[SPOILERS] WARNING: Donovan Zoi's Molotov Cocktail Contains Vodka and Coffee

[spacetyrantxenu]

• Zenyatta - resumed building its Ikhanda.
  
• Mondatta - slavery counter is at +1 whip unhappiness, 3 turns remaining to dissipate (0 @ T74).
  
• Thu Udal - no changes.
  
• OJ/Milk - moved as requested, placed sign to build road T72. Placed signs for other worker instructions for the next few turns.
  
• Northern workers - Yeah, I had thought about that last turn but because of the local terrain I didn't see the road helping to get the other worker onto the tile any faster since you don't have Construction for a bridge. Would have had to just double up the workers chopping then mining the silver in that case and you didn't want them doubled. Anyway, both workers chopped this turn, will both have 2 turns of chopping remaining.
  
• North scout - there's a barb warrior approaching from the west. I'll stay put this turn and will take evasive action next turn as required. It's good that the scout is woody II, that may be helpful in escaping the barb. I don't intend to do combat with it, either Commodore or REM should bust their own barbs.
  
• South scout - yeah, he can go NE this turn. Right now Serdoa's warrior is 1S of the scout, so if I go NE the warrior can't hit us....OK, cleared one black tile, found that the deer is camped in Serdoa's culture, and that's about it.
  

Elsewhere, Yondu stayed put doing his zone defense thing. Just realized the southern impi doesn't have a name, so welcome Longspear to the team. He darted back 1S/1N again. Is it me or did CH build two cities on the border this turn? Checked Civstats, yup, CH had two 1 point score increases during his turn.

That's it for this turn. Mathematics comes in at the end of the turn, so we'll need a new tech next turn. And may need to save cash before researching whatever is next.

Screenshots, including CH's two new cities, visible at the edges.

[spacetyrantxenu]

DZ, I'm out of town this weekend and won't have access to play the game. The last turn I can play will be one tomorrow night, my flight is early on Friday morning. Will you be back by then? If not, I can post in the PYFT thread to try to line up someone else.

[Donovan Zoi]

That's cool. I'll be back by Friday night so we'll be good. I appreciate your help and thorough reports

I think we are mostly covered this turn. Please go to 0% this turn only and start on HBR. Then go back to 100% next tturn.

Build the road for Maersk (Workboat) and settle the city, moving the Impi in.

Let's just power through the unhappiness in Mondatta for now.

Move the Serdoa scout back.

I'll start thinking about what I want for the next builds for Zenyatta and Mondatta. I'm thinking Chariot or Worker may get the chop from Mondatta, but not sure yet.

For EPs, let's set +1 each for CH/Tao/Serdoa/REM.

Thanks again, Xenu!

[spacetyrantxenu]

• Set tech to HBR, 0% slider.
  
• Evasive actions continue with the northern warrior. I ended up stacking him on top of Commodore's warrior to get away from the barb warrior. It was that or end up beside Com's warrior or move blindly next to his culture, which could carry the same risk. Although honestly if he decided to kill your scout it would mostly just save you 1gpt in unit costs, as he's stuck until you get open borders with either Commodore or REM.
  
• Maersk - built the road, moved the settler onto the roaded tile and founded the city. Began building a work boat. Longspear is resting in the city.
  
• I moved the Serdoa scout back 1SW, on top of Serdoa's warrior.
  
• Since Zen and Mon will complete their builds when I end turn and roll it to T73, I queued up the following items since I'd have to set production anyway: Zen - axe, Mon - worker. I placed signs reminding you to set your own production for those cities.
  
• I adjusted EPs as requested.
  

Running from the scout, on top of Commodore's warrior.



Event log shows someone built the Pyramids.



Maersk, work boat under way.



Demographics



I'll probably be able to play another turn tonight, but that'll be the last one.

[GermanJoey]

T73.

I had to decide what to build in your two cities; I went ahead with the worker in Mondatta, which will be done in 2T with the help of the chop that finished this turn, and then queued up a settler in your capital because at this point you have room for just one (or two, if you're lucky) more cities - and maybe then only if you hustle about it.

[Donovan Zoi]

Thanks for playing Joey!

Why did you not let the Silver chop complete? I'll lose another turn landing on it again. (I know, what an ingrate...)

Good job on the city queues though. I do need to balance between military and development now, and this fits the bill.

I'll be able to play my next turn tonight, so thanks to you and Xenu for helping me out!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Out of habit I always cancel worker actions, so Joey didn't really stop the jungle chop. He may have missed the sign that it was 1t from completion though. Sorry about that.

[GermanJoey]

Sorry, I looked but didn't see there being instructions about the jungle silver. So, I just did what I thought was best, which was to move up to the northern wet rice in order to start farming that immediately. My sincere apologies if I lost you a pair of worker turns.

[Donovan Zoi]

Sorry if it looked like I was giving you both the silent treatment; I have just been so busy with the shiny new toy that is my job, that I haven't really had the time to post here.

No big deal on the Silver, Joey. Pretty sure I only lost one worker turn and you forced my hand to grow The Udal faster, which has actually been great.

Two things:

1. With PB25 finally in the books, I hope to resurrect this thread (as well as my gameplay) from the ashes of neglect I have inflicted upon it lately.

2. I'm off to the west coast for another 3-day jaunt, starting tomorrow afternoon. I am troubleshooting to hopefully resolve issue I had last time so I will still be able to play while I am away. I'll post in the sub thread if I need anyone to play.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 85 - 750 BC

Wow, has it really been 25 turns since my last personal update? Well, with PB25 finally closed out, I am going to try to get back on track here.

First of all here is our empire at the moment, 6 cities strong:




As you can see, I will also finish Metal casting next turn. This is going to be huge boost since I have plenty of Silver, and had floated my two connected resources to lock down vital trades from Serdoa LLC (Gold) and to taotao (Gems). So with the availability of Forges next turn, I will be able to enjoy double-digit population soon.

MC also welcomes Workshops to the worker arsenal, which will bring some sorely needed production to our empire (if I ever post the MFG graph you will either laugh or unsubscribe from this thread). I am also going to consider putting Lumbermills on some river hill forests too. And surprisingly the Colossus is still available so I may make a play for that if I am able to get a fourth coastal city. Then again, I have a few more immediate things to tend to so I may not.

Here is an general update on each city:

Zenyatta



I'll be the first to admit that my capital is criminally underdeveloped. This is because I have sent all workers to the outskirts and have been punishing this city with whips to keep from using raw tiles. This will happen again next turn when I whip the Settler to see if I am able to get one of the two remaining spots available to me.

In the meantime, I have sent one worker to stay ahead of growth, starting with Mines and then some Cottages. But it may not be enough, so I plan to emphasize Worker training after onlining some Forges.

Mondatta



Our 2nd city is also using undeveloped tiles, but I am boosting production with them. My goal here is to 1-whip the Forge and then concentrate on Worker and Military builds.

The Ural



The Ural is pretty much the poster child for my bass-ackwards state at the moment. I have whipped a few times here too just to keep from having to use some of the tiles you see here. This is also the third of my cities to be fully optimized for military, with cheap Ikandhas and Stables up and running. Our first Horse Archer hails from these parts.

Maersk



A Granary was just completed here, so look for Maersk to blow up soon. My queue here will likely be Moai > Forge > Lighthouse > Library. After that, this city won't need much Worker attention for awhile.

Sevastopol



I had a choice between settling on the SE hill of directly on the Stone for this site. I went with the Stone to quickly optimize Moai, plus it allows me to steal two decent food tiles from The Ural when and if warranted. For now, each city gets one each and I check each turn to see which city can best use the extra hammers from the Cow tile.

Nairobi



My latest city. Luckily my most recent Settler was generated from Mondatta, so I was able to head south to here after CH pinched my first choice --- a coastal site to our east. He had it defended pretty well, so I am not going to make an issue of it just yet.

This city has chops galore, but I rolled into town here with only one worker because that was all I have to spare.

Future sites

Realistically, there are only two sites left that I can grab, so I guess the silver lining (?) is that I will not have to devote further production into Settlers. I was even considering staying away from a 7th city altogether to keep maintenance costs down, but I need to at least try and be respectable.

Site A



This spot is north of the capital and west of the Ural. The plan is to settle north of the Clams so that I can borrow some production from The Ural. Otherwise, this will be a nice Quay location that is the very definition of slim pickin's, being squeezed by both The Ural and taotao's Creative city to its north (I actually hope that border doesn't pop in the next 4 turns). But hey, at this point, I will take what I can get.

Site B



It will take some extra work to get up here, plus this site would be extremely vulnerable to taotao's expanding empire. It only offers plains Wheat, so growth would be a crawl. So it doesn't appear to be worth the effort and extra maintenance. The only plus would be to keep taotao off the lake, although that would be more of a risk to Serdoa LLC since taotao could pretty much hit me from several spots on land if I am not prepared.

Coming up

I'll be going for Construction next to take advantage of all that is offers: Jumbos, Catapults, and buffed Cottages with +1 XP and extra happiness. I'll also be losing the penalty from those damned rivers, which will be nice both domestically and militarily. After that I will need to decide between CoL, Machinery and Compass. I may also consider a beeline to Theocracy or Feudalism for C3 Melee units.

Machinery > Engineering looks pretty nice as well, as a way to expand upon my meager holdings.

But first, a major Worker push is needed. I think 5 more, for a total of 10 would do the trick for now.

I'll try to post Demos and graphs soon, as I forgot to collect them. Anything else you want to know about the last 25 turns, please let me know.