[Spoilers] Boldly Going...on a Bender and Pissing Off Xenu

[Catwalk]

How do you intend to dislodge a skirmisher, an axe and a spear on a hill? If they're fortified, you'll be 50% behind at the outset. You can't even 1-move on the attack because of the river, unless you're willing to eat another 25% penalty. IMO keep waging culture war here. How about grabbing the NW silver? There's a nice PH tile available that lets you borrow fish, hunt elephants and possibly work silk on occasion. It can borrow 2 river grasslands from CC. I couldn't make any sense of your micro to camp the elephant, but good luck with it

[spacetyrantxenu]

T55 - I followed the worker micro, one problem is that the spear didn't complete in Dark Heart. It is 21/23 this turn, not sure what went wrong last turn if you were expecting it to be finished. You would have had to work two unimproved tiles (probably a pair of 2/1/0 grass forests) at the expense of two FIN river cottages (2/0/3) for a cost of 6 commerce vs 2 hammers. This will delay connecting the ivory for a turn as we can't risk the worker stack on the ivory when Slowcheetah's chariot sitting inside his border city Holly can attack that tile in one turn. he has a road on his sheep tile that would allow the chariot movement 2, 2, 1 to attack a tile that can only currently be defended by a single axe on the turn we're supposed to pile all those workers into the tile. Not going to happen.

So next turn when the spear moves 7 across the river I'll have the three workers 1N of DH move 4 and mine the river grass hill and then D&E bear will move 4, 4, 4 along the road onto the grass forest. The next turn they can either drop a road on that forest tile or move onto the ivory to help rush the camp. There isn't really a lot they can do here next turn and still be ready to rush the ivory camp in two turns. If you think it's better to have them continue cottaging DH and make the camp a two turn project for the other three workers I can do that instead.

You didn't list anything about city builds so I'm going to let the chariot in CC complete this turn. I think we could use it in the field rather than your build queue, sorry if it costs you 1gpt. I'll need build orders next turn for DH and CC. Since CC has a barracks I'd recommend MOAR UNITS. You have an axe, spear, and as of next turn a chariot in CC, plus two Q's, so that border seems OK for now. Of course you'll need more than that if you intend to break Sian's hold of that useless tundra hill. I'd just let it go for now. If you really want to burn that city you're going to need to tech Archery + HBR and see where that takes you....Anyway, for DH I assume build another unit for HR garrison.

I'm not sure what your SE axe (Bearskin Rug) is supposed to be doing. It looks like he was going NW, he's hanging out on a tile that says 2T cottage. I went ahead and moved him toward Swiper since that's where you look the most exposed down here.
I whipped the WB off the unimproved grass tile in Megatron, I assume that was right. In two turns you'll be working improved crab and clam tiles.

I checked your EP allocation, you're directing all points to Sian. It looks like you're close to getting research visibility, I assume that's what you're going for here. You're at 108/123 to accomplish that goal for now. I checked, you still have graphs on Commodore and Slowcheetah so you're OK for now but it's close. Maybe they're not dumping points on you as long as you don't spend against them?

It looks like Slowcheetah recently went through a whip cycle but it doesn't look like he whipped military. Any idea what it was?
I got the impression you were OK with continuing to let these cities grow, even though they're unhappy. You'll be spending extra city maintenance, but then again we're researching Monarchy so I can see continuing on. Any input for next turn, given the modified worker micro?

End of turn shots:

City builds


Large overview - Caution if your phone sucks:

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Back in town. Briefly:



I sorted out the worker movements, Ivory online next turn. I completed a mine and 2/3 of a cottage while we wait.



DH will delay growth just a moment. We'll be in HR in 3t, so I'm going to build the settler now so as to not waste the food on the unhappy faces. Similar decision made for CC:



No pics necessary for Megatron or Swiper this turn. Megatron finished the WB and is back on the Terrace build. Swiper continues on its chariot.



Not doing terribly, and things will look better once we're happy and working in our cottages. I'm fairly satisfied, now that we're done saving gold and so close to improving this economy.

Now, for something new, a thought:



Perhaps a location for city #5. We'll be able to afford it in HR, and this could provide an opportunity to raze Sian's horse/gold city without having to tech HBR. He still has only two warriors in the city. If I build where I've highlighted (ignore the X, that's from before Sian's city plant) I could then road 1W of the new settlement and force Sian to make some decisions on defense. If he messed up, I could one move Baba Yetu from my new city. He could avoid this by simply blocking the open grassland, but he'd likely have to move something off the hill. At the very least, I can deny him his sheep and weaken the city. I can also camp units in the forest adjacent to the city, since he has not chopped it away. I'll think about this in the next few days. I'm not looking to pile bodies of my soldiers against his city, but his GNP is doing nicely and he's seemingly not pouring too much into defense in this location. Anyway, something to think about.

Xenu, thanks for care-taking for me. I've noted your signs, will address those concerns soonish, particularly the call for spears.

[Catwalk]

I suggested that location a while back I agree with it, both for sake of securing silver and getting cultural control in a critical area.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I like that location. You'll be able to take the fish from CC for a quick start once CC is as large as you want it to be in HR. And no problem about playing the turn for you...it was only one turn with all the delays.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

There seems to be an issue with uploading pictures at the moment, but I've posted the links anyway. In game, things are still pretty quiet. Monarchy is only 1T away now.



All the king's horses and all the king's men have finished the camp, and there was much rejoicing of the elephant slaughter in the large cities.





Worker #7 has completed in CC. Time to lay down some cottages here, double-quick. I'm goign to send in some worker reinforcements, as this is our only city that lacks sufficient tile improvement. We should get this up to speed in short order.



We've netted our other seafood resource. Yay. I'm eager to grow/whip here. I want to divert to sailing soon for a lighthouse, but we'll go for writing and libraries first.



Growth to 3 now. I may let it grow to 4 and then work the gold. We're not in a financial crisis anymore.



Things are looking up.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Looks good. Writing next sounds helpful, while we're growing these cities quickly onto cottages it would be really good to get a library in DH. But as soon as you can afford it you should throw down the rest of your cities in any and all free tiles on this tight map. It's a lot easier to claim the tiles when they're unoccupied, even if it is more fun once they are occupied....

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Not much to say this turn.



Sian has a couple workers on a hill, presumably to build a 1T road. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there is a chariot in the fog that can then attack my fortified axe near Megatron. I thought about withdrawing the axe, but opted for a more aggressive play instead with my new chariot. If his plan was to kill my axe with a chariot, I could do the same to his axe that is covering two workers, if they complete the road. This may give him something to think about, and could buy me some time to get a spear underneath my axe.

Also, I've somewhat hashed out my worker moves in the NW region, see markers on the map.



That's all for now.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Interesting turn. Monarchy is in, so I double revolted to HR/OR. That's not the fun part, though. This is:



Slowcheetah is covering his city with a chariot! Now, this may not be the case next turn, and this turn no matter how I would move my workers, the best I could do would be to get 1T of road NE of my chariot, so I wouldn't be able to hit the city for a 50/50 shot at razing it. Next turn, however:




I'll complete a road on the forest and then move the third worker 8, 9 and put a turn into the road. The other worker (Demented Bear) will cancel the mining operation and complete the road, allowing my chariot a 50/50 shot on the city. I made sure not to cancel that worker action this turn so as to (hopefully) not alert Slow to my plan. I can see his actions on uncancelled workers around his city. For example, Slow's worker 6 of Holly is chopping. My hope is that it never gets to finish.



There is a risk to this. His chariot could strike out of the city and take my uncovered worker (Demented) on the mine, and he could cancel his chop, move 9 and road, road with the other worker to complete, then move the spear into the city to deny my chariot a shot at razing. But, unless he has other units to support that tile, he'd be leaving 2 workers vulnerable to Commodore with only an axe to cover. This could be ok for Slow, though, as Com still has not hooked up his horses. I'm willing to take the risk in any event. A cheap raze would be awesome.




While I'm on the subject of Slowcheetah, I'm guessing that he's making a run for the Pyramids. He has settled on the stone island, the highlighted worker above is set to chop in his capital's BFC, and his MFG is going up significantly. I know Slow likes a specialist economy. I wouldn't be surprised if Commodore is after Mids too, but is just going about it a bit more methodically. I expect the Mids to fall relatively soon. I've temporarily lost graphs on Commodore, but I'll get them back next turn.



I'm getting a bit worried about my GNP. Nearly half of it is culture, from my CRE trait, Terraces, and double holy cities. But, Sian, the leader, has Stonehenge/monuments, and Slow is creative as well, so I may not be too far from the competition in real terms. It isn't like I've over-expanded though, as each city is a net positive to the economy at this point. One thing that will help tremendously is getting this horrendous city maintenance under control. One thing at a time. The tech plan for now is Sailing (I'd like to secure an island), Writing, then down the Gaspar line (Math/Currency/CoL). Just looking at that, it's going to take forever. I should sim it out to see if skipping math/currency and going CoL for courthouses would be worth it. Gut instinct is that the discounts will end up getting me to all three techs faster.

City screens:

Working the mine wouldn't speed up the settler at this point, so extra commerce it is.


The chariot will complete, then a 1T Q to provide garrison/happy in DH, then time to start spreading the good word. I've been praying (bad pun) for a free spread from either religion, but no luck so far. Time to pick a winner, now that I'm paying OR civic costs.


Finished a cottage, nothing else is new. Keep growing! I'd like that double whip to complete the Terrace then perhaps start on a galley once Sailing is in. If it looks like I can get a religion spread here in time I will delay the Terrace briefly for the bonus hammers, but not for long. This should be my first target for my missionary, as it will take a few turns to get set up for a library build in DH, I think.


Still need spears. At size 4 we'll stop to work the gold. Size 4 gives me flexibility for an emergency whip as needed.

[Catwalk]

I find Currency to be somewhat unimportant in AW. You'll be getting a whopping +4 cpt, that's not going to make or break anything. Most important growth factor in the short-term is food and happiness. You have great food surplus in all your cities and you're in HR now, so you're able to grow very nicely over the next 5-10t.

I wouldn't work the gold in Swiper, I'd rather work a river cottage by your capital and switch your capital to the GH mine. 0/1/7 is not a great tile, and food is worth a lot right now.