[spoilers] pindicator goes off the deep end

[oledavy]

OleDavy, I said you get a prize for guessing 3 out of 4 (and being the only one to guess) earlier, so what do I name the worker? You can go outside of the usual FDR cabinet theme if you want.

Since you're FDR, perhaps name the worker Winston Churchill?

[pindicator]

Since you're FDR, perhaps name the worker Winston Churchill?

[pindicator]

It's the 1AD turn report extravaganza!!!

Turns 73, 74 & 75

The big news of the last three turns have been settling of two new cities, FHA and FLA. FHA stands for the Federal Housing Administration, and FLA is the Federal Loan Agency. FHA grabbed the spices up north, and FHA grabbed the silk in the southeast.

We also have a shrine!



My prophet boarded the galley in New Deal on T74, then the galley moved into the city CCC. As I suspected, I couldn't actually build the shrine until T75. And when it came in, it started gaining me a whopping 2gpt. Hopefully i will start getting some religion spreads with a shrine, but I'm not banking on it. Monotheism is high on my wish list for techs, as Organized Religion will only increase my costs by 2gpt. Yay for Org.

I am have built my first spear, in FAP on the Incan border. FAP is going to build a few garrison troops for itself and FCC and go back to infrastructure.

This is the point in the game where I am happy not to be Gaspadore's neighbor:



Yuri, you better build some troops soon; if I don't feel opportunistic after T80 (when our NAP cooldown ends) then Gaspadore definitely will. I've promised yuri I'm not coming after him on T80. Haven't said a word about T81.

Sian told me that he's going after Gaspadore on T80, and I heard via Rego that Gaspadore "wants to keep yuri honest". But I also hear from Sian that his confucian holy city is causing some close border tension between him and Gaspadore. Ideally I'd like to see Sian go after Rego and Gaspadore invade Yuri, but I'll settle for Gaspadore & Sian slugging it out.

Here are some 1AD Map.

North:


Galley Hebo (in the upper left) is going to explore the north with my starting scout on board. FHA is having its initial work boat chopped, then I need to decide between chopping a trade post or hooking up the spices. There is a potential city site where the galley & scout are now, but only if they spot a seafood off that island. There's another island worth settling north of FDIC, with a fish & grass hill, but not for a while.

CCC is working on a market in anticipation of a strong shrine, and once Monotheism & Monarchy come in we'll revolt to Org Rel & HR and start spamming missionaries. The capital is going to have a market chopped out for gold & happiness. You can also see I've converted a few farmed FP into cottages. I'm not sure if I want to do the third one or not, I do want to keep some growth for AAA to share. I thought about building MoM in the capital after the settler, but decided the benefit of getting a market up earlier and growing the city was a better move. I haven't seen marble in any easy-to-grab locations so hopefully MoM will be available after I get market & forge in New Deal.

South:


More action in the south. My next two settlers are going to be down here.... I think. The settler out of New Deal (whipped this last turn) is heading to claim the banana/ivory/fish site far to the south. IW won't be needed since the fish is available for growth & the ivory can be camped without it. I may send a worker (Winston Churchill) and the galley Nestucca to that island a turn or two ahead of the settler to scout in case there's a better location. I realize this is a bit of a reach and will hurt in expenses, but the happiness should make up for it.

CWA is swapped to a worker because it has about 10 turns of whip anger to burn out and I could use another worker or two. This guy will help chop Maoi & mine the hills when he finishes.

I'm not sure where the settler out of AAA is going to go. Right now I'm considering settling the southeast, where a new fish resource was just discovered, or the fish spot in the north. Galley Beaver has a few turns to explore more of the southeast before it comes back for the settler in AAA.

Here are demos from T75:



Population breaks down like so:
Regoarrarr: 12 cities, 55 population
Yuris125: 14 cities, 49 population
Me: 12 cities, 39 population
Gaspadore: 10 cities, 38 population
Sian: 8 cities, 25 population

Sian just whipped away at least 6 of that population last turn, so he is gearing for war. He's also teched Construction, so I wonder how many catapults & triremes were among those whips.

I think I'm doing well. Honestly, I feel better about the game at this point than I have in the last thirty turns. Seeing that at least two other civs are heading towards war, my goal has to be to keep growing and keep my navy up to thwart any invasion. With that in mind, after Calendar finishes my next tech will be Metal Casting.

I like the GNP graph; it's definitely getting better!



Anything else that lurkers would like to know about the empire?

[oledavy]

Anything else that lurkers would like to know about the empire?

Nothing comes to mind, thanks for the long comprehensive update!

[pindicator]

Nothing comes to mind, thanks for the long comprehensive update!

Thanks!

Just played T77 and I think we'll get another turn in today so I'm waiting on the turn report. But I'm excited to report that I'm #1 in GNP this turn

[Ceiliazul]

Anything else that lurkers would like to know about the empire?

What will your tech path be going forward?

[pindicator]

Turns 76 & 77

Played a couple turns yesterday but it was late enough i just wanted to play and get to bed. The big news of the turns was finding Gaspadore's aggressive plant of Malaka'Jin. Yuri can't be happy about this:



Then again, Yuri stole the corn north of Gaspadore's starting island, so i bet there's some bad blood going on between the two. My timing on the NAP being canceled can't be making Yuri sleep well at night, which is the least I could hope for.

Notice the banana/ivory combination, like the one I'm heading for with my next settler. If I also have a marble on a nearby island I will take my settler out of AAA and go to that location for city #14.

On turn 77 I whipped about 6 pop away to get granaries up in newer cities. But enough grew back that I only lost 1 pop overall. The newest two cities, FHA & FLA, won't need as many whips because they'll be able to chop in the infrastructure a bit more, especially FHA in the north.

Calendar finished at the end of T76, but I think Yuri may have picked it up on T77. I dunno - he finished a classical tech but the number of people who owned Construction (1), Monarchy (3), Metal Casting (2), Polytheism (2), Iron Working (1), Horseback Riding (1), and Archery (3) is still. So I think Yuri picked up Code of Laws, and Calendar is a second place bet; all those new cities have to be taking a toll on him, and his research has been a little slower lately than average, so we'll call it a hunch.

What will your tech path be going forward?

Good question! That's the one I've been pondering over of late. I settled on Metal Casting after Calendar because I want to get some triremes for naval defense, and forges are going to be the next mandatory build in all my cities.

Metal Casting will finish at the end of T78. But what comes next? Here is the list I've been running with:

Archery
Polytheism / Monotheism
Monarchy
Code of Laws
Iron Working

That may be the order I go for it in too, but as situations change I could change priorities. I should be able to grab Archery T79 with the overflow from Metal Casting. We'll save gold on T80 and then pick up Polytheism T81, Monotheism, T82 and then Monarchy T84 -- at least, that's how the guesswork goes. It's too much work to spreadsheet out research with 12 cities and various multipliers so this is just guess-work. (Unlike calculating how to get Currency within 3 beakers; that was my proud micro moment this game.) Revolt to Organized Religion & Hereditary Rule T85.

By then we'll be desperately wanting Code of Laws for maintenance. In a way, we already do. Even first ring cities are costing us 5gpt, the outlying ones are near 8.

Iron Working is on the list for the jungle island I'll be settling and to find out where the iron is. I'll be surprised if I don't have a source nearby considering the amount of land I've claimed (I'm #2 in land area).

[pindicator]

Turn 78

Went to the last home football game of the year for Oregon State U with my father, and we beat U of Washington to win our 3rd game on the year. Yeah, not been the best season. One more game, the big rivalry game, or "The Civil War", as they call the game over here.

I drive with my father to the games, and it's about a two hour drive to get from my parents' place on the Oregon coast to Corvallis. Gives me a lot of time to think over things in my head, and I came back to play my turn with a couple changes in strategy in mind.

First off, we have a change in candidate cities for Moai:



The reason I initially held off on building Moai in FAP was because it was a border city, and I did not want to risk getting my Moai city boated on the first turn of a war. Honestly, I think that's a pretty plithy reason to pass on putting it there. Add to the fact that it's just taking forever to build it in CWA and I'll be able to put out Moai here earlier than the other city. But the thinking that put the decision over the top was when I was trying to figure out where I was going to hire a pair of scientists and get my great scientists going. The best city I could think of was CWA. It's got high food and is surrounded by bad tiles; tundra are worse than coast, so it's the ideal spot for specialists. Then when I opened the save and saw I could get Maoi in 6 turns at FAP i settled on building it there.

I deserve any ripping I get on the lurker thread for switching boats midstream, or for not building it in FAP to begin with. Although FAP has been building defenders; after Maoi it will be my main unit pump for the area. At least I'll get 67 gold from the partial completion in CWA, so those hammers aren't entirely lost, and 2.5 gold per hammer is a pretty good conversion rate.

My second decision was to switch the unhappy CAA to a worker. It will 2-pop whip the worker next turn, using the overflow to finish its galley build, and then there should be enough overflow from the galley to get a forge half-finished. That forge will only get 1 extra hammer per turn at first, but with whips it will make up the hammer investment within 20 turns. The additional worker & galley are going to first mine the hill by FCC and then aid my 14th city, which will be online in 6 turns.

Where will my 14th city be built?



13 & 14 will both be here; next turn a galley will land to settle north of the bananas. I put the worker Winston Churchill down here early because I want to scout the area ahead of the settler to make sure I get a good location, and because there wasn't anything in the vicinity for our worker to do by FERA. I was thinking of roading to the ivory while I wait for the borders to pop. Actually, i'm thinking the worker will move S next turn to try to scout for any seafood off the southern coast - if there is then we'll want to drop the settler off on top of the ivory.

City 14 will be to pick up the marble. Then I'm thinking MoM in the capital with a near-300% hammer bonus.

One thing I am a bit upset at is not being able to pick up Metal Casting this turn. I guess I whipped away too much pop to get those granaries in, but last turn when I had the slider at 100% it showed me getting MC in 1 turn, but I didn't have enough cash to run at 100%. So I ran gold last turn, and this turn it's 2 turns to complete MC. Huh? So I ran gold again this turn, and I'll have funding for 2 turns of 100% to pull in MC at the end of T80. Then the same plan after that.

There is one more piece of strategy I was pondering on the drive to and from the game. I really would like to get closer relations with Team Gaspadore, so I sent this email off.

[COLOR="Plum"]Hey there Mr. Commodore,

First off, I must congratulate you on the bold move to grab the Banana/Ivory location south of Yuri. A bit of cojones to grab that spot out from under him, but then again it's not like you don't have the brawn to back that up. Speaking of which, how is that shiny army of yours coming along? I must say, that power spike in the demographics screen is mighty impressive. (Oh -- this reminds me, I have EP with you at 44 if you want to match for graphs on one another; went a little over, i know).

I must assume you are planning on sending those new, shiny troops somewhere, so I was wondering if there was anything I could do to assist. I guess I'm assuming you're heading Yuri's way, because I can't do so much if you want to attack Sian. So let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Happy Civ-ing!
pindicator[/COLOR]

I'm hoping to get the info on where his armies are going. If he is attacking Yuris125 maybe I can be opportunistic.

[pindicator]

Turn 79

I was just about to ask out loud where the metal happiness was. Glad I waited one more turn, because I finally found it:



A city working the gold should pay for itself, but defending it is another matter entirely. Still, I think I should aim to get a settler here.

Yuri picked up a tech this last turn. GNP scrying showed it to be Iron Working.

[pindicator]

Turn 80

Meet our newest city, FMP:



Founding this guy raised my costs by 12g. The settler for my fourteenth is already in the water so I'm probably going to jump at least that much when the next city is planted on T84. Does this mean I switch my target to be Code of Laws next? I'm guessing I could pull it in by T83 and then start mass-whipping courthouses.

And then with rego settling here:



Do I need to rush settling my north & south? I'm not too thrilled with his choice to plant there, but he beat me to it fair and square.

I did compare notes a bit with rego this morning, and I'm not too far off by what I see. We are very even in GNP - both of us have about 95g maintenance and about 170 GNP when researching a 1-pre req tech that nobody knows. He's just ahead of me by about 1,000 beakers and a dozen population.

Metal Casting finished after ending the turn, so next turn its forges all around. Then we'll get a few triremes in the water for home defense and continue expanding. As always I could use a few more galleys, a few more workers, well a few more of everything.