[Spoilers] Boldly Going...on a Bender and Pissing Off Xenu

[spacetyrantxenu]

Waiting for my update to see how you plan on dealing with Sian's blatant horse and gold grab.

On a related topic, I still love this photo:

Get your hands off my gold!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Sian's new city, in all it's glory, and the new and improved military situation:



Sian has withdrawn his Skirmisher to his lands and reinforced his ill-fated new city with basically everything he has. I have removed both barb warriors with great wrath (and much gnashing of teeth) and moved an axe into Sian's territory west of his capital. Unfortunately, it is damaged, making it easier to kill, but I'm curious to see what Sian has left in the capital, since it was empty last turn chasing my units and supporting this new city. BUT, I also have a settler coming out of DH soon that I'll have to cover, and this unit unfortunately is the only one that will be able to do that job properly. I just don't feel comfortable using my new Q as Settler escort and taking a chance on losing a 66% battle, so harassing Sian will have to wait. Patience, precious, patience...

As for the new city, well, I'm not entirely sure how long to allow that city to remain. He settled on the gold tile, and thus will NEVER get the value from this city location he should have, losing the immediate commerce benefit from the gold tile But, it was desert, so meh, but still, major commerce loss. Also, for now, I'm still putting more culture onto the horse tile than he is, even with Stonehenge. The ratio actually went up after the turn. So, I think this is a severe misplay by Sian by planting this city on the gold, he's just throwing bad after worse. It will take him ages to wrest that tile from me, and it will be an economic drag on him for a while. He basically nets plains sheep and dry plains wheat, and what, an extra commerce/happy for settling on the gold? I'm not sure that was worth it for him. He'll have to whip hard here to make this useful, so maybe a production/military city. But he'll need all the culture he can get into it, so either a religion or a library will be needed. I'm hoping not Judaism. Also, he'll have to garrison this heavily to keep it, as right now I can walk right up to it, even planting a unit on the hill in my borders. If he's smart, he'll cover that hill. Anyway, I'm not sure this was the most sound decision for Sian, but then I don't know what other option he has for securing horses. Maybe he'll put a wonder in there or something. Anyway, I'm conflicted on whether to wipe it off the map or let Sian waste time developing a less than ideal city. Maybe when he's close to flipping the horse tile, and I have cats. If he doesn't have horses to flank away a stack of cats, not much he can do about me taking it. Also, him defending here opens up more land for me to my east, his west. Lurkers, what are your thoughts here?



DH will complete the settler in 3T, I think at 65/65. That one will go to the hill towards Sian and attempt to land Judaism and dominate the stone/marble lake area. Next up a Q to grow, then worker. This subject to change when I'm in game again.



CC will complete this worker next turn with a chop. I love that unhappy citizens don't eat. I think I will put the overflow into an axe, grow to 6, then triple-whip a settler to take the speed bump site and secure my own horses that I can actually use. Two settlers coming in short order, I'm going to be cutting it very close on improved tiles and defense, but you don't win by not taking chances, unless you're a micro god, which I'm not. The other option would be, if I feel secure without that new axe, to overflow into another worker and start shifting them to the east, then grow to 6, then triple slave. I have some population to sacrifice in an emergency, even after the triple whip, so I can crank out a few defenders quickly if I must, and I have my little Qs, who are as useful now as they'll ever be. Let's see if I can play nice with Sian for a little while. I think that's the smarter play, at least until he's close to flipping the horse from me.



That's where we stand for now.

[spacetyrantxenu]

With the land this tight I think you need to claim all the land you can and hopefully get more than your share. I'd leave Sian's city for now and go settle up on him to the east if that is the best spot available. Maximize your tiles in play before you go getting to nasty with everyone, we'll want a good army to make a proper invasion later. For now just keep growing.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I left one of my Qs out to dry and Sian cleaned it up for me. Not sure what I was thinking. I left a Q on a forest hill in range of an axe and he killed me. Lesson learned, pay better attention! If I had left a unit to clean up, sure, take a shot. Oh well. Fare thee well, Belligerent Bear.



So I suppose with this being PBEM, it makes sense that Sian's culture is applied at his EoT, then it looks like he's gaining ground fast, then my turn comes and I gain some of it back. The actual figures after my EoT are 91/8 for me on the horse tile and 70/29 for Sian on the other tile I'm tracking, 1S of the tundra hill forest 3W of CC. Just something to keep an eye on.

I decided to move up the schedule of the settler 1t in DH, so the chop will come in now. Turns out I'll finish Monotheism faster than I can get the settler on location, so I better do what I can to speed that up. City founds T44, I'll have to delay the tech 1t.



Worker finished in CC. I'll have the workers double-team the horse, then start trickling them over to the east.



Not that I'm doing C&D, demos:



This being T40, I should do a dump of graphs. I'll see if I can get to that shortly.

[Catwalk]

I like your focus on culture, if you manage to land Judaism in a new city you're going to claim a very generous amount of tiles with it. I had someone berate your pick of CRE/Inca in chat, based on conventional thinking of Inca making CRE unnecessary. I think it's a very good choice, culture is king on a map this small. And with FIN, you're able to develop the extra tiles nicely.

I'm in favour of letting Sian dump resources into the new city before wiping it out. You need to protect your new city, will be difficult to burn his city while defending your new city at the same time. Sian will likely lose a lot more from an invasion than you will, but there's always the risk of others coming out ahead because of it. Do you have any plans for the SE gold? Do you know how much the second expansion will cost you in upkeep?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This person on chat wasn't Slowcheetah, was it? I'm hopeful that being creative will help control tiles by free culture as well as by giving a discount on libraries (good culture building). I usually build a lot of these, and on a small map we're bound to run a high slider once this turns into a buildfest. I'm also trying to settle defensible locations, on hills, and I'm hopeful that my strong culture will allow me to keep placing cities in this way rather than having to settle as Sian has done on top of his gold to wrest control of a strategic resource. He's gaining ground, now that his borders have popped second ring:



I should just clear out some of these signposts, they're getting annoying. Anyway, tile control is now to 73/26 on the horse, so he's making progress, but he isn't there yet. I moved my axe away from CC to cover the speedbump sign post where city #4 is going to found T46. I'm hoping I can overflow for a worker, but I'm not optimistic that I'll be able to. His axe is nearly healed now, and can see that I have 2 Qs in the city. Hopefully he thinks I'm baiting him and could cover his unit if it approached my city. Either he attacks across a river or is on flat land adjacent to my city. I can whip/attack, then clean up with a Q if needed, but I think that he's just going to cover the hill so I don't camp out with an axe on top of his city. Stay put, Sian...



I have an axe nearly done (21/23) in CC. I'll triple whip the settler, overflow to a worker, finish the axe, and probably overflow to...something. We'll see what is needed. Sian could move up and screw up my timing here, but hopefully he won't. Worst case is I delay the settler, or massively waste overflow. I doubt this will happen, though.



DH is set to double whip the worker. I know I could build it in 3t, but really I just want the overflow. Need to start laying down some cottages, to do that I need workers, to use cottages I need cities, to protect them I need...Axes. I'm not working any mines, so whip it good.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Another quick turn. Call this the turn of the whip, as I've killed off 5 of my previous 11 population in whips. Maybe this is a good idea, maybe not, but I'm going to get my production from the whip, so that's that.



Overview. Not a lot has changed, except for Sian moving up an axe/skirmisher to his western border:



I wish my axes were full strength, but we'll just have to make due. I moved one axe up from my city site to cover the forest. Until now, Sian thought he had enough to crack my single axe. Now he sees I have two, and will hopefully reconsider attacking. He can't kill both units, but he can delay my chop of the plains forest SE of the new city. Turn tail and run, please? Thanks!

The whipping spree took us down a couple pegs in demos:



Oh well, no pain, no gain. Darkheart:



We need more units to cover, so an axe, then maybe a Q to scout the north while we regrow to cap. I'm wondering if Sian thinks we're in an arms race (or, for that matter, if we actually ARE in an arms race). I've been pretty aggressive toward him, so he has justification for building units, but then again, he settled right up on me, so what should we expect? Now that he's seen my second axe he will hopefully figure out my design on that location and back off. Or, better, he'll attack both of my axes on the forested hill and die a futile death. Maybe it won't come to that. Cobra Commander:



Lots of delicious overflow, terribly tight happy cap here. What to do? I can 1T a worker or a barracks. I need to improve tiles, so it will probably be a worker. I do want some barracks, though. I'm going to be churning out a decent number of units and this is a good place to do it from. A promotion here and there could save precious hammers/units in the next bloodletting. I'll save that for the next massive whip, maybe. I still have that nearly finished axe in the queue should Sian send something forward. I don't want to finish it until I regrow some pop if I can help it, though, as for the first time I'm seeing unit costs:



Thoughts anyone?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Quick thought:

For the first time, I'm really concerned that I'm about to crash my economy. Things look great with only two high population cities, but when I slap down #3 and #4 so close together, this could get tight. If I can just limp to monarchy... I have to swap to save gold next turn to delay Judaism founding in the wrong place, so I'll get at least 1T of additional savings. However, this could be a tough slog. I need to get some cottages down ASAP. Really pulling a high wire act here right now. This is probably where it would have been useful to sim to see how bad this is going to hurt. Even at 100% currently (which I can't fund) it would take 13T to get to Monarchy. Gotta regrow some commerce!

[Catwalk]

Aren't you going to lose some of that overflow in your expansion? Unless I misunderstand, you can't overflow more than the cost of the current project. So if you overflow 33, 7 hammers will be wasted. Where are you planning on founding city 4? Sian will have a hard time taking that hill tile from you, and as long as you have that you can 1-move him easily. That city will be costly for him to defend. You may even get to the 4th ring before he gets to 3rd ring, how long until that happens?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Aren't you going to lose some of that overflow in your expansion? Unless I misunderstand, you can't overflow more than the cost of the current project. So if you overflow 33, 7 hammers will be wasted. Where are you planning on founding city 4? Sian will have a hard time taking that hill tile from you, and as long as you have that you can 1-move him easily. That city will be costly for him to defend. You may even get to the 4th ring before he gets to 3rd ring, how long until that happens?

It defaulted back to the axe I have in the queue. I'll change that to a worker (unless Sian has done something aggressive with his troop movements near CC), so no loss in that case. If I have to build a unit, yes, massive waste. Even if he moves up just the one axe, I may let him kill one of my Qs in the city and get out an axe after whatever I build this turn if I have enough to 1t it. We'll see. City #4 is on the tile marked Speedbump, incoming T46 IIRC. Name TBD. Xenu, this is the kind of help you usually give, so give me a name. He's gaining ground with the tiles adjacent to his horse plant, but that city is closer to CC than to his capital, so it will be hard for him to reinforce. You really put yourself at a tactical disadvantage when you don't control tiles close to the city. Settling on flat ground just compounds that problem. I'm not sure how long until I get to 4th ring, I'll check when the save comes back around. I have a good chance of getting there before his capital, though.