[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[Mardoc]

Man, Zanth's being sloppy with this war. At least four units left as wounded singletons like this cannon; some of them only require HA to clean up, let alone the Knights that Slowcheetah also has.

Sadly, he's got enough of a tech/production edge here that he can afford to be sloppy. It really looks like Slowcheetah's just about gassed; I think he can barely manage to kill said singletons, he's not going to be able to stop Zanth's main stack.



On a happier note, Edirne's gotten Moai in place. Already worth 9 hpt base; 11 after Forge . Golden Age incoming soon too; I keep forcing myself to be patient. It'll be awesomely useful, but the longer we wait the better it'll be.

Edirne started on the National Epic next, due in 6. That huge food surplus will be darn useful for specialists in the long run, once we've got this place grown to use all those Moai tiles. After that, I need a Courthouse here, and it may be worth trying for a wonder or two, even. Ankhor Wat would pair nicely with a National Epic city, for instance . And Stone boosted failgold isn't the end of the world.



Bursa's also doing quite well. I've gotten it well above the threshold for 1-turning cats; I need to unlock more expensive units worth building now. Since Gunpowder is probably next, Janissaries will do as a hammer sink. Either that, or finally pick up HBR and put up Stable and then throw in some Knights between the cats. Bursa's finally gotten me up to 9th in soldiers, too - well, either Bursa or Zanth's mauling of Slowcheetah.



I revolted to Caste System, and turned the slider down a notch to 70%. I could only find three cities that I wanted to whip before the revolt, so it was definitely time. We're using both halves of CS; boosting a number of workshops, and converting citizen specialists to merchant ones.

Generally my demos were boosted, but there's still a long way to go here. I have to believe that GNP is BaII researching in a Golden Age; if it's Zanth I may have to just throw in the towel. I should get BaII's graphs in a couple turns, and be able to find out. Still, at least we're firmly in third.



Education comes in at EOT, so next turn I expect to require a fair bit of management. My seven University cities are all busy with other builds, so I need to figure out which one is the bottleneck and needs to pause its current whatever in queue. After that, they'll all add in universities as required for my speedy Oxford. I may end up building universities beyond those required as prereqs, but the payback analysis is a lot weaker when I can't count a share of Oxford as a benefit from those 200 hammer buildings.

Midterm goals: I'm hoping for at least two golden ages, ideally chained, to get universities, Oxford, banks, and other miscellaneous infra up. A third would be icing, but there's no way I can chain it. That will hopefully also boost my tech up to galleons/rifles, and then State Property. If it works right, we'll get there with enough time to eat Rome; Rome's lands plus State Property will hopefully be enough to put us in a competitive position.

Although...that said, I'm starting to toy with the idea of taking on China instead. Furungy's done almost as well as I have at boosting his demos, while Gawdzak's been sorta stalling, and I think relative tech matters a lot here. Maybe BaII would pile in, in exactly the way that TBS can't? If that works, I could move on to Jowy without too much difficulty. From a naval/galleon perspective, China and Rome are about equidistant, and State Property means I wouldn't care about distance maint either.

Ah well. Neither war is likely this month, possibly not this summer. Too much peaceful building left to do first. I've got lots of time to watch and ponder targets.

[Mardoc]

Foreign news first: Jowy got a French city. Not long now for Yuri, I think. My first settler pair has unloaded on the 2-tile island, waiting for a chance to found the city. They've got to wait for Lyon to fall, which is probably any turn now. Second pair will unload next turn on the 4-tile island and, I think, settle immediately. It'll only have like 3 tiles at first, but I might as well start putting hammers into a granary, right? Plus I can run an artist and try to steal the crabs from Rome as long as I'm in Caste.

Yuri's sent a galley toward me; I'm not sure if he's exploring for curiosity or looking to plant an escaping settler somewhere. I offered him a map trade to help him either way; either he gets to look around before he dies, or he learns of the unsettled corner between me, Zanth, and BaII, and plops a settler there. It wouldn't prolong his life all that much, since any of us could snuff him out, but maybe it's worth it to him to give Jowy/Gawdzak some more war weariness.

The Dutch/Babylonian front has sort of stalled for the moment; Slow ran out of modern units in Utrecht so I presume he and Zanth have been trading down. No change in borders lately but perhaps that's going to resume now.



After Education came in, I surveyed cities. It was going to be a 17 turn bottleneck, but I found a candidate I hadn't been considering for a U; Sinop. Turns out it's faster for it to finish its forge then go onto University than my next-best candidate could go directly for U. Sinop's U will never be worth all that much on its own, but three turns earlier on Oxford is worth a heck of a lot. And culture in a border city is always handy.


I'm a big surprised; my range of ETA on universities is between 9 and 13 turns - except Istanbul, which only has 5 turns remaining on its bank and a 9 turn U build. I think getting the bank 20 turns earlier is worth delaying Oxford by a turn, so it's going to finish that up first. Of course all my calculations will go out the window with the GA, but I'm not willing to pull out Excel to optimize any further. May end up losing a turn I could have had of Oxford; wait and see.

Any city which couldn't finish its current build, go onto University, and finish it also in 14 turns, swapped immediately to University. Surprisingly, there's only one city that fits the bill; I did better at leaving cities on small builds than I thought. Samsun's definitely a contributor which can benefit from having the university .



I'm going ahead and picking up HBR this turn; Slow's work with cats/knights suggests that's a decent pairing for emergency defense. Plus it's a good way to put most of the hammers into units that can be upgraded later on; Knights to Cuirs or Cavs is a cheap upgrade. Much better than throwing away Bursa's extra hammers. Next will be Gunpowder, after which I'm still undecided. Chemistry for extra hammers? Or start working toward Astro? Maybe unlock more civics at Theology and Nationalism? Or just pick up a solid unit by going for Rifling/MilTrad/etc? I guess I'm leaning Chemistry than Astro; foreign affairs still appear calm, my hammers for the next dozen turns are committed to the Oxford run, and getting a step closer to Steel and Military Science does give me nice emergency options.

Looking forward to the next dozen turns . Golden Age plus lots of infrastructure ought to make Ottomania improve a lot. Maybe even enough to start catching up a smidge .

[Mardoc]

Wow, quite a lot happening this turn. Furungy declared war on Yuri, more about that later. TBS declared on Furungy, and took back one of his lost cities I knew that front wasn't stable, but I thought it was going to be Rome who pushed it out, not the Cartoons. Good for TBS.

Also, . Furungy getting distracted in multiple directions has got to be good for my chances of pushing ahead of him enough to consider conquest.



At a guess, Furungy's looking to snipe cities from Yuri in one or both of the below fronts. Which aren't nearly so far away as I initially thought; neither was likely cheap when Yuri was doing well, but as it stands, I'm apparently the least of the vultures.







Here's a power graph, to show people's relative position. Lots and lots of dips. Also, it appears BaII is ramping up for something or other; not sure if he's thinking offense or just deterrence against Babylon. Wait and see...and maybe Bursa's production for the next while ought to head east to my BaII/Zanth border.


Finally, something I forgot to show earlier this turn. Demos! I've slipped back into 10th soldiers, which is getting a bit worrisome with all the action. On the other hand, everyone busy elsewhere means no-one's thinking of picking on me. I'll just keep dumping Bursa's ~60 hpt into units, 1/turn, and hope that builds me up by the time anyone's got a free moment.

On the bright side, Zanth and BaII must be collecting gold this turn, because my 30% science rate doesn't look too shabby at the moment. Still not high enough to actually be catching up, though.

[Mardoc]

Yuri lost two cities to Jowy last turn. Looking at civstats, Jowy only kept one of them. I probably should look in game to see which he burned. If I'm interpreting culture right, he burned the one next to my 2nd vulture city, which means I ought to move it 1SW and grab the clams instead of trying to fight Rome for the crabs to the north. That would guarantee two foods, and even better, put one of them in first-ring with (I think) a surviving nets.

Well, I'll move the longbow first, it should be able to see for sure. I'd expect to see yellow borders this turn, but I can just see the city tile from 1 SW.

It'd be a delay, since I have to wait for Paris to fall - but both Gawdzak/mack and Jowy have stacks nearby, so it can't be all that long yet.







Yuri may not even manage to survive long enough to plant an escaping settler, at this rate. This is all he's got left:


I did plant my first vulture city this turn. Definitely need to put more of a garrison in here, and/or some wooden walls, Athens-style. If I were Gawdzak, I'd be annoyed at Ottoman greed . I may even own the mainland corn for a while .



Demos...well, we've a glimpse this turn of where we want to be. First in GNP for the moment!

A couple caveats: This is 60% science, on a tech that almost the whole world knows, and I'm pretty sure BaII/Zanth are both saving gold.

Still, it's a good sign. I might make it there yet.



Haven't shown overview shots in darn near forever. So let's fix that.

First up, the Ottoman sea. Note the temporary existance of 1 Chinese island and a big Roman island. I don't intend to let that last . This area is definitely starting to pay off: Mugla, Adana, and Inebolu are all net profitable now. That'll improve a lot as they finish their courthouses and grow onto more coast tiles; just need some time spent to get there. Artuin and Sivas are newer and still have a ways to go; I'll get there, though. This whole area is conflicted between Caste and Slavery; I've got a fair number of workshops that appreciate the Caste boost, but at the same time Slavery has been the mainstay for getting the basic infra in place. I've probably got a couple whips left per city but nothing urgent.



The core's next. For the most part, it can't benefit from either Slavery or Caste anymore. Almost entirely cottaged, cities are big, and generally they're working tiles I don't want to whip off of. Exceptions: Bursa's got two, soon to be three workshops, whose output goes through forge and heroic epic. It definitely likes Caste. Konya and Keyseri like the whip, with lots of food and mostly coast tiles to lose in between whips. They've both got a lot of unhappiness stacked up. I'm leaning toward trying to wean them from the whip, though, and instead put that excess food into specialists. Oidu and Marsin...well, I've perhaps leaned *too* hard on the whip with these cities. Eventually I need to stop and let them grow up. They've finally gotten libraries and courthouses, which is all the urgent infra.




Finally, the borderlands. This area *loves* Caste system, as just about all the improvements I've placed since taking over have been workshops, and the area's finally growing onto the workshops. That can use up enough food that I don't really need the whip over here anymore. It's still a significant cash source, via coast tiles, but I don't have nearly the cottage power of the heartland.

These cities are a real mixed bag, mostly depending on how long they've been established. Going to be an awesome hammer powerhouse at some point, just needs to grow for a while. And Fin coast means they'll provide a decent cash-boost as well.

All in all, I've been working to bend the empire more toward permanent Castes. I might dip into Slavery once or twice more, to finish odds and ends of infra.



Finally, we've got the aspirational quarter of the empire. Look at all those coastal cities, and awesome cottages, and hills, and blank tiles that could easily be workshopped, and...

Just got to hope that TBS keeps him busy warring with Knights while we boost ourselves up to something that can take him.

[Mardoc]

So I was thinking, I really ought to pick, soon, if I'm going for Rifles or Grenadiers or Other. What's the main attraction of Rifles? They can be drafted! That's especially nice for a Spiritual guy who doesn't have to eat anarchy to do it...but does rather have the fundamental requirement of cities with excess happiness and sufficient population to be worth drafting. So...let's just see how many cities I have that I'd be happy to draft. Assume I'm not kicking things off for 20 turns or so, so even the size 1 cities ought to get big enough.

What's the limit? Ideally the city should be working tiles I don't mind losing, and should have enough food to replace those quickly. Cities with lots of food and working coast as their marginal tiles are probably best for the draft - also, cities without an abundance of multiplier buildings yet. Cities stagnating are near-worst for it.

Happy to draft:

Mugla
Inebolu
Sivas
New vulture city
Kayseri
Konya
Eregli
Diyarbakir
Malatya
Denizli
Eskisekir
Tarsus

Can draft:
Adana
Artuin
Oidu
Marsin
Sinop

Rather not, but it wouldn't hurt *too* bad:
Edirne
Ankara
Izmir
Bodrum

Are you nuts! Don't draft here unless Zanth is trying to murder you!:
Silifke
Gaziantep
Bursa
Istanbul
Samsun

That's...actually more encouraging than I thought. 12 cities with both a strong food surplus and nothing awesome to do with it, five more that I can draft and just get a little pain. At four units drafted/turn, that's enough to fill a whole 5-turn cycle without having to touch the cities it would really hurt, or almost fill the cycle without suffering much pain at all. And without having to double-draft anywhere, except maybe perhaps if I want to leave some cities entirely untouched.

Of course, half those cities are currently size 1 or 2 . I'm pretty sure I can grow them to six or above by the time I want to break out the draft, but it *is* an assumption.

Still, I'm feeling much more comfortable with the Rifling route, now that I analyze things. Losing Bureaucracy even temporarily will hurt, no doubt. We'll lose about 8 hpt, which is nothing, but also about 120 GNP (depending on how much civic upkeep changes). I think effectively 400 hpt bonus is worth it.

It'll be an easier choice if I use the golden ages well enough that GNP isn't our limiting factor anymore. Or if I grow the periphery well enough that Istanbul is no longer a dominant portion of it.

That said, always remember that variety in a stack makes a huge difference. Rifles are good - rifles plus galleons plus occasional cavalry plus siege is better. I need more than cargo for galleons - I also want to be able to take the cities just on the borders, defend against any counterattacks, grab the inland cities, secure all my other fronts. So if I can find the beakers and hammers to add in some cannon and cavalry, that would make this a lot more likely to work.

So, for a tech path...um. I still think Chemistry then Astronomy next. Ships cannot be hurried and are fairly vital. After that, either Steel or head toward Military Tradition, so I can start stacking up cannons and cuirs (for upgrade). Top it off with Rifling. Then get back to economic techs! Need state property badly if we're going to have a chance of war being profitable.

[Mardoc]

A couple things from civstats while I wait for work to end so I can play the turn:

Furungy got a city from Yuri. Not, mind, from Jowy; I think it must have been the tundra city to Yuri's south, therefore. Excellent news for making my vulturing look small; less excellent for me having a good target. He didn't retake the city from TBS, so that's looking like a good counterweight, at least for a while yet. It doesn't look like any other cities changed hands last turn - none of Zanth, Jowy, Gawdzak/mack got any new cities last turn. Presumably that's mostly repairing logistics and they'll resume shortly. Slowcheetah whipped eight times, a mixture of 2, 3, and 4 pop whips, so that ought to regenerate his army a tad bit.

Now that the turn's rolled, I'm 2nd in score, by a good enough margin that I might well keep it. Still about 300 behind Zanth, but 30 ahead of BaII and 40 ahead of Catwalk. Partly/largely due to having 25 cities, I assume, and being in a non-whip econ at the moment - but the fact my research rate has ballooned has to be helping.

[Mardoc]

Furungy decided to let TBS keep the city!?! That's...unexpected. Sure, the city wasn't worth a whole lot to Rome without taking away culture from deeper TBS cities, but...well, I guess it's related to why Sian survived in the first place, probably.

Also, proof of which city Rome got from Yuri's corpse.


Zanth's pretty well paused, as well. He remains at war, so I'm guessing this is a logistics pause, not a truce.



Jowy did, in fact, burn the city near the island I wanted to claim...perfect! City's going to be planted 1 SW as previously mentioned, as soon as Paris falls.



Demos, as expected, show the temporary nature of #1.


You can see that the #1 is, in fact, BaII, although by a smaller margin than I wanted to believe. Also, this screen really suggests that I need to be reevaluating my plans and turning south rather than west; I'm ahead of Furungy, but not by a ton, while Gawdzak is limping along near the bottom.


Of course, that assumes I'm capable of taking on the world's largest army. Sure, it requires many cho-ko-nu and maces/knights to beat rifles, but he *has* many units. You can see my temporary 9th place was in fact due to Slowcheetah being pummelled; my Power is rising steadily, but slowly. I guess it was too much to hope that even an excellent Heroic Epic would be able to keep up with big empires in a world at war.



Confucianism is getting nearly finished spreading, though! Only five existing cities and the new one still need missionaries. I may keep OrgRel for a while anyway, though, since nearly all my cities are on infrastructure still. It's certainly either OrgRel or Pacifism; I need all the help I can get to set up multiple golden ages, but at the same time, it's nice to boost the earned hammers.

Gonna fuss about that for a while.

Speaking of hammers, I did a survey: I'm currently working 15 workshops. That number will continue to increase as my cities grow; it means Chemistry is definitely on the menu. That would close half the gap to #1 hammers by itself, and hopefully growth will close the other half.


Bursa's an example of a city that would certainly appreciate a chemistry boost. 69 hpt now, 76 with a little help . I ought to be able to just about alternate between 1-turn cats and 1-turn knights...did end up deciding on Knights mostly because they're so cheap to upgrade again up to cavalry.



Finally, I just have to show off Edirne again. Isn't this just a lovely Moai city? And a potentially awesome National Epic city? Yeah, those purposes clash a bit, but this food surplus means soon I won't have to choose. The place still needs a lot of infrastructure, but it's finally got the hammers to put those up quickly.

[Mardoc]

And we're moving again, for the moment.

Course, it's a pretty boring turn. Fun stuff doesn't start happening for the next 3-4 turns or so, really, at least on my end of things. But foreign affairs are kinda dull, too.

Zanth is just sitting, healing or waiting for reinforcements. Slowcheetah's been assembling chariots, HA, and knights, along with cats, so Zanth may get permanently stuck if he waits too long.



Jowy took a French city, civstats implies he burned it. I think that puts Yuri down at something like 4 cities remaining; unless his neighbors imitate the Sianic wars, I think he'll leave this world any turn now. I don't really understand why Jowy's participating if he's only going to keep half the stuff he takes; I guess just to deny it to Gawdzak? A no-mans-land of all burned stuff might cause Gawdzak to delay any plans to continue romping west, sure.



Finished Gunpowder, started on Chemistry - aiming to hit 0 gold in treasury the turn Istanbul's bank finishes. Not much infrastructure finished this turn, and most of the city growths are just coastal fishermen, too. Demos look sad again, I'm hoping it's BaII still.




Realized that Chemistry will be worth more than 15 hpt - there are several cities that will want to swap from mines to workshops once that tech comes in. So it definitely makes sense as the next goal.

Civic-wise, I think I'm stuck for a while. Caste is paying well, while Slavery's of questionable utility. Haven't unlocked much else worth swapping for, except maybe Pacifism. But I'm hoping to get my last six missionaries built and distributed before I go that way - it's a challenge with most of my hammers going toward universities, though.

Our GP comes in three more turns, and I'm thinking there won't be much point in delaying the GA any longer than that. Sure, cities are still growing like weeds, but on the other hand, Mercantilism won't last too much longer - State Property's just on the other side of all these military tech, and it'll be worth a ton to me. Double the Merc GPP while I have them, that's an advantage of GA. Plus, well, now that some of the wars are winding down and BaII's preparing to launch a war, it'd be a good idea to get our tech boost now so we can look a bit more respectable. Up to 9th soldiers now, but still. Guilds/Gunpowder just won't cut it long term.

Ah, on that note, I've got research visibility on Rome now. 1 turn left for his Gunpowder research. Definitely implies south may be the direction of choice, at least for the Rifle/Galleon era. Looks like none of my options are easy; well, that's life.

[Mardoc]

Something interesting happened after all! It just had to wait for Gawdzak to log in.



Yuri's rumpstate looks like this, I believe:



And of course I went ahead and activated my vulture settler:



Net effect on GNP: down 16 gold, up 9 beakers, so the city costs 7 gpt from my empire. Which means it'll pay for itself once it grows to size four. Having that clams net from turn 1 ought to help .

[Mardoc]

Popped another one!



Demos sad for now. Although I think the MFG king and the GNP king are different people: 2metra's doing awesome in MFG with his big empire in a GA. GNP king is probably BaII still. I'm really looking forward to my GA to give me a brief period of catchup. Also looking forward to the universities and banks and Oxford finishing up. And I really ought to try to get back out of Mercantilism and start trading again.