The Pen vs The Sword (Gandhi of NA)

[The Black Sword]

I got a very useful event there


I also took the Khmer capital:


I don't think they have any significant forces left, their 'stacks' in the picture are just 1-2 units each. Most of my Cuirs are injured and need to heal though.

[Rowain]

Arctic Turtles

I'm surprised that that is even a legit spot for the event

[The Black Sword]

Got two new cities this turn. The first:



I got chewed up by catapults on mack's turn but the stack should still be strong enough to take the city with a bit of promo healing. The number of workers left in the city scares me a bit that t might be a trap, but I really don't believe they have many troops left and the culture will open up when I attack the city. With no castle, my GG treb brings defenses down to 16% and then I get 4 wins at 89%, 85%, 75%,75%.

My sentry doesn't find anything to be scared of in the fog.



I have aboout 3 healthy Cuirs in this area out of maybe 35. It was a tough choice whether to push up with them, since these cities are so weak or heal for a turn. I decided to heal most of them, the GG healer meaning they'll be back to full health. I pushed this stack onto the hill, to take the south city. With drafting, mack will easily have the troops to hold the northern one. I also moved my siege weapons forward, covered by 1 movers in the north.



Natanan is a real pain with it's culture. I was hoping to take it this turn, but I wasn't sure I could make it. I sent my marines after the island instead and will wait for the siege to arrive. The other cities don't have castles, 60% culture or hills, so hopefully my Cuirs can deal with them on their own.



I set research to Constitution at 80%, I think I might manage it in 2 more turns at 100%, maybe requiring a bit of research building. I think this is a better path than Replaceable Parts. RP has 2 known tech boni currently, but I suspect that it will get a few more as I go up to Corp, whereas Constitution will gain at most 1 from BGN I think. In addition, Rep->Corp has a better payback time(~300gpt from trade, 80bpt from rep and I think I've sorted out the banks to be built in time, so I can start wall street in my 100gpt shrine city) and at the moment I think I need commerce more than hammers.

Actually, I got up to 2nd in hammers this turn:

The scary thing is that both the top figures refer to 1 person.

I also noticed the game's third culture bomb in the top 5 cities screen. I wonder whether it will fare better than the other 2?

[Ceiliazul]

Looks like dtay had a cultural golden age

Man, dazed' original bomb was over half the game ago?

[Mardoc]

Oof. If there was ever an argument for spending your Artists on golden ages only...

How much more Dazed/mack is there to eat? Seems like you've been getting 1-2 cities/turn for forever. And there's still lots of blue in your screenshots.

[The Black Sword]

That's a 50t graph, I guess Dazed's bomb was 35ish turns ago.

I think there's around 8 cities left for me to eat. The advantage of attacking someone who had more cities than me.

3 are on the south island IIRC though, so I might not get them. I would not be too unhappy with that, since WW levels are getting to the annoying level. Not affecting me yet anywhere, but a couple of places at the brink and losing HR might hurt. I think there might be a bit of a delay between taking the mainland and the island, and WW will obviously have gotten worse by then. I might be able to switch to Nationhood until I get Jails up in the problem cities.

[The Black Sword]

Guess I forgot to take much pictures this turn. Got my two city captures, the island plus this:


Moved up about 15 Cuirs, and the GG, threatening his next two cities, I expect those to fall next turn.

Constitution in two and Sistine is just completing:


So I guess I go with the culture plan.

[Ceiliazul]

What are your three cultuce cities? How will/did you pick them?

[The Black Sword]

Well, I don't plan on turning the slider to 100% immediately and wasting all the commerce from my other 40ish cities. There will probably be a mad dash in the last few turns but I want to get most of my culture through specialists and buildings. I'm taking 3 cities out of my empire and hopefully the rest of it can keep up with everyone else to put up a meaningful defense. The aim is to win through culture before the others build their spaceships, not start as soon as I hit Free Speech. With the increased tech costs slowing down spaceship victories and the known tech bonus pulling me along despite my relatively weaker tech rate, I'm hopeful it can work.

With that in mind, my ideal cities should have high food surpluses, full BFCs and a lot of farmable land, not too many developed cottages. We can straight away rule out all of the cities on the southern coast as being too vulneruble, as well as the northern islands. Rule out the cities bordering Joey too, because I can't guarantee that border will be gone and anyway, the cities with grassland have loads of cottages. Northern coast is acceptable for me, if not preferable. Weldyn and Elensefar then are two possibilities. Of the rest of my core cities, most are too small or have too much overlap with these two, Fort Tahn is my HE, Kesorak has too much plains and coast for my liking, as well being vulneruble to ships. So, looking through Dazed and Furungy land(which tends to be either cottaged or hilly), I came across Frontline to be my third culture city.

Frontline:



It has an almost full BFC, lots of resources, and plenty of farmable land. It's also inland and close to the other two cities which is an advantage. It needs a lot of effort to set up but with this land that should still be pretty fast. I will farm it up and run lots of artists. It will probably get the Globe Theater too.

Holy Elensefar:



The centre of my core, with a shrine, holy city and Sistine for extra culture. This is on a hammer set up for the moment, and it will stay that way to complete Wall Street. After that(and a few more culture buildings) I can farm it and run artists. It's main disadvantage is the relatively large number of 'dead' tiles. But after the Hermitage it will already be making 100cpt with pretty much no effort and it's a good location, so it will do.

Capital Weldyn:



This doesn't really fit into my archetype obviously. Once Oxford is completed I can windmill the hills though and it will still have a good food surplus to run some artists. The mass of cottages will mean it can get a lot of culture in the last sprint and it already has built up a good store of culture and buildings. I do expect it to need more culture bombs than the other two though. It is coastal too, which is a problem, but the north coast and only a 1 tile bay should make it a bit easier to defend.

I have I think 5 religions on my mainland for cathedrals(half priced temples too). I don't think I'll be running Free Speech until the very end, but I'm Spiritual and I'll need Sci Meth, so I don't need to make the decision now. At some stage I'm going to need to do some calculations on the various choices I have but I think all the decisions are fairly straightforward for the moment.

I think I'm actually in a very nice position right now. Probably 3rd behind BGN and Old Tourist, but it's hard to tell where Dtay is right now. I'm about at 75% of BGN's output now but I have a lot of pop to grow onto high value tiles in old Khmer. I don't need to go this route but I think it's better than a spaceship victory with all the RBmod changes and no-one is winning this game through Domination. The biggest negative is that it could go too early and spark a dogpile on me.

Short turn report:

[The Black Sword]

Last turn I completed Constitution and revolted into Representation and Nationhood. I only had ~25 muskets and I need more static defenders for my newly enlargened empire. Of course drafting is the most efficient way to get them. This seems to be the best time to stop into Nationhood for the moment, the +2 happy is actually pretty important in a number of cities until the WW disappears and I'm still working on Oxford for the moment. I'll probably stay in Nat for ~6 turns, hopefully finishing off the Khmer and getting the draft counter ticking on all my size 7-10 cities. Then it will be back into Bureau for a few turns to go grow and complete the most important infrastructure before hopefully switching from OR to pacifism and getting my GPs out for my golden ages.

The Khmer have been kicked off the mainland, Ancients will probably fall next turn:


Meanwhile, OH showed up with one of his Dtay harrasing stacks:


That is being followed by a slight larger force of Patriot Frigates. This prompted me to draft all my southern cities there, despite the fact they're still growing onto river grassland. You can see the garrison in Arcanclave, Lashing's is slightly bigger. I don't really believe OH would want to antagonise me right now for 1 city raze, but it doesn't really hurt much to be careful, next turn I'll be able to fill these with some Cuirs so the chance will be gone.

I was originally thinking of making Arcanclave a GP farm but I think I'll go with a hammer port city instead. I need to make the most of my ports in the south.

In the former Khmer capital of Kholinar, I bit the bullet and chopped the fur forest to speed the granary along:


Seems like it will take a long time for that 1hpt to make that up, and I won't even be working the furs immediately. Btw, this is the second capital I've taken without any buildings surviving.

I also wanted to show off little Underworld here, who'll just keep spitting out 11hpt. I think it about breaks even at the moment money wise, will be making some after Corp.


I have a few more fillers like this planned in ex-Khmer. I also wanted one here:

But on reflection, I'm not sure it's worth another port to defend.

Demos are looking nice, though I now have a ton of culture.


Both BGN and Old Tourist are increasing their spying on me, so I guess they agree too. I turned on research on Corp because I think the Aztecs will get it next turn and the extra bonus will allow me to land it with a bit of wealth building.