[SPOILERS] Mardoc's Magical Mystery Tour

[Mardoc]

Can't they move and then go wane? I thought they could...

Yeah. What I meant to say is, hitting the 'wane' button ends the unit's turn.

How many workers do you have?

Three. Which seems to be just enough. I may want another or two for the fourth city, though.

Oh, and what are the graphs like on the two players you've met?

I'll show them next time the turn comes around. It's made it to Molach now...only him and DaveV between me and it.

But basically: Auroarcher and I are running in parallel, pretty much. DaveV is behind.

[Mardoc]

10-Screenshot Extravaganza Incoming!

First things first, the actual turn. I didn't pick any fights; instead, the barbs came to me. It's unfortunate, we got 3XP out of barbs who should have been worth 7, but that's the result of letting myself get out of position.

On the bright side, Octopus Overlords is ours! I think I will save the Zealot for the eastern city - that's the one that needs culture most badly, and also the least likely to get a free spread. I do really hope we get a free spread to our capital for happiness, though.






Here are the graphs. If it weren't for Jalepeno doing awesome out in the fog, I'd be pretty comfortable here:

But then I look at the demographics and get depressed. We're just about doubled in Crop Yield by now. Sure, part of that is working Sages, and part of it is working mines instead of farms...but probably most of that is being dramatically out-expanded.



We are, at least, catching up our military to where it needs to be. Seven warriors is probably enough, for now. If I manuever carefully, that should be enough to take control and get our next two cities settled. I can't wait for those Wanes to disappear - not only for their own income, but to stop paying maintenance on them.


Finally, we have the cities.

Our capital still needs one more mine to be caught up - and then it could use a couple extra improvements to be prepared for the future. I could always steal back the dyes from September, I suppose.


Meanwhile, September is maxxed out. With hardly any hammers, it's going to provide worker/settler support. We'll be able to add a mine once its borders pop, and perhaps another farm or two as we scrape up the happiness. With a incoming Golden Age (which will include an OO revolt) and an incoming Gold-working city, we ought to find room for two more workers, at least.



All in all, we're growing tall very well, and horizontally barely at all. It makes me very glad for the extreme maintenance costs and barb pressure, but that's obviously not enough to stop Jalepeno. With care, I ought to be able to get at least the next two cities settled. Growth plans are fairly simple: keep growing the core, and push out enough warriors to get a) another wave of wanes, and b) enough terrain control to plan more cities.

For handling Jalepeno - honestly, we need to get ourselves to some advanced units, find him, and start harassing him. Harassing him more effectively than the barbs can, that is. Haven't figured out how I'm going to do that. Hopefully the other three also see the need for that...with the Holy City culture, two wanes to settle in the next two turns, and an incoming Golden Age, I'm probably going to look both scarier and tastier for the moment.

[Qgqqqqq]

Cultists are one way to harrass. Especially if partnered by Galleys for quick movement speed. Regardless, getting strong ports is going to be important this game - and remember that forts can be used as canals.

Short-term bronze working will help basically neutralize the barb threat.

[Mardoc]

Cultists are one way to harrass. Especially if partnered by Galleys for quick movement speed. Regardless, getting strong ports is going to be important this game - and remember that forts can be used as canals.

Oooh, yeah. And it's quite likely that we can make it to Priesthood + Sailing before Jalepeno can. Harass, burn down cities, same difference, really. . And I *know* that Jalepeno will have built most of his cities coastal.

Of course, that does assume we get at least some progress on the hammer situation. Cultists make a huge difference in seapower, but they're not invincible if the foe has too many ships.

Short-term bronze working will help basically neutralize the barb threat.

It would, yes. I'm a little tad bit concerned that it would also cut our XP gain down - but I guess we could counteract that by being more aggressive with our units.

In any event, we'll have to go to Bronze soonish, if we want any shot at the Titan or the MilStrat GCommander. I'm currently planning to pick up Education and Animal Husbandry first, and I'm debating whether it's worth trying for the Drama bard or if we should simply stick to getting *most* of the first-to bonuses . Especially now that we have OO, Drama itself is of lower value. On the other hand, denial is always a strong move.

Don't have to decide just yet. Maybe someone has been beelining Drama and will get there before we're done with Edu.

[Mardoc]

Turn this morning, settled the Merchant which brought us to cash-neutral at 100% science. Our GNP lead is now pretty obvious and will just get more so. Education is due in 4, GSage due in 2 more turns, that works out pretty nicely actually. No OO spread yet, but the popup did remind me that as long as we stick to Religion civic, it's worth 2 happiness, not just one. Then, if we can find some incense, temples could be worth 2 happy as well.

Barbs are calmer in the south so next turn we should move onto the plains hill and finally have our third city two turns from now. It does occur to me that this delay is a mixture of two factors: a) my poor planning - could have shaved off some time if I'd moved the warriors out in advance and been more clever with tactics. But also b) Turning my best units into Shades. With a couple warriors who could be guaranteed 95%+ battles all the time, I could have pushed out of my borders easier. Would have been easier to stop building warriors, too. Not that I'm complaining - just that this is more evidence against Shades=OP.

Anyway. Next settler is due in five, and we may be able to have him just move briskly to his spot.

[Mardoc]

So, the other thing to consider: First-to bonuses are nice. They're also in direct competition with 'advanced units and harassing'. Which is the higher priority for us?

On the one hand, Jalepeno is really scaring me with his demos. On the other - remove him, and Aurorarcher really scares me with his decent tech rate + Amurites. Remove him, and we've got Molach with Puppets. DaveV isn't currently scary...but given time he will be as well. It's not a duel, we do need to make positive progress ourselves, rather than just hurt the foe.

Maybe what makes more sense is a minimal effort harass. Build a couple warriors, Drown them, and have them scout. Find Jalepeno, and go try to pillage his coves. Doesn't threaten his cities, probably, so this is definitely harassment rather than crippling. Honestly, drowns can't hold his coastline forever - at some point he will build galleys or triremes in sufficient numbers to either kill our drowns or force them away. But...at least every hammer into a ship is a hammer that's not going into yet another settler.

The main advantage here is that it only costs us 30 hammers and some gold, plus teching HBR. That makes the main costs of this approach GNP, which is something we have plenty of. We could start on this...nearly immediately. Realistically, maybe in 10 turns after we get our fourth city planted and stabilized would be a good time.

Later on, we can escalate. But in the meantime, we keep working on first-to bonuses and continued expansion and more wanes.

[Qgqqqqq]

Oh yeah, I definitely don't think we need to be prioritizing attacking Jalepeno. Advancing our own position to the point where we can spare 40h Zealots is the focus, and collecting the first tos is the way to take advantage of his bad GNP.

I'd wait on bronze before sending out Drown, btw. Otherwise griffons can pick them off.

[Mardoc]

his bad GNP.

Heh - I can't even say this for sure. He's not up with us and Aurorarcher, and I expect to continue pulling ahead for the moment, but no one's GNP is bad. His coves will be growing, and cities can grow onto coast, to help out. And at some point he'll get into Carto and/or Foreign Trade. That's the second reason I'm worried about him: he's already got the tools that he need never crash his economy, even if we're ahead right now. His economy should scale up with his empire, too, while Wanes are more linear resource.

I'd wait on bronze before sending out Drown, btw. Otherwise griffons can pick them off.

Not...necessarily. Enchanted Blade + Combat I (this will be post Apprenticeship) gives equiv Str 4.2. That can beat a griffon.

That said, we're not talking about a long time to Bronze from here. Should be able to get there by a reasonable time period, and I'll be mining the copper tiles anyway just for their yield. Extra Str would give us extra flexibility. Being able to kill a lone galley would help too . So yeah, it's probably worth waiting for Bronze. For the harassing force, anyway. I can see a strong argument for sending out scouting Drowns as soon as we can afford them.

[Qgqqqqq]

Rival worst was 10 recently, wasn't it? I thought that would be Jalepeno. But yeah, it's not going to be bad for too long - which is exactly why we need to make early GNP count.

Is circumnavigation available on this map?

[Mardoc]

Rival worst was 10 recently, wasn't it? I thought that would be Jalepeno. But yeah, it's not going to be bad for too long - which is exactly why we need to make early GNP count.

Hmm, I can't find one as bad as 10 looking back on my demo screenies. 19, 20, 19. The worst is today...which might be DaveV, from the graphs.

We settled the second wane today, and killed two more barbs, so the GNP looks great. The others don't look that great, but next turn we settle our third city - and settling the Sage cut a turn off our settler so he's now due in just two more turns. Plus walking time, of course.







Our raw GNP currently stands at 2 gpt, 58 bpt. That will decrease somewhat when we settle the new cities, but it does suggest the next wane will probably also have to be a Merchant.

Is circumnavigation available on this map?

Probably? I don't remember the exact percentage required.