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

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Here's one thing I forgot to post the other day:



I realized that I could get the supermedic with only half the GG, so I put the chariot and galley together and gave each 10xp. That's good enough to get a navigation 2 galley as well. Not as awesome as a 5-mover, but good enough, and I still get the medic.

[Ceiliazul]

nice play!

[Commodore]

Reg "Oar" Rar rides again!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T100

T100 report, with all the bells and whistles. Since I posted a lot of this on T99, it may look familiar. If so, ask riddles or tell jokes or something. Let's start, as usual, with the tactical stuff:



Constant vigilance in the north with novice. I finally decided it was time to kill his trireme in the East only to realize that it's on an ocean tile. Derp. So, I'll just continue to blockade and keep my stone flowing. If novice has extra boats hidden adjacent to the trireme that I can't see, he'll kill my little stack, but I'm counting on at least a 50/50 split, so it's fine. Hopefully. I have 4 boats up here to his one that I can see. To our west, my blockade persists and the coast remains clear for now. My little group is plugging the narrows, with the single boat moving NW/SE each turn for vision. Here I have three triremes. I do not know if novice has left anything down here. Perhaps he's decided he doesn't gain much skirmishing here and it isn't worth the investment.



T99 I was concerned about reinforcements and that we had drifted too far to the south with this meager group. Turns out my fears were well founded. I began my gradual drift to the north to see two triremes coming from Deal, which immediately means we're outnumbered because on T97 he had just finished a trireme in Void. So, I need to know if he's closing the noose from the south. The only way to do this without risking a boat is to land a unit on the hill, so I dropped my axe. Yup, here comes the hammer, it's time to get out. I covered my axe with a combat 1 chariot (novice has a chariot in Deal) and moved the boats 1N, continuing the blockade. I'll reembark on the galley next turn and probably move NE and blockade again. As long as I have the coastal bonus and combat 1, I don't think novice will attack. If he does, I'll live with it, but he won't get down to the galley until his reinforcements arrive in any event. Or, I may just move to cover my crabs. I'm going to whip out some more triremes to counter this new threat.

To my west, Dazed either laid a trap or, more likely, didn't see that I had a galley (or assumed it was empty?). Probably, just a mistake. Anyway, he left a worker uncovered on the forest that is under my cultural control across the narrow inland sea. I pondered a moment and then captured the worker. My impi had a promotion available, so it's now Woody I. Dazed appears to only have chariots (7) and an archer that can hit me, so I'm going to try to keep the worker. If he really wants to kill the impi, he will, but at terrible losses if he uses the chariots. Since the tile is under my control, I'll trade the combat and eventual loss of the impi for the GG points. Or, he has an axe on one of the unroaded grass tiles and will just build a road, but that seems unlikely enough. I'll probably get to keep the worker.



As for Zak, he seems quiet enough. I took another look at his techs and he's actually a good bit further from Guilds than I had previously supposed, as he still lacks Metal Casting (and so Machinery). So, not much to worry about with him presently. I'm inching my trireme further north to continue to try to harass him. I'd love to eliminate his island city, But I'll need to stop reinforcements coming down first in order to do that. Probably, though, this will remain out of reach. That's all for the battle field (that I know of) for now.

Now for ALL of the pictures!

F1-8



Expensive.



No surprises.



This is less WW than the other players have, so I feel pretty fortunate to have fought as little as I have.



Zak's saving, everyone else is teching.



Zak is saving up a nice little pile for perhaps an expensive series of techs. Bears watching. Novice hates cheap garrison units. Dazed hates good civics.



Bless the navy. I really have a paper cutout military otherwise. Starting next turn, though, I can whip out Maces! Ho, ho, ho...



I have everything to the left (minus HBR), and nothing further right than Civil Service, which you can barely see. Tech path in the great wall of text at the end of this post.



I'm finally starting to prioritize spreading the faith. Courthouses are frightfully expensive and I'm paying for OR anyway, so may as well get some use.

I have a lot of people. I'm guessing I have Dazed's missing 5%.

More of the pictures!

F9


I think this is fairly representative of the game position, minus the spike given by the Hanging Gardens. I'd place myself even right now with novice, with Zak hanging in just behind, and Dazed frustrated and picking flies and sandy grit out of his teeth at the back of the herd.



My hole to dig out of. Failgold is the shovel.



The lifting end of the shovel. I love forges. Novice, though, has more land and is getting forges online. He'll have something to say here, don't worry. Also, he's running specialists and less mines.



I've killed my economy to grow hard, and have managed to do just that. I've been fortunate to spare the whip recently. You can see right about when novice started running mass specialists. Actually, checking the other graph, it looks more like a production run. Interesting.



I'm aware that I'm a cardboard cutout of an actual military. I have triremes and they don't have anything better, and I have impis (admittedly, not many) for mobility against quick strikes on land and maintain visibility to prevent against surprise as much as possible. I'm precariously positioned, but not terribly so. My biggest concern is a lack of catapults.



Zak's curve shallows around 200AD it appears. Lost city? I can't remember. Novice also took a dip. I can't account for that. Maybe an occasional artist specialist? I have no idea. Suggestions are welcome deciphering this for me.



Can you see when the Zigs and ORG Rats showed up? Woah. Novice is also getting some on board now. Or, running spy specialists in the few cities he's built them in.



I'll take it! More land is needed, though. Zak seems to be encroaching on areas that should belong to Dazed. I wonder if Zak took both islands in the far west? Certainly I would assume he's taken both Marble and Stone. I see him having the stronger imperative to explore the seas, and he built TGW out from underneath me (my other primary regret of the game, though much less than novice winning the Mids).



Not much change, I just look to see how big novice's capital is.



I should have waited to take this picture until after EoT but didn't think about it. I highlighted the courthouses. Definitely need more of those. For reference, I have 14 cities. Archers for garrisons and a bluff at defense. 11 workers! Seems enough, but one more won't hurt.

Annnndddd....MOAR!!!!

F10


Finally worthy of the name Bureaucap, and growing onto more cottages. Next GP is a GP. Shrine almost certainly. The goal here is to keep growing. After the missionaries, I think I'll stop to build the other monastery then just build wonders for fail gold for a while.



Austin will be fading into the sunset a bit, as it loses it's commerce and goes full time over to production. I like this city. I wish my shrine was going somewhere with more commerce, but that's the way it's worked out. At least it will get the market/grocer up quickly. I'll fail wonders here and pump military.



Temporarily gimped by sharing both fish and bronze with Great Bend as it built up for the Moai. This is going to be a medium commerce city and then imminently whipable after I retire the Colossus. Hopefully that won't be for quite some time. In the meantime, buildings, then units. But, I'll whip navy out of here at the drop of a hat, as needed.



Yeah, that's going to be a pile of cash, as the Moai isn't going here. After this, I may go back to Triremes, I haven't decided yet.



Production city, and almost certainly the Heroic Epic city. I'd love to get that online soonish. Good food, good hills, and some room to workshop at Guilds. What's not to love? Oh, and fail gold too.



Dodge City, future National Epic city, unless I change my mind. I won't mind actually finishing wonders here in the future, but the overflow here is slated to go into...Moai#3. Yes, I know, it's lame, but my economy needs stimulus and we don't have a Congress issuing TARP funds. I'll farm the rest of the grass and work the coast over mines while growing to get to a whopping +13 food. That ought to hold a few specialists. That's six consistently, and working the grass mine. I can peel off the other mines to other cities at that point and work the plains workshops only when we need heavy production. This is a gem of a city.



This is...a rump of a city. It's reason to exist is to grow cottages for Lonesome Dove and to whip navy. I'll get the lighthouse in when I can spare it, but it's in for another round of whips on Triremes. I'm going to try to preserve the overflow for the courthouse so it will get the OR bonus.



The true home of the Moai. I need production to win more of the inland sea region. I am quite relieved that Dazed can't challenge me on this body of water, and that I can contain novice at a single point. Yes, he could sail the long way around, but Zak is there and I'd like to think I'd see it coming. And, that novice would put his effort into just killing Zak. Once the Moai is in, I'll outproduce both of Zaks cities on this sea comfortably and should eventually be able to get him out. Otherwise, my god, how about a courthouse in here, eh? City development here suffered tragically as I sat on 2h wealth builds for about 10t preserving a chop and whip from when novice first instituted the stone blockade. That really set this city back.



Needed furs, got furs. And, now featuring religion! But, no garrison. That needs to be addressed. Here again, whip the boat, overflow to the courthouse. That chop will finish the courthouse.



Hybrid city. Miles City will take the cottages from Fort Smith (can work 5 unique cottages vs. 4 in Fort Smith), so I'll only have to build the multiplier buildings here. I'll get an iron resource NW of the city tile soon for even better production. This is the area that I've struggled the most to get worker labor to. More Cottages!!! I'll be chopping that forest soon.



A nice Colossus hybrid city. But, if I whip it to this size, it's just a production city. I really need to get the ivory resource a trade route...maybe a fort until I can dislodge Zak's city



Not much to say. Break the blockade and produce boats. A general plan for this city is in the build queue.



Needed stone, got stone.



Wanted marble, got marble.

I'm pretty sure that's every picture that's relevant, and likely many that are not. Overall, at T100 I'm very happy to still be alive and feel pretty fortunate to be in this good position. I've only fought a little bit, and have mostly been able to control the terms of the fighting. I've been spared any troops marauding through my lands, despite what I think is a pretty flimsy defense. I had the one scare with Dazed and his chariots that I survived without loss thanks to the Impi and a little luck. The only other invasion attempt was novice's brief naval invasion in the NW, but that was also turned back without much loss. I stunted Dazed's early growth at the Bloody Bridge. (Nice name, is it from the lurkers? Lurker help!! To compound matters for him, everyone else has extracted a pound of flesh from Dazed at one point or another, just a bad luck game for him. He played a strong economic opening and I sensed weakness, so I pounced. Fortunately for me, novice pounced on Zak and not me, because there was a significant window where he could have hurt me badly and made me as irrelevant as Dazed is now. I know geography made Zak a better target, and novice may have had the same idea I had about denying bronze to an enemy. Novice's early expansion was terrifying, and I thought that at this point, T100, he would surely have run away with the game. Compound that with me inexplicably not building the Mids and I'm really surprised he isn't far and away the runaway. I waited and waited for stone, and lost it. This map sets up well for a SE. Lots of food, lots of good city spots, and good production too. I probably have Zak to thank for novice not running away with this. Come on, twin civ-grudge!! Please!!!

So, the summary is this: I might have a (remote) chance to win, which is not something I would have thought possible from the outset. I think, though, it's more likely that this is still novice's game to lose. Both of us have ancient age UUs that will be less and less important going forward. I've used my IND trait well so far getting up as many forges as possible, typically making that my second build. My only wonder regret really is losing the Mids, but that's water under the bridge now. I'm finally positioned to build more wonders, and am utilizing (starting right around NOW) fail gold to push my flabby economy forward. This, I think, is my best opportunity to consolidate my position. Novice has gotten most of what he'll be able to get out of IMP. I don't have an exact city count on him, but I've caught/passed him on crop yield. I know he is running a high number of specialists and that takes away from the CY number, but I'm up 40 food, so 20 specialists. Is he running that many? Probably, and a few more as well. To be close to an IMP team at this point and have any economy to speak of is a win for me, I think.

I'm going to continue to push courthouses and get my economy fit, and utilize cheap libraries to get my tech rate higher during my teching turns. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to run far fewer 0% cash saving turns by scamming wonder builds for cash. I feel dirty, but it's in the game so I can either use it and compete to the best of my ability, or leave it and regret it when the end comes. It feels cheesy, but I think it remains fair play, so I'll continue using it. I certainly dislike this mechanic less than the blockade, which novice and I have both employed without mercy. Anyway, until I get all my courthouses up, it will serve to stimulate the economy a bit.

Looking forward, I use novice as a compass for tech selection. I want to defend against him so that he always feels he has better options fighting Zak. So, novice started teching Machinery recently, and this turn I followed suit. I'm ~2000 beakers from having Knights on the board, and I know I can get there much faster than Dazed. If I do that, it would go a long way to winning the game. And, it would deter novice from fooling around with me. The trade of is avoiding IW/Calendar/Construction. I need to settle the gems spot (I still rue missing his third borders popping there), and my cities are big enough that I actually need the rice and bananas that are under the jungle. Also, I just need to settle those spots. I'm finally able to afford these cities, and probably should go ahead and settle the other city on the tundra island next to the fish. Anyway, I'll probably have to mix these in before going all the way to Guilds. Dazed has had Calendar for a while, so hopefully he'll build MoM and let me wrest it from him later. But, if I see novice headed that way, I'll go hell for leather to take it first. I don't want the SE racking up multiple +50% GAs. That would be...bad. Tentatively, I'll finish Machinery, then IW/Feudalism/Guilds. If I feel threatened, I'll stop for Construction. If I run out of wonders to use as ATMs, I'll go to the top of the tree for Aesthetics/Literature. I'll try to deny too many goodies from novice, so I may just follow him up the tree wherever he goes. And, it may turn out that I get another merchant as my third GP, and that could be Guilds as well. I haven't examined that at all yet. It seems certain that my next (2nd) GP will be a prophet, which I'll just about have to shrine. I'm not ready for a golden age quite yet.

Anyway, that's plenty of rambling for one post. Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, or just want to laugh at me for thinking I have even a puncher's chance to win.

-

Edit: fixed an egregious typo. I'm actually ~2000 beakers from Guilds, not 200... Proofread, eh? :crazy:

[TheHumanHydra]

That was an awesome post, thank you. The name is indeed from the lurkers.

[spacetyrantxenu]

So what's going on in this game?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

So what's going on in this game?

Basically...

All appropriate prejudices, assumptions of character, and connotations to that reference should be inferred.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T101

I'm falling back into my slacking on reporting ways! Must. STOP. THAT!!!

(Also, I hope everyone took that Charlie Sheen thing the way I intended, which was in more of a will-soon-crash-and-burn way, and not, uh, actually going to win this. I don't want to spoil the secret for anyone unfamiliar with his antics, but he's not so much a winner as the poster child for bad behavior and in need of psychiatric attention)

Now for the standard tactical update. Sorry, I'm not a storyteller like Commodore, or a player with a vision 25-50 turns into the future like several of our top players, or even interesting in the way that Gaspar manages. Just a turn by turn plodder. But I digress... You're all here for a plodding, turn by turn, dry as the dunes report:




As expected, novice is flexing his muscles. I have no choice but to withdraw, so I loaded up my embarked units and moved the stack to cover my clams 2N. Also note, Virginia City double whipped a Trireme. There will be another Trireme immediately behind that one. I'll take 4 Triremes and a Galley defending against 5 triremes attacking. If novice opts to move to blockade my marble, I'll bring in more boats (I can get them there faster if we're fighting in my area) and overwhelm the attackers. The stone/marble is vital to my success, so I'll pay any price to keep them available.




Here at Sheridan I seem to have numbers, and perhaps I do. I'm not willing to push further into his territory, though, to find out. I want to keep the stone online and don't want to risk my boats in a trap. But, I do have that 4-move galley, and I'm thinking about loading a couple of maces onto it and take a fishing expedition to Papa. From their current position, my fleet could move 2NW and cover Papa's port. If I station my 4-move Galley 1W of Sheridan it could go unseen and then strike Papa out of the fog. If novice is covering his cities like I am, Papa is very thin on defense, perhaps even with as little as a lone Warrior or Phalanx as he lacks Archery. I'll trade two maces to raze this city, if I can do it. Hopefully I can keep this fleet and the galley alive too. We'll see, this is still a few turns out. I have to load my new maces onto the galley and get it into position, so this is probably in the ballpark of T107-8 . We'll see.




I sniped Dazed's worker with the Impi and promoted to Woody I hoping for some combats against Chariots. I got my wish, winning two fights, but lost a third at 12% odds for the attackers. Oh well, that's disappointing, but also that's life. I won the hammer exchange at least, and can replace units much faster than Dazed can. It may be getting close to that time where I need to knock him around again, because his military is weak.




I'm not toooo far behind Zak/novice on soldier count, though on land I'm not much of a threat at all. It looks like they're building up for another round of headbutting one another. I hope so, at least. Zak is strong enough to beat on Dazed, which would free novice to beat on me. But, I have Maces too, and hopefully novice will leave me alone. But, since I teched Machinery after him, he may not know I have it (no GNP tech-swap analysis). Well, yes he will...I have alphabet. So, hopefully he'll leave me alone.




Yes, more of this shit, stop rolling your eyes.




The builds, prior to ending turn. Axes are upgrading in queue to Maces at EoT. I had to run a scientist in some production city to squeeze out the last beaker to get Machinery on schedule. I'm still pushing the infrastructure as much as possible, but I'm feeling insecure on the margins, so a little military, and the boats as mentioned for novice. The wealth build is just holding overflow for a missionary that is incoming soon. Ok, that's it. Another report is coming soon™.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T102




Now that my boats are securely in blockading position, I can do the scouting report each turn with a NW/SE move, just as I've been doing south of Byte for some time now. I uncovered another couple of Triremes, so novice is building up here too. I guess it's time for me to whip out another round of boats for my north as well.




Novice consolidated his stack. I completed the Trireme and have this second one ready to go as well, despite the 2t sign on the production line. I'm pretty sure of that, anyway. We'll see what novice intends in the next turn, either battle or blockade. My guess is he intends to hold my navy at bay in my waters rather than his.




Zak evacuated his 3-move galley (damned circumnavigation bonus), but I've closed the port for now. Zak still lacks Metal Casting for Triremes. Also, a four move Galley in here with a couple of maces could do some work on Jordan. No such luck, though, as Zak is scouting the narrow approach, so I won't get to surprise him. Maces here would give me some options, perhaps. Also, note and rejoice, Great Bend is actually going to finish Moai!




My soldier count went up 56k, so the gap has narrowed on the others. It is my hope to be able to run several turns of science starting next turn and clean up a few techs that we need, and also some luxuries like Aesthetics. Zak teched that recently, and I know he has the resource doublers (I think at least), so if I can take the Parthenon out from under him I'd love to do that. Also, I'd like to get my Heroic Epic up soon. But, IW/Construction are necessities, and Calendar will get me more happiness and another health resource, so that is important as well. Much to think about.

Also, Zak's score dropped 67 points from last turn. Is that a lot of missing population? I need to check the event log when the save comes back to be sure, but I don't think he lost a city. I think perhaps he's whipping the snot out of his country. Fingers crossed that it's Longbows to defend against novice. Surely it's not knights yet...

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T103

It's been a week since the last turn, so this turn was kind of agonizing to play as I couldn't remember much of anything I had planned to do. I just stared at the board forever. Also, novice is blockading hardcore again, so there's that to manage as well. I played, then took pictures of nearly everything so I'd have to do a detailed report so I could help myself remember what's going on. Here goes. If you hate pictures of every city screen, this report is not for you.

Tactical situation:

Have I mentioned that I hate the blockade feature? I think I have. Naval warfare is simply a numbers game, not a decision making game. You simply build more than the other guy and then blockade his waters and take advantage of the 10% defensive bonus. Can someone provide a rationale for that 10% bonus, by the way? Looks to me like both navies would be subject to the same seas and shifting winds, as well as bird shit on the crew, so why does one side get an advantage? We're talking about ships ramming into each other at this point in the game, not cannons and computer guided artillery shot miles across the sea from massive deck mounted guns. Is it that the boarding party will be 10% less effective coming over the rails to capture the other ship? I just don't get it. Anyway, I've blockaded novice and he's done it right back, so no fault to him. I just don't think the feature is any good. /rant_over

Novice's goal is clearly to deny both stone and marble. He's starving Sheridan, and it will certainly starve before I can whip anything. Ugh. I'll be able to whip the granary at size 2, then sit and stew at size one until I can break the blockade. So, more ships! I expect the same in the south at Baxter Springs. That blockade has been rolling further north by one tile each turn. No doubt poor Baxter Springs will starve soon.

Builds:




I'm wrapping up a couple of libraries and a second monastery in Lonesome Dove in anticipation of some incoming failgold. And, lotsa boats.

Techs:




I had an idea of where things were going, but apparently I'm off. Zak's economy is doing well, he's cleared out the entire top of the tree, landing the artist from Music either this turn or next (yeah, this is a retroactive post. I've already played the next turn). Also, Dazed has finished Feudalism, so I'll have to wade through LBs if I invade him. But my main priority right now is getting rid of novice's navy. My quick tech plan is to knock out Iron Working and Calendar in consecutive turns, and then see where to go from there. Knights sound so attractive, but with my production advantage I would really get some use out of the Heroic Epic. As it stands, I can 2t maces in my future HE city.

Cities:

A shrine would be worth 12g/t before modifiers. An academy would be worth ~42beakers/turn right now. But, I'm guessing (can't recall exactly) that my breakeven slider is around 30%, so ~12.6? I'm not a math expert at all, but that's pretty close either way. I'd ultimately prefer the academy, but I'm going to get the prophet, so I'll be happy with that. Also, I have two unconverted cities and I'm building at least three more. The plan right now is to settle new cities on turns 106 & 107. I'm not sure what I'll build here next. I thought about the aqueduct, but I should have rice and bananas very soon, and hopefully my pigs not long after. The happiness situation will improve markedly soon too, with IW (I can finally get those gems mined for +2 everywhere) and Calendar (Dyes, Silk, Spice, Incense). I'll be able to move my HR garrisons to border cities. That will make me feel much more secure. I may just pump maces for a few turns, until I can get marble and stone back online, then I'll just try to pump wonders for a while here.



This is where the shrine will go, so I need to get a market in ASAP. This is a nice production city. I don't know how I always end up with a shrine in my production cities, but oh well. Probably has something to do with I usually end up with a production city as #2 and that syncs up with when the religion comes out. Anyway, Settler next (Banana/Gems), then market, then back to units. A courthouse wouldn't be terrible, and this is only 3 tiles from the capital.



I'll pick up the specialist here. I want the one in the capital to finish at long last. I can always run more specialists here later. This is going to be triple whipped and the overflow will go into the market.



This should have been yet another trireme. I can't recall my reasoning for doing the Ikhanda first, but sunken costs be damned, we're going to finish this!



Heroic Epic city, for make happy of entire world! A courthouse would be nice (aren't they always?) but I'm at a sweet spot with perfect 2t maces, so I'm going to keep churning them out. When I get past the happy crunch I may see about growing this a little more, but for now it's doing exactly what I need for it to do. Full grown (pre-bio is the assumption), Ogallala will be working some workshops and the lake tile SE of the city. The other lake will go over to my banana/gems city. I hope to give that plains cottage over to Lonesome Dove soon.



More boats, please. So many wasted worker turns here. Ugh. I'll be putting the National Epic here. I think max growth here would get us to +13f/t. I can peel the mines away to other cities at that point. But, we're a long way from that, so more boats for the immediate future.



I'm bringing the whip back to Fort Smith again. I'll crank a couple triremes out of here in short order. Not much else to say. This is just a naval dockyard growing on cottages for better cities.



Great Bend is coming along nicely. The rice is certainly going to be helpful, but I'll probably give it over to the new city so it can get some 4/2 whips and get going quickly. +2 health for rice. Yay! I swapped midstream on the courthouse since I can get the library done so quickly and I'm going to be running max science for a couple of turns. That maintenance...yeah. We'll see what is needed after the courthouse. I may go Ikhanda because this place is really expensive, and because I'll probably churn out units after that to take out Zak's island city. That thing is a blight.



Finally. Either a library or triremes, whichever is needed.



Production/commerce hybrid. I'm not sure what's next here, perhaps another Ikhanda. I may be overbuilding those, but it's saving on costs and I'll get the benefit on every unit I build hereafter. I could also build a market, but the Ikhanda finishes sooner and the cottages aren't very mature as of yet.



Ideally I would be able to grow this city onto some of that Colossus coast and then hit the heavy hammer tiles. But, I may opt for the Ikhanda and slaving out some units to go adventuring with. I have a very good food surplus here when I'm not working the hammer tiles, so whip and regrow is an attractive option. But, so is working all that coast, particularly if I have both Ikhanda and courthouse complete.



Aaahhhh Blockkaaaaaaaaaddddee!!!! So, boats, boats, more boats!!! A courthouse would be soo nice here.



We're all going to die (starve)!! I should have seen this coming, but whatever. Starve to 2, whip to 1, population eats stone. A cruel fate, but this city has (partially) served us well. Blockade...



And, we'll be eating marble, but at least we won't starve before I can get the granary whipped here.

End of Turn:



Failgold bonanza! 312g, that's almost 5t cash savings (without running wealth). Sweet. Tell 'em, Kenny:



Stats:




The economy is still sluggish, but I'm doing what I can. And then I'm throwing down more cities.