Since I'm going to do a gigantic report for 1AD next turn, I'll just plop the T114 pictures down now--maybe I'll actually start writing some of the analysis parts to get ahead of the game 
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[SPOILERS] Cheater Hater hates bad advice. BGN gives only bad advice.
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T115 Report/Overview:
Part 1: Domestic Stuff Well, I said I was planning a big report for 1AD, and I hope I delivered. I have over 40 pictures for this turn, and even though some of them are just for reference (a picture of every city screen) or are composites (stuff I made in Paint and kept the source pictures for), there's still a lot here. Let's start with the domestic overview!    There's been some new stuff since my last report, mainly the settlement of Strassburg, the Hindu shrine in Bas-Tyra, and the research of Masonry/Construction/Sailing. My goals have generally been to build Rathuses more-or-less everywhere, and now I'm getting a solid basis of Catapults so I'll be able to break through if I want to attack someone in the near future (and I have enough Axes anyway  ). I also am getting near the end of my expansion phase, so I have plenty of settlers coming off the production lines. Let's look at the last remaining patch of land I can easily access: I can group the remaining cities I want to settle into three groups: 1. The close northern cities I already have settlers for: This is the city BGN told me to cram in on the desert hill (which I will settle on T117), as well as the northern 4 city, likely 4B (Settler coming out of Mainz on T117, settle on T120/121). 2. The far northern cities: This includes capturing Mycenia, as well as a city north of there if Whosit hasn't taken that land yet (the city 1W of the fort looks insane since it has 3 food sources). 3. The filler cities I have marked all around my empire--F1, F2, and F3 are all really good sites, while F4 and F5 are more "yes, we can put a city here", especially F4. We could also conceivably put another city north of Strassburg, but it's really bad and would be an immediate target for johns. The other really big question with regard to my domestic situation is what my next couple techs will be. Right now, my conceivable options in my opinion are Calendar, Metal Casting, Civil Service, Horseback Riding->Archery, Alphabet, Iron Working, and Monarchy. Let's go over all these in detail: Calendar: Yeah, this isn't really a contest, at least for the first tech. I have 4 different Calendar resources once I settle City 4, and I'm starting to run up against the happy caps again (especially in cities without religion and/or Markets, like Aachen). I'm also running out of priority stuff for my workers to improve (which includes stuff like the southern Marble, chopping trees at my new cities, and more cottages at Augsburg), so I could use another worker tech. Metal Casting: This is another thing I feel like I want soon--building Forges is good if I want a military buildup in the near future. The problem is that it doesn't really give me that much other than forges, and I don't think I'm researching Machinery for a while. Civil Service: This tech is obviously good, and I really want Bureaucracy for the capital, but it's really expensive--is the general path to beeline right for Civil Service, or do I want to wait a bit and fill in some other things? Horseback Riding/Archery: This is the "Horse Archers are good" path that BGN wants me to head down--I'm still undervaluing HA's and 2-move units in general though (even though I have been building more Chariots and not as many Axes recently). Importantly, this also gives me War Elephants--that along with Stables is probably a reason to fit this in somewhere (and not, say, to wait until Knights). Alphabet: Alphabet gives me two things at this point: Open Borders and Spies. Open Borders is an odd case; I obviously have Open Borders with Adrien already, but I still have plenty of cities that need trade routes (does Adrien not have Currency yet? Or is he just getting routes with Whosit?)--this probably would require me to confirm that Ipecac is on the other side on Adrien, and get Open Borders with him (so I'm not helping Whosit or johns). Spies is a case I'm not at all familiar with--I have a ton of Espionage I don't know what to do with, and I could start using it on espionage missions against johns, but I don't know if that's worth the investment--any thoughts on the rebalanced espionage BGN? Iron Working: This is really weird--I haven't seen any reason to research Iron Working yet! I don't know how good the rebalanced Swordsmen are (though I think I have enough 1-move units), and while Iron would be nice for its production boost, it's not worth the research just for that until I need it for units (either for Knights or my UU Pikes) Monarchy/other religious side techs/Aesthetics: I can't much of a use for these--I don't need HR if I get Calendar, I don't think OR is worth it since I've already built most of my important buildings, and I shouldn't need Monasteries to spread Hinduism since I have the shrine. Maybe I do want OR before I start my forges? Any thoughts on this side of the tree BGN? If you want more details on the domestic stuff, I have all my city screens in a folder here, let me know if there's anything you want to know more about. I've got other things I need to be doing, so this report is going to have to be split into parts. If you want a preview, all my pictures for this turn are in this folder. Hopefully I'll get back to this before the turn rolls
Apparently I didn't do it before the turn rolled--then again, I didn't expect it to roll so early
 Part 2: Foreign Relations: Right now we're in a state of peace, after that brief flare-up around Adrien--as such, I'm building up and expanding, waiting for another domino to fall before I take action. Let's go over all the civs, starting from the bottom: Adrien: Adrien is currently the low man on the totem pole, even though he appears to be trying some things--obviously he's the only person with Alphabet, and he made a deep beeline for Calendar so he could get MoM. Obviously, these tactics have had some costs--he hasn't expanded that much (only 11 cities), and he might not even have Currency at this point! He's also been hampered by engaging in early hostilities (first attacking ipecac, then getting attacked by johns)--maybe he just overbuilt military? It doesn't seem like it from what I've seen... ipecac/Dreylin: ipecac has decided to take the religious route: founding Buddhism, building Oracle (likely for Metal Casting), then leveraging that to both build Colossus and the Buddhist shrine Unfortunately, he only has 10 cities now, which likely explains his place on the scoreboard. Otherwise, I don't know much about them--presumably I'll find his border soon. Grimace: I'm not really sure what Grimace is doing--he actually matches me in cities (tied for the lead that I know of) while finding time to build the Great Lighthouse--or the Great Lighthouse is allowing him to support that many cities (along with being Organized). His problem might be that he's surrounded by two other good civs: Whosit on one side, and possibly Elum on the other. He also appears to be ramping up his espionage production from all his cheap Courthouses. Whosit: Whosit seems to be doing well--he picked up Statue of Zeus and Hanging Gardens, is expanding at a decent rate (13 cities), and isn't falling behind in research or anything (unless you count going down the Aesthetics line wasting research ). He's even starting to come back power-wise. Whosit probably is the stereotypical person I'm supposed to try and conquer now, but I like our peaceful relationship--he's also somewhat farther away from my core.Elum: Elum is the big mystery--he's leading on the scoreboard, but a lot of that is due to his Industrial wonder-spam (Stonehenge, Pyramids, and now Great Wall). He's also Imperialistic, so he presumably has been able to put out a decent number of cities. I really, really wish I had contact with him now  johns: Here's the obvious elephant in the room--we've been at a cold war ever since I burned the undefended Sabata (and then he was crazy enough to re-found it closer to me). We each have the same number of cities, and he's also the power leader by a wide margin. Yet, even though that, we're maintaining friendly relations, with me even selling him Ivory for a good price. Of course, I'm canceling that as soon as I can, since presumably he's made a beeline for Construction and/or Horseback Riding so he can build War Elephants (possibly to attack me). As such, I've been monitoring the situation at the cities I can see:   There aren't that many units at Johnny Oro, so that should be easy to take once I decide to start hostilities (even if I don't want them to happen, they probably will inevitably). Of course, the more annoying situation is at the Vienna/Adios, Sabata border, where we both have been building up troops well within range of each other (though I don't think he can see Vienna at the moment, ever since his Galley got kicked out when my borders expanded). There's also the northwestern border with johns, but that hopefully doesn't become a big attack vector (especially since I moved away a bunch of troops to support my northern and western expansions). That's all the important stuff--I have folders for each civ's cities, as well as miscellaneous foreign stuff (gold counts, contact, etc). Considering the turn's rolled already, I don't know how many stats I'm going to get into, but I'll post some important stuff while leaving the rest in the folder:    
Obviously I'm not going to write a full report for T116, but there is one thing I want to point out:
  Yes, johns has showed up at the barb city, nearly taking it--but wait! How was he able to attack it this turn? The problem here is that johns actually double-moved (end of turn/beginning of turn) to attack the city this turn. The interesting part is that the last remaining barb archer has some health removed from it--this either means johns had a Catapult in the stack, or that he had at least three attackers, meaning he could have taken the city this turn! Of course, the weird part of the situation is that this should be a detriment to him, since Whosit should take the city this turn (heck, I could have taken a shot at it, but I only have 6% odds--not worth losing a HR defender eventually, not to mention I obviously couldn't hold it even if I did get it). As such, I'm not going to raise a fuss about it publicly, but this is something to watch--johns has been playing a lot of back-to-back turns, and a lot of them could give an advantage (remember when he shuttled all his troops back to Adios, Sabata right after the Adrien war ended?). I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do about it, but it's yet another complication in our cold war 
Would a lurker be willing to point out to Johns in his thread that he needs to avoid double moving in situations where there could be competition with opponents based on his actions? Thanks.
CH, I've been pretty busy this week and haven't had time for much civ. Have you done a sim to estimate how many chariots it would take to kill John's spear in Sabata? His garrison is very heavy on axes. I'm guessing if you put together 10 chariots you'd kill that city out of the fog. This is a good reminder to you to keep a good mix of units on defensive garrison duty. In a pile of units like that, one spear isn't good enough. You're moreiky to be facing ten mounted units than ten slow-moving axes. And if it is an axe stack incoming it ways comes slowly so you have an extra turn to respond with a whip. Don't forget this.
Oh boy...I'm just going to drop the T117 folder here (especially since the turn should be rolling soon--though I expected to be the last person to play when I left this until the morning
), but the big news is that johns has shuttled a Galley over to the vicinity of my 4 site--with a Settler!  As far as I can see, he brought an Impi on the Galley with the Settler, he still has the partially damaged Axe from the failed Mycenia conquest, and he could have the remaining two units from that stack (an Impi and nearly-dead Axe) in the fog. Still, how does johns think he can defend that spot? I've moved up the Axe and Spear from Pisa, and along with the Axe and two Warriors I'm really, really tempted to just declare on the turn he settles (especially if he settles on the jungle, since I'll be able to snipe the Axe before it gets to the city), but then I need to start worrying about all my cities on the border (Vienna, Aachen, and the newly founded Lubeck). I think they all should be safe (especially since I have Cats starting to roll off the production lines), but the fear is always there (especially since I'm 50k down in power at the moment). As such, I haven't done the Chariots vs Sabata sim yet, since it appears to soon be irrelevant (though I'm going to have some time soon, since I'm in the second half of the turn split now ).
February 12th, 2015, 15:58
(This post was last modified: February 12th, 2015, 16:04 by Cheater Hater.)
Uh...where is johns/agent? Don't tell me he's waiting to be last in the turn so he can settle on the jungle then get his Axe safely in there with a "peacetime" double-move--that would be shady as hell, and I would protest that. I mean, I'm not supposed to play this turn before johns under any circumstances if my plan is to declare this turn, right? I want to give benefit of the doubt, but this is a mess
February 12th, 2015, 16:47
(This post was last modified: February 12th, 2015, 16:48 by GermanJoey.)
IIRC, john is away for a few days and TBS is covering for him. You don't have to worry about TBS double-moving, he's got a very honourable reputation for turn-splits.
And yes, if you wanted to declare this turn and you played after them last turn, then you should play after them this turn too.
Well, johns settled on the jungle, which was the best case scenario--I declared, killed his axe with mine, and moved to burn the new city next turn (single Impi vs 5 units, including 2 Axes). Hopefully the rest of my defenses hold--I have a bunch of pictures here, though I don't think I'm in the mood for a full report
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