[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

Turn 89

Where is Jowy going?

He has two workers and a settler under the yellow box, assuming they're roading for his next city. I think the PH makes the most sense, he gets to work the horse and share corn with the capital. Still, why would he road this tile rather than the one E of it? Also, if he moved his settler already this turn then moving it on this tile makes no sense. With two moves from the tile SE of Thrawn he could have moved it on top of the PH by now. He also could have moved it one tile further west. Maybe I'm seeing a different settler? The one I saw last turn could have gone off north, and the distance matches this one arriving from Thrawn. I really hope Jowy isn't planning on anything funny here, any city within 2 tiles of the eastern banana invalidates location 12.


Lackluster demos after triple whipping a settler and turning off research:

I'm starting to feel like I'm falling behind. My 3 newest cities are somewhat weak (Punching Bag, Always Wrong, Mother In Law) and I think that's what I'm seeing the effects of now compared to decent demos some 10 turns ago. I can't see what I should have done majorly differently, and I really hope that my standing is mostly a result of a semi-weak opening combo and semi-weak lands around me. Having only that elephant to make my people happy has hurt a lot, and it seems like other players aren't that restricted. I'm still hopeful that I'll have a shot at winning, but it'll be an uphill battle.


Got graphs on Yuris:

He really doesn't like Jowy I noticed on the relations screen that Jowy razed one of Yuri's cities early on, that seems to be what Yuris hinted at in the tech thread a while ago. I'm guessing it's a blood feud from here on out, and Yuris is in better shape. Both have weak demos, but Yuris is ahead of Jowy on both hammers, food, power and GNP. Having a weakened neighbour may well be my one shot at victory, I'm free to focus on my western land grab and will have room for a sizable empire.


While on the topic of Nakor:

Nakor is behind me on military, but I'm taking no chances with that. I'll have a total of 4 axes and 3 spears in the area within 5-6 turns, I hope that'll be enough to defend two new cities. I'm going to gamble on taking both locations right away, settling both around the same time with a missionary for the deer city first and one for the wheat city shortly after. I've moved the deer city E, both in order to defend it a little more easily and to provoke Nakor less. I don't gain that much from having it one tile further W, and this location allows Nakor to settle an additional filler city. I will be settling the cities within a turn of each other, so I think I will be able to deny him both of the PH locations.

In other news, BaII just got Currency. He's not doing bad either, keeping up in demos. If not for zanth running away, I'd say the field would still be wide open with several contenders keeping pace. My biggest concern is that zanth manages to cash in on key wonders with his early lead, even Colossus would be valuable to him given that he's FIN/ORG and can do Lighthouse REXing.

[Catwalk]

Turn 90

Things are heating up!

Double bad news in this picture: Yuris and Jowy are at peace, and Jowy is moving military towards me. He has a lot of spare military for the next 10 turns, and I really don't need it pointed my way. I think my cities will be safe, but I'll need to move more military here and I will not be able to hold the jungle location if he decides to go for it.


Which sucks because of my plans to the west:

I'm not going to settle both cities here right away anyway, instead I'll settle the deer first at 7 and hope for 8 to be available still some 5 turns later. 7 negates both of his PH plants, and it saves me some military in the short run while shoring up my eastern defenses. Nakor is poking around with his immortal, so he will see what I'm up to.


And this is what the military situation looks like:

I'm currently building spears in 5 cities, fixing my current military imbalance of 2 spears and 7 axes. I'm also assigning workers to chop forests, I have plenty to spare and I want to be able to chop out units in a few turns if they out to be badly needed.


In more peaceful news, hello to Sian:

Not entirely unexpected that there was someone up there, and I was wondering why I had a trade connection with Sian. The stone and marble islands will definitely be contested, and I'm leaning towards settling the stone. That means writing off MoM, Great Library and Taj Mahal, but I'm not feeling too confident about my odds on those as is. I'm by no means in a win-more position here, and I don't think I can afford losing wonder ventures. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic here. I'd still like to get Colossus, but then we're back to needing to get Calendar first and being kind of late to Metal Casting afterwards. Additionally, that further delays Iron Working and my jungle acquisitions. Max, feel try to sway my pessimism if you disagree with my arguments


Lastly, a look at demos:

I think these are actually better than they look. The 7th spot in food is not far away from the 3rd spot, we're tightly clustered around this level. With full research on I have passable GNP, although I guess being 2nd just means most players have it turned off at the moment. The good news is that I will be able to squeeze in Currency on t94, one turn ahead of schedule. That's +16 cpt, makes a huge difference for my research rate.

[haphazard1]

Jowy and yuri making peace is definitely a worry. Jowy now has lots of troops who are bored and looking for something to do. He is likely to push more aggressively to claim land along your shared border region.

I think the demos are probably OK. You have claimed a good chunk of land, but many of your cities are still pretty new and will become stronger. More happiness would certainly help so you could grow vertically as well as horizontally. You are at or above the averages in key categories, and the leaders are probably not all the same person.

[MaxPower]

I agree with haphazard that your demos are just fine. You just planted (and will plant) several new cities that will put you back in the lead in food and production once they grow.
What are your GNPs readings with 0% and 100% science? The demos above show 76 which I assume is 0% science because in the previous picture I see 75 beakers at 100%. Your 100% science GNP must be higher than that.

In the islands issue I think stone is yours to have whenever you want.
It is only 3 tiles away from Foot Rubs. If anyone dares to settle there you can 1 turn attack with galleys leaving from your own city. What doesn't make that place too appealing to settle right away is that it doesn't seem to have any food around. At least it will pay for itself with offshore trade routes once you have currency.

[Edit] My point is that you can safely delay stone island, and you can make plans for marble spot just to have a shot at MoM. Of course, your scouting boats will tell you how close are your neighbors. Settle it around the time you finish calendar. If you can keep the city for 8-10 turns, that would be enough to land the wonder.

[MaxPower]

Turn 90




In more peaceful news, hello to Sian:

Not entirely unexpected that there was someone up there, and I was wondering why I had a trade connection with Sian. The stone and marble islands will definitely be contested, and I'm leaning towards settling the stone. That means writing off MoM, Great Library and Taj Mahal, but I'm not feeling too confident about my odds on those as is. I'm by no means in a win-more position here, and I don't think I can afford losing wonder ventures. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic here. I'd still like to get Colossus, but then we're back to needing to get Calendar first and being kind of late to Metal Casting afterwards. Additionally, that further delays Iron Working and my jungle acquisitions. Max, feel try to sway my pessimism if you disagree with my arguments

I agree with you that wonders ventures are not the way to go, with the big exception of MoM. Calendar is your next tech anyway, and the marble plant should be safe for some time. Jowy never teched sailing (at least I fail to see him researching it from the pics posted here) so no galleys from him. Sian may have it, but he isn't that close to that spot.

On the western front, you must make a move to deny the deer/silk location to Nakor. If he plants there he will be very close to your capital and you will have a very large front to defend in case of hostilities.

[Catwalk]

Turn 92

Game is heating up! First, demos and power graphs:

Nothing much new here. Demos are still lackluster, and with a lot of military emphasis over the coming turns I won't be seeing massive improvements to food and hammers anytime soon. Fortunately, Currency will save my tech rate in 2 turns. Neither Nakor nor Jowy seem to be gearing up against militarily, which is good news.


This is the Jowy theater:

He has settled in a weak location, unless there's food to the NE that we can't see. Nevertheless, it denies us our planned location and allows him to settle 3S of it later unless we deny him at the backup location. Settling NE of the pigs is also a good location for him, so this may not be far off. I hope to deny him this location, either through settling or military presence. He has 2 axes and 3 spearmen that we can see, and I expect more may be coming. Plenty spearmen are in the pipeline, and forests are being chopped.


And over by Nakor, this is how things look:

The settling race is on. We each have a settler staring the other down. He can settle in place or 1N next turn, both suboptimal locations but annoying to us. If he tries to move E, I'm ready to declare war and take him out. I highly doubt he's willing to risk that, given my open aggressive posturing. If I move first next turn, I could declare war and pose a credible threat to his settler before he's able to settle. Would this be too close to double moving, though? I'm not attacking or settling, just moving into position. He did move before me this turn. If he settles in place, I do have the peaceful option of settling NE of the deer and N or NE of the wheat, grabbing both resources he might be hoping for and rendering his new city fairly useless.


Lastly, island exploration:

Nothing much to see here still. No seafood in sight, both the stone and the marble island would be fairly weak plants.

In other news, someone built the Great Wall.

[MaxPower]

The only way Jowy's new city makes sense is that it has food on that hidden tile. Anyway it's a weak plant and he basically made it for the gems. You could put a city 2E or 1E1SE of Vacuuming pigs to compete for the gems if you want those bad (you should want them because you are going for MC in the near future). With a religion of your own you will win the culture battle easily. You can work the pigs and whip a monument fast then chop/whip monastery and library. That's a ton of culture for Jowy to beat.
I would go for the first one to get 2nd ring marble and deny any city location on that island. It also allows you to settle your "backup location" later.

[haphazard1]

I do not see Jowy's city as being all that terrible a location. He can work the grassland horses immediately for a strong starter tile, it can claim the gems and a banana, it has hill defense (that is a hill tile? I think it is), it has fresh water, it has some useful riverside tiles. Not a bad city at all. And it leaves room for another city NE of the pigs that would also be a pretty solid city. He will need to hack down a lot of jungle, but that is just a question of time and worker turns.

The stone and marble islands are definitely looking like map maker created points of contention. No food, useless except for the resources. I agree with MaxPower that if you can claim the marble with a coastal city on your land mass, that is probably the way to do it. You would have to ferry a worker, but you would have to ferry a settler to found on the island. Alternately you could just go ahead and settle the two islands (on the resources in each case for a bonus hammer), accept that they will be slow growing fishing villages, and reap lots of trade route income.

The west looks to be heating up. He could move his settler SW-SE, then move east the following turn and settle 1 off the deer. You could block that by settling this turn, even if it is not your preferred location.

[Catwalk]

Turn 93

I decided to move first and declare war on Nakor, I believe this to be a legal move (Nakor moved first last turn, I'm moving first this turn but not making any attacks or settling):

It doesn't matter tactically who moves first, I'd be able to make the same move if he went first. However, this way he gets the chance to back down and make the conflict a lot less costly than if he'd planted first and committed to the site. I think chances are good that he'll take it, I don't see how he can bring much of anything to reinforce it. He has one spearman fortified at 10% next turn, the other spearman will arrive too late to hold it. He will chop a forest for the new city next turn, that will also be too late to turn into a military unit for defense. I'm bringing 2 healthy axes, 1 injured axe and 1 healthy spear along with my settler. A missionary and a worker are right behind them. If he doesn't settle next turn, I'll be able to claim this spot myself and deny him several important locations. He'll be none too pleased with it, but he can't expect me to be happy with him settling a city exactly between our capitals either. That gives him much too big a land grab, and lets him stake a claim on two strong food resources in between us. His Immortal teleported to the shown location, I actually forgot all about it until I declared Had he landed 1N instead, I'd lose a worker right away! It is also troublesome where it is, though. Without a whipped spear, I won't be able to hold my capital against it with anything better than a +90% warrior. I just triple whipped a settler, so I decided to bring a warrior down from Vacuuming instead of single whipping a spear and piling on another 10 turns of whip anger. I have one spear coming from the south and one finishing in Punching Bag, so I should be plenty safe. I'm crossing my fingers that Nakor backs down and lets me have the site, that would let us return to peaceful relations. His military is weak, it shouldn't be in his interests to fight me at this time. I'm completing 4 units next turn due to chops, that should further diminish his desire to fight. Unfortunately he won't be able to see them on graphs until a turn later, right?


Jowy is snooping:

Two chariots checking me out, doesn't seem particularly hostile. I cancelled Copper for Copper two turns ago, re-offered it this turn to signal peaceful intentions. I'm still confident I can beat Jowy later, so his plant doesn't really bother me all that much. The backup location will be just as good, provided he doesn't settle the pig site. He will likely want to though, and I won't be able to keep him from it if he brings all his spare military over here to prove a point. I imagine I'll be invading Jowy in some 30 turns or so, he'll be too far behind by then due to early military ventures.


One last look at shitty demos before Currency rides in to save me next turn:

I agree with Max that Jowy settled a weak location. It fits his dotmap okay, but the pig site was by far the stronger option. I'm going to optimistically guess that he didn't feel confident in being able to settle it just yet. His military is out of place, and he doesn't know that much about me (he does have graphs, though). He does have food on the hidden tile, but it's jungle pigs. It's a fine site for later, it's a fairly crappy one for the time being. I'm guessing he just chopped out a monument in it, hoping for cultural control. That culture will give him no benefit at all until he gets Iron Working, and even then it's only a gem resource that I'll have double the cultural pressure on.

I also agree that settling 2E of the pigs to claim marble is the best option. It helps me claim gems, and it gets to work pigs for a rapid start. Downside is that I'll get marble hooked up 13-15 turns later due to needing borders to expand first. Even if I go for it right away, that'll cause a significant delay to any MoM plans that Max may be able to talk me into If we're making a serious bid for MoM, I think the only option is to grab the island. It won't be half bad either, I should be able to get 12c from trade routes and another 4 from tiles, making it a significant net profit instantly. Or am I too optimistic about the trade routes?

The one move Nakor can make that I can't counter is settling SW on this turn. That would delay my attack one more turn, letting his second spear arrive + chop a unit + whatever else he can rally. If he does that, I'll let him have the spot and settle E of where I'm standing now. I'll bring another settler to settle NE of the wheat, and that's a pretty good land division as well. I'm feeling positive about my chances to win this little skirmish, and I'm hopeful that it will remain a skirmish.


I ended turn and forgot to log out (wasn't going to make anymore changes), and Nakor logged in just now:

Victory! Don't know where he retreated his settler to, I'm guessing NW. That lets me claim my current location next turn, and he'll likely settle up on the wheat. Not ideal, but I can live with it. It would have been nice to have that second settler here already, it finishes next turn which is likely too late. Any suggestions for where it should go?

[Catwalk]

Turn 94

Quick turn today! I planted on the planned location, thought about advancing on a hill instead but thought better of it. I want peace with Nakor, and trying to settle up on him aggressively won't be the way to do that. I made him a peace offer and tossed him 4 gold on top, all I had. Currency is in, demos still suck. Nakor's settler went south west, so my wheat plant may still be doable and I've sent my new settler in that direction. I want to plant my next town in the backup location by Jowy, I need to deny him the pig site urgently. Oh, and slowcheetah has Ivory + Gold + Gems... FMG