[spoilers] The what goes where?

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 88 - 675 BC

This is a composite picture from Cale's land. He moved 2xSpears to 'threaten' my warrior. I ran him away (moving right and then left) ... he will run further via the forest next turn.



This land mass that my scout is on seems to be full of huts. Krill has done a particularly poor job of scouting this area. You can see me waiting for Black Sword just after I decided to pop the hut ... boring!



Ahh - that explains it. A separate island between me and Krill. I might send some settlers that way.



Now - haven't ended turn ... do I move settler as indicated or not? Only threat is barbarian in the fog.

[mostly_harmless]

Move the settler.
And I guess planting a couple of cities at the island should also be an priority, if only for the added interconti trade routes!

mh

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 89 - 650 BC

Firstly, Q has declared on Wetbandit (in-game log) and, so it would appear, raised two cities. I checked the diplo screen and compared that to my screenshot history - no change ... but I did know that WB had a settler and I seem to remember a city called 'Password'. It appeared that this city wasn't that secure?



Cale left a worker exposed. I decided not to kill it (building trust?) - warrior moved to tile NW of his current location. I must check if that red border showing in the screenshot below is still there.



Remember this ...

Here is some map guessing while we wait for the turn to roll. Not that anything other than healing & mining is actually going to happen.

I just mirrored the green line between the known capitals and put a circle around the other end. Once I have found Caledorn's capital - please remind me to cycle back to see how close this guestimate is.

... well - time to check out if I was close (I superimposed the guess graphics on an updated F5 map).



I am going to call that a CORRECT even though I think his actual capital is slightly more south.

Barb city available. I will be sending a chariot down to check it out.



Current Peace deals ...



And ...

Move the settler.

... I did move it. Just call me Mr Risk Taker. I don't think I will die not knowing.

Anyway - Q's city didn't go for the horses. It went as indicated (I think). I am moving the axe to red dot to confirm. Do I still take the city where my settler is? Answer - NO. Call me Mr Risk Adverse. I don't care to put all of my eggs in that basket.

Why? Q is cultural. I am half cultural. End of Story. Settler and chariot moved to blue dot.



Needs dot map?

And I guess planting a couple of cities at the island should also be an priority, if only for the added interconti trade routes!

mh

Also - Mr mh ... are you hankering for more involvement in this game? Would you like to run the micro for the cities that we put on this island? I have started another galley as well as some more workers / settlers for the island. My only proviso is that they have to have a San Diego theme (first city is called San Diego and other cities get names from places around San Diego).

Interested?

[Ruff_Hi]

I think I have Qs city placement correct. Here is the picture from last turn ...

... and here is a picture from a few turns ago showing a forest on that tile.

[Ruff_Hi]

Some more pics for you ... the red borders are gone. I would guess that the ex-city was on that plains hill just north of the netted seafood.


Changed some names of units. The scout is from this guy who I am sure spent some of his life somewhere near Boston.


Future tech plans for the next 120 turns .

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 90 - 625 BC

Offered OBs to BGN. He countered and asked for 4g per turn. I would only get 6gpt from OBs so I said no to that. I counter-counter offered with +1gpt. Waiting.

My Q city guess was correct. Guarded by axe, spear combo.

Killed Barb warrior that came up out of fog next to chariot / settler combo. Chariot took a beating (99% odds).

[Ruff_Hi]

Update: Logged back in near the end of the turn to find ...
- Qs city guarded by an axe ... no more spear
- BGN declined my 1gpt
- met plako who offered my OBs ... my trade routes jumped from 1 per city to 3 per

Go on ... ask me if I mind BGN declining my OB request.
Very glad I logged in at the end of the turn.

[Ruff_Hi]

Needs dot map?

Here we go. Just not sure about how to pick up the marble at the moment. Maybe right on top of it? Scout is heading south so should defog some more of the island.



Edit: And here is an alternative ...



I'll discuss these more in the T91 report coming up in a few minutes.

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 91 - 600 BC

First off - the exploring units. Mr Warrior in the east finds the ex-Wetb city (cleverly and incorrectly marked as an ex-Q city). Well - that is where I think it is / was.


Also - Mr Warrior better be careful in this area. Not sure how much Cale can be trusted (yet).



In the west - the big news is ...



This is (obviously) only a transit war. I asked for a cease fire. The scout found nothing interesting in the fog - I didn't update the dot maps above with that non-interesting news. He will be boarding and sailing off in a few more turns.

Re the above dot maps ... firstly, least appreciate some of the Geo-political landscape ...



That is Krill / novice(?) in the pink and to the north ... that is plako in the blue. I think that these two groups have run into each other a fair amount of times and they Krill / Novice would prefer to expand towards me (assumed, and probably true, weaker opponent). Thus my placement of cities on the Krill side of the island ... off the coast so that I don't have to worry about the Sirian Doctrine with them. I am not sure if that will help ... but it won't hurt.

Plako offered me OBs last turn (I mentioned that) ... why did he do that? Because he probably has a ton of open slots that he wants to fill ...



Something that I didn't mention last turn ... BGN 1-turned Code of Laws (a 600b tech). That is impressively scary. Here is the GDP graph to back it up ...



Finally - new city ... Arlington. This was the settler from the failed thrust at Q from a few turns ago.

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 92 - 575 BC thru Turn 97 - 450BC

Sorry for the abrupt break in the updates. I wanted to take a few days off to look at why I suck at Civ4. I'm middle of the pack at the moment and the main reason for that is that I am don't have any strong players near by. BGN is on my continent ... but right at the other end past Q and Cale.

Krill / Novice are to my north west ... but separated by water and an island. Plako is to my North, North West - water again.

Now ... why do I say that I suck? Well - it is pretty obvious that I do. I don't have any macro plans, I don't have enough workers and my micro is mediocre at best. My initial city plants don't have enough overlap and they miss out on the spring board that this set up provides.

Want an example? Ok ... when I first met Krill to my west ... I ceded that land mass to them thinking that they were on it. Later, when I found it was an island - I put together a nice dot map with appropriate 'off the coast' cities on Krill's side of the island ... but ... but ...

I didn't put even 5 seconds thought into how to get settlers, defenders, support workers, galleys into play to get that done. I am pretty sure that Krill / Novice had a 10t plan on how to get it all done.

Here is the start of their plan ...

T92


I responded with a modified plan and then started to execute towards a city on the south east 'C' by T98 (with 2xAxe, Spear and netted fish).



I log in on T96 to find ...





Bastard. Guess I should have had a spear there ... as I could see what units were on the tile next to my landed settler (nothing). I need to consider the fog more.

I did have an axe on the galley ... I proceeded to rename both gallies to 'US Coast Guard', one axe to 'Search' and another that I am sending over to 'Rescue'. Maybe they will read that I am trying to recover my ex-settler worker. My bet is that they are thinking ... 'brilliant - free worker'. They probably don't care that they have made an enemy here for the rest of this game. Honestly - how annoying can I really be to them?

Ok - axe in the galley attacks chariot trying to reclaim / rescue the worker ...



The results ...

I have 'rescue' (axe) currently on one of the gallies ... I am planning to land him next to Just Desserts (in the forest) next turn and see what happens. I am pretty sure that it will be suitably defended.

At least I know have a long term goal ... succeed in being a pain to Krill / Novice.