[SPOILERS] Will the Sun(rise) Ever Set on Washington, Mongolia?

[Whosit]

Elum has taken TWO more Grimace cities..... bleh. At this rate HE will get the GLH. Also, Rome took my offered trade.

[Krill]

I've got some more talking points, and a lot more pictures, but I have to do some cooking so for now, I think I found out why my economy sucks. I went and counted up all the cottage-type improvements in my Empire:

Turn 147 (740 AD)

Cottage: 3
Hamlet: 13
Village: 17
Town: 7

Total: 40

I'm no expert, but I think that's pretty pathetic. I HAD 8 Towns, but it turns out it got mined over. At my CAPITAL. See, the other day as I was playing, my cat jumped up on my keyboard. I thought she missed anything important so I payed it no mind, but it appears she had set one of my Workers to Automated.... So now I have a grassland Iron Mine instead of a grassland Town at the capital. Lovely.

As much as that sucks, I think that those Town iron tiles are a deserved kick in the teeth for people that ignore IW as long as possible. But I'm a jerk so I suppose that's not a surprise to most people.

And, y'know, it's not really for lack of trying, I feel. I'll put the pictures up later, but I compared my core to CH's and John's, and I think I just didn't get as much green space. I've cottaged over as much as I could (unfortunately, several of my piss poor cities needed farms instead of cottages). Johns DID trade me maps, so later I might try to count up CH's cottages. Maybe. So, yeah, I guess my plan now is to take as much of Grimace's core territory as I can and hopefully it pays off because my economy just doesn't have the oomph it needs.

To be honest I think your dot map is a little weird as well. You could have settled to the SW and NW to try and claim more land rather than just straight north like you did. If you could post a blank map or your land (no units, no terrain improvements, no cities) I'd show you more.

[Whosit]

I don't know how many people beeline Iron Working unless they have to. I'm just upset because the cat put one of my Workers on automated. I already had another source of iron.

And I'm sure my dotmap is far from perfect. I'll see about getting a blank map image. Though as far as why I didn't settle further west, if I'm using Wendy (2nd city) as a jumping point, I think it's because a combination of wonky terrain to the southwest, and lack of food to the northwest deterred me. I probably should have settled to the northwest, though. At the time, I felt there were greener pastures elsewhere, and CH had already gained some control of the NW because he captured a barb city that had popped up.

[Krill]

Well, I agree the cat thing sucks. I'm just envious you're allowed a cat. My apartment won't allow me to have one

Though as far as why I didn't settle further west, if I'm using Wendy (2nd city) as a jumping point, I think it's because a combination of wonky terrain to the southwest, and lack of food to the northwest deterred me.

I think I'd have settled your second city either straight north or the NW of the corn at your second city. The advantage of settling NW of the corn is that you can use the third ring border pop to open up a few more tiles without needing to invest into culture in the early cities immediately. A third city 89 of the plains sheep just outside your capital borders could have used the plains sheep as food to get to size 2 then whip a monument (or barracks!) to then open up the silk, gold and wheat, but that does limit the ability to use that flood plain next to the capital. You could instead settle 69 of the sheep and the capital third ring would give you the flood plain and the sheep, and that cheap barracks would give you the wheat.




But it turns out that your third city is solid:




You picked Washington, so with what could have been a size 8 capital with just that ivory I'd probably have focussed on getting a quick second city out then getting hte capital to size 8 asap. Probably would have stacked whip unhappy immediately to get 2 workers, settler and a granary at the cap.

[Whosit]

Technically the cat isn't mine, and technically the landlord doesn't know she's here, so if you just feel comfortable lying to your landlord, then I guess you can get a cat (I don't suggest it, of course).

I think one factor in the placement of 2nd city (though at the time I also had Gavagai prodding me) was the hill location for defense. I also thought I'd be sharing the cow, but that never happened. That belief was pretty stupid, I'd say. I think Wendy has turned out to be a pretty awesome city in its own right, generating as much commerce as the capital, but yeah, it didn't grab me as much land as it could have.

When you talk about stacking whip unhappiness, do you mean you'd have grown to size 8, whipped the worker, whipped the 2nd worker, whipped the Settler, and then whipped the Granary, too? What size would the city end up at?

[Krill]

I mean you whip the city really hard from size 3>2 repeatedly and use chops and potentially overflow to get the granary at size 2, then grow to size 8, potentially stopping at whatever size you need to get settlers out whenever feasible.

[Whosit]

Gee, I wonder what the fuck is about to happen. I revolted back to slavery so I could make an ugly 3-pop whip for another Spear, and I'm pulling a lot of Keshiks back, but it won't be enough fast enough. CH will probably burn the city. Guess it's time for my sand castles to fall.

#1 mistake this game: Attacking Grimace. >_<

Well, maybe you lurkers know of another #1 mistake, heh.

[Gavagai]

Hey, Whosit, I really want to apologize for disappearing without any notice and even without responding to PMs. This winter was very difficult for me in real life, I was busy adapting myself to Russian economic collapse. Didn't really had a mood for any unrelated communications.
Anyway, I'm still unspoilt for this game and if you still think that my advice can be useful, I'm willing to try to provide it. Can't give any promises as even updating my PB22 thread currently proves difficult for me. But if you don't mind, I can log into the game and post my thoughts in a few days. I just got a sucky but highly-paid corporate job of the type where you have no real work to do but facebook is frowned upon. I think, I can write about civ to fill up the office hours.

[Whosit]

Hey, Gavagai. It's fine. Though a notice would have been appreciated, I get that real life always comes first. I'd still appreciate any advice you feel like giving (though if things are going where I fear they are, my dear civilization may not be long for this world).

[Whosit]

OK, quick update from turn 151. CH did not attack me, for some reason. Then I fucked up and showed that I have Sentry Chariot. I thought a unit with Sentry could see 1 tile over a hill, so I thought that was worth the cost of revealing the unit. But turns out they can't. So now I don't know where all those Chariots went, and now CH knows for sure that I've been spying on our borders. Oh well!

There was a little action with Grimace and that went better. I sank one of his Triremes with one of my own at 32%, only took like, 20 HP of damage, and since I'm CHA, the victorious boat gets C2 next turn. Also, preparing to invade Nevada.




That's what's defending the city. I went ahead and landed 6 Keshiks 1S of the city. As long as he doesn't somehow reinforce, I thiiiink I can take it. I should test odds in a combat sim, but I think I'll basically lose 1 Keshik for each defender. Unless I get unlucky. But I think it would be worse now to not attack.