[Spoilers] Beyond the Sword and Back - Ilios relearns some old tricks

[Ilios]

Quick T34 update (NB screenshots were taken after ending turn)

Whosit planted a city:



Founded on a nice defensive spot, but I don't understand why he didn't found on the Ivory. It would be behind the river as well, has a two hammer city tile, still grabs the Stone, and gets the grass Sheep in range. And importantly, it would also get the mountain SE of the Stone in border after a third border pop. Those two mountain tiles are strategically vital as they grant vision of the entire south eastern border region to whoever controls it.

I guess Whosit saw my fortified Quechua. We'll see if he tries to settle the Pigs area...

That was west.

Now we look east:



Dammit!

That barb city screws up my whole eastern dotmap. I'm tempted just razing it instead of capturing. I'll have to think it through, because if I decide to keep it, it will mean that I cannot grab Clams city to its south. I should have followed my gut feeling and sent my last Quechua there to fogbust.

Oh well, at least it will provide some early combat training, and I don't have to worry about my eastern opponents grabbing it so far outside of their current sphere of influence.

[Commodore]

If it's any consolation, should be just warriors at this point, a single axe is usually all it takes.

[darrelljs]

Are you sure that's a two hammer city tile on the Elephant?

Darrell

[Commodore]

Yup. Plains elephants are 2h base, as seen in the image.

[Ilios]

If it's any consolation, should be just warriors at this point, a single axe is usually all it takes.

Funny thing is that in one of my regular Cyrus/Inca SP games I play till around T50-75, I had a Barb city appear at exactly the same time, and I remember thinking 'oh, so I need to keep an eye on those fogged areas from that point onwards'...

Are you sure that's a two hammer city tile on the Elephant?

Darrell

Yup. Plains elephants are 2h base, as seen in the image.

Yes. Here it is:

[Ilios]

So I played a few more turns.

On T36 I took a couple of screenshots of the graphs, as I had all of them apart from Yuri:

GNP


Pretty even. Yuri is now a clear commerce leader with his Gold tile.

MFG


I think that was taken before I finally improved the Copper tile at Roth. Clear leader here.

Crop Yield


That dip of mine is my capital switching to hammer heavy duty and dumping 25 base hammers into a Settler (40 IMP hammers for those counting).

Power


Nothing too alarming at the moment, but I have put my first hammers into an Axeman on T37 while regrowing Auster to size 4.

Culture


Now we know Gazglum has founded Hinduism.

Overall, I think I'm doing pretty well at this point. Maybe not as many cities as you'd like from an IMP leader, but demo's show that my cities are larger and better developed than most of my competition. End of turn 37 puts me at 3 cities (sizes 4/3/2), all if which are connected and two of which have their Terraces completed, four Workers and four Quechua's, with one more 5 hammers from completion and a partly built Axeman. My next cities will be founded on T41 and T45, and will have improved tiles to work and will be connected to the empire from the start. Writing was finished with some nice overflow, and I am currently leaning towards Maths instead of Iron Working as a next tech after going 100% gold for a couple of turns.

Finally, here's a screenshot from T37 (bear in mind that it was taken after ending T36):



Whosit has a Warrior covering a Worker. I'm going to assume to improve the Stone, but you never know...

A small word on the Stonehenge build. Initially, I had Roth regularly put some hammers into the wonder whenever I needed to grow the city, but didn't want to put them into a Quechua (keeping upkeep costs down) or a Barracks (still unnecessary at this point in the game). I figured that, worst case, I would grab some failgold if someone else finished Henge. The wonder is now almost half finished, and hasn't fallen yet to the opposition, so I might even be able to secure it and put lots of early cultural pressure on my southwestern border.
I'm not going to put any chops into it though, we'll see whether I can pull this off the hard way...

[darrelljs]

I think the limiting factor for an IMP leader on expansion (economy aside) is Worker support...I think you've done a great job making sure you have enough Workers to have your new cities up and running quickly. I recall you did this very well in the two FFH games we played together, looks like you have't gone rusty .

Darrell

[Ilios]

I think the limiting factor for an IMP leader on expansion (economy aside) is Worker support...I think you've done a great job making sure you have enough Workers to have your new cities up and running quickly. I recall you did this very well in the two FFH games we played together, looks like you have't gone rusty .

Darrell

Thanks!

I played T38 this morning, and it would appear that Yuri has declared war on Gaz. I can only spot the one Warrior moving inside his borders. There might be others out in the fog, but I haven't seen any big Power increases, so I'm sure it's minimal. So basically I'm not sure what's going on. I was briefly tempted to declare war on Gaz as well, to allow my Scout to explore beyond his borders, but I've come to the conclusion that it is better if my two eastern neighbours slug it out and hate each other's guts for the rest of the game, allowing me to shift defenses to my West, which has a much longer border than my soon to be eastern border with Yuri.

However, this declaration of war will mean a shift of focus of both Gaz and Yuri to military units. This means their Power will increase, which will make me and others nervous. To counter this, I've switched Roth to an Axeman while Auster continues building the Settler. I will whip that poor city again next turn (yay CHA!), and regrow it back to size 4 after ending turn. This should inflate my Power rating nicely, and will allow me put some real units on my soon to be western border with Whosit when I found the Gold/Pigs site on T45.

[darrelljs]

I've noticed a lot of times people declare war just to scout, but its usually a lot earlier than this. I don't think putting out a few more units is a bad idea, but I wouldn't overreact, either.

Darrell

[Ilios]

I wouldn't overreact, either.

I'll try, but I need to compensate for my inherent weakness, which is my tendency to go into full builder mode, vastly improving the infrastructure, culture and economy of my budding empire, while absently neglecting my military until suddenly I'm being invaded by the combined armies of my jealous neighbors.

So whenever I tell myself "I don't really need another unit", I will still order my provincial governors to produce military units at least 50% of the time.

Anyhoo:



See how I dramatically tilted the image to show you my first Axeman facing the borders of those western devils over at Pink Khan Land, known for its fearsome warriors.

My ambiguous plan comes to fruition (part 1) - also slightly tilty:



The empire frowns upon inefficiency:



I don't really need another unit here now, so... Spearman next.

Ze Capital:



Settler overflows into another Settler for a turn so those little hammers aren't wasted. The city will grab the Wheat back from Roth next turn to grow.

A Library would be nice, so... Axeman next.