[SPOILERS] Emporium For Sale. We Don't Rent Pigs.

[Ceiliazul]

t98:
0% tech, saving gold.

San Antonio trireme is 1pop whip, popped LH directly instead.
Dodge City 2whipped aquaduct as indicated
Austin built archer
finished chop/mine near Lonesome Dove (will finish missionaries next 3 turns.) This delayed farm near Austin, which isn't needed yet anyway.
Abeline grew as indicated (swapped max food)
Ogalala got WLTMD. Again! :-)
Sheridan not blockaded (Did Novice misclick?): Great Bend worked copper and knocked out most of Moai. 3 Triremes near Sheridan moved up adjacent to Novice's trireme, but did not attack.
Dazed chariot stack still in Eridu, no aggressive moves from the others.
Declined to whip Tombstone, in case of Novice aggression. Whipped Miles City
Great General moved into Fort Smith, not sure what the plan is so keeping him safe.

I'm short on time too :-) (This is a better report than 42 will get this week!)
Nice setup on the Hanging Garden's build, hope it flies.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

t98:
0% tech, saving gold.

San Antonio trireme is 1pop whip, popped LH directly instead.
Dodge City 2whipped aquaduct as indicated
Austin built archer
finished chop/mine near Lonesome Dove (will finish missionaries next 3 turns.) This delayed farm near Austin, which isn't needed yet anyway.
Abeline grew as indicated (swapped max food)
Ogalala got WLTMD. Again! :-)
Sheridan not blockaded (Did Novice misclick?): Great Bend worked copper and knocked out most of Moai. 3 Triremes near Sheridan moved up adjacent to Novice's trireme, but did not attack.
Dazed chariot stack still in Eridu, no aggressive moves from the others.
Declined to whip Tombstone, in case of Novice aggression. Whipped Miles City
Great General moved into Fort Smith, not sure what the plan is so keeping him safe.

I'm short on time too :-) (This is a better report than 42 will get this week!)
Nice setup on the Hanging Garden's build, hope it flies.

First, awesome job playing. We're in first place now.

That was a mighty nice at Dodge City. Your whip hand is strong...

Second, proper report coming tomorrow. Ceil, thanks again.

[spacetyrantxenu]

MOAR PHOTOS. I want to see your high water mark well documented, before Novice comes to kick over your sand castles. Good job on the HG, glad to see you were able to land it after all that business about getting the stone delivered on time.

[Ceiliazul]

you're welcome. Is Novice's boat still there near stone city but not blockading? It looked to me like it's just fortified there.

Also, I didn't have any idea what the plan was for the Great General, hope I didn't mess up any timing action.

[Ceiliazul]

I'm not spoiled on this game, I'll stay dedded for a bit here... if there's actually some reportage.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T99

I've sucked at reporting for a little while, things have gotten busy. But, with the prospect of some company in this thread, I'll make a better effort. So, T99. A very good turn for us, as we built the Hanging Gardens in Dodge City. But first, the lay of the land:



Zak's HAs have evacuated from the city. I can't think of anything for them to do elsewhere on the island, so best guess is that they're back on the mainland. Also, there has been some fighting, though I didn't analyze closely. I think it involved novice and Dazed, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Zak's force reduction here is a good thing for me, as we don't clash anywhere else. I still have that modest stack on my pigs tile, but I may reposition it more aggressively at some point. Also, I have the galley/trireme pair on my clams. I'm going to push the patrol north, but I need to remember that Zak has the circumnavigation bonus, though he still laks Metal Casting. Best guess is that he's pushing hard for knights, as he lacks bronze. I'm not in game at the moment, so I don't know if he has his iron hooked up. (Preview edit: of course he does, he has axes...)



Novice in the north. Ceil, good job running off his boats. We traded triremes and he's not blockading me currently. I'm satisfied not pushing the issue with my small armada. Keeping the stone hooked up is so important to the economy (fail gold) that I can't risk becoming overextended and falling into a trap.



Novice in the south. Same thing here. I have plans for the marble for fail gold soon, so I don't want to lose my boats. I only have two triremes in this group, so it is very vulnerable. Novice had a trireme in Void on T97 which is no longer visible, as well as another on the fish, so we're already at parity here. Also, I can't afford for him to slip a trireme behind my flotilla, so we're going to do a gradual retreat until he can't sneak anything past us. Also, we'll be easier to reinforce closer to my borders. There's not much I benefit blockading here other than the fish, so I'll stay close to that and remain wary. I hope my boats are still there next turn.

Ok, so that's the tactical situation (Dazed remains quiet). T99 economy looked like this:



Still pushing economy. I still have some hammers reserved here and there, waiting for a spot in line for fail gold or for a religion spread. Opponent tech situation:



Notable here is Zak on the road to Guilds, and novice currently researching Machinery. He's running a fair number of specialists, which is certainly why I've caught him on crop yield. Even when he's saving gold, he's running a decent-ish tech rate. I certainly did NOT want him to get the Mids, but it's my own fault. Anyway, I plan to counter him on maces by teching Machinery soon. I think T100 I can turn research back on and finish on T101. This would be a decent use of my HG population growth. Not pictured, Zak is currently in HR/Caste/Vassalage.

(Most) city screens:

Lonesome Dove is finally turning into the Bureaucap that is needs to be. It will continue growing and taking cottages in the coming turns.



It was finally time to stop on wealth/units and get the library done. Past time, certainly, as it's been growing cottages for Lonesome Dove since being founded. But, once those tiles go over to LD, there is a decent food surplus here and lots of production. So, production and a specialist or two. If I get a prophet, I'll probably put a shrine and commerce multipliers here.



I'm glad the HG lasted this long. Good food surplus here, good production. This will be the National Epic, once I get there. For now, it's also going to dump some overflow into Moai (T101). Highlighted, you can see we're still set up for a nice whip/overflow on T100. Should net some decent coin from that.



You can see the plan here. Next turn we'll overflow the courthouse into the Moai. This is certainly mechanic abuse, but since it's legal, we'll use it. Same as those damned blockades with wooden boats.



Cottage grower that has been whipped severely. But, it's done its job, as that navy is providing stone. More of the same here in the future: Whip/regrow on cottages. Once we're past the worst of the whip anger, I'll grow onto the coast.



Moai city, AKA "A Dream Deferred". I really want the Moai finished so I can get some production in this theater of war to match novice's northern navy (I know a strike is coming eventually). But, the fail gold is too yummy to ignore. Yes, I do feel slightly guilty with all this cheese. But is it worse than the blockade? Perhaps. /shrug



I have a missionary set to spread the good word here next turn. What we really need is a garrison, which I could have also had here on time, but fouled up the unit movement. Oh well, I may just whip the courthouse and not worry about the garrison/unhappiness immediately.



I believe I'm preserving courthouse overflow here for the OR bonus. Missionaries are coming fast and furious out of Lonesome Dove, so patience is a good thing here. I'm moving workers this way to get those last cottages done.



Upward and onward. I don't want to whip here too much, but there is a good food surplus. I want to grow onto the coast here when I'm able. I'll be producing some navy here, once we're done with the basic infrastructure. The courthouse is the last "must have" for now.



Coming along nicely here. The forge was aided by a chop. I'll chop the other forest on my border to deny it to novice. He looks to be making moves elsewhere for now, so I should be able to manage the chop without too much difficulty. Lighthouse/courthouse here next. Probably courthouse first, because I'm short on improved tiles and we'll grow back from a 6/3 whip quickly.

And, some demos. This turn, given the completion of HG, I'll do a before/after version.

Sorry, I'm not smooth enough to just do a cropped/pasted version of everything in the same shot...Before/After demos:




Before/After victory screen:




One thing to note is that we have a lot of unhappy faces. I'll mitigate that with troop movements next turn, and also with whips.

Feels good to get a good post up. Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for stopping by!

[Ceiliazul]

The farm with strategic-layer lines was just an indication of worker moves for chops... I didn't want to disturb your finely arranged pile of signs.

I expect Novice is using machinery as a public placeholder and will get Calendar next. May I suggest Iron Working next, and a settler for gems? It comes with 24% bonus beakers for being last, and those jungled islands need some slash-and-burn action.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

The farm with strategic-layer lines was just an indication of worker moves for chops... I didn't want to disturb your finely arranged pile of signs.

I expect Novice is using machinery as a public placeholder and will get Calendar next. May I suggest Iron Working next, and a settler for gems? It comes with 24% bonus beakers for being last, and those jungled islands need some slash-and-burn action.

I'm totally down for teching IW, just don't want to be two military techs down on novice (Construction is the other). I've been loathe to settle any more cities, but finally a new one can be afforded. And, gems would be awesome. What do you think of sitting on cash until novice declares one way or the other? Or, until fail gold powers a bit of reserve for fast teching in case we need to play catch up. This empire is still full of bloat and remains expensive. But, gems... Yeah. We still have plenty to fill our build queues, but the extra food would be nice. And, I need to settle the island south of Zak. I do have units there to defend already...

One other concern is scraping up enough units to defend the gems location as well as Virginia City to the south. I'll be right on an established border, and not on the hill. I rue ever letting that third border pop. Just terrible timing there. The flip side, of course, is that I knew novice is CRE and could have counted culture per turn and so known when the borders would pop and hurried my ass up some settling that spot, but that's tooooo much like work in my book to count and honestly I never thought it would be an issue.

[Ceiliazul]

Well then no choice but to raze the offending city!

Gold in the bank is just wasted tech. A small reserve for the odd critical upgrade maybe handy, but whole techs unrealized are a waste. (Exception: saving for a string of techs where you don't need the intermediate ones at all.)

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Well then no choice but to raze the offending city!

Gold in the bank is just wasted tech. A small reserve for the odd critical upgrade maybe handy, but whole techs unrealized are a waste. (Exception: saving for a string of techs where you don't need the intermediate ones at all.)

I understand that about being wasted tech, but what I'm hoping to brace against is spending on economy (IW or Calendar) and then needing to save 6t before being able to tech something critical (in this case, Machinery to counter with maces of my own). The delay at that point would be dangerous. With the current situation, I feel safe enough. And, the build queues are full everywhere, except that they could be building maces if I burn my gold. But, if novice goes for Calendar instead of Machinery, I can also invest in economy, and am positioned to get MoM well ahead of him. Dazed could build it, he's had Calendar for quite some time, but I don't see him doing it. If he does, he'll have to fight to keep it.

As for razing the city, eh, novice has 60% borders, tech parity, and catapults. I'm not making much of an advance there for the time being. But I think I can push back first ring and defend well enough with catapults. LBs too aren't terribly far away, if needed.