[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

Quickly, full report and comments in the evening.

WilliamLP offered OBs - accepted
Pindicator canceled our OBs (we helped him earlier!)
This means our scouting way is closed. We are getting trade routes to WilliamLP (so no economic loss, yay), possibly through pindicators lands and therefore I hesitate to declare war on pindicator to get through. Deep knowledge of trade routes would be handy here.




We could offer OBs along with some kind of a clams-crabs deal indicating that we will declare and pillage pindis clams if he does not accept?

[Old Harry]

So he's trapped our galley? We don't have much choice then... But how to let him know that?

I think sitting next to his clam and offering clam in return for OBs might signal aggressive intentions. Pillaging that clam does him some damage, does he then build a galley or two of his own to stop us elsewhere or are some on their way around his coast already? I'm getting flashbacks to starting next to the guy who got the first kill in PB13 .

The alternative is to move back down to the border of his new city and ask for OBs again, with the understanding we won't be using OBs to scout him.

Presumably he doesn't have Metal Casting, so declaring to scout and pillage a bit isn't a big risk, but it does piss off an aggressive player. I'm sure we'll come to blows at some point (we need to beat him to Astronomy) but do we have to do it now? (ie I don't have a strong opinion which is the right move - sorry!)

Where did the scout teleport?

[Fintourist]

Turns 108-109

Sorry guys for reporting slack! I'll try to make up a bit now!

Can you check in F4 if WilliamLP or Dtay have been in any wars with his neigbours?

I remember checking it last night, but I'm not 100 % sure what I saw anymore.. I think there was nothing visible besides pindi-dtay conflict, but I need to double-check.

Well done making it this far with a sandbox. That crap gets tedious!

Thanks Ceil! I enjoy planning and sandboxing, but keeping the sandbox updated and playing every turn twice is indeed tedious at this stage..

So he's trapped our galley? We don't have much choice then... But how to let him know that?

Where did the scout teleport?

Scout is now squeezed between pindi's and Barry's lands:




I was tired (and slightly wasted) yesterday evening so I postponed the decision how to proceed. Today I ended up sending this:




That's trying to be a "let's be friends"-type of message with clams being a hint that there is a chance that we could pillage them if we wanted. Let's see if this will be misinterpreted in some disastrous way If he does not accept I say we just declare and go through without pillaging the clams (unless he murders our scout). As you said, no need to piss off a neighbor unnecessarily, but sooner or later we might well end up fighting..

Offer Azza OBs - I doubt it's worth declaring if he declines, perhaps offer 10/20 gold instead?

Offered plain OBs and Azza accepted, so our scouting WB got through!

Azza should not have much map knowledge and he does not necessarily know that this is only a 3-player continent. I'm hoping that he speculates with us looking to other directions and believes into long-term peace until its too late... (well, who knows what happens, maybe we end up being busy with pindy/cyneheard/CH instead)




Note that Azza is building some aggressive-looking roads to our border. Based on scouting we should not be in any danger though. Note also that we now have a sentry chariot N of Flossie. We could park it inside Azza's lands, go scout the battlefield between Azza and Mardoc or just keep it hidden? Note vol.3: Azza has changed his plans and is going Sailing instead of Construction.

Btw, here is a map of Azza-Mardoc border area including some signs that show my guesses for the locations of Azza's cities that we don't have vision (based on connected resources) (just rough guesses, not trying to hit the exact city tile):

I presume dtay wouldn't benefit from OBs for a while, so I don't see a problem offering them. Perhaps while he can't see our scout?

Hiding our scout is now too late, sorry! I still haven't offered OBs to dtay, because I speculate that he might get routes via whosit's + CH's lands and not have full set for all his 16 cities. But maybe we just do it now despite the fact that with Temple of Solomon + Colossus + a great start he is definitely a major contender?




We also met another civ, Ruff, who landed a scout to our tundra:




Ruff is in war with CH, probably because he wanted to get his galley through. I wondered a little while and decided to offer him OBs and save him the trouble. He surely gets trade routes to us, but I thought that slightly stronger Ruff is very like someone else's problem. My current OB theory is that if CH's or Whosit's or dtay's culture touches with Ruff there is a chance that we could get trade routes, probably not though.

The above screenshot also illustrates the ongoing worker chaos. They are preparing the founding of three mediocre cities (T111, T115, T116)




Lucky is living up to its name and got our first Buddhism spread I'm also planning to whip a settler in Izzy in couple of turns and found a weak fishing spot in the very south (marked with "City S"). The reasoning is that without getting 2nd ring borders that city is absolutely useless and caste artists will be by far the most practical way to get that fish resource inside our borders, which will improve the status of the city from useless to weak, but worth settling. Lucky will whip the WB for the fish, while Nina will produce 2 WBs, one for whales, one for our most southern tundra/ice city on the main continent.

Cheater Hater's scouting impi is currently inside Nina and is slightly annoying. I don't expect him to start a conflict, but I still try to move our units in a way that secures that no real catastrophes are possible

Alfie is already waiting for Bureaucracy and wants to grow to size 50..




The southern grass hill cottage will be ready next turn and Alfie will pick it up at size 11. Market gives us extra happy for whales + ivory and in near future we will have silk connected as well. Jelly Bean and Butterscotch are currently growing 6 hamlets/villages for Alfie (so next turn we will have 13 out of 15 possible cottages being worked, one grass hill and plains tile still remaining).




Three more turns until our GA-providing great person is born..




Englebert will reach size 8 and 51 GP points in time. Workers are already preparing the irrigation chain so that we can irrigate that wheat once civil service comes in.




The happiness situation in Hazelnut looks already quite different compared to situation two turns ago (damn, screenshot failed, H would have 19 turns of whip unhappy if we would whip it this turn). Which is good, because we will whip the sity in 3 turns again..




Our future Moai city has it a bit more difficult with the happiness situation. Anyways, we will double-whip a HA there next turn and overflow into Moai, which will be then completed (appropriately for the GA).

Demos...




... have looked better, but our position is surely competitive. Settling again new cities and adopting bureaucracy surely helps. Based on victory screen dtay has more pop than us, but I'm not too worried. I think we have converted a fairly large amount of pop points into infra that will help us in the long-term (and obviously our future military campaigns will really determine our success). Of course I have no idea if other civs with high score have done it also, but if I would have to guess I would say that we are one of infra leaders.

Rival best MFG is just crazy That must be someone in a Golden Age or otherwise we can all start packing

And one more unanswered topic:

Speaking of which Mackoti's PB13 thread talks a lot about what an aggressive player Pindi is - something to beware of... Perhaps an Astro-Galleon amphibious strike against him might be in order?

I'd like to bulb Astro this game for the 20% extra beakers and surprise element - but I have a feeling that isn't compatible with an Economics bee-line?

Yeah, I like Astro very much as well. Organizing the bulb will be very hard in practice, almost impossible. CS + MC will unlock Paper, which will unlock Education and Machinery will unlock Printing Press. We could avoid meditation in order to not unlock philosophy.. Luckily I have a strong faith in our economy and that we can research the tech normally at a competitive date.

[Old Harry]

Nice report

Scout is now squeezed between pindi's and Barry's lands:

Do we have OBs with Barry? Can Scout even get out that way?

That's trying to be a "let's be friends"-type of message with clams being a hint that there is a chance that we could pillage them if we wanted. Let's see if this will be misinterpreted in some disastrous way If he does not accept I say we just declare and go through without pillaging the clams (unless he murders our scout). As you said, no need to piss off a neighbor unnecessarily, but sooner or later we might well end up fighting..

We could move the galley back south and avoid conflict. But you, me and Pindi all know we're never going to be best friends. You've given him a chance so I have no problem declaring to move through (and maybe even do some pillaging if it's on our way ) I'd offer a cease-fire once you're through, peace treaty is no use to us if he's got gaps along the coast.

Azza should not have much map knowledge and he does not necessarily know that this is only a 3-player continent. I'm hoping that he speculates with us looking to other directions and believes into long-term peace until its too late... (well, who knows what happens, maybe we end up being busy with pindy/cyneheard/CH instead)

A fake war dec to cover our troop buildup would be nice.

Note that Azza is building some aggressive-looking roads to our border. Based on scouting we should not be in any danger though. Note also that we now have a sentry chariot N of Flossie. We could park it inside Azza's lands, go scout the battlefield between Azza and Mardoc or just keep it hidden? Note vol.3: Azza has changed his plans and is going Sailing instead of Construction.

I'd really like to see what the front lines are like and what units Mardoc has got on the border, was it a purely ancient-era fight or were cats/HAs involved? If I were Azza I'd be using the ten turns of peace to send his victorious units to extract something from us - I think he's a nicer guy than that - however those roads look ominous. Find that stack! Did Azza get HBR in the end? We may need a few more spears... If so I suggest showing him the new Horse Archer to let him know we don't want any trouble... Perhaps add it to the staging tile in view of the mountain?

Hiding our scout is now too late, sorry! I still haven't offered OBs to dtay, because I speculate that he might get routes via whosit's + CH's lands and not have full set for all his 16 cities. But maybe we just do it now despite the fact that with Temple of Solomon + Colossus + a great start he is definitely a major contender?

Offer them for cash?

Alfie is already waiting for Bureaucracy and wants to grow to size 50..

Yeah, I like Astro very much as well. Organizing the bulb will be very hard in practice, almost impossible. CS + MC will unlock Paper, which will unlock Education and Machinery will unlock Printing Press. We could avoid meditation in order to not unlock philosophy.. Luckily I have a strong faith in our economy and that we can research the tech normally at a competitive date.

If we want to compete for the Economics merchant following a banking bee-line I'm not sure when Astronomy will fit in, but if the choice is between knocking out Pindicator's coastal production and getting the GM I'm not sure what I'd choose... He won't have Amphibious units unless he has another war or builds the Statue of Zeus, so our coastal cities are probably safe with a zone-defence force and two or three decent defenders in them for the next 50 turns.

[retep]

I don't think Azza would attack you. He already has his hands full, attacking you would only speed his deadline and Azza is not the type to do that.

Also this post is mostly because this thread is at the botton of the first page about to go to the second page any moment now...I can let that happen

[Fintourist]

I was blocking someone just when I was about to take screenshots.. Let's see if I can manage do that later today/in the evening. The big picture stuff is:
- Civil Service is coming in this turn (eot111) and our first GP is about to finish. Next turn we will launch our first GA.
- We settled "Pickle", our 16th city, two further settlers were whipped (3rd next turn)
- Moai finishes this turn
- We have a sentry chariot running through Azza's land. Our border area is more or less empty, well not empty, but Azza does not seem to have huge defensive forces there (as was to be expected)
- dtay accepted OBs and we are now scouting his lands
- We found pindicator's capital with our scout
- We chatted yesterday with OH for a good while and have a rough plan reg how to produce Great Persons in this game (and also a rough plan how to invade Azza, timing still unclear)
- PB 13 post-game discussions are affecting negatively my civ morale, but I'll try to maintain a decent level of play until OH is ready to pick up turn-playing responsibilities (Young Harry deserves some quality time now that PB13 has finally ended ).

[Fintourist]

Turns 110-111 pics

As an addition to above post:




Another plains hill start! (pindi's capital is actually pretty close, he simply has not prioritized his southern coast)




Workers are busy again!




One more turn until Bureaucracy

[Old Harry]

Yay CS!

You know how I'm a bit too concerned with the scoreboard? I'm happy that we're bobbing along in the group around third place, but I wondered how Dtay and BGN have jumped ahead so far?
- Dtay is EXP/PRO and has a habit of starting fast anyway, he's got some good wonders and he could be gaining a little land using Stele's, but not much, so I don't think his score is totally false, but he's got to slow down after the landgrab phase.
- BGN is CRE/PHI, so he could be in a similar position to us but with CRE land points and the Philosophy bulb inflating his score. How well he spreads Taoism could dictate his tech rate later - something we failed at in PB13...

I feel a bit better about BGN's score now, so just need to worry about Dtay from here on out!

On scouting - further west through Pindi's land, trying to end turn inside cities so he doesn't spot us? I'm surprised he's happy to just let us troll through his territory - we'll cancel OB's the second it looks like he wants to scout us, right?

[Old Harry]

Managed to get the mod working at work so had a quick nose around. Apologies for length and randomness...

General Stuff:
- Cheater Hater's Impi is a bit near our worker at Pickle for comfort. How about covering him with our fogbusting Axe?
- You don't need to be 100% on CS to get it - 80% would do. I didn't change it.
- F4 bugs show that Ruff is at war with Oxy, William is at war with MYKI and it looks like Barry and Pindicator have four peace treaties?!? Ruff hasn't met dtay, so I'd guess he's come around the south coast of that continent and started on a different landmass.
- Dtay is making 280 gold - our best at 0% is 145
- Once we have graphs on CH and a few SAs in place what do we do with our EPs? Cynheard's graphs, dtay's graphs, Pindicator's research?
- We're going to come out of the golden age switching to OR and one of the religions we have, so during the GA it would make sense to build units, working out what infra we want on what timescale before Guilds comes in. I'll need to think about this a bit more.
- We want to spread both Buddhism and Hinduism to Alfie for two monasteries

Tech path:
I think you explained your thoughts a while ago but I couldn't find them - is this what you were thinking
- t112 Saving cash on Poly - GA starts
- t113 Save cash
- t114 Save cash
- t115 get Polytheism
- t116 get monotheism
- t117 get monarchy - get Academy for Alfie for small boost
- t118 Revolt to HR/Bureau/Slavery/OR - GA ends
I don't think Med and Priesthood are useful to us yet, so lets not waste beakers on them. They could be handy for overflow beakers later on...

City builds:
- Alfie's next infra, while waiting for MC, could be an aqueduct (although Horse Archers are good too.)
- Does Butterscotch need an SA? I think a market might be better for happy and for commerce right now.
- Gertie wants the Globe, but I dunno where we would use 8 theaters? Vulnerable coastal cities? Market and HR will do for now...
- Stable then HAs before the Library in Hazelnut?
- Izzy is working an unimproved plains tile! Bad Fintourist!
- Jelly bean is halfway to that library, but given that Alfie will work all those cottages relatively soon I'd suggest building it some mines and getting a Barracks in place.
- Kirby needs a library after the SA for our next GS, I like your whipping-axe-into-infra technique here.
- I dunno what our new tundra cities will be for, so I'm not sure what Infra they'll want to build...

[Fintourist]

Thanks OH, awesome to see you checking around, very good points! It's already late in Finland, so just FYI that all your comments are noted, embraced and I will respond to each one of them (my schedule tomorrow is tight, but I'll try to slot in proper civ time).

For immediate concerns:
1. I would not worry about CH impi, he sees our nearby axe and knows that if he attacks the worker his scouting impi will be dead. I doubt that hurting relations just for one razed worker is in his interest and after all at this point one lost worker would not be a catastrophe for us either.
2. I did not change Butterscotch build although you are right that market may well be a stronger deal there. However, SA is much cheaper (easier to get up) and I can see some use for it, so I don't think that we go terribly wrong so I left it for now. If you strongly prefer market feel free to log in and change that though!
3. 100 % research this turn is ok I think, we know that we want poly so allocating overflow beakers next turn is not going to be a problem.
4. Sorry about Izzy! I thought about whipping the settler at size 4, but due to growing-while-building-settler-food-losing-mechanic, I preferred growing to size 5 (no food difference, 3 extra commerce on T113 vs. a bit more maintenance costs during T111-113). I know that it looks and is ugly, but TBH I realized that we want that 2nd city on that island just a bit too late and hoped nobody will notice.. Next turn it will be whipped away!