[SPOILERS] Dhalphir PB13

[Dhalphir]

Bacchus is still whipping this turn, and I haven't seen any power drop that would indicate any sort of battle between him and retep or him and william

so i dont know whats going on at all. my sentry is my only saving grace - will have warning.

[Dhalphir]

Logged in to make a whip that I realised I forgot, and I have met FinHarry. Signed Open Borders and World Map traded with them. Got 23 commerce/turn from that. I'm sure they get more, but I'm not fussed.

[Dhalphir]

I whipped away a lot of population this turn - most of the cities will regrow the whipped citizen next turn, and I have Spices coming online next turn too, so I will easily absorb the unhappiness hit. Free hammers. Almost.

Anyway, it got me three more spears and two more chariots, so I'm feeling a lot more secure if Bacchus tries anything against my aggressive jungle expansion. I fully expect him to do so sooner or later. He's boxed in by retep and william in the north and east, by water in the west, and by me in the south. Someone's gotta give, and I have lower power than Bacchus and more cities to take than Retep, so makes sense.

I've focused pretty heavily on spears in my defense - we're entering the era where he should have Numidians by now, so I assume they will be the primary attackers. Given that his GNP has been no better than mine for most of the game and is in fact currently much worse, I have to assume that he doesn't have Construction, given that I don't.

[Dhalphir]

Ooh, the demogame ended. That's going to leave Old Harry with a lot of time to dedicate to this game.

[Dhalphir]

I can't wait for currency to come in next turn. Every single city has an intercontinental trade route of 3 commerce with Old Harry, and I also have other intercontinental open borders too. An extra one of those? yes please.

Something interesting - I am at rank #7 in GNP now. A few people must be running no science while I'm running max science, but that still puts me at or near the front of the average, just behind the leaders.

But of course, the leaders are pulling further and further away - dtay (I assume) just jumped to over 500 GNP, so I assume he got Civil Service.

[Dhalphir]

Bacchus is still building power. So many numidians.

They have to be coming for me though. There's been no power drop that indicates he's actually fighting anyone else, and I'm the only one he is likely to expand towards. I bet I pissed him off with my plant of Mar Sara on his doorstep, and the added insult of grabbing the barbarian city is something I think will tip him over the edge.

Hell, it'd make ME want to fight me.

But, I had to do it. Only one of us can control that jungle. I don't feel like taking half of it and then having a front 3 or 4 cities wide for the rest of the game in there. I'd much rather be bold, grab the majority of it, and then defend one or two cities against the attack then.

If you look at the below image




It's pretty clear what I'm talking about. Bacchus probably wouldn't have minded if I'd settled Chau Sara where it is, or maybe settled it in a bit closer to Redstone then another city further past it in the bottom left, but that would then leave the rest of the jungle open for him, plus that entire cape up beyond the barbarian city. That gives him 5-6 cities in the jungle to my 3, and not only that, all three of mine are right up against his borders. NOT a defensive situation I want to be dealing with.

[Dhalphir]

Noticed Bacchus had played his turn, so I logged in to check things out. Another Bacchus turn comes and goes without him declaring.

[Dhalphir]

demographics post-currency

[Dhalphir]

The barbarian city (renamed to Tarsonis) came out of resistance and started contributing to the empire. Even this far from the capital, the maintenance costs aren't THAT bad.




This is a great city, and its worth will only continue to increase. I am very happy I was able to take this city from under Bacchus' nose. Something I didn't mention above - I also was able to nab the two barbarian workers that came with this city, so I got a city AND two free workers.

Demographics with the new city contributing




Climbing our way back up in the world.

All meaningful stats apart from GNP are very poor, because of how outnumbered we are on city count by the leaders. I need to start settling offshore soon before all the good spots are gone, but there's a couple more good spots north of Tarsonis and one good spot in the center of the jungle. Nothing more towards plako though.

Quick update on the Bacchus situation - I'm not entirely sure what this guy is waiting for. Every turn that passes lets me reinforce the jungle more and more. He cannot be planning to hit me with a giant stack of one movers, because that would take forever to get through the jungle between us. Not only that, if he sends the bulk of his heavy hitters to me, he leaves himself exposed to retep and WilliamLP, two players with whom he does not exactly have rosy relationships.

So the best guess, and what I would do in his shoes, is to leverage his unique unit, the sexy Numidian Cavalry, and blitz my cities with two-movers. This is why my army has been so heavy on spears in the jungle.

However - here's the rub. My power has been roughly even with Bacchus for a while, perhaps a little behind. This turn, I passed him in power. Now, I don't have much committed to defense at the plako border. Enough to discourage casual pokes. Certainly I don't have as much army committed there as Bacchus needs to keep committed to his other two borders. So the balance of power in the jungle definitely belongs to me - we have similar armies, and a far larger percentage of mine is on defense. Hopefully Bacchus realises that, makes my life tense for a few turns, then backs off. Ideally, he would never even try anything.

[Dhalphir]

In the end, I also decided to switch away from Code of Laws. I only just finished Currency, so I still haven't had the time to fit in Markets in any cities. I can get Code of Laws in 3 turns - one more of 100% gold, then two more turns of research. However, Code of Laws gives no intrinsic benefits, and Courthouses will save me on average only 1-2 gpt per city. That makes for 20 gpt across my whole empire - nothing to sneeze at, but I really don't have the spare hammers to invest in markets AND courthouses and right now I think the bonus ivory happy from Markets is going to be more beneficial.

So instead I'm researching Masonry. Researching it at 20% science gives me 27 gold income while finishing Masonry next turn. I'm not sure how long Construction will take after that - the tech is 350 beakers. I assume there will be discounts on that from other civilizations having it. I am making around 220 beakers at 100% science, and it costs me ~100gpt to run that. Depending on the discounts, I MAY be able to one-turn construction after Masonry. at most, it will be two turns.

After that, give me ten turns and I'll have a catapult army ready for Bacchus, not to mention being able to whip walls in all threatened cities after Masonry.

I really am not that worried about Bacchus - unless he can outmaneuver me tactically with his horse archers (and I admit, that's still a possibility, I really have no idea what HAs can do) - I shouldn't lose anything important.

Any lurker feedback on the state of my empire would be greatly appreciated, if anyone is reading regularly