[SPOILERS - PBEM29] spacetyrantxenu - Mao of Babylon

[spacetyrantxenu]

T72 - Here is the city I founded last turn, Herman Cain. I'm hearing from the inhabitants that there has been an outbreak of sexual harassment accusations already. Until we research Code of Law and build a courthouse we can't do anything about the lawsuits. In the shorter term we're going to need IW to chop the jungle off the gems and one of the dyes, then Calendar to hook up the dyes and sugar.

This location will be settled next turn unless Sian decides he wants to go to war right now and attacks our bowman/settler on the forest tile marked C9. This site will grab five nice river grass tiles, including a corn, can share the crab with Michelle Bachman, and will get us spices at level 2 borders, with Calendar. If we're lucky we'll find something inland when the borders pop, but even without that I'm happy with this site for the growth + happy resource. This is the same piece of land that Catwalk's gold city is on, but it is a jog to the SE around a mountain bend so he has no better claim to this spot than I do.

City builds. Nothing too crazy here, just Rick Santorum prepping for the Hanging Gardens. The stone city will settle next turn, hooking up stone before I start contributing hammers toward the wonder. That big sign on the map that reads NEED GARRISON will require action. I don't want our stone city unguarded too long, lest someone be tempted to snipe it. Speaking of garrison, the barracks and bowmen builds are in preparation of the upcoming cottage burning campaign against Sian. We've managed to drop our power to 4th place by not building much recently, so we look like Republicans soft on defense. Not acceptable.

I should have removed the resource markers for this overview shot. So here's our middling little empire. Not as many cities as other people have, but they're all full of Republicans so we're better than they are. We have cash, as you can see, 29 of which are courtesy of Catwalk as down payment for the marble. He's going to get me the last 6 gold over the next two turns. I think we'll need to decide what is the more critical need before we get the save again: Spend our cash on teching HBR so we can throw HAs to the Sian offensive, or tech Calendar instead, which will allow us to hook up some of these resources. Or IW for the gems. It's a shame to build the HG when so many cities are already at, near, or beyond the happy cap. (I played quickly this morning and missed that Ron Paul would grow into unhappiness). I mean, we can always whip off angry people, Mao has no problem doing that. But we're getting close to the stage of the game, I think, where we want to whip less and continue steadily working good, improved tiles.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I worked out a settling agreement with Catwalk yesterday for the area south of our part of the jungle. I've marked on the map where our city goes, which you can see from the last screen shot in the previous post. Coastal, grabs the rice and a plains river dye, and keeps that city's border on our side of the river. Catwalk has already settled a city toward Sian's border down there, I'll get a screen shot of it next turn when our scout gets to the city center. I just saw it this turn. Catwalk has apparently learned his lesson about garrisoning forward plant cities and has a substantial force of axes and a spear down there, from what I've seen. Hopefully he's focusing all of his army toward Sian and not toward Dazed's future approach on the other side of the world wrap (tundra side).

I'm going to try to talk to Dazed today about a settling agreement for the grassy area between us. If I can get the two sites marked on the map that would be very nice.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

The location you have marked gives away any chance for us to settle our fish.

How firm are you in this agreement? I'd rather not lose the only food resource in that area.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Turns out we don't have an agreement with Catwalk, we were just talking about it. I couldn't remember the specifics, but we haven't signed anything. I talked with him more about it today and I'll post a picture of his plan next time I get the save. Looks like we can get our fish and a city on the hill S,S,SW of Herman Cain, but he's going to pack two cities in on that narrow pass between the mountains and the sea and will have cultural control of the string of resources. He's offering to gift us the bananas and we already have all of the other resources, but that's a crowded border over there. We'll have to hash this out some more.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Or we could settle the northern bananas and make him fight it out with Dazed again.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T73 Details are in the spoilers next to the photos.

Maps:

I worked out a settling agreement with Dazed to establish a border on the north coast of the jungle area. I didn't get two cities north of Herman Cain, just one, but it's a fairly equitable split of the territory. Me taking a second city would have made it impossible for Dazed to settle his fish, which is the same situation I was in a few days ago in negotiations with Catwalk over our border down there.



Overview shot of our empire.



The geography on the border with Catwalk makes things difficult, as does his plan for city settlement. His intention to place two cities on the border vs. me only being able to sensibly place one (unless I want to waste a pig by settling on it) makes it certain that his culture will control all the resources in our overlapping BFCs. My city down here will go on the hill S,S,SW of Herman Cain between the rice and pigs, securing both of those. The other resources will be first ring to both of Catwalk's cities, giving him control of them. This is annoying as it means he will have to gift me my only source of bananas, which he has promised to do. An alternate settling plan for me here would be to add a city to the east of the hill location somewhere, grabbing land in the center of the jungle, but that would be further from my core and a less defensible border city. I'm not sure about doing that, but if I don't grab it someone else probably will.



Two recent cities, on the small island we're grabbing marble, which we are the first in the game to connect. In the short term I've traded the marble to Catwalk for some cash. He'll use it to build the MoM before Sian can, but there is a definite danger in letting a PHI team in Rep get the MoM. If he keeps it (i.e., somehow the plan to raze the pyramids/MoM city fails) there will be a danger of multiple golden ages, 9 turns each. That would probably win the game for Slowwalk if that happens. As PHI they could easily generate the 6 great people required for 3 golden ages, and from there they would be easy favorites to land Liberalism --> Nationalism and take the Taj (could bulb it with an engineer). We can't let that happen, so it's probably to have sold marble, but my thought was that it would be easier to raze the MoM/Pyramids city from the front of Catwalk's empire than it would be to find it somewhere in Sian's land and burn that city. I hope the marble sale doesn't turn out to be epic fail on my part.

Back on topic, Gary Johnson is just a land grab. Nice spot, gets us corn and spices, and hopefully something else useful will turn up in this area eventually.



Nothing major here, just lines on the map showing where our three workers assigned to Hanging Gardens duty need to be in 2 turns so they can finish their 1 turn worker actions: two chops and one forested hill --> mine await contributing hammers to Rick Santorum. That will be enough to finish the HG in 2 turns.

Cities:

I want these cottages grown up as large as possible by the time we get to Bureaucracy. Capped by happiness, we haven't been able to utilize the two grass forests yet so I've left them until later.


That settler will be joining a galley bound for our gold location. The galley is presently crossing from the west coast to the north coast through the fort we recently finished.


Go go project HG!


Incubating cottages. We're a bit unhappy here and in Newt, but Catwalk has promised some happy resources coming up in the next few turns so I'm going to eat the additional maintenance until then. Also, since we 1T researched IW this turn we'll be able to chop the jungle off our gems and get them online.


I'm going to let this city grow just a bit more and then run 2 science specialists until I get a GS, bound for Academy duty at Newt on its hamlets, villages, and towns.


Borders popped when I hit enter. There are work boats sitting on both clam resources ready to connect them. Also, I think I have enough workers in range to get one of the FPs cottaged next turn as well. If not next turn, definitely within two turns. But we'll be working the clams first anyway so we have a few turns until those cottages have to be up.


Not a lot to say here. I just moved the worker that quarried the marble onto a galley last turn when he finished the quarry. He'll move over to Gary Johnson and farm the corn, and probably stay over there to cottage the river grass tiles. I won't need more action at Michele Bachmann until we have Calendar and need a plantation on the silk.


The road on the gems tile finished last turn, which will allow me to mass workers and chop the jungle and mine the tile quickly. Have I mentioned we need happy resources? We can also chop jungle off the rice to farm it and build cottages, but we still need Calendar for the dyes and sugar.


We'll farm the corn and chop the forests to get a library in for border pops, then pasture cows and wait for Calendar so I can improve the spices.

Demographics and Information:

If we take abuse from Sian's insistence on not banning the AP votes, I'm going to be displeased by that. That stuff has no place in a MP game and it was a major oversight to not ban it at the outset. His refusal to allow it to be banned now indicates maybe he is considering using some of those votes if he gets a chance. But you can't bring a vote until you get your religion into another civilization, right? I don't know that Buddhism has spread anywhere else yet, but I do have Christianity in one of my cities that spread on its own. He could conceivably change the AP religion and cause me grief with that. I hope he doesn't take the low road in this game because that would be cheesy.


The only new thing here is the AP, built by Sian a few turns ago.


My army consists of workers. But with IW coming in I'm back to #1 in power.

Charts:

We're still woefully behind in GNP. Our cottages will have to help us catch up as they mature or we'll become irrelevant in this game.










The interesting point on this chart is that Sian has begun bringing his zigs online. I can't imagine he's running slider and I think that graph would be a straight line change rather than a curve anyway. Also, speaking of Sian, he's been saving cash for a while, holding his research on Calendar. I don't think he's actually going to research Calendar, though. My suspicion is that he'll go for Code of Laws and try to beeline Civil Service next. He's trying to hide his research for now, at least that's how I read it.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T73 Details are in the spoilers next to the photos.

Maps:

I worked out a settling agreement with Dazed to establish a border on the north coast of the jungle area. I didn't get two cities north of Herman Cain, just one, but it's a fairly equitable split of the territory. Me taking a second city would have made it impossible for Dazed to settle his fish, which is the same situation I was in a few days ago in negotiations with Catwalk over our border down there.



Overview shot of our empire.



The geography on the border with Catwalk makes things difficult, as does his plan for city settlement. His intention to place two cities on the border vs. me only being able to sensibly place one (unless I want to waste a pig by settling on it) makes it certain that his culture will control all the resources in our overlapping BFCs. My city down here will go on the hill S,S,SW of Herman Cain between the rice and pigs, securing both of those. The other resources will be first ring to both of Catwalk's cities, giving him control of them. This is annoying as it means he will have to gift me my only source of bananas, which he has promised to do. An alternate settling plan for me here would be to add a city to the east of the hill location somewhere, grabbing land in the center of the jungle, but that would be further from my core and a less defensible border city. I'm not sure about doing that, but if I don't grab it someone else probably will.



Two recent cities, on the small island we're grabbing marble, which we are the first in the game to connect. In the short term I've traded the marble to Catwalk for some cash. He'll use it to build the MoM before Sian can, but there is a definite danger in letting a PHI team in Rep get the MoM. If he keeps it (i.e., somehow the plan to raze the pyramids/MoM city fails) there will be a danger of multiple golden ages, 9 turns each. That would probably win the game for Slowwalk if that happens. As PHI they could easily generate the 6 great people required for 3 golden ages, and from there they would be easy favorites to land Liberalism --> Nationalism and take the Taj (could bulb it with an engineer). We can't let that happen, so it's probably to have sold marble, but my thought was that it would be easier to raze the MoM/Pyramids city from the front of Catwalk's empire than it would be to find it somewhere in Sian's land and burn that city. I hope the marble sale doesn't turn out to be epic fail on my part.

Back on topic, Gary Johnson is just a land grab. Nice spot, gets us corn and spices, and hopefully something else useful will turn up in this area eventually.



Nothing major here, just lines on the map showing where our three workers assigned to Hanging Gardens duty need to be in 2 turns so they can finish their 1 turn worker actions: two chops and one forested hill --> mine await contributing hammers to Rick Santorum. That will be enough to finish the HG in 2 turns.

Cities:

I want these cottages grown up as large as possible by the time we get to Bureaucracy. Capped by happiness, we haven't been able to utilize the two grass forests yet so I've left them until later.


That settler will be joining a galley bound for our gold location. The galley is presently crossing from the west coast to the north coast through the fort we recently finished.


Go go project HG!


Incubating cottages. We're a bit unhappy here and in Newt, but Catwalk has promised some happy resources coming up in the next few turns so I'm going to eat the additional maintenance until then. Also, since we 1T researched IW this turn we'll be able to chop the jungle off our gems and get them online.


I'm going to let this city grow just a bit more and then run 2 science specialists until I get a GS, bound for Academy duty at Newt on its hamlets, villages, and towns.


Borders popped when I hit enter. There are work boats sitting on both clam resources ready to connect them. Also, I think I have enough workers in range to get one of the FPs cottaged next turn as well. If not next turn, definitely within two turns. But we'll be working the clams first anyway so we have a few turns until those cottages have to be up.


Not a lot to say here. I just moved the worker that quarried the marble onto a galley last turn when he finished the quarry. He'll move over to Gary Johnson and farm the corn, and probably stay over there to cottage the river grass tiles. I won't need more action at Michele Bachmann until we have Calendar and need a plantation on the silk.


The road on the gems tile finished last turn, which will allow me to mass workers and chop the jungle and mine the tile quickly. Have I mentioned we need happy resources? We can also chop jungle off the rice to farm it and build cottages, but we still need Calendar for the dyes and sugar.


We'll farm the corn and chop the forests to get a library in for border pops, then pasture cows and wait for Calendar so I can improve the spices.

Demographics and Information:

If we take abuse from Sian's insistence on not banning the AP votes, I'm going to be displeased by that. That stuff has no place in a MP game and it was a major oversight to not ban it at the outset. His refusal to allow it to be banned now indicates maybe he is considering using some of those votes if he gets a chance. But you can't bring a vote until you get your religion into another civilization, right? I don't know that Buddhism has spread anywhere else yet, but I do have Christianity in one of my cities that spread on its own. He could conceivably change the AP religion and cause me grief with that. I hope he doesn't take the low road in this game because that would be cheesy.


The only new thing here is the AP, built by Sian a few turns ago.


My army consists of workers. But with IW coming in I'm back to #1 in power.

Charts:

We're still woefully behind in GNP. Our cottages will have to help us catch up as they mature or we'll become irrelevant in this game.










The interesting point on this chart is that Sian has begun bringing his zigs online. I can't imagine he's running slider and I think that graph would be a straight line change rather than a curve anyway. Also, speaking of Sian, he's been saving cash for a while, holding his research on Calendar. I don't think he's actually going to research Calendar, though. My suspicion is that he'll go for Code of Laws and try to beeline Civil Service next. He's trying to hide his research for now, at least that's how I read it.

I think you forgot a picture of the starting screen. Great update!

[spacetyrantxenu]

I think you forgot a picture of the starting screen. Great update!

I'm pretty sure I posted this earlier in the thread, but here you go!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

You already posted that one. I was talking about this one.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

In other news, there could be a bit of palace intrigue developing in the next several turns. First, and perhaps best, Sian and Catwalk's NAP ends this turn (or at EoT/next, perhaps, depending on your interpretation of the agreement). This is important because Sian has recklessly left 3 workers unprotected and apparently Catwalk could swoop in and take them. Xenu and I will do our best to try to convince Catwalk of the righteousness of this maneuver.

In addition to this, Xenu has been talking with Dazed about a plan to have us attack Sian in an effort to damage his economy by pillaging tiles and perhaps razing a city if possible. Dazed would focus his efforts on Catwalk and at the least raze the two front cities. This would take out Catwalk's silver site and the current Pyramids and future (we think) MoM. Since We'll never get our hands on the MoM, I'd rather they waste hammers building it and never get the benefit from it.

I don't see any way to leverage the Protective trait to victory without taking to the battlefields, either offensively or defensively. If we can pick a fight and wall up, it will slow down our adversaries, hopefully enough to let us bridge the gap. The only other option would have been to out-expand everyone else, landgrab and hold on, but our economy would be destroyed and we'd never catch up. I think we've gone about as fast as we could, given our slow-ish start economically.

Lurkers, if you have any maniacal, dastardly ideas that would make these plans more interesting, please feel free to pass them along. Whether we win or not, we're looking to keep this thing interesting until the bitter end. 2: