[SPOILERS] Mardoc decides what kind of loser he wants to be

[Mardoc]

[Bobchillingworth]

Thanks for the update!

[Mardoc]

Alright, Leaves is in . That should help in all sorts of ways: happiness, deterrent, culture. Already have cottages growing everywhere. Next turn I will revolt, and I will be pushing to spread the religion ASAP.

Next will be Sailing. I want to start establishing offshore colonies - should help the econ, and of course it's another way to use Expansive without prompting any immediate wars. After that, I'm not sure. I could head toward Trade for Foreign Trade to help the econ and grow my cottages faster. I could go straight for Guardian of Nature. Or I could backfill Calendar, Festivals, and Bronze, and get some resource happiness to go with my religious happy. I guess I lean toward the backfill route. Guardian won't pay off for a while yet, since I have only my natural forests. Foreign Trade won't pay off that well until I have more pop in my cities (and more new cottages being worked). Probably best to focus on getting the easy, short term happiness.

Part of my reasoning is that I have a Priest cooking in my capital, planning to bulb Priesthood with that. I think that will get me the tech faster than if I straight researched it; I just need to pick up Philosophy sometime before the Great Prophet pops. I need to make sure *not* to get Knowledge of the Ether until after I use the bulb, since I want Priesthood instead of Ashen Veil, but I'll probably want to start training up some Adepts soon after Priesthood.

Had an unfortunate run-in with an event this turn. I had the copper to gold alchemist show up. Normally you'd never want to accept, but my military plans are Leaves + Mages, so I was very tempted. It didn't matter, because I didn't have enough of a treasury. I deliberately spent it down to speed Leaves by a turn.

[Mardoc]

Already have my first Ancient Forest . Of course it came in a happy-capped city, but in ten turns or so when my missionaries make it there, I'll be glad to have the extra food.

[Mardoc]

Nothing worldshaking recently. Which is good! The more time I have for peaceful development, the better!

Got one free spread and one spread with my initial missionary - 3/8 cities have Leaves now. As does Urslo, of all places. I wonder if Plako did that on purpose - religion is handy to have for anyone. First Temple of Leaves completes in a couple turns, after which it won't be long to finish spreading the religion. I'm going to want to put up Temples of Leaves in most of my cities - +2 happy (Religion/Incense), and I'm going to want to build a lot of Leaves units, especially PoL - so spreading Leaves shouldn't be a problem once I get it into a couple hammer cities.

Sailing is in; should be able to start colonizing offshore in about 5 turns. Aurorarcher beat me to it; I see his borders over on 'his' island. Still, I should be able to grow my cities better than him eventually and hence not need as many. Assuming we make it to 'eventually', of course.

Calendar is next; I should be able to get Sugar from that, and offshore Incense (my next two cities will grab these). I've also got increasing happy from FoL as it spreads, temples (both Pagan and Leaves), and Ivory as soon as I get some culture in my western city (Leaves is the plan). And Dereptus in progress. I should be able to get my city sizes up into the teens with all that.

Next tech is in flux. I don't think Festivals or Code of Laws make any sense; I've got plenty of uses for hammers in Leaves + settlers. It's still a bit early for Philosophy; have 10-15 turns left on my Great Prophet spawn, and my GNP is to a point where it won't take nearly that long for Philo. I may break down and grab Bronze to start clearing out my jungles and get the dyes; the military boost, while minor, can't hurt any. Or else the other logical directions to go are Foreign Trade and Guardian of Nature. Just because I can't get full value from them yet doesn't mean I could get better value from anything else...

My demographics are starting to look halfway competitive again; made it all the way up to 3rd in GNP recently! Mostly I think this is my cottages growing up, with a bit of finally starting to relax my happy caps. I still need a bunch of time before I'll be happy about my position, but at least I'm moving in the right direction.

[Mardoc]

Got another free spread . Four cities have Leaves, and one just finished its Temple. Definitely starting to pick up the pace here.

Plako has OO, and already built the Necronomicon. I'm going to have to get to Sorcery soonish if I want to compete with him for offshore stuff. But...not yet, still need the rest of my economy.

Definitely going to be Bronze next, then Philosophy to open my Priesthood bulb. After that...probably Writing - > Trade but I could see a case for Hidden Paths.

[Dp101]

Anything interesting happening with the military of anyone? Any huge spikes?

[Mardoc]

Anything interesting happening with the military of anyone? Any huge spikes?

Nope, people seem to be developing, not warring. General increases, but no spiking.

I...may have overbuilt workers. Ebony was founded this turn, and I already hooked the sugar, mined the hill, and moved four workers onto the marsh rice. Next turn I'll have the rice done here and be pretty much finished until I get Bronze in; all I can do is pre-road the jungles in preparation to chop them too.



My core is finally starting to look like a real core, as I'm relaxing the happy cap. Still need about three dozen forests on top of all those tiles, but at least my cottages are mostly up to equal aristofarms by now. Kinda-sorta-mostly.


And apparently I ought to have gone for Sailing significantly earlier. Well, it'll be useful now, at any rate, and my worker surplus can surge over here for a little while. Settlers already in queues, so this island isn't far away. Gotta find somewhere to build another galley so I can both ferry and explore.

[Mardoc]

Anything interesting happening with the military of anyone? Any huge spikes?

Nope, people seem to be developing, not warring. General increases, but no spiking.

And of course, the very next turn Aurorarcher declares war on Plako and takes a city . Fingers crossed that this turns into a quagmire!

[Mardoc]

So apparently there's a single tile wide coastal 'road' heading off from the far side of my island toward the 'Forbidden Zone'. It's probably early for it, but I've got a galley scouting the route. Thinking of going for Hawks soonish (after I get the elf econ stuff unlocked); that would let me keep an eye on my neighbors, and also scout the forbidden zone from my Held Hunter. Could decide if it's worth pushing some settlers that way or not.

About six turns left until I've got Priesthood. Researching Philo now, my Great Prophet will pop, and then I'll be able to start working on PoL. The bigger limiting factor is that I haven't gotten Leaves spread completely, and only one Temple of Leaves has finished. Still, I've 4 of 10 cities with the religion, and 2 missionaries walking. No rush to get Leaves into my two newest cities, I can let them try for natural spreads for a while. My current missionary pump should be able to get 2 more disciples done in the next six turns, enough that it can swap to PoL. PoL will be their own feedback loop, generating more hammers to pay for more PoL. I should try to get myself another Great Person around then and pop a Golden Age to speed up my initial forest planters.

With the Sugars and Dyes and Leaves, and soon to be Ivory, Incense and Gold, my happy caps have loosened everywhere and all my cities are growing, so I can afford to wait a bit for Guardian of Nature. I think my next tech goal has got to be Foreign Trade, while the cities are growing onto new cottages (and new forests are growing around the cities). Come back for Guardian once I've got more GNP in place. As soon as my hammer demand for Priest of Leaves moderates a bit, I'll want to head down the arcane path as well, and start thinking about if I can actually win this (and if not, what I want to do instead).

And since I'm picking up Philosophy, I should probably take a run at the Bone Palace. It feels late, but maybe military tensions have distracted enough hammers that it'll be possible.