[SPOILERS] Back to Basic - Mardoc plays Augustus of China

[Mardoc]

Beat Twinkle by one turn
Not awesome, but it should knock a couple turns off of Currency, at least.

[Mardoc]

Surprise, surprise...Twinkle sees a road, Twinkle tries to pillage a road. Well...none of that!





Won. The other front, I can't really escape or have good odds, so let's at least delay this. Maybe spend a turn camped on his gold, scouting for copper or lack thereof. Moved the axe 1NW.





And, let's also check to see if Twinkle's local city is vulnerable, shall we? I've got a spear en route from Roy, and Belkar itself can whip an axe if I need one, so this should be cheap to scout.


All that said, I did offer a cease fire, and I expect Twinkle to at least seriously consider taking it. For the moment, my cities are pretty much all on peaceful production. Need to reevaluate this depending on what happens next turn - in particular, if TT gives peace and if not, if we can hurt him. If all he's got are chariots and warriors still, then Gergovia is at least razable and perhaps even a keeper.





Also, been a while since I've showed the reason I'm fairly confident about shoving back whenever Twinkle shoves me:



Those demos will let me make a mistake or two, I think

[Commodore]

Those demos will let me make a mistake or two, I think

Mardoc Mardoc
well, if TT is free of metal, axes/spears would be sufficient, I think. But I didn't scout enough to know that
well, wait - how good are archers?
I guess a certain Khmer game showed them to have some potential
Commodore
They are pretty okay
But best if used against hubris

[Mardoc]

Well, I was greeted by this:



Accepted. That makes this twice now Twinkle has traded a unit for 10 turns of peace...but this is a pretty important peaceful period for me, I want to dump my hammers into wonders and cities (and maybe Cho's) rather than into units.

Looks like Gergovia wasn't going to fall in any event - but maybe I also forced him to whip that archer? He whipped *something*, anyway.



In other, peaceful news: Holy Cow, it's amazing how much the modifiers can stack up:



Looks like I'll need to whip something more here for overflow to finish off the Colossus - that or use my shiny new worker (source of the overflow) to cut a forest here. Probably best to finish it via chopping, that's faster and saves a whip for another worker down the line. Or maybe even lets me simply leave Haley at a larger size - pretty soon we'll have some Colossus coast we want worked most of the time, after all. Fingers crossed...

Elsewhere, Roy just knocked out the settler for Durkon, which will therefore be settled in 3 turns. And Vaar continues on just growth for the moment, I want to give Roy a chance to regrow before I whip Vaar.

I think the next city to be founded should be Hinjo - you can just barely see the sign in any shot that focused on Durkon. Need to establish a Twinkletoes border before we can start on backfill. Backfill will be mostly fishing villages anyway, for which I want to wait for a finished Colossus and some available missionaries.

And Elan has started on my first chariot. Plan to use the first 1-2 for scouting some more. I think I'll also build at least a couple for potential anti-axe duty - although, hmm, on second thought, Elan should put up a Barracks first and a Stables if that's unlocked (not sure if I need Horseback Riding or not). Elan's going to be on mostly military duty for a long long time, best to do that with XP attached. That'll also keep me from inflating my Power rating too much in the near future, and possibly save some cash on unit upkeep (still 0, but we've got to start spending on that sooner or later).

Edit: the other nice thing about today's turn is that it's already in and played! Very good odds of seeing a second today, and depending on when that comes round, maybe even a third.

[Krill]

Just chop 2 tiles.

[Mardoc]

Only one bit of news this turn:


Decided to keep all our EP focused on Twinkle, we're only about 20 EP away from research visibility. Hope that doesn't come back to bite me.

Otherwise, things just keep keeping on.

Tons of overflow in Roy, I probably could have timed that better (like, after stone). Well, maybe I can whip another settler a bit after Durkon's built and the quarry's done, for now Roy's building a 2-turn worker.

Chopping a forest at Haley, regretting not having quite enough workers; I think I can hand build the rest of Colossus before I can get a second chop completed.

Debating if Vaarsuvius' next whip should go toward a worker or settler or lighthouse. Leaning toward worker at the moment, I really need to turn more forests into hammers. And I'd like to scout a couple more tiles eastward before I commit to Hinjo's location, so a settler can be delayed a smidge.

Speaking of scouting, I finished a chariot out of Elan. I'll build a barracks next, but I figure a scout might have chances to pick up XP on his own. And I want more map info ASAP. Was right, HBR needed for Stables. I might research HBR fairly soon anyway, depending on just how irritating TT continues to be. But we'll cross our fingers for Machinery and head toward Iron Working first.

[Mardoc]

Alright, Durkon's ready to be founded. I just need to scrape up a worker or two now, to come improve the stone and lay down some cottages and eventually a cow pasture. A bit sloppy of me not to have one ready, but at least as of this turn we're back above 1 worker/city.




In other news: oddly shaped border suggests probably a city to be seen next turn. Still no sign of Twinkling metal...

[HidingKneel]

And yet, no comment on 52?

I figured there's only so many ways to say "I have no idea what's going on" before it gets old.

But, in case it hasn't yet, here's another newbie question. I'm under the impression that the idea is to use mainly when cities are small. Is that right? If so, why? I would have thought that it would be most useful for large cities, to make some use of population above the happy cap.

As for the situation at hand... looks good to me. What does the Colossus do again?

[Mardoc]

I figured there's only so many ways to say "I have no idea what's going on" before it gets old.

Won't get old quickly, I think there's a very good chance that you'll ask something I need to think about. You'll certainly be the one to ask questions that Commodore wouldn't think about, cause he'd just assume I know .

But, in case it hasn't yet, here's another newbie question. I'm under the impression that the idea is to use mainly when cities are small. Is that right? If so, why? I would have thought that it would be most useful for large cities, to make some use of population above the happy cap.

I hope Commodore or Krill will correct me if I'm wrong, but a few things:

1) The larger a city is, the more food it takes to grow to the next size. Each whipped pop gives the same 30 base hammers, no matter how much food it cost. So you get more bang for your buck from your food surplus, to convert it at low sizes. On top, most non-resource tiles, especially early game, are only marginally worth working. You get some profit from them, but not tons. No such thing as Agrarianism here, and lots of resources are unlocked later.
2) Granaries make cities grow very fast. If you don't whip them down, I don't think you can keep up with workers.
3) It depends. That's a rule of thumb, not a rule of law. Once you have good tiles for your city to work, you want to work them. Aka - once you have cottages in place and growing, or some of the later techs in play. Also, as you add more multiplier buildings to your city, that biases things toward working more tiles.
4) Also, the simplest bit. Slavery is unlocked ridiculously early. Other labor civics are not. So when you have little cities, early game, you also have no choice - but later on with bigger cities, a situation might arise where you'd rather something else.

All that said - I think the whip is to be used any time you have the food, happiness, and can afford not to work the tiles you're giving up. It's certainly better than 'Avoid Growth'

As for the situation at hand... looks good to me. What does the Colossus do again?

+1 commerce to all water tiles, until mid-game (Astronomy tech). Especially good on a map like this one, where grassland is in short supply, but I can plant a lot of fishing villages.

It's coming along nicely, if I do say so myself. Heck of a time for Ruff to go on a trip



Another project that's tantalizingly close, but not yet here:


Slightly worse than a coinflip, but a shrine is hardly the worst thing for my situation - already 5 Hindu cities in the world, and more incoming as soon as I can.

At least I did manage to accomplish one thing this turn. I'm still wondering if I put it in the right spot, or if 1N would have been better. Current spot lets it alternate working cottages on the southern grass with Belkar; 1N would have been more food sooner. Ah well, what's done is done.

[Commodore]

That spot is massively better. You can position 1-movers 2SW to "fork" a defense for either Durkon or Belkar. Defensibility, man!