A Challenger Appears!

[Tankra]

Alright, sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been somewhat preoccupied with other things. Thankfully, nothing dramatic has happened yet in the game, although I was quite afraid for a bit.

See, my new city of Repel a Leper was settled on a flatlands, and was defended by a lone Dog Soldier, while thestick's looming Axeman watched, biding his time, as seen on the screenshot here:



His Axeman was there ever since my city got settled, and I was banking on the fact that our forced peace treaty would keep my city protected, at least until the Archer from my capital could go up to defend it. Only problem is that I didn't actually go ahead and do the calculations, I just assumed, and we all know what assuming makes me and you...

So, last turn (T47) was, according to my diplomacy advisor, the last turn of our peace treaty. Seeing as thestick acts before me on T48, I was really quite scared that he would declare on me and try to raze that city, attacking my lone and flat Dog Soldier with his Axeman. The odds would be pretty much in my favour, but there would still be a chance that he could win, seeing as it would be 5.00 (Axeman) vs. 7.20 (Dog Soldier with 20% culture, 100% vs melee, -50% vs melee and 10% fortification). I haven't calculated what the odds would be, but I think that even with a 15-25% chance, thestick would have probably taken it. And my Archer would have been one turn too late to the city, giving him faint but still quite annoying odds to really hurt me.

Thankfully, he couldn't actually declare on me on T48, because the peace treaty ended at the end of MY T48, not his. Dodged the bullet right there! And for future reference, I'm quite sure he would have done it. After all, he took the shot at my capital at the beginning, and in a different thread, posted something along the lines of:

If I'm your opponent, would I trade an easily broken friendship for burning down my enemy's third city and delaying my enemy's most critical wonder? Uh, yes. Sure it embitters them for life, but who cares? I'm stronger than them and have shot their specialist economy into the ground.

So as you can see, I was quite scared, and I'm also quite relieved that I don't have to be scared of that anymore. It would have been difficult for me to deal with the sheer humiliation of losing a city like that.

In other news, an annoying neighbor who's name happens to not be thestick has decided to settle the floodplains between us, while he already has another floodplains. Methinks this counts as an act of open aggression.



Shall we release the chariots? Oh and speaking of which, both Hinduism and Buddhism have been yoinked already (as it is to be expected; it's not like I really tried to get them), and so I'm still debating whether to go for Code of Laws or HBR. I'm leaning towards HBR, especially with allies all up in my grill like that. And I ain't even having a barbecue!

So the plan I'm proposing to the collective right now is to connect those Horses ASAP and get a few chariots whipped with similar haste to try and destroy his new city. Best case scenario: I manage to actually keep the city and get a sweet gold + floodplains spot. Worst case scenario: my imagination is too vivid, and I will not even think about everything that can go wrong, lest I fall into a deep depression. Thoughts?

[CFCJesterFool]

I think HA better. Bulb math and chop out as many HA as possible.

[Tankra]

I forgot to make a massive update on T50, so I'll do it now, on T52. Get ready to be all up on the edge of your seats, my friends.

[SIZE="4"]Current Events[/SIZE]

My 3rd settler (i.e. 4th city) popped out on EOT 51, and he's headed south to claim the floodplains between me and thestick. Meanwhile, next turn my Horses will be hooked up, and I'll be able to start building Chariots, which will soon be replaced by Horse Archers in 7 turns, when my HBR tech will have finished. As for where exactly my settler will settle, that is still a matter that hasn't been... settled... yet. Oh god, I'm sure everyone just ragequit my thread now after that horrible pun. Anyway, here's what it looks like:



My settlers are up there in the blue circle, whereas my possible settling spots are numbered one to three. I'm currently leaning towards #1, because it's more readily defensible, can take up all the floodplains while still getting the Sheep and the Pigs, and has the added benefit of sharing the Gold with Senile Felines, which is a pretty cool plus as well. Positions #2 and #3 I also considered, because they allow me to be on hills, have an extra Fish and, respectively, a Sugar or a Stone resource, but they seem a bit too far off for me right now. I think I'll just go ahead and settle #1.

[SIZE="4"]The State of the Nation[/SIZE]

My demographics are kind of bleak, but bearable:



I have three cities, and in a few turns, will have four, catching up to Nicolae and SAT who are already there. My GNP isn't too bad, but MFG and Crop yield are pretty lacking. Overall, I'm obviously not doing too great at this point, and it's obviously because of my early entanglements with thestick, but I'm not going to let that bring me down.

Here's a rundown of my cities.

[SIZE="2"]My capital:[/SIZE]


It's doing pretty good as a Worker/Settler farm right now, and it'll keep popping out some Workers until I get HBR, at which point I'll start gearing up for war. Don't think I want any more Settlers for the time being.

[SIZE="2"]My second city:[/SIZE]


This one is, as always, a really cool city. Haven't begun the process of cottaging it yet, but regardless, it'll be a very good production city for my upcoming war.

[SIZE="2"]My third city:[/SIZE]


This one is pretty unimpressive for now, but it'll no doubt get better very soon. once it's got the Fish and the Deer improved, it'll be a good candidate for whipping me some horsies.

[SIZE="4"]Foreign Affairs[/SIZE]

Last but not least, let us talk about our opponents. IMO, Nicolae is leading right now in almost every aspect. He's got 4 cities, just got the Pyramids and has two floodplains cities. However, these types of things don't usually make you very good friends with your neighbors, and I'm quite sure that Sian would pile in when and if I decide to attack him. After all, they've already got problems in their relationship, and I wouldn't be surprised if Sian is preparing something. Unless, of course, his strategy is just to turtle and wait until Guilds, but I don't think he would pass up on a good opportunity to get some territory from Nicolae.

Another thing to consider is whether or my setting of the floodplains will annoy thestick sufficiently for him to declare on me. I don't really fear any reprisals from him, because I'll have Chariots, but nonetheless, it's something that could suck. But I think him and me have a sort of unspoken agreement that we shouldn't go to war again, at least not in the near future. We're still behind from our last melee, and it wouldn't be wise of us to engage again.

---

One last thing before I wrap this up, my culture pop in Repel a Leper discovered a nice little arctic oddity:



Marble! And I'm probably the one closest to it right now. I could be in a good position to make a bid for TGL...

[NobleHelium]

You might want to resize the image and not a selection within the image there.

[Tankra]

So here's an update after a long (but not quite so long in-game) hiatus. I'm sure you're all anxious to start reading my thread again! *crickets*

I've been up to a few things during this time, which I can summary in pretty much four points.

1) Teching Horseback Riding and then putting the slider back at zero in preparation for wartime ignorance and famine
2) Biding my time while building a respectable army to conquer some sweet Nicolae lands.
3) Watching in Machiavellic glee as my opponents set the stage for my conquest by quarreling amongst themselves.
4) Waiting on some pretty massive delays in turn-playage by pretty much everyone, not excluding some by yours truly. SAT and Nicolae have pretty much been the most consistent with playing their turns, and they deserve some sizable props.

Aaaaanyway... Let's get back to the matter at hand: Machiavellic glee. See, it all started when Sian settled a bit too close to the floodplains close to Nicolae and then refused Nicolae's (illegal) banter thread offers for trading a settler and blah-blah-blah for Sian not to settle. Either way, Nicolae decided to "make a deal" with Sian by force, and proceeded to delcare war. This war is still going on right now, but Nicolae clearly seems to be the victor from my admittedly imperfect vantage point.

At the same time, SAT were all like "hey, Stonehenge is a cool wonder and this map is pretty small. Maybe we can take advantage of this situation and declare war on Sian as well!" I'm slightly less enthused about this, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all of that, but for better or for worse SAT attacked Sian and grabbed one of his cities with impressive alacrity.

My initial plan was that Sian would become my natural ally versus Nicolae, and would serve as a second front covering my war, but I honestly think he has bigger fish to fry now. Unless, of course, thestick were ready to declare war on SAT as well, now that SAT is involved in a war. In such a situation, neither me or thestick would have cause to open up a front with the other, because we'd already be fighting in WWPBEM35. To make this even juicier, if we made an OB deal, we could be making some more moneybags while everyone else has two fronts to fight on. This would have the indirect benefit of taking some pressure off of Sian and thus adding more on Nic, potentially.

tl;dr - I've contacted thestick about opening our borders on t64, the same that I'm showing Nicolae my troops headed for his city, and I hope he decides to accept, at the very least. If he could then declare war on SAT, that would just be icing on the cake, honestly.

Without further ado, here are some screenshots of my empire to give you a better idea of wassup:

This is my modest army. Hopefully it will be enough to take his city. My guess (or is that a bet?) is that it will.



This is my newest city, Dumb Mud. I've begun cottaging it up and it looks pretty good already.



These are the horrible demos.




Let's see where my first real (sorry stick; our war kinda sucked) RB war will take me. I would like to be confident, but I honestly don't know what to expect.

[Ceiliazul]

So here's an update after a long (but not quite so long in-game) hiatus. I'm sure you're all anxious to start reading my thread again! *crickets*

Hey, welcome back! So honestly, horrible demos are horrible. Also, you really shouldn't have shown your HA army to nic (they could have staged on the forest 1W and been hidden in the fog)

I do like to you see your civ at peace while everyone else is warring...

Watch for an attack out of Dumb Mud... a combat worker could road your sheep (I think) and get a stack of slow movers all the way up to the city gates on t0 of the war.

Who's got the religions so far? Who's leading the pack? Got graphs on everyone yet?

[Tankra]

Hmm? I didn't show my HA army to Nic until precisely this turn. They just moved from Senile Felines to their present position on t64. I can't think of a more optimal way to have placed them to get at him as soon as possible, but maybe I'm missing something?

Also, I don't think that you can road a tile inside someone else's cultural borders. Even if you could though, unless his troops have Commando, won't be of much use.

[Ceiliazul]

Hmm? I didn't show my HA army to Nic until precisely this turn. They just moved from Senile Felines to their present position on t64. I can't think of a more optimal way to have placed them to get at him as soon as possible, but maybe I'm missing something?

Also, I don't think that you can road a tile inside someone else's cultural borders. Even if you could though, unless his troops have Commando, won't be of much use.

Ah, good call on the 'dumb mud' danger. I stand corrected.

Your Horse archers could have landed on the forest hill 1W of their current position this turn, then next turn revealed themselves to Nic by standing on the sheep tile. This would have given him one less turn to react. Not a big deal by any means, I still like your chances if he's focused his troops to his East.

[Tankra]

Your Horse archers could have landed on the forest hill 1W of their current position this turn, then next turn revealed themselves to Nic by standing on the sheep tile. This would have given him one less turn to react. Not a big deal by any means, I still like your chances if he's focused his troops to his East.

This would be true, if it were not for Nicolae's well-placed Scout. Basically, its presence made me wary not to road up the place too much or do anything particularly noteworthy that would give him a whiff of my intentions. With any luck I'll have caught him off-guard enough that even his scout won't increase his odds. I also don't think he has any 2-movers, so there's also that.

[CFCJesterFool]

Also, I don't think that you can road a tile inside someone else's cultural borders.

I know for a fact that you can. I always find it amusing when an AI captures a barb city behind my empire and then roads my territory to get the trade route with said barb city. Really saves on the worker turns.