Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[zakalwe]

I am completely unspoiled and have literally no idea about the state of this game.

Some additional reasons why you might declare on someone without moving any units:
- Misclick (ALT-click on somebody's name)
- Block on-going resource trades
- Hurt your trade route income

No idea if any of the above make sense in your context here, just throwing them out.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thank you very much, zakalwe. Unfortunately, the two trade-based explanations do not fit with the situation in game. I have a direct trade connection with everyone except Serdoa, and I have no resource trades with anyone. I did consider that it might be a misclick, but I thought if it was he would immediately offer peace, since the game doesn't seem to limit that in multi-player, or that he would post in the tech thread to indicate it was a mistake. Also, his cryptic comment in the tech thread does seem to at least indicate it was deliberate. Thank you very much for your suggestions, though, zakalwe; I will have to keep the second two in mind for the future since they didn't occur to me at all.

My cities (before ending the turn):



In the end, I took a compromise approach, thinking "better safe than sorry," but risking as little damage to my economy as possible. I double-whipped axemen in my "top three" cities (axes 'cause I already have tons of spears), which hurt a little, but their food surpluses are so large that they all grew back one population point at the end of the turn and will regrow the other next turn or the turn after. Furthermore, if this is indeed a phony war and the axes can stay in the cities, they will completely offset the happiness penalty from whipping, so I'm not going to run into happiness caps any sooner.

I did not whip Legoland or Pirates, because they will not grow back quickly, so the damage there would be much more severe. I did start them on building axemen so they can single-whip them if necessary.

I did not alter Machu Picchu's build, but put both a pre-planned chop (now fueled by Mathematics) and a whip into it, which is overkill but will allow it to build a defender next turn that would otherwise be impossible. If that is not necessary, the hammers can always go into an infrastructure build:



Ironically, despite my fear and perhaps Serdoa's intention of damage to my economy, I moved from second to first place in GNP at the end of the turn, probably due to the known tech bonus for Iron Working. Apparently I forgot to take a screenshot for this; sorry. I also moved to second in soldier-count. I selected Iron Working because it's cheap and I want a second source of metal in case of a hot war with Serdoa. I will switch to Currency next turn if that doesn't seem to be eventuating.

Finally, here is a strategic overview of my land and borders, with culture highlighted so it's easier to see Serdoa's possible invasion routes (he has Open Borders with no one, which cuts down on the possibilities substantially). I have placed signs at all the possible (or at least most probable) points of invasion; the wide border to the east is of course the most likely:





As for my troop movements, I moved them into positions offering the greatest possible strategic flexibility. Of course, pre-Engineering roads means that this ain't much. Let's hope it's not necessary.

[TheHumanHydra]

Turn 72: Still no sign of Serdoa's units, save for his scout, which I may be able to kill next turn. Obviously I didn't whip this turn, and I switched Legoland and Pirates back to their settlers. Still have no idea what is going on here ...

Dishearteningly, I am now last in city count. I guess I will just build a ton of settlers accompanied by strong escorts to try and catch up.

[TheHumanHydra]

When I opened up the save this time, I was greeted with the unpleasant surprise of Old Harry's units moving up to settle one of the locations I had wanted a few turns before I could:



There's no way I could settle it first, even if I whipped the settler building in Pirates, even if Serdoa hadn't declared war on me, delaying my builds, without massive worker support already present to road the settler in. And all my workers are away getting other cities purring - I finished the long-delayed gold mine in the northwest this turn, which helped my economy and happiness a lot, and the corn farm east of Machu Picchu, since it's borders just expanded, allowing it to grow two sizes in two turns. This makes me feel less badly about it, though I'm still disappointed. What I'm more worried about is how this begins to close both of us in, raising the spectre of war. My military's strong right now, but I'm frightened of the Middle Ages.

In other news, I switched the three cities in the north to two- and three-turn workers; I don't like the delay in their growth (and thus my economy), but I'm going to need them with the new cities I'm planning on settling in the next few turns. Depending on how much these next two impact my economy (though I should have Currency by then!), I may immediately settle two more. I'm still thinking through how to approach the next dozen turns of settling and development - where to settle, how fast, etc.

Iron Working came in at the end of the turn; iron is as far as I can tell here and nowhere else on the map:



Happily, that is one of the cities I was planning on settling with these next two settlers, now that Old Harry's stolen that other spot. Importantly, it also means Serdoa's iron is vulnerable to amphibious attack. I'm beginning to wonder if it might be possible to end his capacity to build cataphracts before it even begins - of course, I'll have to watch out for the same thing regarding my pikes.

Oh, and still no sign of Serdoa's units.

[TheHumanHydra]

So Old Harry didn't settle where I though he would, instead 1S on the tundra tile. I had actually begun thinking about settling the same spot to my north. Anyway, this means my settlement plan is not actually particularly interrupted (one tile difference, in what is probably an equally good spot). The first settler from Legoland is away, heading to the iron spot. I had Legoland start on another right away - Old Harry is now up to 10 cities, and I need to catch up! I started on Currency; ~four turns, give or take.

Fun story: I must be thinking about this game too much, 'cause last night I had a dream about it. Something must have happened to Serdoa's horse supply, because he was invading Azza to secure his, and I was intervening to stop him! I was chuckling, though, because I had knights but Serdoa, obviously, didn't, and they're his unique unit! Who knows, maybe something like this will happen in-game? I doubt it, though.

[TheHumanHydra]

Big update for 1 AD:

First, the graphs:













That one's from the start of the turn. This one's from after I ended the turn, so you get a rough idea of the range of values I'm hovering around:



Technologies (everything in the first two rows has been researched):



Military:



Okay, on to the city screens:









For some reason, about half my screenshots turn out like this, so I always take multiples to be sure I get a normal one. In this case, though, the city of Wild West decided to be camera-shy and wouldn't take a good screenshot. Sorry about that; I can't tell until I exit the program.





And finally, an overview shot:



Barring any complications, I will found another city next turn, and another the turn after that, with another settler building in Legoland.

I've pretty much said all my thoughts on the game (except those I'm keeping secret, neenerneener!) over the last couple pages, so that's it for this update. Does anyone have any questions, comments, rantings, or ravings?

[TheHumanHydra]

So Serdoa offered me 50 gold for peace, which I accepted, allowing me to finish Currency this turn instead of next. Still have no idea what that was all about.

[TheHumanHydra]

Also, another thought has occurred to me: perhaps Serdoa is trying to trick one or both of the other players, not me. For example, he could conceivably have troops by Azza's eastern border (de_nuke), and declared war on me to make Azza think he was going for Wild West so he doesn't whip or move troops up, and next turn will declare on Azza and take him by surprise. Ach, so many possibilities - I know all of these scenarios are convoluted and bizarre, but this situation is bizarre, and I don't know what to make of it. I think I will hold the save and sleep on it, as much as I hate to.

It seems this hypothesis may have been partially correct: as I'm sure you're all aware, Serdoa has declared war on Old Harry and razed the city of Ipswich:



This immediately upon making peace with me. Now I realize I said earlier in this thread that my opportunity in this game would come when and if Serdoa and Old Harry went to war, but this ... is a little too early. I'm not in a position economically to go take over a bunch of far-flung cities - I just settled that city next to Old Harry's newest, and the distance maintenance is killer. I can't imagine suffering twice that or more in a number of cities. So I guess I'll just tech up and keep developing. I'm on to Code of Laws now; hopefully that'll help with these horrendous maintenance costs! (Strangely, Azza was first to it; I did not expect that.)

Azza has a galley up by Aquanauts - we just signed Open Borders, but Serdoa's actions make me fear getting boated (is that the word?). At least Aquanauts has somewhat reasonable defenses.

Oh, and two turns till I get tech visibility on Serdoa at current EP ratios - that should clear up the grand strategic situation for me a bit. I'm wondering if I can tech to knights or something before he can ...

[TheHumanHydra]

Random thoughts:

Old Harry settled a new city called Ipswich somewhere. He evidently has Construction, because he has a catapult in his city bordering Serdoa (which would be quite a catch for the latter, seeing as it has the 'mids. It's garrisoned accordingly). I don't think Serdoa will be able to break Old Harry; soon one of my scouting units will reach what should be the front lines to see if Serdoa's making a serious effort of it or not.

I think I'll be able to finish Code of Laws next turn, at which point I will need to make an important decision as to what tech path to follow. My next settler will also finish, and I'll need to decide whether to keep building them or pause for a bit. If I keeping building them, I'll need some more workers, too. I'm currently first in GNP and population - the demographics rankings keep vacillating, though; I think it shows how close we all are right now.

A round of whippings will presently be in order to get out courthouses. Generally I'm kind of leery about whipping some of these cities right now because of what they're contributing economically, but I feel courthouses are a logical choice to whip out since they will immediately recoup the lost GNP (roughly), and those cities are nearing their happy caps without building more military police (which are costing me in upkeep). Also, my cities' production values aren't the greatest right now without forges or anything, so they would take a while otherwise (Metal Casting will probably be my next tech, but I'm not entirely sure. There are other good choices, too).

Sorry for the lack of pictures - there wasn't much to take a picture of this time around.

[TheHumanHydra]

For any who for some reason are not reading the other threads, Serdoa razed Old Harry's city of Halifax this turn. He must have a reasonable stack outside Old Harry's border city, because Old Harry sent the catapult in there against something this turn (it's damaged). These razings have caused me to jump ahead to second in score, less than a hundred points behind Serdoa, something I must admit I'm surprised to see happen to me. I jiggered around my tile assignments so I could finish Code of Laws this turn; my next settler is off and I've started on another couple workers. My cities will switch to courthouses as they finish their current builds.

For some reason I did not get research visibility on Serdoa at the end of the turn despite having enough EP. Maybe he doesn't have a tech selected? Or maybe it won't kick in until the turn rolls around again. If he's deliberately hiding his research, I'll be a little disappointed, as I was hoping seeing it would provide a bit of insight into what tech path I should pursue.