I've found borders for either pindicator or Krill/novice. I'm happy that either is plako's neighbor.
Wetbandit has a smallish invasion force at Thessalonica, but enough to do the job. I've taken the liberty of scouting wetbandit's territory while he's engaged there. I no longer have anything to fear from him on this continent. Interestingly, the settler that has been hanging out in Number wang is still there. Hmm.
Cities:
Demos and random stat stuff:
Apparently it was plako who built TGL. I would imagine that is paying handsomely for him, somewhere around 40 commerce base each turn.
Wetbandit doesn't have gobs of units garrisoning cities. Good to know. I also met Joey. I forgot to do the typical diplo check for a city count but I'll do that later.
Plako has moved his scout back into my territory to look around. Since I'm scouting him with a trireme I'll let him. Fair is fair, I suppose. Also pictured, apparently Caledorn has had some event that gives him a free drill1 promo on all of his archers. Annoying, but that shouldn't be too debilitating when I come knocking. Maybe he'll be encouraged build more archers than otherwise. The first strikes won't do anything to knights, so this could actually be a good thing.
I met Krill/novice by scouting. Great news for me that two strong opponents are so close together. Babylon have more cities than I do, but I didn't get a count. I'll do that later too. Has plako been fighting on the seas? The combat1 promo on his trireme makes me think that he has.
Nakor is finally settling for Rice. This is fine with me. I didn't really want to put a city on the point, I like his location better. If he starts taking my mine tiles I'll have to take the city. I've labelled his two border cities. Very lightly garrisoned.
I'm going to need another barb unit to spawn on the single eligible tile (can't remember if the other tundra hill will spawn one, seem to remember NH saying that it would somewhere up thread). My 8/10xp HA finishing in GV EoT is not going to get there in time to prevent the spear from pillaging the silver, so I'll have to kill it. I've put an archer on the hill. I should get slight odds IIRC, but even if it dies I'll have the HA clean up. I am woefully shorthanded here but Caledorn hasn't been scouting in/out with his units from what I can tell, so I don't think he's even thinking about being opportunistic. He actually could raze this city pretty easily if he wanted to but I'm still getting peace vibes from him. I just don't think he wants to fight.
I meant to draw some lines on this. North of wetbandit is a light blue that looks like Greece to me. I can see plako and Xenu waging culture war on their border. I also see where Xenu razed a Q city. Good! Elsewhere, TBS got a shrine, good for him... The pig/crab cancellation is a result of Cal's capital popping fourth ring borders and me not having the pig anymore. I'm working to get that tile back ASAP. Someone finally got Christianity, I'm really surprised it lasted so long. And, the always good news, fighting in the fog.
Farewell, Jowy.
Cities:
I was going to chop the forest, but I need both for the +1 health. I'll get a grocer in here as soon as I can. The market is to wring some extra gold out of all of the merchants that I'm going to be running as soon as I get over this stupid shrine thing.
It just occurred to me that I would benefit from building The Parthenon here. I can build it relatively quickly and the culture would be awesome for keeping my mines and would help toward keeping the whale. But knights are cheaper than wonders and even more effective in reducing an opponent's cultural influence, so I'll keep banging out troop transports and hope that I can get the HE built in GV soon.
I'm back down to 50/49 this turn so I may lose the whale again. I really need to get that library finished.
So yeah, the pig. It's hard to say I should have built more culture, I just didn't think the capital would cut into my second ring, but the latent culture from when Caledorn had the city will have to be overcome. In 3t I'll pop third ring here and that will hopefully return the pig to my control.
Graphs and demos:
Apparently I forgot the demos screen but does anyone care?
I decided to skip the stable. I'll want a city somewhere to churn out something besides knights, so this will do fine. I'm going to build a Buddhist Monastery for the 10% beaker bonus since I got the first missionary to do its job in Grant Village this turn. After the Monastery, catapults, longbows, pretty much that's all. I'll fit in a Grocer at Guilds, it will be worth it immediately here.
Starving slightly this turn, but only one food. This allows Lake to grow one turn earlier and still finish the stable. Nothing but 2t HAs here. Shock promoted HAs in sufficient quantity will do a wonder against unsophisticated defenders in this region of the globe. They'll also make just fine scouts.
I'd like to keep growing this, but it isn't really worth it since I'm not going to invest in infrastructure. The clams are going south soon and nothing but mounted troops here for a while. A couple of WEs just for fun. It isn't like Caledorn has horses.
Nothing to add, I just wish I was running specialists already and not waiting for the prophet in GV.
The first missionary did its job (will wonders ever cease??). This is probably the worst use of the modified Statue of Zeus to date but I swear I'm going to make it pay eventually. While my opponents are knocking heads and taking new land out in the fog, I'm playing single-player-I-wanna-build-a-shrine over here.
Nakor built his rice city. I'll build a library soon to try to keep cultural control.
Lost the whales again, as expected. I checked Nakor's city. He put a monument in early and has chased that with a library. My lack of Taoism in this city had me losing a 3/2 culture fight over eons. I finally got Taoism via missionary this turn and will finish the library after this foolishness with the Confucian Missionary for the Shrine business is done and that should resolve the culture dispute. But it is yet another annoying minor side effect of getting the GA over the GP.
I have shipped off one of the three workers that was putting this city to work now that growth will be slowing down as I grow onto mines and workshops. This has come along pretty quickly and I like how it's looking.
If I had had three workers here instead of zero and then one only recently, this would be in much better shape, but it's just not been as much of a priority. I'm still thinking about saving the forests for something. Parthenon would be an easy get most likely, but should I hold out for Taj? This is probably my best bet for it, but I'm not really chasing Nationalism just yet. A better path takes me Guilds--> Paper--> Education--> then maybe Liberalism/Nationalism? I've already cleared Philosophy to get the religion, so this is a fairly quick path for me, if I ever get out of the Great Prophet doldrums. That is an awful long time, though. I'm not leading GNP these days, the Financial and/or the mega city guys are ahead of me now. I've gone tall/efficient rather than wide and undeveloped but I need to expand soon and relatively cheaply to keep up. I hope I've set myself up to do just that with all of the forges/barracks/stables and high production cities.
I moved a couple of HAs in for plako's scout to admire. One will move east and have a look at Q's lands. In 10t or so, maybe it will swing back around and snipe a Caledorn worker when I invade. I'm not certain on the time table yet. Anyway, 3t until I pop third ring and take back my bacon. Hopefully.
Demos and diplo screens:
What a mess. Whosit is being subdued by dtay and Cheater Hater, IIRC. OH/FIN have started taking cities off of Azza, so apparently they're east-ish of Mardoc. Novice is at war with Caledorn and Nakor, but I have a feeling that is nothing more than scouting. They're too far for that to be meaningful. Oxy/BaII is probably the same, they're east of Xenu. Wetbandit/Q is a fight over an island in the middle of the channel to the west of West Thumb. I think if wetbandit had loaded units in just a little faster, maybe one more cat, he would have taken it, but now Q has stuffed a bunch of archers in there. Wetbandit looks like he was bombarding with a single cat, which was probably not a good idea. I hope to see some bloodletting before they're done.
Oxy/BaII. Kind of disappointing, I had expected better of them. More cities with CRE/IMP at the very least. I haven't been adding cities much recently and they're still way behind.
These guys aren't behind anyone, probably. The two new cities from Azza bring them by my count up to a staggering 22 cities. They're going to be beasts not very long from now, if they aren't already.
I'm very happy that Krovice (CRE/FIN) seem to have some decent competition from their neighbors. I was not super excited about them landing such a good leader. They've out expanded me, and I have no idea if they've had to fight to do it. Them with more land and FIN is not going to be good for me if I can't bulb out to a short term lead and make it pay through subduing neighbors.
Joey got Shaka. While EXP may not be as uber as it was before, AGG seems to have fared pretty well since its revision. I'm guessing he has a strong economy in addition to lots of cities. Extra workers fueling extra chops into more cities? I'm aware that I still have a number of forests that I have not chopped and that I'm running low on workers. I should probably have 3-4 more workers than I actually do, I tend to under build them. Anyway, Joey seems to be doing very well. I'm not sure where he is, I saw a galley moving west to east north of Nakor, but the world is vast and my map knowledge isn't.
Someone might be building a bit of wealth this turn to have overshot me on MFG so significantly. Or, perhaps have swapped into Caste. That's a nice non-GA spike for someone. I did a bit of tech swapping to see how my GNP fares with an older tech. At 100% research on Calendar, which most people seem to have, my GNP is over 700. The known tech bonus is really strong, and I've been doing mostly original research so far. Bulbs are going to be very good if I can get to doing some of that. I keep having to remind myself that the map is set to Huge, so techs are expensive. Even when I'm teching slowly, others are too. Unless they're loading up on old trash techs. I'll be interested to see if I can figure out if anyone has beaten me to Guilds. It's certainly possible, even probable since I cleared the entire top of the tree. I'd guess that's what OH/Fin have done, and they may have even used a GM since we've seen a couple of those recently. Fog conjecture is all I have for you on that.
Xenu got Christianity, something like a million years after I got Taoism. That kind of sucks, I was hoping I'd get a friendly reception if I ever sent some Tao missionaries his way. Not sure when I would have gotten around to that though. Incidentally, Caledorn right next door has converted to Judaism. Annoying. I was hoping for a few random Tao spreads to him since he's spiritual and would not have to wait around to swap into the religion. I think those cities end up reading the Tao of Pooh before too long anyway.
It has been almost two weeks since I've updated so I suppose I ought to post what I've been doing. If there is anything specific that you want to see, let me know. I think I'm mostly going to dump pictures for now since I have so many. I've still been taking pictures of each city to help me keep sandbox up and running, so if that bores you just skip that section.
In general, I'm a bit discouraged with how things are going. The 20% Great Artist took the wind out of my sails a bit because I'm having to spin my wheels in my strongest hammer city generating another great person, hopefully a prophet this time, instead of dumping hammers into 8xp HAs or 6xp melee, at this point crossbows to fight Caledorn. I'm getting ~20h/t instead of closer to 35h/t plus food in the box for city growth and trending toward 40h/t for the duration of this second attempt. In addition to that, I'm sitting on the National Epic in Lamar Valley, which has now grown to size 17 or 18. I'm pretty sure I'd be halfway through with Education now by using two GS bulbs, one for Paper and the other into Education, if I hadn't had to mess with the second prophet attempt. Dtay is doing his typical MUST GET LIBERALISM thing. He is the only opponent that I have met who has researched Paper. I'm not sure if he has cleared Philosophy or not, or whether he is in fact chasing Liberalism, but his previous play seems to indicated that he doesn't often deviate from that goal. I liked very much my chances of getting it before losing the great prophet roll, I'm not sure how likely it is now but I'll keep it in front of me as a goal until someone else takes it.
That, however, is a setback I can live with. Azza is another ball of wax entirely. From what I can tell, Azza is trolling Mardoc while being invaded by OH/Fin. Azza had 10 or 11 cities within the last 10 turns and is now down to 4. While getting rolled up by OH/Fin he decided to raze Mardoc's capital and is apparently not defending in what would be described as an inspiring, energetic way. I'm sending a scouting unit or two over through Mardoc's land to check things out. Hopefully Mardoc won't misinterpret this as a sign of aggression. One of the units is a Lamar Valley (Statue of Zeus buffed) HA with 8xp, so I'm looking to kill someone's unit to get to 10/10xp and unlock the Heroic Epic. I'm thinking it is going to be an Azza unit as thanks for putting up a heroic defense.
If you want to be a player in one of these games, do try to play to win.
Well, of course that would happen. Since I can't maximize the number of priest turns used without the third religion, I'll run some engineer turns and hope it doesn't ruin the project. I knew from the outset this was a possibility, I think ~18% odds to fail this spread. So it did. And now I won't have 88% or better odds to get the prophet, it will be slightly less. Probably enough to get another artist at ~9%.
I'm scouting Cal, Ruff, and Q.
Plako scouts me, I scout Dhal.
Cities:
I got the pigs back and then some. I'm guessing Cal doesn't love me culturally owning his city, but he should really have put some culture in by now to prevent exactly this from happening.
I met Cyneheard and dtay this turn. Or, it is better said since I'm not sure, I have made contact with both by now because I have pictures!
Maps, etc:
This is where Azza razed Mardoc's capital. I would congratulate his good play if it were not for the apparent roll over and show your belly job he's doing for OH/Fin. I hope after the game I'll find out that this was not the case, but I am not optimistic. I would like for us to start preventing people from playing in games who ruin balance out of spite. Enough on that for now.
dtay is killing it. He's been beating up on someone. His native cities are named for football players, the last three cities are not. Good for you, dtay!
Cyneheard has missed the occasional turn and is not all that engaged. Sooner or later, someone is going to come for him. Given this knowledge, I should go ahead and take out the Dhal goody hut because Cyneheard, his neighbor, is not likely to do much to slow me down or take my gains.
Mutually checking out the competition. Safety first! Note also that Thessalonica has been liberated from the Byzantine oppressors.
A scouting chariot and a covering HA who will (hopefully) kill a meandering unit to get to HE status. I'm tired of waiting on a barb in the tundra south.
It's hard to tell what I was looking at here, but I finally got graphs on Caledorn and can see that he will also finish Feudalism at EoT. Bummer. I was hoping he'd be on Metal Casting or something like that. This may encourage me to kill Dhal first. I'd prefer to not have my precious knights chewed up if I can help it, when I can get them built. Since I'm not whipping my army, Cal would be able to see the spiking power (more than it has already) and will likely be churning out longbows anyway. Needless to say, Dhal will not. I'm still undecided on this, though. Strategically and logistically, absorbing an opponent on my landmass is better, but Dhal won't be around forever at this rate and I'd rather get the spoils. But I haven't totally dismissed the notion of a limited strike against Cal. I'm going to build units and be flexible.
Cities:
Time to take the whales back.
This won't take long, due EoT 136. I can't wait to see how many GP I can churn out of Lamar Valley once this whole great prophet fiasco is over with. Side benefit, if I can manage it: Take the first ring diagonal tile from Caledorn so I can waltz up with cats out of the fog after I tech Engineering, whenever I do that if I go after Liberalism.
For the first time in what seems like ages, a new city. If possible, I'll try to get a granary and forge in here, along with a Tao spread, and see if I can get Taj. I can probably build it faster in a more established city even without the forest help, but I want established hammers going into units for expansion right now, so this is my option. I don't really think I'll get it, I've sat on my Philosophy lead for far too long for this to be realistic, but I'll give it a spin and see what comes of it.
Demos, etc:
Fifth in GNP with the spigot wide open. Need more cottages! Let's see where I can find some.
Dtay does what dtay does: CHASE LIBERALISM!!! He's also up Engineering and Calendar, I am up Aesthetics, Alphabet (and thus Philosophy in all likelihood if he's going for Nationalism with the free tech, I'm guessing he'd bulb that direction), Literature, and Music.
OH/Fin really are becoming a problem and I don't think anyone out there is positioned to do anything about them. They're up to 24-5 cities or so.
Dtay is not far behind him and is rolling up someone I can't recall right now. Whosit maybe, his score sucks pretty hard and is only just above Azza who is down to two cities or so.
Lamar Valley can't hold off its Great Scientist any longer. Grant Village can't give me another artist, again. Right? Right??? I've reduced the odds to get an artist by 9% over the last run. Well see how this goes EoT...
This is not of the greatest strategic importance in the world, but it matters to me because I've assed around for so long now waiting for this. Even if I had gotten the shrine the first time, I'd be MUCH better off having a stack of knights by now. This would have been possible by having Grant Village just churn out 8xp HAs and by having Lamar Valley complete the National Epic on schedule (around T125?). By now if I have forced out a second GP at Grant Village, I certainly could have pushed out a high odds GM at Lamar Valley, assisted by the National Epic so it would have been done 3-5 turns ago given the number of specialists I can run there (size 18!), and used that GM for cash upgrades on the HAs as soon as this turn, or within the last turn or so if I'm not shopping around for a huge city to spend the GM in for maximum value.
The road not taken is usually paved with regret. I really hope I don't lose the Great Prophet again.
Dtay was in a golden age and was #1 GNP last turn from what I can tell without having graphs on him. I'm doubtful that the Caledorn/Ruff war is meaningful, but it would be awesome if it is. Last, I received an event in East Entrance that gave me free culture.
Code:
*************** *RUNNING BULLS* ***************
--==Scenario==--
"The people of [Civ City] have launched a popular new tradition called "Running with the Bulls."
--==Mechanics==--
Chance of Event in Game = 70% Required = Pasture Improvement Cow Bonus Road or Railroad Route Improvement Animal Husbandry or Feudalism Tech
--==Options==--
"We are glad to see that the local culture is thriving." "We should make this a national holiday!"
--==Results==--
Option 1 - "We are glad to see that the local culture is thriving." Cost : None Result : +100 Culture
Option 2 - "We should make this a national holiday!" Cost : 35 Gold Result : +300 Culture
--==Appears in Events==--
""Running With The Bulls", an annual ritual practiced by the people of [Civ City], is gaining worldwide renown."
I spent the 35g for the extra 200 culture. I was slowly losing ground on the clams to Dhal's first ring so now I don't have to worry about stuffing an otherwise unnecessary culture build in there, so I'll keep going on the forge without fear of losing the seafood.
(other) Cities:
The guy who is complaining about other players expanding/conquering to an unassailable position/#cities is aware of the irony of these complaints compared to continuing to build wonders with hammers that would be better served by building units to conquer territory to catch up. Shrug. I think I've invested a lot in getting my NE city up and running and I will benefit from spawning out gobs of GP. Maybe this helps me get a 4th GA before the game ends? I'll have knights in the field soon anyway.
Last, I received an event in East Entrance that gave me free culture.
