[SPOILERS]yuris125 looking for inspiration in Pitboss 73

[Thoth]

[Krill]

Made a misclick on settler movement which will delay the 3rd city by a turn. Not worth asking for a reload, serves me right for playing a turn just before going to bed (at 4am, because that's what reasonable adults do)

Scooter founded Hinduism, which reaffirms that he's probably working towards a very particular bulb plan (since the main reason to go for Hinduism over Buddhism is to avoid Meditation prematurely unlocking Philosophy bulb). If he continues onto Priesthood and Oracle, I had no chance of stopping that in any case with my slow start. That said, if he Oracles Metal Casting, that's probably not the end of the world. If his research is fast enough to hard-tech MC and Oracle Machinery... then we could be in trouble - that's been my big worry from the very start, and it's sad I can't do much about it (admittedly, phracts do quite well even against zerkers, if Scooter pulls it off it's still not the end of the world, just makes things more difficult)

I have never understood your availability given you are in the UK, and you are not working nights.

[yuris125]

Be self-employed, tell clients you're unavailable in the mornings (preferably with a rational explanation, such as "to better align my working time with North American office hours", not "because I like to sleep in the mornings"). Easy

Third city finally settled




The settler misclick gave me time to chop the forest 2N of Adrianople into the capital's granary. So I have granaries in both Constantinople and Thessalonica. At least I have that going for me. This is depressing though




Scooter has all techs from the first column as well, and is already 4 techs ahead of me

[Commodore]

Starting to understand why Commodore factors PYFT rating into war declaration decisions

We're only playing 2 turns/day. What a disgraceful pace

I think you're the only player on here I have never ever considered DoWing for PYFT reasons. 

[yuris125]

Scooter war-peaced me, getting scared of my warrior lurking around his borders, and me building an axe. I am happy to oblige though, lets me save hammers on the way towards phracts. Even if I'm dumping hammers into barracks for now, nothing more useful to build. Barracks are more useful than axes if my plan is to attack with 2-movers




Horses confirm the city 4 spot. Problem is that I don't really want to whip the capital, I want it to work the cottages. But I also don't want to wait for Thessalonica to grow to 4 before starting a settler. But I also want to settle city 4 asap, so that I can have time to grow it to 4 in time for cataphract whips, and also connect the horses and start pre-building the chariots asap

Normally I would say whip the capital and let Adrianople grow onto its tiles, but Adrianople needs a Monument whipped asap, so that it can gets its second wheat. So Adrianople is being whipped next turn

Whipping the capital is probably best (also would rather settle the new city while I don't have to worry about scooter's attack), even though I'm not a fan of slowing down the research

[T-hawk]

Do you have an estimated time frame for getting the first cataphracts out? (I assume Iron Working is not going to take 274 turns )

[yuris125]

T70-T75 is the window. IW was 11 turns at 100% science, but will speed up as more cottages come online

Really trying for T70, with Scooter's fast start. Even that is later than I hoped, but looking back I don't see any lost time. But I think it's very realistic that Scooter will be able to get zerkers by then

[yuris125]

Decided not to whip settler in the capital. It only gets 8 foodhammers/turn, so I would need 5 turns to get it to whipping range. Or I could give the corn back to the capital, but that would lead to Thessalonica starving, and I need it to grow as well

Instead started a worker in the capital, and will build a settler in Thessalonica, with the help of a whip/chop, once it grows to 4. Should be the same completion date, and if I road the wheat and the tile SW of it, it won't even result in longer movement

I am trying to leave an unchopped forest at every city, which will go into the 2nd round of cataphracts. My intention at the moment is to have 4 cities at size 4+ with chariots pre-built on the turn HBR is finished, whip the first 4 cataphracts, then put a chop into the 2nd cataphract, and whip those as soon as they regrow to 4. I don't think the 5th city will be ready in time for the first round, but it should be good to join for the 2nd round. So is all goes to plan, the first wave will be 9 phracts - we'll see how much they can accomplish

[yuris125]

I slowed down with updates, but it's been boring the last few turns, just working towards my plan, and even scooter can't interfere while we have a peace treaty




Riverside is cottaged, IW is coming T60, 4th city will be up around the same time, then once I know where the iron is it will be time to decide on the last phase of the prep

Scooter did finally meet someone else 4 turns ago, my workboat is in the waters so I probably will find others soon as well

[yuris125]

What I'm thinking about now: peace treaty with Scooter ends on T59. What do I do if he tries to war/peace me again? Or even if he doesn't?

One one hand, cataphracts won't be in play before T70, and I could do with 10 more turns of peaceful development. On the other hand, giving Scooter also gets 10 more turns of peaceful development, and he can use it better than me thanks to his faster start. He's been forgoing units until now - my army consists of 1 axe and 2 warriors, and I'm ahead of him in power rating. Extended peace treaty means he knows for sure my attack isn't coming for another 10 turns, and is free to focus on teching towards whatever it is he intends to use for defence against cataphracts

So is it worth building like 3 axes and a spear and scaring him into building some cheap units? I think forcing him to invest into axes is beneficial for me