[SPOILERS] This Is Asgard! A Tale of Post-Ragnarok Midgard

[oledavy]

Turn 35

Alright, well, while I'm waiting to be able to play Turn 36, I might as well post an update.

This game has not been very fun to play so far. My start is pretty horrendous, and for the second Civ5 game in a row, I ended up with an extremely isolated start. While this start is not as isolated as my start in PBEM1, it's still pretty far out there. On the one hand, this is an advantage in that I'm far away from Keshiks and can build and tech more or less in peace. On the other hand, my craptastic land largely negates the advantage I might get from that. Moreover, it is extremely likely that this game will be decided prior to t75 and that I won't be able to do anything to stop whoever does runaway due to my distance from three of the potential runaways, including the most likely to do so (Azza with Siam).

Oh well, when life gives you lemons....



So, let's talk about what's going on.

First, an update on Serdoa, who I see hasn't updated in forever:



We exchanged embassies a few turns ago, giving me sight on Palenque - just in time to see the Great Library under construction, and then complete next turn.

Not sure that building it was a good move, especially for the Maya who want to build a wide empire to take full advantage of their insane UB. It's just such a lackluster wonder....but oh well, he may have a master plan in mind.

Currently, he is at one city while me and Jowy are at 2, presenting the brand new city of Midgard:



It's actually a fairly decent little plant, no worker turns needed to get it up and running, which is good because with that barb camp there, moving a worker here would be risky. Settled on sugar to have instant happiness, currently working the cattle. The idea here is to grow it to size four and have it working the two cattle and two hills for 5hpt, with the granary pushing growth after that. Whenever I get a worker down here, I can improve the two cattle and mine the two hills for four more hpt, and quarry the stone to enable a stoneworks. I'm going to continue bombing down the barbs in the camp, but not clear it until I have to or until Ragusa declares a city-state quest for it.

Jowy's second city is already at Size 4 however, the same size as my capital

He is shaping up to the potential runaway on this end of the continent, with a seemingly solid start (although I cannot see it) and an amazing second city. Once Petra goes up....oh boy....

I need to hope someone beats him to it, I just don't have the production to compete. Check out his crop yield:



Almost double mine. I'm lagging very badly in the two important categories (MFG and Food). I'll soon be somewhat caught up to the leaders in food with my third city, but the MFG situation is not going to get much better for a long time.

While we're talking about Jowy. He proposed me Whales for 100 gold. I have no idea why he thought I would accept that. Later on, it would be an okay deal. Right now when I'm rolling in happiness and saving gold for a settler.....no. He also sniped Ragusa's worker with his wandering warrior. I really wanted to snipe that worker

My only consolation is that it will take him quite awhile to move it back north and that it will just be costing him gold in the meantime, and that, for the little it's worth, he won't be able to ally with that spiky little CS for quite some time. He did catch a major break in Capetown requesting that the barb camp north of them be popped:



That camp is too far away for me to compete with him for, at least before I have horsemen. I did catch a nice break in Wittenburg asking me to find a Natural Wonder however. That's free influence at some point down the road, once I start scouting east again (need to do that soon). Other than that, Ragusa and Wittenburg are offering a better gold ->influence conversion for the next 20 turns or so, and most of them need barbs cleared out. I will not be able to do much about that until I get my third city settled, however.



I've cleared out the majority of the barbs from around Asgard, I just hope the CS's start asking me to pop those four camps sooner rather than later so I can get influence for doing it and won't have to worry about barb incursions any more. My archer is covering my worker as he goes to camp the ivory, and my scout just nailed a barb east of the city. When I hit 370 gold, I'm buying a settler and escorting him and the worker with my warrior (coming from the south) and archer to the marble/horses city-site. The second warrior will continue improving the capital, then head south to Midgard. Future builds for the capital are: Library -> Watermill -> Horsemen, probably in that order. As for tech, I'm headed to Horseback Riding then cleaning up the bottom half of the tech tree (BW, Masonry, etc.)

My Social Policy Status:



Picking up Monarchy in a few turns, need to figure out some time to work in a National College build in my cap....

My neighbor's are both one policy ahead of me:



What they have available for trade:



So, that's basically what has been going on with the Korean Vikings, at this point, just keeping calm and carrying on.



End Turn.

[T-hawk]

While we're talking about Jowy. He proposed me Whales for 100 gold. I have no idea why he thought I would accept that.

Useful towards a Golden Age? You'll get the first happy GA sometime anyway, so figure it as a component of the second happy GA. It would add 4x25 turns = 100 happy-turns out of the 500 counter, or 20% of the Golden Age. 100 gold is worth that; a GA is worth more than 500 gold. Although of course it depends on the opportunity cost of what else you could be doing with that gold now.

[Rowain]

a GA is worth more than 500 gold.

Lets postulate the current state((and I'm using the numbers on your theworld screenshot) frozen: you would need 10 turns to recover the 100 gold but get the GA in 15 turns instead of in 24. But given your current economy I rather doubt the earlier GA is worth the delay of what ever you want to buy with the money (I guess settler).

[oledavy]

The whales from Ichabod would have allowed me to pop my first GA sooner. However, I would rather wait until I have more than 5 population to benefit from the improved tile yields. The opportunity cost of delaying my second settler by 9-10 turns was not worth the benefit of an earlier GA that itself would have had negligible benefit.

Anyway, speaking of the settler:



Onward to settle the Marble/Horses city!

Ragusa issued a quest for me to pop a GG:



More free influence, albeit at a point very far down the road. I'm not anticipating fighting any wars any time soon, but then again, people rarely do.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 38

Caught a major break this turn:



My warrior and archer are already en route - escorting my settler and worker to found the marble/horses city that will be founded next door. It will be a simple matter to clear out the encampment afterwards and enjoy some free food from Rio.

Speaking of barb encampments:



I finished off the brute in the eastern encampment this turn. If there was a chance someone else might walk in and take the encampment, I would not have risked it. However, Jowy's warrior is no doubt headed north escorting his shiny new Ragusan worker, so the only possibility of it getting popped is by a wandering Serdoan scout, something I think that is pretty unlikely. My scout will be coming down here in a few turns to guard or clear out the encampment, depending on whether Ragusa declares a quest for it before then.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 40

I adopted Monarchy this turn.



At this point, I am rolling in happiness, and will be getting my first golden age relatively soon. I'm not quite sure how much founding my third city and growth will delay it, but I suspect not by a whole lot.

In the west, I found some bad news:



Rio de Janero is currently attempting to clear that camp out with it's own military. There is a good chance they might succeed before my forces get in range



End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 41



.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnSnfiUI54#t=00m17s

Oh, and congrats to Pindicator on landing the HG

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 41

I'm currently exploring south and west of Rio with my archer, and am settling my third city next turn.



However, Rio has now asked me to find a natural wonder



Whenever I do find one, that will be 80 free influence (I think). Forty with Wittenburg, and forty with Rio. Very nice. I jut need to get scouting eastward again.

Serdoa met Jowy at some point.



However, he still has not met any of the city-states out here.

And, I remembered to use the production/gold focus trick this time:



End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 42

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aboZctrHfK8#t=01m28s

Settled a heavenly city this turn, and began pasturing the horses immediately.



I'll have horseback riding finished next turn, then I'll be on to research Masonry just in time to hook up that marble next. It's going to be a 0/3/3 tile after I build the quarry, an extremely good tile. A stable will be a good build here. I'm also planning on building one in Midgard. Slowly digging my way out of my production hole.



As you can see, while I'm still getting romped and stomped in production, I'm catching up in food. Jowy will regain a bit of his previous huge lead whenever he settles his third city, but for now, we're fairly close. Serdoa is still at one city. He may have set himself back too far with that costly GL build. It finally dawned on me (as in 5 seconds ago), however, why he built it. He probably wanted to knock out Theology early to activate his UA. At least I hope that was his plan. Granted, I have not seen any notifications of people advancing to the Classical/Medieval Ages yet (I'm not sure if we have those in hotseat, however.)

Popping that barb camp next time. Safety > the chance that Ragusa might ask me to pop it. They're more likely to ask me to pop the one closer to them first anyway.



End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 43

So remember how I remembered to turn on production focus in Asgard last turn to get a free hammer and gold? I followed it up by forgetting to turn it on in Midgard for it's growth to size 3



Thus, the governor worked a coastal tile, so I traded 1 gold for 2 hammers.....Not a very good trade at all.

Also note that the camp spawned a barb the turn before I was going to take it. I'm currently bombarding him down so my scout can clear it in a few turns, but this will delay his trek eastward to boldly go where no Norseman has gone before.



While we're talking about Micro, in Valhalla the plan is to work that cow tile for two turns to bring me up to 6 food (just finished the second turn). Then switch to the horse tile for two turns for the remaining 4 food I need to reach size 2. It generally would be a better idea just to work that horse tile for the extra hammers. However, in this case, I want to reach size 2 ASAP so I can work both the horse tile and the marble tile. I could have just worked the marble tile from the beginning, however, that would have prevented me from working the horse tile for a very long time, and lost me the science output of a second citizen.

Hoping that was a good micro call

Not much else going on, except that I noticed Serdoa no longer has marble:



He either traded it away, or it got pillaged.

At any rate,

End Turn.