Yuri being SUPER LAME:



Two Chariots, really dude? Good news is both my chariots are C1, so his odds of going 2-for-2 and killing my chariots and settler is... well let's not mention the odds because I don't want to jinx myself. But they're favorable to me. ALso, I brought my spear because spears are cool. If his chariot does the impossible and beats my spear I'm down 4 workers. That'll SUCK. All in the name of Hanging Gardens. Unfortunately, Seven is hooking up stone too which means I'll probably miss the wonder by 1T:



But I'm committed, I've sunk hammers into a pointless Aqueduct, so I'm going for it. Northeasterly things:



(don't hurt me micro nerds, that TP will be double-whipped next turn so that's only 1 turn of a 2/0/1 tile being worked)

Hopefully Pindicator is just being a sentry up there. Seven packed up his warrior and went home. Guess that was a peaceful signal. The mystery to me though is what he's doing with his worker. It's... not doing anything. Is he putting a turn into a camp and then canceling? That's gotta be it. Either that or he's doing some weird Bambi re-enactment which would be supremely creepy.



Grew a ton of cities which apparently bumped me to 2nd in food. Otherwise, no noteworthy change anywhere.

[scooter]

T70 continues reckless expansion

First though, somebody completed Great Library:



Ok, that's like the 4th great artist that's been born this game, no exaggeration. What is going on? One of them has to be Music. I guess. Anyways, I sure hope that Great Library was not Seven.



Nope, that went to Pindicator. And seriously, LOOK at that city. He's built Pyramids, Stonehenge, Great Library, and even the Jewish Holy City here. The kicker is, this is NOT his capital! Impressive. Also, wonder hog. Anyways, back to the situation at hand. Yuri's chariot needs to die:



99.1%, but I came dangerously close to dying here. But I won. City settled:



That's where the other chariot went. Worker plan:



Next turn I'll road that plains forest with the first two workers. I sunk 2/3 of a turn into the sheep. Then those two workers will go onto the stone. Then they'll road that, then the other workers will come onto the stone and get to work. As soon as it comes in, I'll be overflowing into Hanging Gardens and completing several chops into it. Should be able to 1T it, but I haven't actually worked it out yet. In other Yuris-related news:



Seriously man, Feudalism already? I can't even build archers . Well I suppose he's safe from me. I need to actually be a bit careful. I know the default is to assume longbow == defensive, but if Yuris gets sneaky, that longbow is stronger than any unit I'm capable of fielding right now. It can go on the offensive. Just ask anyone who witnessed the "slaze slaughter" in PB2 . Anyways, not too worried as I have the naval advantage, but something to note. Maybe I'll try a "Seven Maneuver" and try to signal friendly intentions to him.

Expansion plans:



Galley completed in Biochem. Settler about to complete in Law, and a Spear in Statistics. I'd also need an axe to be safe on the island. But anyways, I could plant on the "c" on the island. The downside is... it's just not a great site. Also, kind of vulnerable. The IC route upside is nice, but I'll be getting that anyways from the north. Basically, I"m seriously considering waiting on this spot. It's in my culture now, so Seven can't settle it, so what's the rush? So yeah, really second-guessing this plan. Settler may go elsewhere.

Whipped a Trading Post as planned:



I actually renamed this city to Biology I believe. NW city with bananas/gold is Management, North tundra/wheat/silver site is Neuroscience. I'll want to get cottages here on the river tiles, but in the meantime I can work a couple coasts with Colossus. That's the perk of Colossus here - I can let a couple cities go under-developed for just a bit longer and still support it. Maintenance is definitely becoming an issue though - Dazed and Seven will have nowhere near that difficulty that I have. Speaking of ANNOYING PEOPLE.



Lookin at you Dazed. He's spending truckloads of EPs on me so I keep losing his graphs. I gained them back at EoT, and you can see the culprit here:



My lack of Courthouses is going to sting a little. Demos:



Well, on T68 the food score between myself and Seven was 190-144 for a 46F difference. This turn it's 197-167 for a 30F difference. The magic of a sudden +4 change in happy cap.

[scooter]

T71 tries to solve a mystery

First off, I went and said hi to Seven:



He doesn't necessarily know that I'm empty, but this was just because I could really. Nothing significant. Here's an oddity, I spied a blockade:



Weird, a blockade is going on. Not sure who is doing it to who. Well, that's Dazed down there (I think), so he's on the receiving end of a nasty blockade. At this point I noticed Dazed was WAY down the bottom of the scoreboard. Weird. I thought he was between Pin and Yuri..? So I checked last turn screenshot and Dazed made a SIXTY point drop. Ok that's definitely a city raze or more likely two cities razed. Wow. Bad turn for Dazed? Evidence here:



Wonder if that's related to the blockade. Anyways, that's a massive dip - big enough that he must have lost multiple cities. That puts me a clear #2, though Pindicator's wonders should help him signficantly. Demos:



2nd in most categories. I'll turn science on when I get my Academy. Though with the need to get Courthouses I may turn it on a bit sooner, we'll see.

This does make me wonder if I've missed other city razings. Probably. In 32 I think I noticed the majority because I had tons of screenshots every single turn (and I would always check for score oddities between turns by comparing screenshots in my Dropbox folder), but I have gaps in this game. Makes me wonder if Yuri lost a city early on - would explain a few things. Who knows. I need to be really careful not to let the same happen to me - the emphasis on getting navy into all the oceans is hopefully going to help that cause.

[NobleHelium]

You know, this looks kind of like Chow Yun-Fat...

[scooter]

You know, this looks kind of like Chow Yun-Fat...

Could be, not actually sure what the source of the GIF is.