[Spoilers] Pindicator's Nice Thread

[pindicator]

104

Well that went better than expected:




Though the great general isn't great news.

Gavagai took the bait, and had his workers road up and attacked my horse archer with his Praetorian. The first Praet was so badly wounded that he then moved a second one out to cover.

And this was why I was so keen on getting Shock Horse Archers:




Fun Fact: A Shock Horse Archer will have odds on a Praetorian in open ground (6.6 vs 6.4) but it will not have odds on a Spear (6.6 vs 7), despite them both defending at 8 strength without any promotions.

We won that fight at 71% odds and then an axe cleaned up the wounded Praet.

The only thing I did wrong here was I did not think about capturing the workers last turn. I could have moved up a horse archer last turn to be in position to capture/delete those 2 workers this turn. A rather significant oversight since; I imagine the loss of those workers would have been a very large blow to him.

I don't know if I will move in next turn or not. He only has 1 Praetorian left inside Antium, but I have to imagine he's going to be moving up some units from Rome after this turn. Considering I am settling cities and not building a lot of units right now, I think I may pull back and continue to use the open field to my advantage. I did just trade 1 horse archer for 2 Praetorians; that's very good. Then again, if I don't see another unit inside Antium next turn I might easily be able to burn it (again).

On top of that we settled a new city







I must have hit some kind of rounding event here because maintenance jumped up by over 15(!!). It was enough to have be rearrange some cities to be a little more commerce heavy. I hope founding another city next turn doesn't cost too much more; I turned on the beakers for Calendar this turn.

[Mjmd]

Are you going for MoM or do you just really need the happy / tile boosts? Trust me after PB65 I would understand if that was the case.

[pindicator]

Mostly the happy & tile yields, but I am going to try to make a play for MoM. At worst I get fail gold!

[pindicator]

105

A forgettable cartoon for a forgettable city:




Apologies to all the Heathcliff fans out there.  The only thing I remember about Heathcliff as a kid is I hated it.

Gavagai covered and then some in the north:




The 2 additional praetorians arriving in the city must have come from that central grass hill that he has loved stationing units on as his flexible defense point. So I guess this means his iron city must be W-W-SW of Rome? The 3 praetorians and 1 axe that are on the gold mine definitely came from Rome. If they move forward any more my horse archers are going to swing around and see what he left in his capital / if I can catch him out of position.

I moved my workers and the axes to the forest SW of Voltron in the hopes of chopping it out. I also added a horse archer for chariot defense. Again, if he moves all those praetorians up to threaten then I'm going to have horse archers swing around and threaten Rome. I also pillaged the road my workers created last turn. Don't want him gaining any extra mobility if I have to turtle up in Voltron.

Libraries are finishing up soon and then I think we're going to get another round of axes. (Well, except for inspector Gadget; I'm starting Moai there without any production boosters. I might log back in and swap that out...) I'm getting more and more convinced that my tech path is going to be Calendar > Masonry > Construction > Currency, and then I come finish Gav off with catapults, elephants, and axes. Although we'll see how the economy looks first.

Finally, yes that is a monument chop for Heathcliff. The city's only reason is to get that Silk for Calendar, and since I don't want to settle right up on Gavagai's borders then this becomes a sad necessity. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and tech Meditation ...

[pindicator]

106

I'm going to pretend that I intentionally saved this for when the city came out of anarchy and didn't just forget to post it when I captured the city:




Originally I was trying to figure out the fastest way to pop borders here - both so Ninja Turtles could work the sheep and also so I could get some cultural expansion in the area between Commodore and myself.  But then I discovered there was nothing I could do here that was faster than chopping the monument in Heathcliff was - which was why I chopped a monument in Heathcliff, after all.

So instead we're going to focus on getting the calendar resources hooked up as fast as possible:




Grundle finished the forest chop came in this turn, which for me was more important to deny Gav a spot that would be hard for me to dislodge his praetorians from than it was the hammers.  (Thankfully I'm keeping him busy way out in the west - he's left 6 praetorians inside Arretium!)  I also brought a pair of workers (Swift & Gargamel) down to start on the cow this turn.  The cow pasture finishes next turn and then on t108 all 3 of those workers finish a cottage on the grassland east of TMNT.  They need to be there because Calendar finishes end of 108.

Meanwhile, up by Heathcliff we have Twink and Snarf (I've named my workers after support characters in these 80s cartoons) who started chopping the plains forest to the east of Heathcliff.  (Minor mistake:  I should have finished chopping the forest on the plains spice this turn to finish the library in DtG a turn sooner.)  Next turn they finish chopping that forest along with the spice forest, and then on 108 they putz around for a turn waiting for Calendar to finish.

Then on t109 all 5 workers will 1-turn a plantation on the plains spice tile, and again on t110 the grass spice.

Then we find something for them to do for 5 turns until its the silk tile's turn.  Borders pop end of t115, so I need to have a road down in place ahead of time.  Still working out if I'm going to accept 2-turning that plantation or if I need to build another worker out of the capital so I have enough workers to finish a chop and build the plantation on t116.  It's a little trickier than that because that border pop also opens up improving the sheep.

Because all the workers are going to be busy and not improving tiles in TMNT, I am looking at whipping a lighthouse in that city first, ahead of the library.  This also makes sense to me in that those coastal tiles are so much better than a few bare grass tiles.


In foreign news, Commodore switched to Organized Religion & birthed a Great Merchant.  I was expecting a Currency bulb and yet I see his merchant moving around his lands in the south.  Don't give me an opportunity to snipe that thing Comm and I won't take it.

[pindicator]

I'm starting to think a couple people here refuse to play more than once every 24 hours out of principle. They sure don't have any qualms with delaying a turn, though

We had a chance to get back on our "usual" schedule, where Ginger and Gavagai play during my sleeping hours. Anyway, I've griped enough in the tech thread; other people need to take up the mantle.

[Mjmd]

Heh Nauf going on a trip is totally legit. I know someone who takes weekend trips with no laptop access.

That being said if you want to play another game I'm sure Ginger would let you take over PB70.

[pindicator]

Oh yeah, I'm totally fine with trips and pauses. (Edit: And I also want to see nauf's mountain prictures!) In fact, I am going to visit my brother in Hawaii the first week of May and will probably cause some delays of my own.

I'll think about 70. I've only lurked your thread so far, Mjmd, so I'm minimally spoiled

[Mjmd]

Scratch that; you should ded lurk me!

Edit: I promise better reporting.

[pindicator]

Eh, first 20-30 turns there isn't much going on anyway.

I'm trying to cut back on how much I report. A lot of fat to trim here