[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[pindicator]

113

Realized that I didn't actually do a turn report, but the turn was played late and I didn't take screenshots.

After simming several times and finding that it usually ends up with both of us with 10 wounded units each - even after spending a turn bombing things down - I decided that I can't attack in the short term. I'm either going to have to whip out a TON of catapults (12 to bomb down defenses + 20 to go into the city), or it's time to accept that the first plan to wait for catapults was flawed and move on. One positive side to this is that his units are effectively stuck in the city for the time being. If he moves his horse archers out or decreases his stack then I am going to be able to move in. On the negative side, if we're accepting a long-term Superdeath presence just 3 tiles from my capital then if he gets 1 ring of border control then he will be able to hit my capital from his borders. That means any great artist is a threat and I need more culture output.

Longer term we need to worry about Cho-Ko-Nus or possibly him going Drama/Music and getting Pavillions or the free Great Artist. But the capital should hopefully be developed.

Some big questions right now: do I need to just whip everything to the ground and trip to play out this duel with Superdeath? I worry the rest of the world is passing me by economically. I have a lot of income, but i have probably more expenses than anybody else. So alternatively, do I then leave the military largely as it is and focus on economy? Libraries and then Wealth builds to get me to the techs I have outlined? Maybe I move up Compass and actually tech it next - actually I'm starting to come around to that. It's a 2 pop whip after 20h investment and would pay for itself very quickly. For some reason I thought I would have to 3-pop whip Cothons but they're cheaper than libraries and I'm building those sparingly right now. I could certainly do a Cothon push. Cothons are then going to want an island city settled.

Hmmm... I'm warming to this. Push back Metal Casting again and do Compass next. That seems like the biggest shot in the arm economically that I can give myself right now.


Meanwhile, I need to figure out where to put cities here to be most defensable:




Ignore the current marks, they most likely will be moved. Especially the one on the marble; it was only there to avoid stranding a clam but I think it's more important to get the right spot for defense here.

It's not clear whether settling on the hill will be correct either. That would allow Superdeath to squeeze in a city between Boil It and my marked spot. If I go 1 tile farther north there's no room for a valid city - but then we're always under risk of being hit by 2-movers because Superdeath will have the cultural edge. It's probably still the hill. I'm going to need a couple spears and archers, an axe, walls. Not much but enough to make the city not worth the cost.

I don't think we'll get to play more than 1 turn today. And that's probably best.


PRO: 26 (717)
FIN: 23 (550)

[pindicator]

114 & 115

We're back and turns are being played again!

First off, it was a great break for me.  Hiking does give you plenty of time to think and so there was some time spent strategizing about this game.  But better than that, there was a lot of time where I didn't think about this game.  Such a breakneck pace with this game that it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees, and it was a wonderful thing to step away for a few days and just forget about all the problems to solve here.

Meanwhile I have hundreds of pictures to go through today and try to curate down to a manageable number.  Which is perfect for today because my feet are sore.  There are lots of wildlife pictures to go through, especially bears and deer, and a lots of great scenery too.  But here is one of Blue Glacier on the slopes of Mount Olympus, which we climbed up to for one of the day hikes.





On to the turn...




So the big strategy plans that I thought about over the turn:  namely that we are going to push economy now by using Wealth Builds to get us to Compass and then whip out Cothons.  This turn I reassessed my builds in cities and put a lot onto Wealth builds, and then reluctantly swapped Yamhill over to a settler because Superdeath is making motions towards the Dyes west of Yamhill.  



There are a few builds that finish next turn in high-production cities and I'll likely swap all them over to Wealth next turn too.  I'll want several more settlers soon ... eventually, but how many and how fast is going to depend on how the economy responds.  Right now I think it's pretty okay.  Not as impressive as Mr. Cairo and Jowy's are looking, but perhaps they are running wealth builds already and that's why they've been looking good.  Well, Mr. Cairo has better economic setup right now because his UB is in play and I don't yet.

Jowy has fired off his golden age, likely from the great merchant that was born the turn before, and pulling in +162gpt right now.  Short term, I like to think that he's Mjmd and Charriu's problem, but since I don't even know the whole geopolitics out there that might not be right.  Really there isn't anything I can do right now about Jowy for the time being.  Who I can influence is Mr. Cairo and Mjmd.  So I tried to signal peaceful intentions to Mr. Cairo with a Corn for Corn trade (he didn't have any extra fish).  I also wanted to signal to join up against Mjmd but since they are still within their enforced peace I couldn't propose any "stop trading" or "declare war" trades with gold numbers attached to signal a future desire.  What I do want to try for is to get some Ivory from Mr. Cairo for a while - or for anyone really - and I plan on paying a premium for it.  But I should have lots of luxuries that others don't have soon, so if we have to do a 2-for or a 3-for luxury deal to get Ivory that's what we'll do.

First step in doing something about Mjmd is scouting out the land and making sure I get the correct stake in it.




The axe I chopped out of Belisarius is promoted to Wood2 and coming east.  I see that there are a couple of Mjmd units already around - and he has a city east of Lake that is defended well enough for the scant amount of units that everyone has roaming.  That Mjmd hasn't taken the barb city shows me that his influence isn't very strong out here and he's just looking to stake anything unescorted.  Well, I feel like Numids could have some use over here in the near future.

My goal here isn't to declare all-out war with Mjmd but to remind him that he isn't the only one with claims to this land.  And this is land that seems quite a farther stretch from his core than mine.  In addition, I really need to secure this land to make my southern defenses come to one point against Mjmd in the future.





Next idea:  Moai at my ideal spot out east in Lake isn't happening anytime soon.  Really, the reasoning is this:  Lake is a pretty good spot on its own - it's got good food with the lake tiles and we can turn it into production or specialists or some kind of hybrid.  Now Crook is just a fishing village.  More importantly, it's a fishing village with a couple hills and forests that we can chop and try to get Moai up sooner.  In addition, I like the central location for unit production - navy and army alike.

Finally, graphs.  As I grow the conquered lands I'm starting to open up demo leads in MFG and Crop Yield

PRO: 26 & 26 (769)
FIN: 24 & 24 (598)

[pindicator]

116

I really hope that Mjmd is careless.




He has a worker on the tile marked with a c.  Next turn I'll move onto the forest hill and if he still has the worker there I may just take it.  (Also- it never really dawned on me before, but why is it that woods 2 lets an axe get around crossing a river and going on a hill and still get a 1/2 movement after?  I've just accepted this as civ4 movement logic, but after playing civ6 it seems bizarre.)  And then if we're declaring war that means Numids will be headed east.  Hopefully this will be temporary.  I can't imagine Mjmd will want a protracted war far from his core but we'll have to be careful about what we do with things.

Also of note: I currently have 12 trade routes with Mjmd, making him my largest trade partner. I suspect those cities will be made up with Cairo and Charriu.

i forgot to capture demos in a screenshot but I figured out why I have more demos despite being even with the city leaders:  I have so much more population.  I suspect we're the only civ that is really truly growing their cities.  (Granted, I'm about to whip 2 pop away from each and every one of them but we're still working off whip anger and not whipping anywhere that isn't necessary.)

Lots more commerce from Wealth builds this turn.  We're looking at Compass in 5 right now.  Maybe even 4?

When I entered turn I found another reason to bring Numids east:




Monarchy & Metal Casting were discovered and the 2 likeliest candidates are Mr. Cairo and Mjmd, because they were both burning gold last turn and this turn are saving again. But I don't know which to which.


PRO: 26 (795)
FIN: 23 (621)

[pindicator]

My reload request:




I saw this after moving my axe and realized I couldn't let him settle there. So I clicked instead of declaring first and it didn't ask me to declare war, it just moved my axe.

[pindicator]

117

You can't be the target of a dogpile if you declare on the rest of the world first *taps head thought-provokingly*



I thought a while about whether I should just send him a peace offer or not, but I don't want him to have free reign to this area, and I'm at double his power.

So I did this instead:




I hooked up my Silk this turn so it didn't hurt too much to send away my only Sugar. I'll have 2 more sources hooked up shortly.
I still might ask for peace from Mjmd next turn. After all, I'm putting Wealth builds down everywhere and I'm not eager to fight on opposite sides of my empire at the same time.

Looking at the bigger picture between us




So this might actually be closer to his capital than mine. But I really need to get a single front city out here instead of having him be able to hit Clackamas, Lake, or down south towards Gira. Even if I just secure the edge of the lake that will be enough.

Anyway, I have 7 numids coming east. I don't want this to become a bigger thing but just in case it becomes one we're going to try and be ready. Might try to bribe Charriu in with Gems if it comes to that.

I did lose 12 commerce from Mjmd trade routes and so I had to hire a couple scientists at Klamath to still get Compass in 3.




Getting my first great person from Klamath is already the plan so it doesn't hurt too much to hire them now, temporarily.

If I don't get new trade routes reassigned next turn then I'm going to need to get 2 more settlers out and get those island locations settled.


PRO: 26 (821)
FIN: 25 (646)

[scooter]

So I did this instead:

Would you say you attempted to sweeten the deal?

[pindicator]

Would you say you attempted to sweeten the deal?

[pindicator]

I'm probably going to offer Mjmd a peace offer next turn, if he doesn't do it first. This shouldn't blow up to all out war like Superdeath - this is just one of those times where someone gets punished for not paying attention and a neighbor capturing their unit. (And Mjmd had full view of this axe 2 turns ago - he should have noticed it was Woodsman2 and that he needed to take precautions. Honestly, when he asked for his reload I thought it was related to covering everything up for exactly that. But I want him to have to react and cover the other worker / possibly the city down there as well.

I don't expect Mr. Cairo to take the deal. But I want the idea to stick in his head: that I want to be friends and that we should work together against a common enemy. I know Mjmd declared on Cairo earlier and probably did something similar than what I'm doing now. So if I could plant the seeds for future cooperation that would be amazing.

[NobleHelium]

Hey, how's it going? Not sure if I'll actually be checking this more than once though.

What's the purpose of the mod that you're using?

[scooter]

Hey, how's it going?  Not sure if I'll actually be checking this more than once though.

What's the purpose of the mod that you're using?

The mod is actually the exact same as base BtS except whenever you try to move east, the UI moves to the west and vice versa.