[SPOILERS] Shoot Plays Another Restricted Diplo Game

[Shoot the Moon]

Declared war to scout Sian. Here's what I found:



I immediately offered peach. I have no intentions of choking him or anything--I don't want to make an enemy this early on. Should hopefully be obvious to Sian that I am just scouting him.

After ending turn both cities grew a pop (to size 3 and 4 respectively). Demogs:



Pretty decent on the crop yield there I must say. I am obviously behind in MFG, but seeing as I am soon to complete granaries in both my cities (next turn and the turn after) that crop yield becomes hammers pretty damn effectively via the whip. Keep in mind that GNP is currently artificially low because I have not selected my next tech. I'll also be switching to my first cottage next turn, so there's that too.

Still trying to decide on my next tech after AH. I'm considering between fishing because my next city location has fish and also workboats for exploration and possible circumnavigation, writing for half priced libraries (early academy) and on the route to mathematics, hunting-->archery for skirms, and IW due to the yummy jungle land.

[Shoot the Moon]

Also worth noting, it appears that Sian and Musicman have already met, on t26. On t25, musicman had 44 EP into me, on t26 it was 50, and then it was completely off of me (probably to try to disguise from Sian that musicman and I have met, although a turn late on switching it). I have turned off EPs on musicman so as to make it appear to Sian that I have met no one. Sian appears to have not switched EPs since meeting me (we are currently at 8/4, 12/4 after my ending turn which suggests he has put 2 EP per turn into me). So yeah, musicman and myself both met Sian at roughly the same time.

[Shoot the Moon]

Sian accepted my peace, and then later that turn had a warrior move next to my empty city:



Nice timing to have 10t of enforced peace

Musicman also showed up outside my borders:



Not particularly worried. I have a warrior in my capital that can promote to match his C1 and can easily produce another if need be. Rather doubt he'd be dumb enough to try to choke with a warrior at this point...

[Shoot the Moon]

Also completed my first cottage in my capital. Next turn the cows get hooked up. Granary just completed at end of turn (and with perfect food as the granary completed and now the city is at 9/18 food). I need to go sim what to build next in the capital however. My recent micro plan had me two pop whipping a settler with the overflow finishing a worker but I'm not entirely sold on that at this point. With granary the growth back would be fast, but I may just slow build the worker and settler to avoid going back to size two. As I said though need to sim it out.

Plan with my second city is to two pop whip the granary when it is at size 4 (and unhappy), overflow into a warrior that is necessary for "we demand protection" unhappiness and then slow build a worker at size three.

[Shoot the Moon]

We've gotten two turns in today The big news was that on the second turn, I founded Ka Ka:



I'll have two workers moving to 1N of the city next turn to chop out a quick workboat before then farming the rice. City will build workboat - granary.

Sian also founded his second city the same turn (I've been checking the trade screen) while Musicman, despite being EXP and getting a faster start, is still at 2 cities.

Finally, here are the demos:



Right now my capital is only at size two while putting the last turn into a worker. It already has a granary though (as does La Donor) so the plan is to quickly grow it back up while building warriors for scouting.

My next tech is writing so that I can have libraries to sink hammers into while growing back from whips. Libraries will also be useful for quickly getting out a GS (probably out of my second city due to its amazing food surplus). Finally, getting math out quickly would be quite nice (and is probably doable because of the gold mine). Might have to detour for skirms though, and perhaps IW. We'll see (I set research at 0% this turn regardless to give myself a bit more time to consider things).

[Shoot the Moon]

Pretty quiet turns, just completed my 5th worker at the end of t35. Also picked up graphs on Sian; here are the two important ones at this point in the game:





Not much else to report at this point. Finishing up a couple warriors next for exploration and then will probably put both Is Solemn Lie and La Donor on settler builds.

[Shoot the Moon]

The most interesting news is that Sian has sent a chariot here just as our enforced peace ended:



Right now there are two warriors in the city. I have another (1 promo) warrior en route from capital (currently SE-SE of the city), and can produce one from the city at the end of next turn if need be (put 4h into it this turn, can run 6h next turn). Annoyingly, the threat of Sian attacking has forced my workers off the "chop tile" but at least it is roaded so I won't lose worker turns coming back to it. My sims have suggested that attacking with just 3 warriors will win 8 out of 11 times, so considering I can have four I'm not terribly worried. Most annoying would be if Sian instead decides to go for my gold (although seeing as chariots don't get defensive bonuses I would just kill it the turn after he razes the gold).

Either way, I've decided to stop taking the risk of having only warriors for defense, so I'm going hunting, archery, which will finish at the end of t40. time to get skirms in play and not worry about any of this.

Anyhow, here is a screenshot of my empire:



All three cities grew at the end of turn. Both Is Solemn Lie and La Donor will build settlers next. Ka Ka will either build a granary or a WB for exploration (I'm currently favoring slow building the WB and then two pop whipping a granary for overflow back into the WB but we'll see). Anyhow, here are demos after ending turn:



And crop yield of me and my neighbors:



Finally worth noting, in the last two turns Musicman has jumped from two cities to four cities.

[Shoot the Moon]

Also worth noting, my GNP lead is coming while I am on no pre-req bonus hunting. Yes I do have cultural boosting it, but there is one other cultural and mackoti with hinduism, so in sum I'm pretty happy to know my tech pace is the strongest in the game at this point. Gotta think about if there are any wonders in the next level of techs that I might aim for.

[Shoot the Moon]

Sian wound up just going SW-S. Nice, as that means I'll now get to use the warriors for exploring (which I need to do more of) rather than killing that chariot.

[Shoot the Moon]

As I am sure Sian posted in his thread, he declared war on me this turn to capture (not even raze) my city. He's not going to be able to hold it. All he has is one chariot injured in the city and nothing else near it. In essence, Sian is a complete dumbass at this game. I am going to choke him so unbelievable hard it's not even funny. Sian, when you read this, congrats on not winning this game. I'll call it right now: it's not going to happen.