[Spoilers]PBEM5m Commodore shows the full Monty

[Commodore]

So what's up with that road to that grass hill in the middle of nowhere?

Uh, because I am bad at game? Honestly, neither Gaspar nor I have been playing amazingly at the moment.

[Commodore]

[SIZE="5"]Turns 43-50, Much Ado About Nothing[/SIZE]

So at this point I've been pushed back from pressuring Gaspar's capital thanks in a large part to the hill and peak inside his borders. Another chariot trade, and I withdrew back to the copper region of the map with my remaining forces.



Gaspar at this time has a much higher solider count than I do, and is in fact killing me in all real stats, as the holy city culture is here pushing up my GNP. For all that, I feel generally sanguine at this point.



The reason I'm not too worried is that all of this conflict has taken place on Gaspar's side of the map, causing him to hunker down and not claim the important central areas. I knew I had to keep him on the defensive, so I began to throw out spears.



My own rather naked empire hummed along, keeping pressure on Gaspar that was more psychological than anything else. Things were still going pretty well, but the lack of economy began to be felt. I needed cottages down and growing as soon as possible.



Gaspar, meanwhile, at last did match me for cities with Mackoti Marble, somewhere in his lush backlines. My own forward pushes were just as much if not stronger cities over all, but they have all been rather worker-intensive.



A cautious probe looking into Gaspar's own marble site saw a quarry going up finally. I was a little dismayed to see two chariots in striking distance of my warrior and chariot, but I figured I should at least be protected by the river.



Yeah. Not a huge set back, although the other announcement of the turn, Gaspar founding Buddhism, meant that Gaspar was probably going to set up something juicy for an Oracle slingshot. I pumped a few replacement units, and went back into builder mode.



When they arrived at the copper location a turn or two later, my spears found a new city, guarded by the healing veterans of the earlier coin-flip battles. It looked like I'd bet right, making spears...there was nothing Gaspar could make that got odds on them.



Turn 50 was going to be a busy turn, so I'll give the traditional turn 50 big update next.

[Commodore]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 50 State of the Empire[/SIZE]



So, yes, in the year 1000BC the Holy Roman Empire is the largest in the world. Our three cities are centers of learning, religion, and honor and our spear-carriers are our missionaries on foreign fields.



Not only is the state religion of Hinduism followed in the great hill city of Hugh Ron, but the new sect of Judaism has just began spreading in the riverside town of Creak. Of course, organized religion immediately followed.



The capital city of Sue is a strong city, finally working its first cottages and building a settler for the gold to the south. Although the people in Sue agnostic for now, the new state religion of Judaism means a conversion soon. A regular whip cycle has been cracking in once every six turns without exception.



The organized religious adherents in Creak worked hard to make a library, to enable what the Glorious Leader calls a "ghetto GP farm". After the library and the missionary are done, the next plan was to chop out a quick Oracle for denial as well as taking something useful.



Finally, the military pump of Hugh Ron was just whipped to make another settler also for the south. A strong pack of spears were just finished in this great city, with excellent food enabling its citizens to work the numerous mines, quarries, and the fur camp further up-river.



Over all, the empire is very compact and well-built, although falling behind on the city count. Worker spam means that there is still improvement ongoing despite the force moved south towards gold and stone locations. The road networks are also finally starting to come together.



Despite recent improvements Gaspar is still clearing winning at this point. His own much more conservative first city is enabling him to push forward now with a high MFG backing up his troops, although the lack of copper still hurts him. Clearly, much work is needed to recover here though.



And so, the next turns, my entire focus was on redressing the massive gap that was beginning to form.

[Commodore]

[SIZE="5"]Turns 51-58, Failure In Battle, Success In Building[/SIZE]

So trying to rectify things with my far-behind status, the first priority was to swing a settler push. The gold and stone locations are priorities, for the economy and for walls respectively.



The spears arrived at the irritatingly defensible tundra copper spot. The C2 spear got ~68% odds on the warrior, but a shock spear was a couple turns back. I opted to wait a bit for the more sure shot.



...foolishly. Apparently, my scouting managed to miss a second source of copper. Foiled, I decided to do a little minor pillaging.



The pillagers were killed, although not without inflicting roughly equal damage, it would have been perfectly equal in fact were it not for an absurd 10% odds retreat Gaspar managed against one of the shock spears. Ah well, at least I managed to keep control of the good defensive terrain and block the wheat and copper.



At least while this silliness was going on I had the chance to settle unmolested. With careful micro, I worked to quickly get the gold online, because I was going to need the beakers if I was going to make it to Currency before crashing.



Meanwhile, the jewish missionary went to Sue to get the religion up soon. The plan needs me to get the state religion online in the capital, or else there would be a loss of crucial XP.



XP? From religion? Well, marble is online, a pair of chops were about to go in, and OR was working on the hammers. Why not make something fun? It was litterally a two turn diversion for the city, so why not make a fortelling-place?



And it was Theocracy! This is a first, I think. I managed to completely skip the classical era, now in the medieval. Nice, eh?



The new real estate is very nice. Of course Christianity founded in one of the new cities. I moved the free missionary back to A Patchy to swing some free culture there when needed. I'm glad I have this land claimed.



I love these new cities. A Patchy is going to be stagnated at size 7 working oasis, whales, gold, gh mine, and the sheep +2 scientists. Nice fast growing bugger, although it'll be a struggle to not work the gold all the time to grow faster.



Weaker but still strong Shoe Show Knee works the clams and deer eventually and then will be whipping up a storm. A frontline city, I should soon add a barracks and it'll be tossing out Theocracy 3-promo melee to push Gaspar on the southern front.



The improvement isn't great, but things are looking up with the new cities coming online and the bigger northern cities growing onto mines, which has been great for the MFG in particular.



It's also a blast to play.

[SevenSpirits]

Great thread!

You look a bit behind still in demos but not too far. Any idea who's got what on who in tech?

[Commodore]

You look a bit behind still in demos but not too far. Any idea who's got what on who in tech?

I think we both bumbled into an economy semi-crash, actually. He has Currency, but no CoL yet (and "yet" is turn 68 now). I suspect he's on the Monarchy/Feud beeline, but his Priesthood diversion (with my spear rush delaying him enough to lose the Oracle) hurt.

[Commodore]

[SIZE="5"]Turns 59-67, Just REXin'[/SIZE]

So, despite the conflict being almost entirely on Gaspar's side of the map, my own military has been running far smaller. On turn 61, here are my rather pitiful forces, although most of them are well promoted. Pretty sad, right?



It actually got to be too much in my core, with the cities starting to grow into unhappiness due to lack of garrisons. I made a small core of 5xp Theocracy units to send to Gaspar, and then also built a few more just for security against raids, although my sensor nets mostly defend me pretty well.



While I kept massing near Culture War, Gaspar also began shoving more and more force into the city. On a hill, protected by a river from the more accessible side...yeah, I'm not taking that without siege.



My tendency to be too cute with micro should not be mixed with Spiritual. After making the units from the Jewish cities with the Theocracy bonus, I swapped to Christianity as both new cities grew to be able to whip their own garrison units. This also has the effect of popping their borders.



Then, timing chops for both cities, I swapped to OR to get the bonus on granaries and then barracks, delivered immediately. I felt very proud of that one, because it sets up for the swap to Judaism when the capital and Creak need to build again. Obviously, OR missionaries were their first post-revolution builds.



Creak is also working on a GP. I think a shrine might well be worth it if a prophet pops, but I'm trying to make way for a GS...wouldn't it be something else if I could bulb Philosophy by turn 85? Then, of course, I have Gaspar's Phi half the time.



I'm mostly, though, concerned with growing, but vertically and horizontally. As you saw above, Ear Ick Koi is a lovely border town with an oasis and corn now, and soon gems to help the economy too.



Cherry Key, the other new city, is scheduled to grow like a weed on grass cows and wet rice, and then help out the capital grow some more cottages. In AW Bureau isn't going to be on all the time, but thanks to Spi and Theocracy's availability it will be on often.



All of this is bringing me much closer in crop yield, and nearly there in MFG and GNP too. Once Currency comes online, the rest should just be gravy. CoL, Monarchy, and Construction are all good paths next, and I'm not discounting HBR.



Meanwhile, I'm spreading the light of Judaism throughout my empire. With no free spreads, the ease of making Jewish missionaries decided things for Judaism. The capital and Creak each pumped out two to spread it to six cities around the empire.



Gaspar still exists, and we skirmish still. He took a shot at an axe I exposed to him, and I gobbled up two chariots in return. Over all, tension is pretty low for two armies that size just staring at each other. I dread cats coming soon though.



And here is the Holy Aztec Empire, turn 67. Ain't she purty? I finally see where I missed the copper in the back lines, which enabled Gaspar's last-minute defense of Culture War. Ah well. Two more backline cities are slated to go up soon, copper and wines.



Looking good. And mostly caught up in reporting, too!

[Commodore]

[SIZE="5"]Turns 68-74, Pushed Around[/SIZE]

As is my wont when things are going well, I fell into a bit of a rut the last few turns, just happily building and growing. The lovely new city of Cherry Key will be working on growing cottages for the capital, while still managing a decent growth rate. It'll be sharing the ivory up north too.



The slow stagnation of my economy was a bit worrisome, even with scientists helping a little bit to ease the pain. On turn 70, I microed the entire empire to bring Currency down to a one-turn tech. Notice the HBR power there in Gasparton? That good CY of mine needs to be dumped into whips for spears.



On the plus side, Judaism is very well-spread now, although the cheaper Theocracy is looking nicer and nicer by the turn. The depressing thing is, yes, that's Pasteur rising over there in Gaspar-land. I kept working both scientists in Creak, hoping to get my own GS.



The techs available to me are weirdly streaky. If I was the Phi one I'd be salivating at the nearness of Universities and Oxford. As it is...Construction queued, don't want to get flattened by a horseman attack. Cats, and LKs open!



Unfortunately, the 35% odds Prophet decided to pop. My options were to settle (2h, 5g), Temple of Solomon (6g, eventually 9 or 10), bulb...Meditation, or fire a Golden Age. Being Spiritual, the GA isn't needed now...so it's obvious. I bulbed Meditation!



...or not. Gaspar's horse archers started to get frisky, and suddenly the fun little semi-choke was over. Those Charismatic HA are going to be beastly, and the last thing I need to do is give him a core of veterans pre-knight upgrades. The orderly retreat, covered by spears, was in no danger of being molested.



Gaspar has been growing into his backlines, fortunately, so he has no road infra to reinforce his driving-off stack. I'm going to try planting forward into this area, with stone online I can erect walls lickety-split. This land is a defender's paradise, too. Maybe a forward plant and chop 'henge to get good borders?



The current wunderplan, however, is all about the 'mids. Check out what chops+mines+OR+stone will do! Two more chops (one 16h outside the BFC) and the 'mids will be mine on turn 76 if Gaspar doesn't snipe 'em. The SE is win outside of the capital...so much so that I'm actually expecting an urgent HA attack once the 'mids complete, actually.



Now to check Gaspar's stone...

[Commodore]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 75, State of the Empire[/SIZE]

The year one AD dawned with the empire looking somewhat better than before, with the borders pushing outward while the backlines are prepared for more expansion. The former skirmishing around the north has died down, although a shadow-dance is now starting up in the central jungle region. Gaspar must have settled his backlines more heavily, because he's still not as far forward as I am.



He evidently has been expanding enough to crash his economy a wee bit. My culture output is pushing up the GNP numbers on my end, making us about even. Amusingly, our MFG numbers at this point are exactly equal, and Gaspar only has four more food than I do. I wouldn't be shocked if he began using that higher power soon to push back against my current land advantage.



Gaspar looks to be about six turns from hooking up stone. The 'henge is a natural build for a charismatic leader, but a Pyramids build wouldn't be out either. My next military objective is to pressure Gaspar away from finishing the quarry, although the choking jungles and forest will make that something of a tall order. I expect the Hanging Gardens, with their engineer points and the whips they represent, will be very attractive to Gaspar as well.



My own great capital of Sue is wonder-chasing the Pyramids, due in three turns with chops. OR/Stone make it a very fast build. The city has a nice high happy cap and decent infrastructure for this time of game, although I need a forge in here as soon as Metal Casing is available. The city can either do great commerce and grow, or high hammers...doing both will need to wait for Representation happy caps.



The Holy City (and a wonder-full city at that) of Creak is even more torn between the need for growth and the desire for food-eaters. Another prophet would be extremely annoying, so I'm going to be working the scientists full-time until the next GP pop, another twelve turns away. In emergencies, though, all mines can be worked for an impressive hammer output.



The somewhat inglorious second city of Hugh Ron is no longer the golden child but it has been pumping out a huge number of spears to counteract Gaspar's horse focus. The latest spear is waiting a couple more turns, when I'll swap to Theocracy at the same time as I go Representation. The next bigger project is definitely making a settler to push Gaspar's borders back.



That settler will most likely go to the mirror site of Ear Ick Koi. With a good food surplus, a defensible hill location, and darn little else Ear Ick is largely concerned with whipping. The next infrastructure project is a library, and then a cheap Spiritual temple to counteract the unhappiness the intense whip cycle will be generating. Once Iron Working comes in (and it might be a while), the gems tile will be a nice little economy booster.



The other commerce-mine location of A Patchy is growing like a weed now, banging out one last OR missionary before helping out in the spear and catapult massing for defending the middle push. This city is due a nice stagnation for a while, growing to size seven onto the mine and two scientists. Eventually the incense is probably worth working too, with possibly stealing the deer to enable the extra food-eater.



If that steal does happen its junior sister city of Shoe Show Knee will probably object. this is one city that is really hurting for infra, although the whip cycle means that not too much of that pain is felt. Eventually, this place will probably stagnate with either specialsts or the quarry/mines being fed by farms and the delious lake crabs. The walls are probably a good idea, because this place will probably be front-line for a while.



In contrast, the ultimate in backline is Cherry Key, tasked with nothing but growing capital cottages and eventually running specialists. If this was a longer-term game I'd consider cottaging all the lovely grassland and making this place a great commerce center in its own right, but that's not going to happen. As it is, farming the grassland will probably make this place the GP farm eventually.



So that's the empire. One more turn, though, will be adding an eighth city to the bunch, and boy such a nice city it will be. Seminal (I blame Mardoc) will be a wonderful place once it gets up and running, working three or four mines, the forest ivory, lake fish, and wines. What more could you ask for from a city location? I don't regret claiming the front lines sites first, but it is beyond time for settling this little gems.



And that's Monty's HRE, Year 1.

[Commodore]

[SIZE="5"]Turns 76-80, Stones[/SIZE]



Turn 76 greeted me with a rather cheerful announcement, thanks to my new settlement and the bigger cities finally being allowed to grow. Seminal is nice, but it leaves me with an issue…not sure what my next city name should me. I’m thinking Arrow Wok or Tootsie. Nav A Hoe is just too much of a reach.



I checked the EP, and despite not having stone hooked up yet, Gaspar had quite a large bunch of hammers invested in something in his capital. I was two turns from finishing the Pyramids naturally…but losing them would be incredibly painful. So, I broke the cardinal rule of wonders…ow that’s a lot of people.



Ugh. On the plus side, the city will regrow at a good clip, and at least I have that pile of stones with the gilt cap. I quickly revolted to Theocracy and Representation, expecting that I’ll need lots of formation spears and barrage II catapults soon.



If the mountainous Gaspar will not come to Commodore, then Commodore shall go to Gaspar. The jungle hill where Gaspar should have already settled now has two of my spears fortifying on it. The ‘henge idea is looked better and better.



The new battlefront is shaping up nicely, with all the conflict looking to take place on the Spanish side of the line. I need to be able to chop away jungle to open things up if possible, although I need to be careful not to widen things too much. Putting the kibosh on stone and thus walls/citadels cheaply is a big deal.



On turn 78, I took a shot to block the stone. The axe had a 3 in 4 chance of killing one of the two chariots covering the quarryman. Sadly, as has been a theme with this duel, the RNG hates me and the poor axe bit it.



Buggeritall. The following spear killed the other chariot without issue, but I fully expect to see reinforcement before he can strike again. It’s still going to be a little while on my GG…meanwhile, Gaspar has at least one level four unit already.



As expected, on turn 80 Gaspar counterattacked and rolled the spear, although I manage to kill the chariot first at least. I’m getting increasingly tired of Gaspar killing my HE candidates.



On the plus side, I’m also starting to roll out my two-promo catapults. I need three or four as a backstop before I settle in Gaspar’s face. I’m right now debating which tech path to go for, the Music artist would be nice if I could beat Gaspar there, and LKs are so close I can smell them. On the other hand, just a simple push for Guilds and knights might be the wisest course here.



On the short-term front, I want to be able to build forges next OR cycle, so while I mass up a bunch of catapults I’m also researching Metal Casing. Once these guys are online, I’ll feel much safer against an incoming stack of doom, as much as the HA raiders will still annoy me.



Gaspar won’t be dwaddling, that’s for sure. He turned on tech to 3-turn Feudalism and popped a second GS. He’s using Phi very well, making up for his lack of Spi flexibility with scientists for raw beaker power. I’m in trouble if he gets within hailing distance of Education, although thanks to the Theology gambit I’m closer than he is.



Still, working full science I’m blasting past him. This is at 100%, and him saving 100% gold, but still…Representation’s overpowered slingshot is working for me this time. Another reason for the attraction toward the Music path is that with marble the Great Library would be a wonderful steal, although I suspect Gaspar will beat me to that one.



Until then, it’s just build, expand, and protect. I’m trying to balance my investments, growing a lead now on the SE and pushing before Gaspar has a clear military lead, but at the same time growing capital cottages and the like so I don’t get smoked if things do go longer term.



Any questions? Anything anyone would like to see?