Turn 51
Another relatively quiet turn over here in England. Sorry for the subdued tone today, guys, but for some reason I'm just feelin' down and can't shake this feeling of gloom. Ah, well, y'all are here for Civ, so let's get to that!
I was hoping to make contact with Sullla or Singaboy soon, but my scout continues to push with no cities in sight. Apart from Japper's city to the south, the settler map just reveals green all around. I have to say, I wish I'd had access to THIS area to settle in, or Woden's spot - it feels like I got the only wide land bridge in the game! Maybe Archduke and Sullla/Singaboy's bridge is wide, like mine with Khmer.
There's spots for good cities on the spices and cows here, and any military campaign would need ships as it winds among the lakes - a squadron of frigates could wreak havoc on any advance. -sigh- I won't complain too much, though, you know you're taking a risk on these maps and tying your strategy too firmly to geography is a bad idea. Anyway, I push my scout galley,
Ocean, further south on the other front and I think I've reached the end of the tiny stupid island chains, down in the tundra:
Three modestly sized islands, looks like, with potentially more out in the ocean.
Other than that the turn is quiet - I direct my settler towards the Leyte site, right next to ruined Aranyaka. It's 10 turns out, so it'll arrive right as the truce expires with Team Relic. I have more thoughts on that in a second. I set up most of my units in a loose defensive line on the hills and forests in front of Woden's archer. I need to hold the settling sites, while I'm upgrading my slingers (Woden, I'd save the gold - if Molotov-Ribbentrop get frisky you can upgrade your last slinger to an archer, otherwise let's avoid the maintenance cost). My own GPT is suffering badly - again, more thoughts on that in a sec. Trafalgar needs 2 turns to finish an archer, intended to escort settler #3 out of Salamis, which is due in 7 turns. Actium finishes a builder in 4 turns. I'd like to purchase the sheep there, and get some growth going - the city has good resources, but all in the second ring. A monument here is needed.
So, yeah, I'm a little disorganized, but I want to do a larger strategy post as of turn 50.
Woden and I played the early game with some definite goals: We wanted to use the production saved by skipping a religion to grab our share of land and expand more quickly than our neighbors. How well did we do? Well, not as well as I hoped. This may be colored by my generally gloomy mood today, so take all my words with a grain of salt, but I'm mildly dissatisfied with our present position.
1)Aranyaka was a great victory for us, but we must be realistic about the actual impact. On the positive side, we established room to settle, and we set Khmer back, hopefully fatally - he's on one city 50 turns into the game, while Rome has four! (or five? Need to check scores). However, we did nothing positive for our own position apart from a leg up over Khmer, and a bit more territory. We need to settle the damn place to get direct benefits, and we need to hold it.
2)Diplomatically, Mike's forward settle is causing us headaches. Emperor and Archduke, cowed 15 turns ago, have massively expanded their armies and are facing down Woden at the canal. We settled the middle city ahead of them - a win - but they rejected our offer of friendship. They saw our war with Mike and took advantage, and have no intention, it seems, of giving us a safe flank. There may be productive resource trades available here, though - I really want to cultivate peace with this team. My biggest worry now is a 2 v 1 as they join Relic in an invasion of us. No idea who wins in that scenario, otehr than it ain't us.
The other diplomatic problem is, of course, Relic. I have no doubt they feel everlasting enmity for us. I mean, fair cop, but Mike DID settle right in my face (not that he knew that). I hope Cornflakes has no hard feelings, since he took over in the middle of the war, but he could very well be out for revenge. Now, am I worried that they'll be able to hurt us as much as we hurt them? Eh, I don't think so. In 10 turns I will have ironworking, oligarchy, and walls in my forward cities available, with 5 cities producing support to Relic's 3 total atm (my civ alone is as large as their entire civ! So is Woden's!). However, being forced to build military will put me even farther behind the economic curve.
3)That brings me to my final dissatisfaction - right now I'm economically backwards. Here's Trafalgar, 51 turns into the game:
I anticipate that after the game when he does his traditional analysis Sullla is going to rip this city to shreds. It's great at building units - and nothing else. Growth to size 4 is slow, and I miss out on good tiles. The farm build was a massive error of builder micro. I planned it to get the irrigation bonus, which I needed to plantation my silk...except that by the time I farmed the damn wheat, I'd already farmed rice in Salamis. As a result, I'm still working the unimproved bananas - 51 turns into the game! I've built only 2 builders all game. A builder is next after the archer, and I'm going to seriously work on getting this capital into shape. A plantation, chopping that riverside hill, and planting a mine there is my wish list. The chop will go for a monument, likely - I'd like to do a district but an encampment is the only useful one I cna build, and I'd rather get a gold generating district out first.
That will make Trafalgar a much stronger city overall, hopefully. Woden, you're a much better builder* than I am, so any advice would be much appreciated.
Salamis is little better:
It grows quickly, but production is hard to come by - I thought the copper mine would do more than it did. Border growth onto the nearby hills is also slow. A monument would help. I want to get a builder out to plantation the tea (I'm working the production instead of the science to finish the settler faster) and perhaps get some mines onto the hills. The stone will be harvested into an RND once I have the tech. Again, I need a monument to grow onto the best tiles - I get why Dave wasn't enthused with this city. Still, as a second plant, I'm not sure I could have done better, and it has been valuable for its galleys and support production. It can be a good city, it just needs time to develop.
Here's Actium. THIS city's issue is lack of food:
Fish and cows are both third ring, so I'll need to purchase them. In the meantime, the city grows at a snail's pace. A granary is needed here, to add food and alleviate the housing penalty. If I can get it up to 5 pop, I should have enough native production to keep ahead of the curve with an aqueduct, lighthouses, plantations, etc. Note also that the tile picker bafflingly wants the 2/2 stone over the 2/2/1 silk, because reasons.
So I have 3 mediocre cities, which means I'm going to start falling behind if I don't engage in some serious infrastructure investment pronto. I've been competitive in science and expansion so far thanks to simple pop, but that's not gonna last. So, medium term goals, in decreasing order of priority:
1)Settle the disputed area with Khmer to make sure the Battle of Aranyaka wasn't wasted.
2)Make sure Kongo/Khmer can't easily get revenge for razing their city - maintain a force strong enough to hold until Nubia can arrive.
3)Build infrastructure - builders, monuments, granaries - in my cities and get them growing.
4)Find city expansions I actually LIKE, instead of territorial expansion for the sake of it. Find a way to take Kabul while maintaining a garrison on the border. Think about settling islands.
5)Research to the districts I want and start to plant those.
That will set us up for a confrontation with Kongo/Khmer with a much stronger economic base in ~30 turns? To get all that developed?
So, overall, I give myself a B- for my play thus far. We've almost singlehandedly knocked one team out of the running, but a)that benefits our rivals just as much as it does us - maybe even MORE since it's not like Japper has a grudge against Singaboy now - and b)it's also thanks to Mike being foolhardy with his play, depending on stolen gold. I can't attribute much of it to my own design. Another positive is doing well in the land race, only falling behind Rome/China combined - and they have STUPID good early advantages (which we do not) and STUPID good players (well, Woden's alright, but I'm not really bringing much to the table here). On the downside, my civ is starting to become backwards, and examining my cities, I'm disatisfied with all of them. The early investment in military I cannot admit as an error, given our city-states and given the necessity of taking out Khmer's pink dot, but at the same time it comes with heavy costs. Now we've gotta work to mitigate those costs and focus on the future.
*player
. Encampment at Isis is due next turn for another +2
. It is too early to worry about graineries and monuments at the moment. Expand and get your district down ASAP. Bronze Working can wait and you will be in a better situation once CN is finished. It is too early in the game to worry about major infrastructure and improvements. Expand and protect is the name of the game now.