[SPOILERS] Cheater Hater hates bad advice. BGN gives only bad advice.

[spacetyrantxenu]

You guys want to rename this thread? The title isn't really accurate.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Yeah, but don't put "good advice" after my name.

[Cheater Hater]

The good news is that so many units now means you should be able to not have to build so many as soon as Currency arrives. How many luxuries do you have that will be boosted by the market? Really you'll only want to invest in a market in the capital at this point because it is so expensive. I think CoL is a good target. You're ORG, so you get a discount on building CH, which you'll want lots of. This will make all those libraries that you've built more effective. You seem to have enough units to deter Johns and you always have the whip if you need to reinforce quickly, so maybe draw down the number of troops you're building? This is a feel thing. Only do this if you think your opponent is either likely to do the same or if you think you can win a defensive war with fewer units. Catapults will certainly help with this. You are likely to out tech Johns in the short term, especially if you go CoL and get your CHs online. You have a hammer advantage over him so that can be extra GNP through wealth builds too. You can put him in a position where he can only get ahead of you by attacking and you would then have the defender's natural advantage in combat. But you don't want to be fighting defensive wars because you typically don't gain much, so you can deter him hopefully with the forces you already have.

Have you identified which city/cities are your military pump(s)? Have you identified commerce specialists? What about the National Epic city? As for Moai, you want it built as soon as it reasonably can be built in order to make that city effective. You have bronze/pigs/GH mine available there so you can use natural production and whips. I think I'd start as soon as the granary is finished since you don't have forges available. I'd have to look around in game to be certain.

Are there any wonders you are interested in picking up? Let's start thinking not just in terms of the next 2-3 turns but the next 10, 25, and 50 turns. Set some goals for yourself and then start making plans to achieve those goals.

Hooray! A big, meaty response post!

Military: How much can I afford to wind down my military builds? Do I need to stay ahead of johns, or even at parity? I feel like it's a delicate balance, especially since I have to keep all my cities at least moderately defended since I have so many borders (and they're with johns and Whosit primarily, who are among the leaders). If I do wind down military builds, is the default replacement just Wealth builds, or something else? I probably should start some more Settlers too

Tech Path: Yeah, CoL is a good choice--I think I might try to squeeze in Masonry in there soon as well, so I can hook up the Marble, as well as the Stone I hopefully can get soon. It also is needed for Construction, so it lets me pivot if I suddenly get attacked or something. I'm not sure which order those will go in though--that probably depends on where my tech rate post-Currency.

City Specialization:
Rillanon: Obvious commerce city, and it has enough hammers to build things--I'm chopping out the Temple now (though that could change; the Market is probably better to chop out) and it will move on to the Market.
Bas-Tyra: Another nice commerce city, and it has a bunch of forests left to chop--maybe some wonder could come out of here? Of course, I could be boring and just chop out a Market here
How aggressive should I be at chopping the tiles with the improvements? For that matter, do I want to replace the grassland mine with a cottage sooner rather than later?
Aachen: Currently a military city, with some cottages just as filler. It has a bunch of grassland under those forests though--I underrate workshops by a lot, so maybe it can be salvaged? It also needs more food.
Prague: This city's in a weird place--on one hand it has a bunch of well-developed cottages; on the other it has a bunch of good mines and built a barracks a while back as a filler build. I'm assuming this can stay as a decent commerce city that can serve as a backup military city in a pinch.
Vienna: Obvious National Epic city--as such I probably want a Market in here sooner rather than later. Of course, it being a highly-contested border city worries me in terms of all this development
Nuremburg: This city should be a production city, except that I've already spent a lot of time developing cottages here--I can get some farms out once Civil Service shows up though and salvage the city at least
Augsburg: Bunch of cottages here, but I'm not sure what I should do with all those plains--how good are plains cottages? I have the food to support it at least :/
Carib: Probably a production city, though it doesn't do either job that well
Mainz: Commerce! A bunch of cottages should show up here soon, though it needs more food to work well.
Ulm: The Moai city as discussed before--normally that makes it more of a commerce city, right? I do have a lot of production for a Moai city though, with the two grassland mines and the copper if needed.
Florence: This feels like a commerce city, even if it will initially be more production-heavy thanks to the grassland mines.

Wonders: I don't really try to focus on wonders--two I would like in this position are Pyramids (since my happy cap is so constraining) and Hanging Gardens (since I have so many cities), and one of them could be chopped out in Bas-Tyra. The one thing I don't like is that both of those are stone wonders, and my stone is still many turns away (if I get it at all). Are those wonders worth it if I can't get stone and aren't Industrious? I also have no clue if it's worth it to go for Pyramids at this point, even though it hasn't fallen yet (only Stonehenge/Oracle/Great Lighthouse have at this point).

Long-Term Planning: Right now my goal is mostly to get economically balanced again (with Currency/CoL) and fill out the rest of my dotmap (3-4 cities in the northeast, 2-3 in the west, and my 4 current filler spots)--how much else can I really plan for at this point? I don't want to get into a situation where I have a detailed 50 turn plan to get Civil Service (for example), build one too few military units since johns had another spike, then get declared on 30 turns in. It's a balancing act, and I'm probably focusing too much on the current situation (though posts like this certainly help).

@xenu: Yeah, this thread has needed a new title for a while, and neither of us has the ability to change it. Of course, as shown by my lack of a naming scheme after I took over, I don't have any ideas for one--any ideas BGN?

Edit: The board went down before I could post this novel, so I played the turn--pictures are here, and I might do a report later since there's a lot of interesting stuff

[spacetyrantxenu]

Edited the thread title because you didn't say not to. . If you think of something better let me know and I'll change it again.

[Krill]

Cheater Hater and BGN: How not to play civ

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Cheater Hater and BGN: How not to play civ

You can count yourself lucky you haven't had to read my pb18 thread and probably never will.

I like the new title well enough, Xenu.

[Cheater Hater]

Cheater Hater and BGN: How not to play civ

You can count yourself lucky you haven't had to read my pb18 thread and probably never will.

I like the new title well enough, Xenu.

Hey, PB18's going to end eventually--hopefully we'll actually have a clear winner though (though I have no clue how people like you can handle even their current empires).

Turn played, pics are here--the important thing is that I'm barely going to be able to finish Currency in two turns after a lot of micro--I also have a lot of awkward builds, waiting for wealth builds to become available (since I don't want that many units, a lot of my builds became workers and settlers, and other things in cities that still need to grow). We should get a turn tonight; I might write a full report then.[/screenshot]

[spacetyrantxenu]

I have no clue how people like you can handle even their current empires.

Correct timing of certain threat/aggro reducing skills has a lot to do with it, I would expect. Such as:



If that fails you may have to blow one of your longer cooldowns:



Threat management is key to surviving close range combat because at that point kiting is not an option. It also helps to buy enough time to finish long pitboss turns.

[Cheater Hater]

Sorry for the radio silence over the last couple turns--I'm kinda in a civ slump at the moment, and the interest is currently being focused on PB18 (where there's more excitement over having little to lose and less fear of screwing up a good position). I'm still playing the turns though, and since I screwed up the last pictures link, here are the pictures for T98, T99, , [url=https://www.dropbox.com/sh/txud6ot3wyf8f23/AAC1RwH4H2en4johjavLpM9ja?dl=0]T101, and T102. I still don't want to write a report, so a couple notes:

• I have two settlers completing this turn--one is heading west to the 6 spot, the other is heading northeast to the 2 spot.
  
• johns got Currency and is expanding again--he settled a new city a turn or two ago somewhere unknown and is now sending a Settler to my northern coast (likely not allowing me to settle my 3 spot up there--that may be a target depending on where he precisely settles)
  
• Whosit got Hanging Gardens and Elum/mackoti got Pyramids--Dreylin built the Buddhist shrine as well
  
• I'm falling behind in a lot of the stats--my GNP is average on full cash, population is back down to third, and my score is even tied with Elum/mackoti (though that score's being propped up by two wonders, so I still have a lead in that aspect)
  

[Cheater Hater]

More pic dumps, this time of T103 and T104--I wish I had more to say about these turns, but it's mostly just building stuff, settling my last couple expansive cities and waiting for someone to make the first move militarily. Tech progress continues elsewhere--Confucianism was founded somewhere a couple turns ago, and Adrien appears to have made a deep run for Calendar for both Dyes, as well as MoM. I don't know when I should make the first move--is there any reason to make a military move before settling all my cities? Right now I have the two settlers en route to the two spots as described in the last post, and another settler being built--I'm not sure where that should go next, either making a likely too optimistic expansion to the 4 spot in the west or filling in a filler city, either F2 or F3 (this is assuming johns will block out my desired 3 spot in the east).

My tech path also has a lot to do with this too--I'm building a decent amount of Markets (probably too many, and I'll switch to Rathuses in the non-capital ones once CoL comes in), and I don't know what my break-even rate will look like--it's 30-40% right now before my new cities are founded (which completes CoL in 4-5 turns). After CoL, I think my realistic choices are Sailing, Masonry and Metal Casting--part of my choice has to be whether I'm planning on pulling the trigger on building a military sooner rather than later (in which case Masonry->Construction is the obvious choice). Not only do I have to decide if and when I'm attacking someone, I also need to decide who I would attack--johns is the obvious choice (both because of proximity as well as relationship issues), but I'm pretty sure attacking the person who's fighting me for the power lead isn't the best idea
The other two realistic choices to attack are Whosit and Adrien--they're actually pretty close in power, but while Adrien is farther away, Whosit has Archery already and thus can more easily whip a defense that's good against all my Shock Axes.

I wish I had more I wanted to say, as well as the ambition to write an actual report--if anyone has questions, please feel free to ask, as that's more likely to get me to spit out relevant information (this stuff's all in my head, it just isn't that easy to put into words, especially when I don't want to spend that much time trying to spell it out).
Also, if the turn doesn't roll tomorrow evening, I might have trouble playing it--I have a Magic tournament early Saturday, and would rather not spend the pre-event preparation playing the turn if I can help it. Again, it shouldn't be a problem if the turn roll remains consistent, but I'm letting people know just in case