[PB66] Tarkeel and civac explore the untamed wilds

[civac2]

We build the poor man's Oracle, The Temple of Artemis.



In 22 turns, a prophet of Buddhism will come. Except he may be rebellious and endeavour to become an accountant instead.

Meanwhile, Magic Science founded an exile city on Sad Pig Island.



Since he can build Crossbows this fortress is likely to stand for a long time.

Our situation continues to be unimpressive.



We get 1.44 multiplier on Currency, 9 of our 10 competitors already know it. Somehow, we had only 1.41 multiplier for Math, only 8 other players having knowledge of it. This way being hopelessly behind enables us to 3turn Math and Currency each without any initial bankroll.

Our newest mediocre filler city Steamfount Mountains was settled this turn. If one follows a winding mountain path east of our south-eastern-most city and passes the cryptic way sign "T110 WarChariot (Beware)" one comes upon a secluded coast teeming with marine wild life. There is one much like it further south but presumably Alhazard will grab that. Lastly there is a single sheep resource at a placed called LessShinyHills in the south-west. But that's about it.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 119 (100 AD)
It's been a while since the last update, but despite having a golden age, there hasn't been all that much to report.


We secured Monarchy and Monotheism just before the golden age so we could swap into HereditaryRule and OrgRel, and have been slowly letting our cities grow taller ever since. We managed to snag some key techs (chiefly, Currency), but the results are still rather middling.


We have two more cities to go: LessShinyHills (visible in the southeast) has a plains-sheep and three river tiles going for it, while SadCity (just outside view in the northeast) has a lake and nothing else. We've spent some time lately discussing where to go next strategically. Geopolitically, our position is not great. We're still contending with a hostile Alhazard to the south, while the two largest powers in the game borders our west (Mjmd) and north (P&P). Even our western neighbor GKC has skipped settling his own lands to jump over what little land we had left to claim in the southeast.

The plan was to go Theology and contest the Apostolic Palace from Ginger&Miguelito, but they just burned a prophet on bulbing it so we went for CodeOfLaws instead. However, Amicalola chose that moment to attack them, and have captured one core city already, so we're feeling emboldened in trying for it again. Right now we're saving gold and see how the war goes before committing.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 125 (250 AD) State of the Realm III
With the turn counter hitting 125, it's time for another empire overview.


Given how the game has played out, we've acquired most of the land available to us. Estate of Unrest was settled in the north this turn, and when LessShinyHills in the south is settled in two turns, we'll be up to 15 cities.


We've leveraged OrgRel from the golden age to push out most of the available infrastructure, and courthouses will follow in the not too distant future.


We're better positioned that it would seem, with #1 GNP while burning, and probably the third highest savings rate after Gavagain and Mjmd. Alhazard on the southern border is growing very large, but has a lot of immature cities right now, while P&P to the north is still slowly digesting MagicScience.



Our upcoming strategic goals are

• Contest the Apostolic Palace, and if successfull push out monk buildings
  
• Arm up with catapults, wellies and horchers
  
• Push some economy with (discounted) courthouses, (discounted) harbors and (charged) castles
  
• Push down the Aesthetics line for some nice (national) wonders
  

In other words, growing tall while appearing unpalatable.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 130 (375 AD)
In the last few turns we've teched Construction, Archer and HorsebackRiding to improve our lagging defenses and build cheaper archers for HereditaryRule-Happiness. The powerspike combined with settling Overthere on LessShinyHills last turn, Alhazard seems to be quite spooked:


We're not looking for a fight here, so we send him a fish and another offer for open borders.


We also settled Estate of Unrest on SadCity in the north, and Mjmd promptly showed up with two shock-chariots to extort protection money. We would have the spear in place to defend, but found it better to pay 4gpt.

In other news, Ginger&Miguelito has been whipping up and are likely looking for a rematch against Amica when enforced peace expires next turn.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 133 (450 AD)
In anticipation of Firiona Vie birthing that 27% merchant next turn, we're making some contingency plans.


The workers can finish the canal allowing the galley to head south to pick it up, and we're researching Metal Casting so Firiona Vie can build a trireme escort for it. Our capital will grow to size 16 in time for the convoy to reach Roskilde, Superdeath's island city, which should give us 1700 gold.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 134 (475 AD)
Our prayers have been answered.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 135 (500 AD) - A Wonderful Time
I am slightly disappointed that nobody commented on what Firiona Vie was building last turn.


One of the most-discussed topics in our chat for the last 30-odd turns is the Apostolic Palace. After the golden age we identified it as the best way back into relevance this game, but we'd also identified that Ginguelito was going to try for religion back when picks were done.

We were saving gold for a push on Theology when they birted a prophet T115 (1 AD), and they were obviously worried about us as they were pushing for research vision. We thought we'd spooked them, as the next turn T116 (25 AD) they burned the prophet on a Theology bulb instead of a shrine. We didn't think we could compete in the construction race when we still had a few turns left to research Theology, so we started burning on Code of Laws. We immediately regreted that when Amicalola declared an unexpected (for us at least) war against Ginguelito T117 and went back to gold-saving again. After Amica's capture of the Hindu-holycity on T119 we decided to give it a try, and have been biting our nails ever since, freting over every large score increase (and there's been a few) since.

Amicalola, when you're reading this after the game, we really couldn't have done this without your war.

We only have three each of temples and monasteries so far, so we'll need the right balance between serious infrastructure push and defensive units. We also need to keep an eye out on Paper to make sure we get Sankore, all while getting Literature for the epics and Machinery->Engineering for Citadels and Compass->Optics for circumnavigation-boosted EXP-discounted harbors.

[Tarkeel]

The game is actually in a rather interesting state, but as several players have barely reported and lurker interaction is low, here's an overview of the world as seen from our position, as of T140.



Tier V: Dead Man Walking - MagicScience
We had some border beef with MagicScience when he galley'd Crushbone, costing us precious turns on the expansion. We believe he did something similar to P&P's Rome, which ended catastrophically. If it wasn't for Mjmd intervention late in the war, he'd be banished to his island fortress



Tier IV: Trailing - Ginguelito, Amica
We don't know the pretext, but Amica declared war on Ginguelito just as the latter revolted into PoliceState and Theocracy. He had some initial success, capturing the Hindu holycity and paving the way for our Apostolic Palace, but Ginguelito came back with a vengeance just as the enforced peace expired, and Amica has been steadily losing cities ever since.


We belive both players are out of contention for this game, although Ginguelito might have an outside shot if they consume Amica.

Tier III: Clinging to Relevancy - Vanrober, GKC, Alhazard
All of these have some obstacles in their way, but none of them can be disregarded entirely either. Hazard has an impressive 18 cities, most of all the peaceful settlers. Vanrober has one of the better economies, and GKC seems to just be doing his thing. Neither of them have a clear path to expand further, and all border some dangerous neighbors.





Tier II: The Almost There - Gav, Superdeath, Us
Gavagai has been building up peacefully, and is my best bet to be the only player with Feudalism. I expect him to tear into either Vanrober or GKC pretty soon. Superdeath probably already has Berserkers, and can either raid Mjmd's soft underbelly, or tear into Vanrober or Alhazard, both of whom he has border issues with.


(Superdeath's empire is included above with Vanrober and Alhazard)

Tier I: The Big Boys - Mjmd, P&P
P&P had some of the better land available to them, including the uncontested-by-land western peninsula, but the war with MagicScience delayed settling which allowed both Superdeath and Alhazard to establish a foothold.


Mjmd devoured Jack early on, and despite having plenty of time to digest still has much less developed land than you'd think.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 141 (620 AD)
Overthere flipped one of it's first ring tiles, which revealed Alhazard's stack:


At first we were concerned that this was some sort of feint or attack on Overthere, but it's most likely just his area defence stack. If he does move up on Overthere, we'll move in the ministack so we have 3 axes and 3 spears, and whip the walls for good measure. That should hold until the main defensive stack arrives, which we just moved down to Kedge. This does illustrate the need we have for some sentry scouts on the borders, so Erudin is going to whip out a stable next turn.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 142 (640 AD)
I thought we were done complaining about the map, but just what is this iron location?


Yes, that is our only source of iron, horribly exposed, only claimed by two of our latest filler cities. Steamfount was always going to be a city settled by us, but Mjmd could have made life very difficult if he settled Unrest and pushed culture. As it is, he has the opportunity to cripple our metal situation early in a war if he manages to take Ak'Anon. From what we can tell Amicalola has it even worse than us, so we shouldn't complain too loudly.

Oh, and we have a worstcase cointoss for Music-Artist next turn. When we saw it still wasn't claimed after researching Literature, we decided to give it a try and masking it by using overflow from IronWorking to oneturn it in case Alhazard or Ginguelito (both of whom have research vision) would try to contest it.