[Spoilers] Pindicator accepts his fate

[Commodore]

I hope you keep a close eye on his power-lvl and don't neglect the military.

+1 to this, even if he is still crunching into dcodea. Nyles is aggressive.

[pindicator]

Wasn't there a Rowain post here a few hours ago?

Oh, my phone just hadn't updated the page for some reason.

Anyway, wanted to say that it looks likely that dcodea is the target of a war dec. He's been logged in near an hour with no activity.

All the same, I do plan on upgrading my military when I start growing after these next settlers.

[pindicator]

Turn 066

Revised some plans yet again, spent too much time on worker movements and deciding which tiles were worth improving vs not. If I hadn't screwed up my micro earlier from Andrad I'd have 2 work boats done before the settler and a lot easier time right now...

Anyway, wanted to say that it looks likely that dcodea is the target of a war dec. He's been logged in near an hour with no activity.

Oh yeah, I guess I spent an hour in game as well...

Anyway, let's take a peek at what I've been exploring towards:



Looks like wines are put in some kind of inbetween location for people to get. And we're still having just barbarian warriors out there.

Micro-wise, we chopped into the granary at Torheven - it will end the turn at 25h banked, so next turn we'll work the deer and a forested hill tile so we can whip it in 2 turns.

At Andrad we're putting all the overflow from last turn's archer into a settler, but next turn I'll swap over to a work boat or a granary (not sure yet) to grow to 4, and at 4 continue the settler.

And I did decide to keep that worker hooking up the furs. So Andrad at size 4 will work the Pigs, Copper, Horse, and Furs, which was a big debate for me because that worker could have instead built a cottage and I could have then used the work boat to hook up the crabs -- but the work boat is going to loiter around a few turns instead and wait for Orandrad to pop it's borders and then net the fish so that city can grow faster. I don't know, I really don't, but since Andrad is going to be stagnant on a settler then it seems like a waste to net those crabs since that's only +1foodhammers better than the furs, and doesn't do anything to speed up the settler for green dot. Meanwhile Orandrad not getting those fish hooked up at first chance would hurt it's growth a lot more.

Did a little bit of granary crunching too. The capital is best to 2 pop whip the granary at size 5, so finish it's spear first -- this is better than just going granary straight away and 1-pop whipping it.

Meanwhile at Karego-At, the best course seems to be to grow to 5 and then 1 pop the granary at 5, which is faster than 2 popping immediately at 4. There are a couple variations I could try still but they don't seem like they'd be better.

Need to figure out Andrad next....

[pindicator]

Turn 067

What's StarDoor up to?



He whipped twice for 2 pop apiece, so that he is no longer the top population out of everyone I know. Chumchu has taken over that spot. Also, that makes me real confident that my pop numbers for StarDoor (16) and chumchu (17) are accurate. We are sitting at 14 and Nyles is languishing back with 8 split among 4 cities.

I also screwed up Torheven last turn, somehow selecting off the tile I had it on and onto the grassland sugar. So the granary comes a few turns later now, dumb by me.

But in spite of a few micro errors here and there, we are really making progress. If you remember, this was only 15 turns ago:

Turn 052

Now i need to figure out how I'm going to catch up from these abysmal demos

So how do we stack now?



We're not even to the growth part of the plan yet, but the spike in the graphs is already noticeable. I'll show those off in a few turns when we get demos on chumchu.

[pindicator]

Turn 068

More settlers!



I don't care how broke we are, MORE SETTLERS!



YES!

[pindicator]

NylesStandish is definitely living up to his aggressive rep: he's taken another city off of dcodea now, leaving the former TBS teammate with just his size 5 capital remaining.

Who gets eliminated first: ipecac/wetbandit (who have been stodgily holding out with their size 1 whip-fest of a city) or dcodea?

EDIT: I must have missed a dcodea city being planted; it seems very unlikely he only has 1 city left.

[pindicator]

Turn 069

I keep forgetting to mention this, but Nyles has finally hooked back up that plains cow I pillaged all those turns ago. That was long enough that I'm okay losing 2 chariots for just that 1 pillaged tile now, heh.



New settler finished end of last turn, and the capital swapped over to work the lake tile while finishing the half-finished spear in its queue. One of the workers at Karego-At is coming south to build the first cottage of the game for me at the capital, but that's still 5 or 6 turns away.

As for the settler itself, it's going to steal the deer at Torheven, which is half camped at this turn. Torheven is going to have to get by on it's psuedo-grass farms and lake tiles -- or I can just whip a worker out of there if I decide I want to mine some hills for it. The new city is going to be a bit of a challenge to get running - we need to chop out 2 work boats and a granary. My plan for it is pretty convoluted and clunky, but a lot of that is from me shifting workers east to hook up luxuries and connect to the green dot faster.

In the upper right, you can see I have started chopping the gems tile. Orandrad pops it's borders at end of turn, and we have a work boat in place to net those fish. Right in time for the city to grow to size 2. I was toying with the idea of just always working the gems when they come online, even at cost of growth, but that's just over-reacting to the toroid costs. Growth is going to be the smarter long-term play, even if it costs a couple ducats here and there. Gems ETA is 3 turns away, btw, and it'll be the first luxury hooked up. Not the first done though -- the furs finished camping this turn, but I'm not going to spend the time to hook them up because I need to shift that worker east right away to be able to road to green dot in time before that settler is done out of Andrad.

I don't want to slow that green dot down any, because StarDoor showed a settler down south:



I'm still feeling confident that he's going for his own forested gems rather than trying to claim the jungle gems. North of his pigs looks like a solid spot. His Ivory is in an awkward spot though, I'm not sure how he's going to claim that with any decent city that comes before calendar.

As the demos showed before, my crop yield has shot up. We got graphs on chumchu, so let's take a look:









Once we hook up luxuries and start growing onto cottages then the gnp will follow suit, I'm sure.

[Commodore]

Nice, like that low Nyles CY. Course, he's getting cities from dcodea for his pains...

[pindicator]

Nice, like that low Nyles CY. Course, he's getting cities from dcodea for his pains...

1 city gained so far, but I think the bigger story for him is all his cities are so low in pop. His capital had been sitting at 2 for the longest time, it only just now hit 3. And his power has been pretty stagnant lately as well. So maybe he thinks he has enough already to finish dcodea off? I dunno, I might be misreading his play badly, but my take on Nyles is that I just need to make myself not be an appetizing outlet for his aggression and then by the time knights come around we'll just be able to mow him over.

[pindicator]

Turn 070

Everybody seems to be on growth mode: F8 shows that the total world population went up by 16 this last turn. We had 2 of those pop points, and then added a 3rd before whipping it away:



This city actually gained us money upon founding, something that makes me feel really good about my settler spam. Considering we have another settler finishing up EOT that's going to be a city just as close in, maybe my fears of tanking the economy aren't all that justified. If so I'll probably get a 9th city out from the capital. But right now break even is still at 50%.

Torheven here also whipped it's granary in; next up there is a slow archer while we grow. Need to figure out when I want to get a worker out from that city, but I'm guessing it's going to be after growing it a bit first.

Orandrad is going to be nice pretty soon.



Fish netted, gems forest chopped.

Iron Working in 12 as of right now. With the gems and green dot that should speed up a bit.