[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[naufragar]

Ah nevermind, we grow back to size 4 immediately anyway by memory.

This is where I was   We grow back to size 4 next turn, so no need for queue shenanigans. We can go straight into settler.


That was a mighty whip.

P.S. If we give Lander a plains workshop and tech Masonry which we need anyway for Construction, then eventually at size 6 it can make a seven turn Moai with a triple whip. Food for thought. Edit: Eh, maybe not. Forgot that whipping wonders gives fewer hammers.

[naufragar]

Well, that was convenient. After I played, GeneralKilCav rolled the turn, so here I go again.

Speaking of GKC:


His work boat found us.

Our work boat found him:



He has one luxury and 5 cities.


It's odd that Alex beat both Sury and Bismark to 6 cities. (Admittedly, we promptly lost our sixth. We re-found Scylla's on turn 83 if Superdeath doesn't invalidate the plant. It would blow me away if we got to 7 before he got to 6, so I'm actually not at all convinced we can get gems.) I forgot to mention when b/GKC landed Colossus, but they did.





Here's the area between b/GKC and us:


Wonder if that landmass I had started dot mapping was supposed to be borsche's back lines. I'm not unhappy with this discovery.

I had thought that Cairo was due south of Superdeath but he must be southeast because GKC hasn't met him with his boat:


Look how smug Alex is. Put EP into GKC. This might be wrong. Maybe we don't care about their graphs but we do care about tech visibility on Superdeath or MSCC.

GKC's workboat can't get circumnav without declaring to get through our borders either south or north of Lander. If he does, I'll kill it. I don't think I should kill it preemptively, since I'm going to be going through his borders, I think. I notice that world map trading is enabled. I'm not a fan, but it's the setting we chose.

Btw, I did confirm the forge bug. We should have overflowed 7 hammers but really got 5. (7/1.25=5.6 and it truncates.)

[Rusten]

Well, that was convenient. After I played, GeneralKilCav rolled the turn, so here I go again.

And conveniently put yourself ahead of SD in the turn order. We settle gems city next turn, don't we? It might be relevant to do that as soon as the new turn is around.

edit: Why are we not scouting for SD's settler with our idle military?

[naufragar]

And conveniently put yourself ahead of SD in the turn order. We settle gems city next turn, don't we? It might be relevant to do that as soon as the new turn is around.

The settler is currently in Gaon. Next turn it moves to the forest 1 tile away from the city spot. Founds the turn after.

edit: Why are we not scouting for SD's settler with our idle military?

Because I'm an idiot. The axe is on the plains hill forest near Scylla's to guard our worker. I've got workers on three forests in that area. We can chop the granary on the second turn of the city's life, if all goes well.

I've got time to log back in and move the spear, although it doesn't give us vision on the hill down there in time. For the record, I've been playing before Superdeath just because I tend to play in U.S. mornings and he plays in U.S. evenings, but if he is the one to roll the turn, he doesn't know about a settling race, so he can double move.

[Rusten]

SD played a double turn without settling so it should be ours. Maybe he was too busy getting axemen to throw away at 4% chance to be making settlers.

[naufragar]

Thanks for the heads up that the turn rolled. The spot's still not 100% ours but getting very, very close.


We found next turn. You can see my conga line of workers who've started chopping for the granary. There's three tiles that SD can have a settler on to found a city and invalidate our plant. If he founds on the hill 1S of his axe we just shrug, found our city, and take his in a few turns with samurai.

I'm bleary eyed and going to bed, but slightly optimistic and I'm going to dream of glittering luxuries. We complete Writing next turn and have to figure out tech after that. Perhaps Masonry? And then turning off tech until we have bulbed Math. The capital whips a settler next turn. That's a three turn settler. Very nice. I started Lander on its forge. Everybody else is building axes.    (I don't know what I want in the cap after the settler. Barracks would be nice. Units are crucial. Sometime I'm going to have to actually build the library for this Math bulb I keep talking up.)

Pseudo-edit: I expect the turn to roll when I'm at work. Superdeath also tends to play when I'm away. If you see the turn's rolled when you can get to it and you want to joy of founding a city, feel free to grab the turn.

[Rusten]

I logged in to have a look and settled the city.

Gaon should switch from FP to copper next turn and put on avoid growth. The turn after (Settler is complete in Kyoto) it should probably take the iron over the other cottage and starve -1. Should mine that river plains hill next when we find the time.
New Viron should take capital cottage next turn after growing. But uou probably know all this already.

Off for the night. Enjoy.

Oh, and I set research on mathematics, I didn't really think much about it. I believe that's what we agreed. Tripling up on gems after chopping, right?

[naufragar]

Thanks for nabbing that city. It sent Superdeath's axe into retreat.


Before our war, he had two axes parked on the tile marked. After our war, he retreated his one axe to here. I don't know why he's parking serious military units at this spot. I'm also not sure why he's pulling them back. We've got peace until turn 91. Perhaps they were busting for barbs, but his axes would kill any barbs for an experience point and while outside his borders contribute to supply costs.

I forgot to rename Kyoto. I want to rename it to Scylla's Window. It shouldn't give too much info to our neighbors and I like the idea that we're back. But what is this culture garbage?


SD razed the city. Who's half Korean? The corpses?? (Speaking insensitively about Korean/Japanese relations and a part of history I knew nothing about, I recently watched the Korean film The Age of Shadows. Do recommend.)

boak/GKC turned their boat around without seeing my galley, I think. +1 diplo points.



Unfortunately, I think I'll have to trespass on them.


I tried to avoid it, but I think those northern islands are small, puny things.

Even Sid is calling it domination:

Oh, and I set research on mathematics, I didn't really think much about it. I believe that's what we agreed. Tripling up on gems after chopping, right?

Gems gets our workers next. After that all the workers start chopping out units, including that worker who improved Gaon's copper. After he chops a forest, he might have time to improve that riverside plains hill. We're very close to our Machinery date and after that, the samurai from New Viron has a 4 turn transit time (damn 1-movers). Then it's two turns until we're visible on the elephant outside Superdeath's borders. Man that's a long travel time. But it gives us time to get a few more units in the closer cities.

I've turned off research and set us on Masonry. I've put the capital on a library in order to bulb Mathematics instead of researching it. It's much more efficient and only a few turns slower, and this way we save gold for Currency. (I plan to keep saving gold. Masonry is just selected so our free beaker isn't wasted.) The library means that the cap produces fewer units (1-2) but since it already has 19h into an axe, it still gets us at least one samurai. I'm also aware that running 2 scientists while giving away the capital's fish isn't the easiest thing in the world, but I'm on the bulb plan for a couple reasons. Bulbing Math as Philosophical is very efficient and gets us Currency at best possible speed, which we'll need if we're keeping captured cities. Second, if we don't bulb Math, our scientists become much less useful. We don't want to use a bulb on Alphabet, we don't want an Academy, and we don't want a golden age for quite some time. The scientists slow down the capital's growth and cost us some units for our war, but I'm trying to pick a path between taking out Superdeath and keeping up development. We need both to have a prayer at touching Magic Science.

[naufragar]

Superdeath founded a city last turn. Magic Science founded yet another this turn (85), bringing him up to 11. Edit: I wish I could describe how badly I want to hit MSCC with samurai and drag them back into the pack, but even if a large chunk of their cities are overseas (which they must be. No way they've gotten 11 mainland cities peacefully), they still have too much pop to turn into defenders and stop us in our tracks. Wish I had vision of their lands.

I fussed around with micro for our war. Gaon took the iron as you suggested. It's still on avoid growth because its food box is full. On turn 87 we hook up gems. This will be very, very good for us. We need the happy and I'm about to whip some places very hard. The capital, for example, gets whipped two turns in a row to produce its library and samurai. I'm not heartbroken about whipping our capital this hard because it doesn't have a barracks, so is not the most important unit production center. We need that library; we need that samurai. After that, it can slow build in peace.

Lander doesn't have time for a lighthouse before we need it producing samurai. It might be possible to get the lighthouse after its samurai but while the galley is away.

5t from Machinery. Exciting stuff.

[Rusten]

Teching mathematics and bulbing alphabet is an option if Boak/GKC are willing to open borders. No idea why they wouldn't be -- anything that's of mutual benefit puts us both closer to MSCC. We don't know for sure, but I'd assume that's 3 commerce trade routes. Mathematics is a pretty cheap tech to just put beakers in at this point. What's the base cost this game? With small mapsize it should be even less than normal. Not much higher than the GPP required to rush it.
It would give another pre-req on currency too. I think I prefer that over just bulbing mathematics. If Boak/GKC have researched alphabet before we trigger the GS we can use it for something else.

Also note that if you DoW on them to get through with the work boat we won't get +3 trade routes for 25 turns (may need to double check that number). That could be relevant.

I think I would've skipped the library given how things turned out, but it's not a big deal. I feel like our capital should be getting a barrack and units though. There's a completed forge and we discovered iron. Even without the grass hill mine by New Viron it gets 12 base hammers with an engineer now, doesn't it?