[spoilers] - Pindicator makes America great again!

[pindicator]

Not 100% sure, but I think KTB is based on highest era teched by one of your known opponents. Actual era of the tech you are researching doesn't matter.

Maybe I'm doing the rounding wrong then? Nobody has yet to research a medieval tech, so the bonus should be 2% x Known Civ with Tech. Which is just 1, because I know TBS has it and Commodore does not. But 35 * 0.02 is just 0.7, so it shouldn't be giving me a bonus.

[pindicator]

Today after my run I saw people wearing this hat



This election is awesome

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Turn 072

Here's what our warrior has been able to uncover up north:




Meanwhile, the galley has finished in the south and we loaded our warrior on it. Next turn we'll get our first bit of new information down there. The settler also moved in place for the double-seafood city. And Writing will finish at end of turn.

[pindicator]

Turn 073

TBS' power is spiking, which tells me Impi. So I need to build axes, but do I need to delay the settler in production to make them first? Possibly... TBS is trying to keep me away from the corn already:




That's annoying/frustrating. He just whipped 3 turns ago so it's very possible that a settler is incoming. I could just let him, I suppose, and just hope we find better in the south. I could swap out to axes and just take the damn thing, anticipating that he has a settler coming. A pair of axes would be plenty to take it and I can make them easily enough in the capital. Considering I'm going to have to play safe with the workers it's going to slow down the roading anyway, so perhaps that's the way to do it. Let TBS over-extend in this awful land and then come at him later on?

Just saying "forget it" and going south to the islands isn't a guaranteed thing either.




I think that's India-purple (2metra) and not Sumeria purple (Old Harry). I moved the galley east after the screenshot so that it could potentially threaten to hit the city from out of the fog in 2 turns - if it's empty I'd be able to raze it. If not I'd be able to tell before entering borders and not even have to declare.




There was some good news this turn, as I got to found my 6th city. O'Malley turned out to be a net neutral as it made up for unit supply what it cost in maintenance. And believe it or not, working the bare plains hill is actually the best way to go. The few extra hammers will mean getting the granary finished a few turns faster, and that will more than make up for any food lost to working the plains hill over the grass forest.

As I was writing this I went back into the game and switch the capital to an axe. I'll use the settler finishing in Clinton to come north, and we'll just delay the settler that goes south. Besides, I might be tying up that galley for a little bit with my possible attack on 2metra/OldHarry. (Which one is it?)

[pindicator]

Turn 074

Old Harry showed up with a work boat at the corn up north. I've decided that if TBS really wants to block that off I'm not going to over-extend in a race to grab the spot. He's got impi after all; moving my units out of position would be more disasterous than not getting that location. So I'm glad I swapped the capital to an axe.

Meanwhile in the south, it is in fact 2metraninja that we find.




Let's see if he keeps units in his city. Considering he can see my galley this turn I imagine he'll be able to move something in.

Nice to see that the island has a clam for it. Maybe I'll move the Clinton settler down here after all and just delay the corn location.

[pindicator]

Took a peak back in after TBS played (I had forgotten to take my demo screenshot for the turn), and noticed that he is in fact going to beat me to this spot up north:




I don't know, on one hand I'm a little miffed because I'm losing the race ... again, and *insert random bitching about how awful this map is*

But on on the other hand, you could make the argument that TBS is over-extending badly here and that this is going to really really hurt him with the distance from his capital in return to the gains he gets from it. And that he is almost saving me from myself in making the same mistake, so I am freed to send those same settlers south to where they will -- HOPEFULLY -- have better opportunities because *insert random bitching about how awful this map is*

EDIT: I mean, this is going to be so much easier for me to defend than having that city in the corn as a virtual outpost to worry about. I really am mixed about it though.

[pindicator]

Turn 075

I'm pretty much past the point of C&D being easy to do, but I'm pretty sure this is OT4E



And I did scope out 2metra but found myself wanting for an axe...



I also downloaded a neat stitching program. It even removes the fading that Civ4 does from the top of the screen to the bottom and makes the image look seamless! I scaled hte image down to 60% but it's still pretty large, hense the spoiler.

So yeah, I'm feelign more and more screwed frustrated by the land. For instance, take a look at all that nice stuff that TBS has near his capital. He gets a fucking corn for starters. And no straight line that he is forced to settle in. No jungle to dig through. His Stone even has food. My only hope is that he's gotten overly ambitious in trying to block me off and has hurt himself when he could have been grabbing better city locations and let me settle the shit land between us. Hopefully that means I'll be able to tech ahead of him. My warrior has spotted the first of his axes (located on his corn in the north) to head south (need to hook up those horses now) and TBS' power continues to spike. Naturally I must be his only neighbor.

His settler is NW of the corn and he hasn't played yet, so I was considering what I would do if he were to move his settler SW next turn and try to settle so as to grab the corn and ivory in 2nd ring. Answer: I take the settler out of the capital and plant it SW of the ivory so it's first ring for me. If he tries to settle closer than that then he's an idiot, to be honest, reaching that far towards me for a city with no food that only serves to keep me from a luxury resource that I wouldn't be able to hook up for 30 turns anyway.

Moving south to my core, the settler finished out of Clinton and is moving south. Considered moving it north so that I could try to keep him from settling towards me, but after thinking it through (see paragraph above) I realized that I didn't care where he settled so I'll move to settle the island between me and 2metra. I need archers to defend my coastal cities in the south and I need to scout those additional islands west of 2metra, so I need more boats in the water. Right now I'm looking at the settler arriving south and loading on the galley t78, unloading on the plains hill on 79 and the city being planted on 80. So that means I need to get back into the game right now and switch Sanders to a work boat, whip that boat next turn, and it will arrive to the clam right in time to hook it up on t80. Okay, glad I caught that so we can hopefully get a bit of a growth curve on this new city.

But I can't stress this enough: Fuck This Map.

[pindicator]

To give an example of how messed up this situation is for picking cities: My next city is going to land on that plains hill north of the clams in the far south, down by 2metra. That spot is 14 tiles south of my capital. My warrior in the far north is 14 tiles north of my capital right now. So me grabbing this spot down by 2metra is equivalent in distance to me grabbing a city spot by TBS' stone.

[pindicator]

Turn 076

I don't get it. Why put the city there?




Only thing I can think of is that the road had him spooked into thinking I was going to move up and settle all in one turn. Okay, so if i do that then I have to settle a city 1N of the ivory which doesn't get the corn, and all he has to do is move his city 1 tile east and plant next turn. This plant is just needlessly 1 tile off the coast. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great spot for me, and if my road somehow faked him out into thinking he had to plant there, then I guess all those worker turns weren't entirely wasted.

Alternative pessimistic theory: he just teched Iron Working, sees iron on the plains hill 3N of the corn, and put the city here to grab iron second ring.

I moved my worker back south where it will start roading to hook up the Cow and Horse tiles by Clinton. And the archer moved SW and pillaged the road I had just spent a ton of worker turns on; right now it's too easy for his Impi to use that to just shoot straight into my capital. My axe moved up to play a bit of zone defense, and as soon as the settler in the capital finishes we'll build another axe then probably a barracks. As soon as he pops borders in either of his cities by Cruz he'll get sight into the city and I want him to see that it is well defended. I'd love to put those forests at Cruz into a wonder down the road, but realitsically I think I need to remove the defensive terrain and chop into barracks, units, and possibly a library. I kind of wish I could deviate for Masonry so I could also build walls here since they're going to be cheap for me, but Alphabet is kind of key. I'm 17 turns away from Alpha, give or take, and then I'll be able to double my output with Build Research.

I screwed up the micro at O'Malley. For some reason I thought the plains hill mine would only net me +1 hpt? Well that makes it so I should have been working the grassland forest after all. It still is a gain to switch to the forest this turn even though I just finished the mine - because we'll be working the fish (+5) and the amount of food needed to grow to size 2 is 22 this will speed up growth to size 2 by a turn and speed up everything down the line. Still, it would have been better to do that earlier.

Got graphs on Commodore this turn. I'll just leave these here:

Really don't like that power spike by TBS. But it almost looks like it could be Iron Working or HBR for the last notch, which would line up with a point increase 2 turns ago.

[pindicator]

I really hate that I lost this game on turn 0.