[PB27-SPOILERS] Yup, it's HAK here...no idea what I might do this time...

[HitAnyKey]

And just for the sake of completeness for you lurkers...here's all the cities of Wine Country in the order that I founded them:

When I logged back in to get these, I had an Open Borders request from Gavagai. I declined it for now. I have trade routes with Tsargon so I have no need of open borders with anyone else. So not going to give Gavagai some free trade routes. Next turn when I log in, maybe I'll consider sending it back to him with asking him for a few gold per turn to have them. I forgot to look who else he has routes with. I already know he has routes with Tsargon. Tsargon seems to have given Open Borders to everyone.

[HitAnyKey]

Just finished a full day of orientation and then working at Costco today as a seasonal employee. So only just now finally got around to playing my turn. I was going to spend a bit of time trying to report my situation, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Suffice to say, I'm trying to build up for the inevitable fist-o-Krill that will be pounding down on me as soon as he's done taking that last city from TW. And at this point, I'm not sure there's going to be anything I can do about it. Is production is just too high. And with Adrien in the process of being about to be eaten by AT and Tsargon with low military (and a SUPER HIGH Gavagai against him), there is no hope of any support from them to keep the Krill Monster from gobbling me up. I certainly had fun doing this risky opening, even if it in the end has cost me the game. Being this close to Krill, I don't think I would have had any chance either way, so at least I got to be the score leader for quite awhile in the early game. LOL

[Mardoc]

Just finished a full day of orientation and then working at Costco today as a seasonal employee.

Glad you got past the 'overqualified' hurdle. Good luck on finding something more permanent next.

[GermanJoey]

Just finished a full day of orientation and then working at Costco today as a seasonal employee.

Glad you got past the 'overqualified' hurdle. Good luck on finding something more permanent next.

+1. Good luck HAK!

[HitAnyKey]

Yeah, for seasonal work they probably don't even really look at the resume since they basically take anyone. So no worry about the overqualified issue there. Being Seasonal, it's really only just for the next 3 weeks (since I'll be in Michigan the entire week of New Years). They then let all the seasonal people go at that point since Jan & Feb are the slow months. Then around March is when they decide which (if any) of their seasonal people they want to call back to become regular employees. My hope is that I don't need that call back, since $11.50/hr isn't exactly what I want to be earning. But for the next few weeks at least, it's better than nothing. And if I still haven't found a job by March and they call me back, I'll of course go. Since again....it's at least work.
This seasonal work will at least help pay for Xmas gifts and such. We've already decided that I'm not paying the mortgage on my condo that no one is buying. And after missing the second payment, I'll be having a short-sale laywer try to work out some sort of deal with the bank so that we can lower the price again and not have me owe $20-25k+ out of pocket to cover what I still owe on the mortgage when/if it ever finally sells.

[Ceiliazul]

Thats a tough spot to be in HAK. Talking about the condo, not the krill-o-matic concerns.

[HitAnyKey]

They're both tough spots. LOL

But yeah with the condo, really should have done this months ago. We discussed stopping the mortgage payment few months ago (since we do know it'll hurt my credit), but held off hoping it'd actually sell. Plus was waiting on something else to finalize. Luckily according to my Discover card account, my FICO score is right now at like 848 (was at the max 850 two months ago). So even if my credit drops a bit from becoming delinquent on this mortgage it hopefully won't be too bad. But in either case my wife also has great credit, so if/when we're ready to buy a home for ourselves we can just use her credit rating if mine drops too far.

[HitAnyKey]

Forgot to post these after last turn:
Lots and lots of fighting going on. GG's being born and dying all over the place. At least it looks like multiple people will be eliminated before me. Grimace was first to go, next up is TW, and Commodore is likely next or Donovan. Adrien is also losing cities pretty quickly now. I've seen other city losses in civstats, but I really can't (and don't care to) try to keep track of that. It's way too chaotic at this point.











As you can see, I got Currency end of last turn. So that'll hopefully help me get to Machinery, which is likely about 12 turns away. Probably way too late to do anything about Krill though. I'm sure he'll attack me long before then. And you can see I'm building up a nice pretty city for him. Look at that pretty Shrine he's going to get. I'll get a great person in 2 turns though, so at some point I'll be kicking off a golden age. Trying to let some of my cities grow another point or two before doing so though. Sadly I won't have any civics to switch into since I feel I need to rush to Machinery. Though maybe I'll log back in and check to see how long it'd take me to get to Feud. Maybe Longbows would be better to try to build than Xbows? Likely. Forgot to check the time to get that tech, so will do so later.




Settled Ty Caton this turn, and now every available spot except one NW of Wellington on the shore is taken. And that spot is no good to even try for since I'm sure Gavagai will be taking that coastline. I have a Chariot that just scouted over there a bit, and Tsargon has like no defenses and I see Gavagai has a Sentry Chariot looking around. Yep, he's scouting out for the weak spots. Don't know why Tsargon doesn't see the hammer coming for him.
Krill and Tsargon just finished filling in the rest of the spots to the north.

At this point it's just crank out as much military and defense as I can. The Work Boat will be going over to Concannon for it's fish (the borders there pop this turn roll) and as soon as that Lighthouse finishes, it'll finish off the Moai in like 3 turns and then just start pumping out Archers or something.

[HitAnyKey]

So haven't posted an update in awhile, and still don't really have time today either. Maybe I can update something tomorrow or day after, but just wanted to post this interesting screenshot.



There's dtay, right opposite me, with that island between us. I've also now met everyone that is on my continent....Ichabod, dtay, Krill, Gav/Bacchus, Molach, AT, Barteq, myself, Adrien, tsargon, and formerly Grimace & TW. All the rest would be on the other continent (I assume there are only two if this one is like this).
As much as I'd like to go Compass/Optics after Machinery, I feel I'm going to need to go Poly->Mono->Monarchy->Feudalism so that I can kick off my waiting GA (I have a Great Prophet sitting around) and switch civics.
I am attempting to raze that city of Johnny Horton of tsargon before Gavagai captures and keeps it. It's in a bad spot and I have a settler ready to settle the hill SE of it. But of course as soon as I moved up my 3 HA's to kill the lone Archer he had in it, he moved a whole stack of Immortals (and a Spear was produced) into it. So the bum made it easier for Gavagai to keep sweeping through his land just to put up a wall for me. Got 2 Holkans next to it this turn and next turn I get another two, plus an Axe & Catapult. So hopefully the turn after I can raze it, if Gavagai hasn't already gotten to it.

[HitAnyKey]

Been in a bit of a slump for awhile so haven't really been updating or thinking too much when I'm in game, just doing things as I see them. But finally getting around to doing a bit of an update for ya'll.
I'm sure from their threads you guys know all the details of what's going on between the two monsters around me (Gavagai and Krill...well, now boak). Gav a few turns ago sent me an Iron/Iron diplo, obviously wanting me to help beat up on Krill. Sadly I'm really in no shape to do so, but I still think I may try. If for no other reason than just for the fun of it. So I signaled to Gav that I think I'll be ready to do something in about 10 turns and he acknowledged that back to me this turn.

Here's the status of myself. I've been in a Golden Age, where I got myself to a point for a 3 Civic swap (HR, Feud, OR).











Sadly I just lost graphs on Gavagai this turn, so I'm not able to show you his...but his MFG and Power have been higher than even Krill's. That Food graph is just crazy, and they're both destroying me in MFG even with me in a Golden Age. So I don't see any chance of me surviving this. And even if I do, Gavagai will likely just gobble up my cities near him since I'll have no protection for them if I send stuff after boak (guess I should start using that name going forward).



I think I marked Gav's SuperStack in the wrong spot as I now seem to recall I saw it right up against the city. Which means he'll be taking Trevalyan next turn. boak is retreating everything, and I'm hopeful that he stations it ALL inside Chersterton. If he continues to leave just that one Archer in Porthill, I will likely take (and have to decide whether to raze) that city on the first turn of whenever I decide to attack.




This is the theater that I'm sending most of my stuff. Right now mostly everything is en-route or still needs to be built, but my plan is to put a bunch of stuff on that tile where you see 2 Catapults right now. Once my two workers finish that Mine on the Gems next turn they will then road that tile so that when I declare war I can move a stack onto that Jungle tile in boak's territory. The bad part about this whole situation is that river. I need to move to the other side of that river in order to attack Pelsall. So if I follow the hills, that's 4 turns of movement before I can even attack. I suppose I can always divert towards Penn if that looks like a better target. Right now I just don't know what I'll do.
Other option that I just noticed is I suppose I could position a stack on the hill south of KR (which I'm 95% sure he can't see), and move to the FP on the first turn and then move to the Horses on the 2nd turn, and then start hitting the city. Though that puts me on flatlands for him to hit me. But the likelyhood of me being able to move 4 tiles through hills before he puts units there to stop me on that path is also unlikely. But I still have a few turns of thinking about this while I move units eastward.




In actuality I probably shouldn't be thinking about doing this, but if I don't try something I'm just going to get gobbled up by one of them anyway. They are both probably 3 times my size and there's nothing I can do about that in the foreseeable future. I'll be finishing Optics soon, and then Alphabet after that. I was hoping to get a Great Scientist this turn, but the coin flip gave me another Prophet. So I'll need to wait for the 100% GS out of Wellington. Right now it shows 15 turns, but with my Golden Age ending in 3 turns my guess is it'll be more like 25 turns? But as soon as I get Optics, I'll build a couple Caravels and go scout that island to my SW and also scout boak's coastal cities. Then when I finally get that Great Scientist, if I've looked at the bulb order correctly, I should be able to bulb Astronomy.
I'm currently planning to use this Prophet on the last turn of my GA to bulb Theology and adopt Theocracy to give my next batches of military more experience.

Anyway, that's all I have time for today. Thanks for reading my ramblings. Any questions, let me know.