Oxy Hates Making Sandboxes

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 37-39


Pretty uneventful couple turns

Forgot to mention this, but Commodore built stonehenge a couple turns back, which explains the high GNP. Deciced religion run while delaying vital techs was a bad idea, so I went hunting-priesthood and will tech writing before going for monotheism and monarchy.

Here's where Sumeria is turn 39:




Monument was whipped in Lupin, the overflow of that+a forest chop will let me one-pop whip a granary. After that, it's all about growing onto all of the awesome resource tiles and cottages. Mad-eye settled turn 43.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Team 40-41




Yeah...






Anyway, here's the state of the empire eot41. Barbs are pressing on all sides, but as long as they're warriors, it's just free xp. The chariot being one-turned out of Lockhart will help once axes start showing up. Next turn, Lupin whips its granary and Quirrell whips its settler.

Currently, research isn't great and a new city being settled will make that worse. However, that's where Lupin's value becomes so apparent. Gold gets hooked up turn 57 and ivory turn 60. That represents two extra cottages being worked in all of my cities. In addition, priesthood is researched and now 30 hammer courthouses are available, cutting the crushing maintenance on this map in half. Hopefully all of these early economic boons will let me outexpand others who aren't as prepared for the financial challenges of this map. Once monarchy comes in, Quirrell will grow to size 15 ASAP, with civil service being the next major tech target.




Displaying the amazing visibilty I was talking about before. This map is really defensive along some of these fronts, Q will find it very hard to attack me from the north.

[Ceiliazul]

Incredible turn pace! City founded three days ago got 3rd ring borders?!

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Yeah, we're all in the eastern US, except for Q who's in Oceania, which is almost a full day ahead so we can blitz during the afternoon and evenings most days.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 42-44




Granary whipped with perfect food in the box. Now it's time to grow Lupin as tall as possible. Right now it only has happiness for size 2, but half of the whip unhappiness will wear of turn 44 and gold is hooked up turn 46, with ivory and the rest of the whip unhappiness wearing off soon after, so soon it can grow to size 6.




Settler moved to the hill this turn, with a warrior confirming that no one has a chariot anywhere close.




This is why Sumeria+ORG isn't anti-synergistic. I don't really think Sumeria is that great on maps where maintenance takes a while to get bad, because you don't want to build courthouses early. However, on maps like this where cities cost 4 gpt 3 tiles away from the capital, not having to research CoL to get courthouses up is very useful.

Overview End of Turn 44:

Mad-eye(forgot to rename it) was settled this turn. Couple cities in unhappiness right now, but luxuries coming in will fix that. Quirrell one-turned a worker turn 43 and just completed a spear.




The workers will start hooking up the gold next turn.




New chariot out of Lockhart killed a barb warrior at the perfect ratio to score 2xp. Having a sentry chariot will be really useful.




Finances after settling Mad-eye. Currently research is terrible, but like I said before, things will only go up from here.




Lupin popping borders at eot revealed Ruff's third city(I'm pretty sure). It doesn't have any infrastructure in it. For reference, here's where Ruff's city is located:




I don't really think that was the best choice. Sure, it splits off the cows from the capital, but it doesn't have very much food, just a grassland hill sheep second ring. It grabs ivory, but there were probably better places. Anyway, good news for me as I should be able to dominate our border culturally. After the zig, Lupin will get a library up very soon and if I get monotheism, Judaism will most likely end up in there, which would be great.




Demos: don't look at the disgusting GNP, just the CY and land area man. They'll take me all the way.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 45-47




Gold hooked, economy is already 3 times better at 0% than it was two turns ago.




Sumeria turn 46. Things are looking very nice right now, though I'm a little worried that the oracle hasn't fallen yet. I think everyone's expecting me to go for it, but I really have no interest. Hopefully we don't have a repeat of 24 here. Here's a run through of my cities right now and my plans:




Quirrell is putting another turn into its settler to put it in 2-pop whipping range. Then it will grow to size 7 while building a library, before whipping to size 5 to complete the settler. The overflow should complete most of the library. I'll turn on research once the library is built, because there's nothing I really need to research before monarchy(Judaism fell a couple turns ago). Once Monarchy comes in, it's all about growing onto cottages.




Lockhart will overflow from the worker into a spear. Then it'll put 9h into a zig while growing to size 5, before whipping down to 3, with the overflow from the zig completing the spear, then a vulture. Being commerce poor and hammer and food strong, Lockhart will be my main military pump and probably my eventual HE city.




Lupin is killing me with maintenance, so that zig cannot come soon enough. That being said, with wet wheat, riverside gold and 2 FP cottages, this city is pure win. After the zig, a library will be whipped to build up cultural defenses against Ruff.




Mad-eye(keep forgetting to rename it) will whip the granary, then a library and then work specialists for the first GP.




Most powerful military in the world...




Next turn, worker swarm is readying to hook up ivory turn 49




Worker here will complete a road just in time for the settler to settle the banana city turn 50

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Ruff's being annoying; he basically has his entire military on my border so I can't hook up the ivory and I may have to whip Lupin. Report up later today

[Catwalk]

Looks very promising, the early luxury will help tons.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 48-50




Ruff has a lot of his military(2 archers and 2 chariots) around here, preventing me from hooking up the ivory

This screws up micro a little, but it's nothing disastrous




EoT49, the overflow from the zig whip will let me one-turn 3 units in a row here, greatly bolstering my military. Now, a more comprehensive turn 50 update:




First, City #5 was settled this turn. Pretty sure I'm first to 5 as I can afford it with my courthouses. Umbridge is a pretty good city, with a 3f center, two calendar resources, crabs and shared fish with the capital. It will be a reasonably good moai city in time, which is hard to find on a map with 40 saltwater tiles. Strategically, it gives me access to the lush-gems center and makes my capital a true backline city.

Here's an overview of my empire so far:

(The spear in Lockhart was changed to a chariot to preserve overflow)




Demos. Best food, best economy, best soldiers. High watermark anyone? Commodore is keeping it casual and possibly building the oracle. Q is lagging, but I'm pretty sure he's selling out for the pyramids, which could work out for him. Ruff is lagging, seemingly without an excuse. Best case scenario is that he builds the oracle. Some graphs:

GNP:




Everyone's graph has lots of dips from binary research, but you can see that Commodore seems to be doing very well, even accounting for stonehenge culture. You can also see my epic crash from settling my fourth city, followed by my rapid comeback from gold being hooked and zigs being built. Q is definitely lagging behind, but mids should help with that.




CY shows Ruff and Q pretty behind(though Q had been really pushing hammers for a while). Ruff just seems to be doing worse than everybody else, though the adjective that gets thrown around the most when describing Ruff seems to be "esoteric," so I'm sure he has some unorthodox plan up his sleeve(Oracle HBR?!?!). Commodore's CHA+Stonehenge happy has been fueling his dominance in this category, but with my own luxuries being hooked+settling more cities, I should pull away.




MFG gives evidence that Q is building something. Other clues include him having stone hooked up, him being IND/SPI and his low power.




I've possibly built too much military here, but considering I'm doing well in other categories, I think I'm ok. Q is kind of pushing it here, but I doubt I can call him on it until HBR. Commodore is the only civ I don't border, so I'm feeling pretty secure right now. I have twice the EP output of anybody else right now and that's only going to get better for me, so I should be able to secure research visibility on Ruff and Q soon.

Are people liking this style of updating?