[SPOILER] Nicolae Karpathia Khan of France

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Also of interest, Sareln settled that city. My culture snatched the peak tile the next turn, which should hopefully block him from gaining vision on my roads. He also settled without a guard (understandable). However, if it's still unguarded, I can potentially raze it with a W2 axe. I built an axe last turn, it should be in position to hit it the turn the current peace treaty runs out.

To clarify an earlier statement I made about using HR to grow onto Colossus coast, it's only a problem if you're garrisoning good units in your backline cities to work the tiles.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'd also like to say that the tech rate this game is atrocious. I feel inadequate whenever I compare myself to PBEM17 and 19. Probably because NAPs are banned, and because the lands aren't particularly rich in rivers. A slow tech pace game with alot of early warfare is indeed fun as hell (especially when you have double the crop yield of the nearest competitor). I still like this map, it's great because it's hard to defend all those tentacles emerging from your capital, I have approximately 5 fronts against my two angry neighbours with legitimate grievances. Thank god this is CTON and it's impossible for them to really co-ordinate action. Sareln actually has a scout hanging around the remains of Lacrimiora, I'd really like to kill it if I get around to DoWing and killing his city, so that he doesn't know if Ioan's applying pressure or not.

[SevenSpirits]

Probably because NAPs are banned, and because the lands aren't particularly rich in rivers.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Made peace with Ioan, and my seafood-pillaging galley is now trapped outside of my culture. A shame, but now it's something that ties down his own ship.

Also noticed that Sareln is researching Alphabet. This makes me think he intends to bulb Philosophy, he'll probably win Liberalism but I'll still have a better bpt. Not sure what to do with my own GS. I'm that I build an Academy in my #2 science city, tech Mono, Music for the GArtist, MC, then fire off a GA and tech Civil Service. I'll need to have a think about.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Held the save for over a day mainly because Ioan was going to be away anyway, and I wanted to sleep on a decision.

GE finally settled his 6th city . Don't die on me GE, the last thing I want is a monstrously large Ioan, he's already blocking me off from a ton of land and he can easily recover off cheap ORG courthouses. I don't know what Ioan's spending his golden age commerce on, but if I were him I'd beeline CoL if only for the +20% beaker bonus (me and Sareln already have it). I think Sareln beelining CoL and building courthouses was a mistake, he was on 6 cities for the longest time, he'd barely have any distance and # of cities maintenance.

SoZ finished in my Sareln border city, a theatre will finish soon as well. I may try and trade silver for gold from GE, so I can build the Paya on that border as well, and it would save me from needing to tech Theology. I actually gifted rice to GE earlier, and he probably respects me for razing one of Ioan's border cities.

I'm going 1-turn MC next turn, after I've academied my 2nd GScientist. My tech plan after this is to go Lit-Music-(fire GA)-Mono-Monarchy-Civil Service. This should give me an awesome infrastructure base. I don't know if I'll win liberalism, I'll try and get a bulb ready for Education, but I may be better off prioritising Feudalism/Guilds/Banking to get Merc and to make my gold rate more efficient.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

2 more turns until the peace treaty with Sareln finishes. Next turn I'm putting 5xp axe and a cat onto the hill north of Mama, Life had, this would resemble me reinforcing this city. If Sareln leaves Qohaito vulnerable, then I'm promoting the axe to W2 and razing the city. Otherwise I won't bother with that. I'm debating whether or not to move a stack onto the tile 6 of the stone, I want to scare Sareln a bit and my sentry chariot will be able to tell if anything can can destroy my stack the next turn. If there's anything hiding in those woods, it can't hit my stack as the grass hill isn't roaded. I'm hoping get another rounds of whips out of Sareln, I just hope I don't miss anything and make a crippling tactical error and lose my army.



An exploring warrior found a barb city that had likely been razed by Ioan, which GE could have really used. Ioan has a W2/CR1 Jag just hanging around the area. That got me thinking about the land distribution:





Could be lack of information, could just be self-delusion, but it feels my land is way snakier and watery than the others. I don't have any cities that has room for a dozen cottages. I also feel a bit cramped, it feels like there isn't alot of room between my core an my neighbours. Sareln is 10SW 2W of me, Ioan is 8SE 2E of me. On the other hand Ioan is 8SW 9W of GE, and Sareln is 6SE 7E of GE. If feels like their land is alot more solid, I have only a single inland city (argh, GLH would have given +2 commerce/city). Of course, I'm cramping Sareln's horizontal growth badly, and my massive army hopefully ties him down a bit w/r/t GE. Ioan on the other hand can potentially become a monster, I feel that he has the best long-term potential. I really need to kill someone and take their shit.

5 more things to consider:

Sareln just teched Alphabet, I can see that he has Calendar, but I'm confused about why he still hasn't improved his silk and his bananas.

I may have made a bit of a strategic mistake here, I built an Academy with my recently born GScientist, but in hindsight I should have used him for a golden age to power me towards bureaucracy. Then again, I was always intending on using my Music GArtist for that, but that could be a mistake as there's not much I can do with Music. I don't think I'll be on track of building the Sistine anytime soon, I have no marble. The only sources of marble I can see are in GE's sphere of influence.

I'm also running into unit upkeep badly as well, already up to 25g/turn. Vassalage will right now cut it down to 20g/turn (thanks to the +14 free units and -9 high upkeep). Bureaucracy will currently give +21.5 commerce/turn, I expect 3 more cottage growths to come in within 8 turns.

Finally, after I hit end turn, it seems that the SoZ isn't raising my culture on the border with Sareln as fast as I'd hoped, but that's okay because I'm going to be chopping a theatre into it next turn and running a pair of artists. I should have +32 culture/turn in that city very soon. That +25% from the Stele is really kicking in for Sareln.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Oh ffff are you kidding me you mean a woodsman 2 axe moving from a road-to-road-to-forest doesn't leave you with a fractional move point left? Argh, I should have tested my brilliant plan on worldbuilder, I could have razed a border city Sareln dumped a whip and a chop into. I could have also trapped 5 workers on that spit of land, but I didn't expect to ever capture them as my W2 axe would never survive.

Oh and I spotted a big scary stack of 11 axes and 9 catapults in the vicity. I'm going to have to hold the save a bit to think about the consequences of this idiotic war declaration. I have a big scary stack facing up against Sareln as well, it's good to know that Sareln is scared and is really spiking his power rating, especially when he's consistently had ~20% less MFG and less than half the crop yield. It's less good that he's teching machinery, I'm going to have a hard time dealing with crossbows, I may have to slot in HBR a bit earlier.

Oh, and I will definitely need to slot in walls in my border city with Sareln, just so that stack of cats won't kill my city in a single turn. Yeah, HBR next turn, that should discourage any of Sareln's shenanigans.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

You know, the rules make perfect sense when you realise that road-road is 0.5 move, and moving into a forest with W2 is 0.5 move as well. An axe only has 1.0 moves. That was, uh, embarassing. Oh well, Sareln was kinda enough to take peace when he realised he lost no cities. Anyway, teched music, fired a golden age, teched HBR, Monarch, and am 1 turn from teching bureaucracy (will switch civics next turn).

Ioan on the other hand is getting tetchy. What on earth is he trying to do?



He physically does not have the warm bodies to take that city. I can switch from an axe to a wall (and finish it next turn, it's almost complete anyway). Christ, it's on a hill, with walls, and most of my stack has 25% fortify bonus. The only thing going for him is that I can't clear his stack with my stack because of the charge HA and W2 Jag. I tested it on WB and it didn't work. Oh well, all he's doing is paying upkeep, distracts him from a city that is actually vulnerable, and not letting me work a 1/3 plains forest (during a golden age, grr).

[Nicolae Carpathia]

God damn it GE why did you just lose a city? Something tells me Ioan outmanouvred him and razed a front city.

I just wiped out a small stack of Ioan's units, sitting in a forest by the former Lacrimiora, he lacked W2 and only a few of his units got defensive bonuses. I had a stack hidden behind my city, burned my only pair of cats, and cleared up with axes.

Finished my last GA turn teching machinery, I had a bunch of axes completing at EoT and they all auto-upgraded to maces. I think now is a good time to clear off Ioan's units from my land, I can probably use my mace to remove the top defender from the forest stack, hit it with cats, and then clear up with obsolete axes. No more ancient units for me now.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Sareln just fucked up and left a pop 5 city undefended when our 10 turn peace treaty ran out (and he goes before me in the turn order anyway). I had a 5xp mace separated from his city by a forest, I promoted him to W2 and renamed him "I can't believe it worked". Boom, 1 settler, granary, stele, library and forge gone, in exchange for a single mace.

It was an excellent city, with fish, wet rice, bananas and horse. Shame it had to be razed, but whatevs.