[spoilers] Mr. Cairo Steels himself for another Pitboss

[Mr. Cairo]

Pre-Golden Age demos:



Golden Age demos:



I revolted to Caste, Pacifism, and Taoism. I plan to get one Great Merchant during this GA, and most of another. Two Great Merchants will let me bulb towards Education and Liberalism. I'll probably end up bulbing Civil Service and Machinery with them. After the two Merchants I'll need to go back to Scientists to bulb Education, probably using two and finishing it off naturally. Then on to Liberalism into Astro. In the mean-time, to enable these bulbs I'll need to manually tech some stuff. Metal Casting and Monarchy before bulbing Civil Service, and Paper before bulbing Machinery (which is a pre-req for Optics). I'm also going to want some other techs like Calender and Feudalism, as well as Compass and Optics before I can Lib Astro. I hope to get Monarchy and Feudalism before the end of this GA, so I can swap tino HR and Vassalage for free. But I don't know if I can manage to get Feudalism on time, it may take some Research/Wealth builds.

Here are my cities in the Golden Age:

I need to get the Missionary out asap and spread Taoism to Aja for the Pacifism bonus, as that's where the second GM is coming from. After this I'll run as many Merchants as I can without starving to get one during the GA. But as the only place with a Monastery, my cap will be making missionaries for a while yet.


Dedicated GP farm. Once I have HR I can grow it even more so I can give the crabs back, and wont have to starve the city to get more than a couple specialists.








Slowly building up GEngineer point thanks to a random Taoism spread. I'll want a Forge in here asap for more, eventually I'd like to use it on a wonder, possibly UofSankor or Spiral Minaret, since I'd like to grab the religious wonders; bulbing can only get one so far, some sort of actual economy would be good as well. Although DZ (I think it was him who got Theology) is probably building the AP right now, so whoever conquers him will probably end up with at least a third of the religious trio.


Moai city is looking good as usual. I'm building Angkor Wat here so I can have a city that can make a Great Prophet. The Moai already makes Prophet points and I'll want one for a shrine at some point at the very least.
















In international news BGN sent me a couple of trade offers this turn. First was a Clams for Crabs trade, he only has one Clams so I don't think it was a genuine resource trade. If he meant he wants to be friends I'm fine with that, I don't plan on a war until I have Galleons. Then he offered his Marble for my Stone. It would have been tempting if the MoM still had a Marble bonus, but as it stands I have no need for Marble, and Stone is helping me build Angkor Wat, so no deal there.

[superdeath]

any war plans in motion? Any kind of ranking of players currently?

[Mr. Cairo]

No war plans until Astronomy. I hope to be able to bulb my way to a very early Astro via Liberalism (I could probably just bulb Astro itself a little quicker, but I prefer this method). Then with control of the seas (theoretically) I can launch an attack against Gav or BGN/Xenu. It'll probably be Gav, since he has islands near to me that I could snipe and easily hold. Whereas an attack against BGN/Xenu would require a complete invasion of his mainland, a much more daunting prospect, but doable if I'm far enough ahead.

As for a ranking of players, I don't really know, but of the three that I've met (plus me) I'd go: Me, BGN/Xenu, Gav, Naufragar. And I'm only ranking myself above BGN/Xenu because of my current GA. They've ahead of me in Food and Production for most of the game so far.

Judging by score Rusten seems to be doing very well, and Commodore has your land. But considering how early that war was, and that it has been the only one of its kind so far, I'm guessing that you and Commodore shared a continent, and everyone else has their own, so really it's more that Commodore managed to equalize with all the others in terms of land while being saddled with a massive army costing a lot of money and no more easy targets.

Donovan Zoi seems content to build wonders for whoever conquers him first, but if he's far enough away from everyone else all those wonders might be able to make up for his reduced expansion (I only have a general sense of how many cities he has from Civstats, since I haven't met him yet). If no-one eats him he could do well.

edit: The nature of the map makes large-scale warfare pretty unlikely and unprofitable until Astronomy (with one exception of course).

[Mr. Cairo]

Halfway through the Golden Age and I look on course to reach Feudalism on time, although it has required putting my best cities on research/wealth, as predicted:



I'm also doing well on my Great Merchant plan, with the first due in 2 turns:

Although leaving all those juicy tiles unworked during the GA hurts me.

The second will come probably a turn or two after the end of the GA:



After those I'm going to stop running many specialists for a bit, I want to grow my cities, especially those two.

Demos:



The world:

Mainland:

Those filler spots will have to wait for Mercantilism before they're valuable (except maybe the one in the NE corner).

Eastern island and Gavagai border:



BGN land:



Western islands:

BGN is also somewhere to the south if here, so presumably there's another chain of islands he used to get there, since BGN didn't send any galleys through my land. I officially claim this island for the Sumerian Empire, if BGN tries to settle it, there'll be trouble.

[Mr. Cairo]

Gavagai moved a Trireme up towards me, which had me slightly concerned, but it then moved into my territory, as if to scout? Seems like an expensive scout. Especially since Gav seems to be in a turn-split with someone. I'm assuming not me judging by his scouting Trireme, but he's not at war with BGN or Naufragar, the only other civs I've met. So he's either at war with someone I haven't met, or something else is going on. In either case, his power has spiked alarmingly, so I'm going to get a round of units in before going back to my infrastructure builds. My cities have mostly been building Wealth/Research lately, so my own power has stagnated, and I'm going to have to remedy that.

[Mr. Cairo]

For a lurker who might be able to finish the turn before I get home from work (see tech thread).
The only thing you have to do is swap techs to civil service. I bulbed it almost to completion, and the overflow beakers from finishing metal casting will complete the tech without needing to change the science slider (keep it at 0%). Also, the password is what I've put in spoilers at the beginning of the thread, but all lower case.
There shouldn't be any moves or anything. If anyone's declared war on me or initiated diplomacy don't do anything, the turn will have to wait for me to get home

[Mr. Cairo]

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I used a Great merchant to bulb Civic Service almost to completion, with the overflow beakers from finishing Metal Casting  it completed this turn. Here's my current tech path:

I'll use my other Great Merchant to bulb Machinery, and at least 2 Great Scientists to bulb most of Education. With Liberalism I'll grab Astro.

Here are my cities:

Once source of a GScientist. At size 12 it can run 6 specialists, getting a Great Person in 10 turns.


The other source of a GScientist. It can support 6 specialists at size 11 with -1 food/turn, but it'll have enough food to keep that going for enough time.


Another potential GP source. With a lighthouse and irrigation spread to that corn, it can support 5 specialists at size 7, which will be artists, in part because it's a good spot to put cultural pressure on BGN.


This city needs to grow, and will be able to once those grasslands are farmed, but for now it'll continue to make military.


Moai city is probably better off growing, but I need more settlers.

The rest, mostly commerce cities:














I'm building a little bit of military in some of these to try and keep my power graph from stagnating. I don't want to appear like an easy target.

Demos:



Power Graph:



Western Islands:


Pretty much defines the concept of the "fishing village"

[Mr. Cairo]

Lots of stuff is happening, and the lurker thread is going wild, so I thought I'd do a report.

Knowing that the lurker thread usually only gets this excited when a lot of blood is about the be spilled, I had assumed it was to do with Naufragar's recent power spike:



But then last turn Donovan Zoi declared war on BGN/Xenu (I met DZ and Comm a few turns ago):



So maybe it's to do with that. Or both, I don't know.

In either case it's good news for me, since I'm obviously not a target of Naufragar's, and a war between BGN and DZ is also good for me (as long as BGN doesn't end up quickly overrunning and eating wonder-rich DZ, but since DZ declared it himself, I'm hopeful that wont happen).

This is the area I'm assuming DZ and BGN are fighting over:


I also ran into a Horcher of Commodore's here, so I'm guessing this is part of a larger landmass that has cities from all three of DZ, BGN, and Comm on it. Which makes me feel pretty happy about my starting location and it's very limited potential for conflict.


In my own news, last turn I got Paper, which opens up a bulb of Machinery with my remaining Great Merchant, but I'm holding off on that for reasons I'll explain later. But Paper also reveals what techs everyone else has:


I'll list what techs everyone has that I don't, then what I have that they don't, and then my thoughts.

Donovan Zoi
HAS: Construction, Aesthetics, Literature, Polytheism, Monotheism, and Theology.
BEHIND: Code of Laws, Philosophy, Alphabet, Feudalism, Civil Service, Paper, Calendar.
Clearly he's focused on Religious and Wonder stuff. Has access to Catapults, so that's good news for his war, but his lack of cities is really going to be a problem there. He should at least try and get Feudalism for Longbows, since we're at a point where mass-whipped LBs will deter an attack from anything but completely overwhelming forces.

Gavagai
HAS: Polytheism, Monotheism, Aesthetics, Literature
BEHIND: Meditation, Philosophy, Feudalism, Civil Service, Paper, Calendar
Just seems generally behind me right now, better than DZ, but doesn't ahve Construction so I doubt any kind of war is on the horizon. He's been scouting quite a lot with Triremes, which I would assume he'd keep at home if he planned an opportunistic strike against my island, but without Cats, my walls are enough to keep him at bay for now. I don't really know what his long-term plans could be.

Naufragar
HAS: Polytheism, Monotheism, Aesthetics, Literature, Music (presumably got the GA for that), Compass, Construction, Machinery (although with my GM at the ready I basically already have Machinery)
BEHIND: Meditation, Priesthood, Code of Laws, Philosophy, Feudalism, Civic Service, Paper
Closer to Astro than me, and more advanced in some military techs, but still lacks Feudalism for LBs. I'm assuming his power spike is made up of Catapults, Xbows, and ancient stuff (probably Swords, since they retain they're usefulness for quite a while). Certainly seems capable of waging war, but without knowledge of his opponent I can't say much (I'm assuming at this juncture that it's Rusten, since Nau isn't at war with I've met, and the only person I haven't met is Rusten. I'm also assuming that Nau isn't responding to anyone else's increase in power since no-one I've met has spiked recently. Comm was ahead in power for a good long while, but their increase has been relatively steady, while Nau's was not. So all in all I feel somewhat comfortable assuming that Nau's conflict is with Rusten, who the aggressor/instigator is I have no way of knowing right now).

BGN/Xenu
HAS: Polytheism, Monotheism, Construction next turn (he was in-game and hadn't increased his science slider when I took this screenshot)
BEHIND: Philosophy, Civil Service, Paper
Much closer to my own tech path, including getting Feudalism. Is going for Construction now, which makes sense now that he's at war. He's PRO, and has access to LBs, so I don't see how BGN can do much against him for long if it's a hot war. I can hope that this war delays Astro for him (I'm assuming that everyone has a plan of some sort for getting Astro, as it will be the most important tech in the game.)

Commodore
HAS: Horseback Riding
BEHIND: Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Monarchy (!), Feudalism, Civil Service, Paper, and Philosophy.
His neglect of the religious line at all seems odd, especially since Monarchy seems as though it'll be quite essential for getting large cities in this game, since I haven't seen a huge abundance of Luxuries for anyone (in fact I think my four of Furs, Ivory, Whales, and Silks are the most anyone natively has). Having HBR makes sense considering his early war, I'm guessing his power is largely in Horchers and population (he has by far the most cities of anyone I've met). I don't think I'm going to be trading any luxuries to him anytime soon. He is still no further away from Astro than anyone else however. In fact, as bulbing Astro with Great Scientists requires not getting Civil Service (since GScientists value Paper and Education ahead of Astro), he's closer to doing that than those who need to research Philosophy before they can bulb Astro (they also value Philo ahead of Astro, but not any other religious techs). I'm getting tech visibility on him next turn (as long a he doesn't put any EP into me) so I'll know more about his plans then.


Now that I've met all but one civ I can say who has what Wonders as well:

BGN: Buddhist Shrine. Probably worth a lot of money for him, since it is one of the more widespread religions.

Gavagai: Parthenon, Great Lighthouse. The GL is obviously bonkers on this map, if I wasn't bothered about antagonizing him I'd cancel my OB, or at least ask for cash, but I'd rather he think good things about me (despite my killing his Chariot and grabbing that barb city all those turns ago). The Parthenon is probably there to help him get the Great Scientists for bulbing Astro, although by itself it pollutes the pool with Artist point, so it's not ideal. Perhaps it just for a more generalized source of Great People.

Naufragar: Great Library. Good for science in general, very good for getting the GScientists needed to bulb Astro.

Donovan Zoi: Statue of Zeus, Colossus, Oracle, Stonehenge, Hindu Shrine. A juicy set of wonders for someone to take, although the SoZ might be helping him fight his war with BGN.

Rusten: Pyramids. One of the best early game wonders. He's also SPI, so if Naufragar is fighting him he will almost certainly swap into Police State. Not fun at all (for Naufragar that is).

Me: The Hanging Gardens. In retrospect I could easily have delayed this until I had a couple more cities. Wonders had been falling a lot when I built this so I was a bit paranoid that I wouldn't get it. In any case, I'm still glad I got it and not someone like Comm or BGN with their greater city counts.

[Mr. Cairo]

Now on to domestic stuff.

I settled a city on the Western Islands, but a couple barbs came along to disrupt my plans:



The rest of the Western Isles:



My empire:

I'm building some Swords up for eventual upgrading into Maces. I don't have a lot of hammers, and without slavery no real way of getting a lot more. So I'm building cheaper units now, and delaying bulbing Machinery.

My cities:

Source of 2/3 upcoming Great Scientists. Then I'll stop using it to get GPs, since it's too good of a city for that.





hammer city I'm trying to grow to size 8.


I also want to grow this city, once I get farms to the two remaining grasslands in its BFC


I love good Moai cities. Needs a Library though.


GP farm. It's getting the GScientist after the first one from my cap. Then I want to grow it to size 12 so it can run 6 specialists at once.





I've decided to turn this into another GP farm, and not workshop over that cottage. With a bunch of farms it can get a food surplus of 10, enough for 5 specialists. With the Iron Mine and some other workshops it can also transition into a decent hammer city if need be.


This city is suffering a bit at the moment, as its neighbor is hogging a bunch of good tiles, but that will only last for an other couple turns, and then I can really grow this city.


The aforementioned neighbor. Once it's at size 7 it'll be able to support 5 specialists from the Corn and Fish alone. I want to get a Merchant out of here for an eventual trade mission.


Ex-barb city, only really able to contribute much now that I've been able to spread irrigation. With some mines and a Lighthouse, it'll be able to pump out some decent hammers.


Newest city. All these fishing villages will really only be useful for supporting specialists. But still worthwhile anyway, especially once I can get Representation.


Demos:

A bit skewed right now as two players are in GAs, but still not that great. My main advantage right now is in tech, and that's mainly from bulbs. But hopefully I can keep that up and eventually use that tech lead to conquer someone (ideally Gavagai).

[Mr. Cairo]

Learned I don't need three Great Scientists to bulb Education, so Liberalism and Astronomy is a lot closer. Which is good, because I realised that if I had just gone for a regular Astro bulb I probably would have done it by now, which means those non-PHI civs are pretty close to it (or already there) as well. I'm going to bulb Machinery in 2 turns in time to get Optics. Then save cash for a bit before bulbing Education and grabbing Liberalism. I can also stop using my cap to get Great People which has boosted my economy greatly, I'm now making more cash at 0% science than I lose at 100%. I have the second GS coming in two turns, and a Great merchant in 16. I think I'm going to save that GM for a GA, since that would probably be worth more cash than a trade mission, and give me hammers on top.