[SPOILERS]The Tyrant realizes that once the world burns it gets really boring....

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T115

At the end of one era and the supposed beginning of another, here are all of the pictures. I'm pretty sure I mean ALL of them:

F1-7:

F8-9, etc:

F10:

T115 - 142
T116 - +45 = 187
T117 - +45 = 232 + 75 = 307 - can swap plains forest for deer for -5h.

Maps:

Overall, we're pretty average which is disappointing. Some of the ones you would expect to be faring well (WilliamLP for one) are doing well, and others you expect less from are doing about as well as you'd expect. WilliamLP seems to be in a very good position from my limited scouting. He settled in a straight line toward Molach and then curled around the lake to the east, securing a lot of territory. Long term, he's going to be a beast with all of that land, and there's Kuro to his north, seemingly isolated, and ripe for plundering. And then there's poor Azza, who basically threw down the gauntlet to the greens field to give him a beating, and so they did. Suttree played a very fast expansion opening and parlayed his early crop yield lead into a massive army and proceeded to pick a fight anywhere he could. He's ruined Oxy's game, and will be stopped cold against Sisu(b) with that mighty stack on the border. He burned a Great Artist to push borders very aggressively, and I'm certain that has earned him a game long enemy by an opponent who is completely squeezed for land (his own fault for building gobs of workers) and who will almost certainly out tech him to the Renaissance and come looking for revenge then, if not sooner. Oxy, having nothing better to play for, will likely pile in. I think suttree may fizzle out. Twenty turns ago, I had him probably the favorite to win.

Right now, I think retep is doing sneakily well and is actually in the catbird's seat, sliding under the radar. Consistently very solid solid GNP, current MFG leader, leading and pulling away on crop yield (from those I have graphs on, lacking wetbandit who seems to be under performing and Molach, who is doing quite well with an early Bureaucracy and a top 5 capital), and a very small military, smaller than mine, which means he's able to farmer's gambit away over there while building courthouses, libraries, and markets. I really like his position, and he must be geographically isolated to not need any military. And, he has TGL, which never hurts. At least no one has opened borders with him. Kuro has opened borders with him.

We're not out of it, but we're also not likely to win it at this point. Too many other players have advantages in land, cities, tech, etc. We haven't claimed as much territory as we will need, although we may have some options to our north and can fill in some landlocked cities in the contested region to our south/southwest. We'll need to push in that area, and with a slider rate now at 30% after Currency, we can throw down a few more cities. Why not? Calendar is up next, that will give us some breathing room at the capital to work some more cottages and improve our economy, and we'll get some extra food/commerce in new cities so we can run some specialists with the extra food (bananas, sugar). Let's set a goal of 4 new cities in 15 turns. Can we do it? Who knows. I'd love to have them before finishing the HG, but I'm not sandbagging that and letting one of our large neighbors get the benefit. Anyway, Kuro's sheep/clam city, a city for the rice east of Happy Face, the fish further east, and the horse city S/SW of The Boathouse. Also, the fish north of the to-be-named former Kuro/barb city will be profitable, and then whatever else we can scout over there. Can't let retep get all of that land in his back yard.

Domestically, I really need more workers and should emphasize getting the jungle chopped off the river at Tyler. For all my bitching about not having any rivers, I haven't done much to improve the one that I have. After Calendar, I may backtrack for Archery for cheap MP, or I may push for CoL and get some courthouses down. And I'm still waiting for someone to build TGW, but if they don't, what the hell, maybe I'll just build it myself. How often do you get to build two wonders in two turns in the same city? I'm going to continue plugging away at the Moai in our two clam island city, using double whips on axes for as long as I'm thinking about roughing up Kuro, and otherwise just try to build up some sort of a hybrid cottage/specialist economy.

The bottom line is this: We may not win any awards for inventive play, or, you know, actually win the game, but we can war and have some fun, and play to get the most out of this jungled lemon. So, that's the plan.

Feeling after 4000 years:

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I don't know about the barb location but when we get around to settling the twice razed island city that one is I Burn.

Well played.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks for analysis.

[CFCJesterFool]

Build GW to within 1t completion in all your hammer cities and then use the fail gold to tech with. At the very least, it is twice as efficient as building wealth (due to the stone bonus on hammers). Maybe by the time you have GW pre-built in all the relevant hammer cities, someone else might finish it (so you can just get the fail gold). If not, since you already have GW pre-built once, you can at least get the wonder with some fail gold. Seems a shame to just end up with the wonder.

[Cornflakes]

Whenever see your thread title I always read it as "Tyrants Boldly Bickering"

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Apparently we're going to have to watch out for WilliamLP:



We orphaned the clams with our city placement. I'm sure that William not Lord Parkin noticed this and does not approve. Not sure where this settler is headed, but it's certain to have designs on the second ring bananas at Hell Below, which is the only thing that really makes this location viable, otherwise there just isn't any food. I'm pretty sure he's coming for Hell Below. So:



Doesn't help me with the happiness, helps him for now. But, the true purpose is to let him know that I'm paying attention. I also cancelled borders, which set up this little play:



My exploring chariot is now outside of his borders and in a position to capture two unguarded workers. Or, he can cover them by drawing troops of from Hell Below. Either is fine with me. I'm also moving an axe/spear pair into Hell Below next turn. Last, I've started chopping the jungle 1NE of Hell Below. I'll get it 3/4 chopped before it is threatened, but I may just keep it and stack my units there. I also swapped off the granary onto an axe, and have swapped to the ivory tile so I can get 5h into the axe to make it a single whip when we're size 2 (thanks to the HG).



HG due EoT. Unfortunately, we have 2-3 cities that are 1t from growth, but I'm assuming that the city growths due to HG will leave the foodbox as they were prior to the bonus population. If this is incorrect, can someone tell me how it works?

That's all for this turn. Kuro boat moves are still underway. If I have to reroute the ships to invade WilliamLP's coast, we can do that. Nothing like razing a weakly held coastal city and burning a shrine.

Choose wisely, William.

Edit: Also, not pictured, Sisu(b) is being invaded now from his southwest by suttree. Sisu(b)'s shrine city is in a lot of trouble. Xenu, why don't you log in and take a pic, just to see how things are lining up? kthx!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Didn't you just take pictures of everything? I'll see what I can do.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T118

WilliamLP declared war on Oxy, not us. OBs with him don't really favor us because we have the island cities, so I'm not in a hurry to offer again, but we will need to evacuate our scouting chariot soon, so I'll reopen once we've finished scouting. Hopefully he'll agree, if not I'll just bust through wherever we can. Pictured, me protecting workers.



Other stuff:



Suttree is about to get a shrine. Goddammit, that's NOT what the rest of us need, is the sprawling/ORG team getting a nice cash infusion each turn.



Current expansion plans. Not pictured there, we'll have another settler in 2T from Mister Love. I'm not sure where that one should go. It could go to the place marked in the south (cows, dyes, horse), just one turn later. That would let me change the settler triple whip into a couple of worker double whips (or just one worker double whip) in What We Have. We're short on workers, so that might be better. I want to continue colonizing the northern side of the sea/lake, but I don't have any available shipping, so I may opt to make another settler for that when my boats are back in ~6t.



Because my boats are busy to the west. Won't be long now. I decided to play it safe and leave the medic II (one day will be medic III) chariot to the north to whack Kuro's axe when I declare. That's better than giving him a chance to camp on my forest/hill deer. Can't wait.



Parse what you can from this clusterfuckery of signage.



In the middle of the pack, but the free HG pop never hurts.

[slowcheetah]

Parse what you can from this clusterfuckery of signage.

Tree huggers want to murder you? :P

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Parse what you can from this clusterfuckery of signage.

Tree huggers want to murder you? :P