[spoilers] Vi Viqsi Veniversum Vivus Vici (or possibly just embarrasses herself)

[Viqsi]

Huntsville? Pretty decent setup there. Me and my friend were considering trying to catch a game there while in the area, but the schedule didn't work out. Hopefully the WCHA association happens and works out!

Yeah, that's the big hope over here.

Ha! And within a few hours of that discussion... congrats, y'all!

[Viqsi]

T57: Today, my rivals reached a new milestone: somebody managed to get visibility on one of my cities.

Funny, that was the scout I'd thought Azza was potentially trying to kill. Has he been hiding on my land bridge all this time? He couldn't have made it all the way down and back in that time, but he COULD get to where he is now there without being spotted by Azza's warrior. Interesting.

Speaking of city visibility - I haven't been taking advantage. Shame on me!

• Palace (duh) and a granary in Ambling Alp.
  
• Broken Bones has a granary and a Monument.
  
• Cash Cow has nothing.

The boat exploration is already revealing good things!

War Elephants are of course banned, buuut that will be most welcome happiness sometime soon.

OMFG reaction #1: ...I think that's Sareln's capital.

Note the border continuing under the fog to the upper right. That's his second ring!
Also, copper's still JUST outside. I might have to consider keeping my warrior here...

...because of OMFG reaction #2: I think that's Sareln's Insanity GNP... AND IT'S NOT GOING BACK DOWN.

I don't see a second gold mine in his resources or anything equally abusive, so... yikes. Did he, like, somehow take Currency with his free tech or something?

For a bit there, I was also noting his Power jump, and seeing that his Copper (assuming only one source) was just outside city limits, and was about to leap to the conclusion that he'd whipped out a Praetorian... but they're an 8000-power unit, not 6000. Still... I'm beginning to get worried.

Oh, and the spreadsheet has also been updated. Highlights:

• Ace (Fin's capital) reached size 4 last turn, in a insta-rebound after whipping down two pop points. How in the hell is it already back at size 5? (Confirmed both via the Top 5 cities screen shots.) That's... crazy. And a tad worrisome - speaks to the amount of food-producing infrastructure over there.
  
• Cayenne (Sareln's capital) is also now size 5, but this is happening at a much more reasonable pace.
  
• Broken Bones is also size 2. All of these we all knew from city visibility and Top-5, but checking this confirms that that's the only pop growth.
  
• Soldier count went up 5000 points. 1000 of that is pop (from Broken Bones), and 2000 of that went to Rival Best. So, two new units. Warriors are possible. Galleys are possible. Viqsi Doesn't Know.
  
• And, as previously implied, the Insanity GNP continues, and charts suggest it belongs to Sareln - who is not a Financial leader. WHAT THE WHAT

At least I'm still #1 in Life Expectancy. I get to be the best at SOMEthing! :D

In three turns, I will have a fourth city. So far, I've been the first to a second city and first to a third city. Let's see if the pattern continues.
(Any guesses as to that city's eventual name? )

And I'm wondering if I should reconsider my research path and go for the NuCavs. Sareln's really starting to worry me. Bad things can happen if he gets his Praetorians and that GNP lead is sustainable. And I would prefer that such bad things not happen to me.

[Viqsi]

So! On the subject of my Roman neighbors....

Reasons To Be Worried About Sareln:

• He's got an insanely huge GNP lead. And the Oracle just gave him a jump in tech regardless.
  
• He's Roman. Praetorians
  
• He's also got a Power lead. (just barely, tho)
  
• I've had the Score lead for a while now and am his southern neighbor, and so may superficially resemble a target. (Either due to his thinking I need to be taken down NOW, or his assuming that I've expanded beyond my defense capability.)

Reasons Not To Be Worried About Sareln:

• His copper is not connected and is outside of his city limits.
  
• My Score lead is entirely due to land control - and he's smart enough that he may be well aware of that, and so he may not fear me. (however, see above re: "expand beyond defense capability")
  
• He only has two cities - and neither of them appear to be on his southern shore, so sailing to me would not be trivial.
  
• He's not the one who's declared war on somebody. His northern neighbor, OTOH...

Conclusion: Keep an eye on Sareln, but I don't think he's coming after me quite yet. He may be more worried about Fintourist than myself.

If things do come to blows... my Horses source is on my northern shore. That is baaaaaad. (EDIT: Thankfully, it's on the far northern shore, so he'd have to get past Mechanical first regardless.) And despite that marker I've had on my map indicating a "naval chokepoint", I can't actually choke off his boats yet (that was done by making assumptions about the fog which later proved untrue). At least, not at one tile.

I may want to start on some Galleys out of Mechanical after the Library is done, though. Triremes would be infinitely preferable, but I'm nowhere near Metal Casting and that'd be a significant diversion from pretty much every research plan I've got.

I'd consider offering Open Borders as a sort of a friendly gesture... but he's undoubtedly got a Scout headed my way. Me no likey.

So. No panic quite yet. Yet.

[Viqsi]

T58: Woohoo, two turns in one day!

Greeted by this:

Useful pretty much only as a prereq. Moving on to Meditation.

Progress on City #4 proceeds apace...

For some context: The road my (pair of) workers are on is new this turn. The Settler's coming from Myst, obviously. Goes like this:
T58 (now): Workers road 3E of Mechanical, Settler 2 turns left.
T59: Workers road 4E of Mechanical, Settler 1 turn left.
T60: Workers road 4E 1NE of Mechanical, Settler complete and moves to 3E of Mechanical.
T61: Settler moves to 4E 1NE of Mechanical and founds city, workers move to horses and begin pasture.

Oh, and the two farms are for Mechanical's citizens to start using once it's done growing. And I just started a mine on an unimproved but worked hill tile for Myst (bottom edge of that shot).

Meanwhile, our intrepid scouting fishing boat reveals something unprecedented in the history of this world:

That's right, folks - our very first Mountain tile!

Nothing yet of note on the other side of the world, where my scout starts towards Numenorian territory:

While there, though, I got a peek at our Alliteration friend's cities. No new buildings, but sizes are now 4, 3, 1 (they were 4, 2, 2). Hm.

After some debate, I opted to send my scouting warrior near Roman territory eastward, to explore the southern shore...

...and THAT IS A SECOND GOLD TILE BECAUSE HE ALREADY HAS THE ONE WTFINGF AAGH
Could be worse tho. At least it's a DESERT gold tile.
But either he's already overseas (astronomically unlikely) or he has two major GNP resources on his mainland.

Good news, though! That GNP wasn't sustainable!

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Today's Demographics "highlights":

• As previously mentioned, Azza lost one pop in Cash Cow to the whip and gained one from growth in Broken Bones (putting it at size 3).
  
• One of Fintourist's size 2 cities (Roland Garros or Chip 'n' Charge) reached size 3.
  
• Romenna (Hydra's confusingly named second city) reached size 4.
  
• Sareln has a tech.

So that Insanity GNP evidently had more to do with obscene research bonuses than, say, actual wealth production. OH THANK G-D.
He's still got a serious lead, though. Still not good, but at least it's not overwhelming.

Less good: The power meter continues to go up. 8000 points this time. Granted, the majority of that is probably techs and at least 1k is pop, but still. One possible breakdown that came to mind: 1k pop, 3k Barracks, 4k something like Metal Casting.

Tune in next time as I continue to worry myself sick over my lack of information.

[Viqsi]

I've been slow to update these because tracking demos even at the really really basic level I'm doing now is starting to drain from the fun. That's why it's been pretty much a week since I last updated - I didn't want to put in incomplete stuff.

Silly me, eh?

So I've been taking screenshots and telling myself "I'll update SOOOOON." Not everything is written yet (which is rather unlike me), but here's what I've got so far and I'm writing the rest RIGHT NOW.




T59: Scouting along the path to Hydra reveals that Broken Bones has expanded borders:

while I'm looking here, btw - no building or pop changes for any Alliteration cities.

Seems to be a tiny island down SE of me:

Hopefully there's some seafood on the southern coast. But I'll come back to that later.

Not much else to report. No new tiles (aside from blank water) revealed by the Scouting Warrior, and no significant developments with my workers.
Well, okay, there is the fact that Fintourist's scout is also heading northward:

But that's a minor detail.

Demographics:

[Demographics Spreadsheet]
Today's highlights:

• Sareln and Fin's capitals of Cayenne and Ace both reach size 6. And yet their scores are unchanged, as Sareln whips Dill down 1, and Fintourist whips Chip 'n Charge down 1.
  
• Hydra whips one of his top 2 cities - potentially Armenelos - down to size 2.

And upon further review... (I didn't actually discover this until next turn, so expect an expression of shock and dismay in that post)

• Azza FINALLY manages to get a city in ahead of me, by founding the city of Down Down Down. It adds all of 3 land tiles.

[Viqsi]

T60: Well, that's a tad unexpected:

Interesting. Want to get what information I can first. (Fun fact: you can check the various Advisor and Demographic screens in the middle of diplomacy.)
His scout doesn't seem to be near me yet (at least, there's no ominous purple dots on the minimap), but I still have that scouting Warrior near him.

And yet I'd like to have some awareness of the world situation. So I take a look-see at demographics:

Nothing particularly earth-shaking on the charts - except that Sareln's didn't pop back up into insanity range like I'd feared. On demos and top-5 cities, tho?

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

That finally put him ahead of me in score too. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
oh, and someone went up in land area, that always puts me on my guard. Not Sareln, tho - I can see his lack of additional cities already )

Thankfully, the somebody already in a trade relationship apparently isn't Sareln:

It's Azza and Hydra. Which makes the decision a tad easier.

That decision? As infuriating as it is to be potentially boosting a rival, particularly early on, this is probably still a Good Idea for me. If I'm extra-fortunate, a trade relationship can continue well after I've brought in my Cothons too. I'll have to give some real thought to going after those early, now.

So... I accept.
(after some brief confusion which admittedly leads to having to reload once - "offer trade" sounds like how I would make a counteroffer, but apparently that's the way to accept a trade. )

Going back to sailing along... huzzah! And crap:

Huzzah!: Looks like there's a great city location on that island! (Immediately E of the silver)
Crap!: Ocean tiles blocking passage further eastward.

Still no sign of Hydras yet for my scout...

...but Azza's got fishing boats on Broken Bones' clams now.

And one other thing Azza has now:

Goddamnit. My Settler's still one turn away.
OTOH, I appear to be in much better overall shape.

Next best move for my scouting Warrior is still outside of Sareln's borders, despite our newly signed agreement:

...and it looks like he was prepared for any possible Warrior-based shenanigans.


So, now seems like as good a time as any to do a small about-face:

Finishing my research on Meditation (for monasteries), and then I'm going to skip Priesthood/etc. and go for my NuCavs and then Cothons.
Why?

• The pursuit of a religion for happy has less impact now - Sareln's is likely to spread to me long before I can get one of my own. (Economic spread seems lessl ikely)
  
• IF this Sareln thingy is short-term, then I want to have my superweapon cleaned, oiled, and ready to fire. He's likely to head in the same direction, after all.
  
• IF this Sareln thingy can be longer-term... well, among other things, we've both got period superweapons and the ability to scorch the earth. If it comes down to a duel, that probably favors him regardless, but I wouldn't mind 2nd place in my first game.
  
• Also if this is long-term, but even besides that - I'm kind of falling behind economically. I need my edges!

So I'm going to hope for a quick religion spread, and spend all my time building Libraries and cities at first, then follow that up with hopefully Monasteries, missionaries, and NuCavs.

Speaking of current builds:

• Myst is going to finish its current Axeman (in one turn), complete another (for Mechanical's benefit), and then start on either Workers or another Settler.
  
• Riven finished a worker, which is now working on another cottage (this time for Myst) along with the spare worker left over from Myst's mine. Riven is now working on a Library, planning to overflow into a Galley.
  
• Mechanical will have a 3rd pop point and a Library in 3 turns. After that I intend to have it working on a Lighthouse and on farm plots and expanding.
  
• My fourth city will start with a Work Boat and a Granary. Worker priorities: horses, then pigs. (Also, I changed my roading plan up there slightly - don't need to road to the city spot, as skipping across the grasslands tile got my settler one tile closer. So I started a road on the horses instead.)

Anyways, other demographics are largely boring - just pop rebounds in Aremenelos and Chip 'n' Charge after last turn's whips. Really, the only noticable jump otherwise is Sareln's GNP leap thanks to that lighthouse.

[Viqsi]

T61: First thing that greets me:

Hunting should be along shortly.

My exploring boat is sent northward in the hopes of finding more coastal tiles...

Jackpot! :D

Back home, the city of Selenitic is founded:

...and doing so reveals some things that are good but also impose some responsibility:

And that island just became a massive priority. If I let Sareln get that, fully fux0r3d we are on many many wonders.
In any case, workers get immediately started on pasturizing the horses. Also, other than Azza beating me to it last turn two turns ago , nobody else has gotten their fourth city yet. So I'm still sort of "in the lead" there. Sorta.

My scouting warrior gets his first view of the Roman capital:

population 6, by the way.
Zooming in reveals something VERY interesting:

Let's see... palace, Oracle, granary... is that a FORGE?
That means, among other things, he has The Colossus and triremes available to him. This makes me very sad indeed.

Demographics!

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions:

• Oh, wow. I am, like, massively losing on this imports/exports thing here.
  
• Land control goes up for Rival Worst to the tune of ONE LAND TILE. WTFing F?
  
• Fintourist commits one of the single greatest slaughters in rbpbem45g history by whipping away THREE population points from Ace - size 6 to size 3. OH THE HUMANITY
  
• Sareln and Hydra get some growth - Dill goes up to size 4, and Madrid goes to size 3.

Oh, and my Soldier count went up notably thanks to my first axe in Myst. But, y'know, whatever.

[Viqsi]

Was hoping to get more of these out between tasks yesterday, but it didn't work out that way. (And then computarmachine go boom today... grar!)

But, hey, progress! I'm now only four turns behind!


T62: Peace has returned to our continent.

Did weariness finally have a visible impact or something? It's kind of been a while - been ongoing since T47 (discovered T48, as Fin's behind me in turn order), so that'd be 14 turns (it ended last turn). I have no idea if that means anything about anything.

Also while looking into interturn developments...

Hydra seems to have given up entirely on city naming conventions. Go figure. So that's now three civs with 4 cities (myself, Azza, and now Hydra).
Also, technically this was founded the same turn that I founded Selenitic. I'm slowing down.

And while we're on the subject of starting new cities...

From population 6 to population 4 and a Settler. Looks like Sareln's not goofing around anymore w/r/t starting new cities. Sent my warrior up, and...

...there's his pair of Warriors. What the heck are they doing together, anyways?

My exploring Fishing Boats sail on...

Clooooose... so close...
Continued scouting towards Hydra's territory reveals nothing interesting (so no screenshot).

Back at home, the horses are pasturized. And while I'm here...

...wait, wasn't that size 5 earlier?
Yeah, this was sort of a "oh, fuckit, might as well rush the damn thing" impulse.
Also, I'm kind of getting way too close to happy caps. Need to start looking into a fix for that.


Demographics!

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions and discoveries:

• That imports/exports count has not been improved by Selenitic's appearance.
  
• In addition to founding Barcelona (which adds 4 land tiles), Hydra has teched. Huzzah.
  
• Fintourist gets a significant boost to points from land control after his border expansion from founding Hinduism, and another boost from Ace and Roland Garros both reaching size 4. And he brought peace back to the world. Banner year for Fin.
  
• Azza's also had two cities grow - Broken Bones reached size 4, and Cash Cow is at size 2. Other than that, nothing new.
  
• 9000 new Soldier points? Yikes! Then again, 4000 of those are cities reaching sizes 4, 4, 4, and 2. Still... eep.

[Viqsi]

Only three turns behind!


T63: Today our once peace-loving cooks and farmers, having previously established mutually beneficial partnerships with docile animals, finally snapped and opted to go out and TAKE.

This is a most worrisome development for the moral future of our empire - this doctrine of TAKING. Something must be done!

Emerging abruptly from the fog to condemn us for this moral lassitude are some of our Buddhist brethren from the north.

While they are sadly unprepared to explain Enlightenment to our heathen folk, they at least show up without weapons in a gesture of peace and friendliness.

By contrast, our brutish men of WAR simply run roughshod through Roman domains, aggressively brandishing clubs as if they own the place!

In the process, a different type of yummy plant is discovered, which has been duly cultivated by the Roman Buddhists in partnership and brotherhood with nature. Truly these Romans are enlightened folk. Indeed, they have accepted the teachings of the Buddha throughout their empire!
Well, okay, that was last turn's development, but I didn't make a note of it at the time.

Meanwhile, our more cultured and friendly explorers, knowing nothing of the turmoil of amoral violent thinking back home, continue forth on their noble explorations - somewhat stymied, however, by the presence of more ocean tiles:

They are quite resolved to press onward, though. Much like our explorers in Hydra territory, who continue to do their duty despite nothing of interest discovered yet (yeah, still no screenshot )

Finally, our diplomacy corps, hoping to demonstrate the power of nonaggression, are able to ascertain that the Ottoman Empire has grown:

...while the Alliteration Allies have slightly shrunk:

Poor, brutalized Cash Cow. (Whipped for 1 pop, apparently.)


Demographics!

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions and discoveries:

• Still seriously losing on imports/exports. Perhaps this failure of peaceful exchange is the reason for our people's new aggression.
  
• OTOH, this could also have to do with all the whipping that took place. Literally everybody has whipped!
  
• Ottoman casualties: 1 pop in Roland Garros (now size 3). Diving Volley was founded at the same time. Also, he seems to have gotten another land control bonus to score, from a Land increase I didn't see at the time.
  
• Roman casualties: 2 pop in Dill (now size 2). I expect to see a new city next turn.
  
• Alliteration casualties: 1 pop in Cash Cow (now size 1)
  
• Numenorian casualties: Sanity. He went into Total Freaking Holocaust mode. 2 pop in Romenna (now size 2), 1 from Madrid (also now size 2). 91000 -> 34000 on the Demo chart!

On T60, the world population was 596,000 souls.
Today it is 395,000.
One third of the world is now GONE.

Will this madness* continue? Perhaps soon we shall find out.

*: What "this madness" specifically refers to - be it violence on the part of Pho'nicians, or all the whipping, or my being silly in the writeup, or any combination of these - is left as an exercise for the reader.


EDIT: Had the total world pop figures off slightly (my own wasn't counted properly). That's fixed now thanks to a new spreadsheet dingus whipped up around T67.

[Viqsi]

Down to two...


T64: First item of business: enlightenment has been achieved in Herbal Rome.

Their explorer, meanwhile, has RUN FOR THE HILLS:

So he's obviously seen Myst as a result - and the two axemen therein.
That second axeman, by the way, is headed to Mechanical.
Also, the "scout" in Myst is a temporary selection. It's actually working on another Axeman, for Selenitic - and for growth time.

I, in turn, continue my explorations of his territori-WHAT THE HELL IS THAT

Three gold tiles? THREE?
I am now very, very bitter.

Meanwhile, our explorers in Hydra territory, heretofore neglected, finally find something!

Missed the border last turn 'cause 1) I wasn't looking too hard and 2) I didn't bother to take screenshots for two turns in a row. Silly me!

And to the northwest... FFFFUUUUUUUUUU

We appear to be out of coast.
SO VERY CLOSE

Finally, I go and quickly verify that Azza's lands are unchanged:

...well, at least as much as I can so verify.


And a final bonus... we now have Fintourist's charts!

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions and discoveries:

• And suddenly, we're not losing as badly on imports/exports. Checking around reveals that this is because Myst and Riven now have trade routes with Cayenne and Dill respectively. Now if only Sareln had more cities... oh, wait, he's already got one Settler out and about, now, doesn't he?
  
• Ace reaches size 5. Other than that (and my own city growth - Riven rebounded back to size 4), there are zero population changes. No whipping or growth.
  
• Sareln gets a hefty score increase thanks to land control from his Holy City.
  
• Azza techs. No clue what, because I gave up on tracking that mishegaas ages ago. I suppose I could try again since I can break down graphs now, but I barely have time to keep writing these, let alone try and dissect GNPs.

Oh, yeah, and in between reports I finally figured out Fintourist's city naming scheme: random tennis-related stuff. Well, okay, I say "random", but three of the four are plays or techniques (Ace: legal serve untouched by opponent; Chip and Charge: an apparently common followup to serves; Diving Volley: successfully lunging towards the ball). Roland Garros bucks that trend, tho, as it's a tournament - another name for the French Open. (And that's why it confused the hell out of me. )
Yeah, I don't bother with tennis. Sue me.