[Spoilers] AT (Charlie/Mongolia) has a thread. In which he shall post.

[AutomatedTeller]

Decided to whip in the settler for the horse/sheep city - gets it out a turn earlier, which gets subsequent settlers out earlier.

Debated creating a couple of chariots to harass Barteq's city and I might still do it, but it's on a hill and has hills/forests around it, so the attack will be slow. If he gets an archer or spear in their, an "attack" would end badly. Keshik's, of course, will be able to attack much faster, since they ignore terrain. Still will create a chariot to harass workers.

I noticed that barteq hasn't updated in a month, which is too bad. I'd like to be able to read his thought process leading up to this when the game is over. My guess is that he's figuring that he's protective and that he needs to seal me off before I just out expand him... which isn't a bad thought, to be honest.

I'll have to sim out a military tech path. My guess is that it will delay currency and aesthetics by a few turns and I'll be able to attack in force by turn 100 to 120 - somewhere in that range.


btw - if I had this game to start over, my first city would have been south, where I could work the wheat. I woulda grown the cap to the limit and worked forest/hills and given the wheat to my 2nd city and got IT big enough to kick out settlers, too. Which is, I presume, what dtay did (along with building henge)

[AutomatedTeller]

So, some thoughts about what to do about this city when he plants it

1) Declare war. I won't be able to take it unless he screws up and moves his warrior away, but I can defintely screw up his ability to improve the city - force him to bring in another warrior or archer - I might be able to screw him up enough so I bring in a chariot or archer and kill the city before he can get a better defender.
2) Sit in place - this gives me visibility on the city which is nice, but not terrifically useful.
3) go around and see what's happening on the other side.

I dunno which I'll do - part of me wants to stay peaceful, cause of trade routes.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 59, In Which AT Gets Completely Confused By Barteq

Last turn, dear readers, I was faced with the possibility of Barteq doing to me what I was planning on doing to Barteq - planting a city in his territory. I spent effort figuring out what I could do, only to find that Barteq did not plant. When I logged in I saw nothing - no warrior, no settler. Presuming that Barteq had not deleted them, I moved 1S, on the assumption that he moved the settler, my thoughts being that I would declare if I saw the settler there, thus not getting kicked out when he settled.

What I found was:




Nothing. I can only assume that they went to the red circle and will found there, in an attempt to completely cut me off from this land. This seems like a terrible idea - that city is quite a long way from his capitol and he seems to be protecting with a warrior.

This is a little confusing to me. But maybe I'm missing something.




This is an interesting little situation - Molach planted down here, but his protection is a spear, and adrien has an axe. I know nothing about Adrien, but this could end poorly for Molach - that axe will eat the spear up if Adrien attacks. A nice thing about archers - you don't run into stuff like this with them as protectors.




2 city plants next turn - Whale Breath and Allergic Kissing, which is for a 2015 series of papers on the effect of kissing on allergies. I think that Allergic Kissing may go settler->workboat, instead of workboat->settler, as I had planned. I'll see.




Demos holding steady. I feel like I'm doing ok, not great, which is kind of a problem - I'm good with my crop yield, but I feel like I should be top 5 in both that and mfg good, being imp. Well, 2 more cities will help.

Power rankings show no spikes.

[GermanJoey]

How many granaries do you have?

[AutomatedTeller]

3, with a 4th going to be whipped in unboiled egg in a couple of turns. It's basically the first build in every city, though I won't build one in Allergic Kissing, since that will work the horse and build foodhammer items for the beginning of it's life.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 60, In Which Momentous Things Happen

Long post here. I'll do another long one on T75.

Barteq settled last turn. I still don't understand this plant. I mean, it's a nice spot - gets incense & marble - but it's a long ways from his cap, it's hard to connect, he doesn't have a worker right there (I think) and he's protective, protecting it with a warrior. I thought Unboiled Egg was a stretch, and it shares tiles with my second city. this city's fat cross doesn't border his 2nd cities fat cross (well, 3rd) - I believe.




I can get a chariot from the cap in those locations. I think I can get one from UT there a turn behind, if I choose - there's no real point if he gets an archer in there, because 2 chariots won't kill a protective archer on a hill and it's not worth the pain to try. One with a warrior backup should be able to kill a warrior - 2 with a warrior backup should be able to kill 2 warriors.

I dunno if I'll press it - I may just harass his units. Mainly because I expect that there is an archer on it's way there now.






No fireworks over here - Adrien moved away, I kept exploring.




Whipped in the granary at Unboiled Egg. If he shows up right now with a pair of gallic warriors, I could have a problem, but I don't think he has such a pair or even one, so I'm pretty comfortable with my single archer defense. 3 chariots could be an issue, too, but he can't actually see what's inside the city.

it's going to overflow into a barracks. I have 1 hammer into an archer - i'll renew that every so often if I need it, but I'd really like to get a rax in there and get some culture. It's going to take a 2 pop whip, though.

The worker in UE is going to mine, then road, and then road to Molach. A silver for gold deal would be nice.

Founded (finally!) Whales Breath




This may end up one of my favorite cities - certainly, it's going to be a naval production monster. I net the whales next turn, pasture the sheep in 4 turns and it should grow to size 2 and finish the granary just in time to get stone for moai. Maybe a turn or 2 early, I don't remember.




I also founded Allergy Kiss. This is just working the horse and building a settler. I'll chop the forest at some point, speeding it up a lot. The settler is either for just north of UT, or for south of Huh, in the deer/floodplain ice spot. Not sure.




Got sailing. Right now, the only person I can trade with is dtay and his tradeables are... uninspiring




I offered the fish-for-fish deal - I moved a warrior next to his city, cause I wanted to move it to get better visibility, but it's next to a worker. I figured I'd show peaceful intentions (and I'd really prefer to keep him peaceful - I have enough issues elsewhere - also, I want open borders with him for the trade routes - when i get alpha in 15 turns or so.

Domestics:




6 cities and what they are producing.




Expenses. Shockingly, having 6 cities is expensive. Fortunately, I have 2 cottages and 4 domestic silvers, plus soon to be a whale and a lot of riverside. I think there's only 2 citizens working tiles that don't produce commerce right now - the rice in Unboiled Egg and a forest in Huh?




A few turns ago, I said that Huh? would grow 3 pop in 4 turns. that's not quite accurate - it takes 5 turns. My sim had one of those plains forest as a grass forest and in that case, it was able to grow again this turn. But no matter - 3 pop whip with a lot of overflow gets me the lib. I might whip next turn, and grow 2 turns after the whip - not sure.




Normally, I'd just work the hamlet and take the extra 2 turns for the chariot. But I want the option to do something about Barteq's city, so I'll priotize hammers - at least enough for the chariot.




UT currently sucks. There's no two ways about it - working 2 unimproved FP? What's the point of that? I'll get the sheep in a few turns, which will help, but right now, it's just crappy. But it does give me a whippable reserve unit and make a profit for me, so that ain't nothing.

I'm light on workers, which is a problem that Huh? will start addressing with it's huge food surplus and choppables. I have 6 cities and 6 workers and that's not enough workers.

Foreign affairs:





Same old story.




Top half of GNP isn't bad - it's not great, but it's ok. 2nd in crop yield is good - I presume first is dtay, with all his improved food resources. I'm top 1/2 in everything, so that says I'm not sucking. Granted, this is the part of the game where I don't suck, but crop yield is defintely a category I want to be top in. I suspect I'm teching much better than dtay, though he's outexpanding me.




Molach is right with me in crop yield - he's playing an excellent game. I think that my 2 new cities show up in the demos and not the graphs, so that's a little misleading.




Barteq is behind on both these important indicators, making his plant more mysterious (can you tell that I don't think that was a very smart plant? I think he should have planted it 2 or 3 tiles south, probably where I would have planted a "piss off barteq" city. I'll stop ranting about this plant




Molach is kicking my ass in GNP! Some of that is 4 cities of creative culture, but a lot of that is 2 gold. Hopefully, a lot of it is multiple prereq stuff, as well.




This is a little worrisome, though a lot of that is that I am pretty sure both of them have iron working and molach has at least a spear. Still, no huge spikes in power. Chariot will help some.

[AutomatedTeller]

I've been looking at the north and I think I can fit in a couple more cities.

Based on rough ideas of how the land is laid out, I think that dtay's cap is north-north west of me and ichabods is north-north east. I suspect maybe dtay extended with the city I can see, I'm not sure. See the pic below




I know I can get the city north of UT - that's within my purview. I think I can get the corn city. The others are pink dots - well, I'm sure I can get the coastal one, but it might not worth it...

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 61, In Which AT Finds A Gift For Another Civ

This is kind of a foreign affairs post.

Molach:

So I'm mapping out Molahch's land the best I can and I notice this black border. Molach has a barb city in his back line. *sigh* that's a free city for a guy who doesn't expand as well as me.





Barteq:




When my warrior is at the last tile in that zigzag, I'll have a chariot on the incense. If he hasn't moved an archer into that city, I'll declare the next turn. If he has, or he's about to (I should be able to see), then I'll back off. He might be chopping in an archer, I dunno - it seems odd that there isn't a worker improving the rice and I didn't see a worker moving along with his settler. On the other hand, his escort pattern seemed strange, too. Maybe he knew there weren't barbs from his busting.

dtay:




that's a vulture. Vulture's aren't great - they aren't as effective as axes vs axes, but they do a pretty good vs archers. I don't think it's a stack, though it's something I have to worry about. They are tougher on chariots, which kind of sucks and, of course, their higher base makes them tougher defenders in forests/hills (.5 of 6 is higher than .5 of 5)

I don't think it's a serious threat to me, but if he moves towards me, I have to take it seriously, which means I need to hook up copper soon. Fortunately, I'm going to do that down south - chariots and protective archers should handle it, but it'll be a crimp in my long-term plans to whip those units in.

Hopefully, he is just trying to scare my warrior away (which will work). Right now, btw, my northern army is a warrior and an archer - I'll have a chariot soon, but there will come a time when I cannot afford to have him near my borders.




Ahh, the power of researching a tech with 2 prereqs - gnp and crop yield are very high now.




Hinduism and buddhism got spreads.

One weird domestic note - my sim seems to be off by a beaker or two. I had to work the oasis in Unboiled Egg to get masonry in 1, where in the sim, I could work the rice.

Next turn:

Unboiled Egg and Huh grow and I get Masonry.

[AutomatedTeller]

hmm. I really want to be 2nd in the turn order if I'm going to attack barteq's city, don't I? that gives him only 1 turn to react by switching a chop to an archer, instead of 2. I mean, there's no guarantee he'll have a chop lined up for either of those turns, but still.

barteq has consistently been the last person to play, however and I've been one of the first.

How deceptive is kosher here? I figure that turn 64, I'll have a chariot on the incense and my warrior on the last tile of the zigzag - is it enough to go after barteq that turn? I figure that's wednesday.

[Old Harry]

The issue is double-movement, not turn order, so if you're happy for him to double-move you then you could even let him do it on the turn you want to declare...