[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

On scouting plans. SE-SE won't reveal the capital - there is a forest in the way (I checked in worldbuilder.) SE-NE-SE next turn is probably going to mean we can go S-SW to uncover it the turn after.


Also CH isn't at war with Whosit any more (if I'm reading these right).


I took shots of all our cities for future reference:

[retep]

I wouldn't offer Azza OB. He will scout you and why do it know? He could probably get suspicious of an attack.

My next prediciotn is that

You are going to win this game

[Fintourist]

Turn 102

Thanks all for comments and OH for reporting help. After the first scout move I kept my head and in the end moved SE-SE anyways. I did that because moving SE will reveal CH's capital next turn and then we can start heading towards NE:




CH has quite a bit of units in those two cities, ~5 in each of them (axes, impis, archers), so even though he is not in war against Whosit there surely are tensions.

Domestically we are finishing CoL, but because we got pindicator's graphs let's focus this report on him instead of our own micro:




Food graph looks pretty much as expected as we knew that pindicator has more cities (11) than Azza & Mardoc.







Pindicator's economy has been struggling until recently, but his MFG is respectable. I would say that he has put more emphasis on mines while we are working cottages and obviously his war with Barry also plays a role here. I'm sure OBs are one of the main reasons for his recent economical recovery.




Power graph shows that pindicator gathered a sizeable army pretty early and managed to beat Barry without huge losses. For the current state of the game that army isn't too scary anymore.

[Fintourist]

Turns 103-104




- Azza and Mardoc clashed again, no city changes, but a GG for Azza and a war weariness increase for Mardoc
- We met Whosit last turn, I offered OBs, he accepted. We could scout along the northern coast of the continent so that we will certainly have OBs with other players that we eventually meet? Although currently we already have enough intercontinental routes to satisfy ~20 cities
- Note walls in Zendikar and Angle Bay (+ a sizeable garrison in AB) Whosit has "only" 8 cities so CH should have the necessary production to at least come even in future conflicts
- We got a Hindu spread in Englbert, that's already a third while Buddhism still does not show any signs..
- Speaking of Hindus, pindicator ate a turn of anarchy and adopted Hinduism







Domestically CoL came in EOT102 and we have started building SAs in several cities. In some cities whip cooldown reduction will be awesome, in others SA is more or less just a cheaper courthouse. We saved money on T103 and now we are grabbing HBR. The production of an opportunistic HA force will start.. Let's hope Azza and Mardoc keep fighting..

Golden Age preparations are also going well. Cornelius will produce a great scientist EOT111 and Civil Service will be at maximum a 7-turn tech and come in EOT111 also (actually we might well get it EOT110 already). Meanwhile Englbert is also working on a great scientist, we will get the city to size 8 and 51/200 GP points before the Golden Age starts, which will allow us to produce the 2nd Great Scientist EOT116 by running 5 scientist. We still need to think to what extent we work towards further great persons during the GA.

City P (16th) will be founded on turn 111 (we whipped work boat for the city this turn, but I'll keep it in the city queue until we actually need it), but I would like to have settlers for cities 17 & 18 (Q & R) whipped before the GA begins. I'm not 100 % sure, which cities will be the ones taking the 2-pop hit, but I consider it important that we continue thinking long-term and expanding even though the next wave of cities won't be amazing quality sites.

Alfie is in the growth mode and already dreaming of Bureaucracy. The city will finish market on the same turn it grows to size 11 and we should get it to size 12 before our GA starts. That's not that amazing size for a Bureaucracy capital, but it's on the right path..

Hmmm, what else, spices are improved, Daisy will start building stables next turn, looking forward to popping some borders with caste artists..




I think we broke 300 in GNP for the first time. 320 beakers per turn at maximum research and incoming Bureaucracy means that we will reach medieval techs in timely manner (~160 bpt in break-even currently). We possibly could even make a shot for Liberalism in this game, but I think I'm more leaning towards Guilds path and trying to build a mid-game mfg lead instead of a tech lead. There is no known-mfg-bonus you know.. Rival best land area.. I keep mentioning that, but it's big. I hope that whoever that is does not at least have more peaceful land to settle.. Retep's guess reg that stat, Krill+novice, is a valid one. They keep climbing the scoreboard, which sounds much like a novice-flavored aggressive horizontal expansion.




Next turn we'll see the impact of Azza's and Mardoc's fight on this graph as well Cross your fingers on sizeable drops. (WW indicates that there will be a visible drop, but not an enormous one)..

[TheHumanHydra]

I'm glad to hear we're starting to build a HA force. Out of curiosity, about how many units does that spike on Azza's power graph represent?

[Fintourist]

After losing many units to Mardoc (the dip in the graph), Azza has added almost 100k soldier points (not quite). So roughly the equivalent of 15 axes. It also seems that Azza razed/captured a city from Mardoc this turn (civstats replacement) so next two graphs will surely show some interesting movements (graphs update with two turns of delay).

All in all Azza has a respectable power in actual units (at least had two turns ago), but it is luckily mostly busy with Mardoc's forces. We could soon capitalize on that and take couple of his eastern border cities, but an actual conquest surely would be easier with a real army (maces+cats+knights). Let's see, the longer Azza and Mardoc are in war and actually use their units, the better it is for us. It already looks like we will have a clear advantage, but warfare will surely still require a real effort if Mardoc does not do the whole work for us (our luck continues).

[Old Harry]

I approve of scouting the north coast of Whositania.

I'd suggest jelly bean for one Settler whip and Hazelnut for the other. H because its nearby and JB because its main job is to grow cottages and it only needs to be size four to do that. Speaking of capital cottages - when do you plan to have them all built and worked?

- Azza and Mardoc clashed again, no city changes, but a GG for Azza and a war weariness increase for Mardoc

If I had to guess it'll be Azza throwing a bunch of stuff uselessly at the city Mardoc took off him (preview edit: or perhaps not so uselessly if he took a city this turn!) There will still be enough culture in it to give the WW to Mardoc... What order is the Azza-Mardoc turn split?

We possibly could even make a shot for Liberalism in this game, but I think I'm more leaning towards Guilds path and trying to build a mid-game mfg lead instead of a tech lead. There is no known-mfg-bonus you know..

I think knights will be more fun, provide more benefit than Lib, and push us on our way to the Economics Great Merchant... Can we run a capture-gold economy?

Alfie is in the growth mode and already dreaming of Bureaucracy. The city will finish market on the same turn it grows to size 11 and we should get it to size 12 before our GA starts. That's not that amazing size for a Bureaucracy capital, but it's on the right path.. nod

Can we see a top cities screen please? Presumably Alfie doesn't feature, but I wanna see how the competition is doing...

[Fintourist]

I'd suggest jelly bean for one Settler whip and Hazelnut for the other. H because its nearby and JB because its main job is to grow cottages and it only needs to be size four to do that.

Yeah, I've been speculating with "J" as well. "H" has a decent amount of other plans, but it's also a strong candidate.

Speaking of capital cottages - when do you plan to have them all built and worked?

Last grass cottage: next turn
Last plains cottage: in 3 turns
Last grass hill cottage: Dunno yet, but soonish as well

If I had to guess it'll be Azza throwing a bunch of stuff uselessly at the city Mardoc took off him (preview edit: or perhaps not so uselessly if he took a city this turn!) There will still be enough culture in it to give the WW to Mardoc... What order is the Azza-Mardoc turn split?

Yeah, my guess was the same I'll check how it looks when I log in next turn. Mardoc is playing 2nd there, but it looks like he did not recapture anything.

Can we run a capture-gold economy?

We'll try at least!

Can we see a top cities screen please? Presumably Alfie doesn't feature, but I wanna see how the competition is doing...

Will be delivered! I think Alfie has never been on the list..

[retep]

Things are looking good guys.

Did you have a workboat scouting too? Scouting along Pindi/cyneheard could be good.

[Fintourist]

Turn 105




Mardoc and Azza signed peace after the city called "Dental Plan" had once again (last turn) changed hands (this time to Azza). Current city counts:
Mardoc 9
Azza 7

Let's cross our fingers for one further conflict during the next 20 turns.. Next turn will show the soldier point situation after the peace was signed so I'm also hoping that those power graphs would dip further. Based on current information Azza was the clear winner of the fight.

Our eastern scout revealed a sizable axe stack from Whosit:




In the north we will unload a scout next turn towards pindicator's land (there is a roading worker below the chariot so I guess pindicator will finally connect his furs.

Note also the scouting WB SE of Kirby. It will head towards Cyneheard's waters. There is a chance that Azza's culture will immediately block our way in which case we can reconsider our OB policy.




Here is the top5 screen. Someone has apparently a pretty strong 2nd city..




Demos in a nutshell:
1st in GNP (excluding lurker civ and if research is on, I already forgot our position with research off )
13th in MFG
2nd in Food

Keep screenshot request coming! Otherwise I'm just posting couple of random ones and a domestic overview every now and then!