dtay pb38 [spoilers]

[dtay]

Well BGN is being additionally annoying

Hopefully he was just poking to see if the city was empty? Except he didn't offer peace after moving in. I'm kind of annoyed he can't see the other warrior, since now he might just be tempted to try to raze my sheep and then peace out (as opposed to ~probably~ dying as 2 warriors attack, with the one that has shock getting 50-50 from the start).




Alternatively he might go for the chance of razing my city. Which would be annoying if he won the dice roll of.

[dtay]

We have peace in our time:



Though suck it, go bear go!



End result of the war is I'm now doing an entirely different bit of worker micro, which I think is mildly worse than the one BGN pushed me off of but not a big deal. I'm basically going to leave that sheep half built for a while probably, since it isn't actually worth finishing given the superiority of deer and I will now have AH.

In other news...



Is that 2 dog soldiers? That looks like about 3/4 the size of the big jump earlier (which should be bronze working), and certainly isn't the wheel (which he's teching now #Espionage). Brief perusal of civ stats shows he has to be chopping those out, which implies the relatively insane strategy of rushing someone. Which I guess feels like something a newbie might do, thinking he has to use his resourceless UU for something. In any case, a warrior will certainly go ascertain location of superdeath now to make sure they aren't headed my way.

[dtay]

Well I managed to misclick and waste 2 worker turns, but besides that things are going well. Going to found my 4th and 5th cities soon, neither exactly backlines but not really directly towards anyone (I know of) either - I think given the presence of two neighbors who appear to be slow-ish starting (neither have a 3rd city, or are particularly tall with high demos to compensate) I'll be best served by snowballing and then trying to attack the weaker of the two than win by securing "more than fair share of initial land".

Superdeath in particular seems to have prioritized getting out what I'm pretty sure are 2 dog warriors, then didn't really do anything with them that I can tell. I would say he could have sent them off rushing someone else, but he sent one up partially towards me, then killed a warrior (moving back towards his capital) and ceasefired*. So not really sure what's up. I have horses now though so not really scared of dog warriors given chariots massacre them. I also have copper mined and a worker nearby who can hook it when I need to, but for now happy to build MP warriors.


I have been paying dim attention to the rest of the world, but obvious DS was eliminated by DZ. Likely by Holkans, though still weird. Sure you can build them without resources, but they don't get ~that~ great odds on a warrior in a city on a hill (capital), and archers in a city should have no problem (and archery is cheap). I suspect what happened was DS attacked out on like ~40% odds or something on the thought that going all or nothing on breaking a choke at the risk of totally dying was better than being a rump state until someone ate him.

*Dog Soldier did cause me to waste a turn of research putting a turn into archery when I first saw the dog warrior coming towards me though.

[dtay]

5th city (Dainsleif) founded.

I have 3rd city (Durendal) working a copper mine and horse and just pumping out settlers. It might do this for quite a few turns and remain as a size 2 rump city, since it doesn't have its own food source that isn't shared with the capital until a border expansion.

Once pottery comes in we're probably going to go on a near civ-wide settler pause as every city double whips or chops out granaries. Oh to have Pro.

No pictures today because I forgot to take screenshots, next turn if I remember to report.

Demo wise I'm tops in manufacturing and like... 7th? or something in food. So I might be best in foodhammers, though am probably at least close. I have shit GNP though, my guess is others had more accessible gems/silver/gold than I did. Hopefully I'll draw even to the pack one I get a city with gems + a bit of pop growth.

[dtay]

Who need commerce anyway

This isn't really a crashing economy per-se, mostly I just haven't added any commerce production power. But next turn settling a city by gems, and researching fishing->sailing to get some overseas trade routes. And finally building some cottages since I got pottery last turn.

[dtay]

WHO NEEDS COMMERCE




Gonna settle a coastal city somewhere up here next so I can get a galley, will wait to bust the fog to decide for sure but probably 1E of the easternmost wheat





If I can fogbust those 3 tiles I will feel very safe from barbs




Overall I think this is going well, I have a lot of cities and they're all about to grow -> whip/chop granary -> grow to happy cap (whipping out necessary workers if they have nothing to grow onto). I haven't really aggressively claimed territory (as far as I can tell every city I've planted is closer to my cap than a neighbors), but I don't think that matters that much on a map at this level of density* and with this many players - expansion will be a matter of building up and converting that to a military rather than 1 marginal city more of peaceful territory.


*I have a vague notion it is in this intermediate zone of "fair bit of room but not a ton" where pink dots make the least sense, and thinking in terms of "locked up" or "stealing peoples natural territory" is the least helpful frame. With lots of territory the "peaceful growth" period can last quite a while, so having that be on a larger base is important. Basically you largely compete with other people via peaceful expansion until midgame. On a truly cramped map, every city likely hurts someone else anyway and 1 marginal more peaceful city is actually quite meaningful. But in this middle ground? I'm going to have to fight on HA or Knights (or Gallics!) anyway, and i don't think I'll in any sense reach "equilibrium peaceful civ size" by that point, so it doesn't really matter where the cities are really.

[dtay]

WHO NEEDS COMMERCE





Actually me, me. I need commerce. I'm finally mining some gems, researching sailing for IC trade routes, and putting down cottages. And for the first time in a while not actively building a settler (though I have one live).


My civ




With my powers if espionage, this spike appears to be archery + a unit. Superdeath is also currently researching HBR. This seems pretty silly to me, but I'll keep scouts around him and be ready to defend if this is meant for me. 



My civ is large enough and has enough granaries that I feel pretty good about my ability to whip out spears or whatever to stop any chop/whip burst strategy. If he goes on a sustained buildup i'll have to be somewhat more proactive.

On a different neighbor (Dreylin), while you can see it worked out peacefully above, this was looking pretty tense for a moment (there is a settler under the southern Dreylin archer):



I'm happy with where he settled (1NW of where the settler is in that shot). I mostly just didn't want him to steal the stone, so flashed the chariot to dissuade him (appears to have worked).

[dtay]

Tech path here is undetermined, I think there are basically 3 reasonable things to do

1) Writing -> Math -> Currency - the classic development path. Can't go too far wrong. No I don't have writing yet. Sue me. WHO NEEDS COMMERCE

2) Metal Casting - Colossus. Great wonder. Not as good here as some maps, but I will have a good number of coastal cities. Def pays off even if I don't delay astro. Forges also nice even if I miss. Oracle fell a while ago and Rusten might have taken MC with it though, so this might be a fools play.

3) Masonry -> IronWorking/HBR -> KILL - I don't think this makes sense yet since I haven't exhausted peaceful cities by a mile, but Superdeath is lagging enough I might be on the clock until someone else tries to kill him. At the very least I need to keep pace with other people's power so I can get my fair share if/when that comes.

Writing and Masonry may make sense to slot into one of the other paths, but those are the options I see. Leaning MC, but saving gold for now.

[dtay]

Civilization shot. I'm going to found 2 more cities, each the minimum 3 tiles south of my southern cities and then i'll have the framework of my civ. just backline filling after that. One of those settlers already exists, one will be made next turn.




This galley has to turn around soon-ish (to pick up a settler to settle on the silver), but just checking out what BGN's coast looks like. He appears to have only recently founded this coastal city since it is size 1 with no buildings, but gotta watch for a galley (I don't think he has any plausible used for a galley besides attacking me, so it'd be a bit of a giveaway).



Demos (with tech on). I used to be 2/2 on MFG/Food ugh, but whipped off some citizens so now I'm back at 4. The top seems pretty highly clustered though if you look at the rival best (though other people could be less balanced than my civ I guess).




Btw - what's the trick to check total land tiles? I really should do that to see if there's astro-land out there. PB27 I could just see it, but apparently people figured it out from first principles before even that.

[ipecac]

Btw - what's the trick to check total land tiles? I really should do that to see if there's astro-land out there. PB27 I could just see it, but apparently people figured it out from first principles before even that.

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