Soul of a Nameless Civ Player

[Ichabod]

Some things:

1. I love Adrien. He traded me gems for silver. He gave me open borders for free. I'm about to hook up my second marble source, and I'll probably give it to him on the spot, just because I like him.

2. Krill is up to 15 cities! Man, that was a fast conquest (I think it was, not entirely sure, since I always miss things on civstats). I think he's attacking TheWannabe, but I'm not sure if that's a guess or based on civstats. In fact, everyone keeps expanding, while I don't have anymore land to grow into...

3. I decided to not tech music. Instead, I'm going for Construction (CHA Odeons -> cheap happiness, markets are too expensive) and MC (forges), while working scientists on my Capital (can't grow due to happiness). If I get a GArt from the mixed pool, I'll bulb Music (if GArt is still avaiable). If I get a scientist, I'll figure it out.

4. I'll chop the Great Library... Hm... I should probably have prepared more for it, no workers in place and all that. Oh, well...

5. National Epic will come in Anor Londo... No forests to speed it up, though...

6. Heroic Epic will come in Firelink Shrine. Then, it'll be loads of military from that city.

7. Why a 20 city empire Krill had to end up being my dream that come true? Couldn't it be to meet Bill Watterson or go on a date with Emma Stone?

[Ichabod]

So, I have a new neighbour:




I can tell exactly what color that is. Perhaps it's REM, which could give another way of expansion, through maritime conquest. If that's Mackoti, it could give me another way to be expanded into...

It seems next turn is turn 100. Stupid me whipped some cities these last few turns, instead of letting them grow to post inflated turn 100 demos... Anyway, I'll see what I can do about reporting a bit.

I managed to find my way into the global market, and now I have gold and gems from my silver and a lot of spare happiness. Time to grow my cities, I guess.

The gold I'm getting from Molach, which cancelled his silver/gold trade with AT. They have power growing and I think they'll attack each other soon (Molach has a city defended by a chariot next to me, so I don't think his troops are for me). Think = hope, as well. The way I see it, there's 3 ways to win a war:

1. More hammers than target.
2. Better units than target.
3. Dogpile.

Concerning Molach, I don't think 1. is feasible in a vacuum, because our empires have similar sizes and I think he beats me on the hammer competition. Perhaps the HE will help here, since this early it kind of means a lot of extra military production.

2. I'm not sure where Molach is military tech wise, but this early, especially with all his gold mines, he would be able to reach any military tech I have up on him pretty fast. Maybe catapults could make the difference, since there's no replacement for them, and hoarding them takes some time. I think CHA and SoZ actually help here a bit too, by making WE's a really powerful unit. WE's from Firelink, the SoZ city, 2 promo Odeon + barracks units from production cities and catapults from wherever else could make a decent army. But it's not going to be anything close to knights trampling over spears and axes...

3. That's the big one. If Molach gets attacked by AT, there's a high chance that number 1. will also happen, since they'll trade their units inefficiently. I actually have a decent avenue of attack through the east, far from AT's front, and pretty easy for me to defend and keep my holdings (I also seem to be the better positioned player to take and hold Molach's Capital and core). Dtay could probably take some of Molach cities for himself (at least 1 come to mind), which against shows my enormous mistake of losing that city spot to dtay. Gamewise, that really frustrates me. Anyway, not worth crying over spilt milk. If I can take Molach's land, perhaps I can get my revenge against dtay later.

If I conquer Molach, I could follow up with Adrien, having 1. secured. The borders with Krill are on a chokepoint, so that would be a good frontier. Meanwhile, I'd have to hope that AT doesn't get conquered by dtay...

Trying to think as OldHarry and Fintourist here, but I just don't have it in me... I kind of feel a urge in me to just grow my cities very tall, roll over and wait for someone to conquer me...

[Ichabod]

Looking again, I'm certain that the owner of that border is Mackoti...

[Old Harry]

Trying to think as OldHarry and Fintourist here, but I just don't have it in me... I kind of feel a urge in me to just grow my cities very tall, roll over and wait for someone to conquer me...

Well I love your early SoZ/HE city, something we never managed, so perhaps you're ahead of us here...

What sort of mix of troops would you send if you were going to attack? Which would be high XP?

[Ichabod]

Trying to think as OldHarry and Fintourist here, but I just don't have it in me... I kind of feel a urge in me to just grow my cities very tall, roll over and wait for someone to conquer me...

Well I love your early SoZ/HE city, something we never managed, so perhaps you're ahead of us here...

What sort of mix of troops would you send if you were going to attack? Which would be high XP?

I'm still debating about troop composition and the time of the attack. My GNP is really good and my expenses are low. If I use a GA, perhaps I can get to Guilds pretty fast and attack with knights. Most of initial targets against Molach are flatland cities, which helps (especially considering he's playing the Celts).

An earlier attack would have WEs, phalanxes and catapults. My idea was to get triple promos on the WEs (and I can only get triple promos in horse units), so build them at the SoZ city -> Formation WEs to counter Molach's own WEs or shock/combat 3 WEs to be the heavy hitters (shock WEs could even get good defense odds on maces, I think). I can easily get double promos from the other cities (my production cities), with CHA Odeons + barracks. I'm not sure if it's better to get 2 promos on Catapults or general stack units, like phalanxes. Maybe a mix of both...

Anyway, the first thing I need to decide is when to attack. Realistically, I can attack fast. Too much infra I want before it, barracks and Odeons, and HE. I think I need to beat Molach in the value game, which means more units per hammer (HE) and better units (promos), so I need all that infra. In that case, I can use my strong research to my advantage and use this infra time to get better units too, through teching. If I wanted to attack fast, the HE would also not make any sense as a build, because it wouldn't even pay back its value.

As an aside, I can get triple promo knights on all my cities with vassalage -> 3 from barracks, 1 from odeon, 2 from stables and 2 from vassalage. Perhaps that's the way to go...

Overall, Harry, I'm crippled by doubts. My current thoughts are to wait for knights while building infra (so, MS will be next tech for forges on my main production cities). Vassalage is a good civic for me, because my Capital doesn't need that much hammers with the HE and it's not a very good commerce city. So, I'll probably use a GA to get into the Civics I need and speed up everything, tech and infra. Finally, I'll attack with knights, trying to take Molach northern cities quickly and hole him up in his Capital, for a slower Catapult stack to take.

I promise to post some pretty pictures later this week, from my position on turn 100.

[Ichabod]

Civstats reading shows me that Molach took a city from AT, razed it, and settled a city for himself (likely on a more defensible spot). I thought AT was going aggressive...

AT was being attacked by someone else before, from the south, most likely. I wonder if he won't end up dogpiled by dtay too, since I think dtay is in a similar position to mine, with not a lot of room to expand to. That would be bad, I want a grinding war between Molach and AT, not a conquest.

Anyway, I think that further suggests the path of waiting for knights. High military means low GNP and I think Molach will keep with a high power from swords and useless stuff like that after this war, and the trust in that power demo will leave him open to my attack with superior forces. That's the theory, at least...

The big problem is my lack of filler cities. I'm falling behind everyone in cities and that would start making a big difference going forward. Hopefully my no whipping strategy and focus on infra (for now) will give me a power spike right when I plan to attack, but that seems more of a hope than a true reason behind my decisions...

[Ichabod]

And now I think I'm starting to feel the consequences of letting dtay steal my land. I could have at least 2 more cities from the spot he took from me and I'm missing that dearly, while everyone on the map keeps settling cities. Krill was at 16, Adrien was at 15, dtay had 14, probably more... Commodore, mack, everyone keeps settling and I have nowhere else to go...

[Ichabod]

Here's the basic info from turn 100. i'll post more in depth during the weekend.

[Ichabod]

I thought I was going to become the score leader of the game in the next few turns, but it seems Mackoti captured a city with a wonder from DZ... I know score lead doesn't mean anything, but I was hoping to lead one of this big PB games, even if just for a turn, so I could say that I did it.

:/

[ipecac]

I thought I was going to become the score leader of the game in the next few turns, but it seems Mackoti captured a city with a wonder from DZ... I know score lead doesn't mean anything, but I was hoping to lead one of this big PB games, even if just for a turn, so I could say that I did it.

:/

Oracle before Settler will do the trick.