[spoilers] Commodore and Dtay are Sitting Bull of Inca, somehow.

[Fintourist]

HAK advised by Murderous Mindy, please remember.

Retep ignoring advice by WilliamLP, please remember.

I did some lurking here and had to laugh at this

[Commodore]

Well, it's turn 101 (actually, just flipped to 102 but I'd go crazy trying to keep up perfectly), so let's give a nice big empire overview. I'm going to break down our cramped little hegemony by region, and look at a couple cities we haven't taken recent shots of, then touch on economy/geopolitics a bit. Please, though, if any of you have any questions or anything specific you'd like to see, ask away.

We'll start this little tour by looking at the incredibly nice cottage core of the empire; Cascade Point, Cobra, and Triplet. All riverside candidates are up to hamlet level already, and we're just now polishing off the tail end of the dry grass cottage wave. While these three cities are going to be the commerce kings of the empire, of course right now while we wait for growth the outer cities are helping to mature the cottages they can share. For what will be a pretty strong commerce core I'm actually pretty happy with the production available here; worst off will be Cobra until the levee arrives, but even there 12 base hammers (with a farm on that plains tile) will be enough to let it at least build some decent infrastructure. I'll probably make it 16 base with an engineer working plus watermill, come to think...but that's all after growing up more. The three cities right now each need the rice to really grow at a decent clip, so I'm issuing a moratorium on whipping from now on.

Cobra is kind of the Platonic Ideal of a second city, ain't it?

We've not shown much of Triplet lately; it isn't terribly impressive compared to the river cities but it'll definitely be worth a university. And, er, a library (waiting on OR for that and a forge). The dry cottages around don't really compare well with other cities' Colossus coast for now, but I don't think we're going to put this away pre-Astronomy, so let's not dismiss the long-term investment here. I know you want a shrine here, Dtay, and I do too, but I guess I'm still not completely sold on the opportunity cost compared to a golden age or bulb. Triplet is waiting for a turn with the rice right now, she'll get it next after Cobra (Cascade Point got it last turn anticipating the HR/religion happy boost next turn if the golden age happens).

Growing up hurts sometimes.

North of the commerce core lie what I've mentally termed the “factory cites”, although right now most of their hammers have come out of the flesh of their citizenry. All but Angelmass are actually at happiness cap right now, thanks to some damnfool leader blatting on about “infinite happy”. Blackcollar and Heir both have hammers invested in settlers right now for the last two peaceful cities, both will whip again to finish them (in Blackcollar's case it'll be overflow from the HA whip). Angelmass certainly needs a little whippery as well but it's growing onto tasty Colossus coast in the meanwhile. Every remaining unimproved tile here? Destined for a workshop.

Heir and Warhorse were both “liberate” settles, too. Backline? What backline?

I'm normally pretty tardy about getting the Moai going too, so I'm actually quite proud of Warhorse. A watermill, a workshop, and lots more growth will see this place crank out a very respectable hammer total...could even be a ghetto Heroic Epic candidate, if we were looking at the top of the tech tree soon. We aren't, though, so instead it's the usual “barracks unto horse archers->knights. Might put a couple longbows in the queue, though, because this is not where I'd like to find retep landing a stack.

Hey! Warhorse is also slowly getting 2 prophet points a turn right now.

Turning south of the core we find the respectable Spinneret and the contemptible Coming of Age. Both cities are going to turn those woods into knights, I think, because there isn't a ton of wonderment the few trees remaining can support. If the GE comes a cropper I guess we need to give some worker attention to hacking out those thick jungles south of Spinneret for the excellent dye and sugar tiles, but right now the rough terrain is the same thing as Coming of Age; slowing-down crumple zone. This is a reasonably secure stopper for Grimace/HAK while we go a-thumping on retep...although that diagonal is pretty vulnerable to Gaels sweeping in. I'll be shuffling back a couple axes for there.

Coming of Age won't get its whole first ring until the Oracle/Library/Terrace of Cobra pops fourth ring.

Finally (told you it was a short tour), we have the “landgrab” against Elkad, the cities of Deadman Switch and Last Command. Deadman is clearly the star of this region; it's got good production, decent food, and with the Colossus it should soon have third-ring control. An eventual fleet of watermills and workshops will make it a huge production powerhouse but for now I'm just happy to let it grow on Colossus coast and work the riverside hill mines (coming soon to a riverside hill near you!). Which is also the plan for Last Command, really. Won't ever be impressive but the dry rice and horses get worked and the rest is just Colossus coast for now. Civil Service is going to be nice for the farms in this region, generally.

Manta's Gift is just a filler that, yep, just exists to work Colossus coast 'till doomsday.

So that’s it. That’s all there is to Inca, the top civilization in the game, almost two hundred points above the next highest score by turn 100. If we’re this small, just think about the other guys…but yeah, I know the other guys think of us, thus the large standing army. Here’s the financial screen; we’re at the point where Vassalage won’t go amiss…but I am not looking forward to the civic costs of the impending revolts. Dtay made the novel suggestion of swapping back out of OR and into paganism again at the end of the golden age; it makes sense, as we’re going to be building nothing but knights and trebuchets and longbows and wealth for a good long while. But we’re going to suck up the OR cost during, at the very least.

Shrine would be very nice, but not “very nice in a < Guilds timeframe”. Stay on target!

Retep struggled to Alphabet but it sure is paying off for him now, he’s down to 8t break-even Currency work and he’s helping out HAK and Grimace right now, too. I’m hurt he neglected to send OB requests our way. He might be trading with Gavagai as well, world GNP definitely got improved over the turn. There is a surprising lack of fireworking thus far around here, but I fully expect the balloon to go up somewhere soon with HBR/Construction on the tech radar for teams.

Grimace, your sheep are being well used sir.

Here’s the big picture, once more. You can see why I’m not exactly breezily confident here; there is a lot of game still to go and we need to acquire a whole lot of land to be in the running. Same as anyone really, but you can bet your sweet bippy that there is a target on our backs that Joey, Gavagai, and to a lesser extent Retep will be trying to exploit. Nor can we expect any help from distant trade quarters.

The world is about to enter into a Time of Churning, and there will be winners and losers on every single front. The map is tight; anyone starting to crumble can expect hungry jackals on all sides to pour on and suck up much of the remaining spoils…including us, if Joey/DZai decide to dogpile Elkad. Biggest actions expected:
-Us going crumple crumple SPLAT into someone with early early knights. At this point even longbows look iffy on the Grimace and Retep fronts; HAK with his new routes and GLH can probably mount a bit better defense but that’s good because Joey.
-Elkad is doing decently on tech and #cities fronts, but lacks high population, is spread out and heavily invested in the middle island, and lacks all horses(!). Grim outlook there, buddy.
-Grimace is weak enough to look really tasty; Gavagai will surely eat his peninsula at leisure and HAK and us might well swallow up his mainland in half a dozen turns.
-Borcshe is a cipher, but he’s Shaka of Running Out of Room, so might well try to tangle with Gavagai, Joey, or HAK. Which will have outcomes of Big Carthage, middleman meltdown, or successful self-firewire respectively. It might begin well but I don’t think it’ll end well.

[Ceiliazul]

Looking good Commodore!

Just noticed Joey's city near HAK, thats three land masses to defend. Joey is an aggressive dude, but he cant be feeling terribly good about that stretch at the moment. Watch for him to spike power but NOT attack anyone yet. He probably sees Elkad as a buffer same as you do... if Joey goes itll be toward borcshe.

I still want to see a significant play on that ivory tile. Taking PeteW (I think? Ugh naming. Retep's sputhern port, whatever its called.) Early in the war would give the best shot at being ready for the new neighbors in a post-joao world.

[Commodore]

Alas, the complex and probably unwise MoM plan is a wash, for Sojourner Truth was born. The game tries to tempt toward a shrine with yet another free spread, but we gotta keep up with Joey! ( )

Nice no-revolt golden age start there dudebro. Feeling some pressure?

What can I say? I get jealous. Let's take those demos from this:

...to this:

Still saving gold, yep. Not building any wealth, nope.

Realms Beyond bylaws require me to publish the following screen capture:

Wish it were about ten citizens bigger, but even so.

That was last turn, this turn I made a decision to accelerate the great person out of Cascade Point...Lurkers; if I get the 30% GE and rush the MoM while in the middle of the golden age, the current age gets the extension too, correct? It might be moot, but an academy would be fine to hasten the Machinery/Feudalism/Guilds up next. GM...I guess just gets banked for the second GA, we'll be looking to fire another one in Caste/Bureau/Pacifism timeframes to Liberalize Mercantilism.

One more population with clams, then its sadly aqueduct time.

[Ceiliazul]

Nearly sure MoM doesnt extend GA in progress. Otherwise "build MoM during yoyr first GA" would be a overdone thing.

[dtay]

This is pretty testable in WB should we get an engineer, probably worth doing.

[Ceiliazul]

If you dont want a merchant, then fire the merch spec, solve the starvation and push the scientist/engineer out a turn. No reason at all to muddy the pool.

Anyone got research vis on you? If so, feudalism is a dead giveaway. Recommend CoL as a placeholder instead.

[Ceiliazul]

Realms Beyond bylaws require me to publish the following screen capture:

Wish it were about ten citizens bigger, but even so.

In the BC years, that is a great moai!

Edit: also nice job on the perfectly diverse garrison. Hide those horses tho!

[Commodore]

Anyone got research vis on you? If so, feudalism is a dead giveaway. Recommend CoL as a placeholder instead.

Edit: also nice job on the perfectly diverse garrison. Hide those horses tho!

Actually, Warhorse is hidden from any Aztec viewing, which is nice. Also nobody yet has any visibility on our research, which was the point of the EP spending earlier. That being said...nobody playing here is an idiot, and the more flight-of-fancy prone have solidly paranoid dedlurkers. I don't think anyone is going to be shocked by the knight beeline; particularly once at the end of the golden age we revolt Vassalage/Paganism!

If you dont want a merchant, then fire the merch spec, solve the starvation and push the scientist/engineer out a turn. No reason at all to muddy the pool.

I'm actually not sad about the merchant; it's a <10% change but even if he does land we have an easier time pushing out a mixed Scientist/Prophet pool from Cobra, so Merchant is ideal for future golden age purposes.

[Commodore]

Oh, and our neighbors are jerks. We have more than 50% more power than any other civilization on this continent.

TEMPTATION 1:

TEMPTATION 2:

We could ruin the games of either, and probably conquer retep now, just not sure how efficiently.