[SPOILERS] The Rise and Fall of Whositania (all glory to Whositania!)

[Whosit]

I'm feeling better about my potential turn 70 demographics after checking out some stuff from other PB games. I don't think I'll be leading the scoreboard by any means, but at least it seems like it might put me in an alright position moving forward.

Again, this assumes that the Zulu don't harass me with Impi, and that Krill isn't plotting something. I'm nervous that I have a second city before Krill and Novice. I'm also hoping that their second city is somewhere not in my direction, but I don't think I'll have that kind of luck.

What do I do in a catastrophic event? Whip units.... Archery before pottery!

[Whosit]

I'm pretty confident that this pausing issue is never going to be resolved and everyone is going to remain grumpy.

I can't wait until other issues crop up as they inevitably do. I wonder who will be the first to be charged with poor sportsmanship, or abusing the clock or something like that. I really dread getting into war turns in this Pitboss.

[Whosit]

On a more strategic note, I need to figure out what direction to send Whositania (all glory to Whositania!) in. I will probably end up regretting naming this civilization after me, considering that my game experience tends to involve falling behind, stagnating for a while, and then waking up to find out that all of my cities belong to someone else. Still, I plan to give it a go.

I think that horizontal growth should be the primary order of the day, but from turn 70 onward, I think it's about time to start growing my core as much as I can while maintaining expansion. I may have to rely on the whip a bit more as most of my forests will be gone. Hopefully I can locate the borders of some other civilizations, and I hope to find time to spare explorers for the north.

I'm not sure what to research after Writing and Masonry. I think 5 cities is too early for Currency to be useful. Sailing and Iron Working would both be useful, as would Horseback Riding, which is something I always seem to neglect in Multiplayer. Maybe I'll get Sailing and Iron Working, and then see how I'm doing. I want to expand as far to the east as I can before Krill gets it all, but I don't want to provoke him and novice.

So, war. I don't think this is a game to try and do early warring in, unless I can be absolutely certain that I can make large gains with few risks or losses. I'll never be certain of that. I think that when I start running out of room to expand with Settlers is when I'm going to want to expand with force. Krill will not be a good target, I imagine, but I'll try to keep an eye out to see if he slips up. His Creative trait makes him less attractive to invade because his cities will have stronger cultural defenses overall. I'd like to knock out dtay before he gets gunpowder, but I imagine geography and such wouldn't allow that. There's the Zulu. Perhaps they would be best dealt with with a stack of infantry and catapults. Maybe some mounted as backup/pillagers. Impi's speed bonus will be negated somewhat on the defense if I'm able to dictate where fights happen.

This all assumes I can remain technologically relevant and have enough cities to produce the units and infrastructure I need. I am fairly confident that none of the cities I intend to settle by turn 70 will be contested, and I am fairly certain that no one is going to commit to a large-scale attack on me. I think pillaging could happen, and my plan still has me sort of light on units, but I think I have to play a bit risky to have a chance of making it to the late game. I wish I didn't have to worry about Impi. I feel my main defense is the size of the map and the hope that most players follow the same rationalization that spending resources fighting someone else this early are resources wasted. Let's say I could kill Krill by turn 75. How much of his land will I be able to snatch away from his other neighbors? I'm presuming the war effort would have stunted my own growth. Of course, that's just the conventional wisdom I've picked up here. Maybe someone will show that an early elimination was a good plan.

Back to techs: I believe I do want to start teching Currency when I'm sitting at, say, 7 cities with plans to get more. I'm not confident that I can leverage a super early currency into anything. Also, with Maths and Sailing, I can get Calender to hook up a couple more luxury resources. I hope I find more. I think I can probably get by with Gems, Ivory, Dyes, and Incense, but that's not a ton. Maybe the jungles to the north will have more? Maybe silks and sugars. I'll also need to scoop up all those old religion techs to get Monarchy. Ah, and Code of Laws, which Currency will open up. Downside is that I have to spend the hammers on the Courthouses, even if they are cheap, but perhaps Currency followed by CoL as I'm making a big second wave of settling would be good timing. I'll try for something like that.

I'm also hoping that by turn 80 I'll feel less porous. Barbs will be a big threat until my border cities have 2-3 units in 'em.

[Whosit]

Y'know, considering that the strongest power in the game right now is 30K vs my 20K... I wish I knew who had that 30K. Maybe I should log back in and put all my EP on the Zulu. I should have probably done that a while ago.

Also, the hut contained XP. I'd normally consider that a bad pop, but it does give my scout 10 XP, which means that promoting him will give me Heroic Epic eligibility, even if the scout later dies, right?

[Whosit]

It will probably take me at least 5 turns to get graph vision. Although I had no intent to track demos, I shouldn't have ignored EP like I had. I even wasted a ton on the lurker civ. If there's an Impi rush coming, it will probably reach me before I can confirm Zulu's power graph. Crossing fingers.

On another note, 2N of Scout could be a decent city someday, though might not be able to take clam from production city.

[Whosit]

With the kind of luck I've been having lately, I'll probably get rushed by Krill and Cheater Hater at the same time.

[Whosit]

Turn 38 Report

That might help me keep track of when I'm talking about a particular turn. Anyway, Dtay has a new city:

Not sure if that was this turn or last, since I haven't been completely on top of checking every turn, but wow. That seems pretty fast, but definitely looks like he's putting that Expansive trait to use. Like I feared, seems like he'll be planting a lot of cities, getting cheap granaries, and possibly stuffing them with protective archers. Hopefully he becomes Krill's problem and not mine.

Here's a little overview picture, I guess:

That second Warrior is going to do some scouting before returning in time to defend my Copper city. The scout will spend a turn healing, and then I think he'll start the 4+ turn journey to actually get somewhere useful again. I plan for him to circle around and head west. I'm not too concerned about exploring that dark patch to the south east because it's probably either tundra or will belong to Krovice.

...Not sure when I can afford to send a unit exploring north, but I want to. With my luck, the north will turn out to be a fantastic paradise that gets gobbled up by an unknown neighbor before I can even explore it. Scouting is hard.

[Whosit]

I missed it last turn, but Dtay got an event that boosted his current research. Ugggh. Lucky. I wonder how many techs he's popped from huts, too.

Nothing else to report on Whositania (all glory to Whositania!) though. I should probably go over my build plan one more time to see if I can make any more efficient granary whips, but... eh.

[Whosit]

I've had a lot going on and a lot on my mind, so I haven't really been updating. I've just been following that plan I've outlined. So... time for some catch-up.

Turn 41 Report

...Where we start with the previous turn. I was planning to scout with that second warrior, and moved him next to a Lion (unknowingly, but I had a good idea the Lion would be there).

On a hill, combat I, and a bonus against animals, I thought I would be OK.

...Barely OK. Geez.

Also of note is that I spotted Cheater Hater's Zulu scout to the north.

I wish I could block him off, oh well. This does provide me a bit of useful information, though. I last saw this scout go northeast, past Krill. This means that what's to the north connects to all that, so I am going to be in competition to settle whatever's to the north. I'll want to get at least a couple cities up there to hold and defend.

Also got a forest spread, so that's kind of nice, I guess. I did get Zulu demos, though:

Lack of power is reassuring; it suggests that an Impi rush is not immediately forthcoming. Production is worrying, though, because it means he could make some Impis in a hurry if he had to. Or just whip them out, I guess.

[Whosit]

Some news, some news....

Turn 42 Report

There was little to report besides that we've spotted our first human barbarians:

I was a little worried for my scout, but on turn 43, the warrior had moves 1SE, the best spot for me. I moved the scout 1NW, and plan to continue west around the barbarian.

However....

Turn 43 Report (partial)

I was rather displeased to spot this "incursion." I should make a note that Krill/Novice feels secure enough to be scouting with their Warrior. I suppose I'd be doing the same, except my scout warrior almost died to a Lion. Gripe.

Needless to say, I cancelled the Ivory Camp, but have yet decided what to do with the Worker. I've been working on a new plan, the diverging point would be that I move the Worker "2 west" to the forest grassland hill to chop into an archer. Ivory will be finished later. I think I need to do some tweaks to my new plan. I made a few other changes to see what would happen, and everything gets slowed down (4 cities at T70 instead of 5, although my demographics are basically identical, anyway). Will complete the turn later today.

Maybe after some sleep, if I can get it.