[SPOILERS] Ceiliazul's First Dance: Louis of the Ottomen

[Commodore]

Well, I've not heard exactly of it's like, but it's not entirely without precedent. Catwalk is doing it again, I can tell, promising Ad Hoc and Pegasuses' concession without their consent.

Real question is, does it sound fun to you? Would you like to do this? If so, sure, go for it, whatever is the most fun, you're not sinking all these hours into this for a paycheck.

[Ceiliazul]

Well, I've not heard exactly of it's like, but it's not entirely without precedent. Catwalk is doing it again, I can tell, promising Ad Hoc and Pegasuses' concession without their consent.

Real question is, does it sound fun to you? Would you like to do this? If so, sure, go for it, whatever is the most fun, you're not sinking all these hours into this for a paycheck.

Thanks Commodore. I'm interested in always war if others are, but I'll not push things that direction. I'm 1st in power by a good margin, with my Heroic Epic paying off in spades (or spears)... so I wouldn't be defenseless.

I hit my Golden Age as planned, gnp over 400 (best rival 233) and I'm 1st in literally EVERY demographic... except exports. Wierd. Machinery due next turn, along with my next great person!

[Ceiliazul]

Catwalk Regains Sanity

After Catwalk's early concession idea, I took a couple days to think about my response. I'm glad I did, because the same day I was going to reply, he sent this:

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hey Ceil

After thinking it over some more, I've arrived at the conclusion that you're a hopeless newbie and I can easily best you regardless of advantages I do enjoy my sim city building a fair bit, and it'd disrupt my game flow understanding if I don't see it through to the end just because I've let myself fall behind. So let's proceed as planned, with you preparing for some major cat whooping in a couple months. With you on the receiving end, of course.

Best regards,
Catwalk[/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"]Catwalk,

Thank you for patience while I was away, I'm back home and catching up with real life. I'm happy to see your change of heart, it seems the issue has been put to rest then? I agree it's way too early to talk about giving up, and I agree that all our catnip are belong to you... For now at least. :-p

-ceiliazul[/COLOR]

So, Game on! The save itself took a couple days to get around to me, in which time I recovered from my vacation and planned ahead a little bit. This report is more of a forecast: lots of developing items for the near future.

To begin with, I finished Machinery tech this turn, and will finally be putting Sumeria to bed. Wyachi will *easily* pump maces every turn, and the first few will head directly toward Sumer. The city is VERY lightly defended, but even the single sword in the theater (promoted to CRII) still only gets 20% odds.

The maces should get closer to 60% odds on the archer. Sumeria's warrior, of course, will instantly turn to dust. I feel a bit of diplo pressure to get this done, as Pegasus is assembling an axe army to take down the 2nd city, and Catwalk has "offered" to send some Praets to raze the city. Pillage value is ~50g, so I'd rather do it myself.



The Sumerian culture is also blocking my next city surge, I'll have 2 settlers ready when the city finally falls. You can see both planned dots in the screenshot above, the top one just at the top of the screen:

I might be better off resolving the Baby battle in another 10t, as the Forbidden Palace will make the next settler wave a much less bitter pill. As it is, the Distance Maintenance is absolutely brutal out in Sumerian lands... both those dots are 12+ tiles from the current Palace, and will absolutely hemorrhage gold until the Forbidden Palace gets done.

My 7 workers in the area are whipping the jungle in short order. With 2 mines and +50% hammers (Forge + OR) the FP will be coming right along:



My Golden Age demographics are golden, but the tech choices of my rivals are presenting interesting choices:

Catwalk is has finished Civil Service, and has a G.Scientist available... smart money points to a Golden Age, but he *could* research Alphabet this turn and could bulb Philosophy on t89!

AdHoc is learning Metal Casting... I'm sure he's beelining guilds at this point, but Monarchy seems like a better first tech for that purpose. Ad Hoc still has no courthouses, and my 18ep per turn are getting me close to city visibility on him!



Also in the "bummer for AdHoc" file: Hinduism hasn't spread AT ALL in 60 turns! Meanwhile, I've pushed missionaries for a base and had 2 lucky spreads.

Code Of Laws (and Confucianism) could have been had after Currency, but more and more I'm pleased with my choice:

[Commodore]

Nice, looking very good. Should be interesting to see a musket/cannon war. You think Catwalk might be planning on bulbing Philo and trying for the Taj? With that kind of religion spread Pacifism would make for a lot of GPP if he swings it well.

You ever figure out why Ad Hoc fired a GA?

[NobleHelium]

By t120, I'm hoping to have either Curs or Cannon, depending on the Liberalism race. AdHoc is back in GNP hell, and will likely be getting his Camel Archers (knights) going full speed about that time.

Ad Hoc's GNP = 135
Culture = 49
Maintenance = 49
Civic Upkeep = ~20
Espionage = 4

Slider commerce = 10

AdHoc is really not managing the GNP game very well. His research is less than 10% of his gnp. Meanwhile, I'm making 135 beakers, over 50% of my total gnp. Why is AdHoc so beleaguered??

Uh, maintenance and upkeep are negative values. The higher they are, the higher the positive parts of GNP (bpt, gpt) must be.

[Ceiliazul]

Uh, maintenance and upkeep are negative values. The higher they are, the higher the positive parts of GNP (bpt, gpt) must be.

Wow, that's rather glaring. So the gnp on the demos has already subtracted Maintenance? I guess I'm still a Noob.

AdHoc recently showed up with Metal Casting (4), so I knew I was wrong somewhere... thanks for the tip Noble!

Commodore, I'm still not sure why he took a Golden Age so early. He swapped one civic and popped on Great Prophet (from Madrassa priests), but otherwise didn't seem to benefit too much.

[Ceiliazul]

Liberalism Race

I felt I was comfortably ahead, I was wrong! With my Great scientist I'll be the first to finish education on t91, the same turn Catwalk finishes paper. Cat has spawned TWO great scientists in the last 4 turns... he could bulb Philosophy and most of Education and really make it a race!!

• If t91 I get Education and Catwalk learns Paper (as planned)
• If Catwalk bulbs Philosophy and most of Education on t92
• Then I need 2300 beakers for Liberalism. He needs 1700!

My tech rate is really good, but his ain't bad either! I'm honestly not sure I can make up that gap. If Catwalk doesn't bulb with both his Scientists, my chances go way up. If he gets another GP for a golden age with the bulbs, I could be in trouble!

Liberalism ETA t96 (6 turns) - Stay Tuned!

Also, monster update postponed by real life, coming soon.

[Ceiliazul]

Free Workers



Sumeria moved their workers onto the Yellow circle last turn. I moved my axes to the tiles shown. On t90, the workers did their best to get to the capital. They were, shall we say, retasked.

I would feel bad about this AI abuse, except that 50 turns ago Cull made the same mistakes. He ran his workers around during wartime then gave them away to Ad Hoc. With my two captives that playing field is merely leveled. There won't likely be any more workers to catch, as the first two CR2 macemen approach the battlefield.

National Epic



Next turn, of course, the city will start working SIX scientists, and get a GP in 3 turns! Diesector is actually my best hammer city when it needs to be. With the Parthenon and now the N.E. I hope both those deer tiles are safe! If not, more hammer culture!

Check that tech bar, Education came in this turn. Universities will start construction in 5 cities next turn. I need 6 for Oxford, but Diesector needs a courthouse first...

We're on track for Liberalism in 5 turns.

Tale of the Chalk

Golden Age demos are golden, of course. I actually like the espionage graph quite a lot, as it is a quite accurate picture of where the teams stand in the game. The power graph is a kick too, I haven't produced ANY units in the last 10 turns except from Wyachi, the Heroic Epic city.

[Commodore]

Looks great thus far. I assume you're making a small core of City Raider units now to upgrade into Janissaries? My brain recalls some trivia about muskets being unable to take CR promotions, but that could be wrong.

[Gaspar]

Looks great thus far. I assume you're making a small core of City Raider units now to upgrade into Janissaries? My brain recalls some trivia about muskets being unable to take CR promotions, but that could be wrong.

<NobleHelium> That is indeed correct. Only Melee, Siege and Armored units can take the City Raider promotion. </NobleHelium>