[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[spacetyrantxenu]

Nope, the only message you need to send is the sound of the glorious war horns. ALT+Click!

[Catwalk]

I would if I could, but sadly I cannot come up with anything better than a bluff at the moment. And it sounds like he chose to call me on it.

[Catwalk]

Current situation is that he has 3 immortals and 2 spears that he can put in it, so there's no chance my bluff will work. Long-term, that city of his will be an eye-sore and will let him expand his culture too far into my territory. Other than settling the last filler city there shortly, what should my plan be for dealing with Nakor? And Jowy as well, I suppose. I don't have a problem with teching up to Rifles before warfare, if that's the best option. Is there any way for me to profit from a war with Nakor? Keep in mind that zanth is his next door neighbour, giving him an easy border to defend is by no means in my best interests.

I think Nakor's border city was payback for my slightly aggressive settlements further west, and I think he might agree to peace if I leave him be. I think peace is worth more than squeezing a few cities out of him at great cost. On the Jowy front, I'm more inclined to contemplate warfare. He's much weaker, and he's also closer to us. There's a chance I can sever his empire in two and run him over with a good campaign. What would be the best time for it, and which units should I go for?

[Catwalk]

Turn 108

I have a bit of a situation here, due to an oversight of mine:

This hole in my borders lets Jowy's chariot run around inside my territory and declare war. He can threaten my new city to the south, in particular. If he doesn't declare war next turn I'll be able to whip a spear for it, though. I've also started a spear in Groceries, and one was already underway in the capital. If he goes 2x SW, he'll spot my unguarded worker and he might feel tempted to steal it. That would suck, but it would assure me that I can take out his chariot afterwards. He'd probably delete the worker, as there's no way he could escape with it. I need to get this hole closed in a hurry.

Does anyone know where Jowy's chariot will teleport if I close borders right now? I don't understand the teleportation mechanics.

[Catwalk]

Turn 109

While we wait, here are some pretty demos:

Still not there yet, but I feel we're going in the right direction. I have been focusing on pop growth the last several turns, that shows up positive here. GNP is with a slight cash deficit per turn, that one is improving too. My relative power has dipped a little bit, and Nakor's has grown past mine. It seems that my little bluff has sent him into a whipping frenzy. If I can keep from giving him any openings to punish me, I think we will benefit from that as his crop yield has been in the dumps the last 10 turns now. We also have a much better long-term standing due to all the land available to us. We're #2 now, and we still have vast tracts of land available to us. I feel that we're in a position to demonstrate very solid growth if we stay the course and avoid any opportunism by rivals.


And on that note:

My city is at risk here. He does not have visibility on my city, so he doesn't know it's unguarded. He will have to declare war and then go see in order to take it or my worker. If he goes in to check first I'll have time to whip the spear I'm working on. Crossing my fingers for this one, I wouldn't put it past Jowy to try to ruin my fun here. I could try bribing him with 1 gpt or even 2 gpt for 10 turns, that would be an incentive to stay away. On the other hand, it'd also be an incentive to go see what I'm trying to keep him away from. Suggestions?

Also notice flugauto's galley to the south, I now have contact with all rivals. I plan on starting some luxury trades soon, I'll have a spare silk next turn and there's a spare wine + a spare dye resource floating around.

[Catwalk]

In other news, zanth made a disturbing but unsurprising switch to Bureacracy. Azza's great engineer was born, and a great scientist was born elsewhere. My own great scientist will be born in 9-10 turns, same time I finish Civil Service. Plan is as follows:

t119: Discover Civil Service, get Great Scientist => Golden Age , revolt to Caste System + Bureaucracy, work 6 merchant specialists in Always Wrong (max size will be 10 if I can buy one luxury somewhere) and 4 merchant specialists in Foot Rubs.
t120: Discover Polytheism
t121: Discover Priesthood
t122: Discover Monotheism
t124: Discover Monarchy, revolt to Monarchy + Organized Religion
t130: Revolt back to Slavery

In addition to free civic switches, I expect to get around 60 cpt + 20 hpt + 30 GPPpt out of the GA = 720 commerce + 240 hammers + 360 GPP. Not bad! Always Wrong will produce 648 GPP and Foot Rubs will produce 432, will be enough for 2 GMs with 472 GPP left in Always Wrong. Some of those will be artist points, so it's critical that I overload it with as many GPP as I can in order to diminish the risk of generating a great artist. If I get one I'll use him for my second golden age, although I'm not sure when I should plan on launching it.

Great Merchants will give me 1100 gold in slowcheetah's island city of Delft, 900 in others. That should be a very safe location to travel to, especially if I expand further north west. That way I can send the GM at a speed of 4 tiles per turn through my lands then put him on a galley for 2 turns. As mentioned elsewhere, I think that 1100 gold is a really good deal which will work wonders for my research rate.

EDIT: I just noticed that you're barred from switching civics for 5 turns after switching, whether you play on Normal or Quick speed! This means that I can switch 3x with MoM on normal speed instead of the usual 2, that's a pretty big advantage.

[Catwalk]

Going forward from here, I'd love to get my hands on Taj Mahal. I don't see any way that's going to happen, though. zanth has a 9 turn lead on Civil Service, and Azza has an engineer. I think Azza is behind on research, though. I don't have any good wonder spots left, Vacuuming comes closest with production of 19 and 168 potential chop hammers. Adding 30 hammers of overflow, that's still 8 turns it'll take me to produce it. Want to try to convince me otherwise Max?

Plan B is to keep growing and teching towards Rifling if I can avoid warfare for that long. I doubt Nakor will be keen on trying to invade me, with zanth as a very close neighbour. I'm hoping Jowy won't be keen on war either, although there's no telling. Sian above me and 2metraninja below me are wildcards, they might make forays into my territory but I doubt it. Sian could make a play for my island cities, though. I just settled Nagging on Stone Island, started producing failgold in Vacuuming with Moai.

EDIT: I might be a little too hopeful that Nakor isn't planning on attacking me just because zanth is on his other side. He will no doubt figure out that I have a GA underway, which has farmer's gambit written all over it. If he's read any of my previous games he might also guess that I'm usually quite peacefully inclined. We know he has several immortals, I've mostly seen immortals and spears from him. Is a 50/50 split of axes and maces going overboard on axes in my border cities? That's what I have now, 2 axes and 2 spears in both border cities with 20% culture defense. I can also get walls in a pinch, as stone is hooked up now. It's critical that I don't throw away my game due to an oversight over here, so please remind me in 6-8 turns if I appear to be living blissfully unaware of any potential aggression from Nakor.

[Catwalk]

Jowy chose to walk down and look at my copper tile. I've whipped my spear this turn and I moved first, so my city there is safe. zanth and slowcheetah made peace this turn.

I found zanth's capital this turn, it's an atrocious size 11. He gets 5 base happiness + 3 happiness from icense / gold / forge + 1 from hinduism, leaving 2 unhappy faces unless he snuck Monarchy by me. He seems to have very big cities, another 2 are size 9. By comparison, my biggest 3 are 9 / 8 / 6. I'm growing them steadily though, and I have a decent number of workers for them (12 for 13 cities, including 2 passive island cities).

[Catwalk]

2metra accepted a silk + 1 gold for furs trade, letting me grow my capital to 10 next turn. zanth did indeed sneak HR by me, he revolted to it before I met him. Pop growth will be given top priority now, my small cities are really holding me back. I'm going to put up a few lake grass farms in the east and the west, river grass will still be reserved for cottages unless food is needed badly.

zanth offered me 5gpt for stone, I turned that down as I need it for Moai. I'd probably turn it down anyway, he's running away fast enough already! Speaking of zanth, his capital is sitting on a plains hill and has a PH gold in its BFC... If he also has 2 food resources, I'll be crying a lot in your general direction Xenu.

[Catwalk]

Turn 110 - now officially whining about the map

As exhibit A, I present Catwalk:

The PH tile with deer and plains wheat is arguably better than the location I picked, as I have already discussed previously. Would have given a much faster start and just as much long-term potential. Would also have let me squeeze in at least one more city. My copper is located next to dry rice and a GH pig with no river + a good deal of water.

On to exhibit B, zanth:

Grass corn, plains cow, PH gold and a PH plant. His copper is located by 1 river plains sheep, 2 grass forest deer and 6 grass river tiles. Getting a holy city there helped him a lot (as it helped me), but it does have one good food tile to get started on while getting a monument.


I think that our capital locations are comparable with him getting a free PH gold thrown on top. I get silk, which is for all practical purposes useless in the early game. I used it as a cute 2/1/3 cottage replacement, not sure if that was even worth it. Our expansion options are the same story, he gets an extra food tile and a bunch of river tiles thrown on top.

Again, I'm really not whining or complaining here. I like the map, and I feel I still have an outside chance of winning if I plan and play well and zanth gets unlucky or screws up. But I do feel vindicated in being behind him, he has a solid starting advantage here. Jowy's start (only other one I've seen) also seems a little bit better than mine. He had a potential 3-food start (possibly no way for him to know about it prior to settling) and he has a PH copper site with dry plains wheat, fish and a potentially shared grass cow. He could also settle on top of the PH copper tile for an awesome 3 hammers on the city tile and keep all 3 food tiles within the BFC (but outside of the inner ring).

So Xenu, why no love for the kitty? And if slowcheetah got a great start, I'm going to cry even more as picking one kitten over another is just cruel.