Chevalier Makes Do

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

No turn, but I've been carefully reviewing previous PBEMs over the weekend, including Sullla's PBEM1 Rome campaign* and Dave's PBEM4 Japan campaign. I'm concentrating a lot more on the micro decisions that were made, and not so much the grand strategy or the exciting tactical battles. 

Basically, I'm refining a rough plan. My intentions remain the same: Win control of the seas, and with it, the coasts, then raid and pillage my opponents in an effort to build an unassailable lead. Why is this viable? For two reasons:

First, England is always a very tough out at sea. Stacking Great Admirals makes them not as invincible as they were, but a lock on the person, coupled with the advantages the RND confers in both trade and naval movement, makes England on any map a formidable foe out on the waves. 

Second, no one has come over the fog to my southeast, which makes me think that I'm practically on my own miniature subcontinent here. I can bottleneck the land border with Russia and patrol the seas to prevent naval invasions. Everyone else has to worry about lots of land neighbors. 

These two factors mean that I think no one else will even try to contest the seas. 

Now, how will this help me win? Well, look at all the vulnerable cities on the water. Arabia seems safe, as does Japan (who ahs bigger problems), but Rome and Russia both have possible targets, including Rome's capital. If I can own anything within 2 tiles of the water, I can put serious harm on my opponents' economies - and be safe from retaliation. They can't strike back at my navy without one of their own, and I aim to burn harbors first and foremost, and will dedicate units to KEEPING them burnt. The land route requires a long march from anyone except Russia, whose territory effectively covers my own. So, conquest wise, I only need to worry about TBS, and he'll keep until Cossacks. 

So, I build small terror squadrons, dominate the coasts, and build towards Redcoats. Then I launch a decisive naval invasion on a foreign continent and use my free melee unit snowball with the Redcoat UU to steamroll to victory. I should get there in decent time if I can use my navy aggressively to suppress foreign coasts - including Jupiter! I am absolutely going after Alhambram if he eats a neighbor. So, let's talk numbers:

In an ideal world, I'd have 4 or 5 squadrons. How big is a squadron? Well, typically more than 3 Frigates can't fire on one city. And you don't need melee units except to conquer things. So, we'd have 3 frigates and 1 caravel in each squadron, backed up later by a privateer or two if I can manage for coastal raiding. I'd detail one to hold the Vilnian Isthmus, but set the other 2-3-4 loose on enemy coasts. Each one can take down a city on its own, can move quickly, and strike up and down the coast in both directions. Let's be conservative and calculate that I can build 3: 1 defense squadron (needs no Caravel) and 2 attacking squadrons.

Thus, I'll need 9 Frigates and 2 Caravels. That's 9 Quads, 2 galleys, and (270+1260 gold) = 1530 gold. Not too out of reach, especially if I get trade routes running. 
To support trade and kick out ships, I'll need at least 4-5 RNDs. I can get one in every city I have pinned, if I wanted to, even Gryphon. Probably not going to. But those will be priority #1 before the ships. 

Melee units, I'll want 3-4 defenders, 3-4 ranged at the chokepoint, and I need to stay in the same tech tier as Russia. I'll want 1 more unit for each squadron, so we're looking at ~6 swords/muskets and 4 xbows. 

That's a sizeable military, to be sure. I've got 3 slingers out, and can build a cheap archer. I've got 3 warriors, so I'll want ~3-4 more. 

And builders for some of the eurekas/infrastructure. I still need settlers - I have lots of land to fill up still, and I don't want to halt expansion. We'll push out to enable our 4-5 harbors, and expand opportunistically after that. Not gonna repeat PBEM7's error. 

Finally, we need the science to get to Square Rigging and begin the Reign of Terror. I'm willing to fight every nation except Russia, who I want to keep buttered up. This could bite me, and I won't fight everyone at once, obviously, but anyone is fair game. So, I need:

Astrology - Celestial Nav - Ship Building - Cartography - Square Rigging

That's actually beelineable, and every boost except Astrology and Square Rigging is trivial to get. 

Policies, I'l need Maritime Industries, Conscription, Mercenaries, Agoge - 4 military policies. Plus lots of gold generation. Ilkum and Colonization, too. We'll work out the policy swaps needed later. Civics path, it'll be tough to land all the eurekas. But we'll do our best, and culture is solid, lagging Rome and Gorgo's murderculture. 

Other things - Campuses, Aqueducts, etc. - are secondary and wait until the Reign of Terror is well on its way. 

*

Scene: Chevalier frantically thumbs through the Civ VI manual. He is desperate, paging as quickly as he can. At last his worried face momentarily relaxes as he finds his desired chapter: What To Do If Rome Is Eating An Entire Neighbor and It's Not Even Turn 100 Yet. 

He reads:

"Try and make sure you're Rome in this scenario."

[TheArchduke]

*

:D

[VoiceInTheWilderness]

Not that Rome, PBEM1-Archduke. Nice try

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 57

Had a turn this morning, before work, and it was a big one! Let's dive right in and take a look at what happened.




First, I grab a tech on the path to Apprenticeship. I have 3 slingers, and I intend to only produce one or two more ranged units, total - and not for a while, at that. Archery makes me safer from my neighbors, and it will help finish clearing my area of barbarians. I don't intend to upgrade right away - in fact, I don't want to upgrade until I absolutely have to. Why not? Well, archers cost money, and slingers don't! My income is lower than I'd like it to be - no caravanserais, and that galley costing me about 3 GPT from maximum - and I need to begin scraping together about 1500 gold for my doom fleets. 

We also reach our government in respectable time:




Not too shabby. Certainly didn't set any records, but we did okay. Rome beat us here by miles, naturally (about 20 turns, in fact), while Greece, I note, is also here. I need to check the tourism screen for Gorgo, because the Greeks can be farming barbarians to feed their culture on top of their yields. 10-15 culture per unit killed is nothing to sneeze at, since that's multiple turns' worth of culture to most players. We'll form our government in a second, but first I wanted to glance over the field. First, the war front in the north:




The capital of Japan has fallen to the Roman army. That was a very rapid conquest by Alhambram - he declared war on, what, turn 50? It took him only 7 turns to smash past the outlying city and storm the capital. Grotsnot hasn't managed to slow Alhambram a jot. Note that he's still fielding warriors, and a spearman. Why a spear, wehn the Romans obviously brought Legions to play, not Horsemen? All I can think is that it was a desperate attempt to boost city combat strength. That, in turn, indicates that Grot either lacks Iron Working or has no iron. Considering he's down to just one city, I think it's the latter. Bad luck for him if he had no iron in his borders when Rome came calling.

That reminds me, queue up a builder in Gryphon after the latest settler and get my own iron hooked up on the double quick.

There's also a Greek scout hanging out in Japan's borders, which is how we make contact with Alhazard. I wonder if there's body-blocking potential? I have a DoF with Rome, and my little scout could buy Grot a few more turns. Hm. I'll have to think about that one.

In the south, I go ahead and press my galley forward, and make contact with the final civilization, marcopolo's Arabia:




That makes every player contacted, so we can do a quick roundup on how everyone's doing. 

Science:

Greece: 16
Japan: 5.7
Rome: 13.9
Russia: 10.1
Arabia: 7
England: 13.3

Culture:
Greece: 6.9
Japan: 1.7
Rome: 17.8
Russia: 8.4
Arabia: 7.1
England: 10.8

Domination:
Greece: 85
Rome: 224
Japan: 90
Russia: 86
Arabia: 41
England: 110

Oof, Arabia is in a bad way. Setting aside Japan as a special case, they're lagging badly in culture and science, and they have no military to speak of. For that matter, neither does Greece! Both nations can field about 4 warriors and 2 slingers between them, and Greece has a scout, as well. My own 3 warrior/3 slinger army is nothing to brag about, but apparently it's the best in the world after the mighty Roman Legions. It's entirely possible that Alhambram could just steamroll the entire western half of the continent at this point - what could Russia and I do to stop it? I could finish iron working, do an emergency cash grab on the copper, and upgrade to swords and go for Alhambram's flank - except it'll take me ages to walk all the way up there! My army is built for local deterrence, not foreign expeditions (yet). 

Welp, if that's the way the game goes, that's the way the game goes. Have to trust everyone else to hold up their end. And of course, if Alhambram wins this way, then by GOD I'm going to do my own classical era rush in the next PBEM game I play (please forget you read that if you ever play with me). 

Anyway, I forgot to check up on gold incomes, I'll do that next round. 




Action for my turn is limited to barb control, as the Battle of Grayson continues. The scout DID trigger a horse wave, sadly, and my warrior has been smacked. I debate between counter-striking and fortifying in place, before deciding to fortify and grab some health. I have another warrior on the march, a third finishing in Grayson in 2 turns, and 2 slingers here with ready promotions (and potentially archers if I feel the need). Let's sit tight, let the horse beat its head on my defense, and then mop up. I move up the slinger into the forest - the horse will get a hit, but the slinger is just about ready to promote, and it'll support the warrior. Then it's time to choose a government.




I go back and forth for a long time before choosing policies. I have a few constraints: I need a military slot for Agoge or Maritime Industries or Conscription. That's not negotiable. I also need at least one economic slot for Colonization, but I'd prefer two. Any government will do that, so I'm still pretty flexible. 

Oligarchy is nice and flexible, but the bonus effect isn't great unless you're at war, and while it lets you run 2 of either military or economic policies, you can't run two of both. You have to give up a weak diplomatic slot. 

I nearly take Classical Republic. I can run Colonization and Urban Planning, good for nearly 18 extra cogs between them, and still have two slots for Agoge (that warrior is being built) and Discipline (I have only 1 galley, but I am fighting the horse camp).

What tips it, though, is the bonus effect. 10% wonder production is useless for me - I've already scrapped the Colosseum as a useless diversion, and am debating scrapping Petra as well - but +1 yield in the capital is a 10% boost to culture, nearly that good in science, and is worth 1.5 cogs into my settler every turn with Colonization. That seems to me a bigger bang for my buck than Classical Republic's increased Great Scientist yields, so I opt for it.

Policy choices are straightforward. I am going to run Colonization for 10 turns through Defensive Tactics, while building two more settlers out of the capital and Gryphon. That will push me to 6 cities - Yeltsin and Basilisk will be the new ones, while Sphinx is due in 2 turns. That's enough to begin the basic RND push, but I'll definitely aim for twice that number of cities in my little patch of land here. Urban planning is good for 3 cogs immediately, soon to be 4 and then 5 as my cities grow. That's vastly superior to most other yields I can get, and certainly more than the paltry gold I could obtain from Caravanserais. 

Discipline boosts my warriors and slingers dealing with these barbs. I don't need Maritime Industries, I'm only going to build one or perhaps two more galleys (for the eureka and to take coastal cities), I only have 1 unit that costs maintenance, so Conscription is out, which leaves Discipline as the best viable choice. As good a boost as Oligarchy, but with a much improved capital! 




I am very well satisfied with Manticore so far. Damn near 16 production, 16 food, 8 science, and 6 culture, all with a modest population. Every pop is working a 4 or 5 yield tile at size 5, and as I hit size 6 I can improve the grassland hill to the south for another 2/2, later 2/3 tile. To the west, there's space for farms, while to the north those two stone have been rededicated to the capital for chopping purposes. If the VA was legal I'd definitely repeat my PBEM7 trick of a triple Limes - Maritime Industries - Maritime Industries chop with walls, a galley, and a quad. But it's not, so I can think about other uses. Right now I'm leaning towards galley -> RND or walls -> Encampment chop. Encampment boosts production and provides a shield against Russia to the north. The RND is mandatory, but I may not spend a chop on it...ah, hell, I probably will. Get those up and running. In the meantime, the capital's strong unit production can churn out settlers, traders, and builders to improve the whole empire. 

The turn's just come in, so let's wrap up with a score shot:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Lots of very quick turns - I played one last night, and had another waiting for me in the morning. So I've got two turns to update y'all on.

Turns 58-59

I decide to go ahead and do what I can to interfere in the ongoing Roman conquest of Japan:




By effectively denying that hill tile to Rome, I make it impossible for him to put the city under siege easily, and it totally blocks one Legion from attacking the city entirely - that's near 1/4 of Alhambram's modern attackers effectively neutered! The city is still doomed, of course, but if it slows down the final fall of Japan by even one turn it'll be more than anyone else in this stupid game has managed. Seriously, I'm the player furthest from the action, and yet I'm pretty convinced that I've done more than anyone else - possibly including Japan! - to keep Alhambram from just massacring his way around the map.




At home, my own army is tied up in barb clearance:




As predicted, the barb horseman went for the slinger, not doing much as the thick trees hamper the attack. The slinger is able to pound the horseman severely in the counter-attack, thanks to Discipline, and the warrior cleans up - only to reveal another horseman beyond. This is going to be a slog, no doubt. 

Now, visible in this shot I have 2 slingers and 3 warriors, with one more slinger on sentry duty near Russia. If all upgraded, they'd be combined 178 power, damn near Rome's 228 - just one Legion shy, in fact. Now that's more than enough to stop Rome, or at least make him think twice, or to pitch into his rear while he invades. Now, you might point out that I don't have the money to upgrade, which is correct - because I'm not fighting Rome! I spent my money on economic infrastructure, under the assumption that, y'know, literally anyone else could muster an effective resistance to Alhambram. If I'd started next to him, I would have played things differently. 

But no, Marcopolo has 41 strength, which is the starting warrior, plus a slinger and a scout, tops? With some injuries in there? While his next-door neighbor is busily gobbling up everyone? So Arabia is not going to manage anything and will probably be devoured in short order. Russia musters 86, which is about 2 warriors and 3 slingers - not terrible, but again, nothing at all capable of interfering in Roman affairs. I think TBS's best shot was to use my encampment to pump horsemen backed by archers and going for Neptune and Jupiter. Strike while Alhambram's distracted. But the DoF doesn't expire til turn 70 or so, which he may think is too late. He's pumping settlers, it seems, instead. ("Isn't that exactly what you're doing, Chevalier?" Yes, but any invasion *I* could launch would be agaisnt Russia only, with difficult terrain, a prepared foe, and no GG support. I'd just clear the way for Rome. I'm handcuffed by geography here, again). Which leaves Greece - who has strength roughly identical to Russia's. I know he has one scout, so if anything he has probably two fewer slingers and 1 more warrior. So 3 warriors, 1 slinger, and a scout. If he had Iron connected (he doesn't) 3 swords could perhaps hold off legions. The legions will all have Battlecry and Oligarchy, so fielding strength 51 versus strength 40 Greeks. But! Greece would have the Great General advantage, making things a more evenly-matched 51 vs. 45! 

Except...




Greece stopped chasing a Great General ONE POINT short of the general!? What!? Why would that possibly make sense!? If you needed the policy swap that desperately, then by God wait ONE turn and make it then! Now, with everyone except Japan and Arabia in the Classical Age, the next general will inevitably be Medieval. 

This is a catastrophic blunder by Alhazard, I see no way around it. If he'd kept Strategos for one more turn, he'd have instantly buffed his forces to rough parity with Alhambram (if he upgrades), and denied the Romans a general for 60 points, or about 12 more turns at Alhambram's current rates. Instead, Alhambram will field strength 56 Legions against strength 40 swords - in a best case scenario. That's each of Alhazard's 3 swords getting creamed for 60+ damage in one blow, and dealing only ~18 in return. In a worst case, it's 56 strength vs. 24 strength warriors, which means the entire Greek army could be wiped out in an afternoon. 

In other words, no power can offer meaningful resistance to Rome right now. Alhambram can keep rolling right into the Arabian or Greek homelands, whichever is closer, and take his total up to 3 players' worth of land. The last player can build - right now - to stop him, but what can they muster before Crossbows? Basically nothing! They can't outproduce a Rome which has twice as many cities, and their only prayer would be to swarm down the experienced legions with superior numbers while waiting for a GG of their own. That's...not going to happen. 

Long story short, the game was decided on this turn, I think. It's a reprise of the Mongol catastrophe in PBEM8, and somehow I find myself in the SAME role. :

Well, we're just going through the motions at this point, but may as well do it right. I plant Sphinx:




Initially I queue up a monument, before remembering that the banana plantation is worth +1 culture all on its own, with extra gold and housing to boot. And the worker will have 2 more charges! So I swap to a worker instead. Sphinx will grow like a weed, but has relatively weak production. It can still support an RND and a fantastic campus down the road, though. 

On the interturn, the horseman and spearman both fling themselves at my warrior, redlining him. The fresh slinger mops up the spearman, though, and my warrior promotes to gain some quick health. I go ahead and promote the other slinger, too, while bringing up my last two warriors. We're about ready to push forward and clear the camp:




Sorry for the gloom, but I'm pretty sure the game is over and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm taking steps to try and do what I can, though. I plan to kick out a worker fast and get my own iron hooked up. We'll send that to Greece if we have to. I also hit up Japan for all the money he has left, offering to pay it back with interest over 30 turns. He won't live that long, and we both know it. 

Note to lurkers: This might be considered a cheesy move. I'm desperate and willing to do anything at this point, and I was going to funnel that money to Greece to play at upgrades. I figured if Japan just GAVE his treasury away, that'd be cheese, but there's no reason I can't ask for it, is there? If the consensus is against this I'll find a way to suitably dispose of the gold. I'm literally throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, though. 

Anyway, the final way I can hit back at Rome is with a naval expedition. None of his cities are on the coast, but Buenos Aires, his vassal state, is, and 3 galleys can dispatch that easily. As soon as the settler is out of Manticore I'll churn out 2 galleys, link up with my third, and go raze that city-state. 

It's not much, but I'm trying to orchestrate resistance to a runaway from the damned other side of the world here. 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 60

Okay, what can I do to keep Alhambram from winning in the next ~20 turns? Well, not much. Grot rejected my gold deal, which, fair enough, it was naked vulturism. But that upgrade money might be sorely needed in Greece soon. Japan is doomed the next time Rome gets a turn - maybe even by the time I post this! (Actually, maybe not, Alhazard is holding the save - does he play before Alhambram? Not sure). 




I checked, he does indeed play before Alhambram. Perhaps he just noticed the Great Person screen and is trying to figure out how to save his civ from the looming disaster? Alhambram's sitting pretty, on the other hand, with his choice of targets. Arabia, down there to the south, has 70 milscore to 210 Roman.  Warriors are cheap, but warriors aren't gonna cut it. Even swords won't do much when the legions have a strength advantage of 9, thanks to Boudicea. 

Closer to home, I clear out the horse camp. This was much easier than it had any right to be:




Another new horse appeared, notice, to the northeast. I wonder what governs the precise of logic of what spawns when, and on what tile? Anyway, because I had most of my military so close, and because I reacted so quickly, I managed to shut this camp down too before those horses erupted all over Grayson or even Gryphon. On the whole, I've been very solid on clearing camps this game - got the one near Gryphon very early, with no warrior spawns, cleared out the peninsular horse camp before it managed to create even a scout, and now this one only got 3 horses out before I shut it down. I move up a slinger into the forested hill next to the horse (as bait), with my warriors following along behind - they'll swap places next turn. The other slinger I dispatch north to join the sentry line. Once the horse is down we'll fan out and defog the rest of my subcontinent. 

In the north, amusingly, Russia is under attack from...I think a kamikaze scout?




Voronezh has lost 3 health, which equates to a strength difference of...negative a lot, my chart doesn't even go that low. Best guess is a barely-living scout zerged itself into the city defenses and perished. OR something much stronger attacked and did 23 damage, 20 of which healed on the interturn. That makes more sense, since Voronezh is only strength 13. Just a fun little diversion to the north, nothing of consequence. 

Sigh:




He's getting 2 GS points to my 1, and I'm pretty sure Russia has Divine Spark, so he built two campuses already. And there's a third placed at his third city. Some of that production would have been better served going to an Encampment - if he had, he'd have won the GG race and he could build swords even with only one iron. As it is I intend to hook mine up and gift it to whoever Rome attacks, not that it makes a difference. But we all must do what we can. 

Scores and situation, at home and on the Japanese front:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 61

I spent all day fearing an email announcing Japan's elimination, but instead I open the turn to two bits of pleasant news! First, Japan is NOT dead, even though Saunders has fallen - which means, since Japan had an empire score of 10 last turn, that Grot literally managed to found a city one turn before he was eliminated. My scout actually accomplished something concrete! Amazing! :o Furthermore, he grabbed a Great Prophet before Saunders went down, meaning there's only one left before Arabia's ability kicks in. Alhambram will scoop that up in some dozens of turns with the two Holy Sites he captured. Once he repairs them, he'll get 2 points per turn, so...yikes, 60 turns? That's a long time to wait. He might need to actually invest in a shrine or something to speed that up. Marcopolo STILL isn't generating Great Prophet points, by the way - he's held off on building holy sites a LONG time, himself. He's generating nearly as much faith per turn as Russia's lavras, so I think he took Earth Goddess as a pantheon, but the guy's gonna need to get real religious infrastructure up soon.

Look, waiting for the Last Prophet to trigger is great in Single Player, but it's a fool's game in MP. You have to wait for your neighbors to actually arse themselves to recruiting and using the prophet, and frankly, after the first two, religion really isn't worth the investment. In SP, the stupid AI will take all sorts of weird beliefs, but in MP the heavy-hitters go quickly. Furthermore, Arabia really needs religion to hit its power curve - all of their abilities are tied around it, except the Mamluk. Maybe Marco was just contemplating a Mamluk rush? But he's gonna be playing a vanilla civ until then...

("Speaking of vanilla civs, where're your unique districts, Chevalier?" Shut up! I'm getting to it!)

Anyway, the second bit of good news is from Russia:




A 1 for 1 gold trade? Either he wants to cooperate or he's declaring war on me next turn and felt like announcing the fact to me. Let's assume it's the former, since my military power is still higher than his and I've got all this experience from killing barbs and the terrain is ghastly for attacking Manticore and I have a scout slinger that doesn't see anything at all marching towards my borders. 

Speaking of scouts, there's a road running south from  Saunders into the fog. I send my scout down it under the to my mind reasonable assumption that it must lead somewhere. Sure enough, my movement is quickly rewarded with a city-state:




Amsterdam! That'd be great...if I was gonna build Commercial hubs! :/ England benefits less than literally everyone else from Commercial city-states, and these jerks don't even seem to be on the same outer sea as everyone else so I can't burn them down later once my early pirate squadron is up and running (Kandy and Buenos Aires, though...watch out!). 

I press a little further south and spot Greek borders in the fog. That means I've located every player, more or less. Here's a view of the Amsterdam-Greece area, with conquered Japan to the north and Rome's settlement of Mars off to the northeast:




It looks like Rome lunged down that isthmus, between the lake to the north and ocean to the south. There has to be an isthmus, because there's no way Rome reached shipbuilding yet. He rolled up Japan's third city there - which was settled very close to him, within 10 tiles I think - and then crashed through the mountain passes and into the Japanese capital. That encampment went up behind the mountains a few turns too late. Once Oarai fell, it was a simple matter to push across the open plain and reduce Saunders. It's been only about 10 turns since the war started. I think the terrain shows that Japan should have gone encampment first - there are 3 1-tile chokepoints in the mountains that the legions would have needed to push across. Prioritize Iron Working, get the encampment up, and then upgrade one sword inside that camp and you can stall the legions for a long time - long enough, perhaps, to tech to crossbows, especially if you beg friendly neighbors for upgrade gold! That's how I'd have played this with the easy benefit of hindsight, at least. Not sure why Japan rushed religion - it's not like he could have taken DotF, which might also have saved him, if he'd gotten it 10 turns ago. 

At home, the barb horse attacked my warrior which cleared the camp, driving it down into the red:




No matter. We Have Reserves. I swap the positions of my fresh warrior and the injured one, and have the slinger prepare the way for us:




Between Discipline and the Volley promotion this lil' guy hits as hard as an archer, but costs me nothing to maintain! Suck it, barbarian dirtbag:




The unpromoted warrior gets the kill and the XP, just like I drew it up 10 turns ago*, and we get a nice view of my little army. Warriors wouldn't cut it against Rome, but otherwise they've done a great job keeping the barbs stomped down in my neighborhood. I heartily endorse building them in lieu of slingers whenever possible. They're great for escort and homeland defense, they inflate your milscore and make you look less appetizing, and I can use them in conjunction to quickly finish scouting my neck of the woods. On the whole, I'm very satisfied with how this corner of the world played out. 






Finishing a settler next turn, which I may send to Basilisk because it's a short walk, or down to those horse camps because the site is so great. Leaning towards the latter. I also give you a view of Rome, which is mostly fogged, but we can at least see the edges of Alhambram's new empire. Score tells the story. Marco and Grot are lagging badly, then three of us are all clustered within 4 points of each other, and Alhambram leads by a mile, aided by his +30 empire score advantage - which equates to about 3 size-4 cities or so. He'd probably be leading without the conquest, but his civ has been supercharged and once he hunts down the last Japanese refugee settlement, he'll unlock the full potential of his conquest and really start to take this game by the throat. 

*I did not draw it up 10 turns ago.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 62

A second turn earlier today. I'll try and keep this short, since most of what I covered this morning is still relevant. Let's take a look. 

First, with the horse camp cleared I'm pushing east to finish defogging this area. There's a suitable city-spot and I have a fresh settler:




1 first ring horse, 1 second ring horse, a desert tile to the south for Pyramids or Petra if I go a wonder route. Now, looking at Basilisk and Medusa, there's a bit of awkwardness in the placements - the land just isn't quite wide enough to allow a city on the coast opposite Beowulf's pinned location. The initial placements, including Medusa's non-freshwater location, were intended to let me cram in cities as tightly as possible. However, if I settle Beowulf, what I COULD do is settle Medusa on the coast, and settle Basilisk on the river two tiles north of the present location. That'd get me first-ring silks, a +2 culture tile with a plantation, and still let me pack the cities in tightly. The theory here is that more cities are better than fewer, and all the good tiles will get worked one way or the other, while still allowing for lots of districts. We'll see if that pays off.

(Note that I am pretending that this game doesn't just end with Rome stomping everyone else in the wider world).

Russia founded city #...5, I think? Astrakhan exists somewhere in the fog, according to the diplo screen:




He's a couple turns ahead of me in expansion, but I like my long-term prospects more. Note how safe the city is from my pirates! A frigate could still reach it, and perhaps gradually reduce the walls if he has no defending units. 

The core:




I'm evolving a plan with Manticore. I want to continue to pump settlers, but I also need a few more ships. I don't NEED a lot of galleys, but 3 or 4 would do (at most). So, what I'm thinking - we're in Colonization for a while yet. So, the plan is to work on a settler until Games & Rec is in, for the +50% hammers. Then we swap to a galley & MI, getting that to one turn. The builder out of Grayson drops an iron mine, then heads north for the stone. We harvest stone->galley->settler, overflowing into another settler, then quickly build up another galley and repeat with the second stone. We'll get 3 settlers and 2 galleys out in short order - I haven't run the specific numbers - and that will let me settle Medusa, Basilisk, and possibly Gorgon if I've found nothing better, while Gryphon takes care of the Yeltsin site. Those 5 settlers, all told, take me to 9 cities and just about fill up my area. 

(Meanwhile Rome just conquers Greece with his massive army and bam, he's at 10 cities, no effort needed. Alhambram!  God I hate this game). 

Trying to show more of the world, scores and Russia:




And the coast south of Arabia:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 68

We played about 3 turns before Marco vanished, and have played 3 turns since. I forgot a lot of what happened in those 3 weeks, but let's get back on track.

I explored the rest of my starting area and I'm like 99.65% sure that I'm on my own little peninsula:




We pinned a new city to the south of that horse city I earlier did, and what a sweet Petra site it is! Our goal will be to get Petra chopped out here before we lose overflow chops in ~50 turns. A tall order, but I think I can do it. We're researching mathematics and defensive tactics. Next steps will be to get a builder to that deer tile near the pinned city, build a wall and a galley, and chop both in two turns for mucho overflow. That should speed Petra along and it looks like no one else really has the land or the time to go for it. Then Lynx will be a magnificent city!

What else?

We connected iron:




This also boosts Apprenticeship, our next tech target.

Abroad, we've started to explore Arabia:




It looks like Jeddah's a coastal city, which is good news for the English navy, not so good news for Rowain. Thanks again to him for keeping our game going and taking on what is almost certainly a lost position! It's not much fun to play when you're not in the running, believe me, so this is a great gesture from him and very much appreciated.  

Finally, here's the empire, turn 67. Plans are to continue settling and then start on the naval push.




Very vague, I know, but I haven't thought much about htis game and need a few days to get back in the swing of things.

[VoiceInTheWilderness]

What's that about losing chop overflow in 50 turns?