[SPOILERS] This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land. But Mostly Mine.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I got over my disappointment with Ronaldo soon enough, but I haven't had time to post here the last few days. And I can't really be mad at him anyway, it was a superb cross into the penalty area. Portugal outplayed the US the first ten and the last five minutes of the game, so they probably deserved the draw. Right? Right? Righhhhtttt.... Anyway, I have some catching up to do.

T78

I decided that this would be a safer location and doesn't leave the flood plains between West Yellowstone and Lake wasted until a filler production city would use it much later on. That filler city would go 2S of lake's corn, could borrow the corn from Grant Village for a little while, and grow onto all the tiles it will ever need in a very short span, then either churn units or Wealth. As for this border city, it will have enough trees to chop in basic infrastructure and has plenty of tiles to cottage, so this will be a commerce city. Slow starting at first, but once the cottages mature this will be a nice addition.



Still on schedule here. I'm pretty sure that the dyes are first ring for Nakor, so I won't be taking those. Maybe later in the game they'll be mine, one way or the other.



I can't wait to grow these cities up some.



Currency should be a nice shot in the arm, especially with the island city coming online soon.

T79

More of the same. For the life of me, I can't account for Dhal's scout just sitting there forever. I know he isn't really paying attention to this game but really? Do something, man!





Taking a peek at F4 now that Currency is in, I'm going to try to get a sense of the economic capacity of my neighbors. I have graphs on Mardoc and Caledorn (and will have them again on Dhal but he keeps spending EP on me) but I can use this to see how others are developing, assuming generally that players will use binary research. The first picture shows Caledorn at his 100% gold saving rate, which is very competitive with me right now, virtually equal. My academy sets me apart on the research phase. I'll be interested to see Mardoc's rate. Early on, I hypothesized that he had laid down early cottages while growing his capital tall. If so, he should be in decent economic shape as well, ignoring outside factors like aggressive other players. It looks like most of these guys are burning cash right now.

T80

I'm ready to smack this guy as soon as he comes a little closer...



Stone is MINE. And, for the fun of it, maybe induce some heartburn for Nakor because why not?



A unit or two killed but it seems no cities razed so far.



Yellowstone resuming its upward trend to its rightful position.



+20 GNP with Currency, with the caveat that I'm now running a couple of scientists. +10 on gold saving, I'm not sure how much expenses went up but that's nine overseas routes that I didn't have before, so that's nice.



So this is the final product on T80. After many, many sims (see the spoilered bit), I think I finally hit on a plan that is pretty good and reasonably defensible, unlike some of my earlier runs. I'm not bristling with military, but in this soft neighborhood it is plenty for now. I've spent hammers on tons of early workers and recent cities. Right now I'm just a little behind on worker turns (I've worked 3 lake tiles at Lake and a bare flood plains a couple of turns at West Yellowstone) so I need to build a couple more workers, but I've been able to fudge on workable tiles by whipping and using scientist specialists, particularly at Fishing Bridge since I have so much overlap there with Lake and West Yellowstone. I'm trying to be greedy on the border with Caledorn, so if I have to work a few suboptimal tiles temporarily to get a larger share of the pie permanently, I'm happy with that. Overall I'm very pleased with what I've done to this point and I think I am very well positioned to be competitive for the long haul, particularly with this set of neighbors. A top five finish should be possible, but lots can change.

Three more turns to report on and I'll be caught up.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Actually it is only two turns to get caught up.

T81

One more turn and I can take a crack at Cal or just let sleeping dogs lie. I won't do anything to the city, but that worker... As seen, some guys are having a romp out in the fog. Keep at it guys!



I didn't really think it would go on the bare plains tile, but I can hope, right? For now, I'll sit tight. I think the spear has less than 1% odds, so I'm not going to move the worker and delay growth at Grant Village. Bring it on, bitch!


131 crop yield. Someone is killing it.

T82

Now the current turn. I can finally declare on Caledorn but I decided that it isn't worth it to antagonize him over a worker that I can't even keep. The spear would make a light snack out of my chariot, so this just isn't worth it. But Cal, homeboy, cover your workers! Don't tempt your neighbor!!



Fine, whatever. I'll do this the hard way. My spear covers Canyon with a warrior in reserve so I won't lose the city with a bad roll. Or, if the barb decides that Grant Valley looks nicer, and I think it does, I'll attack with the axe and clean up with the chariot, and if the chariot dies I'll rage about combat luck and then clean up with the warrior. I perhaps should have put a turn into an archer this turn for an emergency whip. Actually, I'll log back in to do just that. I won't miss the 1g, but I would really miss the city if I lost all three combat rolls. The axe will get better than 50/50 odds if the spear is on the forest, but if combat luck goes poorly the chariot won't have great odds and I don't want to rely on a warrior vs. spear to save my beautiful city. I'll know whether I have to whip the archer or not before I have to do it.



I'm not sure if I've showed this or not, but this confirms that Nakor is on a separate landmass. My settler can found a city 2NW of my coastal cities. If the city would be on the same continent, this would be an invalid city placement, but on a different continent it is allowed. So, Nakor is a nice candidate for open borders, and almost certainly wetbandit is too.



GNP spike! Research is back on and I'm running a couple of wealth builds so this is an inflated number. I'm really glad that I have the lurker civ screening the rival best column right now. Thanks guys!



Not immediately concerning, but something to be aware of. I don't know Mardoc's intent, but maybe he means to take a bit out of Dhal? I just caught a whiff of Dhal's city culture this turn for the first time using the culture overlay. He has a city somewhere to the northeast, just a tile further than I have currently defogged in that area.

I haven't shown these in a while so here are my cities:

Not quite as tall as I would like nor cottages as well developed as they might be, but good enough for now. I'll go back to the plains cottage next turn and start a settler while I wait for the happy cap to increase.



A workmanlike city that has been juggling tiles with Fishing Bridge for ages, Lake can finally settle on a consistent hammer-oriented configuration. I'll stick with the wealth builds for a while to help race toward Philosophy.



I double-whipped this turn for a library. Next turn I will run two scientists and give the clams over to West Yellowstone. This GS will probably be used for a GA to swap into Taoism/Caste/OR and then HR/Bureau by the end of the GA. I would have Pacifism available, but I think I'd be better served building forges and getting luxury bonus on my gems, gold, and silver, the last of which I will surely have hooked up by then. Initially, I had a notion to make this my National Epic city but Lamar Valley may be a better candidate. I can split the clams off profitably to West Yellowstone and utilize the large food surplus that remains to fill out a bunch of workshops. Coastal city hammers are valuable when it comes time for push and shove with my neighbors.



Very little cottage development over here, which I regret, but I skimped on worker turns over here and had other priorities come up, this work boat being one. The WB will go to the stone city to net the fish when borders pop. This GS will bulb Philosophy as soon as I complete CoL. After the WB completes, I will finish the archer before it decays (has the decay mechanism changed any in RBMod?). After that, a worker and then probably a settler to take the clams/wines/wheat to the SE. The silk will be a boon at Calendar.



A very slow starting cottage filler that is only just now getting to grow. Yellowstone and Lake are happy capped, so the wheat stays here for a good while. I'll grow this onto cottages to share with Yellowstone. This city has not really done much of anything to help me just yet, but it is going to really come into its own in the next 20 turns.



West Yellowstone will take the clams next turn and continue its upward growth. This is going to be a cottage city. With five river tiles and the gold, it seemed a better use than being a food poor hammer city. The incense will be a nice boost at Calendar.



I'm in love with this city. Early on, it has unstoppable growth (unless the barbs ruin the fun). I'll grow it onto cottages to share with Canyon and then swap over to mines. This is my future Heroic Epic city. Down the line I'lll probably add a couple of watermills and workshops and will peel off a couple of food resources if I have enough food to do so. This city is going to be a beast very soon, just wait.



The newest addition to the empire, I want the stone and now I have it. More immediately useful is the oversea trade routes. This is a good Moai candidate too, with 13 coast tiles and enough food and hammers to get it to size relatively early. I think controlling the seas will be important in this game, so I should perhaps spare a moment's thought to putting the Heroic Epic here alongside Moai. A nasty fleet of galleons would be lots of fun raiding along these narrow channels.

If there is anything else you'd like to see or any questions, let me know. I've written ten thousand words to myself today.

[Commodore]

Heroic Epic Moai. Because 13 plains farms sounds like a production powerhouse...

I kid, of course, but I do tend to think that Moai cities get a little overrated.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Heroic Epic Moai. Because 13 plains farms sounds like a production powerhouse...

I kid, of course, but I do tend to think that Moai cities get a little overrated.

Perhaps. But this...



...will have hammers aside from just the PLAINS TILES IN A GOLDEN AGE OBLIGATORY PICTURE Moai city. Four hills, including bronze and desert-bleh stone. Here's some sandbox wizardry in what it could look like, all grown up:



That's certainly enough to churn out a good navy, the question is how long it would take to get that large. The free culture from Moai and HE (4 each) would go part of the way toward me keeping the hills and the island would be easy enough to garrison from Nakor. This may come down to whether or not I can ultimately keep the mines across the channel. More importantly, I may not have a better location for Moai until I settle my southeast coast, and that my be quite a while yet. I'd be quite happy to get a city like this set up.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T83

Barb spear...

...dies.

Ruff settled where the settler is now.



Apparently Madison is fairly close to Caledorn's homeland. I said it from the top: This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land. But Mostly Mine.



The known world. You can see a Dhal white tile peaking out in the north east of my stone city and some wetbandit borders in the far northwest. I'll get graphs on both of them next turn.



That GNP is kicking ass, even if it is inflated by free culture and a wealth build. But the fact that I can even build wealth when most can't is quite satisfying. Very soon, open borders too!

T84



Rather than leave my chariot right next to the spear, I decided it would (perhaps) be less tempting to poke if it was stationed on the stack itself. I'm guessing he'll move northeast, it's what I would do. I haven't ruled out settling on the marble anyway if he does.

Since I have some new graphs, as well as Dhal's old ones again (don't worry, he's still dumping he EP into me but whatever, at least he finally moved his scout):

Can't really hide that from these guys. I hope they still open borders next turn, at least Nakor, wetbandit, and Dhal. I have trade routes with them already, and maybe even Mardoc but I can't remember. No one else has Alphabet yet from what I can tell. There were no foreign trade routes showing on the demos when I played the turn.





Caledorn is sacrificing food for hammers, which isn't a great long term play at this point, IMHO. Unless he's stockpiling unit builds in the queue and rushes me soon. But I don't think he's putting that much into his play just now.



Cal has built to near-parity, Mardoc has flattened off. I'll get graphs on Nakor next, just to be safe.



Byproduct of many cities (comparatively).

I can't wait for delicious open borders!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T85

Alphabet is in, so some offers to open borders.





I also offered to wetbandit in case anyone declined.



This was a good reason to offer OB too. I don't want wetbandit taking any liberties while he visits. I'll garrison coastal cities well enough to prevent any possible shenanigans, but I don't have a naval unit to counter the galley wrecking my seafood, so I'm hoping he will just accept the free overseas trade routes. Also seen, once again, Caledorn's understaffed settling party. I could keep this cheap worker if I won the ~80% roll against the warrior, and I don't think Caledorn would permawar about it, he seems pretty rational, but I'm enjoying a peaceful border.



I'm taking my galley for a quick scouting trip. Really, I should probably keep this galley at home until I get a second one built and can really go out and scout. At some point I'll need to get a worker over to the stone island and maybe even to the grass hill forests on Nakor's island, and I'd like to settle the corn/marble over on that continent as well. I'd prefer to not have to spend hammers on another boat, so deep scouting is probably going to wait a while longer. This may be a mistake, given the known tech bonus as the eras progress. For now, though, it is expansion uber alles...



Wetbandit has a good gpt generation rate, but I'm guessing he lacks Currency, and that is a helpful chunk of commerce available to me via wealth and additional trade routes. For AGG/SPI, he has done a good job of putting down cities. He's just 1 behind me, better than any of my known contacts.



Ruff PM'd me to tell me we were at war over this scout. We have a gentlemen's agreement to play our turns as convenient but to maintain a turn order in this combat theater. I'm all but sure to lose this scout, given geography and proximity to his new city. But I will remember....



#1 GNP saving gold on a tech that several people should know already. But I don't remember if known tech bonus is added for ancient age techs? I think it isn't but I'm not sure.

T86




Aforementioned scout war theater. I'm not holding my breath on surviving the chariot attack, but I think deleting the scout would be unsporting. I suppose I could just offer a white peace?



If Dhal had not accepted my open borders offer, this city would be toast. New city, I'm not sure when it was founded but it was fairly recently, but it was totally empty. The benefit to me is very little, except harming a backwards neighbor, but he would probably go vendetta mode immediately, having (in my view) very little else to achieve going forward. Not worth it. But I'll be back one day when I'm out of room for new cities, especially if this is the defensive garrison I can expect.



The boost to my GNP is due to the OB with Dhal. I could have been wrong before assuming no one else had Alphabet because only Dhal has accepted my OB offer (he may have been the only person to play after me last turn/before me this turn that I offered to) and our trade income is even. But I'm fairly confident I'm the first person here?

One more post to 3k. Anyone have anything special they'd like me to commemorate??

[Commodore]

One more post to 3k. Anyone have anything special they'd like me to commemorate??

Big honkin' OpForAnal?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Man, that one hurts. If your goalkeeper sets a record for #saves in a match, you really have no business winning, but it was close and a breathtaking finish anyway. Way to go out on your shield. Full Riker Clap.

[Commodore]

BNG right now:

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

BNG right now:

There are several things wrong with that picture, not the least of which is someone (anyone) being upset over a Canadian sport.

BTW, who is BNG?

Although I DO have an entertaining story involving me (allegedly) and the well-deserved beating of an ATM. hammerhammer