[49 spoilers] Miguelito, pindicator and Adrien take Shiva by the hands

[Hollybombay]

Where are you planning on building the mids, and the ETA?

[Miguelito]

I think I'm going to do an Ice Crash berserker tomorrow and play around with the new slams, war cries, and maybe even go staff for block and get that new keynode Glancing Blows.  Just mix up as much of the new stuff as possible

Oh my, it's there already? I definitely don't feel like I have time for it atm, but reading the notes I also had my attention on berserker, here's a tree that I clicked together in a few minutes . Warcries/stuns/leech. It'd fail most probably during early mapping due to lack of damage (physical without impale), but it has 5 keystones so it has to be awesome, right? The mortal conviction / perfect ego (?) keystone combination should work, or am I missing something?

[Miguelito]

Where are you planning on building the mids, and the ETA?

Mids go for Nataraja, as it will be the most difficult for Commodore or Fintourist to take / give them less urge to attack, and has the forge so the GPP might get us another engineer in a distant future. Of course Cairo may just boat it in a moment of my inattention.
ETA is the yellow bar to the right of research

[RefSteel]

Belatedly - partly just to thank you for the great reports and to let you know I am still reading...

Ref, do you see those three ocean tiles? I think they're placed pretty awfully

I can imagine that you didn't think too much about it, and just put/left them there because it seemed natural. I didn't realize their siginificance until Cairo's first attack.

I actually considered turning them into coast, but decided to leave them lest having the "wrong" tiles annoy players who saw them. You're right that I didn't spend enough time thinking about it though; honestly, I'd have changed the whole layout of this part of the map if I'd really thought all of it through in time. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the game in spite of the setbacks you've suffered though! Good luck with the rest of it!

[Miguelito]

Bad turn.

Superdeath built the Pyramids one turn before the engineer came out, without doubt for the sole purpose of trolling me (joking, but he didn't even change civics, though maybe he has a GA coming up). Holly, your question was as non-innocent as it sounded . We'll now have an engineer that can bulb Machinery, but it'll be worthless as we have no iron (Cornflakes didn't want Marble). Or he triggers a GA with our poor 4 cities (would speed up Construction though so, worth something?)
I guess I'll bank him, he can either bulb Machinery if we ever really want it, or Engineering for our UU and privateers, if we make it to researching Machinery by ourselves.

In more bad news, Commodore took Raskolnikov's last city, so he might be looking for a new target now (he might prefer to consolidate first). That also cancelled the ivory for silver trade, which sent Nataraja into unhappiness. I offered the same to superdeath, but he didn't take it (logged in while I was playing and nothing happened). I can't offer it to FT, as he seems to have traded away his silver   really should have offered to him in the first place.
 
Quiet day on the front, as Cairo's researching.

[pindicator]

Anybody have iron for trade?

[Miguelito]

Anybody have iron for trade?

Nobody has a spare one yet afaik. I had offered marble for iron to Cornflakes, who has Calendar, but he didn't take it and instead offered this this turn:


I took it. Even if it can't be permanent, the cap was unhappy already after losing Rasko's silver, and Mahadeva can grow some more while whip anger wears off.

Commodore also has iron, but I'd be at a loss what to offer him for it.

This turn I could offer FT this trade, with the silver available again:


I hope he has some market(s) and sees a benefit in it.

More diplo: superdeath researched Alphabet, and is giving everybody but Ruff OB, including us


that's great, as we were missing the ICTR from the lost island.

Speaking of, if these triremes blockade:


I should cut off Cairo's trade routes, correct?





he has a new galley in that city, but a single one is no threat. I have the 3 move one healing in the cap, so if he moves favourably I might catch it. It was at 1.4/2 and I didn't have the guts to put it onto my galleys, where it would have had control on all tiles his galley can reach.
edit: looking at the picture, I should cover the grassland tile NE of the cap with some axes, but it's enough if I do it next turn.

[Miguelito]

To expand on the superdeath troll conspiracy theory: Note that Pyramids is the one wonder that specifically doesn't get the IND production bonus, and he still went for it instead of something like, uh, ToA? Yes, it's perfect: he's salty because I snatched the Oracle that he wanted for IW, estimated the time I'd need to get the engineer out (maybe recording the turn I 3pop whipped the forge) and then dedicated the last thirtysomething turns to teaching me a lesson

[pindicator]

If you do come across someone with extra iron, sometimes people will grant it just so you can be a more difficult conquest for Cairo. Don't be afraid to ask for a gift or even give something nominal even if you don't think it would have equal value. The metagame game work in your favor sometimes!

Which wonders are still available?

[Miguelito]

If you do come across someone with extra iron, sometimes people will grant it just so you can be a more difficult conquest for Cairo.  Don't be afraid to ask for a gift or even give something nominal even if you don't think it would have equal value.  The metagame game work in your favor sometimes!

Which wonders are still available?

Nobody has spare iron so far, though Ruff may soon get some (see below). Wonders available (at our tech) are Colossus, ToA, and GW. I am actually considering rushing ToA, mainly for the culture: It would drastically speed up the 4th ring borders at the cap, to claim that ocean tile, defend our gems tile, and maybe even get the city to flip (it's such a shame that I spread the relgion there myself 2 turns before losing the city )? 

Another option would be to rush Moai, which would give us +4XP to all boats from the cap, eg instant 3-move. (I'm afraid Cairo will build that)

But I still have hopes to live long enough that we'll see benefits from Machinery. Probably delusional. Would you rather rush one of those?


Losing Pyramids really was crushing for my motivation. It wouldn't bring us back to relevance obviously, but it was something nice to aspire to and play with. Now that engineer, is sitting there, staring at me.


We're averaging nearly 2 turns a day so I'm reporting t107 already, although not too much has happened (for us, elsewhere the world may be burning). FT eliminated Elkad. I sniped a galley of Cairo's, but my motivation is so down I didn't even take a proper shot to brag about it:


The trireme had been hiding where the galleys are. He has his 3 galleys on that ocean tile (loaded with promoted swords), so he could have taken the trireme down, but I would've struck back at the galley(s). 
You can also see Commodore attacking Cornflakes (he took the border city west of former Pashupati) and lots of Great Generals getting born to other people.

With open borders I've explored superdeath's land with the spare scout:




Ours looks better, but he has just 1 and a half neighbours to worry about. Our cottages are taller. His cap SE of the corn has 3 food resources to 2 at ours, and I maintain that worker resources are better  . That iron one tile outside his borders must frustrate him to no end, I hope the lurkers enjoy the rants.
He'll get one more city down:



With Stonehenge, it will quickly take an FP that should be ours, and that peak would've been nice as well, but he won't get anything else. Gangadhara is popping borders this turn, oyu can see the 3 workers and 2 spears which moved on the gold hill this turn. Also FT founded a city that claims the second gold, and nothing else.

Ruff finally settled on the island that Cairo didn't want:


That would've cost him less than 3 galleys and 6 swords (which could've come afterwards of course and likely still would've got me because I was/am(?) too naive)

Finally Ruff's border city popped 3rd ring borders, and we lost the wheat .


Whipped the barracks in return, so in some 12 turns we should get it back, but it's still awful. Should've considered this. Also a nice opportunity to rant again about how after 82 turns we still have just one natural Hinduism spread .

He has some troops deployed, but in a dispersed manner, so I'm not too worried. He also is building a channel SE of the wheat, probably/hopefully for some superdeath surprise.

Graphs and Demos are looking more or less the same every turn. Cairo is back to high MFG, but we're keeping a power ratio slightly above 0.8. We have slightly better GNP and even CY after losing the wheat. 3 turns to Construction. I'll see how many axes and cats I can get on the island, but he has walls (would've been a smart purchase for us ) 2 archers, and 3 axes there already, and I wisely founded on  a hill. Could also try and fork the island and capital with galleys. Or try to brute force my way through the land border city... nah. Every attack plan has to account for 3 galleys full of swords 3 tiles away from my capital on an unreachable tile, which can also reinforce the island at any given time.

General state of the game and its big powers, from a mouse's perspective:

• FT is still in pole position I think, having got the lion's share of Elkad and managing to develop best his economy, with currency, HR, and now a religion and access to Caste. He has been behind Comm and Cornflakes regarding CY and MFG though for some turns, but recently having swallowed Elkad's cap he may have some room for growth still. Unfortunately, that may include Gangadhara with its maturing cottages. If he comes a-knocking I'm not sure we'd have much to oppose that. I don't know if he has access to superdeath through those mountains, if yes the mids would be a nice target for him. He has CF to the north and Ruff to the west.
  
• Cornflakes has built some strong wonders (GLH/HG) and should be about to get the Mausoleum, having developed already a number of Calendar resources and getting marble from us. In my t105 graphs he is first in all of CY/MFG/GNP. He is in a difficult position though, bordering both FT and Comm, whom he is at war with now, whipping considerably and also losing the aforementioned border city, bringing him down to seven, while FT and Comm have 11 and 13.
  
• Commodore is topping the city count, having secured his south from us, then eating all of what remained of Raskolnikov after his early war with CF, and now charging into CF. As I have mentioned, I consider at least two of these cities to be pretty awful, and I suspect he may have two more of those which he founded mainly to get his seven stables down for the event. His CY and MFG numbers are as strong as you'd expect, but the GNP is still almost at our level, and Boudicca will not help him too much with that. I don't know if he'll try to get to Machinery and Samurais before Currency (shame on me, I haven't checked whether he in fact has Currency already), but he's researched MC already, getting the trireme event. I have some hopes that he'll decide that expanding thorugh Cairo makes more sense for him than through us, in which case we might be able to reconquer the island before getting swallowed by the major powers. 
  
• Ruff's ways are still mysterious to me, starting with my lasting confusion about his pick. He has surprisingly good GNP, 8 cities by now, and an avenue for expansion through superdeath after achieving tech superiority; probably with cats. He could also attack us and cause some real damage if Cairo moves up at the same time.