[SPOILERS] This Is Asgard! A Tale of Post-Ragnarok Midgard

[oledavy]

Turns 44-45

A couple of very quiet turns. The biggest news is that Serdoa finally settled a second city.



Also note, Jowy stole another worker, this time from Capetown.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 47

So, here's the big news of this turn, the news that brought Serdoa out of his update coma:



That has got to be one of the biggest fuck you city plants I've ever seen. Jowy leap-frogged over Capetown to settle a city in Serdoa's face, and bought the silver Serdoa's city was going to grab. Annoyingly, that city prevents me from settling the citrus, which would have been in my sphere of influence otherwise.

I can't help but feel like this is a serious overreach by Jowy, settling in lands both of his neighbors could claim as their own. I know he's been doing very well for himself up there, but he's not doing well enough to get away with something like this - especially since he's settling in the face of someone with a spammable early UU.

This all creates a very interesting dilemma for me. As I said earlier, I was hoping to plant a conservative city or two in that region to pick up the gems and citrus. I'm now prevented from doing either. That citrus will shortly be within his culture, and I would need to settle a very awkward city in Serdoa's sphere to grab the gems and obey the distance rule. Furthermore, a city built for the gems would be cut off from the rest of my empire. Now, I could solve this by attempting to conquer the city. While the surrounding terrain is pretty defensible, the city itself is on flatland, and, most importantly, my lines of supply and reinforcement would be significantly shorter than Jowy's. However, taking the city would mean that me and Serdoa would then be at odds, and Jowy would get off minus one city and be able to continue to tech and build north of the Jotun Mountains. I could raze it, but that would not provide a good return for all those precious hammers invested in military.

The net result is that there is not really a 'winning' play I can make to lock down those luxuries. Either I don't get a good return on my investment, or I put myself at odds with Serdoa, both of which do not help me win this game. Moreover, I feel certain Serdoa will shortly declare war on Jowy and take that city for himself, long before any expedition I launched could arrive. Unless he is a tech era ahead, there is no way Jowy can hold that city. All Serdoa really has to do is entrench 3-4 ranged units on the hills south and east of the city, bombard the defenses, and destroy any unit that attempts to come out and engage them. While the city would be difficult to attack from my side (the southwest), it will be really easy to batter down from the east. Whenever Serdoa finishes bombing it down, he sends in a trireme to capture the city. Pretty much the only way Jowy can defend the city is to deploy units en masse to the southeast of the city to prevent Serdoa from taking the high group

So, yeah, I'm just going to content myself with less land than I thought I would have, and sit this one out. Let Serdoa take a chunk out of Jowy and put both of them behind a little bit. Hammers are so precious for me, I need to make sure every single one is going somewhere important. For me, the current priorities are to get a fourth city up ASAP to capitalize on the Tradition bonuses - that city will be going west of the capital in the jungle instead of on the citrus as originally planned. After than, all my gold and hammers will be going towards getting the National College built ASAP.

TL;DR Version: I'm not going to do anything about Jowy's city plant. Other than to say it's a wasted settler from Jowy's angle and a free city for Serdoa.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 50

Turn fifty has come and gone without much fanfare. Still building, waiting for the fireworks to start abroad.



Of note recently:

- Serdoa built the Oracle (t49) - not sure if that was the best decision considering how many hammers he already sank into an early wonder.
- The ToA was built abroad. So far, the Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Oracle, and Temple of Artemis have all been built.
- Jowy popped the barb camp north of Ragusa. Annoying, but at least all he got for it was 16 gold and a bit of xp on his units.

End Turn.

[yuris125]

would you say 3 cities is good enough for this point of the game? how do you plan to expand next?

[oledavy]

would you say 3 cities is good enough for this point of the game? how do you plan to expand next?

I'd say it's pretty good. I had three cities at this point in PBEM1, and in that game I took Liberty instead of Tradition, so if anything, my expansion should have been faster there. Granted, that start was leagues better than this one and I substituted building settlers with building three wonders (Stonehenge/The Oracle/The Great Lighthouse) in addition to expanding. I don't have the production to do that here. Moreoever, I think more and more than spamming out those early wonders in PBEM1 simply because I had the production to do it was a poor choice.

I want to get a fourth city out relatively soon to proc the tradition benefits (Free Monument, and soon, +15% growth plus a free aqueduct). I'm planning on settling a city along the river between Valhalla and Asgard, as it's the best of my remaining city locations. The city will be on the hill the archer is sitting on in the picture below:

Turn 51



You can also see me engaging the barb archer. I don't think I'll pop the camp yet, as I am hoping one of the nearby city-states puts out a quest for it. Rather, I'm planning on just killing the extra barb unit and screening off any more units that spawn from heading south for the time being.

I was originally planning on saving to buy another settler, however, I'm now considering dumping 250 gold next turn into Wittenburg to take advantage of the last turn of it's public works project - granting me 40 influence instead of the usual 30.



I'm sure to proc it's natural wonder quest relatively soon with my scout heading west, and I can also certainly get gems at some point for even more influence. The net effect would be to make the city-state a firm ally, gain a pantheon through it's faith, and possibly a religion further down the road. Whether this is better than buying a settler/worker, or saving and throwing money at Rio instead, I'm not sure. I'll mull over it when I go cycling this afternoon.

Of interest in the east:



I'm not keeping careful track, but I'm pretty sure Serdoa bought that tile southeast of Novac. I wonder what he's planning....

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Turn 53

While the lurker thread buzzes and Jowy makes us miss a day, the Norse people continue to grow in peace in the great river valley south of the Jotun mountain range.



A couple things to note in this screenshot:

1. I killed the barb archer, and moved my archer next to the encampment. My warrior is healing in my land.
2. Queued up a settler in Asgard.
3. Completed and moved off my horsemen, where are they going you ask?



I'm going to see if I can snipe that camp north of Capetown. As of this turn, Jowy has still not popped it for the 50 influence. Hopefully, that condition holds long enough for my riders to get into position. Worst case scenario, I miss it, but instead get to scout out his lands and freak him out with the danger of horsemen on his borders.

I dumped 250 gold into Wittenburg:



Hoping to proc the Natural Wonder quest ASAP.

I have been debating to myself for a couple days now on which Pantheon to take. Right now, the debate is between Fertility Rights, Sacred Paths, or Stone Circles. Basically, the decision is thus: Do I want to cash in my faith for an advantage right now, or hedge my bets, take Stone Circles, and cash it in later by picking up a religion. Right now I'm leaning toward the latter. The culture would be nice, the food would be nice, but with an alliance with Wittenburg and three Stone Circles, I could hit 10 fpt. I could have all three quarries prepped to go just about the time I pick up the Pantheon, then hit a prophet 15-18 turns later. This would allow me to get some pretty nice advantages off religion fairly soon, and solve the problem of what to do with the faith leftover after I get my pantheon. The lack of Desert Folklore gimps most religious strategies, particularly going wide and spamming pagodas. However, I could still do quite a bit with 10 fpt. Only 4 religions can be founded in this setting, but I'm pretty sure I can lock down one before they're all gone. What I take for founder and follower beliefs will depend on what's available at the time.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

So, I made a "For the metagame situation!" declaration of war. Jowy is going to hate me forever.

More later.

[oledavy]

Turn 58

Alright, so several turns have passed, let me bring you all up to speed really quick.



Still clearing out barbs north of Asgard. Just finished a settler which is headed west to found my fourth and last city for awhile. Need to find a name. Asgard is now building a library. Not sure if I want to clear this camp out just yet, but I can sure as hell continue clearing out the barbs that spawn; stacking xp on my units and GG points.

The big news is in the East:



That's going to net me quite a bit of influence :D



Still need to meet three more civs and six more city-states.

Anyway, so as you may recall, I was sending a horsemen north to clear out the barb camp for Capetown. Unfortunately, Jowy cleared it out last turn (t57), and actually founded the new city of Goodsprings right next to the ruins of the encampment. I wasn't quite sure what to do with my horsemen, but I went ahead and moved them north to check out the area. I had the opportunity to snipe a worker, but held off, this is the situation that greeted me when I opened the save:



Also note that me and Jowy exchanged embassies this turn (yes, he finally researched writing) so I now have visibility on Freeside. Anyway, this turn was notable because Serdoa declared war. I expect he's currently positioning Atlatlists to siege down the city, and I would like him to succeed, Jowy is the tall poppy on this end of the continent. He has the highest production in the game (double mine), a strong crop yield, and just all around is looking very good. Check out this:



He has 18 total pop and four cities to my 13 total pop and three cities, that's...significant.

So, basically I declared war on him for three reasons:

1. I want Serdoa to take Novac, and if I can interdict his supply routes and prevent reinforcements from reaching the city, that makes it more likely Serdoa will succeed and thus even out slightly the regional balance of power.
2. Low opportunity cost. I have a horseman in the region, horseman absolutely stomp archers, I can kill off a couple units, maybe capture a worker, with no cost to myself. Jowy does not have a large military, and the majority of it has been accounted for between those two archers and what I spotted around Novac. He's not going to be able to seek vengeance on me, at least for right now. Further, there is a decent chance that the worker I capture used to belong to Capetown or Ragusa, so I can net 45 influence if I do get lucky on that front.
3. Shock and Awe. Jowy was probably expecting Serdoa to declare war, he probably was not expecting me to. Part of the reason I declared war is simply for the demoralizing effect of opening the save and seeing both your neighbors at war with you and your lands being invaded.

Overall, Jowy has had a strong game so far, is positioned to runaway, and I would like to hinder him as much as possible. I would really like to prevent him from landing Petra and becoming ungodly strong, but there's no way I can compete for that wonder. Anyway, here is what I ended up doing:



Killed his archer (taking 9 damage, then looped around to setup to attack the other one next turn and attempt to capture the worker. I wish I could say I pillaged those fields, but it seems he's had trouble with barbs. At any rate, the Norse people are now at war.

Jowy is going to begrudge me for this for the rest of the game. But at this point, I don't really want to be cooperating with him. Thus, the opening of hostilities.

End Turn.

[yuris125]

Fun times! And good decision

Is Petra as broken in MP as in SP? I only read about it in T-Hawk's reports, not even 100% sure what it does

[T-hawk]

Petra adds 1 food, 1 hammer, 1 gold to all non-floodplains desert tiles. (Including city squares.) Since it doesn't work on floodplains, and bare desert at 1-1-1 is still bad, it realistically applies to each desert hill, oasis, or resource. It also provides a free amphitheater (+3 culture) which is otherwise 100 hammers worth.

It's so strong because it's so costly to grow and expand otherwise in Civ 5. Petra is like roughly doubling the productivity of each citizen working a boosted tile, except with no extra costs. A Petra farmed river desert hill is 3-3-2, which is like getting a 3f farm AND 3h mine with the same citizen, instead of paying 50+ food to grow another and 50 hammers or 250 gold to a CS to make him happy.

Obviously it's strongest in single-player after rerolling maps until finding a capital site with 15-20 Petrable tiles. I don't have any sense for its strength in multiplayer or when it's only helping 6 or 8ish tiles. It would still seem pretty good, but that's a lot longer to pay back its build cost.