[Spoilers] Shallow Thought and Hitru's series of (unfortunate?) events

[shallow_thought]

Hey, you're just giving the others a chance.   How long until your collateral stack is back to  a reasonable size?

We had 5 cats in reserve, we can 1t them from JS2 and a couple of other cities in the east were already building them - I had anticipated losing them all against LF anyway, of course. So we should be back up to 10+ in a couple of turns.

So, it's not a disaster, particularly with SD in friendly mood, allowing us to bring our stack across from his border. The problem is that we really need enough for thee big stacks - one to cover SD, one to cover our salient at QQ/RR, one to cover JS2 and the northeast. The lake near GG makes it dangerously slow to move troops between the salient and JS2.

I'm pretty sure it would be a mistake for Elkad to attack us, but we need to make it an obvious mistake.

I think Elkad may have city visibility on us - he's ahead in EP (we barely have his graphs) and he seems very relaxed about not having many scouts in our lands. Is there a way to calculate this for sure? I'm also interested in knowing if SD has tech visibility on us if we're thinking about a Lib rush. Doing so against a guy with at least one GSci to hand is risky enough anyway...

[shallow_thought]

With that GSci hanging over our heads I've decided to be more cautious. We're going Constitution first. If Lib is still around after we've switched to Rep, then yeah, we'll give it a go. Still planning to gambit on economic techs for a while - Edu for Buroxford is still the plan (although it denies us the draft), PP I knew would be good and ... ooh, RP in RtR gets lots of free hammers I didn't know about . Hmm. We're now second in MfG as well as pop (although still first in CY). And the leader is SD, who got a recent jump (a sneaky look at the graph from after turn roll confirms). Please tell me he's not at RP already. I wouldn't mind if he'd bulbed it, except that it would imply he already had Edu. If this is the case and my C&D is that bad, I'll laugh about it some day.




We've also started the University of Sankore, which will pay off well before our Monasteries go obsolete (and we're probably building a few more temples and even the odd Mandir for culture anyway). Of course, all this building could all be vaporware - this is what our border with Elkad looks like. Oddly, the most worrying thing is that worker on the hill 1S of Not Rome - it has no purpose in building that road other than to increase troop mobility. At least it seems to be alone, so RR can't yet be 1-turned by 1-movers. I've more-or-less emptied RR as indefensible if Elkad throws enough knights at it, but put enough C2 knights in JS2 and QQ that it shouldn't be possible to 2-move rush them (there are also pikes, although more so in JS2). We do have almost double his knight force in the area in total. Also highlighted, the awkward lake that makes this area such a defensive nightmare for us. Theoretically a fort and ship chain might be possible, but nah.




With reference to my poor C&D, Hitru had a quick look at the tech-trading screen after the turn roll as I keep forgetting - I'll try and get a screenshot next time. Elkad is at least a way from Cuirs. SD is up Mil Trad and Gunpowder and now has Paper. That suggests the Const decision is correct. But also means that we're not that far behind, if we can be first to really make use of Rep.

[shallow_thought]

Now that Paper has revealed the technology of the world we're ... OK. We're basically behind Superdeath by Gunpowder and MilTrad (although that's a significant pair to be behind) while being ahead ... Monotheism for OR. Oh well. We've also avoided the naval route, as he as done. But Elkad hasn't: he has Compass ... SD had better think about that. Annoyingly, this means that if SD doesn't have GP on hand for a GA or bulbing himself, we probably could have got Liberalism with our GA boost. But I'm going to stick to Constitution: I can't handle the pressure of the gamble. If SD pushes for astro directly himself, maybe Lib will be on the table still.




Elkad is moving a big stack of longbows towards our border. I have a feeling that we may both be walking into an unwanted war simply because we can't sensibly negotiate peaceful intentions (hey - I tried). But maybe I've just been influenced by recently reading about the mixed signals and weird miscommunications that led to the First World War.   Our mutual culture pushes - him against JS2, us against NR from the south, where we grabbed the pigs there are a pair key tiles now at 48/51 - are certainly not helping diffuse the situation. SD had so far just sat his big stack near Thor, but he has been roading (and de-jungling) tiles that do nothing except help in the event he does attack us. They're not even in his BFCs. Compare that to the tiles in EE's BFC that we've carefully left unroaded. Some people just aren't polite. We may need to head for Gunpowder and MilTrad in our GA ourselves.




Our GA will be delayed by a turn because or starving merchants. We will be 4 GPP short. So, 2t to go.

Oh, some spoilers from after the turn roll - no new tech for SD, and this is our power drop. Could have been worse.

[shallow_thought]

So, towards the end of the turn, our production screen looked like this. After a bit more tweaking, pretty much every city that could had put 20 hammers into a cat or 40 into a knight, even if it required a bit of food loss. And the UoS was on hold.




And why? Workers, bloody workers. Superdeath was (kindly?) farming the tile 2N of IQ. Have a screenshot from two turns ago to refresh your memories of the position. He's either very bored, very careless with his tile counting or really expects to conquer the city soon.  Hopefully not the latter, as he seems to be moving, very slightly, more towards hitting Elkad, with his stack now the other side of Thor, able to get into Elkad territory in one turn - just as he still can into ours, of course: nice positioning.




But the really awkard worker was this one, right next to RR. All alone, doing "nothing". One of the things I have confirmed about myself playing this game is that I don't actually get much of a kick out of MP warfare, even when rolling over a weakened, backstabbed opponent. But this is ... really too damn much. Before EOT he'll have a road there and  - presumably - have smoked RR. If it was an innocent move I don't think he would have roaded the hill, and he would have moved it onto the square with a move left and visibly started a farm or something (also, 8 G2 longbows to secure NR or any conquest)**.




Except, he won't be attacking RR with 1-movers next turn. Because that worker is dead, and deleted (along with the spear who did the deed), and Elkad has been offered an immediate peace-treaty. If he accepts, RR should have popped borders before he gets another chance. If he declines, he can take RR, but can't get his settler there next turn (it's 1SW of the Pyramid city in the screenshot) - and we can (we have one in GG). It's arguable that I should have stacked knights in RR this turn, but there weren't quite enough available to make sure of defending. There are plenty to hit next turn though; hopefully Elkad will just accept the loss of the worker and the chance to defend against SD for 10t without worrying about our border. If not, we're prepared to suck up the loss of RR despite the bad hammer trade.

As for SD, well, right now he plays before Elkad, who plays before us. So, he will have to make a decision of sorts without knowing whether we've war-peaced or handed him a golden chance to hit Elkad. And he did make that horse-horse offer a few turns ago. So hopefully he will commit, or - in the worst case - position to hit Elkad when he's ready, giving us time to scramble more defenses when he realises we've declined to follow through on our acceptance of his offer.

And if Elkad refuses peace full-stop? We get a GA next turn. Back to the whip for a few turns, baby, with cats and knights a-plenty to follow. Delays Rep until the end of the GA (more or less) but everything should be doable.

Oh, and SD 1-turned Edu (probably a bulb in there), so we're feeling good that we chose not to pursue it ourselves. Whatever happens, Mil Trad and Gunpowder have re-asserted themselves.

* Actually, some of the cities have forges so didn't need the 40h to get knights into 2-pop whip territory, but I'm not very good at this game when I get stressed. Or when I'm relaxed.

** If all this is some huge misunderstanding then we'll laugh about it someday.

[shallow_thought]

Log on to find- crab/crab from SD, and we're still at war with Elkad. Hmm. But once past Superdeath's offer (declined, to be echoed back once possible) - peace treaty offer. And we still own RR .

Peace, beautiful peace, all round, as is only suitable for the time of year*. So all those military builds are paused behind wealth, the Forbidden Palace at JS2 (finally getting around to building it) - it will help out PP2, QQ and MM in particular, as well as boosting culture at JS. Also a couple of theatres at Olaf and QQ. A little bit of extra culture, but also offer the option of building the Globe (probably not - Oxford + Buro is still plan A). Cap back on UoS. And then our GA!

Before and after.







GNP is actually a little bit disappointing, less than SD's previous peak. I choose to blame the fact that our cap is on the UoS build (burning down our trade routes with Elkad won't have helped, of course). I tweaked a little after this to try to make sure that cities were working boosted tiles where possible, even if it drained some food from the bar in the short term (so long as the city wasn't otherwise going to grow during the GA), so may have improved some. Constitution in four turns, which will drain most of our cash. We probably have to focus on finishing Gunpowder and Mil Trad before anything else, sadly. Elkad picked up Gunpowder last turn, which I'd missed in all the excitement. Alternatives include slotting in Theo; if we could one-turn it we could delay revolt and go for a different set of civics - but I'm still fond of Buro and OR for universities and Oxford. We may go Theo (the tech) for AP anyway, given the investment we've already got in Hindu buildings, but probably not in the next few techs. I need to do the calculation. Very late monk if so, not at all sure it's anything anyone sensible would have planned. The other key techs are PP/RP and Edu, in some order.

Our contractually obligated Moai city is OK, our cap is doing its bureaucratic thing.







I expect Elkad to kill Charriu under cover of our treaty; if not, we have a short window (4t) to try again ourselves. It's possible that Elkad will get nervous about SD. There is a huge stack of knights in the fog to the SE of our scout, to add to those Cuirs.




Realistically I suspect we're going to finish this GA behind SD by Mil Trad, Edu, Lib and whatever he picks, and ahead by Const (which could very well be what he picks). I don't think he has another GA up his sleeve, so Rep might let us catch up. Throw in Oxford and some payback for all our Hindu buildings and just maybe we can catch him, perhaps risk delaying Astro beyond what he can get away with. Right now we're playing for solid second and looking for a chance to do better.

* Of course, one interpretation of events is that Elkad wasn't planning an attack, and I've cut trade routes and buried a bunch of hammers in part built military for nothing .

[shallow_thought]

Quiet turn for us. Elsewhere, Elkad declared on Charriu and moved in.




He must be confident that Superdeath isn't about to attack him. I guess SD scattered a crab-crab his way as well last turn. SD's troops are very carefully positioned, one tile short of being able to 1t EE so as not to spook us too much; appreciate the effort, SD !. Sadly, our Mandir has only managed to stabilise the culture on that border, with the gems tile stuck at 48/51.




Speaking of that tile, we're going to get a forge up in EE and then look to pack in more culture ... somehow. NE is an option, but wasteful. I guess I could even look at the Hermitage (!). One left-field option is Angkor Wat. It's pricey, but we're drifting towards the monk economy, and being to run 2-hammer priests as a second specialist could be an interesting option in cities that want hammers more than commerce.

As for why that forge is so late, it's partly because EE has always had something else to build, partly because it didn't have the hammers to justify it for quite a while, but mostly because I chose early in the game to try to minimise infrastructure. This was a deliberate effort to compensate for my natural "build everything" tendencies. It is, of course, coming back to bite me as we start planning for the game to go at least as far as t300.

[shallow_thought]

One thing - OH pointed out that I'd been uploading PNGs rather than JPEGs for the last few turns (fortunately not the t199 overview, I think). On broadband with a desktop I'd not noticed: apparently it could get quite slow on a phone. Sorry !

[shallow_thought]

Double turn report for 208-209 as I had time to play-roll-play.

So much for me thinking of building Angkor Wat for culture in EE. Superdeath built it in Spiderman , right next door. We'll have to pry that gems tile from his cold, dead hands, I guess. We've been putting temples up, thanks to Sistine (and soon ... hopefully ... UoS), but surely he has no reason to? Oh well, those hammers  could have been more Cuirs. Speaking of military, SD picked up Printing Press as his next tech, not Liberalism. If he has tech visibility on us he may feel he can delay for a big prize of course ... such as Rifling ? Maybe we have to go Edu next to force his hand? I doubt we can afford to delay Gunpowder though. Sadly, this screenshot is from t208, not 209.




In other news, Elkad's stack is up against LF, so I think Charriu will be out soon (note that Charriu has researched Compass - is Elkad's attack going to prevent an Astro-escape?). It's a much better mix against the target than my massed knights would have been, I have to say. All those pike-hammers could look a bit silly against praets that are on their way out anyway.




Well, next turn is a big one for us - Const, UoS (hopefully) and FP with ~500 beakers overflow and ~250 cash in the bank. Merry Christmas ! Happy New Year not guaranteed...

[Old Harry]

Have you got any small techs you could use to build up a big and surprising overflow?

[shallow_thought]

I put civ on hold for Christmas, but the hard-core players have carried on. Fortunately that includes Hitru, so we've made our change to Representation, finished UoS and pushed on. We've opted to make a rush (of sorts) for Liberalism, less in any real hope of getting it (although we're not totally out of the running), more to prevent Superdeath delaying for more valuable techs. In particular, we don't want him getting Rifling before we've even got Gunpowder. Of course, if we don't quite get it those 3000-odd beakers are useless until we want Communism. Which we will, if we live that long.

Internationally, first thing to say is GG Charriu. You were never dull or cautious, and I genuinely think your intial attack on Courva/OT4E may have slowed down their early runaway progress and made this game much more interesting than it could have been. Elkad took advantage of our treaty to take Liquid Flame, so both our adversaries now have ports on "our" sea. Nothing much we can do about that yet; we need too many other techs. We have achieved a nice scary level of GNP in our Golden Age, so we may have a chance to fill in the gaps - or get dogpiled. Elkad has, at least, acccepted OB, and has Paper, so he can see that SD is currently ahead in military tech: hopefully he won't want to throw the game to him by ganging up on us just yet.

We did get a suprise Christmas present. Gold! The extra happy removed any possible worries about losing HR; IQ is not a commerce city, but I'm still not complaining.




Take a look at that beaker number - 1123. That was 904 before the triple whammy of Rep, UoS and FP. It was 608 before the GA, and break-even is 40% at best. So, that should be a jump of nearly 100% in our baseline beaker rate. Enough to get us to cuirassiers before SD decides to get violent? Let's hope.

Have you got any small techs you could use to build up a big and surprising overflow?

The best we've got available is Compass, at 500+ beakers and 2 KTB. I don't think it's quite worth it. SD, of course, is still missing cheap Mono (120), so can play such games if he wishes. to be fair, I don't quite know how the KTB interacts with the raw numbers here.  In the short term we'll bask in our GA demos, although that rival GNP is a bit worrying. SD burning through his 842 gold to get Lib for RP or Chemistry? Probably.





And some graphs, while they still look good.