[SPOILERS] Lewger goes for the Bigwyn

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Booo sync errors!

I agree with you that the only feasible win for us would be culture, though I think even that seems a bit difficult. If we want culture win we need, need, need Sistine. I am totally fine with going for that. Just because I did it in PB6 doesn't mean I can never do it again. We're not winning space or domination, and is diplo win off? I'm fine with going for culture. It can be fun. SO yeah lets try to get sistine!

BTW I think we should dry whip a walls in A7x first over the theatre.

well we can do both. might want to if we don't get first ring once we get out of revolt. we'll have a more clear picture of if walls are needed once we get out of revolt - still 5 turns away. ill post pics ina second.

I think diplo win is on, but Ill be disappointed if anyone in the top 6 votes diplo win for another team.

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our stack in a7x is getting bigger:

next turn, we add 5 maces, 2 cats, and an axe. I think azza planned to counter attack and underestimate how many troops we could stuff in there


the stack on the hill N of this one is the same as last turn
not sure if preparing to hit A7x or to going towards living end/popol region. maybe just hanging out, zone control style.


thats what is left in presets. also, i moved the navy here where i can hit 3 cities. won't be able to if he defends them, but i'll force him to defend all points of his empire and pillage the fish. if he ever leaves that mine so it can't be hit by a mega stack i might offload there.

picture dumps:


had to build another cat here, not enough overflow to finish sistene in 8 if i build a mace


whip. taking volsung out of whip cycle for awhile after this to grow tall and get the market built. galley is to establish a quick ferry between east and west.


3 turns for national epic. theatre is the cheapest building that will give me more specialists - market takes 9 turns with all the hammers. i can support 5 specialists with only -1 food, so im going to pop out a great person as soon as possible. if its an artist, golden age. if scientist probably golden age, although we could use it to bulb education. if its an engineer, we'll have a tough decision.


just to show off micro. 1 worker chopping plains forest, 1 worker roading to iron. next turn the missionary converts city to judaism, then chop goes in to complete granary, and road to iron completed. I have "avoid growth" on here for 1 turn. following turn granary is complete, the borders expand and both workers are free to start mining the iron, and fish are netted immediately. we'll grow to size 3 very quickly and pick up the iron, fish, deer.



not really sure what the purpose of this fort is


Brick lost his horses, so I gave him this deal. i would have re-offered the same deal serdoa offered us to serdoa, but he isn't producing any gold . may have missed out there.


demos going 100% into music.

[Brian Shanahan]

Well any sca?

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game was paused for 4 days, so nothing has happenned. ill be playing in a couple of hours once I get home from work.

I did see that azza played on civ stats, and didn't retake A7x (no score changes). So.. I'm hoping he attacked and suicided a bunch of units <G> we'll see.

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ok so this was a relatively boring turn, despite the war.

I offered two diplo deals. I resent the horse for maps deal to Brick, which was apparently lost when we reloaded. he logged in before I ended my turn and accepted. I also sent this deal:

Not really sure why i declined it in the first place. he was only making 4 gpt, so i couldnt offer it for 5. our loss for declining the first time, I guess, but 4gpt for a resource he already has - if he wants to take this I won't complain.

This is what azza is doing with his troops:

nice zone defense. I think I've made him paranoid about the living end . presets has 4 archers, an axe, and 2 cats defending. living end just has an archer but he can reach it with this entire stack in 1 turn.

If anybody has a suggestion on how to push forward, I'm all ears. my plan is too slowly build up my navy to present a real threat to muse, and slowly build up the army in the east to present a real threat to the living end, and force azza to choose which front he is going to defend, and push on the other fronts. it will take time though because the only real force I have is holed up in A7x.
good news is I don't see anyway he can retake A7x. I've even held some of my troops (2 cats, 3 maces) back in the odyssey for flexibility, and to not reveal my full power.

to that end:

I dumped this cat and mace back on eastern land, once I realized they weren't really needed in A7x.


I think its time to settle Romance7Kingdoms. popol is 2 turns from size 8, I'll start the settler then and 3-whip or 2-whip it.
Then I can use Romance city as a canal city to bypass living end and hit blink 182 directly. A galley compelted in volsung this turn, so I'll be able to send 4 units through there. azza only has an archer garrisoning that city, and its pretty far from his main stack, so this should be fun .

Brick is making me paranoid:

he's losing the war to serdoa, and there's no reason he would want to screw with us. But I know he has at least a warrior in this galley (he picked it up, it was exploring the greenland shaped landmass to the east of rama's journey) and there's no reason for him to continue westward with this galley - I think he has our maps anyway??
anyway, he can hit shahnahmeh in 1 turn if he decides he wants to fuck with us. it was undefended, so I moved the archer from song of roland into it just to be safe. roland completes a crossbow next turn, which can hang out as a garrison for a bit.
next turn borders expand here, both worker mopve to the already roaded iron to complete it in 3 turns, the workboat immediately nets the fish, and we should grow to size 3 in 2-3 turns as well.

this was fun:

I grow to size 9 in 1 turn here thanks to all the farms - so from size 7 to size 9 in two turns. I need this city to size 11 soonish, to pick up all improved tiles once the workshop is complete (and pigs back to maths). then it will have +3 food despite the mines and workshop, and can grow onto coast or 1-pop whip off to build navies quicker. I may give the pigs back to maths at size 10, though, so maths can grow quickly.


mahabrata, by contrast, is a frustratingly slow grower. I've whipped this city once (the forge), it just doesnt have a lot of food to grow quickly. it will be a beast of a city at size 12-14, trying to work food here to get there asap. the plan is workshops in all the plains tiles, farms in the 3 grassland tiles near the lake, and a second cottage on the still forested tile. remaining forests will eventually go into a market.

demos:


can someone guess if we have a stronger economy than serdoa based on this demos and this graph? :

clearly we have a better peak gnp, but I think he may have a higher breakeven rate than us, I can't tell


btw, I think we are ready for code of laws now. im getting less and less use out of slavery, need to let the cities grow (slavery mostly for the fresh cities to get buildings built quick) and we have a lot of workshops built.
It will have to wait for our golden age, of course.

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other notes: we'll gain graphs on slowcheetah next turn, and research visibility in 4 turns. I plan to research 90% of philosophy and then build up another pile of cash. I have a suspicion slowcheetah is delaying liberalism until he feels threatened, to get the best tech possible. so w/ visibility we have the option of researching philosophy, paper, and calender to the limit, then turning on research to go through all of them and overflow a great amount into education. if it becomes apparent we can't beat him we can still go w/ the original philosophy->nationalism plan.

plako took 2 cities off merohoc. pretty sure they are down to just 1, maybe two cities. I don't expect them to survive much longer. merohoc's last city is on an island, shared with 2 brick/yuri cities. so after he's gone plako may decide to help serdoa finish off Brick as well

i've got the trieme heading over to make contact w/ merohoc, the only civ we haven't met. but that may prove irrelevant soon, perhaps I should turn him around?

[Old Harry]

It's a bit hard to give tactical advice from those pics, they're a bit too close in and I don't see how many soldiers are where. But it does sound like the navy is your best bet for further gains. Perhaps even on Azza's island?

Is there any chance of forcing him to move his zone defense away?

[Lewwyn]

El Cid just needs to keep pumping galleys so we can get enough to really threaten and take out both Azza's island holdings and threaten his capital/presets/muse. Not so much we can do land based. Attacking Living End and Presets at the same time might work, but still need a lot of units.

[Bigger]

It's a bit hard to give tactical advice from those pics, they're a bit too close in and I don't see how many soldiers are where. But it does sound like the navy is your best bet for further gains. Perhaps even on Azza's island?

Is there any chance of forcing him to move his zone defense away?

lewwyns right - we could, but it would require a lot of units. and if we attack either living end or presets, we can probably take the other one after he moves, but it will basically require us sacrificing another large stack like we did originally to take A7x.

I think you and Lewwyn are right, we need more and more navies. also threatening blink 182 w/ the canal city might force him to move his zone stack further south, which isn't bad if we want to threaten presets.

[Bigger]

sorry Brick. Want to help but 100 cash is a lot and we don't need happy.

actually surprised plako, slowcheetah, and/or commodore aren't doing something to help him.

anyway he has our horses. next turn i can gift him iron in case he loses it from xenu. serdoa turned down our horse for gpt deal. can't say I blame him, but still not sure why he offered it in the first place.


azza moved these units out of presets. since he can hit A7x, w/ no cultural borders, with 5 cats next turn - moved all the units i could into the city, minus 2 cats. ok, 2 more turns and we regain our 14 culture and dry whip walls. ill feel much more comfortable then.

overview of the west:


overview of the east:


started sistene chapel in gilgamesh:


odd build during war time. but really this represents our only hope for a victory this game. that said, I won't be that sad if we miss by a turn or two - the fail gold conversion is amazing.

maths popping out a 1 turn mace:

in 3 turns Ill give it back the pigs and try to get it up to size 16. it will have to go food heavy to grow fast - it can pick up all mines and 2 workshops at size 16. I'll desperately need a courthouse then as well.


i deprives aeneid of food to squeeze this crossbow out in one turn. azza's just making me nervous with the wandering stack of doom, trying to get more units in A7x asap.


overflowed the last galley (34 hammers) into the market. going to work this for 4 turns, 2 pop whip it, then do the same. trieme may loop around to cid, but probably ill use it to protect a navy going through romance7kingdoms to hit blink 182.


2 pop whipped this courthouse for overflow. but the growth is really slow in this city and I almost have all the tiles improved, so I probably won't whip much more.


this is my novice impression. we could have grown last turn, but wouldnt have benefited from the granary. Iron will be mined next turn and ill cottage the grassland tiles, workshop the plains tiles, and chop the tundra forest to get a forge, lighthouse, and library built.


i've stopped whipping king arthur. it has improved tiles to grow on and can be a very nice hammer city now once I get all the tiles improved and it grows. this will be the last city in the west to get all its tiles improved - maths, el cid, and himel all lack only 1 tile that has a worker on it improving it now, then they'll all move to finish up king arthur. then we just have 2 tiles on the aeneid that were previously too close to azza to risk improving - and after that workers will pretty much be on road spaghetti duty, for lack of anything else to do.



we now have graphs on slowcheetah:



nothing shocking here, but I was suprised how much he is beating serdoa in MFG and foods. he is also beating us in espionage output (unlike serdoa or azza) - which is not surprising, I guess, since he founded Confucianism. luckily he hasn't put any eps on us. if he continues to ignore us, we'll have research visibility on him in 3 turns, which will be useful.however, I'm not sure we have any chance of getting liberalism, unless he completely ignores it. we're almost out of cash and I'll have to go max tax next turn. he is making 201 gpt and has 950 saved up. I believe he is going on a philo/edu/liberalism push soon. I still think we can get nationalism before he does that or on the same time frame, though,and anyway should be able to build it much quicker (with marble, IND, and hopefully a golden age around that time frame).

on that note, I apprently didn't take a picture of shahnahmeh. But I need some input. it finishes the national epic at EOT. im not sure what to build next. the options are:
1) theatre. only takes 3 turns. quickest way to get 5 specialists and get great person asap. the big negative is the building will be mostly useless long term.
2) market. takes 9 turns with current build, although I may be able to 1 pop or 2 pop whip it. biggest advantage is that merchant specialists will be more useful than artists.
3) courthouse. takes 7 turns. most useful building - its 8 gpt maintenence I think and badly needs a courthouse. if I don't build it will have to wait until I pop the great person to whip it in. the big downside is that it can only hire one specialist - so 4 even though the city can support 5.

another piece of bad news - azza finishes monarchy at EOT. im pretty sure he's going for feudalism next. longbows will make it very hard for us to push on .