[spoilers] Commodore: Worse than Toku, it's Giggles of Siam!

[Commodore]

I've been showing lots of outskirts shots, but I realize now that it's been a while since showing the core. The core is still nice and cory, slowly maturing towns and finally regrowing a few key places like Verdant Acres. Whip use is going to fade here, only really still used in the young Sandhurst and a couple times in Tranquil Meadow once it gives up its last towns to the capital.


Foreign policy, we're going to try to get a little tech from Serdoa, Feudalism and maybe Guilds I think right now. Plako is quickly showing signs of dominance, landing an artist I can only assume from Music and casually eating Arabia at his leisure. Not much I can do about him; sadly, not much Serdoa or Lewwyn can do either. So it's all politics, local, and meanwhile keep growing.


North's Corner is looking increasingly sexy. Size seven, growing to size ten or eleven before stagnating I think. This is going to be a nice hammer town, while also keeping maturing those cottages for its north and east commerce-geared neighbors. More of this, please.

Turn: 162
Status:

[fluffyflyingpig]

Is that Oakmont that just converted to Hindu? D:

[Commodore]

Is that Oakmont that just converted to Hindu? D:

That is, alas, a yep. As of right now my only agnostic cities are the aforementioned Willowbrooke and Stoney Knob right next to Oakmont. It's a very well-garrisoned locale, maybe the army will impress them into Taoism? Sentry chariot incoming, by the way, to check out things north, as well as an incoming spy. Dangit, Serdoa.


End is finally in sight with the Moai whips; the wonderful thing about HR is that whipping archers for overflow is net neutral for happiness, and in the end will benefit a city that I'm definitely growing to max size. With harbor and baray, I'll be able to run an engineer and two other specialists at size 22. Man that'll be nice.


I'm having...issues...with growth in the north; Morning Glens is obscenely food-heavy, but even with a spy is still behind on the "non-crappy things for citizens to do" front. Eh, Caste will be a godsend, until then, I'll get by. This is going to be an intensive region to clear, but I'm earmarking a host of five workers to get to it. East for fish, then north and south to fill out the last bits, that's the plan.


I turned back on tech, now with monasteries online. Um. Daaang.

Turn: 163
Status:

[Commodore]

168 Gold baby!

[Commodore]

Right, rest of the turn happened. Other piece of great news was St. Paul; this fellow will be building the rarely seen Dai Miao in The Greenways in a few turns. What does that great beast event do again?


Riverside, finally free from running yucky priests, is whipping out some missionaries and then growing on the tons of farmland all around. This isn't a great city, but it's a fairly good one; courthouse next up to handle those costs, but for better or for worse this is going to be a ghetto GP farm. Meaning it's going to starve a lot.


I already have nine courthouses, it seems! Still planning on having Mr. Serdoa donate Feudalism, maybe. I'm already up to research visibility...depressingly, he's 1t from Banking.


Keep on keepin' on. If I could get 300gpt from someone, I could get to Banking myself very quickly; this is fun. Alas, it all ends next turn. Thoth, commentary on these demos? I understand if you're still neck-deep in summons.


Turn: 164
Status:

[Commodore]

There is a wicked and wild wind, blew down the doors to let Plako in. Yeah. A Serdoan revolt to Mercantilism completes this thoroughly depressing set of facts. Although Scooter revolting to Bureau, that's just pure hilarious gold right there.


The crown of Old Zululand is definitely Old McDonald's, Western Heights (e-i-e-i-o). It just sucked up a visiting mammoth as an MP, and next turn that massive +13f will yield another citizen to be oppressed. I did realize if I truly am serious about making a GP farm here, I need those two northern cottages (with no growth yet) to be farms. National Epic soon here, lads.


Our old GP farm is finally growing up, with room for three more citizens with a baray. Normally, that's an engineer, last mine, and a scientist, although in the upcoming GA/caste/Pacifism burst I'll look into squeezing out one last Great Person. We'll see.


Finally, we take here a glance at Serdoa's Angle, while dropping off a spy to start accumulating turns stationary. If we can pull off a Feudalism grab, most excellent. That's a lot of dudes he's got packed into that city!

Turn: 165
Status:

[Thoth]

I'll comment more once I've had a chance to look ingame later today.

But Demos look ok. MFG is worrisome, but food and GNP look good.

Guilds will help us a lot. Eng, Calendar, Feud, Guilds, Banking next for our conventional beakers? Focus on generating some GS's to bulb the north path (Uni and PP).

Western Heights should be kept as a commerce city working ooodles of cotts, not turned into a GP farm. It could make a good GP farm, but we need another strong commerce site (probably 2). We've got 4 cots being worked by helper cities plus the ones already in play. City needs some happy, but with +13 fpt that is easily solved with a whipped forge (swap next turn, whip the turn after) and Market (whip after regrowing to size 11 or so). Then slow build the Lib while finishing up vertical growth.

Capital should be able to knock out the NE in a couple of turns. It's a lousy long term GP farm, but with Glib, GWall and maybe another wonder or two down the road it's got very good short/medium term gp potential.

Speaking of GPs.....now is a very good time to consider what to do with gps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

First thinking suggests using #4 for a GA and using the GA to swap into Caste/Pacifism for 7t to push out 5, 6, 7 and 8 as GSs to double bulb towards Edu and then Printing Press.

Looking at those espiionage numbers....Banking is a more realistic target for some 5-finger discount trading. We'll be able to tech Fued and Guilds before we have enough EPs accumulated to steal Fued.

[Thoth]

Willowbrooke can (and should) be grown quickly by working the farm and Clams. We don't need the Clams in Riverside Manor now that we have a nice pile of farms there to fuel growth.

At Swallowdale should fire the Spy in favour of a PH mine that Amozon Circle isn't working.

Ivory city should be working farms instead of the Ivory while it regrows. This city doesn't have the food to support effective whipping on just the Deer.

Post Engineering: Calendar and Compass should be 2t techs each at breakeven without building Wealth. Then hit Fued/Guilds/either Optics or Banking or Paper

[Commodore]

Argh! Please feel free to fire any spies you find, damnfool Civ4 governor. I must have missed him.

[Commodore]

Some thoughts.
-Engineering is due in four turns. This is a good thing, enabling pikes, fast roads, and castles, but except for the road bit those are all things that need building. A pike or two to flash at Serdoa is certainly in order, but mass production of what in the end is kind of a long, pointless spear unit seems a bit unwise unless we're certain horses are inbound. We certainly have enough BE/cats to handle a stack of two dozen knights right now; more than that calls for either a larger standing army or staying in slavery.
-Castles are actually more than just defensive structures; the ToA city, capital, and probably commerce-hungry Western Heights (already equipped with walls) ought to build the stone-cheapened castles just for the trade route; although the other boost is nice if we want to slider-play with EPs (I think a full turn of EPs nets us Feudalism from Serdoa, I'll check with the spy but if so that's more efficient than research). Obviously, as the tip where it gets hot Stoney Knob needs a castle for defense; even axes get odds on knights inside a castle.
-The capital's hammers are darned valuable, but Notre Dame might well be worth it, particularly if we put the NE in there.

Tech path:
Calendar/Compass next, aye. Then it's a wealth of good options:
-Paper for what it opens up is nice, but we need then to invest in the follow-ups to make it worth it.
-Feudalism for Pro longbows (good 'till rifles!), and Guilds next.
-Optics for not dying of sudden French or Zulu adventures... then Astro is costly, but I'm coming around to it sooner than later; Dutch are I think spiking power to cripple Azza, and galleons would pick up those two big nice islands from him on the cheap if the ball goes up; maces ought to be heavy enough to crack him in his pre-longbow/crossbow state. Hate to push the Dutch of all people into early Astro themselves.
-Nationalism is there, open, mocking us. Would really like to deny the Taj to Plako.

GPP is simple: Capital makes golden age, then another golden pair pushed in Pacifism/Caste, with a GS for Education following. Lakeside needs Oxford, man.