Ride to ruin and the world's ending! (TBS, Becko & Joao)

[The Black Sword]

I think this area has been sufficiently defogged to choose city locations ... but darned if I can figure it out:


I'm leaning toward the two northern '3's, and switching to the forest spot if Thoth settled for 2nd ring pig.



This place is definitely priority no.1 now, got to see how fast I can settle it. Also got to check out that barb city, even some raze gold would be nice.



HE here we come! Demos indicate ...



... we're in second place. We get Thoth's graphs next turn and we can finally get a read on his GNP. I also may have been a bit excessive in fixing the soldier problem, but it makes me feel a lot safer. Also, note the 15g Import figure, we have routes with Thoth! Every city has a 2g trade route, and Thoth has evidently already settled an island city, so we have a 3g one in the capital too. I went ahead and offered OBs to both Gaspar and Commodore(who just got writing), the more routes we have, the less likely people will cancel.

[The Black Sword]

Plenty of nice sites. Maybe incense city goes 1S for a better road connection to the PH site?

Yay for free Buddhism spreads! Do you plan on spreading it actively, e.g. to Thoth or Oxy?

That loses a forest and a lighthouseable lake, it does gain 3 grassland, but I'm sure we'll settle something else to work that. The road connection to the PH site will go through the hill W of the incense and through the deer.

I've been thinking a bit about spreading Buddhism actively. Should we build a Monastery in Maker of Men or wait for OR and free spreads? The other related question, is when do we want to revolt? If we had the religion well spread enough, particularly the capital and Lonely Trail, a revolt would probably be worth it. What's the other option though, wait for a GA? I still like the idea of an early GA but if the prophet is T95, then the GA would be T105 at best, and requires a Lib in MoM soon to start working on it. That's a long time and we have no first to bonus in the future to make us want to delay the revolt. I'm not sure. Spreading to our neighbours probably isn't worth it though, I guess they'll get at least 1 free spread each so they can take up the religion if they want.

So dead people don't get profiles?

I'm a bit uncomfortable writing player profiles, and the fact that the players can only read it after some time has passed makes me feel better about it, so I wasn't sure whether I'd do one for you. Still, I have the notes written already, would be a shame to waste them.

[The Black Sword]

Tricksy turn.



I sort of expected Oxy to settle those pigs and sheep behind before this deer plant, but it doesn't matter, we couldn't have won the race here anyway, and tbh I don't think the site is good enough at the moment given the drain on our finances.

The chariot shouldn't be a problem, just redirected my spear and chariot scouts up here. The chariot is sitting on the gold tile, the spear will be in Searchers next turn. I also pulled the warrior back a step. Next turn our borders will pop, and I want to put 4 workers to immediately mine the gold, we can put 2 units 1N of the horses to cover. Interesting that both of Oxy's units have promos pending, do you think he has a barracks already?

Best news of the turn:


Look at that lovely trough! The graphs confirm my expectations that Thoth has no.1 food and production figures, I'm gald he's hurting somewhere. I reckon we have about 8 culture on pretty much everyone besides dtay though. I'm thinking of commiting a heinous sin and letting my whip counters run out for a few turns in some cities. That'd let me grow them a bit more onto cottages, rather than speeding up some very expensive cities.

The scouts:

[Ceiliazul]

So dead people don't get profiles?

Dont feel too bad, he did project you to finish sixth, ahead of Dtay!

[The Black Sword]

The GLH finally fell to dtay. I was beginning to wonder if it was a mistake to ignore it. Looking back I think I said T73 was possible for us, maybe we could have sped it up a bit and beaten his T72 but I'm pretty happy with about this, we would have needed to settle the islands too.

As it is, things seem to be going quite well:



That GNP is tasty, and I think it's time to turn tech on next turn, last chance to argue against Monarchy. One possibility I only recently considered was Writing -> Aesthetics for the Paya. I would love to do some fail-golding to charge our economy but we don't have marble or stone multipliers, so Paya with gold is the only option. It's not a bad wonder in itself either, at the very least allowing us to skip Poly, Masonry and Mono, which is about the same cost as Aesth.

We've been growing recently, so Thoth is now up 2 cities on us, Gaspar and Oxy tied, dtay 1 behind, Commodore 2. The Capital, LT and MoM are all completing a settler within the next 5t though. We'll see how that affects our GNP, but it looks like we have a lot of possible land to settle, so hopefully we can afford a bit of a spree afterwards:


I think that's Pindicator's capital btw.


The barb city has 3 warriors in it. It was on a hill, so I didn't want to risk chariots, I'm sending the axe down. I'm not sure whether we keep it or not. It would be great to settle a city around where our chariot is and seal off that chokepoint. Also note the barb warrior nearing our borders in the NE, he should unlock the HE for us.

The Oxy situation:


I'll have to remember the possibility of a boat from the fog. Though he surely has vision of The Searchers by now. If he has sailing, why doesn't he have trade routes with us?

[Becko]

Lots of catching up! I have no objections to Monarchy. Writing -> Paya is an interesting idea. If we're going that way, wouldn't we want Poly for Literature soonish anyway though?

So Oxy did settle that site. It's a good site for blocking off, but as you say, it would have been too early for us, and it's got to be hurting his wallet at least a little bit. Not like we are hurting for land for a while yet either. Getting cities down south seems more important. That copper/deer/cow/sheep site is fantastic.

Did Oxy ever get vision on The Searchers? He might not have Sailing anyway, I have at least temporarily lost track of techs. I'll see if I can piece things together again during the weekend. That goes for checking if Oxy has barracks, though 3k can be hard to find. Would he be building barracks that early though?

I'll try to write more in a few days, but you're doing a great job both playing and reporting regardless.

[The Black Sword]

There's been a few turns now where Oxy's chariot has just stood still, on that row where the wheat is. I'm pretty sure he's moving up 1, checking Searcher's garrison and moving back.

We settled a new city:


Need to look for an appropriate name later. It might not claim any new resources but it's still an excellent spot. Shared Horse + chop=size 1 gran, then grow on shared fish/pig. Grow to size 4, whip LH and we have an amazing site with almost no worker overhead. It also cost a mere 3gpt on settling! Man, these numbers are a lot smaller than I expected, operation: settle everything is definitely a go.

Our HE chariot is going to go explore north I think and see how close Gaspwyn is up there. We were unlikely to get another promo so I thought a healer would be best. I do wish he had got sentry but shock was important in getting him to the 10xp.

Some shots from our scouts:



Closing in on the first barb city. I'm not sure if we shouldn't raze the settle one and move 1SE for 4 LH lakes and a crabs. There's something to be said for the banana and gems too though.

Thoth also offered one of his 2 Ivory for our silver, which I declined. What happens when we settle a duplicate ourselves, I'm not sure.

Also, in 2t we're going to have 2 settlers in transit, might be a good time to revolt to buddhism. Waiting for a GA doesn't make sense IMO, unless we go GA T96, build temple, hire priest in the capital for a shrine afterwards. That would save 2 revolt turns which isn't bad. The only first to we're really chasing at the minute will be settler races.

[The Black Sword]

I'm thinking 'The Quiet Man' for this latest plant, since it doesn't claim any new resources and sounds reflective for our future NE city. Plus, it's set in Ireland, so I had to use it at some point.

Becko's McLintock! suggestion seems to suit the next copper/deer/sheep/cows spot.

Also, coming up in future turns: crabs/rice/gold and that captured barb city.

Now, for a different topic.

The Obituaries

Pindicator(T0-T61) Washington, Exp, Cha of Carthage



Pindicator was perhap best known for his roles in PB8 and PB13 with Scooter. His play was characterised by strong spreadsheet driven micro, crazy plans and amphibious invasions. In PB8 he masterminded the zulu exodus, in PB13 his Vikings terrorised some more Indians and there are rumours of other Berserker dalliances in his past. Unlike a lot of players, he wasn't afraid to pit his military against the leader's, as opposed to building up or subsuming weaker neighbours.

Alas, his time in PB19 was cut tragically short by the Zulu menace. Our Ministry of Information does not have much data on the Carthaginian civilisation before this genocidal event, and cannot evaluate his management. It is speculated however that copper was awkwardly placed leaving him easy pickings for the Impis. He is dearly missed by all who did not neighbour him.

Pick strength: 7(lots of synergy in the pick, but it's all individually weak after Exp)
Expected finish: 6
Current Position: PB18

[The Black Sword]

We've managed a complete set of graphs, for the lurker's perusal:




(to help interpret the GNP )





Thoth has 2 Ikhanda's in his furthest north cities. I do believe we have the largest army in the world. Am I too paranoid here? We're putting it to reasonable use anyway:


I want a good force in place when we plant that choke point city too. I could see Lewpar taking issue it.

[The Black Sword]

3 new cities and Monarchy this turn, not bad:

(The slight delay on WB hook-up doesn't actually have an effect due to the granary mechanics)



The turn was soured slightly though by losing my 4xp axe at 93% odds taking Hondo.



Gaspwyn have a few annoying chariots about the place but I've got 2 spears in the area, a third coming so I should be good. I'm going to continue to search for their northern borders but in the meantime, the next settler will be aimed for the wheat/river choke point.

The economy took a bit of a hit with the new cities, down to 18gpt. I think at this stage though, I want to push for all the land I can get. If we crash the economy we should have the happy cap available to fix it. We can trade the second wine for Thoth's Ivory too. I'll probaby head toward Monotheism and OR next. I don't want to have to wait for Paya to be built before the missionaries, we're likely to have our shrine up around the time we get Mono. I decided to delay the religion revolt until after the land gets settled too, we still only have 2 buddhist cities after all.