Josh's Civ 4 memoir. Chapter 2

[Amicalola]

In honour of Miguelito's recent switch, I will do a new overview post, some time today. Luckily the horrible no-good very-stressful ancient combat rolls did not wreck our entire civ, just 1 axeman. It's been.... a while, and things look very different (and mostly very good!). Two mid-game PBs keep a person very busy as is, sadly. Too busy, really.

[Amicalola]

Overview That Was Promised

I think Joshy will be back around this time tomorrow, so it's fitting that I write one now. We've expanded out to 10 cities, and are planning to found 1 more (non-jungle) site on T92, a filler near our incense. 


Most cities have granaries, and MarbleCity's will be math-chopped in 3 turns. 

Demos are looking pretty good:


The high power is recent; we've generally been 5th-6th until now. Production is also a recent thing, as our granary'd cities are growing and coming online. We can start researching Currency in 2 turns, and it would finish T93. That's certainly the earliest I've ever researched Currency - usually my empire is in economic shambles at this point.  

In terms of foreign news, we met Rekenner and JackRB over the last 3 turns, after being in the dark for a long time. It looks to me that Jack, Vanrober, Us and Bellarch are the strong civs, while Jesse and especially Rekenner are weak for whatever reason. Not sure about Bing, I'm not into C&D enough to try and figure it out. Rekenner is a big surprise for me - With a tonne of posts and the Sullla/Miguelito combo, I'd considered him a joint favourite with vanrober. Rekenner has also not been reporting recently, and I hope he's doing alright irl.

We finished the academy at Rome on T86, and started researching Maths then. 


Rome should work hammer tiles (letting other cities work cottages) while we save gold, and the cottages when burning it. This is because Rome is cranking out workers, due to being at the (CHA) happy cap of 10. I suggested we keep working scientists anyway, because they're ~5 beakers each with the academy, and we'll want another GP sooner than later for our Golden Age. The biggest reason I find the first GA helpful (for Joshy) is that we can finally swap into some useful civics, although perhaps other players would disagree. 

I think this is a really interesting area for us.


There is room for 2 extremely strong cities here, once we have Calendar and Iron Working. The current 'dotmap' was midway through tinkering, probably not optimal. Edit: I forgot to turn resource icons back on.  There is 2 bananas, a wet rice, sugar, and 3 dyes split between those 2 cities. 

Because of the jungle belt, I think we broadly speaking have 2 options from here. 

1. Research Iron Working->Calendar, and settle two spots here. This would increase our happy cap by 3-4, and give us two strong cities, without necessitating offensive conflict.
   
2. Research Iron Working->Construction, and try to crush someone. Probably Jesse, but Bellarch possible.
   

I prefer the former option, as we can still tech to knights and crush someone (Jesse) then. Praets are just as useful as a defensive deterrant than an aggressive unit (perhaps even more so), and I am very confident we could get to knights first, barring a dogpile. But I don't think attacking someone now is an objectively bad idea, I just don't like it as much, because that jungle land is so powerful, and our cities could really use the extra happiness. 

Overall, I think Joshy is set up for a fun game whichever choice he makes. I will obviously stay on as a dedlurker as promised, but I will be a lot more hands-off now that his holiday is ending. I have to say, I am glad to be handing this one back over. Two games (59+60) is bordering on too much for me already - three has been pretty exhausting, and I'm a little burnt out. Hopefully playing a little less will help me enjoy the current games a lot more.

[joshybravo963]

Day 98

Havent written anything in a while due to my absence and limited amount of time. Thanks amicalola for keeping the threat updated with whats going on. 
I was still able to message amicalola and make sure we both agree on future steps. So I thought I would somewhat vomit out some of the things we were thinking and planning just so the viewers have an idea of whats going on behind the scenes because weve been talking quite a lot. 

Finally finished currency, then since I wanted to start chopping moai statues i also got masonry for the bonus from stone. We decided fishcity was the better spot since it had 3 forests to chop and also plenty of water, so well get it done quickly. Next we got iw to finally get the pretoreans in 2 turns when the mine is ready, and now saving up for calendar before we go for construction and start a war on JesseL most likely. Construction is needed for a solid attack on cattapults and ive been told i shouldnt trust the pure power of my pretoreans, so the attack will have to wait until construction, and calendar is needed to make the 3 jungle cities actually useful. I cannot have them crashing my economy like this before I attack. Also the hapiness boost will be a warm welcome when whipping. 

 Building cities yourself is probably better than whipping to conquer. And those central cities will be very valuable to hold, i believe its JesseLs and vanrobers only chance to get dye, sugar and bananas. Also JackRB is at 12 cities and everyone is also catching up with the city numbers so i dont want them to surpass me, these 3 cities will keep me in the lead. 
Since the last post weve settled Insence city and that has pretty much filled out all our available city spots. I think we made a somewhat of a mistake by spreading our cities out too much, with some better city planning im sure we could have squeezed in a few more very good cities. But who knows how things would have been. This brings our total to 11. I have also explored south a little more, met the remaining players and realised how close everyone is. I saw how contested the jungle was, those cities will be a power house so I immediately started whipping some settlers to get the spots, and im glad i did, because it looks like everyone is planning the same thing except im just a couple turns ahead..

   

Ive been noticing a lot of activity especially from Vanrober, hes got a lot of troops, and i noticed he is getting ready to road, to the spot that I just got, so i just beat him. I have a lot of troops myself, but found it a little difficult to protect both my 2 settlers going to the area, and 2 sets of workers roading to the cities to minimise the extreme costs of city maintenance before calander. I think the jungle should keep me safe for until i get my pretoreans. Amicalola suggest i bring them out to these cities immediately to tell everyone to keep off my lawn and f off and thats just what I intend to do . If all goes well should have my first pretorean there in 6 turns from now. Ive settled the city and hopefully this wont provoke any attacks because ive got 2 more cities in 2 turns coming... 

Cities buildings usually go for monument if needed, then granary, monument if not there already, lighthouse, barracks and units. Since we are so close to pretoreans, I stopped building units, and building wealth to get us closer to calendar. From next turn on we will finally be whipping pretoreans. 

Next some diplomacy. JackRB wanted ob but i declined since he has no other trade partners and didnt want to give him free trade, but then next turn i noticed vanrober accepted his deal, wish he kept JackRB from trade a little longer. I offered vanrober gold for silver since he doesnt have any. But he wanted my only gems too, i dont know what hes playing at, it was a fair deal, maybe he got gold from someone else? idk why he wouldnt just accept. Got fish for fish with bellarch amd bing. OB with vanrober, rekkener and belarch. JesseL has no trade partners either so wont be trading with him, specialy since he rejected my offer earlier when i had writing. Hell make a fine first target. 

These are my total units, 12 cities, 12 workers, 10 axes, 5 sprears and 2 chariots since ive just got horses online.

   

Surprisingly we were not the first to currency, I believe bellarch was. So maybe were not so ahead after all. I think hes still got more city locations, and im full out so i really do need to get the extra 3 cities. 

Grapghs look very close between me bellarch and jack, just lost visibility on the jessel and vanrober but i think there a little more behind us. 

   

Demos are still great, have been 1st in food and production and soldiers for at least 5-10 turns now, and 3rd in gnp since our science is at 0%. 

   

Josh out.

Edit: As I was jsut finishing my post, i saw bellarch move his settler under his scout and this little army under my scout, so he wants to settle my rice, im 2 turns away from settling my spot. His settler is also 2 turns away from settling 1sw of the jungle. So if i play first i should get the spot. But i know theres some sort of rule about who decides to settle first gets it so idk what will happen, hopefully they allow me to get the city spot, been planning this for ages. Earlier i made the mistake of moving workers to road in the jungle instead of roading in the space 1w of the mountain and saving me 1 settler turn. If i lose the spot because of this i will be very angry and might even change my first target to bellarch isntead of jesseL. Also hes just built the great lighthouse so thats nice... and doesnt seem to have many units anywhere. Hopefully it all goes well and i get my rice city and we can all live happily together next to my cities  

   

[Charriu]

This is a classic settler race and requires a turn order. We normally handle it this way.

The turn order is established as soon as a player notices that it is required. Since you have played after bellarch this turn you should play after him until this race is over. You can inform bellarch about the race, but since you are playing after him it isn't that important.

[Amicalola]

I think Joshy moved first, so he is first in turn order. But otherwise yes, charrius explanation is great, thanks.

[Charriu]

I just looked at when you both ended your turns

[Amicalola]

Ah, so this is (maybe) complicated. Joshy moved his settler first (was in game typing a report, as mentioned) but Bellarch ended his turn first. Messy. What is the ruling for situations like that?

In my opinion whoever moved the settler should be first, but I can see that I'm not exactly impartial.

[joshybravo963]

Also in my first screen shot its clear that ive made all my moves, just didnt end turn. My local gmt time is given at the top, and checking the login times, bellarch only logged in 30 minutes after the screen shot was taken after ive clearly made all my moves. Does that mean i still lose the city?

[Tarkeel]

Could you help us clarify what happened around the war declaration with Jesse?

[joshybravo963]

What kind of details do you need? I was just logged in the game, I made some moves, had to take a phone call, come back and the city is gone :D, then finished my moves, and ended the turn and he then ended his turn 20 secs after me. Amicalola says since I already made the moves in the surrounding area around the city, he didn't double move me. But I was just puzzled where all the units came from