Gaspar and NobleHelium - More Arguments About Buildings & Food.

[Merovech]

Whatever, I hate Commodore.

New mantra?

[SevenSpirits]

I assume you missed that I was kidding because you knew Dave had a projected finish date of this turn and were checking in to see if we managed to top it. Obviously, we were whipping that worker into overflow to be timed with Math coming and all the chops finishing - T53 finish date on Mids.

Ah that makes more sense.

I didn't really know what was going on. You just said you decided not to finish Mids, so I wanted to know why.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 55.

We debated a bit over whether to harass Commodore's workers in the west but I ultimately decided against it.



I think we're limping to Currency too slowly but Gaspar thinks we're fine so I'm deferring to him on that. Yes, we are going to grab the other spot on the border even though it will be fucking expensive.



Found Sugar in the south. Decent city spot there now. yuris is scouting but I doubt he will harass us. I think we'll want either a Chariot or a Barracks out of Royal Crypts next.

[Gaspar]

In direct contrast to the new adventure, we're trying to experience what its like to never be able to tech due to spiraling costs.

Commodore played a bit of cat and mouse with us near his city of SomehowMoreNerdyThanDiablo *cough* I mean Torg. So we upped the ante while staying safe.



I expect he'll move 7-8 next turn and threaten our warrior while defending his city but nonetheless it should keep him from being a bigger douche than he already is by Cathedral.

In the same neighborhood, a new city will be planted next turn. Noberson has it signed Halls of Agony but I'd prefer to save that name for Kiki when we take it.



In the southeast, Yuri is being weirdly aggressive.



We have an axe and a warrior in the city, so not terribly concerned, but it would be nice to have a trading partner of some sort this game. More and more I feel like AI Diplo is just the Mexican Standoff version of Always War. I sort of know how novice and Seven felt in 29, EXCEPT WE'RE NOT DOING ESPECIALLY WELL NOR HAVE WE BEEN AT ALL AGGRESSIVE SO THERE'S NO BLOODY REASON FOR EVERYONE TO BE A GIANT DOUCHEBAG. *ahem*

Back in the north, we're working on Libraries in the 2 old cities while horse got hooked this turn and gold gets connected next.



ETA - 8t to currency. Here's hoping we're still in the game then.



P.S. I get these reports are terribly dull. Noble is obviously just a dull human being, but is there anything anyone wants to know that we haven't been addressing?

[Mardoc]

is there anything anyone wants to know that we haven't been addressing?

Long term plans? Or maybe just medium term plans . You're doing well at describing the current turn and maybe 2 turns out, but I've got no idea how you plan to win this thing without the Pyramids.

[Gaspar]

Long term plans? Or maybe just medium term plans . You're doing well at describing the current turn and maybe 2 turns out, but I've got no idea how you plan to win this thing without the Pyramids.

Yeah. Stellar friggin question there. This is all because you decided to global lurk, naturally.

Honestly, part of the problem with the thread is that Noble and I talk a lot but the chats haven't been amusing enough to post in thread for you guys, so you don't see any of our longer term planning. We don't really have a plan right now - more of a germ of a plan. The inherent issue for this game for us is this: If we do a straight-up cottage economy, the FIN guys beat us. If we do a hardcore specialist economy, Mr. Pyramids beats us. The usual alternate economy boosters are Colossus and GLH. But the map really doesn't encourage much coastal settlement so GLH will be mediocre at best. And even if Colossus would be a big help (doubtful) Yuri pretty much has that on lock from Oracle + IND. So yeah, nothing normal really works.

Yet, I still feel like we can win this game. Why? Well, first off while none of our opponents are bad, none of them are stellar either. Commodore's been downward spiraling since PBEM24, Yuri is pretty much Russian for good enough to be a bridesmaid, Ichabod is still getting cozy with BTS and Dave's never actually played this part of the game here before. Obviously they're all doing fine, but its not like mackoti just landed the mids where you know he's going to play it perfectly. Dave just isn't on that level. (None of us are, but that's another day.) So I guess the beginning of the hope is there - none of these guys are likely to play the nearly mistake free game that would crush us with our inherent disadvantages.

Secondly, while we can't nail either of the sort of Big 3 economic strategies (FIN cottages, Rep specialists, GLH) we can dip our toes into a lot of them. We're going to work a good bit of specialists in the near term to get the two key techs in - Currency for the free TR, wealth builds and to a lesser extent markets and CoL for hopefully the religion, Caste System and Courthouses. Once we have that going, we can maybe make a run at the monk econ which is a decent enhancement to any economy when you get cheap Spiritual temples and the like. Hopefully get an academy going soonish. Maybe find a way to sneak in a shrine. And then get a couple of heavy food cities running where we can go very specialist heavy during CS swaps. That's really the deal - hopefully our flexibility allows us to do a lot of little things that boost the economy and we can maybe outmicro a bit to stay competitive until hopefully achieving a land advantage that we can use to win.

So I guess the answer is in short form: There is no long-term plan. Right now the whole focus is on expanding intelligently, avoiding a crippling war and getting the two key techs in. Once we're there, we can see just how far behind we are and take it from there. The maps small enough that there's going to be blood and tears - let's see if we can't make sure we're on the right side of that.

[Mardoc]

This is all because you decided to global lurk, naturally.

...but, but, if I hadn't global lurked, I wouldn't know that everyone's naming schemes were nerdy until you actually met them all...

[NobleHelium]

We played turn 57.

Suffice to say we're in a less tense phase of the Mexican Standoff right now. I'm kind of tired of reporting right now so here's just a picture of our sprawling empire.



I think we can finally turn tech on again next turn.

[Gaspar]

Just opening the save is boring at this point. By the time Noble has pedanted all over it, I could actually slip into a coma.

We'll meet Ichabod next turn:



Not sure if you can make out the faint grey border, but I don't care enough to enhance it.

Finished a work boat and a granary in newer cities. Libraries are almost done in the capital and Old Ruins. Much to do was made over roads 1N or 1NE. Amazingly, no wrists were slit. Here's a picture of the standoff with Mad King Leoric. I think we're covered til he shows up with HAs like the nutcase that he is.



We definitely need a surge soon, these demos aren't pretty. Yuri (Izual) teched currency so we're getting a bonus there. Ichabod (Leah) is really winning at the moment I think. Dave (Azmodan) will be in good shape once he actually builds a library. The one thing we can all agree on, Commodore (Leoric) is losing.

[Gaspar]

In the interest of moderately spicing up this impossibly dull thread, I put together a composite map for dotmapping purposes:



First time using a stitching program I might add - way easier than doing this by hand as I've always done. Anyway, there's actually not a lot interesting here I don't think, but I'll mention it anyway.

Pink & Blue Dots are the most interesting here. Pink Dot is a grab for the sugar tile (no resource bubble, sorry) which is SW of the Pink Dot as well as trying to achieve a bit of a landgrab in the area. It will likely piss off Yuri but fortunately for us Royal Crypts just north of the area is our primary military pump. Not counting Whale, since Optics is a billion years away, we essentially have 4 native happiness resources - Ivory and Gold, already connected as well as Silk and Wines, not yet connected due to tech. Sugar ups that to five which will come in handy. It is also key as a landgrab, since Commodore pushed us back in the West.

Blue Dot on the other hand is just an idea of a city. It really requires some seafood in the not yet defogged Eastern sea. It does grab an Oasis, a pair of irrigable grassland and Lighthouseable lake, but without seafood of some sort would be pretty terrible. Its primary raison d'etre is to block Yuri out of the north.

The other stuff is unspectacular backfill. Red Dot is a pretty worthless city which just picks up some unused grassland and a decent grassland wines tile but would steal the Pig from Royal Crypts which will greatly weaken that city. Purple Dot in the east gets wet corn, an Oasis and some grassland and is probably the best of the backfill. Black Dot exists to get the unused Deer and Whale tiles and maybe work some cottages for the capital.

And that's it. Best case scenario where there is seafood for Blue Dot and we can grab Pink Dot we get to 12 cities peacefully. Anything further south than Pink Dot is a pipe dream. (For that reason, a case can be made for planting on the hill 1N for defensibility even though it pushes the sugar to second ring and has some useless overlap with RC.) Certainly would like some feedback but I don't actually see a lot of opportunity here for variety.