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

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Those triremes... So terrible that you have to do that. And when they're obsoleted by caravels then what, are you and Novice going to play the rebuilding game all over again? Do you know if Zak/Ichabod have that kind of sea power, or what they're doing on the water in their hemisphere?

I'm reasonably sure that Zak has control of the seas and is not having to make such an insane investment to keep it. That is the best way that I can see him holding novice at bay (combined with novice also flushing a tremendous amount of hammers down the drain like I have on boats) while making gains against Sumeria. My guess is that Zak has his large island and both marble/stone. He built TGW and MoM.

Caravels would require a decent investment in beakers for everyone, and then a significant hammer investment to break down existing forces. I just don't see it being worth it. Better to put beakers into Nationhood where he can gain a decisive advantage where I am truly vulnerable, and where he can take lasting gains.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Pictures and a story for you, Ceil.



A view of the Old West, before the cowboys and trailblazers were forgotten. Frontier towns, all, and teeming with creativity and industry. Times have been tough, but for now the hostile nations are somewhat subdued, allowing for burly men to raise triumphant and lasting works, great monuments to honor their achievements. And also, a time for lesser men to build instruments of torture and finance: markets.



Barely visible in the distant mists, a fleet of iron warriors seeking to avenge the cowardly acts of a backwards people who would starve the hardiest frontiersmen of all, those brave few who sought to tame the ice and master the turgid seas. Alas, the cowards will give neither flight nor fight, but instead hide in the deep waters protected by their sky blue, ephemeral four-lettered gods, where Western seafarers dare not slip paddle against foamy sea. More easily seen are the heroes who stand the border watch against the urine-colored people, who cower in their city at the mighty display.



Thralls of the barbarian kingdom looking across the narrow sea at the lands of wisdom and enlightenment. If it is in the stars, one day these people will be free.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Sooo.... Anyone want to play a turn or two while I'm out of town? Consider it like renting a car for the weekend, for free.

If you're interested, let me know and I'll leave some general instructions. I'd feel worse about holding this game up for 5 days or so if the turn pace had not already been... glacial.

[Ceiliazul]

I can squeeze in a turn or two.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I can squeeze in a turn or two.

Awesome. Thanks. I'll put some thoughts down in thread tomorrow.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Ok, Ceil, here's where we're headed. Sincere apologies for the length of these notes:

Current priorities:

1: Don't die. Keep building units where it makes sense. Ogallala has the Heroic Epic. Another catapult should see it grow. After that, Longbows if you can 1t them. This would be accomplished by taking the horse from Dodge City, but I want as much production there as possible for The Parthenon. There's a mine that could be peeled away from Austin, if needed. Austin is destined to be a husk of a city, so don't fret over few/poor tiles available there. At size 11 it is too big anyway. It should really be size 8 with a minor food defect now that the capital is nearly full grown and doesn't need to share cottages, but I need to rearrange some tile improvements to do that (cottage irrigated grass, farm workshopped plains), but it may not even be worth it at this point to grow cottages. Almost certainly not. Elsewhere, Great Bend can build units. This is a great place for a couple of Longbows to hold Zak back on the island. I would benefit from a market here, as this is the #3 commerce city.

2. San Antonio - Ideally I'd get the GP out of here before Dodge City, so I'm growing here for now. Once The Parthenon is up, I will starve this city if necessary to beat Dodge City to the great person. I can run 6 specialists here, so I should just be able to beat Dodge City, but I haven't run the numbers to be certain.

3. Sneaky attack plan to kill novice's city: 4 move galley (Rio Grande) should move next turn into position 1W of Sheridan, the stone island city. Depending on what novice does with his ships, this should be a safe place to stay out of sight and will allow us to amphibiously attack with two maces into Papa. I had hoped to push novice further north with my superior fleet, but the ocean that he's hiding in renders that ineffective. Instead, I think that I'll split my fleet to cover both the tile the fleet currently occupies and the one 1E that would shield the galley from being attacked. I'm hoping that novice would only move 1E toward Sheridan at most, and then retreat 1W to the safety of his ocean tile. Use your best judgement here. If he shows up with 3-4 ships out of the fog, obviously splitting the fleet is a bad idea and I might say scratch the mission unless you see another opening. Hard to say in advance without knowing what novice will do. If he keeps his current level of troops, though, the plan should be a go. First move one Trireme from the western stack to get a look inside Papa. If it looks like we have a shot to kill the city, promote maces to City Raider and take a swing. You can then cover the galley with the rest of the western stack. Do as you will with the eastern stack, probably moving next to the western stack to support in case of attack. Again, use your best judgement. I'm really excited about the prospect of bloodying novice.

4. Southern dueling trireme fleets: maintain the status quo down here. Continue the blockade as long as it is practical to do so. As long as our access to the marble is maintained, this fleet is doing its job. I've hand drawn the current trireme numbers onto the map. As of last turn, it was even. I think novice withdrew a couple of boats to go south to reinforce his outnumbered fleet near Sheridan.

5. Worker micro at Deadwood: I'm not sure if the signposts from my save will show up when you open the save on your computer, but I'm assuming they will. Anyway, I've been improving the pigs but maintaining the jungle as long as possible for the additional defensive bonus. IIRC, I have put two turns into chopping/cancelled, and two turns into pasturing. This turn you should chop first, and the second worker should be able to finish the pasture. Next turn, send a worker to the tile 1NE and finish the road. That will connect us to our ivory again, finally. We have some cities that are pushing against the happy cap again, so this will help.

6. Worker micro at Goliad: Finish the road on the forest and have the other three workers (NE of the city, just chopped a jungle) chop the forest into the granary. You can whip next turn then start on a forge. After that, irrigate the grass 1N of the gems. I want to grow this city fast and whip in necessary infrastructure, then grow it onto mines. First ring culture should go over to us soon. Don't be afraid to move the impi SE/NW to scout in a bit further and then cover the worker stack. Use your best judgement here for safety, of course. But, most likely novice will keep his units safely in his city, as he has done forever now. After farming the jungle, if you get another turn, I need these workers to get into position to put a fort on one of the silk tiles at San Antonio. Obviously we'll need to cover that stack of workers for the two turns to get the fort done. In transit between Goliad and San Antonio, finish the plains road (1T) and build a road over the other plains hills so that we have a shorter route to the front with Ichabod. Also, at Tombstone, we should finish the incense this turn. After that, the two workers can go back to Miles City and lay the last cottage and mine, in whichever order you deem best. Miles City is a commerce city first and foremost, but has been hammer heavy while building fail gold. I've picked up all the cottages in Fort Smith while it regrows from its earlier brutal whipping (triremes) spree.

7. Fail gold builds: I don't build wealth because I get such an awesome conversion rate out of fail gold. I have both marble and stone, forges, and Organized Religion bonuses helping out. Currently Miles City is working on the National Epic, which will actually be built in Dodge City. Miles City has 75h into The Parthenon already, which is being built (to complete) in Dodge City. Abilene has ~80h into National Epic and is now working on a market, lacking a wonder to build that we'll be completing soon. And so it goes. Abilene might actually make a decent location for the Forbidden Palace. What do you think about that?

8. Virginia City: High Growth, when not being blockaded. I 2pop whip triremes here to overflow for (you guessed it) another trireme. We could make use of an Ikhanda here for the extra maintenance reduction, after completing the lighthouse. If, that is,we can get off naval production. I'd feel more comfortable with a couple of longbows and cats down here, if you can scrape them up.

Thanks again for holding down the fort for me. Good luck, and enjoy!!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I don't have time for a full report, maybe tomorrow. But, here's a teaser:

[Ceiliazul]

yay! I owe you a turn report as well. nothing was too different than you expected, I just haven't got my laptop in internet range since then (its been an interesting week!)

[spacetyrantxenu]

Call the fire brigade! Or don't, maybe the fire will spread.

[Ceiliazul]

Tech rate lowered to 40% (just enough to finish Feudalism at EOT)

Ogalalla: built archer (converted to longbow) (grow at EOT)
Great bend: archer (converted to longbow) (grow at EOT)
Nice job here timing growth to match the whip anger penalty. I gave the fish to San Antonio where growth is slower.
Dodge City: finished tundra mine, and kept horse. This cut Parthenon to a 3t build.
San Antonio: took fish from Great Bend to grow EOT.
This city will EASILY beat Dodge city to a GP. Makes sense to hire them crazy specialists after Parthenon completes.
Deadwood: completed pig pasture, growing on granary.
Tombstone finished plantation on incense, easing the happy caps empire-wide
Goliad: the chop finished a granary. Covered the workers with an additional chariot.
Virginia city finished a lighthouse, and I'd like to overflow here to a longbow. This city is desperately isolated right now...


Operation papa: Novice did not reinforce his cowering fleet at the ocean: still 6 triremes against your 11 in that area. He does have one more en route, so if I split the fleet he gets a 7 on 5 shot. I did go for the split, with six protecting the galley and 5 to cover him near Papa. I noticed neither you or Novice is blockading in this area, and I declined to blockade him this turn.

Southern fleet: 13 v 13, no change. Also seems a mutual blockading ceasefire there, which I did not break.

Inland fleed: Zak has 3 triremes and 2 galleys in the bottleneck north of Great Bend. I moved your trireme stack North to, well, bottle them up. The clams at Great Bend JUST got re-netted, don't want that torn up again.

swapped spy specialists to engineer/scientist as needed.

Overall, you need more commerce cities. Great Bend is a good choice, but at 3rd place in your empire it's still only bringing in 28gpt at breakeven (20%!)


...and then I ended turn to find that my archer > Longbow plan blew up in my face: you have two mostly complete crossbows. The one in the HE city is especially bad because the only way to burn off excess hammers is a string of maces. Or more failgold, which maybe doesn't suck?