[SPOILERS] scooter's sunny sunday stroll

[NobleHelium]

You need a trade route from the holy city to enable natural spread. The road enables the chance of spreading, it doesn't increase it or anything.

[scooter]

Alright I'll try to get some screenshots up today. Short version: my attacks were a failure and Luddite built Stonehenge, Oracle, and Pyramids and still is strong in the demo screen. He's also the only person I can't really reach - though I did force him to whip some with some harassing WCs. Anyways, hopefully Sian or AT punish him or else this game will be over sometime this month. Also, with the attack failing, no pyramids, and no FIN, my odds of competing in this game is really bad. Not sure what the best approach is at this point.

[scooter]

T37-T44 catches up

Ok, so I"m just going to give an overview of how I lost the rest of my War Chariots. Once it was obvious I couldn't take anything from AT, the plan was basically to go bother Luddite while spending a turn or two annoying AT to force more whips. Luddite completed a wonder and was starting to run away, so I wanted to keep him a bit honest with my 3 War Chariots. So it went like this:



This was my "second group" - well more like 2 extra WCs with my lone survivor from earlier. Didn't care to take anything from AT, mostly just wanted him to whip a bit more.





Luddite's defenses were solid the next turn:



That's fine. I can make him scramble a bit:



This is what I saw:



Though his defenses were solid next turn:



That's not taking anything. But mission "Force military whipping" was successful enough, so I figured I'd complete the world trip and force Sian to do the same. However, Luddite didn't want to let me do that:



And he completed Oracle too. Wonderful. So I'm still a few turns behind now, but I'll have a more updated picture of the homeland in a few minutes.

[scooter]

We actually just played T50, so overview of the core:



Hanging Gardens will probably happen. My oasis:



I'm in Hindu + OR so a missionary will get here soon. Finally, the demos:



Wait... seriously? I spent hammers on 8 War Chariots early in the game and got no value from them and I'm first in food and second in production? What exactly is everybody doing? Yeah that GNP is atrocious though. Honestly not sure where I'll get tech from in this game, which is why I'm pretty screwed.

[scooter]

Also, this game has shown me that in order for me to play well, I need to take my time on turns and planning. I've tried to take the theme of the game as seriously as possible, and I've spent 0 time planning. The only time I plan for the turns is when I have the save open when it pops into my inbox, and I always play immediately and pass it on (no looking around, thinking it over, and coming back later). This is been magnified by the fact that there was a half dozen turns where I WAS rushing them because I had a crazy week.

So yeah, the short of it is I'm not suited to play extremely quickly and still play well. I've made tons of mistakes already in this game. I should be in a WAY better position than I am, but I'm not. I tend to think I should've ditched the WC thing and just bolted for Pyramids, but even then I'm not 100% sure I would have gotten it because of Luddite's IND. So who knows really.

[scooter]

And game over, Luddite wins. Sian sent a stack of Horse Archers at me. This is incredibly weedy because he can't better his position at all. He's going to raze my size 1 gold city, and he may raze Bahamas too, but he can't actually take any land from me because I have Spears and he has HAs. So... not sure what he's gaining from this except ensuring Luddite wins. GG Luddite, I have no idea why Sian came after me and not you.

[scooter]

Alright, the situation upon opening the save:



Yep, Montego is not savable of course. Well, I could put a WC in the path, but that would mean Bahamas is dead. Anywyas, I have gold, so I upgraded warriors on Cancun and Bahamas to Spears. Whipped a couple more spears. End of turn looks like this:



So yeah, I have a bunch of Spears. Pretty strong chance he can kill Bahamas, in which case my already-screwed game is completely dead. However, he can't take any of this land because I have spears and can get a settler to fill in the gaps awfully quickly. So yeah, if Bahamas burns I'll just make my new goal to be that he regrets this attack and I'll play it out until it's obvious Luddite cannot be caught. It should be obvious already, but if Sian is seriously attacking me, then maybe it's not so obvious to some.

Edit: to be more clear, Bahamas is dead too. One WC and 1 Spear cannot hold out against 5 HAs

[novice]

Well, you'll have 2 spears and a WC, right?

[scooter]

Well, you'll have 2 spears and a WC, right?

I actually wasn't sure - if you noticed I kinda contradicted myself in that post because I always play turn, take screenshots, then write up the turn later. I just now re-opened the save, and yes, I'll have 2 spears. So Bahamas may be safe after all. Long-term my situation is still "I be screwed" but in the short-term, I may at least be in a better position to put some hurt on Sian .

In short, it's not possible for him to take both Montego AND Bahamas.

[scooter]

Well, I lost Bahamas and Montego is gone next then. This game is crazy town.