The Pen vs The Sword (Gandhi of NA)

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, will leave T84 to you then.

[The Black Sword]

I think my chariot may have somehow pillaged my sheep ...

[SevenSpirits]

I guess they were protesting wool prices? Ouch.

Btw, I just noticed that your thread says you are being led by Ghandi, when your leader in-game is actually Gandhi.

[The Black Sword]

You know, I've been waiting the whole game for someone to notice that.

Besides lamenting my rebellious army, I made a few plans:


I switched Dan Tonk over to a settler. I want to put a city around that wheat quickly. Joey is doing quite well, still up two cities on me and I think I need to settle toward him as much as possible. This is the last place left really. Hopefully he won't try placing a city on that PH 3W1S of Moonshine. Dan Tonk's settler will get a chop and I'm going to chop out the Dog in Carcyn, another archer is coming over and possibly the northern chariot too. Hopefully that will be enough defense. Joey still doesn't have horses hooked up btw, which makes the threats to consider a bit easier.



I'm going to whip out the settler here next turn. I'll probably convert to Caste the turn this city is settled, which coincides with Fort Tahn growing to size 6, so it can work specialists. Both cities got a fortuitous confucian spread though, so Fort Tahn could actually go another size.

That should be enough immediate settler production, so I'm continuing with my plan to put Alphabet over Sailing, about 7 turns left IIRC. HAK, my presumable competitor for the island just declared war on dazed too.

[The Black Sword]

Let's pick up those cows too. Settling 1S might also be an idea, safer diagonal and better culture control of the fish. Leaves open the option of someone stealing those cows though.

That is Oxy's borders right there, the guy with the terrifying Cre/Imp traits. Only 2 cities ahead of me apparently, the same as Joey, though I don't have his graphs, perhaps he has more pop. I only noticed those city ruins just now, I should check if he's been fighting with Xenu, would explain why Xenu's power is above everyone else on our continent. Xenu is also doing a good job of taking control of the seafood all along that coast, I'm going to have to fight back somewhere:


I've also decided to make a Pyramids run in Fort Tahn after it generates the GM. I'm going Masonry -> Mono after alphabet. Given access to wines, Monarchy is a high priority tech and hence the Pyramids less so. I feel I can spare the hammers now though and they obviously suit Gandhi down to the ground. Haven't done any planning yet, just decided that's the best spot. I realise researching Masonry will block my Nationalism bulb, but that just isn't a strong enough option to make me stay away from OR.

I whipped the settler in Blackwater, whipped the dog in Elensefar to overflow into a worker and revolted to Caste. I don't actually want to run any specialists this turn but I feel safe right now, and apart from those 2 whips, I have none other in mind in the immediate future. So, might as well get the counter running.

[The Black Sword]

Plako offered me open borders, this is our current view. Currently we can't even trade resources. I think that would be the case if I researched Sailing but I still wouldn't benefit from trade routes until I defogged a port of his. Is that correct? The best way to do that is get my sentry chariot over here and get eyes on that plako city but he's tied up at the minute. In the end I decided not to accept right now and continue on my alphabet course.



I founded Tomb of Kesorak this turn, electing to road the tile to speed it up by a turn. That's worth 4f, 1h, 3g at least and I can't see far enough ahead to where the workers would get similar value out of those 2 turns. It doesn't slow down the development of this city anyway, we can chop a size 1 granary and get the sheep improved by the time it grows to size 2.

It was reasonably expensive though, convincing me I was unlikely to make alphabet at 4 turns of 100%, so I took research down to 50%, preserving 80g in the bank for emergency upgrades. I doubt I'll need it, but it makes me feel better as the civics clock ticks down towards slavery again.



I'm probably going to get the Dog to kill this guy and was hoping for enough extra gold to finish alphabet. Nothing to work at size 2 in Fallenstar, went with an artist. I figure I'm better off running artists for about ~80 culture to pop borders again, than spending 30/40h for 1cpt which will take a lot longer to reach that threshold. I'll probably try wait for OR to put the buildings in.

Also, renamed Carcyn to Wesmere, seemed a reasonable place to put it, though all the elvish forests will eventually get chopped in this game, and more memorable for me.

[The Black Sword]

The turn I discover Alphabet both of my neighbours DoW on me, I was hoping to use OB as an incentive to co-operate!

The main action is over here:



I had a settler and worker on the sheep tile, Furungy had a quechua beside it and I had a warr, dog and an archer. Late at night, I forgot about about the quechua's archer bonus and thought he'd be enough to cover, wanting to get the dog over too the contested area quicker. Credit to Furungy, he took the chance, I don't really blame him for it. I think I was recovering nicely, food and hammers were still mediocre but I was almost caught up in city count, the cities were expanding borders quickly and had lots of resources to work. Losing 185h probably sets that back though.

Furungy also pressed elsewhere, though he can't really make any gains:



I misclicked this full fortification warrior away from the defense of Fort Tahn though, and he had good odds on chariots. I re-offered Furungy peace, no real benefit to warring with him at the moment. I'm thinking about Joey. I do have the military upper hand down south but at this stage it will take forever to bring a replacement settler in.

This cause all sorts of problems for my trade mission too.

I feel like I should be beating myself up about this but I feel more amused than anything else.

[The Black Sword]

I didn't play earlier in the day, thinking I'd calm down and make some rational moves. Instead I thought screw it, lets have some fun.
Killed a Furungian Chariot+quechua going after my northern copper and took Tahn off specialists to finish it's spear. I had already offered him a peace treaty though, I'm still happy if he accepts.

Vs Joey I killed his archer with my sentry chariot, netting me my HE unit too, and his scout with my dog. If he wants to exchange his full health shock axe for it, fine with me. I want to see how things play out with Joey, if he doesn't have a spear coming then he can't hold that area, I started chopping a new settler just in case. If he does bring a spear, I *might* take peace.

Half way to a GG too.

[Lord Parkin]

Turn 91

Had to guess a bit since you hadn't posted about your domestic plans recently. You have enforced peace with both Furungy and GermanJojo for 10 turns though, so that made Worker movements a lot easier to plan.

Set Libraries to build in cities which came up for build orders, since you're at peace and I wasn't sure what else you'd want. Seemed clear the cities should grow though.

Figured you'd want Sailing next turn for trade routes with all the Open Borders you had signed, so turned up research so you'd get the tech next turn. However, after switching some citizens to merchants at Fort Tahn the beakers dropped just below the required level, and the timer was so low that the turn flipped before I could fix it. Sorry about that.

Here's Fort Tahn, where I hired 4 Merchants since it seemed like that's what you were doing before rushing hammers for military units against your aggressors.

Northern empire:

Southern empire:

Demographics.

[The Black Sword]

Damn neighbours!