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

[Mardoc]

Went ahead aggressively at Vienne. Ended up losing three HA to kill the spear, archer, and scout. Would have been over-aggressive if I weren't on the downhill side, expecting to finish TT off soon.

Nothing special about Vienne except being a holy city. And of course its location. But we'll need to build all its infrastructure from scratch.



Next turn we peek into Tolosa...and then probably simply pause for this stack of cats and axes to advance. At least it can use Vienne's roads to get there. But if Tolosa's only guarded by something token, we'll advance.



In other news, here's the size of the hole I've got to climb out of. Should be quite possible, I've got all the tools I need, I just need to spend the time to use them. But I could definitely benefit from another 20 pop all working coasts.

Of course, it'll get worse before it gets better; these size 1 cities will be rather expensive once they come out of revolt, and so will the new coastal cities I'm planting at home. But Currency + Code of Laws + Time should rescue my economy just fine. Especially with a Colossus and Mids to work with.



Finally, I've got my first possible indication of Ruff's presence.

[Mardoc]

As expected, we're not going to be able to just run over Tolosa like we did Vienne. I'll move on to check his iron city, though. It's at least on flat ground.




To the east - I bet this is the city Twinkle razed Delays us getting our trade routes for another couple turns, but it's hard to complain too seriously about our soon-to-be neighbor suffering a setback.



Finally, ingredient #3 in the GNP recovery plan completed EOT. No, not Confucianism, the courthouse permissions .




Possibly a better indication of how far we've got to go is clear after EOT, with no tech selected:



Yeah, that's half the rival best GNP - when I've got a holy city, well spread religion, and three wonders worth of culture to artificially inflate it Let's see how much we can boost in the next, oh, 20 turns, now that we can focus on that.

[Mardoc]

Some room for optimism: I'm first to Code of Laws. That implies that Sian doesn't find much value in it, since he certainly could have gotten here first if he wanted to. Which in turn implies that he's rather limited on land and doesn't have much maintenance. Now, I'm just barely getting to the point where Courthouses will be worthwhile, at the 10 city mark. I'm sure it'll be vital soon, as I've got at least another four cities to found and 2 to capture in just the parts of the continent I know.

But if Sian doesn't want CoL urgently, then he's probably at 10 or less cities. So I should have room to greatly surpass him; double his city count and my own cities don't have to be nearly as awesome to still add up to more.

My wonders scale with population exactly in the way that his don't. Colossus and Mids both have been a fairly mediocre benefit so far, but once I've got big cities happy-limited, they'll both be awesome wonders.

I've got a fair bit of non-demographic GNP that keeps me from being too far behind. ~600 beakers from the Oracle, another few hundred from city captures. I'm probably still behind, of course, but not by as much as I could be.

And soon I'll be getting double value from most of my trade routes, which Sian can't do anytime before Astronomy. Just have to keep that galley moving until he finds a Ruffian city.

[Krill]

Check F8 for world pop %ages.

[Mardoc]

Check F8 for world pop %ages.

Um. Do you have to know the other civ to have them show up here? I've got 41 pop at the time of the screenshot, which would put total world pop at 136, Ruff at 34, assume Twinkle's got 4, that leaves 57 for Sian, yet he's not listed. That's plausibly 9-10 cities, depending on his happy cap and if they're maxed yet or not. I definitely need to keep pushing growth! Well - three more pop grown this turn (1 for Lien, one in each of Belkar and Haley).

For the actual turn:

Why, yes, Twinkle, I would like an object lesson in why the prudent general doesn't send small forces ranging ahead of his main stack .



On the other hand, remember what I said about no good choices? He's now got an unfortified, wounded stack, and I've got this group advancing.


Along with these, one turn behind.


Now, granted, this was still a blunder on my part - he's got four turns yet before the earliest I can attack, enough to move his troops home, fortify them back to 15%, and heal mostly. And they probably have more promotions now. But at this point I think I'm far enough ahead that the most serious effect is I don't have as much army remaining after the war.

Twinkletoes also apparently ran out of steam in the Japanese bashing department:



On the home front...how very interesting! That's where Sian's been hanging out? I might be able too reach him with galleys once I get culture established. And vice versa - so I definitely am going to need culture here in Lien.



Lien's role is to grow big, working a dozen+ water tiles and cottages when Vaarsuvius isn't working them, and a couple mines. So I think this is where Moai will go. It helps that I've got the forests to speed its start and it's already founded with religion due next turn. Hinjo's almost as good (1 more coast, but fewer ocean tiles), but I need to put Moai up somewhere. Best not to delay, and the culture will come in handy too.

[Mardoc]

Fairly busy turn.
First up, a request from Ruff - I ended up accepting for now. Helps him, but he's not my main competition anyway.



Second, we've got another new city this turn . I've workers in the area, but nothing quite ready yet, so we'll go for max speed Granary for now. Sugar's the first priority, along with a cottage and a mine.



Third - Twinkle had a chariot in reserve? Or Ruff gave him horses, one of the two.


Bring back one of the HA from the front, to both protect Miko and squash the chariot if he sticks around. And whip a scout in Redcloak. The new archer had odds, with 4.5 Str vs 4.4 for the chariot, but that's not good enough for me to feel comfortable. If TT attacks and wins, though, the scout will keep the city unrazed until the HA can clean up.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

I thought this was CTON?

[Mardoc]

I thought this was CTON?

Not really. Just antisocial.

Twinkle chose the third option, but the RNG is with me:



Here's what he's got stacked up to resist me; good thing I've got all these axes and cats, isn't it?



Also, to the east - I wonder if that's Ruff's easiest copper? Be a bit of a headache to acquire without copper of his own...



Lastly, I'm thinking of this dotmap for southern ex-Celtia. Although I'm still waffling on it, maybe I should just make one very nice city instead of two mediocre fishing villages. OTOH, I'm Imperialistic with the Colossus, if there's ever a time for splitting a city to get more coast worked...


Of course, I can't exactly settle these cities until I finish Twinkletoes off, that little chariot adventure made that clear. My stack keeps creeping forward, but we're still probably looking at ten more turns here.

[Sullla]

The promotions on that Gallic Swordsman might be the worst group I've ever seen applied to a Great General.

[Mardoc]

The promotions on that Gallic Swordsman might be the worst group I've ever seen applied to a Great General.

It kinda makes sense if you realize that Twinkletoes gave up on surviving and was just looking to burn things. Those promos give the Gallic the best mobility it could have, I think, which let him go over to Ruff's border and surprise-burn a city. Which in turn only worked because Ruff has no metal or reason to expect a war.

Of course, that just pushes the question back a step. Can't explain why the response to me invading is to burn something Japanese.