[SPOILERS] Whosit Plays Alone for Fun (and Profit?)

[Whosit]

Well, the white peace was accepted. I was probably better off when I could have gotten his map along with it. Oh well! Maybe I can just trade maps. Not sure if he'll go for that, though. Anyway, going to actually play the turn tomorrow.

Got peace, now what?

[Whosit]

So, Dreylin does not show horses connected, which means he must be getting them in a trade, yes? I never saw Grimace connect them (possible I missed them), but it could mean that Dreylin has made foreign contacts where I have not. He probably has sailing, lol. Grimace connected wines, so he has Monarchy. Looks like I landed myself in the usual position: Falling behind in tech before even hitting the middle ages. A good number of my cities are building workers because I have way too few right now. Going to get a couple of Settlers out to try and grab the last couple fringe spots before the others can. Probably a bit unwise to keep expanding at this point, but I've never let a bad idea stop me. Otherwise, Libraries, and preferably in places with the food and happy surpluses to run specialists. Gonna make it to currency on the backs of scientist beakers, or something like that.

[Whosit]

I know I haven't been updating. I've been playing turn by turn because I haven't really had the energy or time for the game any more, plus I'm pretty much on that slow death trajectory.

Uh, got open borders with Borsche, hopefully those kick in next turn. Killed that barbarian city and got an 8 XP jaguar out of it. Dreylin completed the Hanging Gardens in Arkose and stole the sheep from Hope. Another reason I really wish I had managed to take that city.

I'm still barely making money at 0% science and I'm about to plop down a couple new cities. Wheee! I'm probably like 6-8 techs behind everyone, not counting wetbandit and the front-runners.

[Whosit]

Dreylin isn't happy about where I'm settling, lol. His power about matches mine, and when the peace treaty wears off in a few turns, I'll be spread out with a couple of new, weak, frontline cities to defend. I'll probably also be losing money at 0% (I forgot that I need Sailing to benefit from overseas OB). Dreylin's economy has certainly got to be stronger than mine, so he can afford his army. I'm trying to add on cottages and libraries wherever I can, but it probably won't be enough.

Dreylin will probably wait for Knights to take me out, though, but he may launch an attack sooner just to grab some border towns. I really, really need Sailing. And Masonry. And Construction. I wish I could turn research on so I could get Currency, lol.

[Whosit]

Too tired/sick to put up picks, but Arkose got a border pop that blocks off where my Settler was gonna go. Gonna send it somewhere else? And I have another Settler in production, for some reason. Making 0 gold at 0% slider. Power dropping. My civ is just a mess, lol.

[Whosit]

So I spent a few turns to get Sailing instead of Currency and I went from -12 at 10% to +17.

Good choice, I think. Time to get some boats.

[GermanJoey]

Wait, what? You've had OB for how long and didn't have Sailing?

[Whosit]

Probably like 8 or 9 turns. At first I forgot I needed Sailing too to get the cash (only one person needs it to trade resources, right?). I kept trying to get Currency because I thought it would be more valuable than Sailing, but fortunately a few turns ago I realized that was stupid. I mean, my economy is still shit, but at least now I have hope and I can settle for the Ivory islands and maybe get onto that bigger island that has more resources. Maybe.

My economy is almost completely fueled by Scientist Specialists right now. Too bad I'm in no position to play for the Pyramids (I don't think they've been built yet?). Yeah, every city is building a Library, even if they have no economic potential otherwise. Can't wait for Currency so I can build Wealth instead of more units.

[Whosit]

Wow, Currency is good, didja know that? Swapped almost every city over to Wealth, and now I'm running 60% science with a small surplus and can tech Code of Laws in 3 turns. Calendar and Monarchy and Construction are on the to-do list (Construction is probably a fairly high priority) as well. I do want CoL for my UB, though I wonder if I'll end up doing as much whipping at this point in the game. Well, city maintenance is still costing me about 54 gold, so some 90-hammer courthouses would be nice to have anyway, and would be a boost to my EPs as well.

A lot of cities have axemen, spearmen, and jaguars 1 turn from completion. I was doing that leading up to Currency mainly to avoid spamming out money-costing units, but at least this also means I can 1-turn a bunch of military units to boost my army. Though I think I would need to do that within about 10 turns to avoid hammer degradation? I have a galley and settler on route to one of the nearby ivory islands, so I should get some extra happy soon from that. I have another Settler in production and I'll probably want to start some more. Gotta fill in the rest of the spots on my land mass, and then start getting a foothold on the larger island to the north.

I'll need Alphabet to get OBs on my own, but I'll want to meet some more foreign people.

If I push science to 100%, with all these wealth builds, my GP nearly matches the #1 (but the current number 1 might not be researching right now). I'm kinda laughing because I've built libraries in almost every city and maybe it's paying off a little bit. I fired most of my scientists but I should probably run through my cities again and see which had accumulated the most GPP.

[spacetyrantxenu]

A lot of cities have axemen, spearmen, and jaguars 1 turn from completion. I was doing that leading up to Currency mainly to avoid spamming out money-costing units, but at least this also means I can 1-turn a bunch of military units to boost my army. Though I think I would need to do that within about 10 turns to avoid hammer degradation?

Yeah, hammer decay begins after 10 turns of not contributing hammers toward a unit in your build queue, or after 50 turns for a building. Any turn you contribute hammers toward the item in the top of the queue stops the clock on that item for that one turn, but it doesn't "reset" the 10 turn timer. And in effect the hammer loss would be one hammer per unit at this stage of the game. I think it's a percentage (1% or 2% and some flooring?) of the cost of the unit you'd lose, but is effectively 1 hammer per turn until unit costs increase past some threshold later in the game.