AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[AutomatedTeller]

I think I'm going to offer money for one of Azza's golds. It's worth an extra 2 happy in ateam and an extra happy in a couple of other places that need it, so I'm thinking a fair offer is something like 5 gpt. besides, he needs help, big time. cornflakes is sending maces his way and just did a major set of whips. I may funnel a few xbows up that way, too.

[AutomatedTeller]

I did, in fact, offer 5 gpt for gold - didn't grab a screenie, dunno what he'll do. It's well worth it for me if it allows one extra citizen. Dunno if he will go for it.

Cornflakes asked for OB again, and then offered drama for it. I turned him down and didn't make a counter-offer.

My archer explored down to see if there was seafood near the silver and....

there is not.



It's hard to tell from this pic, but the fogged tile in brown square is ice.

Getting a city that gets that silver (useful for trade) means one of A, B and C, all of which suck. it's a town that will never get big. None of this analysis is for anything we need right away - this is low priority.

A) provides 4 lake tiles and the silver - but I can't get a lighthouse, so growth is slow.
C) provides 1 lake tile, the silver and a windmill on the tundra hill.
B) provides 4 lakes tiles, with a lighthouse and the tundra hill for hammers, plus that grass forest, but requires 2 border pops to get the silver. it's the one I'm leaning towards. it, however, does preclude the blue circle city, which is the only plant that allows us to get 3 cities on that peninsula.

The other symbols are placement schemes for other cities on this peninsula. The pentagon is, I think, the worst one - we lose a ton of coast. the orange diamonds are interesting.

I think the green squares are the way to go there - the northern one is just a fishing village like Magnum PI, but for us, those little villages are nice.

Killed that barb axe - sacrificed a new archer to do it. Whipped in a lighthouse in CHiPs- I think I meant to have 1 more turn of build before whipping, cause I didn't get much overflow.

Cornflakes power is large - I'm going to put ATeam and MASH on military, as well, to catch up. Feudalism will help a lot.

[AutomatedTeller]

And thus comes to what seems to be the end of one of the weirdest weeks in my life.

See, I live a few miles outside of Boston, MA. So, on Monday, I'm working and one of my co-workers says "hey - there was an explosion at the marathon"

And, of course, in the age of instant reporting, things got weird - a few dead, many dead, many hurt - there was a report of another bomb going off at the JFK library (it turned out to be an electricl fire, not a bomb) - and then as the night went on, the true actual numbers started coming in and it went from being "wow" to "crap, that sucks". And there were the stories of actual heroism and of little things, like the people and businesses in the area opening themselves up to runners or spectators - some runners apparently ran down to the nearest hosptial to give blood, after running 26 miiles!!

And then the ricin scare.

And then last night, I heard about an MIT policeman being shot and I thought "man, that sucks". And then this morning, I wake up and the world turned around again - half of the boston area was locked down - everyone in Boston and some of the surrounding towns were to stay in, not go to work, no public transportation, including trains to neighbnroing states!!

and now it's over - they have the guy.

And we can maybe find out what the hell this was all about. Cause, honestly... I have no idea.

[AutomatedTeller]

Status Update for turn 135:



This was taken with 0% science. Most of the commerce is from coastal cities.

CHiPS gets NE in 5 turns. Once it does, it will run 2 scientists and go from 8 GPP to 30 GPP, giving us our next GP in about 14 turns, which should be a scientist - might be an artist, of course. If it's a scientist, plan is to make an academy - though, we could bulb education and try to get liberalism. But I think the academy is the right thing - I don't think Liberalism will give a decisive advantage in this game and, frankly, we are not in any shape to take advantage of Education. We only have a couple of libraries and it take a long time to get the unis we need for oxford. And we need more settlers - at least 6, maybe more

units:



That settler isn't one of the 6 it's moving up to settle either mindy's moai or a supporting city south of SWAT.

Not enough workers - 9 workers for 14 cities is not enough at all. I may have everything but NYPD Blue and Ateam build a worker next. 5-7 more workers will help a lot.

Demos:



and power:



Jowy is ramping up - feudalism and upgrading some archers to LB will help a lot.

Commodore's city count is a problem:



as is 2metras:



We actually have more cities than cornflakes right now:

[AutomatedTeller]

btw - - I should say that I WHOLLY approve of "Yankee Stadium" being part of the "Empire of Evil"

Also, 2metra seems to have given up on his naming convention.

I'm trying to figure out if I should trade marble for stone, to get Moai. I could try to build Hagia Sophia, parthenon and/or ToA... and obviously, I'll wait until I get NE...

[AutomatedTeller]

k - time for more overview:

Buildings we've made:



That's actually more forges than I thought - ATeam, MASH, SWAT, LA Law and Magum, I think. Maybe this shows builds? I'll add one into NYPD at some point, perhaps. Not very many libraries - frankly, the research potential of this civ is insane, if we ever get it up and running without getting destroyed, of course. No courthouses, and that's something we'll have to deal with sometime.

Tech situation:



I'm up Paper and Compass on EVERYONE - and, as far as I can tell, no one has teched anything in the past 10 or 12 turns. What's up with that?

Jowy still doesn't have metal casting, so he's sway behind. 2metra doesn't have machinery, so he's a little behind. I didn't get resources - last I knew, cornflakes has no iron, so he has no crossbows and can't build knights.

And my tech tree:



I have everything before what's shown except HBR, which is probably next, after Feudalism (and upgrades of archers). I'm going to be very tough to attack very soon...

Cities:



Added a rax and building a mace. This next being ToA, but I think that a settler will be next. I need settlers pretty badly.



Worker->trireme. Commodore is on this lake, probably two or three cities. Need to be safe.



All mil, all the time. I might sneak in a forge at some point, but that's much later - the payback isn't great and 120 hammers is 240 hammers for units that aren't being built. Will kick out a few LB's once i hit Feudalism, since they are awesome, baby!!



Will whip in a settler soon, then forge, then probably a workboat for the whale once I get optics. Which is one of three things that is next (Optics, HBR or Drama).



Library as it grows, probably a LB and then another settler to whip in.



Rax, walls, LB.



NE, then it loses a lot of hammers running 2 scientists - may slow build ToA for the fail gold. Or, i might get it...

I have to figure out what to do abotu some of the tiles - I could farm them, which would allow for more growth. Or I could cottage them, but cottages seem dumb for a GP farm.



Grow, every so often whip out something. I should probably figure out a way to get this up to 4 hammers to get a bonus for the forge, or at least 2 so I can get a bonus for buildings. Maybe a watermill.



I need another worker up here. hooking up ivory will be nice for the civ. Next is banana - another worker would get the iron. Needs a lighthouse - this city will be a monster eventually.



hooking up the horse, then chopping a site for the whales site, then the sheep.

[AutomatedTeller]

Here's a question:

why is cornflakes building roads here?



As opposed to just clearing the tiles.

[AutomatedTeller]

And some micromanagement stuff around tile improvements:

In the west:



W -> Workshop
I -> Farm (why not use F?)
WM -> Watermill
C -> Cottage.

When I made this, I thought that Watermills gave me an extra commerce, which they don't until electricity, which is a long ways from now. Still, I think the watermills I have set up there are good plans.

The idea is to get enough hammers for Magnum PI for the forge to be useful.

I don't have an order for these, though I think I have to switch to making the other watermill by LA Law/Magnum, just so I can be sure i can fit them both.

Southern:


This is a little easier - The OC gets towns, CHiPS gets farms. MASH gets farms and workshops.

I'm actually thinking that guilds is really important to me, since I have relatively few hills but a lot of flatland. making workshops better is a good thing for me, I think.

[MindyMcCready]

Hello, back again. Sorry to hear about the bad news in Boston. Completely missed all that while I was on vacation,...just getting caught up now.

Wow, impressive score. Less impressive defensive position.

I'm glad that we're teching Feudalism. Really glad. That power difference between us and Cornflakes/Jowy is very, very alarming. I don't think that that difference is tech,....probably almost all units. Which means they've been in military prep mode for awhile.

I think that you have to assume that Cornflakes will be hitting us in 2-3 turns with those workers roading. Hopefully, hostilities with Commodore and Azza will tie him up and he's just being prepared. But with that power gap and Horse Archer mobility he could easily hit us pretty hard in between wars.

Jowy's ramp up also looks alarming. The Jowy chokepoint is underdefended. Long gone are the days where 5 or 6 ancient age units will deter an invasion. If LALaw falls we're going to have to whip our cities down to the ground to prevent the loss or razing of other cities due to forking vunerabilities. We need walls yesterday and unit NOW! to convince Jowy to send that army in another direction. I don't think that you posted, but I suspect that SWAT is underdefended as well. Again, if our chokepoints fall, we're in deep doo-doo.

That score is also a real problem. I can see Commodore taking further initiative against Cornflakes if Cornflakes were at the top of the scoreboard. While we're at or close to the top, no reason for him to do so. I think that we need to whip our score down substantially either now or the minute we get Feudalism. Please tell me that we're still in Slavery.

Sorry to go on like this, but the more I read and write this the worse I feel about our position. We're #1/#2 in score. There's a huge gap in military power. We have no standing army outside of city defenders; no mobility in our army; no catapults (to speak of). Our choke points will last 10 seconds against any determined attack. We have a border horse city without a single defender and we're extending our reach to the other side of lake blue. All the above = low hanging fruit.

Good points: Thank g-d for maces and it's good to see how fast we're now building military in some cities.

And last on my list of gripes (for now) is our overemphasis on commerce in a tech trading game. We need production. Guilds absolutely. Knights absolutely. But let's make sure that Jowy can't take our horse city (or threaten our core,...).

So,... did you miss me and my doom-saying ways?

PS: The statistics page shows building that are already built.

[AutomatedTeller]

I feel ok with our position. once we get Feudalism, I'm thinking we shut off research and just upgrade archers to LB, which will help us and Dogs to Maces. Yes, there is some worries about very short term.

Cornflakes is still in a hot war and just got attacked - we aren't the #1 power, but we aren't really an easy target - the extra promo on the archers doesn't show up in power ratings.

As for emphasizing commerce - well, we are financial. If we don't emphasize commerce, what the hell are we doing? Yes, we need production, very badly. We need settlers, we need workers, we need military.

I'm actually most worried about our tech lead - just like we shut out cornflakes when he had the lead, it think people are going to shut us out when we have the lead - which is part of the balance we run.

My emphasis is, I think, going to be:

Workers
Settlers
Military

for the next 10-20 turns, at least in the established cities.

In 3 or 4 turns, SWAT will have 2 or 3 LB and LA Law will have 1 or 2, with more archers being upgraded each turn. The one thing we aren't protected against, at all, is Commodore seaborne raid on MASH, so we need a trireme there. Fortunately, we'll get some warning of that.

We need Guilds for production, actually. And I don't really think I'm emphasizing commerce, at all. We are financial and we have (I think) 6 cottages. that's insane for a financial civ, though part of that is the collosus. that said - what the hell is wrong with emphasizing commece? I mean - we are financial with no cheap buidlings. What else will we emphasize?