Ventessel's PB37 Fiasco

[Donovan Zoi]

T94 - 525 BC


Prepping for City #5

All eyes are on Fairbanks this turn, and you have a front row seat to witness what I am trying to make happen to its north despite my best efforts to mess it up.



Last turn I put 2 worker turns into a mine to make the most of a migration turn, but I neglected to cancel the order.  So at the outset of this turn, the premature mine got built and my Workers were not able to road a rendezvous point for the Settler and Archer there to both arrived at the build site together.

This may have worked out though -- I was able to put the Archer and Settler just north of Fairbanks in the hopes of evading the eyes of Joey’s Scout.  I had to leave our host city vacated for a turn as the Chariot is needed to scout the area before settlement and defend our Settler for a turn once I give the all-clear.  Both cities will have Archer garrisons by T96.

As exciting as this all is, Joey just built a 10th city.  He can't have an 11th Settler lurking out in the shadows, can he?


Powergraph

Just another quick look -- the horizon seems clear for the moment...




City builds



After all the talk of Sailing, as well the fact that I was making Libraries such a big part of my upcoming plans, I was compelled to wedge in the two remaining turns of Writing before we complete MC.

This allowed me to start Libraries in Juneau and Silka.  This will give both cities access to Iron hammers, with Silka adding more happiness from Whales.  I am planning a chop/whip strategy for both so we can get back to military quickly.

I was going to do the same for our capital, but getting a 6th worker was more important since Juneau is weak on production and there are two hills to mine there.  The good news is once we have a Forge here, Anchorage should be able to produce 2-turn Workers, 4-turn Settlers and 1-turn Archers (and eventually 2-turn Horchers/Cats!).  I’ll have to be careful how I prioritize this queue as new production centers emerge, though I’d like to get up to a 3:2 Worker to city ratio.

I have a Workboat parked in Fairbanks that I will likely throw some hammers at once this city starts to grow.  The Library build here may have to wait...

[Donovan Zoi]

T94 - Continued

The one thing I hate about these come-from-behind games is that even the slightest inconvenience hits with the urgency of a 5-alarm fire.  The latest one will be recoverable in time. But due to the waste of crucial turns, it’s something I am not in a position to shrug off.

I thankfully noticed this while looking at the screenshots -- Joey had a monument that popped his borders across from Silka this turn.  So we will temporarily lose the Silver tile that our Workers have put 5 units into (out of 7 for the chop/mine combo)



I am pretty sure we will lose the tile next turn but I re-entered the save to stop the work order (this time) in case we get another chance to say goodbye. If so, I will complete the chop and have the Axeman pillage the silver.  Then maybe have the Chariot come out to pillage the road.

I am also putting the Library (and one turn of city growth) on hold to get enough hammers in place to whip a Spear next turn.  It would be nice to lock the defense down on this site, especially when Joey will have a path right to our front door.  And the delay of this city's improvement is a smaller price to pay than losing it altogether.

[Donovan Zoi]

T94 - One more thing

Guess What?  Dark Savant Wants Some Too!

As if being placed between Joey and Krill wasn't enough -- at least my player traits are Paranoid/Not Entirely Stupid.   

I didn't get the screenshot for this.  Dark Savant offered me Corn, Silver and Horses for my World Map.  Even with our Silver situation, I turned him down for two reasons.  One glance above to the Powergraph should explain the first.   

The other reason? I had scrolled through the event log awhile back, but forgot to mention that DS received the +1 naval benefit at around 1560 BC.  So I have had that in the back of my mind as well, and am not about to make things easier for him to find me.  I am hoping the Workboat coming out of Fairbanks will help shed light on Ethiopia's whereabouts, even if it gets mowed down in a mad rush to our shores.

Question -- what would you think of "map for map?"  I still don't like the idea of giving up our location, but the intel from their map could prove helpful.  I'm interested in what you think of this, CH (and Adrien if you're still out there).

[Cheater Hater]

We don't know where Dark Savant is, right? Even with circumnavigation and the power situation, does Dark Savant really want to take out us rather than his presumed neighbors on his landmass? I feel like allying with the power leader can only be a good thing when we're as behind as we are, especially when he has incentive to not let the expanding civs who took advantage of our initial deficiencies expand even further. Ideally I'd try to get silver along with map for map--can you do that in the same trade?

[Donovan Zoi]

That's exactly the kind of input I was looking for! Sure, that's a legit trade so I can send it. Based on where I last saw his scout, I've been hoping he's one of Joey's neighbors.

[Donovan Zoi]

OK sent!




Gee, I hope no one gets suspicious

[Donovan Zoi]

Sorry to keep you all in suspense. Here is what has happened the last few turns.


Silver Status

The trade with Dark Savant didn’t pan out, but the T95 turn did open with this:




Followed by the updated tile status in Silka.




So yes, we did lose Silver for now, and Joey did have the goodwill to make us whole for the meantime.   Well almost, we still lost the extra commerce and the chop yield (which Joey has left alone so far) but get the happiness that will help our growth.

You’ll see that I updated the build to a Spearman here, and ended up whipping it the next turn to keep the Axe defending there from being rushed by a Chariot.  A Library is back in production here, which I will 2-whip at Size 4 or 5.  Then a start on a Workboat for our upcoming Whales.


So Why Is Joey Bring So Nice?

This screenshot should make it obvious, as he has gone out of his way to squeeze us.  




Joey has three outposts far removed from his mainland and two with access to islands.  The SW location was rightfully ours, and had we followed a domestic plan from the start we should have grabbed the SE location too.  This site hosts a whopping 5 food tiles, and has grown from Size 5 to Size 8 in the span of 4 turns.

So yeah, he needs for me to reciprocate this kindness or he can claim the high road later if I choose not to. He's betting hard on China's weakness and my typically passive nature.


What Are You Waiting For, Donovan?

I am glad you asked!  Right now, China needs just about everything to stay competitive so I have already found myself second guessing prior decisions like going for MC before HBR.  If I had gone for the latter, I would have just finished it and may have been able to pull something off.  I also stalled some Libraries I had started to favor military builds and city growth for Settlers.

I still have plans for a capital Forge and Triremes, but it’s nothing that couldn't have waited 8 turns.  So I’ve committed to making better decisions going forward.  Hopefully I’ll be allowed the time to do so....

[Donovan Zoi]

Turns 100-107

Catch up post.  Something of interest happened pretty much every turn.


Turn 100

I noticed this turn that Animal Farm had both SoZ and Heroic Epic now.  I’m working off the assumption that 4-promo Melee units could likely be available here, as I do believe that Krill received a GG from Ventessel’s raid and will have had the foresight to plant him here.  




Retiring that general in Animal farm would provide new units the necessary 8xp via CHA to get 3 promos, unleashing all kinds of opportunities.  Amphibious is on the table, as well as some other wicked combos.  Barrage III Cats at some point(?!), though Krill does not have Construction yet.


Turn 101

Krill lands on our eastern peninsula.  I moved our fogbusting warrior out of harm's way for awhile before checking later to see that he had moved on.





To our north, Joey planted his first island city.  Is there anything I’ll be able to do before this gets out of hand?






Turn 102

Dark Savant finally showed himself of the coast of new city Nome.





And to our south, Krill just popped a 4th ring in his capital.  I had determined two things by this point.




1. Settling two cities here seemed risky due to culture concerns, so i was just going to leave a DMZ for now in the hopes that Krill would remain peaceful.

2. My tech path is going to be Sailing > HBR > Machinery.  Machinery presented itself as an option because it suddenly got much cheaper for me (from 27 turns to about 18).  If Krill was the one with this tech, then his impending XBows were going to make my Melee units even more useless than they already would be against his ridiculously skilled military.

So the move to Metal Casting is not looking too bad after all.  I’ll need more tools in my bag and the mobility of Horchers would go well with the stack-busting Cho-Ku-Nu.  I am hoping the mere presence of them will be enough for Krill, so that I may address my northern city-spam issue with Joey. Question is -- will I be able to get access to these tools in time?

[Donovan Zoi]

Turns 100-107 (Cont’d)


Turn 105

This was the turn I realized that can’t keep looking at that southern horizon for the threat that has not come yet.  From now unit I land our UU, I will dutifully check the Powergraph every turn and plan accordingly.  

But I also decided that I was not just going to turtle in by whipping defensive units while waiting for the inevitable -- I still had some time to make my cities more valuable if I could sweat out a weak hand for the short term.  So around T103, I did an about face on those stalled Libraries, building one in the capital and whipping 3 more in surrounding cities




I did this for two reasons:

-- I needed the culture to get to some goodies outside my reach, and get Silver back (and Whales) within my borders in Silka.  Fairbanks would add a Rice tile and Juneau/Silka would get a production boost from Iron.

--6 turns for HBR and 18 for Machinery is not fast enough!  I was going to need my two coastal cities (and Nome soon) to start taking advantage of our FIN bonus by employing latent growth via our coastal tiles.


The reason for this growth is twofold as well:

--The current research projections were after two cities were whipped to Size 2 (in hindsight, I should have whipped a Lighthouse in Fairbanks first, since it was not under cultural assault).  Once I parlay the overflow from these whips into Lighthouses, each pop point will bring in 3 new commerce with the Library already present.

--With other players presumably closing in on all sides, I will need to start 2 or 3-whipping some Settlers to grab some island sites to further enjoy my FIN advantage.


And I had better get on it.  There are some sites with some ridiculous resources out there:




I’ll get a better shot of Dark Savant’s city of Regna for you soon, along with its 7 bonuses!

[Donovan Zoi]

Turns 100-107 (Cont’d)


Turn 106

I met the Coeur/Bacchus team this turn -- yet another team with 10+ cities to my 5.





I didn’t let my perpetual envy keep me from this awesome trade however:





I can’t yet begin to put into words the amount of intel I received from this, but one glance at the lower right of this next pic will reveal why I am like a kid in a candy store right now.




Hint: it’s not because of Joey’s cozy relation with Dark Savant…


I’ll hopefully be able share insights from the map more over the next few turns.  But for now, I’ll leave you with a T107 shot of our “empire” (snort).