[SPOILERS] naufragar, Charriu, and Zalson's Threepenny Opera

[Zalson]

Can we concentrate our force in anyway? Or are we holding until we get galleons?

How soon could we get, say, 10 galleys together? 20 (30 units on upgrade) is nothing to snort at (although if they're galleys vs galleons, yes, yes they are something to snort at).

Just trying to provide positive actions we can take, as opposed to reacting. Keep soldiering on!

[naufragar]

Here's the power graph for the current turn (144).


Poor BGN's getting shelled. But that's not my point. Doesn't it look like we have a mighty amount of power?

I went through and cataloged our entire military force. Lurkers that don't care about brass tacks can skip the next three pictures.











I've circled the Babylonian navy in red. I hope these pictures help illuminate why I've felt so naked despite the huge power. We've got a bunch of swords and some catapults, but I don't like their odds of taking a city with a living opponent.

Here's Commodore's nearest:


Last time we had eyes on King, it had two skirmishers and a horse archer. So Zalson is quite right, we have the troops to upset him. We just can't reach.    (Not that I would attack Commodore. If I could sneak attack someone it would be Rusten. I'd hit BGN if I thought it would be playing the vulture with Rusten's meal. I have no illusions about Commodore. He'll attack if he thinks its his best move. He has, however, been our friendliest neighbor, which means something in my book.)

Zalson asked a very important question. Do I have any plans to live or am I just waiting to die? Yes.

Everything now depends on galleons. (Hmm. Does this mean I shouldn't even bother with pikes? It's a thought.) Once we can start dumping galleons in the seas between ourselves and our opponents, we can turn our coastal towns from a liability (because able to be boated) to an asset (because able to produce boats). We just need to hold on until then.

(This is a slightly optimistic assessment. Our demos are bad. But this, to answer Zalson's question, is what I'm living for.)

One last note of optimism. See this?


For the first time in a long time, our crop yield is trending up.  

[naufragar]

Nothing new to report. Just building infrastructure in the hope it pays back its investment. Had a nasty little surprise.


I went to move a settler out of the capital, and the entire garrison moved with it. Luckily, the cap isn't unhappy. I tried moving another unit, and yep, the whole stack moved. I didn't change anything in my options before or after, so I'm not sure what happened. On the garrison stack, I clicked ungroup and got the settler moving, but that was a little scary. Here's hoping that doesn't happen in a war turn...

You can see Bonehoard producing a settler. It's time to settle our northern dyes.

[Thoth]

Time to clean the mouse?

Sticky mouse click can sometimes select a whole stack by accident.

[naufragar]

Time to clean the mouse?  

Sticky mouse click can sometimes select a whole stack by accident.

I'll have you know I keep my mouse pristine!     In all seriousness, I tested the stack move with the catapults you can see 2E 1S of the capital making sure to only select one. Sure enough, they moved together. Somehow they were grouped, because when I clicked the ungroup button despite only having one selected, I could move them individually. The same thing happened to Mack against me in PB38, and he ended up sending a gigantic amount of units into my city by accident. I think in the future, if I remember, I should be able to check if that button has them grouped.


For some reason, it reminded me of a bug in another game. If anybody played XCOM (2012), they might have encountered a bug where left click instead of right click moved your unit. You'd be in a pitched firefight and try to select another soldier with left click, and woops! Your first guy goes running out into the open.

If I can't move individual units next turn, I'll just use the keypad.

[naufragar]

Turn pace is dragging. What were we doing?


We're building infra. Optimistically, I've started Moai. The Maw would be stronger, but Moai would get built slower and be more exposed there.



We are so vulnerable to boating. We'll see what Commodore's thinking.



This galley keeps going back and forth. Taking units away? Adding units for a surprise land prong of an invasion? Rusten recently adopted Vassalage (2ish turns ago?), so I assume he still has some time before Guilds, and in turn before knights are built. We made peace on turn 141, and I think peace treaties count inclusively, meaning we could be at war again on turn 151. We'll have Engineering by then. Bafford's is running max scientists and will spawn one in 15 turns (I forget exactly). The timing should work out for this Scientist to get us the rest of the way to Astro. At which point, we start churning out boats. We won't have Vassalage like Comm/Pin and Rusten which means we're a promo down in naval warfare, which is not good. But that's the plan. Next turn we re-found Shipping. Three turns from now, we found for the rest of our dyes.

[naufragar]

Bored. Need someone to attack me, so I can be in a fight for my life. Oh hello Hitru!


I'm just kidding. Our peace treaty expires on turn 151. (I think. ) Rusten/Hitru popped a golden age two turns ago, so I'm expecting an attack in ~6.

We're currently fifth in power. Not great.



Forges are getting finished, which will hopefully improve this:


Sorry, ded lurkers for being a bit slow to update (although part of that has been the poor turn pace). I'll do a big Turn 150 post, but in the meantime, I'm just trying to boost the economy as much as I can while I have that luxury. BGN and Hitru made peace last turn, so we should expect ourselves to be the target post Rusten's golden age.

[Charriu]

Don't be sorry. We have to be for staying silent.

[Charriu]

What's the state of the game?

[naufragar]

What's the state of the game?

I have been derelict in my duty! The game is fascinating...for nations that are not Babylon.


Rusten and Commodore have both declared war on Donovan Zoi. Donovan has fewer cities than us, which is saying something. Who knows is the two superpowers will come to an amicable division of their prey. We are giving Donovan horses in exchange for gems. Maybe this annoys his attackers, but we want Donovan to hurt them as much as possible. We did not accept his iron for iron trade. That would be a bit too provocative.

Commodore and Rusten are neck and neck in Crop and Power






Rusten has a slight edge in Production and GNP.

The game will be decided by who can most efficiently eat Donovan, BGN, and me.

Rusten has been unsubtle about scouting us. With these two caravels and the vision from his borders, he can see into the garrisons of our eastern cities. This is horrible, but what can we do. As you can see, we're slow building pikes for garrisons.








[I have pics of all our cities, but I realize here they haven't been uploading. So let me sum up. We are 4 turns away from Moai Statues in Moira's. Next turn we can 3 pop whip them, which I'm probably going to do. We are 8 turns away from a scientist. This is uncomfortable with our Astro timing. I think we won't have enough beakers in for the scientist to finish it, but all the same, we should have Astro in the foreseeable future so long as we don't lose Bafford's. This is not a sure thing. We are building either units or forges. I assume Donovan will fall very soon. After that, I'm sure Commodore and Rusten will snarl and snap at each other, but I don't think either of them has the temperament to hit a big strong rival while there are weaker ones to gobble up. Oh hey, some pictures finally loaded.]

Our glorious capitol. It's not bad at all. We're building some missionaries to get full benefit of Organized Religion. I don't know if that caravel ever gets built despite being almost done. I'm feeling a little naked about our military.

A light garrison, especially for a city that our enemies have shown such interest in.

This city is a touch of safer because it's on the west coast. (But galleons are still a living nightmare.) We finally finished a forge here, so now it's full speed on units.

Cathedral is another city visible to Rusten. This turn it got a pike from the capital. Now, I don't know if showing Rusten pikes will accelerate his interest in us or warn him. The answer is "build more pikes." Cats are nice too.

I resettled Shipping, now called Shipping! Weirdly, it took up Shipping's old place in the list of cities, rather than being at the very end with the newest colonies. Weird. Well, back to growing I guess.

I like Receiving a lot, and I'm not sure why. It's a bold city, way too far away from our core to be defensible but still helped by the terrain. It needs a garrison. (This is something of a theme.) It build a forge and a missionary, so now it builds soldiers until it can build galleons.

Commodore is supplying us with stone. I don't know how long this will last, so I want to whip Moai next turn (and then The Maw on the west of the island will get those lovely mines). I feel a little sheepish that I asked Commodore for stone when Rusten invaded and the only walls I ended up building were in the one city nearest him. Oops. Still, I'm appreciative.

Finally got a worker over here, and he built a mine. (We're not actually working the mine. We're working coast to grow.) This is a boring city, not bad, just boring.

I'm trying to get the island up to speed soon, so it can help if the mainland comes under attack. I had mentioned before that this island is crucial because it's our only source of iron. That hasn't changed.

It's Charriu's Point! This is a great city and will get better with infrastructure. I will love it because it got Buddhism naturally without needing a missionary.  (I can't get to the smilies menu. I'm just not having a great day. There should be a thumbs up here.) The benefit of Charriu's Point is that it is a central spot between our overseas holdings while still being connected to our core via a road. This had made our one galley manageable.

We settled a brand new city. That's certainly moving in the right direction. Practically all our worker labor is bound up in getting dye plantations online.

That's generally the state of the game. Forges are up, basically. Now I'm building units. Next we build galleons. After that, we do more econ. Once we have galleons we can think about screwing with Rusten in revenge for Shipping. (Ignore that we attacked him first... ) Best would be if he gets in a slugging match with Commodore. Time will tell. But I am exhausted and must sleep. Should have a new turn and report in the morning.