Cheater Hater, Ruler of the Modbreakers

[Cheater Hater]

T94 Report:
Two big things today, and we'll start with Whosit's troop movements--or lack there-of:


Whosit added a C2 Spear to the central stack, but nothing else I can see has changed--he's healing all his axes now that he sees he can't make any progress. I'm still worried about Zendikar, but this does mean I have some more time to improve its defenses--I'm building a Wall in Zendikar (which might be the first wall I've ever built in Civ4) which I'll 2-pop whip next turn, and I should be able to use the overflow to hopefully 1T an archer.

As for the second...just look:



Really? Someone who isn't Expansive/Industrious decided to build Hanging Gardens fast enough so it fell before Pyramids? I guess that's just another thing to add to the "reasons to hate Whosit" list--at least the fail gold should accelerate my path to Currency and Construction (though I have no idea by how much, since I don't know how much fail gold I'll get )

Anyway, now to the domestic overview:




I'll be honest, I'm not sure how much Hanging Gardens would have helped anyway, now that all my cities got whipped to the ground to defend against the maniac to my NE. It also means I can go back to building some military in Kamigawa--of course it won't help as much now that Whosit's force will presumably head towards Zendikar, but it gives me options.

Now to demo analysis:


It's certainly getting better--if only I hadn't lost that stack at Mirrodin--then again, Whosit would have two more axes and would need to heal right now :/




Last in production, and Whosit's now beating me in GNP as well--we'll see if Currency let's me recover in any way, and if Catapults are good enough to actually go on the attack against Whosit--we'll see how many units Whosit ends up losing when he attacks Zendikar to start, and then how quickly I'll be able to get to Construction.


My GNP's the best of the core stats I guess? And I took this picture before I stopped Hanging Gardens and turned research to 100%, so it's even better than that--I'm also still worst than the average in power, even though I'm better than I was.

[Cheater Hater]

T95 Report:
Hooray for a boring turn--Whosit hasn't added any military, but that doesn't mean there's nothing going on that square:


Why are the workers there? They must be roading it, but why? That certainly doesn't go along with the "attack Zendikar" plan I've been assuming he'd go with--is he really still going to try to attack Theros or Kamigawa? Or has he finally realized that I've emptied the defense of all my backline cities and he should attack them? I did a round of troop pictures, but they're nothing new, so they're in the Dropbox if you want to see them. I did offer straight peace again, even though I doubt he'll accept it--I still think he should, because he's plummeted to near the bottom of the scoreboard. Again, I'm biased because if I get 10 turns of peace I can probably get to Catapults, especially with all my fail gold powering research (more on that in a bit)

Domestic overview time, and we have a new member of the family:




Shandalar's actually in a good position to start--I'll start improving the wheat next turn, and next turn I think I'll be able to borrow the corn from Ravnica as well. Even this turn it's borrowing a hamlet from Theros. I also whipped the Walls in Zendikar--but somehow the mine was being worked, so it was only a 1-pop whip, and thus it'll grow into unhappiness next turn
I also got the whales settler into position to settle next turn--that will also work quickly since I think I'll finish pasturing the sheep in one turn (if pastures are 4 turns; I can't remember if they're 4 or 5). Other than that, not much special in the builds--infrastructure in the south, military in the north.

The one nice thing (I guess...) is that my fail gold came in--227 gold to be exact. I can use this to power through Currency in 5 turns (I managed to shave a turn off by working the furs in Muraganda--I wouldn't be doing this if it was a minor tech since it hurts the growth so much there, but Currency is that important), and that still leaves me with a decent amount of gold to help get through Construction.

There's not much new demo analysis to do (though GNP/Production/Demos are in the dropbox as always), but here's the power graph as always:


It appears Whosit built another axe--hopefully this isn't followed up by another round of whipping :/

One more thing for this turn: one picture that holds a lot of information:


Obviously the obvious thing here is the insane number of cities FinHarry has--he's up to 13 now--but if you look on my side, you can see we can trade gold! That means FinHarry has Currency, meaning not only is FinHarry a new contender for top civ (with a decent amount of help from me ), I also get a little known tech bonus on my research and that once I get Currency FinHarry won't run out of trade routes for me (though he already owns almost twice as many cities as me ).

[Cheater Hater]

Well, even though we didn't get a turn in today, I logged in to pause it, but found something surprising waiting for me: a straight peace treaty! I didn't accept it right this moment (since I know we're going to reload whenever Caledorn shows up, and I didn't want to change the gamestate from what it was when I logged in), but I did do a bit of looking around for the minute I was in--I assumed it wouldn't matter since Whosit and I (and presumably no one on the continent, since I haven't seen yuris or Bacchus) weren't involved in the dispute. There were basically no changes in the military situation--the only thing that happened is that Whosit roaded the tile his troops were on, and that he sent a single chariot to scout Zendikar (the one city he couldn't see from his post). I'm obviously going to accept it (considering I was the one who offered it first), and that gives me 10 turns to try to get to Construction--I just need to make sure to keep building some military, since I don't think I can get there with enough cats just in case Whosit decides to attack right when the treaty expires.

(P.S: If you want an actual interesting post today, check my PBEM58 thread--no turn there either, but a bunch of interesting analysis )

[Cheater Hater]

T96 Report:
Hooray! I finally have peace, which means we can start with the domestic overview, for the first time in a while:




Now that the war's finally over, I can go top speed on Currency and Catapults, and hopefully I can at least research Construction before the peace treaty expires--I'll also need to keep a close eye on Whosit to see if he decides to build up for a later assault against me, or decides to attack someone else--dtay's still in the lead, if not running away with the game (I think that might be FinHarry right now, but I think I'm reasonably safe from him attacking across the channel at least in the short term--I mean, I can see plenty of free space for him to expand to). Anyway, since we finally have peace, I'm going to go through my upcoming plans in detail:
Tech Plan: Obviously I'm heading for Currency->Construction, but where next? I think the choice is between Calendar, Metal Casting, and Iron Working, though turning off research is certainly an option (and probably is my choice right after finishing Construction).
Ravnica: I'm not sure what I'm doing here next after it finishes its archer--I can either go for a Library, Ikhanda, or Lighthouse, and I think the Library is best (it's working 3 cottages right now!). Of course, I also need to finish the Galley before starting the Library, but that's only one or two turns.
Theros: I think Theros is going to be my main military pumper right now--I think the priority is getting archers in all my cities (except the Tundra cities maybe), and then I'd like an axe or two to supplement my cats.
Zendikar: Right now I'm just going to continue the settler I started so long ago (as much to let the whip anger fade as to get a settler out), but I'm not sure where it's going--the three choices are the rice city, the ivory city, or resettling Mirrodin. I actually don't think I'll know where this is going until it's near-completion, since it depends on where Whosit's troops are--I think I could resettle Mirrodin if Whosit's troops are attacking dtay (though walls will certainly be my first build), but if Whosit keeps troops around and/or doesn't declare (or even settles Mirrodin himself), the ivory spot is pretty safe.
Lorwyn: Lorwyn's kinda boring for the next bunch of turns; it needs to build multiple workboats (its own crabs, the whales, the Mercadia/Muraganda crabs, and possibly the ivory crabs), and I also want to get a library in there. I don't think I'm going to find time to build Moai there until after the first phase of my Whosit conquests--notably I want stone to help me build it.
Kamigawa: This is an obvious place for an Ikhanda, and then I think I'll build some military out of here too--I also need to remember to send out the woodsman Impi to scout the east if the channel hasn't closed yet.
Rath/Muraganda/Mercadia: These are all pretty boring cities--I'll keep building the essential infrastructure/expansions to get my resources, but other than that I just hope they grow into decent cities
Shandalar: Hopefully I can get this city to grow quickly--I'll need to borrow the pigs sometime to supercharge the growth, and the workers are going to cottage a bunch, but this has more potential than most of the southern cities.

I'm going to do some demo analysis for this turn, but this post is long and I need a break

[Cheater Hater]

T96 Report Part 2:
Now to demo analysis--we'll start with one last wartime look at the power for the road:


Whosit actually lost a bit of power? Presumably he whipped something (since he's not in a war with anyone we know), but nothing with power. Of course, we'll see what happens to each of our buildups in the upcoming turns.


You can see how much this war has hurt my demos--Currency should let my GNP skyrocket, and I don't think I'll be doing a ton of whipping in the near-future (I might whip the libraries in Lorwyn and Ravnica and the ikhanda in Kamigawa, along with possibly some of the tundra infrastructure, but I won't do a major whipping spree until Catapults), so I should recover relatively soon.




Surprisingly, my stats are already starting to recover, and are back to being better than Whosit even though I lost this phase of the war.

In addition, Krill/novice are up to 11 cities, and FinHarry is up to 14--hopefully I can get back to being competitive with the leaders once I take out Whosit.

[Cheater Hater]

Seriously, what's going on? Is Parkin playing Furungy's turn or not? If Furungy's the person dazedroyalty's at war with (and considering it's either pindicator or Furungy, I'm voting against the person who's already fought one war with gains this game), can't Parkin just make those moves?

And here's a couple things I just want to get off my chest--I'm going to test these opinions here where competitors can't see them, then I'm bringing them to the tech thread:

• If wars are ruining our turn pace because of turn splits, we need to have that information made public and stop tiptoeing around it--I don't care if it's AI diplo, the info is minimal, some people are already giving up that information (*cough*Whosit*cough*), and the turn pace is much more important for the game.
  
• How different was the original play from the replay? We should not be reloading for a minor difference (no matter how much advantage the play gives), and even if it was major I'm inclined to not reload--when the military turns get larger, more wars break out, and the constant pressure for people to play their turns intensifies (though hopefully people will start dying soon--I wonder how many people had no one dying before T100 in the lurker thread?), more turn splits will happen, more people will make mistakes, and the turn pace will slow to a crawl (though I'd argue it already has).
  

Again, this is coming from someone who values the pace of play above all else, and doesn't like anything that prevents that to varying degrees (even turn splits themselves, though I think I've accepted it as the lesser of evils), which is why I'm focus-testing it here first instead of making a frustrated post in the tech thread (even if the only person who reads it is Celiazul ).

[Cheater Hater]

T97 Report:
I'm still not happy about the events outside my region that are ruining this game, but I have turns to play and empires to rebuild--let's start with the domestic overview:




More boring stuff--my whip anger's starting to subside in most cities, Rath got another chop to finish the monument, then either work on a Lighthouse long-term or build a workboat (probably put the remainder of the chop into the lighthouse then start the workboat), Muraganda/Mercadia/Shandalar are growing slowly, workers are trying to connect my remaining resources and then start cottaging the remaining grassland, building various things I need. The one sorta-exciting thing I forgot to get on camera is that Whosit's city north of Plano has expanded borders, which means my path to the east is blocked

That leads to an interesting question: where should I attack when I start attacking Whosit back? Emotionally I'd probably want to take back Tarkir (and also get the rice city--notice how Whosit's already planning on settling it by moving an axe over there), but if we assume I'm not going to wipe out Whosit this war (which I'm not unless Whosit burns his troops fighting dtay or something similar), getting a passage to the east by taking Plano probably is better longer-term. I think he doesn't have that many troops in Plano (or at least he didn't at the start of the first war), and it's not on a hill, so I could probably afford to send a small force to burn Plano (so I can re-found it on the hill, like my original dotmap, for both the ability to share the sheep and the defense/production of the plains hill) while focusing my troops on attacking Angle Bay/the rice city/the re-founded Mirrodin, as well as defending the backups from Prairie Village.

Demo analysis time!




I'm surprised I'm still so far behind in GNP--I'm getting arrow bonus, as well as an extra 4% known-tech bonus (dtay got Currency recently, I think on the interturn), and it doesn't feel like I'm going that slowly--though the fail gold fueling my deficit accounts a lot for that. I'm also back to around average in soldier count, so I'll have a solid base to fall back on once I start building catapults near-exclusively--what percentage of my troops should be catapults; 25%, 50%, more?




At least I'm competitive with the people in my region now (other than the leaders dtay/FinHarry), and once I get Currency's trade routes and my whip anger subsides, I should be back to around where I was, and that should be enough to get me to Construction (and hopefully Calendar as well), build some Catapults, and regain some of my land.

Of course, more cities keep going up--FinHarry, Krill/novice, and dtay all founded a new city last turn. This is why I was always going to need to attack Whosit: I don't have any other realistic expansion prospects other than crossing water.

[Cheater Hater]

T98 Report:
Apparently the run to Currency isn't as exciting for the lurkers as a war




See, I managed to drop my slider down to 90% and still get Currency in two turns! Isn't that exciting?
As you can see, we have more growth, southern development, workers doing things, etc. I'm also doing a decent amount of scouting--I'm checking up on Whosit's axe by the rice city, spotted a couple of FinHarry's workers across the canal (it's where the axe is), and I got visibility on Plano again:


Just an axe (C2 Shock, but still) and an archer, so there isn't that much over here--I should be able to take that relatively easily (compared to the log jam that will happen in the north--notice how Angle Bay has walls now). However, there's one more thing I need to remember, especially as I see all of these Shock Axes--I can actually use War Elephants in this game! I keep forgetting about that (since they're banned in vanilla games), but I need to remember to actually build a couple when I get Construction.

Now to demo analysis as always:


My production's back in the top 20! Then my GNP falls again (part of that's due to dropping the slider a bit, but that's only a single slot) and my soldiers aren't quite as impressive overall.


Then again, my power's certainly getting better in my region--Whosit's still over-building military of course (and he might have a tech that helps him--notice he gained 14 points last turn and leapfrogged me in point, and that's presumably a growth plus a classical tech), but now I've matched Krill/novice.




I'm surprised at how even with my garbage GNP I'm still clumped together with Whosit and Krill/novice. The production's still hovering around average, and hopefully I can get better in that (other than just building some workers ).

A couple quick hits: Krill/novice have yet another city; probably because Whosit is giving them so much room to expand in the east. Also, a completely random thought: I could add two forts and be able to move boats from Theros to Rath, right? Unfortunately that would involve bulldozing a cottage, but it might be worth it if naval combat becomes important.

[Ceiliazul]

Theros cannot ever have boats in it, as it isnt adjacent to a coast tor lake tile.

[Ceiliazul]

As for expansion other than over water... thats sometimes a good thing. Why would you specifically avoid crossing water to settle?