[SPOILERS] Cheater Hater hates bad advice. BGN gives only bad advice.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

It doesn't realize I should be able to see into the city yet for some reason (either PB-related, or just how it's supposed to work), and I'll be able to see it next turn.

You should see it next turn.

[Cheater Hater]

It doesn't realize I should be able to see into the city yet for some reason (either PB-related, or just how it's supposed to work), and I'll be able to see it next turn.

You should see it next turn.

I certainly did




That's a lot of cities, but surprisingly not that many units, especially in the northwest. Obviously I want to see into A Few USD More to get a full picture (which I think I'll get next turn), but that might be my actual target--move the 2-movers into Aachen, declare and move them into the forest NW of the gold (while killing the Impi with a convienient Axe--I also might defend the stack with a 1-mover or two), then take (or raze) Duck You Sucker next turn. The one thing I need to keep in mind is that both Vienna and Lubeck need enough units to survive the counter-attack--I don't know how much I want to balance that yet.

Let's do a domestic overview now as well:




Not much new here--I'm backfilling Alphabet, which gives me a bunch of options. Obviously I'm building a Spy somewhere next turn (probably Nuremburg?) to go find the rest of john's cities, but it also let's me sign Open Borders with someone other than Adrien--any ideas who? I think ipecac is the obvious one (since I both get trade routes with a low-scorer and can finally get contact with Elum), but do I need anyone else?

The other question is where I go next. The obvious answer is continuing down the Liberalism path (either backfilling Meditation->Philosophy or spending an eternity grinding through Education), but I'm wondering if Printing Press might not be the better pure-GNP option? We also have to worry about more military--though I don't really see any offensive techs I'm behind on the tech screen:


The main things I'm behind on (other than Whosit's Music run) are just religious techs and Feudalism. Maybe that's a sign to head for Feudalism->Guilds myself since I get some Known Tech bonus on it?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

You never want to be the last guy to knights. But I don't get the sense that you're really behind in tech at all. What is your estimate of the immediate benefit from Printing Press? What is your estimate of how likely you are to get invaded before you can get to knights? I see you building a mace or two. It appears that none (or perhaps Mehmed guy) of your opponents can build maces, so this is encouraging. Johns lacks CoL, Civil Service, AND Machinery, so he is a long way away from more advanced weaponry (or a more advanced economy at Bureaucracy), but it appears that he could get to Guilds before you given his tech priorities. I wouldn't lag far behind him. Just looking at the techs, he can't research Feudalism but already has Monarchy, so this tells me he already has researched Feudalism. Possibly Machinery is next, then Guilds. Not far from Knights. I'd move in that direction. Even if you guess wrong and get to Guilds earlier than you strictly needed to for defense, well, you have knights earlier and can find something to do with them.

[Cheater Hater]

You never want to be the last guy to knights. But I don't get the sense that you're really behind in tech at all. What is your estimate of the immediate benefit from Printing Press? What is your estimate of how likely you are to get invaded before you can get to knights? I see you building a mace or two. It appears that none (or perhaps Mehmed guy) of your opponents can build maces, so this is encouraging. Johns lacks CoL, Civil Service, AND Machinery, so he is a long way away from more advanced weaponry (or a more advanced economy at Bureaucracy), but it appears that he could get to Guilds before you given his tech priorities. I wouldn't lag far behind him. Just looking at the techs, he can't research Feudalism but already has Monarchy, so this tells me he already has researched Feudalism. Possibly Machinery is next, then Guilds. Not far from Knights. I'd move in that direction. Even if you guess wrong and get to Guilds earlier than you strictly needed to for defense, well, you have knights earlier and can find something to do with them.

Yeah, I'm doing pretty well in tech overall--my opponents have taken a weird tech path this game it feels like, since other than Grimace's super-early Bureaucracy I'm beating all my opponents to it by a wide margin. I do think you're getting the leaders->players connection wrong, though, since johns just got Civil Service this turn. As a reminder:

1. Dreylin/Ipecac/Ruff - Monty of Vikings
2. AdrianIer/Old Harry - Shaka of Rome
3. Agent427/TBS - Genghis Khan of Zulu
4. Caledorn/Plako - Julius Caesar of HRE
5. Elum/Mackoti - Augustus Caesar of Persia
6. Grimace/Wetbandit - Mehmed II of Korea
7. Whosit/Gavagai - Washington of Mongolia

I'm still surprised at just how important Knights are in these games--I guess that means I should head that direction after 1-turning Alphabet. It shouldn't take that long, and I have the most GNP (though I bet a lot of that is all my espionage).

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I assumed Shaka was the guy with impis. But Johns is still missing Machinery then, so no maces for him yet.

Do you check the victory conditions page often? I'd be interested in seeing how well you managed the land grab. I'd expect Julius to be leading in land area at this point if you're going to be in the competition to win at the end. How'd we do?

[Cheater Hater]

Not much new for T140, but I'll start with a domestic overview:




Not much new here--my culture battles are settling down (I have first ring of all my cities next turn, at least), I can 1T Monarchy on my way to Guilds, I'm completing Barracks in many cities and moving on to Stables, and I'm almost done with worker improvements (after I finish at Brandenburg and Trier, all that's left is my new city and a couple of forts). The big piece of information we get is visibility at A Few USD More:


That's more than the average non-border city, but still not that much (and notably no 2-movers). Since domestic stuff is so boring, let's look at some stats!


My GNP is great as always, I lead in land area as expected, and the rest of my stats are average at worst. Next, since it was requested, I'll post the victory conditions screen:


Everything looks good here. Finally, since I'm in a stats mood, I'll post the graphs to the thread:

[Cheater Hater]

Not much has changed overall for T141, but that's a good thing when you're near the lead

Of course, that means I need to start thinking about strategic things, and right now that possibly means the opening for an attack on johns. If I do attack, the obvious vector is in the northwest where there are few, if any troops (and I've started moving the 2-mover stack to Aachen in preparation). If I do go through with this attack, there are three main questions:

1. Do I attack now, or wait until Knights? Unfortunately, johns did research Machinery this turn so he can build Maces, but he's really far from Feudalism for Longbows (and his own Knights)--he hasn't even researched Mysticism yet!
   I'm not completely sure when I would attack (maybe T145? A lot depends on the answer to the next question), but I think it's either going to be very soon (to take advantage of johns's lack of defenses, presumably because of his war with Adrien) or after waiting a while (to get a bunch of Knights and Maces).
   
2. Assuming I do attack, where else do I push other than the northwest? Southeast is an obvious non-starter since his cities are so far away from the border, so we're left with northeast (at Johnny Oro) and southwest (at Sabata), and I don't think I have enough 1-movers to make realistic pushes at both. I think northeast appeals a bit more to me, since it means that he can't afford to use the Johnny Oro troops to supplement his northwest defenses.
   
3. Can I afford to keep any of the northwest cities I capture? I don't think I can (at least if I attack now), and does that mean I should hold off on the attack?
   

[Cheater Hater]

T142 was boring, and I expected the same to be true for T143--I'd found the F1 site, move some troops around while waiting for the right time to declare, and do a bunch of micro to optimize city growths and the like. Instead, johns played twice since I last logged in (since I'm playing this turn relatively late in the cycle), and we have some interesting developments:


Why yes, johns did just move all but a single Axe out of Sabata--if you're going to hand me cities on a silver platter, I guess I'll take them
Of course, there's a lot more to this than just johns forgetting that I exist--there was a big battle between johns and Adrien recently, and johns whipped a bunch this turn to compensate. There's also the fact that johns got Machinery last turn, and has upgraded a bunch of Maces, and they're all hiding out in the southwest near Adrien's border (seriously, having this much vision is an insane advantage). Unfortunately, I've moved the two-movers up north so I can't burn Sabata this turn, but I'm not even sure I want to--T144 is when my chariots will be able to move into position to take Duck You Sucker on T145, and I'm still not seeing much counterplay on that front from johns:


The picture is really crowded, but the basic plan is this: on T144 I'll declare on johns, move my Chariot stack to the red dot, along with an Axe/Spear for defense. I'll kill the Impi sitting on the copper with my Axe, and then Duck You Sucker should have relatively few options for defense--if we assume that hill 1N of the pigs that's still in the fog doesn't have a ton of units on it and that he has no idea what's coming, the only units that could be in the city are anything he whipped this turn or next turn (note that I'm in the second half of the turn split now--though this actually is a 3-way split now with Adrien unfortunately, but we should be able to play at a decent pace), as well as a possible Great General unit with Morale (either the Impi from Fistful of USD or one of the 1-movers from A Few USD More).

If you've been following my coverage, you may be wondering where all my Horse Archers are. I decided to move them back south, so they can assist on the attack at Sabata if necessary (they'll be able to attack at the same time as the 1-movers, and should catch johns by surprise). Unfortunately I forgot to get pictures of my southern stacks, but they haven't really changed--I move my one-movers up, then attack with a bunch of units, and I might still have enough to hold the city.

There are a couple other interesting things from this turn. First, the demos:


Holy crap, that's a significant power drop by johns--and that's not even considering that he's dropped below both top power and me, and that the top power is Whosit. The rest of my stats are good as always.


This shows all of the fighting that's going on, as well as johns completing yet another quest--I would be told about these when they come up, right? Or am I supposed to look at the quests tab every turn? I really hope I'm not missing them

Code:

Quest6:
    Master Blacksmith
    Prereq: City with Forge
    Obsolete: NATIONALISM or PRINTING_PRESS or EDUCATION or GUNPOWDER or ASTRONOMY
    Active/Weight: 25/500
        Aim:
        Build default number of players for this world size forges (7 for standard) while not loosing the city triggering the quest
        Result:
1.1 Copper resource is revealed
2.All Swordsman units gain the Shock promotion
3.IF you have a state religion gain 1 engineer specialist in the triggering city

Another Swordsmen-related quest? I guess that's payback for my super-axes--though I've seen barely any Swordsmen from johns so far (just the one in A Few USD More, and now we're in the era of Maces--though I'm not sure if Maces or CR1 Shock Swords are better for the cost.

Oh, and I did have domestic pictures for this turn, but since they kinda got overshadowed by my war planning, I'll put them in spoiler tags as not to clutter the picture:

The rest of the pictures are in the folder as expected.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, johns finally played his turn, which means I could play my turn and declare. There isn't that much new militarily (a couple Cats are moving west on the northern front, a HA has appeared on the southern front and could defend the city or flank my Cat in the 1-mover stack, there are a bunch of units in the southwest that likely were preparing to move more on Adrien), so barring something I can't see (which isn't much), I should take both Sabata and Duck next turn. Of course, the big question I'm still wondering about is should I keep one or both cities? I don't have time for a full report tonight (as it's really late), but I still want to write something up tomorrow--if you want a preview (or are BGN and want to help me make some of these decisions), I have all my unlabeled pictures right here.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, things didn't go quite as planned--I'm unfortunately too busy to get a report done right now, but the gist of it is that apparently that one fogged hill was filled with units, since johns managed to shuttle four more units into Duck (along with the expected Mace upgrade). Thankfully Sabata didn't get that many new units, so I was able to burn that, unfortunately at the cost of all my Horse Archers (and my Cat, but no other 1-movers). I retreated my northern stack onto the gold, and hopefully johns takes the peace I offered. If he does, I can shuttle over a settler I just started (and completes in two turns) to refound the Sabata site, since that site is under my cultural control now (though johns could refound a city in the area, he might not have a nearby settler, and even if he does I don't know if he'll want to waste the resources to dedicate to the city while the Adrien war is still going on--then again, this is the person who moved Sabata closer after I originally burned it, so I have no idea). The pictures are here, but they're a mess as expected. Hopefully after I get peace I can power though to Knights and start using my technological advantage to finally attack someone (probably Whosit at this point, since other than Johnny Oro there aren't many/any johns cities I urgently want, while Whosit gives me prospects like settling the F5 spot if I carve out some room).