[Spoiler] Any volunteers for a human sacrifice? Brennus of the Aztecs, by Krill

[Krill]

Turn 161a - Defeat in detail

Just because a game is against humans doesn't mean you can't milk it.

azza has moved every single spear out of Saffron, and has left only eight units to defend. This is the turn that I attack.

Seven spears and two HA are on that desert tile. The important thing to note is that the only way for them to reach Saffron next turn is via the plains road...which will promptly swap over to my ownership the moment I take Saffron (because it is claimed by Opportunism as well, and no other azza city claims that tile). That means that so long as azza does not have three workers in Fuchsia (unlikely as three of his workers were deleted last turn and I will capture this one here), Saffron is safe from attack from those spears.

azza sacrificed the spear. I'm quite happy with that outcome tbh, as it allows my archer to promote next turn.

azza is moving up a spear and longbow to camp the hill. In the end I've decided to not claim the hill as I wasn't sure I could hold it with what I had in the area and not keep a reasonable garrison in SG.

As you can see, an unpromoted catapult will not have good odds against the longbows in Saffron. Whatever happens, I will lose cats attacking those two units...however, the axes and swords aren't a threat to HA if they get hit by just two rounds of collateral damage. Which begs the question...just how many cats will I need to attack with before I can get odds on those longbows with my HA? I definitely will not need all eight cats, so I'm going to use the 2 promotion catapults to bombard down the walls.

Accuracy is a great promotion. I've only used four catapults so far, leaving me four 3XP cats to attack with.

I know I will need to use at least two cats, so I'm not going to bombard with any more just in case, but with 20% odds with a C3 HA already, I might not need to use all four cats.

One dead catapult, but there is only a single unit that has not been hit by the collateral damage, and that's an axe that I don't care about. The second longbow too the collateral, which is the perfect outcome (well no, the perfect outcome is the catapult knocks the longbow down to 25 health but I'm not complaining).

The C3 HA now has over 50% odds of not dying, and I have more than enough HA to make sure Saffron falls to me. My main aim is to conserve my forces and not lose too many units, and the secondary aim is to milk as much XP from this battle as possible. According to F5 from last turn I needed 21XP to get my next GG so that should happen at some point in this turn.

The second catapult died, but now the C3 HA has over 50% odds of winning outright. I'm still not happy with attacking with my HA now, I'm going to use another catapult...

...because it has almost as good odds to totally wreck the longbow and make it a trivial battle, and will likely wreck the other longbow as well, with 6/7 chance of hitting it with the collateral damage.

And the catapult withdrew looking at the damage to the units in Saffron . The rest of the battle should be fairly easy to figure out. I could attack with the fourth catapult, but I want to keep the battles against the axes worth 2XP, so I'll delay the catapult until later. I'll still attack with the catapult because a withdrawal will get it to 4XP and another promotion.

The sword is the best defender at 84% against a C3 HA.

Conversely, a C2+shock HA will attack the longbow at worse odds. *shrug* I'll take both of those.

Dead sword.

And dead longbow. Now all that remains is a 25hp longbow and a bunch of axes, and I still have chariots floating around.

I did say I needed a sentry chariot...and HA will only attack the axes, so I need to attack at some point with a chariot, and this gives me 3XP on the chariot.

So 3XP, and nothing standing in my way now except ancient era junk.

More XP please.

Now here is where it starts to get interesting. I could just about finish off Saffron with the units I have on the road network, and carry on the attack against Fuchsia...but I don't think it will work. I said I wanted Saffron and I'll take it, and minimise loses, attacking Fuchsia will at least let me raze the city and then lose every unit that remains alive afterwards. So I roaded the tile 2S of Opportunism to enable the attack to keep the workers safe. The workers on the plains forest will move later on when I make a final decision for them.

Attack without taking the promotion to heal quicker next turn or...

Play safe? After Cinnibar, I'm playing safe, HA are worthwhile but chariots I can afford to lose, they are only useful as scouts and extra units to steal workers.

I'll get that extra XP now thanks, to enable my sixth Accuracy catapult.

This will get my only 1 promotion HA another promotion...

...and a well placed second GG. Leaving a single, 1.3 strength axe to kill before capturing Saffron.

And another 2XP for an archer...which can then promote to CG2 to defend Saffron

Attack Cinnibar, lose 5 HA. Attack Saffron with walls and lose 2 cats. Overall, I'll take that outcome, considering the conquest gold.

Light house and granary. It lost the library, barracks and monument, meaning it will not be able to reach 100 culture for maybe 20 turns.Still, I think it's worth keeping.

23 extant HA and 12 catapults. I have one jag that I am going to turn into a W3+M3 healer to supplement the M1 scout. From now on, just build a defensive force and hold what I have.

I'm now going to fort the tile that I attacked Saffron from, as the fort acts as a city for healing, giving +20hp/turn rather than the standard +15, and I've also moved the medic scout onto that tile in preparation for next turns healing.

One more worker...next turn I will put the chariot I promote to sentry onto the hill to check out Fuchsia.

You can just make out that I put the CG2 LB into Saffron then convered the workers that roaded with a bunch of HA, to deter an attack from azza. As far as I'm concerned this war is over and we will go to a cold war unless azza agrees to peace.

How the turn unfolded. One of the better turns against azza IMO, and one I needed after Cinnibar.

I offered this as a gift to Nazul. So long as they don't try to screw me about I don't actually care what they do. Ideally they will go and try to settle the islands and maybe skirmish a bit with scooty.

This was a hard decision to make. Part of me wanted to go with the safety of Vassalage whilst I slave out a few catapults, but I'm going to go with the extra hammers from Bureaucracy; the extra commerce is just barely enough to cover the extra cost of the civic and having to pay for my army, though it will let me one turn research MC next turn. Slavery I drastically need to cut out some population and get a few more court houses into place, and Theocracy is madatory for WTF? and a few other barracks cities to get an extra promotion on the units.

[Krill]

Turn 161b - Defeat in detail

Missionary for CPH, but I also need to to get a few more of those missionaries out for the new cities I need to start settling now. I really want to research to Banking to get Grocers and Banks, but I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. Other point is I want to push out another GS so I could potentially double bulb either Education or Astronomy depending on my needs, and I should get over 2K beakers per bulb easy. And before any smart alec decides to point out using a Great Merchant on a trade mission for more gold, I don't trust a single player to not declare and kill the Merchant.

Slow and steady wins the race...I hope.

I'm going to build a few longbows to defend my cities better...but I want to build a forge asap.

After this catapult, definitely a court house. Though I wonder...grow onto plains farms or grass hills...

With the delay in revolting to slavery, RVC came down to only a double whip. I kinda want to get a worker over here to far mteh grasslands, simply to grow it a bit large then swap over to a workshop or two. Probably build a market next...it is that or wealth.

I think I need a minimum of four settlers excluding this one, and I'd like another two to keep with the army for tactical purposes. So probably going to be building settlers for a while...except I need another galley to go scout out that ice peninsula to the far north...for whales. Something I should have done beforehand, but now I'm getting my economy in order I can afford to settle for the silver now and not rely on the trade with Commodore.

Slaved the catapult, just in case, but next turn I will slave the court house for 3 pop and overflow the hammers into...a forge?

A catapult, hopefully the last one before I can start to build the Forbidden Palace. I have a bunch of cities I need to settle down here and the FP is a requirement to decrease the cost of the new cities while they get infrastructure up and running.

With MC just around the corner, I'm looking forward to getting NS up to size and being useful at long last. And run the spy because there isn't anything else decent to use.

After this catapult, provided azza is under control, I'm building missionaries for the Nazul lands I've pacified. ***65279;I doubt that I will get to grow SMS much until PRNGG has finished growing, but after then should have the banana for most of the remainder of the game.

If Nazul don't massively increase their power, which they have not really ben doing, I'll just get a few longbows out and then go back to growing PD vertically. I don't think I will turn PD into a cottage city, but it could perhaps make use of a forge and grocer then build wealth, working workshops.

Another slaved catapult, the court house will not be slaved next turn but finish naturally thanks to the overflow on turn 163. Then I will likely make use of the whip to get out a forge, if I have enough population. As I expect to use caste for a few turns (governed mainly by when Saffron needs it to pop borders to 40%) I need to make sure I have high pop in BL to also work artists to pop borders to 40%

Safety...

I have a spare warrior walking down to act as garrison for happiness, but I'm considering the effect of workshops on the grass hills. Even out of Serfodm, they are going to be worth an extra 3hpt which is useful considering PRNGG only makes 7 base hpt at size 14, but should have the happiness to grow to size 17 and work everything anyway, with that garrison and now WW. *shrug* I'll consider that later on.

Threepop slave for the court house and the city will promptly regrow next turn anyway. I seem to be carrying hte stacked whip anger fairly well here. Note the rice that needs irrigating still: all of hte available workers were sent down to go and help out at Opportunism, so I'll need to send a bunch of them back up north to continue improving the land.

More culture...

I'm definitely going to Struggle with Culture, getting it productive...

Boring.

Borders pop end of turn, then work the oasis. I'm going to have to chop the western forests for the granary here, the northern forest I want to save for a granary in a northern city.

This, weirdly enough, probably the best location for a Moai city, if I could ever kill azza.It's situated on a salt water body that only azza can get naval units onto, but naval units can leave either via a fort at SG or through a fort at Fuchsia to go towards yuris or scooty. The cities on this salt water body are actually some of the most important cities I could hold, as they can not be threatened by anyone else but can contribute to building a navy right where I need it.

48 unit cost...If I went back and worked out hte unit cost plus the inflationary cost for the past 50 turns, I'm sure I'd already have research Paper, MC and Machinery by now.

Second place power is increasing...but it isn't Nazul or azza. I lost Commodore's graphs, but I'll try to get them after I grab yuri's next. Crop yield is still fun.

Two turns until I have Yuri's charts, then I should get Commodore's the turn after. Then I'm looking at getting Cyneheard's when I meet him and the rest is going to be about getting research visibility.

Not the biggest dent in the world to my power graph, but azza should have an even bigger dent coming up shortly.

I am down MC, Monotheism, Optics, Machinery, Paper, and Engineering. I am up Meditation, Music, HBR and Feudalism, compared to scooty. I have 2622 beakers on them, they have 6036 on my, excluding Monotheism which I never need for the rest of the game (or Theology or Divine Right). So I am only down 3314 base beakers. I feel comfortable with that.

[Square Leg]

Turn 162 - Why are we still doing two turns a day?

I'm not joking, we're doing 2 turns a day. I really have no idea how, and it's a struggle to keep up.

Here you can see azza retreating his stack of spears towards Fuchsia. I can no longer see a straight forward route to capturing Fuchsia, short of a ton of maces or drafted muskets. And I'm not entirely sure of the advisability of doing that whilst azza can still build HA to flank away catapults.
I also put two longbows on the forest hill with two workers to road the tile next turn, to get a road from Saffron to Greed. The rest of the turn was just shuffling units around so I have most of the HA between Nazul and azza.

Having given up the hill, I'm going to just leave it with them. If they move off the hill they die, but they can stay there for a bit until I get a few knights and then those units can either retreat or die. I'm just not interested in wasting HA to kill them. I did offer azza peace for 200 gold, but I doubt he will accept. His choice, but if he doesn't I'm going to slave out the galley and then blockade hill so he doesn't get any trade routes and cut off his horse import (along with other resource deals and his OB commerce).

Free religion spread. Even if Cyneheard spread it, it's a free 1gpt to me, I mean.

After the missionary...a forge, for an adjusted 21 hpt.

Boring.

I'm going to build units until I'm down to 24 base hpt and then build a five turn forge. That should be on T169 by which point I can see what Nazuls power graph is like and decide if units are still worth while. As it is, I'm happy to build 8XP longbows and cats, they will be useful for hte next 75 turns.

Still court house next, I need to keep my city maintenance under control.

Shoot me...but with a city on the peninsula now affordable, I can build the galley here, and ship the settler over on this side, settle the peninsula then move the galley over. Worst case scenario I send up some workers to do a few forts that I can use for the rest of the game

Boring.

Whippy whippy.

Forbidden Palace next, it should only take eight turns to build.

Um...I'm bored and don't have much else to build...

Missionaries after this. Lots and lots of missionaries.

Two turns to go...

12 hammers overflow, 16 hammers needed to complete the court house, and 4hpt next turn to complete it. Then grow and prepare for running a bunch of artists to pop borders.

I've offered peace to azza, if he accepts I will slave the galley. Though there is an argument that slaving the galley this turn could be done. I could even gift the galley to Pingo if I don't need to use it and don't want to pay the upkeep.

PRNGG is starting to get pretty big now. With the second banana, it's growing so fast that it should reach size 17 around about hte time I can start windmill the hills. I will need 59 base worker turns to turn the necessary tiles to cottages and windmills. I think I'm going to have about 10 there when I need them, plus I can pre-cottage, so the change over should be quick.

Slave the light house for one pop on T164...the unhappiness will be gone atfer 5 turns thanks to the UB, then grow a bit and maybe try to get the forge out?

I'm a retard. I'm going to farm the grassland 87 of the city centre and the plains to irrigate the rive, and I'll watermill the plains tile 2S of hte city centre. I was going to irrigate the long way around, but I'll just workshop the tiles.

I really need to watermill these tiles...After CS, I really need to think long and hard between Paper or Machinery. Paper first might save me a bunch of beakers on Machinery if other teams have researched it but it will still cause a 5-6 turn delay on Machinery and the tile improvements.

Court house after culture?

Boring.

I have twenty cities now. I need to stop going through them every turn. Saffron still in revolt, no change here, but two archers and a longbow should be a reasonable defence so long as they is stuff that can reach the city to stop a naval attack from boats from working.

Bureaucracy capital is still useful when I can actually tech. Crap at funding a huge army, mind, but it can tech. I'm just about at the point where Vassalage and Bureaucracy are worth around about the same amount gold wise considering the civic costs, so it's not difficult to see why Vassalage isn't a super-trait most of the time.

I like the stats.

I like azza's power dive even more. But Nazul, please don't try to attack me in a few turns. I don't want to have to sit through another war and take Archaide off your hands.

This army big enough you think?

[Krill]

Great turn report SL!

[Square Leg]

People are going to realise we are same person soon..

[Krill]

Can't be. You understand cricket.

Edit:


Turn 163 - Your can expand without using HA?

Whilst I've been giving you a bunch of screenshots of my cities, I've not really been giving updates on what my land looks like except in passing. Here is the sight of my next city, one that should play an integral part in the late game. This is my NE city. It will have rice, banana and five unique grasslands that shall all be farmed. It will grow to be at least 15 (as it will also steal a farmed grassland from Opportunism or the plains hill city) and work seven specialists. There is a single forest to chop into the granary, so I will need to make the other 30 hammers the hard way, working the grass hill 2S of PRNGG that is not being used at present. That gives me time to get the rest of the land improved and for me to spread religion to the city to pop borders.

azza rejected the peace deal and pillaged the mine and road. Looks like I'm going pirating on the high seas.

Nazul have Paper on me, but are down Music and Alphabet. I somehow have more beakers than them.

I'm not cracking Fuchsia without maces or a lot of knights, but a blockade should cut out the horse trade to azza meaning he can't make any more HA. That then means he can't flank away all of my cats if I have a lot of cats, but he needs to either win or withdraw and some of his HA are already promoted to C2 so they will not have good odds of withdrawing. I could get a lot of units in position, and walk in, and take more land, but it would be bloody, and expensive. I need to keep an eye on war weariness as I'm already starting to suffer from it. Not much, but it is there, and it will get worse.

Yeah, a five turn forge then probably eat the unhealthiness as I can't bring myself to build an aquaduct in a city that can build a grocer fairly quickly. And run a scientist with the last pop point.

I have one unhappy face in each city due to war weariness (WW). Luckily I have a good happy cap so it isn't a problem, but for other players it could be a real ball ache.

Six more units before the forge. I will also have to build a grocer here for the health, but the forge should give me enough happiness for quite a while.

Boring.

More boring.

Yet more boring (see, when we rush through the turns everyone stops thinking and just builds. They should slow down and try to be sneaky bastards).

I can't think of anything else that I would like to build. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to go back into slavery after a short while in Serfdom and caste, I can also go into OR (for the first time in the game). DP will be large with the forge almost finished, and it can 1 pop whip the forge then do a large multipop whip into something else like a market.

Yep, 8 turn FP. I'm not going to need units against azza if I don't attack, and any attack of his is suicidal in nature anyway with the amount of units in have in the area so I can definitely spend the time saving me some city maintenance costs.

Changed to a settler, but I can slave the longbow if I need to now and the settler can be two pop whipped on T167. Seems reasonable because it then allows me to focus the workers on PRNGG and cutting down the jungle.

I'll need to build the missionaries for the new cities I'm settling, and the next missionary is due out eot T165. I have one extant missionary from Crapital last turn that is working it's way down, and I currently have CPH, By-tor, Axe and all of the new cities that need a missionary. So I could do with building a monastery in a good production city such as PD to help with the missionaries and provide greater cover in the late game if I needed any more of them, as SMS will have difficulty building all of the missionaries and growing when possible.

I currently have 19 hammers in the longbow, making 11 this turn, growing with zero food spare, and
next turn I will make 20hpt. If Nazul keep their power stable I could slip in a forge before a monastery maybe...six turns for that.

With the slave into the settler from NS due on T167, I could theoretically get BL to 30/100 on a settler by eot T165 for a triple slave on T166 leaving the city at size 5. Seems like a reasonable plan, with the FP due eot T170, that would mean that this settler could just about be in place to settle a city down in the jungle by the time the FP was finished.

I warned you azza...well, not really, it's an AI diplo game. I did give him a chance to not go down this route.

I've moved one worker down to that last bit of jungle to road then chop it, the workers coming up from Opportunism can help chop the tile.

Yeah, I think I'm going to slave that light house next turn...

I'll work the hill because the forge makes it a 1/4 tile, but the rest of the pop is going to be used to grow By-Tor to size 12-ish to work every hill, the silk and a few food tiles plus watermill and a workshop or two. Maybe that village as well.

Working the sugar because it is best if axe doesn't work it this turn.

Working the hill and plains farm means that I can pop borders this turn and then work the plains wheat which is already irrigated next turn, instead of waiting a turn to work a 6 yield tile. I have two longbows coming down to this city now...

Still boring. I really need to get that wheat improved...

Still in revolt...

Working the hill for until T171 then working the rice.

Well, at least I don't have to worry about my EP levels atm.

Still up 195K soldiers on second place...and I'm not even trying any more.

It might be a bit hard to see, but azza's power went from yuri's level to scooty/Pingo's level when I took Saffron. My two losses didn't even register. And Nazul are still building units...so what to do about that...

Thanks for the OB, Nazul.

[Square Leg]

Krill didn't send me the pictures for the T163 - report so it is all text that doesn't really have much context. I'll post the text for now and add in the pictures later.

T163

[Square Leg]

Turn 164 - This pace, it kills

No seriously, I can't actually keep up. This report was from a turn played earlier today but I've already played another turn after this one.

Pingo will win this again, for sure.

GE for Nakor, they do not have Music and hopefully they don't research it and steal Sistines.

And azza retreated. Not going to ask why but I'm taking the hill back as I have some HA in range and I can move the sentry chariot from the grass hill onto the plains tile to peek into Vermilion.

Two axes on defence in a city that can't be threatened by anyone. One of the major mistakes yuris has made in this game is overbuilding military when not threatened by anyone, which you can tell from a raised power in the F9 power chart after Commodore declared war on Cyneheard. Or you could say his mistake is not leveraging it against Pingo better.

Nazul don't have much built other than longbows.

Still no cats that I can see.

Added to city for another 2XP on units. Now making 8XP regardless of civics.

No one here is a threat so I'm going to cut off military builds except for WTF? and go back to building again.

I am making 50% more food than second place.

Couple of players are making hammers through tiles now, but the interesting point is that we seem to be split into two discrete groups, one making minimal hammers, azza, scooty and Commodore and the rest of us are just building stuff. Note that I lack Cyneheard and Micks graphs.

scooty need to turn their beaker edge into a land lead. I need to stop them getting land. And I have an army that I'm not using at present.
This is going to be fun.

So the reason Commodores graphs were lost was because he spy bombed someone, probably Cyneheard.

Once the forge has been built, I'll likely build a spy or five. I'll need so many missionaries that I can't afford the travel time from this far north.

Still boring.

longbows are always useful if you intend to hold land. Not so good for taking it though.

Court house next, and continue growing.

Boring.

For the south...

Need to regrow quickly. I might actually be able to slave something else out before I revolt out of slavery.

This Forbidden palace placement might not actually have as large an effect as it should, given the shape of my empire, but frankly, screw it.

Slaved on T167.

Missionary will be built in two turns. The next missionary will be done in 3 with zero overflow. After that, aim is to do three turn missionaries, running 13hpt for 2 turns, and one turn of 14 hammers.

Longbow then monastery, it doesn't look like I'm going to need the units after all.

Slave this on T166 for 3 pop with zero overflow. Settler number two.

I considered dumping the hammers into a trireme, but I'll double slave a trireme if I have to.

More growth. I'm definitely going for size 17 now, no slacking off at size 14.

Dunno what to build next. Maybe another forge.

With no mandatory buildings to build in By-Tor, nor any units to build, I'm unsure what I really ought to build here.

Will grow in three turns with no food overflow, and then double slave the granary on T167.

Try and get the court house down for a double slave, meaning I need 6 turns to build the court house then get a double whip of 62 hammers to finish it off.

More boring. Granary should be complete eot T167 though.

Last turn of revolt.

Next turn swap to the finished rice, grow in 4 eot T168. Slave the granary T171 to get an over half full food box but it should speed growth to size 3.

City maintence seems to have stabilised.

Well, I think scooty are researching again...

20% of world pop and 16.8% of the land, and I have not finished settling by a long way. I am in a good position land wise, but I will need tech trading partners. Not sure if there is anyone left who likes me except Commodore.

[Tyrmith]

Krill didn't send me the pictures for the T163 - report so it is all text that doesn't really have much context. I'll post the text for now and add in the pictures later.

Turn 163 – You can expand without using HA?

Holy Wall of text batman!

[Square Leg]

EDIT - Just as well I have my "Wall of text bat-reversing pill"


Ok - fixed for now.

I didn't have time to do anything else so link to the blog attached.

I'm not going through an dfinding all the links there - it'll have to wait until Krill returns.