[SPOILERS] Four Score & Seven Dynasties Ago: Pindicator plays Lincoln of China

[Krill]

You guys are wrecking my rep you know.

[pindicator]

You guys are wrecking my rep you know.

Is that why you killed the forums?

[Krill]

I might have the highest post count on the forum, but that wasn't me...I keep all of my pictures on Photobucket

[pindicator]

Okay, I really owe you guys an update. But since we're almost to turn 100 I'm going to hold off on the comprehensive, empire-wide stuff and try to focus on the stories as they develop.

Here's one story:



I'm dumping my EPs into him so I can get graphs.

Here's another:



With Moogle settling to the west, I need to go north quickly. Bob-Omb will 3-pop whip a settler when it grows to size 6, and Birdo is already working on its settler which will be chopped/whipped. That will grab the corn/flood plains & the smaller x will be a border city to defend the more fertile flood plains.

Also, you can see that my expenses are creeping upwards. Unit expenses are costing me 9gpt, and it doesn't look like I'm going to get Currency by t100. I'll try to eek it out, but if it's delayed a turn it's not huge. I guess.

Oh, and remember that hut I found by Angry Sun? I popped it for 1xp back on t92. How do you pop a hut for 1xp?

[pindicator]

Turn 099

So after I moved on t98, Moogle moved an axe in from out of the fog. I decided I better investigate with my sentry chariot, and move an axe on my workers to take care of any potential double move. Instead I see this:



Who wants to burn a city?

I expected Moogle to try to double turn me with his axe and kill my wounded sentry chariot. So I moved another chariot up to Bob-Omb so I could retaliate by killing his axe. I just logged in and found that Moogle's axe is gone. He's either 1) been deleted or 2) moved NW onto the fog.

He knows that Proxy Pylon is undefended, right? Next turn I'll move the chariot north and threaten the town (well, probably NW-E) unless he gets something in it before I play t100.

And also, I can't count. I should still be getting Currency at end of t100.

[pindicator]

[SIZE="4"]The State of the [strike]Union[/strike] Dynasty: Turn 100[/SIZE]

No, it's not Turn 100 yet. But I'd rather break down the turn 100 overview into smaller, digestible chunks rather than spout out all the information at once. So we'll cover Technology (both ours and our neighbors') now, give the usual empire & city overview in part 2 when t100 comes in tonight or tomorrow, and then how the world at large is shaping up on t101.


[SIZE="3"]Part 1: Technology & Research[/SIZE]

Where We Stand



Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, Mysticism, Mining, Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Masonry, Bronze Working, Writing, and Mathematics are our technologies. Currency is practically in the bag as well.

And what we know about our enemies:



Although our information isn't nearly complete until we gain Alphabet ourselves, we can do a decent Up/Down comparison with our neighbors

Team FFH

They have on us: Fishing, Sailing, Calendar, Alphabet, Archery, Iron Working (1,809 beakers)
We have on them: nothing.

I could give myself credit for most of Currency, but based on their score increases they haven't researched a technology in about 9 turns themselves. So I would guess they're close to finishing off Currency as well. Team FFH made the interesting decision to go for Alphabet and Mathematics before Currency. So is he going heavy spies? Then again, he is financial and probably was given commerce-boosting resources at his start so he may be able to get away with delaying Currency. I cannot.

With Sunrise we can infer a couple of things based of what we've seen: He has Iron Working because I saw a sword with my scout as it went north to Team FFH. He has Code of Laws since he's our Confucian founder and Currency because I can see his gold (186 this turn). I know he's researching Polytheism next because i have enough EPs into him to see his tech. But for now I'm going to skip the +/- evaluation because evaluating FFH depressed me enough


Where We're Going

So now we know about how far we're behind... what's the plan from here? After Currency comes in, I plan to head straight to CKNs. My plan is to pick up Archery (86 beakers), Iron Working (288), and then Metal Casting (646). I plan on using quite a bit of build wealth to do this: Birdo, Hammer Bros, and potentially Bob-Omb and Goomba depending on how many hammers we need for military. (Let's hope things don't heat up with Moogle too much too fast.) So I'm aiming for a timeline of:

• turn 101 - Currency
  
• turn 103 - Archery
  
• turn 107 - Iron Working
  
• turn 114 - Metal Casting

I don't know if I'll be able to hit those marks, but turn 114 is the goal because that is the turn my Great Engineer gets born. Then 2 or 3 more turns until I finish up Machinery and start CKN production. There's no point in cutting out Archery because I need that for CKNs and I might as well get a good city defender now that I'm starting to press up against my neighbors. Iron Working before Metal Casting because I need to know if I have iron in borders or if I need to build a settler to claim it (or if there's none to be found but let's not jinx things ).

After Machinery comes in, the choices for technology paths really open up. It depends on what my goals become, but I could go for any of the following:

• Monarchy, likely via Polytheism & Priesthood (661 beakers). Opens up Hereditary Rule & lets me hook up wines. I would likely follow Monarchy up with a quick Feudalism (1,006) so I could get Vassalage and Longbows.
  
• Horseback Riding (359). Stables for sentry-chariots out of the gait. HAs are only the staple of classical warfare.
  
• Literature via Polytheism & Aesthetics (863). Even without the Great Library, getting National Epic and Heroic Epic online will be worth going to the top of the tech tree. I already have a 10xp axe, and marble will be in my borders as soon as Thwomp's borders expand. Then the Great Artist from Music will be an extra 863 beakers away.
  
• Aim to bulb Philosophy. This needs Meditation, Alphabet and either Priesthood/Code of Laws or Aesthetics/Drama. The CoL route costs 1,063 beakers while the Aesthetics/Drama route costs 1,408,
  
• Aim to bulb Engineering. Alphabet, Aesthetics, and Construction (1,365) are the technologies I need to open up that bulb.

Right now I'm leaning towards going for Literature. If we get a chance at the Great Library we can chop it out in Piranha Plant (currently with 5 forests, more in 3rd ring). If not, we chop National Epic instead. After that we decide between trying to bulb Philosophy, continuing on the top-half of the tech tree for the Music GA, or going for Monarchy & Feudalism.


*Edit: "Normalized" beaker costs. Took the in-game cost and divided by my expected pre-req bonus for each tech.

[pindicator]

So even with The Great Library falling this turn I am still leaning towards Literature after Machinery. I didn't give myself a high expectation of landing that wonder anyway; in this game if you want to grab a wonder you need to do a deep bee-line for it. Literature is more about getting the Great People going with National Epic and more military production out of Heroic Epic. Yeah, the Great Lib would have been nice, but I think Currency was more important for me to gun for.

However... I am still debating Monarchy / Feudalism first. HR, Vassalage, and wines would help the economy quite a bit. So the question is: more overall happiness and econ, or faster GP production?

[pindicator]

Turn 100

We did it! We made it to turn 100 and validated my use of 3-digit turn counting!



Well, it looks like Moogle is defending his cities after all. I moved NE and couldn't find another spot to move to without risking an unfavorable axe vs. chariot encounter. So I moved back to keep eyes on Moogle. And if he thinks to double turn me and kill my sentry chariot I have another 2 tiles SW more than happy to take a 35 - 30 hammer trade.



Notice that I didn't attempt to double-turn his worker. Not worth losing my eyes on Moogle for yet. (And when I double turn Moogle, it will be for a prize larger than a worker.) Right now I'm debating between bringing a stack of chariots in the next 6 turns, or bringing a stack of CKNs in 20 turns. Probably the latter, since they'll be able to hold the city. By the way, take a peek at the research bar. 30% science and just short of Currency. Maybe I'll have to hire a scientist somewhere...

[pindicator]

[SIZE="4"]The State of the [strike]Union[/strike] Dynasty: Turn 100[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]Part 2: Lands & Cities[/SIZE]

Oledavy, I hope you accept my use of your patented break-down, exhaustive overview reporting. Consider it a case of imitation being the sincerest form of flattering. As if I could do as good as the original

Since this update is picture heavy, I'm going to post an overview and then put screenshots that show more detail in spoilers.


Lands

Some things I want to point out:

Borders are starting to form to the north, but I need to move fast to claim land and keep myself from being shut out entirely by Moogle in the north. I'll settle the floodplains/corn site in the north in 3 turns, and will try to cement my hold in the north with a city on the lower-case 'x' a few turns later. With all Moogle has in the area I feel I need a few more axes before I settle up in his grill. Plans for settling on the large 'X' where the barb city once stood are largely abandoned; I don't want to give sunrise any agitation for a crappy city.

Barbarians continue to come from the southeast. Now that Piranha Plant's borders have popped I don't need to worry about the southwest; all the tiles are fog busted in that part of the world.

Finally, where the hell is all the seafood? I don't have a single resource on the south coast. I may not have one on the east as well. Oh well, I don't feel so bad for skipping Fishing this way.


Cities



Finally hooked up furs a few turns back and still my cities are almost pressing against the happy cap. Since I can't grow the cities large, I'm going to keep expanding outwards. Most everybody is building units now, but once Currency is in we'll be doing more wealth builds, and markets in the commerce cities.

Click on the spoiler for screenshots of each city.

Goomba
I'm still debating between market & wealth here once Currency comes in. I want CKNs sooner rather than later, so it's probably going to be wealth. The GP counter sits at 44/100 this turn - 14 more turns until our special guy is born.




Piranha Plant
Piranha needs to grow to happiness cap within 5 turns. Because on turn 105 we hire a pair of scientists and start our Great Scientist production. Pretty late for a philosophical ruler to try to take advantage of scientists, but we wanted to get machinery faster with a Great Engineer and this is the trade off of not using a scientist. I'm considering chopping a pair of forests and then whipping out a market from here. Yes, we could see some mixed GP pools in the future. I haven't decided that entirely yet.




Hammer Bros
Here's a city that's living up to it's name. Once we mine the last grassland hill in it's city squares it'll cap out at 20hpt. I'll want every one of those hammers turned into Wealth as we race towards Metal Casting. We'll be building Heroic Epic here, but we won't be able to 1-turn CKNs until after Civil Service.




Spiny
This may be my best city one day. If this was my capital I'd be thinking long and hard about Bureaucracy. As it is, it's got me thinking about moving my capital and then switching to the Big B Actually, with those grass hills going to Hammer Bros, Spiny is going to stay focused on cottages. But it shouldn't have any problems getting a Market or any other infrastructure with all those hills nearby.




Birdo
Birdo is starting to feel the cramp of "filler-city" status. It's been able to use the sheep for now, but as we hire more specialists in Piranha Plant, it will have to give those up. It may be time to farm over those cottages and mine the hills, turning this into a Wealth pump for the short term and a worker pump later on. Need to figure out what to do with those trees... probably workers / settlers.




Thwomp
Another 10 turns and we'll have a productive city. With those farms and now the flood plains under it's freshly-expanded borders, we can start laying cottages and letting this border city thrive. I don't think it will ever do much more than be a spearhead against sunrise's war chariots. I hope to bomb this city with a Great Artist one day. But the Music GA looks very unlikely, so it will have to be home-grown.




Bob-Omb
This city is filling out well. Don't let the cottages fool you: this is another production city. Once the pig gets pastured and the hills mined we'll give up the rice and the cottages and start pumping units here. In the meantime, I'm going to whip a settler for grabbing a city up northward... but not until I feel I can hold it.




Angry Sun
The red-headed step child of my cities. Next turn it's borders expand and we'll pasture the cow then chop out a granary. 10 turns ago I almost wished Moogle would raze it. In 10 more it will be a decent city. I need to get some defenders out here, though. Moogle is not keeping eyes south of his capital and that is shocking. I could double move his capital from here with a stack of 2-movers and a pair of workers; he wouldn't see it coming.

With all these lands and cities, I'm sitting pretty on F8



I'm pretty sure that I'm tops in citizens for the world. But sunrise is not far behind, maybe a few population at most.

[Ceiliazul]

Turn 100

We did it! We made it to turn 100 and validated my use of 3-digit turn counting!

Looking good! Gotta respect your naming scheme, but Moogle's ain't bad either.