January 23rd, 2018, 06:55
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Yeah, I think my second settler, the one out of Salamis, will grab that spot. That also has an iron, doesn't it? Or is it further north? I'm still a couple of turns out from Bronze Working so I can't see for myself yet. The first one will go for the Opt A. site behind my lines on the land bridge.
January 23rd, 2018, 19:31
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CMF,
I was looking at the map and if you move the city on the stone 1 tile SW to the jungle hill and make that your next city. You will grab whales in 1st ring and crabs in 2nd ring. You could buy the crabs as soon as you can get a builder over there and get the boost for Celestial Navigation. You would forgo getting an aqueduct but there is 2 housing from the resources plus 1 from a lighthouse and if you build an encampment at 4 population, you can add 1 with a barracks. Should be a good little city and it is on a hill for better defenses. Doing this would get you Celestial Navigation and some RNDs in under 20 turns. Just a thought.
January 23rd, 2018, 20:28
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Turn 52
My mood was better today! I'll try to resume my cheerful tone. First, a score report, overdue by three turns. Sorry I've been sloppy lately, but this bit of the report is the least fun to write and takes up the most time. It does give me great information, though, so I stick with it.
Score report:
Total scores:
Team Empire: 149
Team Molotov-Ribbentrop: 116
Team XX: 107
Team Relic: 101
Team scores show Team Empire way ahead - mostly on the strength of Singaboy's 15 wonder points, but they've also gotten the most expansion, with as many natural cities as anyone, plus a city state. Hopefully we'll catch up when I get 3 more cities planted in the next 20 turns (2 settlers + Kabul, while Woden will grab Kandy). However, we're hanging with Molotov-Ribbentrop - our culture and science rates match theirs, we've temporarily outexpanded them (although both have a settler out, and they are attacking Granada), so once you subtract Emperor's double Lavra points and their religious points, we're actually leading them.
Cornflakes got knocked back because of his city raze, but Japper also has fewer points than any other player. He didn't build military, he didn't build districts (apart from the one campus), and he didn't build cities, so...what did he build? I guess infrastructure like builder improvements that don't show up in the score? He's got tons of chocolate and tons of GPT, so that might be it.
Team Relic is pushing military, heavily. Understandably so! They're going to come for revenge, for sure. Woden and I's goal needs to be to build to meet that threat, and make sure we don't wind up on the wrong-end of a two-way war with Molotov-Ribbentrop on the other side. I worry that they'll view our plant as aggressive, the way I did Mike's, and want to punish it - hopefully we can discourage that with strong defenses and good relations.
Emperor's first great writer paired with Choral Music has given him TWICE my CPT - he makes as much as Woden and I combined, in fact. Once the RNDs are out, and if my military score is good, I desperately need monuments. Suzerainity of Nan Madol would be even better, more than doubling my current culture. Gold generation is also spectacular. We need to invest in our own economy before this team leaves us in the dust - hopefully grabbing more land first was the better play.
So, state of the world: Team Empire is clearly leading, Team Relic is clearly not. I rate us about evenly with Molotov-Ribbentrop, with it remaining to be seen if our greater land will counterbalance in the long term their presently superior economy.
On to my turn. A quiet round of building, but next turn will be fun.
My military holds in place on the hills around the former Aranyaka, facing down Cornflake's warrior (but I think the swarm of archers he had are lurking in the jungles behind. Where else are they gonna go?). In the north, Emperor K's scout vanishes, maybe heading up into the desert. If I can settle before he comes back, I can lock down the chokepoint and prevent him making contact with Team Relic. I want to do that, to limit their mutual information and make coordination difficult. Meanwhile, I start my trader out of Actium, giving my economy a little boost. I had intended to trade with Amon, to build a road from Actium to Trafalgar all the way to Woden, but I notice a better option:
The trade route continues beyond Amon! Moreover, the trade route runs THROUGH Amon no matter what, so I relocate my destination to Isis. The road will stretch from one end of the empire to the other, and the yield is the same:
That makes defense easier. Speaking of, I'm still hopeful we can grab that northern canal city. That will shield Thoths' flank, and the land is marginal enough that it hopefully won't piss off Molotov-Ribbentrop too much. An attack over the southern land bridge has to pass Isis's encampment, and can be harassed by my navy, so I think that's lower priority.
Finally, the most exciting news of the turn:
Japper's nearest neighbor is...Rome!
Expect contact next turn.
January 23rd, 2018, 20:30
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Woden - I like the first ring whales and the crab. That will shave 7 turns off Celestial navigation, and improve my GPT a lot. The increased defensiveness against Team Relic isn't bad, either - I can use a fresh builder (built out of Actium) to chop the walls, then build fishing boats for the inspiration.
January 23rd, 2018, 22:57
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Nubia-Turn 52
Start this turn off in the north. I move both my archers closer to Kandy and find...
Looks like I am having some help from 2 of Kandy's warriors. I bet those barbs are from the scout that spotted my capital a ways back. Too bad I am going to attack Kandy in 4 or 5 turns. Nice to have some guards for a barb invasion.
In the south east...
Someone is working on Granada. hopefully it is Germany and not Russia. I would hate to see the borders expand too quickly. Since it was turn 50 a couple of turns ago and CMF did it last turn, I figure I will show the insides of my cities, starting with Isis...
Isis finished an encampment this turn, completing a quest for Seoul and giving me +2  . I think I have the highest science right now with 13 . This city desperately needs some builder action. Only 2 2/2 tiles to work with a few 2/1 tiles. I will build a few warriors and then a builder here. The warriors will go block Russia from settling the canal sites and the worker will mine a hill and harvest the marsh for a campus.
At my new city, Thoth...
I should have good production once the current builder gets down here to mine the iron. This one will be another slow grower and may need a trader to speed it up. I will switch off the archer when it is down to 1 turn and start a warrior or monument. After the builder mines the iron, he will move to chop the forest tile and overflow into an encampment. Once I get the Suzerain of Valletta, my first faith purchase will be walls here, then a barracks at Isis and then we will have to see how much faith I have left.
In Amon...
This city can kick out 2 turn warriors. It finished one this turn and started another. After the current warrior, I will go for a trader to get some gold by sending it to England. Then I should be able to spit out a settler and then on to horseman. With the production card and 3 envoys into Valletta, I should be able to build 2 horseman in 7 turns. If I can improve the sheep, I can save a turn of that and do 3-turn horseman. Should be able to get an attack force pretty quickly here.
Now that my science is doing fairly well, here is my tech tree...
The cheap 2nd tier techs are now 2 turns, wheel drop a turn to 4 and even the classical era techs are now 5 turns. My plan is to go for Writing and Currency after Horseback Riding, then Wheel and Iron Working. If I get my third Encampment built, the first of both types of districts will be discounted. If I then build 1 of either type, the second will be discounted.
Here are the current scores...
We are no longer last! CMF did a good job describing it in his post and I have nothing to add.
CMF, nice job on the trade route. That will be very helpful in the coming turns. I will still need to send you a trade route, as my income sucks. Still, nice! This way I can build horseman at Isis too and have a bigger army quicker. Also, nice find with Rome. This is good, since it might bring Sullla's army towards Japper and give them something else to worry about other than us. Things are starting to come together and if you can get the inspiration for Celestial Navigation soon, we should be in good shape in 20 or so turns. Nice job!
January 24th, 2018, 20:05
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Nubia-Turn 53
Slow turn today, not much happening. Starting off in the north...
Looks like Kandy's warriors are moving back to the city plus another barb warrior showed up. I shot at it with one of my archers and move the other up. It will probably attack my archer in the north and I will kill it with one or both next turn. Warrior moves towards Kandy.
In the SE...
Germany takes Granada (good, better than Russia!). I decide to move my archer to the southwest to prevent Russia from settling it. The warrior out of Isis will go down there too and hopefully block any forward settling.
In the SW...
Not much going on here. I did remove/rearrange some pins to highlight the new settling plan. CMF, I suggest not move your units up any farther. I bet Cornflakes has a bunch of units in the fog waiting for another war declaration. Best to be careful!
If you notice my gold generation is now 3.4 gpt now. At first, I didn't know where the extra 2  was coming from...
But looking at the reports, I noticed Isis is making +1 and figured out it was from a foreign trade route. I guess my income has never been this low where I would see gold from a foreign trade route, and in fact, I don't think I knew foreign trade routes gave gold. I am getting +1 in both Amon and Isis. Thanks CMF!
In other news, I switch to Irrigation this turn and will finish it in 2 turns. I figured I could harvest the marsh at Isis instead of pasturing the sheep. Both will give me +1  (sheep from pasture, marsh for growth), but the extra population will add culture and science and clear the tile I want to put a campus at Isis. Irrigation will be the last tech I finish until I chop the encampment at Thoth. I want to keep the costs down on placing the encampment. I will research a bunch of stuff down to 1 turn and then hopefully get a bunch of overflow into something else. After the encampment is placed, I will finish Writing, Horseback Riding, Wheel, and probably Iron Working and the overflow into Construction(?).
Until next time...
January 24th, 2018, 20:53
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Turn 53
Score report:
As you can see, we made contact with Sullla/BRickAstley of Rome this turn. His demographics are...well, what you'd expect from Sullla playing Rome. His culture is through the roof, with 5 cities providing him 10 free culture right there. He still has an absurd amount without his free monuments, though - there must be at least one culture state on his continent (we know China met it), but I'm not sure where the rest can come from. His science is higher than Woden's, though, too - and he can't have met as many science states as Woden has - well, actually, maybe he could, yeah. Either way, yeah, scary civilization.
One thing that I find mildly encouraging is that he's been following the same gameplan I have, it seems - relentless expansion, with districts to come later. He's just much better at it than I am, getting up to 5 cities while my 3rd settler is still hiking and my 4th is still producing. I'll catch up, of course, but I need time to do it, and in that time Rome will probably have further expanded. Anyway. No real surprises here - Sullla is really good at civ, and he has a really good civilization to play around with.
Other news: Archduke took Grenada. Like Woden said, probably better him than Russia...although it DOES mean another Hansa down the line!
On to my turn. First, our contact with Rome:
I try to get close enough to glimpse a city center, but no can do. I'll work my way north along the borders and see what I can see. Gotta find a way through to contact Singaboy, need to find their 2 remaining city states (Sullla took one), and then wrap allll the way around to the Archduke.
Sullla just planted a new city. Here's a list and an overview of his civ:
While I'm looking at his diplomacy, though, I spot something interesting. Check this out:
His only contacts are me, Woden, and Singaboy, if I'm reading that right! I can't check, since Relic and Molotov/Ribbentrop haven't met yet (and never will, if I can help it), and apparently Archduke hasn't contacted Singaboy yet. Weirdly, this means that Woden and I might contact every team before any other team contacts each other. More amusingly, this might cause Sullla to conclude that Woden and I are his nearest neighbors over the water. He'll figure out the truth as soon as he scouts this way, but hey, any bit of false information helps!
Okay, that was the major fun of the turn. In domestic news:
most of the army fortifies along the border, holding just far enough out to defend my new spot from any encroaching Khmer settlers. I should have just enough time to get the new spot settled before the truce runs out. The nice thing is that Japper is the one who accepted peace, not Cornflakes - which means we get basically an extra turn of truce, and a first strike should we want it on that turn.
Still, I'm a little frustrated at how close our two civs are. I really want to pull my army back and go sack Kabul - but I don't have time to walk there and back with most of my units, and I don't dare leave this front uncovered when I know Team Relic is aching for revenge. Now, that revenge itself isn't too concerning - Singaboy tried it in PBEM2, Jester tried it against Dave in PBEM4, but generally when a civ gets knocked back like they have they don't recover from it. Woden and I need to maintain tech parity to defend their first rush, then we'll gradually pull ahead. The danger zone, I think, will be in the next 10-20 turns, when the truce expires and Kongo will have UUs, but I won't be able to really afford swordsman upgrades. Our abysmal gold generation is really hampering us right now - I'm jealous of whatever Archduke and Emperor are doing to generate their absurd amounts (or Japper's vast fields of chocolate).
In the southeast, I finish exploring the Balearics and pin a few speculative cities. Settling these will give me a nice flank position facing Emperor K. I'll need to patrol with my navy, but it should be defensible enough as long as I have ships in the area to guard those 1-tile straits.
That's a long-term concern, though, because for 30 turns at least our front with Molotov-Ribbentrop is secure - Woden, I failed to mention this in my last turn report, for which I apologize, but I sent a DOF request to Archduke and Emperor, to see if your settling the city changed anything. Archduke rejected it, but Emperor accepted! I don't know if either can declare war on you anyway, though. It's an odd situation. I'm hoping it means peace over there for 30 turns, and by the end of the peace they should be more worried about Team Empire than us (or if they're more worried about us, then we're probably winning anyway).
Okay, that about wraps it up until tomorrow, I think!
January 24th, 2018, 21:32
(This post was last modified: January 24th, 2018, 21:33 by Woden.)
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(January 24th, 2018, 20:53)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: Woden, I failed to mention this in my last turn report, for which I apologize, but I sent a DOF request to Archduke and Emperor, to see if your settling the city changed anything. Archduke rejected it, but Emperor accepted! I don't know if either can declare war on you anyway, though. It's an odd situation. I'm hoping it means peace over there for 30 turns, and by the end of the peace they should be more worried about Team Empire than us (or if they're more worried about us, then we're probably winning anyway).
Good. I will only build 1 warrior at Isis then and go for a much needed builder. Plus, I can send my 1st trade route to the Commercial CS. Its quest is a trader route and I believe you defogged. Good thing I started sending my archer over towards the planned western canal spot. I don't think anybody can declare war if any of the teammates have friendship with someone on the other team, regardless who has the friendship. I will check when I play tomorrow.
January 25th, 2018, 00:05
(This post was last modified: January 25th, 2018, 00:06 by Woden.)
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Weird that you didn't meet China like I met Germany when I met the Russia scout. Unless you need to met a unit?
January 25th, 2018, 23:18
(This post was last modified: January 25th, 2018, 23:20 by Woden.)
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Nubia-Turn 53
I think I am going to use spoiler tags for my screenshots again to save on my phone data, especially now that I am starting to get to the point where I obsess over the turns to figure out the most optimal path forward. I really like the way Emperor K is doing it in his PBEM6 thread, with a spoiler tag for each screenshot, so I am going to try it out. No need to follow suit, CMF, just something I started doing in PBEM4 and think I will pick it up again.
So, start the turn with...
Having finished a warrior at Amon. I start a trader to get a trade route to the commerce city state in the south. I was planning on another warrior for back up when taking Kandy but I ran the numbers and pretty sure I can take it with 2 warriors and 2 archers, but I will get to that later.
In the north...
The barb warrior decide to hit my archer, so I moved him on a hill and killed the bastard. Will move towards Kandy and promote next turn. I will declare on them in 4 more turns (T58).
Last turn, CMF ran into Rome, so...
5 cities, 12 gpt, and horses. Nothing special. We will catch up soon enough. His culture is out of this world, something like 4x mine. That too shall pass as I will faith buy monuments soon. I really think we will know if we are in trouble around T100. Then you really see who is in decent shape, who is in trouble, and wars will break out. As an example why I am not worried...
It wasn't too long ago that we were starting to get behind but look at everybody's score. Germany, England, Kongo, and Khmer are all around the same score. Russia is boosted by his cheap unique units and China by religion and wonders. Rome is a little further ahead thanks to his monuments and him pushing out a few more cities but Rome is an early riser thank to the free monuments but as the game goes on, they will lose there importance. I know Sullla is a good player but I am not worried at all. Rome should always pull ahead in the beginning but it is where people are at T100 that will matter more because base expansion should be close to finishing and city development really starts to show. Besides, I am just getting in position to explode with development...I will get to that a little later too.
In the southeast, I decided since CMF is now friends with Russia, I don't need my units hanging around my city. I decide to send the slinger east to try and block settlement over there and send the warrior south to see if I can spy Russian movement. I spy with my naked eye...
A Russian settler. Not sure why he didn't settle the spot I marked but maybe going for the forward canal spot? Or, could be settling to block a canal city? IDK, guess we will have to wait and see. It would have been better for him to settle where I marked and seal the fornt with Thoth but I am not going to complain. Though, it might mean I need to buy the wines sooner in case he settles on the southern shore of the east lake. Maybe send CMF a request for 10 gold next turn. I should be good after finishing PP and sending my trade route but gold is tight right now.
Irrigation will finish next turn and I will harvest the marsh at Isis. Warrior is due in 2...
After warrior, I will go builder and once I finish Writing, will place a half cost Campus. Should be about 69 and take 5 turns maybe less with a chop. Will have to see. I will want to get that one built after the builder.
Looking at Great People screen...
I already have 18 points into the general. I will get this one and probably the next one. In about 10 turns, I will produce 3 ppt, in 15 turns 4 or 5 ppt, in 20 turns 6 ppt, and that is without the card. If someone makes a run for it, I will have 3 encampments to run projects,
Let's take a look at Kandy...
It has a farm, a holy site, and a quarry. One warrior will go north of the mountain and the other south, while my archers are behind them. My archers will take out the warriors on the turn I declare while my warriors move up. If there is an archer in the city, one of my warriors will take some hits. One warrior will hit the city on turn 1 of the. The other will move to the quarry. Second turn, both archers and 1 warrior will attack. Turn 3, both archers will attack and the warrior will pillage the farm. Turn 4, 2 Archers and 1 warrior will attack and the other warrior will pillage the quarry, finishing Mysticism and bring Military Tradition down to 1 turn. Pop a 2-for-1 envoy into Valletta and take Kandy the next turn. Once I take Kandy, I will put a galley in production with the doubling card. About this time, a settler will have been finished at Amon and it will start a builder. The builder will come over and harvest the stone at 1 turn left and overflow into my second campus (in about 15-16 turns). Then I will place a 3rd half-price campus at my new city from the settler built out of Amon (going to the food high north). Then I will finish Currency and place 2 half cost Commercial Hubs and finish those. Then I will probably need to finish Drama or Games and Rec, which will screw up the discounted districts a little, but hopefully I will have a few more cities to build encampments to keep the discounts going. Anyways, give it 20 turns and I should have a few more cities and bunch more districts. And if I chop a bunch, a bunch more monuments, barracks, and walls. Exciting times are ahead as my civilization is about to explode...but I still have to think about building an army of horseman. Should be do-able, just need to figure out where and when to fit them in.
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