Gandhi of France II - Assuming Direct Control

[oledavy]

Why do you hate resource bubbles?

I'm used to playing without them - just don't like having extra stuff cluttering up the screen. I keep forgetting to turn them on when I take screenshots. Perhaps between you and Shoot nagging me I'll finally start remembering to do it.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 40[/SIZE]

10 Turns Until The Pyramids Are Complete

Commodore moved his scout west, as expected, and I started moving my settler East.



Notice I remembered the turn the resource icons on :neenernee

I tried to move my warriors to seem non-threatening, while at the same time letting him know that I have a decent military in the region (albeit one that is composed entirely of warriors).

I got graphs on Mistabod at the end of the turn. Here's how the three of us stand in power:



I'm already lagging in Crop Yield, sad to say.



With any luck, early Rep will make up for my slower start.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 43[/SIZE]

7(8?) Turns Until The Pyramids Are Complete

Palaven is founded next turn, and the Stone Highway is completed the turn after that. We're nearing crunch time for the completion of the pyramids.



I need to double check, but on reviewing my workers this turn, I think I made a mistake somewhere that will prevent the final chop from coming in until t51, delaying the Pyramids by a turn If I end up missing them by a turn....

Ah well, will cross that bridge when and if I get to it.

I decided to start Sur'Kesh on Stonehenge. I'm quite frankly shocked that it hasn't fallen yet - there are no creative civs in this game!!! If I did my math right, I'll complete it on t48. Either way, it's a win for me. If I land the wonder, I get a great prophet for my shrine or to bulb theology, and free borders pops in all cities. This isn't quite as valuable since I'm gunning for Judaism, but still, nothing to sneeze at.

I would rather lose the wonder, however, and may stop production on it right before it completes (provided I get that far) depending on my economic situation. My economy is already seriously in the tank, and things will only get worse once I found Palaven. Stone-boosted fail gold to push me through the rest of Monotheism, Pottery, and Writing would be a godsend. Here's hoping the other civs get off their asses and build the thing, I don't want to have to make that choice.

If I end up not completing Stonehenge, I'll probably put the city on the GW, and chop it to completion. I'll need some way to pop the borders in a hurry and get that rice in my culture, and cool kids pop their borders with wonders

A brief word on the metagame - I think I'm going to try to buddy up to Commodore. A quick word here though, this operates under the assumption that Sasha is something of a pink dot against the Chinese. Counting tiles, I have every reason to believe this is true, however, they might be farther away than I think. Anyway, I take it NobleGas are not going to respond well to that Pink Dot (if they haven't spotted it already), and are going to mobilize a response force. Bottomline, Commodore is probably going busy playing Angry Birds with the Chinese hordes for the early part of this game, and will want a safe border with me, which I will happily provide. That just leaves the Byzantines to worry about. Mist and Ichabod are going to face a choice round about the Medieval era - Cat the guy with the Pyramids, or Phract the guy who's FIN/IND and has ??? wonders. Hoping they pick the latter. Going to try and push them hard in that direction. So, with any luck, I'll stay out of the initial round of 1v1s and be able to tech and build in peace, get into a commanding position, then get enough musketeers to start killing some people.

Completing Thane Krios the spear this turn put me back to #1 in power. Looks like I won't have to be worried about getting rushed. I can scarcely believe it, but it looks like my stone city pink dot is going to work.

Fingers crossed.

End Turn.

[novice]

That is one helluva pink dot.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Y U H8 RESOURCE ICON?

I love it when a plan comes together. This should be entertaining one way or the other.

[oledavy]

Y U H8 RESOURCE ICON?

Remembered to turn them on this time. :neenernee

[SIZE="7"]Turn 44[/SIZE]

Seven Turns Until The Pyramids Are Complete

That is one helluva pink dot.

Indeed. Ladies and gents, this is what we here at Realms Beyond call a pink dot.



The ground team is Shepard, Ash, and Tali. Will have to try that squad combo next time I pick up ME. It sounds promising; Tali handles tech, Ash is the damage sponge, and I play biotics. Pair them up with an Adept or Vanguard.

Anyway, I've worked pretty hard to crash my economy. My break-even is now at 30% making 5 bpt I'm paying 9gpt in city maintenance, 4gpt alone for Palaven. I also am now paying 1gpt for my civics, but interestingly it's for paganism and not slavery? Slavery is medium upkeep, while paganism is low Can someone explain why that is the case that I'm paying for paganism and not slavery first?

The bad news of the turn is that I did mis-move a worker somewhere along the line, and the Pyramids will consequently be delayed by a turn. I'm going to be seriously pissed if I end up losing them because of that.... Eh, what happens happens.

In international news, Commodore founded his fourth city - where, I don't know. Yuri and Mistabod also are now up to three cities, pretty sure as of last turn. I haven't been checking their diplo screens as regularly though, so I can't say for sure. Commodore researched writing and can now offer OB as of last turn, Mistabod and Yuri can as well, though, again, I'm not sure when they finished the tech as I have not been checking their screens every turn.

Note to Self: Check ALL diplo screens EVERY turn.

Commodore's scout is now just east of the Thessia, and Yuri's warrior appeared south of Palaven. If he tries to pillage that road, he's in for a rude surprise. Thane Krios and Subject Zero are both en route to Palaven, due to arrive on t49. The final piece of international news was Mistabod revolting into Slavery, a little late. I wonder how long they put it off?

I funneled the worker overflow in Thessia into a scout. I'd like a free unit to check out the land to the west, my backline. after I defog it all, going to send him to find NobleGas if they don't find me first.

Anyway, Command, R.



This is how we do things around here

End Turn.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 45[/SIZE]

6 Turns Until The Pyramids Are Complete

Going to be a bit of a rambling post this time around, as I have some long term strategy/city specialization stuff to cover. However, let's get the news of the turn out of the way first:



Yuris completed the Oracle - big surprise there....

I actually could have beaten him with my t40 completion date. However, my more conservative t45 completion time would have been a turn short. Glad I did not take that route.

Yuri moved his warrior up to check out the city of Palaven. I he does want to pillage the road I'll be able to stop him. However, it looks like he's heading back east.

Mistabod founded their fourth city - Composure



Definitely soccer terminology. Also note, that we both can see the liberate option for Palaven. Oye...hopefully they don't get too wound up over that.

The borders on Sasha popped this turn, and I'm sure Commodore wants to farm that corn. So, I obligingly moved my warrior off so he could without having to guard the worker. At this point, my spear and axe will arrive in Palaven in time to stop anything he sends, so I'm not too worried. I'll see any brewing attack coming from a mile away now that I have his graphs. I'm sending Garrus northeast and try to make contact with NobleGas.

With stone hooked up, the Pyramids are really getting underway. I moved three workers into forests to start chopping next turn.



I just shuffled The Citadel off of working the grassland forest silks for a couple turns so it would grow a turn faster. I'm gunning towards picking up the grassland hill mine.

Lastly, my perfectly awful demos.



Now everyone say it with me, YIKES That crop yield and GNP are not looking good.

I'm really starting to wish I had founded Thessia for Silver and Furs (which I defogged t40). Having the commerce from those tiles would do a lot to push me through my current economic crisis. With the benefit of hindsight, not settling that site second was probably a big mistake - though in fairness, I didn't know about the furs (under the last fogged tile in the area) until a few turns ago. On the other hand, grassland hill silver is by itself an amazing tile, so meh.

I think I deserve a weed smiley for that Hopefully the mistake doesn't end up killing my game...

Anyway, let's talk about what my plan is going forward.

So, last night I was lying awake in bed trying to think of how to banish my current economic woes, and I came up with a plan of sorts. This plan is based on two assumptions:

1) I land the Pyramids.
2) I land Stonehenge.

I feel reasonably confident I can bat both of them at this point. So, my current problem is that I'm very slowly teching towards Monotheism for OR and Judaism while still lacking both Pottery and Writing. Representation without the ability to run Scientists is pretty pointless, and cities without granaries this late into the game make the micro gods cry.

So, while it would be nice to make Palaven my Jewish holy city and get a religion, it's not worth the 11 turn delay in researching pottery. So, this turn, I swtiched over my research to Pottery. As soon as I finish the Pyramids, I'm revolting into Representation and running Citizens where applicable to push me through to writing. With a happy cap of 7 (base + 3 for representation) in all my cities, I'll be growing vertically for awhile and build granaries and libraries everywhere. Once I get a library running 2 scientists in all my core cities, I should be set to proceed. Concurrent with this effort, I'll be founding a city for the silver and furs to give my economy a further shot in the arm. I'll funnel the overflow from the Pyramids into a settler and 2-pop whip The Citadel to get it out. Getting those two luxury resources will additionally boost my happy cap up to 9. I should be able to grow some pretty big cities early on. To that end, I'm farming everything I can, and need to get to Bureaucracy ASAP.

As for religion, after I finish writing, I'll finish Monotheism - hopefully Judaism will still be there. Even if it is, my next step will be to tech Meditation and use the prophet from Stonehenge to bulb Theology. Access to Theology this early will be a welcome boon for a spiritual leader like Gandhi, hopefully I won't have to put it to use. Longer term, I'd like to build the AP and spread my religion to Commodore. SPI temples with the AP bonus would be welcome, but more importantly, pacifying the 'angry rusher' in this game would allow me to build in peace, or focus all my efforts on containing Mistaphracts - whichever the case may be.

Let's look at each city:

Thessia



Priority right now is regrowing Thessia to serve as worker pump. It's not going to be much before IW, and even then won't be all that great. Still, I can get a library in place, grow it to size 4, and run a couple of Scientists for 15 bpt - so that's not bad. I may actually end up going Library -> Granary here. I'm a bit unsure of what to do with those plains tiles. Perhaps farm and grow to a larger size? I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. The other priority on the table is to help grow a cottage for that capital on that grassland.

Sur'Kesh



By farming all those grasslands, I can reach a pretty sexy food bonus while still maintaining pretty awesome hpt. Long-term, however, I really need chain irrigation to do a lot with this city. Plan is to get a granary and library in ASAP, and start running scientists after the first prophet. After I pop the second GP out of this city, switching over to running a priest to try and get one for my shrine (hopefully I don't have the same luck I had in my PB6 prophet pull...)

Palaven:



Looks a lot like Sur'Kesh in terms of surrounding tiles - meaning there's not a whole lot I can do until chain irrigation - unless I want to build cottages anyway. However, I'm not really keen on cottaging anything but The Citadel, and probably my FP city. So, plan here is to get all the resource tiles into play and grassland hill mines. Hopefully I'll be able to get some irrigation for the corn, depending on where the border with Mistabod ends up.

So basically, the plan is to not whip a whole lot, grow my cities large and get a lot of tiles into play, and run the food surplus in Scientist specialists. Tech priority after Theology is Code of Laws to get Caste System online - then I can start having fun with artist bombs and GM trade missions.

So, let's look what cities I'm planning to settle next.

The North:



The South:



Everything should be pretty self-explanatory. I ended up shuffling my cities around a little bit to make them more viable. The settling order will be: Irune, Rakhana, Tuchanka, Kahje. Thanks to the Stone Highway, I won't have to do much roading to connect any of my three eastern cities to the relay network.

I've highlighted the halfway point between The Bun and The Citadel. I don't intend for any of my BFCs to stray north of the line, though if Commodore is really slow about grabbing that corn, I may make a play for the marked pink dot. Probably not going to get it though, and probably not worth angering the neighbor anyway. At any rate, I'm hoping Commodore realizes the sugar and dyes are in my sphere of influence, and does not contest me for them.

The settling of those three eastern cities will fill out the land between my core and Palaven, and effectively establish my northern and eastern frontiers. After that, I'll be backfilling to the south and west. Depending on how much land is fogged in my backline, I'm probably looking at 10-12 cities. At that point, it will be time to reassess and see how I might continue my expansion.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 47[/SIZE]

Four Turns Until The Pyramids Are Complete

Quiet couple turns. No international incidents, nothing major going on domestically. Well, except:



The first three chops for the Pyramids came in this turn, just a couple more to go. We're on the home stretch now.

The bad news continues to be the economy, especially when compared to my neighbors.



We'll see if I can recover.

Thessia is sinking a few hammers into the GW while regrowing. Will be good for some fail gold somewhere down the line.



End Turn.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 48[/SIZE]

Three Turns Until The Pyramids Are Complete



Found wines to the west. I may end up moving Kahje one west to pick up the wines - I'll have to wait and see what else my scout discovers.

The most interesting news of the turn, however, came out in the wild wild east.



Found Gaspar's borders, and I should be able to make contact with him next turn. However, what's more interesting are the visible borders of Commodore's fourth city. If Sasha was a normal, run of the mill pink dot; Kiki is a pink dot on steroids. I would have killed to read Gaspar and NH's response to that. So, I imagine the Holy Roman Empire and China will be at each other's throats for quite some time. Hopefully I can take advantage of that.

Finally, got a complete set of graphs with everyone I've met thus far this turn:



End Turn.

[fluffyflyingpig]

So if Kiki is a pink dot on steroids, what exactly is Palaven?