[SPOILERS] Land of Chaos - HitAnyKey

[AutomatedTeller]

Congrats on theology, with a religion and theocracy - that''s big news.

quick question - you seem to have an unimproved gems that dragon's mouth could be working. Do you plan on clearing the jungle from that at any point?

[HitAnyKey]

Congrats on theology, with a religion and theocracy - that''s big news.

quick question - you seem to have an unimproved gems that dragon's mouth could be working. Do you plan on clearing the jungle from that at any point?

Thanks. It's probably some of my biggest and most important news so far. At least it is the biggest news in awhile.

And yeah, it'll get improved. It just keeps getting put on hold because the city had a lot of other improved tiles to be worked. Whipping it a few times didn't help. The gold would be good, yes, but after each time of whipping I had the Corn and both other Gems to be working. Haven't gotten the city above size 5 for any length of time yet, so with Horses, Corn, 2 Gems....the 3rd Gem hasn't been required to come into play yet. Plus, it shifts on and off with the shared Sugar Farm on the river with PoD. And switches on and off with the new shared River Cottage with Mt Whacko.
The stupid moves involving plako when I lost those two workers (and settler, and military...) cost me big time. So having to manage the empire with just 4 workers has been tough. Hence why I'm making another one in PoD while waiting for the religion to spread there next turn. I should be able to get it cleared and mined soon.
And I'm thinking after it grows one more time in 4 turns, I'll have Pile of Crap (the city up by LP) make me another worker. It doesn't really have much in the way of hammers until I get the plains hill mined. It's either that, or I whip out a Granary. Which do you think is more important for that city? Whip out a Granary or whip out a worker?

[AutomatedTeller]

I dunno - that's always a tough call.

if the only way you can get a worker up there is to make it, then yes - clearly worker is the right thing to do. if not, it may make sense to take one of your other cities that isn't going to make military on the switch to theocracy and have it build a worker, and then go back to infrastructure when you switch back to OR and can get a missionary to it.

[HitAnyKey]

Does anyone know what would cause a Monument in a city to be putting out 2 culture instead of the normal 1? See the pic below. Dragon's Mouth is giving me 2 culture for it, while all my other cities it gives just 1.

Other than that, just a quick update. Nothing really going on. Building military with me nice Theology boost within my two main cities. DM is also making some military too. The other cities are working on infrastructure. Just whipped the Granary up in Pile of Crap. Most of my workers are either building roads or doing partial chops while I head towards Math.

[Brian Shanahan]

How many years ago was it when you built the monument. Culture output doubles 1,000 years after you build the building/wonder.

[HitAnyKey]

How many years ago was it when you built the monument. Culture output doubles 1,000 years after you build the building/wonder.

Oh right. That must be it. Forgot about that. I have no idea how many years it has been (though apparently it's been 1000 yrs ) but now that I think of it, that was the third city I built, and it was the first one that I built a Monument in. The others didn't have the need for a Monument originally, so they had theirs built a little after this one. This city, it was the first build since I knew I wanted to expand the borders for that first farm.

[HitAnyKey]

So things are currently rockin' in Chaos!

As I had hoped, Christianity has spread down to Dragon's Mouth this turn. I knew I kept my Axe at 1 turn away from completion to work on the Spear for good reason. Now I can let the Axe come out with the extra 2XP. This causes the unit (like has been happening in PoD & Mt Whacko) to automatically be ready for 2 promos.

The borders will also expand in 2 turns.

I now have units all over the place within range of multiple cities if anyone shows up to cause me trouble. I got a chariot&sword between DM & MtW. The last two units made in PoD have moved SE so that they are also near those two cities. I just finished an Archer for Hard Knocks, for additional protection from plako. And next turn I get another Axe in both PoD & DM. I'm starting to finally get a nice military build-up.
In a little while, after I've made at least one or two more units in each of my religious cities, I'll switch over to Organized Religion to work on some buildings and get missionaries up to my other two cities if the religion has not spread to them automatically by then.
The borders of PoD also expand again in I think 3 or 4 turns, and the borders of MtW expand in just a few turns too.

In the exploring news over by plako, here's what my boy Speaker has been doing:

Last turn in plako's capital he had a Warrior & Chariot. This turn the Chariot moved somewhere. He's got an Archer/Warrior in Utrect, and at least an Archer in The Hague (I forgot to make not of what else, if anything). His cities near me each have a handful of units, but that's expected.
His Axe/Spear/Worker on my border with him has moved south from the Bananas (where he just chopped the jungle) to the forest which I'm assuming he'll be chopping next.
That's about it for now. I'll take some additional screenshots next turn for some demographics and other stuff. I'm assuming I'm probably about 8 or so turns away from Mathematics. I haven't actually calculated it out specifically yet.

[HitAnyKey]

So I'm glad I had started finally cranking out the military and also been sending many of them to be stationed near Mt Whacko and Dragon's Mouth. I knew protecting my coastal city near yuri and my holy city would be important. With my visibility and seeing that plako had very little military on my borders, I've been able to keep units in the forest next to MtW (and not actually in the city) for them to be in range of both cities if I saw any movement. And movement I saw.....

I was online (distracted watching The Rocketeer, so hadn't logged out yet) when yuri logged in. I hear a noise from the computer and out of the corner of my eye I see some galley's sail up:

FIVE of them!!!
I watch him unload them and see it's not as bad as it could have been. Most of the units are unpromoted. As he's unloading, I start checking combat odds. He's fully unloaded by the time I can try something (unloading is pretty quick) and I have the axe that was just built in DM that I can promote to try an attack. I probably should have just gone straight Combat 2, but I did Combat 1 (checked odds, which it showed against an Axe) and then went to Shock which then switched it's opponent to Yuri's C1 Immortal. Oh well. With 75% odds I decided the tradeoff of trying to kill his only promoted Immie was worth the risk (plus I was able to move plenty of defenders into the city). If I attacked and won, he'd have the city to keep him alive. So I attack, and lose. Got it down to almost half it's life though.
Only other unit with semi-decent odds is the other Axe in range sitting in the forest by MtW. I promote him to Shock (this time each odds check kept his opponent as an Axe). A 79% odds battle, and this one I win. But it leaves the Axe on the flatlands of the Gems. But with enough other units around, and more building built soon, I felt even if he kills that axe next turn it is worth it since if he starts fortifying that stack they'll get tougher to kill. My Axe survived taking only 17HPs of damage.
Below is how the battle went:

For a few I tried to decide what to do about my axe that was sitting out on the open. I had an unpromoted chariot that was in the forest and had one move left, so I moved it there to help protect the axe from yuri's axes. Realized afterwards that may have been a bad move as he'll be able to possibly kill one of those 2 units with one of his without risk of leaving his own unit exposed. I may think about moving a Spear there too for protecting them from the Immie's, but I'll decide that later today. Any thoughts from you guys? Should I leave the Axe/Chariot to fend for themselves, or should I put a Spear with them? I'm almost positive if I pull a spear from DM, the city will still be more than defended enough to prevent capture.
Here's the whole layout:

I have another Axe coming down from PoD that will be able to either attack or get into the city in 2 turns. I decided to 2-Pop whip an Axe in DM. And I have another chariot completing in PoD next turn too.

I also have a Chariot & Spear still in DM that have a promotion left. I'm considering holding off on the Chariot to make him my healer. For the Spear, not sure what the best promotion is for him but I need to decide before the end of the turn. Either C2 or S1. I'm leaning towards C2.

Anyway, I'm actually hoping Yuri doesn't decide the invasion was a bad idea and retreat. I think I should have great chances of killing multiple units and getting myself a Great General.
I also need to get enough of his units killed so that I can get enough defenders to my other borders to prevent a multi-sided war.

All in all, this is getting fun again. My screwups against plako bummed me out for awhile, but this is exciting. Even if I get swarmed by plako, LP, and yuri to wipe me out.

[AutomatedTeller]

very exciting stuff!!

[HitAnyKey]

Wow, only 12 hrs into the turn and already just 3 people left to go. I'm really hoping they all play quickly. I'm around all day today and I was going to be a little worried if the turn went towards the end (since it would be flipping after midnight) and I've already had 2 nights in a row where I was up past 1:30am (Thurs night was 2:30) killing zombies in CoD:Black Ops.
I'm gonna have to keep an eye on when it gets closer to just one or two people left. If things work out, I won't even have to worry about deciding whether to move a Spear onto the Axe/Chariot. I should be able to log in quick enough before yuri does so that I can get them safely into the city.
I'm still surprised that he came at me with an invasion that had only one promoted unit (the C1 Immie). But if I can log in and attack before he logs into promote that Immie again (I'm assuming my Axe dying against it will give it another promo), things will be better for me.