My name is Ozymandias, King of China: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Yep, SAT has Iron Working. He's chopping his own jungle on the stone. It will be chopped next turn.

However, from what I recall, there's no evidence that SAT's been quarrying his stone. Mine is already hooked up. Aqueduct whipped. Incoming chop and settlement on the same tile, next turn. 1 turn Hanging Gardens

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Bam!

1t Hanging Gardens

(Not final screenshot, don't worry about the river mines).

In any case, MHC II is 5t away from a Great Person. I hope it's a Great Engineer, so I can save it for a Machinery bulb. Once that's done, I can happily pollute the pools with as many

The new city and suddenly flying up to 37 citizens have put me to negative gold at 0% science. Enough gold to last me another 4-5 turns before banrupcy. Currency in ~3 turns by running rep specialists, then I'm set.

I'll be whipping out another round of workers, the war has put me behind in worker turns. I'm considering switching Lck over to a cottage city, though Great Person Farm is also an option.

Reasons to cottage Lck: I'm running specialists in all my cities, I'm not going to go out of my way to concentrate them. And I want the Great Library in my capital.

Reasons to farm Lck: It's still a front city. And Tankra's likely to use the turns of peace to settle up against me and steal my sheep. And if that happens, I will need the extra food to whip out CKNs and burn it.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Hmm, I may have done something stupid.

Sian and I are at war. Hence we have no trade connection.

If Sian and I were at peace, we wouldn't have trade routes, but we'd have a trade connection.

That trade connection passed to SAT via a couple of roads.

Unfortunately, I pillaged them.

I could have had trade routes with SAT right now if I'd taken peace and not pillaged those damn roads! Instead, I pillaged a bunch of roads and now both Sian and SAT are going to be pissed off at me

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Yes! Finally, we have a fucking turn.

A few mistakes. T72, I accidently skipped the turn of a worker. I also messed up and moved a worker in the wrong direction.

Nevertheless, a minor victory. I'm the first person to connect Pigs! And this is despite SAT having IW for a long time. Hmm, one possibility is that he's only recently teched IW. And instead, Sian was the first to tech IW, and after Sian aggressively settled for the iron, SAT noticed the +1h yield on the tile, and decided to opportunistically attack after Sian settled without sufficient defence.

And I have 12 workers for 8 cities. And this is with a specialist economy. After currency comes in, I need to consider another wave of expansion

[flugauto]

Could you post tech tree to see the tech situation. Any plans for chokonus?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Losing money even at 100% gold. But that's okay, I'll be pillaging Sian's mine next turn. If not, I still should be able to micro it out.

Tech screen. Still early. I've also got Mathematics, on the next column. And yes, I'm currently thinking of CKNs.

Metal Casting is a great tech for me. Forges. Opens up a Machinery Bulb. And the Colossus. I'm not totally sure what SAT's been up to, he just burnt a ton of stored gold a few turns ago. The question is, on what?

Construction, to get some cats out and finish off Sian? Possible. But I don't see any bridges in SAT's land.

Metal Casting, to get the Colossus? Also, possible, but I don't see evidence of SAT setting up some chops into it. Because that's what I'd aim for, get 3 forests chopped into Chiton on the same turn once Metal Casting comes in.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Pillage successful, Currency came in, I'm getting +$18 after EoT. Mostly from the foreign trade routes that just kicked in.

What else? SAT teched Code of Laws. I don't mind, it's not that useful to him, and it gives me a discount when I tech it.

Buddhism spread to one of my cities, giving SAT a free +$1.

And Stick just had a huge power spike, I spot cats in his land

[Nicolae Carpathia]

1AD! I won't get a chance to screenshot-update T75, but I will do T76 if I get the save while I'm at home.

Currency is in, a couple of wealthbuilds, and I have a nice little fund built up. I'd estimate Metal Casting to come in ~5 turns from now.

Another reason to build the colossus in RAG1: The culture. If I'm not careful, SAT's holy city will steal my 2nd ring tiles. With Colossus, I will be able to hold them. Plus, the colossus can let me delay CoL. After all, the best use of Caste Scientists is to work as many food positive tiles as possible, and cap out on scientists. However, I'm anticipating an expansion wave, which means I don't want to cut my growth just yet. Hence, I'll try to grow onto coasts and 2 scientists/city.

Finally, let's talk about my Great General. What to do with him?

I could settle him for +2xp, and if I tech Horseback Riding, Feudalism and get Theocracy, with barracks, I can build a unit with 11xp, which unlocks the Heroic Epic. However, Monarchy and Feudalism are not on my tech path.

Or, I could attach him to a unit. A Supermedic? A 6-move galley? Also possible, to help me dominate the islands. There are some nasty opportunities to screw over SAT with fast galleys. So how about both? I can split the GG's 20xp across 2 units. If I can get a Chariot to 7xp (with rax, stables, and theo), I can get the 17xp needed for Combat 1, and Medic 1-3. If the other 10xp go into the galley, I can get Flanking 1 and Navigation 1-2, for a 5-move galley (because I have circumnav). If so, I'd need to control it so that the Chariot gets the General attached (so unlocking Medic 3), while the Galley gets the remaining xp. Is this controllable?

So, the former is a defensive plan that requires a tech detour and flipping into suboptimal civics, the latter is an offensive plan to dominate more land. Choices, choices...

[Nicolae Carpathia]

A real update! Not quite 1AD, but close enough.

First, city screens.

Capital. Just grew onto the lake, I'll switch it out to a cottage. The missionary was rather slow to build, but I wanted to focus on food and science right now.

PLCg just finished its granary. It will be passing one of its cottages to the capital, and take back the 3/0/2 whales. With Lighthouse and Colossus, I'll have a bunch of really nice 3/0/3 tiles.

The real Zap70. The plan is to grow while building the library, and then a lighthouse.

TCR is working on a settler to snatch Sian's iron. I've spend 2 turns building the settler. 1st turn I was working 2 scientists, this turn I fired them both. At EoT, it had 25h inside it, meaning I can double-whip it next turn

RAG1 just finished whipping its library, and overflowing into a missionary.

Settler will move into position on T78, settle T79, and have a religion spread on the same turn. Borders will be popped over the fish on T84. Iron will be mined on T80. That means the workboat build will be T79 (3), T80 (9), T81 (15), T82 (21), move to position T83, connected T84.

Next turn, I'll move one of Lck's citizens off the cottages and hire a scientist. The turn after, I'll a citizen from the farm onto the cottage, so I'll grow to size 7 and be able to work 2 scientists and 2 cottages.

JF is doing... something. Maybe he wants to settle the plains hill? Borders pop over the plains hill T78. JF has 2 turns to settle, and I don't see evidence he's whipped a settler anywhere. And even if he settles, I'll have 1 inner ring of culture putting pressure onto the plains sheep tile.

Grew to size 6, I'll be switching one of the farms to a mine next turn, putting a turn into a settler, and whip out another city. This time, to grab my own native source of iron.

Not much. I'll want a lighthouse for some nice tiles.

Hey, wait a moment. How about snatching the Great Lighthouse as well? I have 5 coastal cities, 2 just off-coast, and 1 inland city. My next wave of cities will all be coastal. Of course, if I get it, then it's going to guarantee a dogpile

I have 3 BFC forests, and 1 3rd-ring forest. With IND and Hinduism, and after adjustment for multipliers, that's 3x35 + 28 = 133h. Easily enough for the GLH

2 things. I'm bringing my axe south, back home. He's served me well. Now that I no longer care about Sian, I'll let SAT take his share of the spoils.

Unfortunately for SAT, he needs to worry about this So after SAT finish dealing with this, he'll take a big economy hit. And if he attacks JF, Stick'll need to spend 2 turns slogging through JF's culture. Though Stick has open borders with both neighbours, mean they can spot his attacks. So I expect it merely forces my neighbours to stay home an militarise, giving me breathing room to tech to CKNs.

Demos. I'll be taking a bit of a food drop in a bit, alongside a big GNP spike when I turn on research to finish Metal Casting and Archery. Bring on the dogpile!

Another problem, TCR has 69/134 GPPs sunk into it. At the same time, I expect that I'll need to build a rax and pump out a few rounds of CKNs, just to fend off the dogpile. So those GPPs will be inaccessible until I start squeezing out golden age GPPs. But I've always resolved to never allow sunk costs to cloud my decision making.

Oh, have I mentioned? I have a Great Engineer, for the Machinery bulb I expect ~30/70 odds for a GE/GS from my capital, in 10 turns. If a GE, I save for something like an Engineering bulb. Else, build an academy. GScientists in slots 3+ are bulbed up the liberalism line.

MC went from 76 to 133 from Start to End of Turn. I need 301 more adjusted beakers. In other words, 250 raw beakers to finish MC. Can I do that in 2 turns? I believe so, with these current wealthbuilds, I can get +124b/-32g/turn. When i whip TCR, I've decided to not aim for any overflow, and instead maintain both scientists. That means MC comes in beginning of T79.

Let's see, I'll be overflowing 12h from the Missionary. I will have 2 chops come in on T78, which will be stored as I will be building wealth. The turn I have MC available, I will put a citizen on a 0/3/0 plains hill for 9 base hammers. That means 61 base hammers on T80, enough for instant colossus

Finally, I've come to a decision, and will be settling my Great General for +3b and local +2xp next turn. Should have done it earlier, save me some unit maintenance and gain some representation beakers, but I was still in the middle of deciding what to do with the guy.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Some shots of my opponent's land.

Dunno if I mentioned earlier, but I was wrong about where Sian settled his city. It really did steal SAT's fish and iron. So obviously, he didn't have sailing at the time. And yeah, that was an awkward position, both aggressive and forming a salient, that as incredibly difficult to defend. More so than my aggressive plant.