[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[Thoth]

Not my fault you haven't bothered to settle any island cities yet.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I have been keeping up, but to be honest, You've gotten so far beyond my personal skill level with Micro I've had nothing meaningful to contribute. But I am curious why you think you can't win? with an unending stack of one turned swords/maces and eventual 2-turned rifles with agg/3 promo's each, why can't you win? vunerable to a dogpile later on?

[Krill]

I have been keeping up, but to be honest, You've gotten so far beyond my personal skill level with Micro I've had nothing meaningful to contribute. But I am curious why you think you can't win? with an unending stack of one turned swords/maces and eventual 2-turned rifles with agg/3 promo's each, why can't you win? vunerable to a dogpile later on?

Questions are always welcome. I'll be brutally honest and acknowledge I might not always answer them to the best of my ability, I might not even answer them at all but I will try to. Even questions about why I do micro in a certain way.

Regarding my thoughts about why I can't win, I think if I did phrase it that way, I was wrong. I can win this game, but I think it's unlikely. I'm pretty certain I can one of the "Winningest losers" though. I think I'm more likely to lose though because I have certain weaknesses over the next 30 turns that other players (read: Gavagai) can exploit. OTOH, if he does try to do that, he has to kill me and I can make that so difficult he loses as well, and I think that is why he stopped at Konya and didn't plant that forward front city.

Right now my game plan until T100 is straightforward: finish SoZ and HE (AF) then start construction of the "Death to Ventessel" stack. Finish the GP for the shrine, plant the last 2 cities on the main continent and have 2 more settlers finished (R101 and WP). If the barb city grows to size 2 capture and keep, if it finishes a worker capture the worker and raze the city. 12M will build more galley (1 more) and work boats, and probably whip a settler as well. Maybe swap worker and settlers around between cities due to micro needs, not averse to delaying the monastery in R101 a few turns.

This doesn't help me much, because to win this game I need to take over Ventessels land, push up and secure a border over there, settle the islands (spread religion to these cities to pop borders and extra gold). I need to be able to hold cities, and to do that with island cities I need a navy (MC for triremes) and good city defenders (Feudalism for longbows). The best way to defend would be to get Theocracy and Vassalage and build 2 promo boats. I need workshops (MC) and caste (CoL). I need to be the first to Astro for galleons and then use lovely little CR3/C2 swords to take over everything on the high seas.

Right now I have 5 cities settled. I need more. I need turns to grow pop, turns to grow. I just have to hope that I can build that tech lead out and I have the turns to grow. The other players have gone wide and are teching slower (generally), hopefully I can catch up.

[Krill]

To expand on this, I am likely to not get as many of the islands as I would like. I'm going to be stuck settling some of Ventessel-land. But I have the tools to take stuff from people so I'm probably going to be stuck in a lot of turn splits. I'll have to settle wide as well, but that's not a problem for CHM with a religion. Health wise I have rice, corn, pig, cow, sheep, clam, fish, crab, deer. That's enough for size 13 with a granary, 16 with harbour. That's enough for now. Happiness I have silver, gems, religion (revolt in GA from second great person, from R101), ivory, furs, whales, CHM for size 12, +2 with a forge, +3 with a market, +1 with a Colosseum for 40 hammers.

[Krill]

Tech pah is actually quite interesting though.

After I grab Meditation and Archery, which should take a maximum of 4 turns, seems more like 3, so tech should be finished by eot94. That will complete the ancient era minus Masonry and Monotheism. I expect to make 100 base bpt at max science by this point. Current costs are -23gpt.

The options are Maths, Alphabet, CoL, MC, HBR, Monarchy, Drama, Compass, Music. Secondary techs are feudalism, Machinery, Calendar, Construction, Currency, Civil Service.

Let's disregard the obvious techs. Monarchy gives me nothing I need. Nor does Drama (although set up for a GT draft city sounds awesome, HE is better and already in place). Alphabet gives me trade routes when I already have island cities, CoL gives me a religion I don't want, a civic I can't use without MC and pop, a building I can't afford and don't need from AGG and a route to a tech that gives me a civic that is overkill. Compass is dead until Optics as well. So the only real options are Maths, MC, and HBR. Music is theoretically viable but I believe I can leave it a bit and still score the GA (but if I find stone ND is a decent wonder). I want to build SP so I'm hunting for gold.

Maths itself doesn't give me much as I don't have many forests to chop and I don't want to turn hammers into pop just yet. If I find stone then it is a no brainer though. I think someone else will make a run for HG. I think I could build it in 10 turns at R101 with stone though, but I'd rather get SP for the saved beakers on Monotheism>Theocracy speeding up other techs. Maths is mostly useful as it leads to Currency and Construction. The former will be worth 20 commerce per turn, the later gives catapults (CR3 cats from AF anyone?) I think that Maths and Currency cost about 1000 adjusted beakers, so I would aim to get them researched within 12 turns, 4 turns saving gold, 8 turns researching but I may get them faster at a push.

MC I think can wait, forges are too expensive, I don't think I need triremes just yet but I can't ignore this for long.

HBR is the main question. No economic benefit, I only want one stable (I am hellbent on Vassalage+Theocracy so colosseum are better than stables, 10 hammers more, +1 happy, get the extra promo on siege, melee and archery units). But I can one turn HA to catch up with a stack to attack Ventessel, so I may have an opportunity to capture cities cheaply via forks that I otherwise wouldn't get. Also makes CH build spears and swords will eat them alive (CR3 swords have 98.9% odds on C1 spears, with full fort, on a hill, behind 50% culture/walls). I also need HA to defend against Gavagai, and to more sensibly cover two distant fronts. So really I need all 4 of these techs before I do anything else, with the potential for the fifth (Construction) depending on Gavagai's actions).

[Krill]

Play a turn, want another...I'll try and put together an updated world map later, because I'm struggling to dot map the islands.

[Krill]

Also, game mechanics question: is there any way to work out if a barb city is growing or building a worker?

I ask because I'm becoming impatient with that shitty barb city. I think I will need to use that axe to cover island cities and I think I'm going to need to move it in the next 5 turns.

[darrelljs]

Plant an Axe on a hill overlooking the city and it will only build military, never a Worker.

Darrell

[Krill]

The axe is adjacent to the city, then why hasn't it ever fucking grown?

[Krill]

   

Looks like not all of the pictures took this turn. Barb spear approaching AS, shouldn't be an issue, but I will move the quechua over to fogbust from this point onwards.

   

Barb city won't grow. moved the settler before galley, but now need to decide if I plant for the gold now or with another settler. Settler due eot91 from R101, could have it on a galley T93 and gold settled T96. Or I could use that settler to plant the desert jungle and use this settler to plant 2S of the crab with minimal scouting. There is a quechua on the galley so I can dump it onto the gold next turn, load the settler T90 and therefore settle on T92.

It's probably better to simply be more efficient, anyone else around here with a galley and any military unit can simply raze my naked island grab. In fact, dumping the quechua this turn and then sailing the galley back for the next settler works perfectly for movement timing, and it can pick up the axe along the way. Assyriuan would be razed by T93 if it doesn't grow.

   

My CY sucks ass but this turn I gained something like 16hpt from growth and minor tile reallocations. 12M is now at size 5 and on a whip cycle (whipping as hard as possible on double whips), R101 has started teh settler, WP needs 3 turns to grow to size 7 whilst building 2 quechua for barb buster/MP duty and next turn AF starts the prebuild sequence for HE. I expect to finish Lit eot91 still, but I think I can get Meditation eot93 and Archery eot94 now.