[PB22-SPOILERS] HAKFlakes...the cereal that will choke you until we win

[HitAnyKey]

I think at some point in the near future I should get a city settled out on that 1-tile island. Both to get it before someone else does, and to add better trade routes, and to start the very slow build of Moai Statues which will take forever. Should I do that sooner rather than later? After Fruit Loops finishes the Settler next turn (for Copper site) I'm going to build a Galley. Want one anyway, so building the galley no matter what. Since I'd like to get a unit across the water to explore the northern section of the continent that Commodore and the others are on. There might be someone to Commodore's north that I'd like to meet.



The distance maintenance is going to be the issue though. Not sure how much it'll hurt compared to how much it'll help.

[Cornflakes]

Mysticism will allow any cities to build a Monument if I feel like it while finishing the other techs.

We have AGG barracks in the Mod, so no monuments necessary. If we can get foreign routes, the island cities aren't necessary for boosted TR income. What is the OB tech in the mod? I would save up gold until you can make the entire push through Literature, and in that case it wouldn't really matter which you research first. You can't really have too many workers down in that Jungle, and the ones you have will be busy enough already as happy cap increases and improvements are needed at current cities.

[HitAnyKey]

We have AGG barracks in the Mod, so no monuments necessary. If we can get foreign routes, the island cities aren't necessary for boosted TR income. What is the OB tech in the mod? I would save up gold until you can make the entire push through Literature, and in that case it wouldn't really matter which you research first. You can't really have too many workers down in that Jungle, and the ones you have will be busy enough already as happy cap increases and improvements are needed at current cities.

the OB tech is alphabet. GJ has already researched it and we have trade routes with him right now. So far as of last turn only myself and mackoti havr open borders with GJ. He offered it to me first.

[HitAnyKey]

So I've started another Settler in Cheerios....trying to decide where to send him when he comes out. I've started marking spots that I think would make good cities...and I'm currently thinking the spot I marked near the Spices to the east might be my best choice for the next city (after copper city that gets founded next turn).




Other option is next to the cows west of the copper city. But I think expanding to my east (since that's where my nearest neighbors are) might be best to start securing that land.



Any thoughts? Also let me know if you think there are better spots to be utilized for the cities in these areas. The land is so crappy, there isn't a whole lot that jumps out at me especially.

[HitAnyKey]

Crap. We got screwed. mackoti just built the MoM which I had started and already put 2 chops into. He had gotten a Great Engineer a handful of turns ago, and must have just used it to build the MoM.
Now I don't know what to do....

[HitAnyKey]

So I have apparently now been falling WAAAY behind everyone. I have no idea how everyone has expanded their number of cities so fast....but everyone else has really gotten them out faster than me. So I'm going to try to get out a few more in the next 10-15 turns. Also because I'm building Hanging Gardens, which will be done in 15 turns if noone else beats me to it (which will likely happen with my luck). Below is the count that I can see:
Me: 6
mackoti: 8
Gavagai: 8
Dreylin: 9
Commodore: 10
REM: 9
dtay: 11
GermanJoey: 13

From map trades I just got I can see:
Gawdzak: 10
Furungy: 6

Right now, the only player I don't have maps on is plako. I also don't have maps on Dreylin, but my work boat was able to see all his coastal cities and any cities he has further west are just towards dtay.

Cornflakes, if you want to see the big picture, I suggest you just log in. With the recent map trades I just accepted this turn, there is just too much to explain. Especially with my having to pack today & tomorrow for us moving from NY to DE later in the week.
I've also marked a bunch of potential city spots. Easier for you to log in and see them since I don't have time to post screenshots for your input. But in summary my current considerations (to hopefully settle before the HG is done in ~13-14 turns):
Settler from Crispix to far eastern city by the Gold.
Settler from Lucky Charms to the spot directly east of it.
Settler from Fruit Loops north to either PH west of Honey Nut, or to the Marble site in the far north.

On a side note...so happy I have Great Wall. Just noticed a barb Spear to my south approaching Lucky Charms which is only guarded by it's warrior. If not for the wall, that thing would cause havok.

[HitAnyKey]

Yay! Finally something went my way. I successfully just built the Hanging Gardens. Annoyingly, a barb Spear kept me from putting a settler in place to found one of my cities I wanted planted before getting it...but oh well. I'll settle that city now next turn. And got another settler on route to another spot. And Cheerios will be making a settler next for heading up to the Marble spot. I'll log back in later to take screenshots and do a more detailed report, since I haven't been able to do one in awhile with all the craziness of my move. But we are now settled (and just have a lot of unpacking to do) so I'll have time today to do a detailed report of the state of my empire.

[Cornflakes]

FYI, I'm pretty sure that with Great Wall you can safely plant a city adjacent to barb units and they won't attack the city. I think they get kicked out when you found just like any other rival units who don't have open borders. It is safe to found next to animals even without Great Wall.

[HitAnyKey]

The issue I had was actually that I only had a War Chariot for protection in range of my Settler at the time. So if I moved my settler onto the tile I was going to make my city, I would be moving those two units next to a barb spear. And the barb spear would have killed them. So I had to wait a couple turns to bring my shock warrior onto one of the adjacent tiles for the spear to die against, and then I was able to move my settler in.
Got busy yesterday so didn't get a chance to do a report (didn't even finish writing this post, even LOL) but will try to put out some details today of some plans. Not that I really have much in the way of "plans", since I'm kinda back to just flying by the seat of my pants.

[HitAnyKey]

Ok, time for some updates before I get distracted for the rest of the day. Going to do this in a series of multiple posts since there's lots to talk about. I'll discuss my current situation later, but for now I'm going to describe some of what's going on in the world.
My immediate world, and upcoming dangerous issues.....mackoti....

My scout (which had gotten pushed down the southern land connection when he settled that city) finally made it's way back around to the western connection. And here he gets to see mackoti with a Spear/Chariot on the same tile as my scout, a scout of his own watching the western landmass, a worker on the tile to the east (probably getting ready to continue roads or something), and another chariot 1E of that just inside his borders. My guess (and hope) is that those are all there for him to get ready to plant another city in my direction along that connection. Probably right on the hill we are currently standing. I'm going to start building some more military (Archers, Spears, & Axes) to beef up my northern defenses just in case he's actually thinking of sending a stack down to attack me. I'm still far enough away that he wouldn't send a huge force to try to capture cities of mine, but he might send some down to try to raze cities to slow my growth.



I haven't had a map trade with him in awhile, but from some other trade I did at some point, I see he's already got a city bordering pretty close to Gavagai. This either means that they might conflict before he does with me, but probably more likely means that they will have a strong border such that mackoti will keep expanding at me until he decides to attack.



I was trading 5gpt to mackoti to get his Stone (which is what got me the HG) and I finally get to cancel that trade next turn. In the meantime over the last couple turns, I've been using the Stone boost to get some bonus hammers towards Walls in some of my cities. So when I cancel the trade next turn, some cities will have completed walls already and some will have partially built walls. I don't see any point in continuing to pay the 5gpt to finish the other walls I started. I probably shouldn't have even done the trade I did, since the HG didn't end up getting me as big a boost as I was hoping, because I couldn't get as many cities built by the time I completed it as I had hoped. If it had took me longer to build, I would have had 2 (or even 3) more cities. But once I secured the Stone and the build time dropped drastically, I decided it was better to just get it built even if I didn't get those extra cities settled. With my luck, someone would have stolen it away from me again like the last wonder I tried to start.