[SPOILERS] yuris125 praying to RNGesus

[yuris125]

Pindicator did declare war on Commodore. While it doesn't seem to be going anywhere so far, it should give me a chance to claim more of the forest. Hopefully

City 5 settled




I skipped one planned spot in favour of a more advanced plant. However, I might lose this city, as a barb axe showed up at eot. It will be axe vs archer, odds favour the archer but not overwhelmingly. I won't have time to bring another unit

In the north, I will have to whip a trireme to defend against a barb galley, and likely will lose one fishing nets




The whole point of early Metal Casting was to stop this from happening, but I had to direct hammers elsewhere, and barbs haven't been a factor until now

Iron revealed at eot, and it is in awkward spots. One source is 2SE of Prague, on the one tile my dotmap skips. Another is in the desert in the north, also out of reach of all planned cities - but makes the spot NE of the oasis more attractive. I'll post screenshots tomorrow

I still believe Colossus build was essential for me, but it did come with a real cost - not only I invested 12 worker turns into chops, but all 4 of my workers ended up away from the new cities, so there are still some important unimproved tiles. I am working on them now, and building more workers, but keep running into obstacles which ultimately delay my expansion (such as barb threats)

[yuris125]

We got one more turn tonight, so here's the iron situation

Iron 1




This tile is so weird, it would normally be high value, but I just never saw a way to integrate it into the dotmap. Even if I knew the iron was there, there's just no way to have it in range without losing some food. Even if Vienna falls to the barb and I have a chance to move the dotmap around... I guess one way is to move the fish/sheep dot W, Vienna W (1 off the coast), and fit one more city E of the sheep working the sheep and the iron? Is it even worth the trouble? The optimal spot for Vienna would be S of the sheep, but that tile is blocked. In any case, the hope is that Vienna doesn't fall, in which case this iron is orphaned

Iron 2




I cannot move either of the northern cities to have it in range without losing food. As I said, it does make the spot NE of the oasis more attractive, it would be a size 4 city working the oasis, a non-resource farm, the iron, and the stone a plains hill mine, it actually has a better yield than a desert stone. Post-Civil Service, it could also get a couple of plains farms. A crappy city, but may be necessary

Iron 3 is deep in the desert and too close to Pindicator / Commodore to be worth thinking about

Set research to Currency next, don't really have a concrete plan right now, it seems to be the most useful tech to help with expansion. All the hut money is spent, maintenance will be high with the awkward shape my empire is going to have, gotta make sure economy doesn't crash. After that probably CoL for Rathauses, then Feudalism and Civil Service

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks for the update!

[yuris125]

Vienna did fall. Odds for the barb were 25%. The city didn't autoraze - forgot about this detail, do barbs never autoraze on capture? Anyway, now I will have to build some axes to retake it, and might lose more units, because I can't build chariots to counter axes

[Tarkeel]

Charriu made a change in CtH that I guess Krill took over to RtR: Cities are never auto-razed by barbarians.

[yuris125]

I see - yeah, I think I remember reading this in the changelog

Settling a city this advanced without roads in place was always a gamble, but I thought it was far enough from Commodore to live with a single archer on defence, and didn't see the barb until it was settled. Annoying to lose it, but we all know that a 75% shot in XCOM always misses

Will think if it's worth shuffling the dotmap around to include the iron (and have a chance of city ruins triggering an event) while I'm building 3 axes to be confident to retake the city, now that the axe defending it almost certainly has combat 1. Port Rando and Chance Harbor are ready to take the main load of settler/worker building (Port Rando does need to regrow after trireme whip), Aachen is ready to whip military, and Prague is not far off once I improve the cow

[yuris125]

T50 in this game, cliffnotes: I'm still on 4 cities, which is very low for an advanced start. Overall not a whole lot happening right now, but I'm about to move out for retake Vienna, and then see what I can do with the forest. Proper update tomorrow

[yuris125]

It's T52, and I'm still on 4 cities




Somehow the graphs don't look too terrible










But the demos do tell the story




Next turn I will settle the city on the southern coast, and I'm not far off retaking Vienna. Barbs did reinforce the city with an archer, but then on the interturn the axe decided to attack out at 21%. So once my axes get there, it shouldn't be difficult to retake




I believe I won't be able to raze Vienna, as I still have 84% culture in there, so have to stick with the original dotmap which leaves the southern iron orphaned (I believe the alternative which leaves the fish orphaned is worse)

I'm chopping a couple more axes in Prague to make sure I don't lose anything else to barbs, or to Commodore once I start advancing settlements into the forest

A look inside Port Rando




and Chance Harbor




Both cities are currently regrowing to size 6 before starting more settlers

Chance Harbor is a better city, which also has a decent amount of grassland, and quite possibly would've been a better capital. That said, with bureaucracy era expected to arrive before cottages get a chance to mature, Colossus-powered coast may end up being better than cottages for bureau bonuses

The other two cities still only have granaries for infra, but I did get religion spreads, so they can start working on infra with OR bonuses once I'm done with the current military production

All in all, I'm not in a great position, but think it should still be recoverable

[yuris125]

Vienna retaken on T54 - had two axes ready to go, one of them wounded from when the barb axe attacked out; Vodka showed 94% odds of taking the city, and I figured the chance of losing at least one axe would only go up as the archer gained fortification bonus. Lost a healthy axe on a 60% attack, but the second one did clean up

Puts me on 6 cities - still well behind where I want to be, but I am pushing more settlers out as fast as I can

[yuris125]

Barbs are starting to show up in force




Good thing I built all those axes

Also note barb borders further west. Their city is 1 tile south of my planned spot; if I take it, I will keep it, it doesn't lose anything important and fits well enough with the rest of the dotmap

Going to stick an archer in the hilly area for fogbusting / scouting, the tile N of the copper seems to work best