[SPOILERS] Lewger goes for the Bigwyn

[Lewwyn]

question: how do I place a sign?

I think Alt+s on windows?

why is the odyssey not working the corn here? the whip unhappy has subsided a bit. it doesnt have a MP in this picture, but with a MP we can grow to size 3. next turn the aenid will need the corn, why not use it for food the last turn its not sharing it? the loss of the 2 oasis commerce won't delay sailing any.
at size 3 we can work both mines and the sheep or oasis/cottage.

Look again. There is no MP unhappiness, the city is only size 2. it is all whip unhappy. Even with a unit in the city. If it grows the city will be unhappy. I left it on the oasis to get a bit of food and commerce. We do want to grow the city and we could use the corn for 1 turn, but I figured with the new city going down I wanted

man, the spears are building slow than I expected. hmm. well, after the settler completesin Gilgamesh it can 3 turn a spear (not including overflow) if we switch off the food focus. we will need a lot of spears now that we can expect to see horse archers .

Lol yes this is why I wanted to place cow city and chop/whip a unit there too. I already planned to go to a heavy hammer tileset in the cap next turn. That is how I figured 3 spears in 4 turns. This is also why we needed to speed the settler in order to get moving on building military units.

what is Odysseus doing here? Scouting the barb city? What is the benefit of that?
I feel dumb that we didn't send him on the direct route to start with, I didn't even think about it. he could be at the tile 1NE of azza's gold mine already. I don't think we need to move east anyway, odysseus might as well return to beowulf, we only need south scouting.

I wanted to see if the barb city has archers or warriors. If we can get there with an axe or two by galley while its still on warriors we could take it easy. The chariot should be able to return in time anyway.

Hector is moving north in case of barbs for silver. We have 7-8 turns until we need MP in Odyssey anyway.

Also we are not going to road south of beowulf its a waste of time we already have two roads southeast and west. We do not need to rush the sheep pasture because we don't have the happy to support the 3 pop on Odyssey as I already said. Odyssey's spear will be done in 3t since it will be working 2 mines. With a chop into a spear in beowulf we can have 3 spears in the city as peace expires.

Turn rolled I should be able to get it in an hour.

[Bigger]

ok. on the workers. if you don't want to road the tile south of the odyssey (I guess you're right about that anyway, I'm generally guilty of road spaghetti as much as anyone), make sure to send both workers near the rice to complete the road the chariot and settler are on this turn. This will get us trade routes immediately, instead of having to wait 1 more turn for sailing to come in.
then they can both quickly improve the cows the following turn. I guess there isn't a huge rush on roading the gold, still 5 more turns until borders pop and we can mine it.

[Bigger]

Turn 78:
first, some overview pictures. The empire:

Lewwyn pointed out that we don't need the road for a trade route in theAenid, since we control culture over the ocean connecting the two cities. I did not know that . Helen and Penelope finished the mine this turn and will contruct that road next turn. Briseis is pasturing the sheep and needs 2 more turns - we can't work it until we get another happy anyway - we have 36 turns of whip unhappy in theOdyssey, lol. Chryseis and Ishtar are each preparing to chop a forest. Most likely both whips will go into Beowulf, but I'll get to that.
The borderlands:

so I renamed the chariots again, heh. Achilleus III is spying on the barb city. there is a combat 1 warrior with 1.8 health. Thats interesting - it could have killed a scouting unit of azza's. I don't think it was the barb that killed Serdoa's scout - Pretty sure we killed the lion that did that awhile back. It may very well be the warrior that killed our scout a while back, that ventured west to the barb city. Anyway it should provide some experience for Achilleus here.
Odysseus, in the south, revealed some jungle, which explains why Azza left us a patch of land to go south on. he'll keep heading south, and hopefully be able to get past azza to some other civs. More interesting is the gold mine. There's a road there now because Azza played his turn between our turn and when I took this picture. But when lewwyn played the turn there was no road on the gold mine, meaning Azza just now this turn got the +1 happy for the gold. Azza's capital was size 6 very early and the game and stayed at that size until a few turns after war broke out when he started whipping chariots - so he must have another happy source somewhere.

The western wilderness:

The signs are posted by lewwyn, although I agree with these spots. The Iron/Pigs city can be founded as soon as we feel militarily secure on the Azza-border, the precious metals are hooked up, and we have converted to Judaism. our breakeven is exactly 60% with 6 cities - it will go down a bit with the silver city, but I expect it to bounce back once we've hooked up the metals and grown the capital to size 9. That will probably be a good time to build the settler in Gilgamesh. I hope to chop out MoM in this city, but we'll see.
The southern spot is the stone/maoi site we talked about long ago, before we found Azza. at this point its a bit ambitious, vulnerable to attacks by Azza. But I'm sure we'll be able to settle it eventually.

And finally, the far east:

Lewwyn added the "take keep" sign over the barb city. the barb city is quite beautiful, it is on a plains hill and has rice, spices, and hill sheep in its first ring, and lots of grassland tiles in its BFC. I added the other signs but haven't put a lot of thought into it - those cities are still a bit. we could probably capture the barb city now with 2 chariots (or maybe just achilleus if we are patient) but it would just be a drag on our economy at this point and we wouldnt have the worker support to improve it quickly.
The crappy blocker city, I think, we should found after currency (along with the crappy island city if we don't yet have foreign trade routes. which I guess we won't unless we slot in alphabet before currency, or we meet a civ that has alphabet). I am a tad bit concerned that Azza will plant the blocker city himself or capture the barb city - but if he does we should be able to fork him and raze/capture it with a horde of spears.

we don't have a trade connection with Azza yet, since he hasn't completed the road from Beowulf to Tenacious D. I think we will with sailing??? I'm not sure why we don't, actually, since he has sailing. Anyway I'll guess we'll see next turn.

Serdoa hasn't played his turn yet, so I don't think he's seen our offer for a map trade. Crossing my fingers he'll accept... but I don't think I would in his shoes (he's mapped a good part of what we've revealed anyway). We'll see soon enough.

Question: since we now have research visibility on Azza, can I assume he has lost demos on us? That, I like . This is one advantage of not making contact with many civs - Serdoa hasn't put EPs on us in a long time, allowing us to keep graphs on him and flood our Ep's onto Azza. When we do finally make contact with a third civ, we'll have a tough decision to make, I guess.

[Old Harry]

Thanks for the pictures bigger!

Presumably we don't have open borders for trade with Azza? Also I'd keep the ep's on him even if you do meet more folk down south. What's our ratio with him? I'm sure there will be a formula for what he can see somewhere...

And would it be a dumb idea to found the second iron city before silver city? It looks like keeping the first iron will be hard! I don't think we'll push back Azza's culture at Beowulf...

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Turn 78 (cont).

Because I'm bored, I'll give you a peek into each of our cities now.

First, Gilgamesh:

we debated whether to work the furs or the mined plains hill here. In the end we opted for commerce - but we may need to switch to the hill once the spear completes to make sure the second spear can complete in 3 turns as well. The grassland hamlet here becomes a village in 3 turns.
theIliad:

we have 12 turns of whip unhappy here. lucky that we're about to lose an unhappy, because we're going to have to whip again soon. we put one turn into this worker so we could do something productive with the 2 grains. Next turn, sailing comes in - we put 1 turn into a galley, then double whip it. we'll grow to size 3 (happy cap) on the workboat and then finish up the happy. probably should let the overflow go into the worker though.

theOdyssey:

the sheep pasture completes in 2 turns, but we have 26 turns of whip unhappy. 3 whip unhappy for 6 more turns, so we won't be able to work the sheep for a bit - we're working the 2 mines here to prevent growth. This city will benefit greatly from the 2 extra happy when gold and silver are hooked up, hehe.

theAenid, founded this turn:

as I said, the two workers that finished the mine on the Odyssey will spend two turns to move, then build the road connected theAenid to the rest of the empire, then move togethor and spend two turns pasturing the cows here, so they'll be ready by the time it grows to size 2. we may or may not whip it then anyway, I'm not sure yet. I'd like to grow it to size 3 first. We should be able to build a granary once this spear is complete. Maybe city walls after that - since we are protective, they should be quick and cheap.

Finally, Beowulf:

ok, since this was founded on the first turn of peace, the borders expand here the same turn our peace treaty expires. This spear completes in 3 turns and we start a second turn. The turn we start the second spear, 2 forests chops will come in, allowing us to one turn that spear. the spear completing in theodyssey can reach Beowulf or the Iron in 5 turns - so we'll have 3 spears here when peace expires.
The spear in Gilgamesh can reach TheOdyssey in 5 turns, and we can also whip the spear in theAenid if it is required. So we'll have 3 spears on the border and 2 more not far behind. we may have to dleay farming the rice until we can get more copper units here, but we should be secure. we'll get the gold mined and hooked up right away, anyway.
I queued the granary and walls to give you an idea of how long they will take with our protective bonus, but I think we should be able to build both after the spears - with reinforcements coming in from Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. After the walls Beowulf will probably be building spears (and maybe an axe or two) for awhile.

turn 78 demos:

ok, a couple of things here.
1. our MFG has improved considerably since last turn. This is mostly due to Gilgamesh finishing its settler and focusing on hammers to pump out spears, and the odyssey finishing its second mine. Note that if we work the plains mine instead of the furs in Gilgamesh we actually are #1 in MFG . I am now a lot more confident about our ability to match power with power in our cold war with Azza in the coming years . We don't even need to have equal forces, we have good position on him and spears to his horses, so as long as he doesnt blow us away with numbers we'll be fine. We aren't losing graphs on him anytime soon, so that should be easy to prevent.
2. again, if we work the cottages instead of grains in Iliad we are #1 in GNP. This is interesting, though. When I first logged in to look at the turn we were #2 in GNP, not #3. the only people to play their turn in that time period were Nakor and "Merohoc." I think its a safe bet that the jump was Nakor and not Merhoc. So I guess this shows you the effect culture has on GNP - the top 3 teams are us, Serdoa, and Nakor - all 3 of us have a religion and a wonder.

All 3 of us also have a top 5 city, and that helps:

Nothing really interesting in graphs. It will be interesting in 2 turns to see our MFG skyrocket .

[Lewwyn]

And would it be a dumb idea to found the second iron city before silver city? It looks like keeping the first iron will be hard! I don't think we'll push back Azza's culture at Beowulf...

Its not dumb, but it also isn't an aggressive play in terms of playing to win. Settling second iron first is more of a play not to lose move. I would rather double our trade route income, get another happy resource and a crap ton of commerce from working the silver once the silver city is size 2.

[Bigger]

Thanks for the pictures bigger!

Presumably we don't have open borders for trade with Azza? Also I'd keep the ep's on him even if you do meet more folk down south. What's our ratio with him? I'm sure there will be a formula for what he can see somewhere...

And would it be a dumb idea to found the second iron city before silver city? It looks like keeping the first iron will be hard! I don't think we'll push back Azza's culture at Beowulf...

Ep ratio is 136 to 176. so I guess Azza must have graphs on us?? The cost of research visibility has gone up 3 EP's every turn for awhile now (while we gain 4 EP's, so we've gained one per turn on that, which is why it took so long for us to finally get it). I'm assuming that means Azza is putting 3 EP's on us and 1 on someone else, although I'm not positive. Probably should have been tracking the ratio better.

Open borders come with Alphabet, which of course neither us nor Azza has yet. Serdoa doesnt have it either. I'm not sure if we would want open borders with him if we could offer it - and I'm not sure that he would accept it, anyway. we can probably expect a cold war for the foreseeable future, so I don't expect either of us to do anything that can benefit the other - hehe, which is why it will be important to make contact with some more civs.

I think I probably agree with you on the EPs. We have graphs on Serdoa, at least, and its probably not worth gaining graphs on anyone else to lose visibility on Azza.

[Bigger]

And would it be a dumb idea to found the second iron city before silver city? It looks like keeping the first iron will be hard! I don't think we'll push back Azza's culture at Beowulf...

Its not dumb, but it also isn't an aggressive play in terms of playing to win. Settling second iron first is more of a play not to lose move. I would rather double our trade route income, get another happy resource and a crap ton of commerce from working the silver once the silver city is size 2.

This.

Silver city is very important for our economy right now. No only the trade route income, but the extra happy will help us incredibly. And the city will be good in its own right, the silver tile yield at size 2 will be awesome.

Plus - even if we had a second source of Iron, I wouldnt want to start thinking "it will be ok if we lose Beowulf." Beowulf is a very critical city - its just about worth sacrificing everything else to hold. Denying Azza the Iron will be essential until we have machinery, and the gold is superhelpful for our empire for the same reason the silver is.

I don't know when we'll push Azza's borders back. At some point we'll build a library in Beowulf - and maybe a barracks too, and Judaism will spread (hopefully for free, but we can build missionaries with OR). So we will push his borders back eventually. In the meantime the fact that he hasn't completed the road connected is encouraging, that will make it harder to siege us.

Also, I'm not even sure if Azza has archery, so it may still be a bit before he can pump out horse archers.

That said, we don't have to wait too long to settle the iron/pig city. Ideally, I'd like to have it founded 5-6 turns before we research Calender. If we can afford it, have 3-4 workers over there to get it up and running quickly - if we can pasture the pigs and mine the iron, and build a granary before calender comes in - we can deforest the city very quickly and pop out MoM in record time. Especially if we decide to convert to OR before then.

[Lewwyn]

I'm thinking we might want to tech archery next if Azza techs it. Archers are resource less and cost 10H less. With walls and PRO, we would have 7 STR archers with a couple turns of fortify in the city. And if Azza tech archery first we can get a tech boni on it.

[Bigger]

I'm thinking we might want to tech archery next if Azza techs it. Archers are resource less and cost 10H less. With walls and PRO, we would have 7 STR archers with a couple turns of fortify in the city. And if Azza tech archery first we can get a tech boni on it.

sounds like a plan. after he techs it though .

hell, we might as well get meditation then, after priesthood and writing. Then we can brag that we got every single ancient tech before getting 1 classical tech .