[Spoiler] Nakor needs new oranges

[Gaspar]

Not sure how much Catwalk is paying you but if he's involved with Jowy as the tech thread would seem to indicate, he's definitely the better target.

There's virtually no chance I'm starting a war while you're gone, but if I see opportunity somewhere, I'll prep for one.

When specifically am I starting playing turns/can expect you to be back?

[Nakor]

The deal with Catwalk is off for now. Expired.
I'll be gone from now untill next saturday.
Just keep building a large enough stack for a succesfull war. I need more land...

Thanks!

[Gaspar]

The deal with Catwalk is off for now. Expired.
I'll be gone from now untill next saturday.
Just keep building a large enough stack for a succesfull war. I need more land...

Thanks!

I played the turn. I'm not going to report - I'll report in a turn or two. But a couple quick hits:

1. You will not be attacking the Russians ever, because they will annihilate you.
2. Putting the units on the stage tiles is important - it allows you to cover multiple cities. Those units are worthless sitting in your capital, you cannot cover both the sides with one stack, especially pre-Engineering.
3. I'm going to assume Catwalk border is safe because he's facing Jowy and Jowy is not the type to take peace once he's upset, which the tech thread clearly shows he is.
4. I'm not going to itemize everything weird I saw because I like you Nakor and I'm trying to help, but if you only play 6 minute turns the game is always going to go badly. It took me an hour and a half to play this one, and while subsequent turns will be shorter, when you play really fast you miss a lot of stuff. You have to spend the time to plan beyond the next turn or two or the guys who are doing that will kill you.
5. I'm going to tech to HR and try and get you in position to settle for the calendar resources. No reason to go to war for more land before you've settled all that's possible. I do think maybe you could attack Catwalk down the line if you want to just try an offensive war for once, but I think Zanth will eventually attack you and you should just try and play a good game for yourself from here on out - see if you can improve your Civ and survive til the end.
6. If you want to pick one thing to improve on, you've got to do tile swapping when your cities are packed in this tight.

I'll have pictures and a report of what I'm up to probably Sunday or Monday.

[Gaspar]

Report to come next turn, but I couldn't resist this:

3. I'm going to assume Catwalk border is safe because he's facing Jowy and Jowy is not the type to take peace once he's upset, which the tech thread clearly shows he is.

Normally I'd say the lesson here is that I have no idea what I'm talking about... but 500 GOLD for 10t of peace from the last place civ? Come on. The lesson here is that Catwalk doesn't have the stomach for these games. I am half-tempted to just roll up on Catwalk with all your Horse Archers and see if he'll give me whatever city has the MoM for it.

I am seriously considering an attack on Deprivation just to see if I can get him to tilt and overpay for peace, but the Russians could get frisky and that would be bad news. Nonetheless, we'll see how the next few turns go. I *could* be the one to get frisky.

[Gaspar]

This game is the worst.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This game is the worst.

Without qualification, I agree. I like the map, though.

[Nakor]

Whats happening, Gaspar?

[Gaspar]

Whats happening, Gaspar?

Nothing, that's the problem. I've played 3 turns. How can anyone get into a game like this?

I was really excited by the challenge Friday night. Now I just don't care.

[Gaspar]

Okay, so last turn I went around looking for some trades to improve the old happy cap. I logged in this turn to:




Uh, ok. Thanks, Catwalk.

Then I remembered I traded our Sugar to Yuri for Silk last turn and felt sort of like a moron. Oh well. Cancel that deal as soon as able, Nakor.

Anyway, I'm basically trying to accomplish the following goals right now:

1. Improve the economy.
2. Expand.
3. Continue to grow the military to allow for a future expedition against England/defend against Babylon

Let's take a look at each of those individually.

Improve the economy

Right now, breakeven is 40% and you're making 84 beakers. That's tragically awful at this stage of the game. Now, this is the consequences of the plan I laid out last time I was in control. When you prioritize military techs and build lots of military, your tech rate suffers. Its clear that this game will go on at least a while longer, so we need to stabilize at a higher breakeven rate. There are a few things that need to happen to make this work:

- Increase happy cap so you can work more commerce tiles.
- Get some better civics going.
- Slip in some multiplier buildings among the military builds.

Generally speaking, I think building new cottages at this stage of the game is a bit of a lost cause - the games usually don't last long enough for the payback horizon to work. However, to make the economy work otherwise you need to do things like juggle wealth builds and I don't see that happening here, so even some crappy 2/0/2 tiles and 1/1/2 tiles will do more for the economy than just working a bunch of PHM. I've trained one additional worker so far and have 2 more completing next turn. They, along with the two workers on the Catwalk border will work towards getting the riverside plains cottages up at the capital and getting Ten, Eleven and Twelve going.

The capital needs a Market, now that it gets two happy from it with the Silk trade. After it completes the current spear, it will work on that while growing. We'll want it working the food positive tiles as much as possible since between the Market and Spice, Incense and Sugar it will be able to hit size 14. We want that - it will make Bureaucracy much more useful. It can actually grow even further with Hereditary Rule - but I'm not sure that much higher than 14 is sustainable.

Speaking of which - Monarchy will come in EOT132. I recommend you tech Code of Laws after that, which will take 4t and then firing your Golden Age - swapping to HR, Organized Religion and Hinduism. You could use Caste System during the Golden Age to try and get the next two great people for your 2-man GA but I'm not entirely certain that I see the cities that will be able to grow the population enough to make that work. I'm staying the whip hand mostly now in preparation for the GA, only whipping places that really need it. But the cities are such runts right now that I don't think you can really get the pop high enough to take advantage of much. Anyway, the purpose of the GA is to get to Civil Service for Bureaucracy, which you should revolt to along with back to Slavery if you do use CS during the GA.

All of this... is still going to leave your economy in the toilet, but its the best you can do. After Civil Service I would take Machinery (for maces) > Engineering (for enhanced road movement) and then head to Guilds (for Knights.)

Expand

The only room left in your immediate area is in the north, which now that we have Calendar is valuable.




I have the settler for 11 already en route, he will settle on t133. The workers in the area will work on getting the spices prepared to be hooked and getting a couple chops down for the granary and forge at the new city. Once those two are done, they'll start roading to 12, peeling off to improve the rice when borders pop. I started the settler for that spot in Eight before realizing there was just no way to get the worker turns even with a complete repurposing and 3 new workers, so I swapped to a cat for now - when we get a little closer, that Settler can be whipped or completed normally - I suspect approximately 10t before you're really ready to settle 12. Meanwhile, the Immortal will follow the path shown to see if there's anything else worth settling/non-contested in the far north. Its possible these settlements will annoy slowcheetah, but in your position, you have to just expand.

Continue to Grow the Military

What you have right now is probably enough to hold for the next 10t or so against Zanth/Gavagai. However there's next to nothing on the Catwalk border. Right now we need Horse Archers, I'd feel best with about 10 more and maybe 2-3 more cats for the east. So whenever we're not building key infra, we're building HAs. I did skim off an Axe/Spear pair for 11 and we'll need to the same for 12. Those two are already being replaced by new units that complete this turn, but we'll need a second pair for 12.

I think ultimately you'll be able to take Deprivation and Kitchen Bitch, but that's for another day.

Generic overview shot:




Depressing Demos:

[Gaspar]

This game is the worst.

QFT.