[SPOILERS] joey and scooter's thread: FUN THINGS ONLY

[GermanJoey]

I checked the game again this morning, and Plako refused our SilverClam/Ivory trade, unfortunately. Can't say I'm surprised, although this does mean that I'm gonna charge him for open borders in 10T. (assuming I can find some other overseas partner by then). I bumped our slider back up to 70% too; I reasoned that the turn is likely to roll before I get home from work, and even though this wastes some beakers (gold that could be charged through an academy will now simply be overflow beakers), I'd rather not delay Currency by a turn because of something stupid like my routes getting recalculated.

[GermanJoey]

Currency in! Unfortunately I didn't get a lot more overseas routes from plako as I think other people accepted his offer as well. Probably won't be able to charge him at all, heh. I guess RBMod GLH is only +1 trade route per city anyways, not as game-breaking as vanilla.

In other news, I decided to delay my Academy by a turn since I won't really be using it yet. Whipped some stuff, including one of my two settlers, the safe horsey one at "c" that I proposed ages ago. It won't actually settle until T92 though so that those chops will go into Carnival. The other settler is due to be whipped next turn (which will settle T92), although it has to deal with this situation:



His chariot will obviously see my worker roading this turn, as it has a sentry promotion, but I'm not sure if he'll also see my axe ready to counter attack if he tries to snipe it. What really worries me is that warrior in the bottom-left; why would he send a warrior out to explore if he already has a sentry chariot? It better not be part of a settling party, trying to steal another dry wheat from me with caste artists of all things. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, and I haven't yet truly decided what tech I want next, but if he pink dots a spot 6 tiles from my capital then Construction is a full fucking go. Between my remaining trees and my extra HG pop, I can have a stack of a dozen cats with paired melee escorts ready by turn 100 without breaking a sweat.

[GermanJoey]

I'm being completely stupid again, aren't I. He's probably just moving the warrior back after exploring elsewhere.

[GermanJoey]

I updated my spreadsheet with player scores:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/b2xxdliibzfxt0w/pb18.xlsx

Does anyone know how to add markers for data plotted in one row based on data in another row in Excel? If so, I could add markers for city founding dates and techs discovered; those are easy to extract but I'm not sure how to plot them without it looking stupid.

[GermanJoey]

BLURRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH no, I was totally right, he is gonna try to steal that spot from me. A spot 6 tiles from my fucking capital.



Whipped a spear in Moonshine, a chop that was to go to a granary next turn can go into another one. Sent my axe down with the archer to guard the worker; he gets hella odds on my archer, but he wont be able to take the worker and the axe can counter attack.

I sent him a wheat for wheat trade, to remind him about that I'm still pissed about the wheat he stole at Hastee Tastee. If he does this shit again I'll have Construction ~T96 and we'll see about getting the spot back then; his power is a bit above mine at the moment so there's not too much I can do until then otherwise.

[GermanJoey]

For the lurkers that don't read the tech thread,

GermanJoJo I think that my phone connected to your thread earlier. I didn't read anything - just backed out immediately.

I'm sure everyone expected me to blow up like I did in my PB20 thread, but we haven't even met the guy in-game yet, much less are gridlocked in an ancient-era war where every move is critical.

[GermanJoey]

Man this AI Diplo shit kinda sucks. So, I sent TBS a wheat for a wheat trade last turn, and this turn he sends it back to me. So, I'm thinking, ok cool we have an accord, I'll take this spot and sit here and do my thing, turtle up a bit and fill out my backlines, while you rush knights or trebs or whatever and beat the shit outta Hasoosh's replacement. But then, I move my scout first thing, and am greeted by this horseshit:



That is most definitely a Settling party towards my Wheat!!!! Arrghh!!! The wheat for wheat trade did not mean I was cool with you taking that wheat!! In total, he has 2 workers, a warrior, a settler, a sentry chariot, an archer, and a Dog soldier. In comparison, I have a C1 Shock Axe (actually gets odds on the Dog on flatland), an archer, a scout, a spearman, a settler, and a worker in my settling party. I don't think he sees my spear or my settler... it is now located on the marked tile, while the spear is 1SE of that, on the road. My axe and archer are 1SW of where they are now, while his chariot is 1W of that. My worker is on the tile where my axe and archer are in the screenshot, having completed the road. Yeesh that's convoluted, I SO totally wish I had taken a second screenshot...

Anyways, I declared war on him and immediately offered a peace deal. Hopefully he gets the picture this time. Neither of us can actually deny each other from settling the area - he can settle 1E of where my scout is now this turn, while I can, because I have first move in the turn order, settle 1N of the cow next turn. Not the ideal spot for either of us I think. I guess my cowspot is still decent, can still share the corn I guess, although nowhere near as good as grabbing the wheat and another forest first-ring, or even 1W on that forest to grab more trees and the wheat second-ring. With this spot, I gotta get a barracks up first and fast to push back Oxy's creative culture before it steals the cow.

Speaking of, funny thing about the southern continent - all 3 are creative civs! I bet they're pissed about that, although its annoying for our side too due to making it almost impossible to control the channel. For example, I was able to get out my Barracks just in time to secure this tile before his filler's borders expanded:



I think my borders in Clambake will expand before he steals the culture, which should secure it for me in the future. Might have to get a library up here soon or something...

Now, as for the future: for a long time now I've been privately wondering, with baited breath, whether TBS has been building the Mids or not. I mean, after all, he *IS* Ghandi, The Mids Guy ©, and he has a big fat lvl6 production city with a stone quarry. This has been heavily weighting on my tech inclination towards Construction... being able to pluck that off of him would be INSANE. Probably would vault me to being one of the game leaders, even if I whip myself into the ground to do it. The thing is, I'm not really feeling like a war is a good thing just at this moment. Right now, because I've been whipping heavily, I have 30 pop. When the Hanging Gardens hit, I think I'll have somewhere around 50 to 51 pop. While turning that into cats is one option, the other option would be to just start whipping out tons more workers, settlers (I can get up to 17-18 cities peacefully I think, although that number includes some seriously junky and highly-boatable filler), and infrastructure buildings like Libraries, Markets, Courthouses, and Hammams. In this case, I could tech Calendar and Code of Laws, with maaaaaybe Alphabet in there somewhere if the rest of my neighbors also ignore it. (whether I get Alpha first here depends on how TBS is feeling with this settlement; he got the tech this turn and so I could potentially get Open Borders with him, filling out my remaining trade routes with 2coiners until another overseas civ gives me more 3coiners...)

Um, last bits of news: got my Academy up (I'm back to 4th in GNP at 100%), that's the world's 3rd Academy I think. Got a bunch of military coming in via whips. And, um, oh yeah and I offered Xenu a Silver+2c for Ivory trade. That would hold me over with another happiness for Zoo until my Whale comes online. Not a big deal if he doesn't take it but I figured its worth a shot.

[GermanJoey]

Also just want to note this for posterity: I had a ridiculous PB18 Bloopereel moment where, after I logged back in, moved my archer and axemen towards his chariot, and then frantically clicked around for 10 minutes before I could figure out a way to declare war. You see, his score was once again outside of the scoreboard, and so I couldn't alt-click on it to declare. I then msged Parkin on gchat and the two of us spent an additional five minutes trying various things until eventually I figured out that I could take my movement-spent axe and right-click on his chariot to get the war-declare popup. PITBOSS EIGHTEEN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

[GermanJoey]

Blugh, I logged in to check what he did - which was to decline my peace treaty, snipe my archer with his chariot (flawless victory for him ofc ) and snipe my scout with his dog. I could kill the damaged dog, but the full health chariot is still around. So, I have to retreat back a tile to regroup with my spear and settle 1N of the cow. How irritating.

IN OTHER NEWS, however, Furungy played just after me and before TBS and declared war on TBS too! Now, what is particularly interesting about this is this screenshot from last turn:



That is a Quecha next to a flatland archer, settler, and worker stack!! Please please please let him have sniped this juicy pile!! Who knows if this is a "real" war other than an opportunistic snipe, but if it is the Construction option is still on the table. I'll wait it out a few turns to see; I'm actually banking +60gpt (switched some tile yields, building some wealth, etc), and so I can't 100% Construction until T92-T97.

edit: Actually I think I can do T91-T96 with some heavy wealth builds, but I won't have as many "assistants" to accompany them then in that case either.

[GermanJoey]

I moved up my settling party and resent the peace treaty. Looking at my demographics numbers, I discovered a few things:

1.) My GNP is #3 when at 100%, #6 at 0% - pretty good! +69 gpt with just CP building wealth at 0% slider, +79 with what I actually went with.
2.) I can actually 4-turn construction! I can have it at T95, not T96, with just one wealth build.
3.) My GNP is the same (149) if I tech Construction, HBR, CoL, and Calendar, but lower (144) if I tech Metalcasting or Aesthetics. These techs all have the same number of prereq bonuses for me, which means the difference must come from known tech modifiers; I know TBS has CoL, which means someone else I know has the others. I'm guessing plako for Calendar, and then Xenu/Oxy for the other two. It makes sense there would be some tension there with all the creative civs around, and Xenu did reject my ivory/silver+$ trade. Maybe Bacchus has something? He's not doing too badly either.

So, my plan is this. I'm going to relogin after he plays to see if he accepted the treaty; if he does, I'm going to get Calendar and then continue growing fat, otherwise I'll get Construction first. I thought a bit about trying to snipe the Statue of Zeus... that would be a pretty cool wonder to get, but it'd be difficult to get workers lined up in time to chop it out quick, and with all my extra pop I'll need them building improvements for me to work. TGL is also pretty appealing, and I do have a source of marble, but probably cant chop it out in time to beat out the industrious civs like plako.

The Great Wall is still available; I'd like to start building it in Carnival for the failgold. We'll see if I need to pump out units right away or not.

In foreign affairs, dtay built the Colossus last turn (meaning he took MC from the Oracle), and someone bulbed Philosophy this turn. I wonder if that was BGN... he is Pericles after all, he of many Great Scientists...