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

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Thanks guys. And yeah, I'm pretty much certain that you can have fail gold over two turns, never over three. You can split fail gold over turns based on the founding order of your cities. Cities A, B, and C all build into a wonder. You complete the wonder on turn X in city B. You'll get fail gold in city C at the next EoT and in city A the following.

Or is it fail gold in city C at the same EoT (X) and then fail gold in city A at X + 1? Now I'm not so sure.

Anyway, a build swap is in order. Anything but a settler.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Overflow into a meal I can eat right now. Wife failed to prepare dinner and my economy can't support a two front war. .

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Need more

That is all.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T127 - We need to decide on a tech to research, we'll be running 100% science the next three turns. That's enough to finish Metal Casting if we want to build quick forges everywhere.



So, you see, we didn't get the message that you build a giant wall in just one city. We were building pieces of it everywhere. And when WilliamLP decided to build a big wall in one of his cities I guess we sold off all of our partially built walls to whoever needed some stone. Or something like that.




Anyway, we have a minimal amount of specialist beakers invested in Construction so far. We can either research that or Metal Casting on the fail gold we've received so far. Or push toward Code of Law though we don't have enough to get there yet.




Our next tech after the Great Wall funded one will come from Moai fail gold, it's been built around a fair bit already, too, and it's going to keep happening until it's actually worthwhile to finish in We Steal. That city is floating enough overflow to finish the wonder in one turn right now, so if we're going to keep building Moai other places for more than just a couple of turns we should probably release that overflow to finish the queued worker and just whip the city again later when we want to finish Moai. But as low as the population is there right now (size 4), Moai isn't really worth much. It's obviously worth more in fail gold at a 2.5 hammer to gold conversion rate.




I'm thinking that Metal Casting could be a good target right now to improve our production and help us get our markets built sooner. Picking a state religion, spreading that around, and researching Monotheism for OR would be great too, but that seems like a bit of a luxury now. Speaking of luxuries, we somehow missed gold, silver, and gems so forges won't be as helpful as they could be. But at least they're cheap to build.




Elsewhere, I've shuffled around a lot of units back toward our periphery where we're still exposed. Our force moving west is probably going to panic WilliamLP a bit, but I don't care, I don't feel like getting rolled up over there. I want to build city walls around Hell Below next to shore up defense in the west. Put in a few spears and an archer or two (for now) and it should be safe, as long as we have axes nearby on zone defense to move into the city as needed.

Something else to think about, we have the settler positioned inside Yfen (which needs a new name), it can settle a city in a very crowded place next turn but I think we should probably wait a little while on that, unless you think Suttree will rush a settler over there first. The tile I'm thinking about settling on is the one highlighted above with the chariot on it. At a minimum I'll be pillaging down that tile with the chariot on it next turn, since it won't do us any good if we build a city on it or if Suttree gets it inside his borders. If it's going to be a while settling this city, in retrospect sending the settler all the way north to claim marble isn't such a horrible idea after all. We can't really afford the city, but marble would open up building the Heroic Epic and we could use a good military pump. Then there's the Great Library, National Epic, and (I think) the Parthenon which haven't yet been built and could generate some cash for us. Those are all probably a reach, though, with as bad as our economy is right now. We should probably keep focused on the other plan that goes Metal Casting, and either Construction, Machinery, etc....Yeah I'm not sure about the tech path yet.

Last bits of info from the turn, here's F5:







We've moved to right at average power but it feels like we could use more of everything. It'll have to wait, though, we have to pull this economy out of the toilet.

Demographics:




Molach's golden age ended after I rolled the turn on this one, so it's not as bad as it looks here, but it's still not good. We need cottages...so I think we should chop and farm everything around Tyler, grow the city quickly, then cottage over whatever we don't need for specialists. Part of the problem is the size of our cities, we have two large ones and then nothing else over size 5 even though we have plenty of happy cap now. If we can lay off the whip and grow onto cottages everywhere maybe we can turn this around. Easier said than done, though, especially since Sisub still needs to die in 10 turns so that we can have some semblance of a reasonable southern border with Suttree. That's a problem for later, though.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T128 - In a quick turnaround all the wars that simultaneously erupted have now gone silent. Everyone is at peace. Come on guys, you're all supposed to throttle each other while we catch up.




I mostly pushed workers around trying to prepare a usable road network along the front line, as well as to get in position to hack down jungle from over the dye resources near The Boathouse. Those tiles will be roaded over the next two turns, then the workers in the area will swarm those two tiles and bring them online. I chopped down two other jungle tiles along the Tyler-Swamp People river, next turn one of those tiles will have a farm, and the other tile will be farmed the turn after that in time for Tyler to grow onto it. I know we're short of worker turns but I think farming and then cottaging over the farms for quicker growth toward the cap is the better play here. Especially since we need population to whip in our forges, and then to whip catapults, and then to whip crossbows to blast Halvgud with. DIE.

To that end we settled on spending 3 turns of research on Metal Casting and then engaging the GE bulb of Machinery. It isn't exactly an economic path but we have 10 turns of guaranteed peace and then the race is probably on to kill Sisu and take the rest of his land. We have to take the northern rump or we'll be forever at war with Suttree, which honestly we probably will be now anyway. I decided against prematurely antagonizing Suttree with a (short term) useless city plant 3S of old Yfen Whatever (now renamed Revival -- "City of Hate" and "Dead Boy" were both probably too obvious names and would give away the punchline too soon). That's basically the only viable city for either of Suttree or us to settle in the area, and the only other risk is that Halvgud settles there. If he does we'll autoraze that city anyway and he'd have to split his meager remaining force to defend it, never mind having to waste the hammers building a settler. So sure, by all means, go resettle that area. Oh, the tile I pillaged in the event log is the tile I'd planned to build the city on, no use leaving a village there right? I'm not pillaging anything inside a BFC Suttree can use, not for now anyway. Maybe he'll get the idea I'm not out for his blood just yet.

Something that bears watching -- WilliamLP has HBR and Construction and has units that seem to be trickling east. I'm watching them with our exploring chariot, he's been following a horse archer for a few turns. I started walls in Hell Below and am going to send some more units over there to defend if it looks necessary. For now we'll have at least a turn of warning because he can't one move the city given the jungle in his way. If he puts a road on that tile, we have to be ready for immediate attack. Oh joy.




In the north our axeman squad need thicker coats because it's nothing but ice up there. That area is basically looking like a DMZ for now, unless we end up trying to settle fish/marble further to the NW. For now we've planned to settle the Fish/Fur site north of Stars Above. The settler that was hanging around Swamp People has been redirected up there. This may be a mistake in case we need that settler for wartime quick resettlement along the red border, but I don't like sitting on settlers that can be productive, so we'll see if this was a bad move or not. We also need to figure out how to get a worker over to I Burn soon. We could finish one any time in We Steal with its stored overflow and boat the new worker over to I Burn, but then we'd have to whip the city down again to get enough overflow to finish Moai whenever we want it.

Regarding that, we probably want to build it as many more times as we can in as many cities as possible since that's the only wonder we can fail build right now, and that's basically all the economy we have. I spent a turn building it in Mister Love last turn after Happy Face got its investment to 247/250, so I think ML is at 30 hammers invested now. I started building Moai in What We Have this turn since it just finished its library. I think we should build it there until Metal Casting comes in and then decide if we should finish it or pause building it until after forges come in, or whatever. Not sure. We don't need the cash for at least two more turns anyway so we have time to figure it out.

Demographics from the end of T128:




Yup, so average. In the long term we're in so much trouble. Our economy will never keep up with our big ORG neighbors. Yay IND/CHA!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Hey bro if you can cover the turn today that would be good. Leaving now for the game and won't be back until around 8pm most likely, at which time I'll want to watch the Georgia game.

I don't remember anything specific we have to do this turn, just manage moai fail gold building, if required, most of the workers around the boathouse are building roads this turn I think.... Move more forces in place out west. May want to play after WilliamLP to get a feel for what he's doing. Keep sending out exploring chariot northeast through lp's territory toward home. I want to know where that HA is going.... Settler moving NW toward gallery, galleys are doing an unload and keep moving maneuver this turn to get units to the core. If you think they're more necessary at I Burn you can send them back I guess but I think we'll need them in the core.... What else... North Axe can fog bust where he is or come back south. Chariot up there is going to explore east. That's all I can think of now, email me if you have questions or call if it's before noon. Thanks.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Got it. I'll play soon, WilliamLP has already played. I can see him being opportunistic if he sees us occupied elsewhere, as his scouting unit probably does. Somehow I've never read any of his threads but the general consensus seems to be he's a quality player. His performance here says as much, so yes, good to be wary of opportunism from his side.

Herbstreet picked Toledo to beat you guys today. Don't end up like K-State. They paid $350k to North Dakota State to go into Manhattan for a cupcake payday and they ended up getting beat.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T129



Yeah, sure. I also offered a cows/clams trade for his sheep. Why not? We'll have our own sheep soon, so I don't care either way.



Yeah, he's got some units over here. We can't concentrate as fast as he can for now, so hopefully he'll be patient. I wouldn't count on it, though. We took control of the bananas for now. He'll get it back soon. Until then, we watch and wait, and enjoy the free food.



This build didn't make any sense to me so I changed for an archer. We have coastal cities that are unprotected, and retep appeared with a trireme. We have barracks here, and the cottages to the west of the city will go over to Mister Love when we've grown up some more. Building all the commerce multipliers here is a waste. Better to build wealth here than a market that we'll only need for a short while (25 turns or so). Long term, we should keep the deer tile and work some plains workshops, and make this our Heroic Epic. Let's work on units from here, and nothing else.



I felt like taking a look at the road. I'm not sure what the plan was there, but it gives us a second way to move on Yar Tshes. Not that we need it. The NW diagonal is still the preferred route. Sisub's garrison is unchanged.



Disgustingly, the world is at peace. It won't stay this way long, certainly.



retep's trireme. He may see our research in another turn or so. If so, he ought to turn this sucker around. If I've proven anything, it's that I know how to build a shit ton of triremes. retep, sit and tech, it's your best winning move. Don't try to get cute with us on the seas or you'll regret it.



I'm just going to add another tick on the whip unhappiness here. We can 2t another worker, which is probably best, then save up for a later final whip into Moai to finish it once we've finished building it everywhere else we can. At a glance, excluding here in We Steal where we'll complete the build, I estimate that we have ~350 into this so far in three cities. Not bad, but we're not quite done. This, sadly, is how we tech at the moment. Xenu is working on cottages/plantations/hacking away jungle shit to improve our situation.



Tech is flowing at 100% and we are... sixth! Crop yield is fifth, but we have LOT of potential here, once we get a little taller. I didn't look, but I think we're still at least tied for most cities.

Overall, some good turns, Xenu, and you're welcome to them. Ignore the market build in HF, we don't need it. We do need units. I'm concerned as you are about William LP in our west. If he makes a determined move against Hell Below, we can't do much about it, as killing off Sisub is more important. Yar just forks us too badly to let it stand, and I don't want it going to suttree. If we should somehow be pushed off of Hell Below, we could probably settle a replacement to still keep the ivory. That's the most important part, now that we're certain to lose the banana. As long as WilliamLP will send us banana (once he gets it back), I'll learn to live with it. We're not going to out tech him (ORG/EXP), so we'll have to bash him eventually to stay in reach. I think we need to pick fights elsewhere first though. Anyway, let's get a some units in our coastal cities facing retep. He can boat us out of the fog NE/NE of No Deliverance until our border pops. I did reroute a chariot to cover No Deliverance until we can get an archer there in another turn or so.

--

Most importantly, we're doomed. Corso picked UGA.

Go Dawgs!!!

[spacetyrantxenu]

1. I'm fine with the OBs with Azza, it probably gets us absolutely nothing but it may earn him a bit of extra income from ICTRs with our island cities. Since he's no threat to us and possibly a pain for someone to conquer, helping him any way we can (for free) is only a good thing.
   
   
2. I'm tempted to pack Hell Below with a bunch of archers and let him waste hammers if he wants to. Seriously, he has enough land, he can fuck off if he wants to take that city from us. We got there first. And we're not winning this game but he has a chance. He'd do well to go fight someone else. We ARE big enough to cause problems and don't really have anything better to do in this game anyway.
   
   
3. The idea with the market in Happy Face was to run merchant specialists since we're so broke, but yeah that city would make a good military pump when we get the Heroic Epic built, so I'm fine with not building a market there.
   
   
4. Do we know who built the road down between Suttree's western city (that he keeps renaming almost every turn) and the Red west? I'm assuming Sisu built it back when he occupied most of that land, maybe he was thinking of expanding west to where we are now. If Halvgud has any sense he'd take these 10 turns of peace and pillage away that road, it's just another easy attack vector for either of us or Suttree.
   
   
5. I think Retep's borders just popped north of No Deliverance giving him sea access to us. I likely would have seen it before, I've been watching the sea tiles over there for attack vectors from his area. Up until now there's been no need to properly garrison ML or HF, but I think putting out two or three triremes over there would be better than spamming a bunch of garrison units. Then again...we do need land units anyway and they can zone defend just fine over there since Retep only has 2 move galleys to invade with for now. But yeah, just like everywhere else, MOAR UNITS.
   
   
6. If you're using the whip overflow in We Steal then that means we're stopping research after Metal Casting and going to build Moai in more cities and get more research later. Not a bad idea, since we'll need several turns to build/whip forges, it isn't like we can build forges and catapults at the same time in our build queues. There's no point at all in completing Moai now with the city so small. Fail it in ALL THE CITIES.
   
   
7. Yeah, fuck GNP, doesn't mean anything right? Meaningless stat, they're all meaningless stats because we're doing so badly in all of them. You know what, no more F9 screen shots, this thread is happier without them.
   
   
8. And you weren't necessarily doomed by Corso's pick, Herbstreit picked Toledo to beat Florida (idiot). The game was fun, but about a billion degrees hot and 1000% humidity, plus or minus a percentage point or two. We didn't run up the score but we beat them soundly. They're a good team in their conference and most importantly, there were no injuries on the UF team during the game. UGA can't say that....but how did Mitchell get injured celebrating a touchdown....Grammatica!!!
   
   
9. Who is playing today's turn? You want it? Or I got it?
   
   
10. No point in a list with 9 items. Ten!
    

[spacetyrantxenu]

T130 - OK, longer turn than even normal for me, I did the ill-mannered thing and ran away from the computer with Civ connected to the server. Oops. No harm anyway.

So the turn...I went ahead and spent the overflow in We Steal on a second worker, so it was a one turn build. I'll send the pair of workers next turn over toward I Burn and improve the few tiles over there that need improving, chop all the forests, then we can send them elsewhere. BGN if you play T131 pay attention to the boat movements around We Steal. I have a few less than helpful signs posted:




Basically the empty trailing galley moves NW, stops to pick up the new worker, moves once more NW and takes on the worker that's currently on board the other galley. Then the leading galley will move NW/NW and unload the settler. I had to think about whether to send two workers to I Burn or have two workers here in the north, I decided it's more worthwhile at I Burn in the west. There aren't that many tiles that need to be improved in the north and one worker can cover those two cities for now. We won't need a lot of labor until borders pop 10 turns after settling the fur/fish city.

We'll need to get a work boat ready out of Stars Above soon but since that city has a 10 food surplus right now I swapped builds for T130 to a spear, 2 pop whip it T131 for 31 overflow into something else. It can go into either a forge or Moai. What do you think? This city has horrible production and always will, but it's going to be whipped frequently so 25% more whip hammers is good. But we're also broke right now so fail gold is good too. I think we should put the overflow into Moai and then when the chop comes in on the tile we're settling fur city on that will be another 40 gold into Moai. And I picked a spear up here since we already have an axe and chariot in the area.

About those, a barb axe showed up adjacent to our fog busting northern axe. I was debating on leaving our axe in place on the hill to defend or withdrawing him to avoid a low odds but not completely unreasonable loss. Our axe is C1 and would have had +35% defense vs. the unpromoted barb axe, so we probably would have been OK but you never know. I ended up deciding via misclick -- finger spasm or something and our axe headed SE, so that's settled. He'll withdraw and the chariot is heading up there to farm more XP. That should get it to 9/10 if I remember correctly.

Down south, it's mostly worker movements.




I got one dye resource connected, next turn i'll get another dye connected and two river farms completed between Tyler and Swamp People, just in time for them both to be worked. Grow, grow, grow. I think most cities should swap over to forges this turn, except probably Hell Below which should finish its wall soon, and any city either still building a granary, building fail gold, or any city close to finishing some other build.

WilliamLP's troop movements are beginning to make me wonder if he's just fortifying the border because of all the junk we're piling in to the area. I think whenever we get a chance to build archers if we pile those into Hell Below behind walls and move out most everything else (other than a few spears) maybe he'll get the idea that we're happy with where the border is over there. I don't want to have to commit to a giant build up in the west AND have to prepare for an invasion of the remaining Red city AND have to prepare a big defensive stack for Suttree. That would be very annoying. Oh, and two or three triremes to counter Retep in the north east. Damn being in the center of the map every time.

I got graphs back on Molach but we probably won't keep them long. He, Retep, and Suttree obviously went through CoL pretty early and got courthouses going, so we can't counter that for now. Which brings up the question of what to research next. We finished Metal Casting and have enough cash for about two turns of 100% research. Finishing Construction will take 3 turns @ 100%, so probably...5 turns? I'm assuming we won't have any more fail gold to cash in by then. We can research Aesthetics and start building either the Parthenon (to keep, but we don't have marble) or SoZ, since we have ivory. We have enough forges and units to build now, though, and only seven turns until we can declare war on Sisu. What do you think? We have two very good economic buildings we need to put in a lot of cities (forges and markets), and we're trying to grow, so going right back to war with Sisu is going to be costly. I'm wondering if we should delay that and hope Suttree makes the first move. Sisu isn't going to be able to threaten us anymore once we get catapults, so I wonder if going in as soon as we can is the right move.

For now I think we should finish Construction and then cash in our fail gold when we're ready to research whatever is next. Running up Aesthetics into Literature to build the HE in Happy Face would be awesome. But if we go down that route we may have to push for a city in the extreme north to grab the marble soon, and that's going to be expensive too.

Anyway, the graphs, GNP first:




Not pictured, Wetbandit and Retep are both ahead of us, we're 6th.

Power:




We only trail one of Retep and Wetbandit in power. I'm going to guess we trail Wetbandit because I think Retep is so isolated that he's been able to run quite light on military.

Demographics:

These look bad every turn, huh?

Edit: I spoilered the F9 screenshot because I remembered how depressing they are. There, now no one can see.