[SPOILERS] Emporium For Sale. We Don't Rent Pigs.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I like your hostility toward Dazed. No idea if it's a good play or not but it sure is fun. Good luck!

I like your plan to block Novice's fish. If you oracled MC it will indeed take him a while to dislodge a pair of triremes, so you'll succeed in this mission unless he's determined to build a swarm of galleys to sink your trireme pair. Unless there are crazy combat rolls, though, you'd still likely come out well ahead in the hammer exchange. The only downside is you're rattling the bear's cage, but hey it has to happen sometime. I give this one a

I don't like your idea of building forge before granary. I haven't seen a case for it before and I don't see one here. Granary is +100% food storage once your granary is full. That's effectively the same as +100% hammer production if you're looking to whip it all away as you hit the cap, which I assume you will. A forge is only +25% on your hammers. Abilene has some good hammer tiles for the forge to modify, yes, but they're nowhere near as good as the food tiles (especially the seafood) you have the granary modifying, even if food and hammers were equal 1:1 (which they're not). So you get a big for the forge before granary plan. It's heresy for a reason. The only thing I'd say to you if you built a forge before a granary would be at least you didn't build a monument before a granary.

[pindicator]

Forge before granary only seems a good idea if you can build both before the city reaches the halfway point of growing to size 2, or thereabouts

[spacetyrantxenu]

So before the granary is full, right? That seems pretty unlikely unless you have a LOT of hammers and very little food. I don't know what the tile yield would have to be to make that worth it. Or maybe MAYBE if you're IND and you get a forge discount? I still want the granary first in that case though. I have a hard time seeing a viable case for forge before granary.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I'll have to look at it, but I'm pretty sure that the next growth is to 3, and that I would not get both done before the box is half full again, not if I have two seafoods netted. I'll see if it's just faster to grow to 4 and do ye ole double whip.

[pindicator]

So before the granary is full, right? That seems pretty unlikely unless you have a LOT of hammers and very little food. I don't know what the tile yield would have to be to make that worth it. Or maybe MAYBE if you're IND and you get a forge discount? I still want the granary first in that case though. I have a hard time seeing a viable case for forge before granary.

Chop, Chop, Chop, Chop, Chop, Chop

Yeah, 6 should do it if you don't have any other bonuses

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

So before the granary is full, right? That seems pretty unlikely unless you have a LOT of hammers and very little food. I don't know what the tile yield would have to be to make that worth it. Or maybe MAYBE if you're IND and you get a forge discount? I still want the granary first in that case though. I have a hard time seeing a viable case for forge before granary.

Chop, Chop, Chop, Chop, Chop, Chop

Yeah, 6 should do it if you don't have any other bonuses

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. I'm hoping to do more with those forests than chop a single granary.

[pindicator]

Well, you are IND so you can do it with 4.

Scooter and I did it with a city in pb8 with 3 forests, but we had OR to help out too.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

My last comment may have come across snarky, not my intention. The city has good food, so the whip is fine there. I've been convinced that the granary is the way to go. I'm short on worker labor to get 4 chops done in time, as I'm setting up the horses on the next city (only #5, sadly). I want chariots to make Dazed build something besides vultures for the contested "bloody bridge". So, work boat will finish next turn, then we'll grow to 4 in two turns, then on the granary. Chops will go into the forge, I should only need two to make that a good build, with overflow as math will be finished, then either Triremes or possibly Colossus. But, I want a Trireme to slow down novice's huge food lead. Turn report later.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Dazed killed my injured, pillaging impi with a vulture. I was hoping that I had exhausted his supply of those, but apparently not. His power is even with mine, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he has more of them. I just need to keep control of that bronze tile and prevent him making any more.

Last turn:



This turn:



So, he rebuilt the road, and has put 2t into the mine using the workers formerly taking refuge in Saddleback, meaning he has more workers in the fog. Hum. So, I moved my units (3 axe, 1 impi) as pictured above. I went ahead and took the combat promotion that was available. I had hoped to save that for City Raider, but I have more units incoming. Dazed will be able to finish hooking his mine and whip more vultures, at the risk of his two workers, unless he has more vultures trickling in from cities far afield. He will also get the damaged vulture into Saddleback, but nothing to be done about that. I didn't want to split my stack to prevent that, as Dazed would have 50/50 odds of killing my axe in the open and remain in the city to defend/heal. I just need more units here. So...



Regrowth to 3, I'll take the bronze mine and finish up a second axe next turn. Combined with the one on the way (2E of Austin), I'll have 3 more axes on the scene shortly. In 3t I'll have city #5 up and horses as soon as borders pop, so chariots incoming too. I need to look at old saves to see if Dazed has visibility on my horse tile. If not, maybe I can surprise him. Most likely, though, he knows this is an eventuality and will counter. He's not a dummy.

I don't recall mentioning this, but novice razed Estonia, which I presume to have been Zak's fifth city. He seems to be going alphabetical with countries in his naming scheme, though I have no idea what cities C and D are. I'll guess Cambodia and Denmark. Anyway, both Zak and novice have spawned great generals, so Heroic Epic is likely available for both. I'm only 6/30 toward the general so far, Dazed is certainly ahead of me since the fighting has been in his territory. Or is that misinformed? Seems like I remember you get more general points fighting in your own territory. Anyway...



Still plodding along.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

1T to math, I'm thinking Sailing next. Not for Calendar necessarily, but for triremes to harass novice. Still messing with Dazed:



He left a worker on the bronze, so my impi captured the worker and pillaged the mine. I then moved the rest of my mini-stack to cover. I think I'll keep this worker and see what else I can rustle up while I'm over here in his land. Note the archer in the city. My harassment has forced him to research Archery, which is all well and good, but it does put a damper on me taking Saddleback. Archers are cheap and plentiful, and tough to dislodge from the hill. Oh well, they suck as attackers too. This can't be fun for Dazed, having me constantly harassing him, which makes me feel a little bad, but we're neck deep in it now so there's nothing for it but keep hacking away at each other. Better by far that the fight be in his lands than in mine.



Was lined up for 23/23 to finish the axe before the chop, but I went ahead and chopped even though math is nearly complete. I want to either chop or fort the other forest silk before Dazed gets cultural control, which he eventually will unless I put a wonder (etc) in San Antonio. I may put the Colossus in there, if I ever stop churning out units.

Question for lurkers: Fort = city for defensive purposes. I can build a fort on the forest to get the additional 50% terrain defense as well as the 25% for the fort. Here's the question, does cultural control make any difference for units defending in a fort? I'd prefer to keep the tile under control for unit maintenance issues, but really I only care about the defensive bonus. My assumption is that cultural control makes no difference here, but confirmation would be appreciated.



Still chugging along.



Dazed is the new #1 in power. Archery tech plus whipped vultures would be my guess. Can't wait to get my horses online, finally. Dazed still has not hooked up his horses, and I'm keeping an eye on that to see if it is sensible to send a unit over to camp the resource to prevent him getting use of it. Anyway, seems novice isn't having everything his way with Zak. Good! But, he's still the dominant leader in CY and MFG. Keep fighting everyone!