Objection! [SPOILERS]

[El Grillo]

Really need to find time to upload some screenshots. Khan decided to declare war over the single dry rice to my northeast. Thanks buddy for making sure PRO gets some use. I took a 50/50 chariot battle to see if I'd need to whip a better defender and won flawlessly, then reinforced the contested rice site. This is definitely a bad time and place for protracted fighting, and I'm sure he realizes it - from his perspective he only has one front to worry about, whereas I have to maintain a token garrison on three other borders. Somewhat frustrating, but if he wants to throw units at me pre-Construction, he can be my guest

[El Grillo]

Khan withdrew his forces and offered peace (twice!), but in a rather amusing repeat of last game, I decided to decline and pressed onward with my chariot for some city visibility. Alas, no empty cities spotted this time, but I did see three workers chopping into what is presumably the MoM. Wasting 6 worker turns for a chariot (if he roads and has chariots of his own in the fog) seems fine by me, but ideally I'd get city visibility so I can track his progress via espionage.

I've been playing the turns as quickly as possible, I'll try to remind myself to remember to take screenshots and do a broader overview next turn.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Khan withdrew his forces and offered peace (twice!), but in a rather amusing repeat of last game, I decided to decline and pressed onward with my chariot for some city visibility. Alas, no empty cities spotted this time, but I did see three workers chopping into what is presumably the MoM. Wasting 6 worker turns for a chariot (if he roads and has chariots of his own in the fog) seems fine by me, but ideally I'd get city visibility so I can track his progress via espionage.

I've been playing the turns as quickly as possible, I'll try to remind myself to remember to take screenshots and do a broader overview next turn.

Khan will be kicking himself if these lost worker turns loses him the MoM!

[El Grillo]

At last Christmas is over, the turns have started to roll again, and I've reminded myself to take some screenshots.

T65:

Not quite 1AD, but as good a time as any for an overdue update.

First, demographics and an overview:


I'm trailing Khan in the relevant indicators. Greenline is running breakeven, and everyone else is doing deficit research. Gold/GPT:
Khan (8 cities): 84g and 0gpt, had 122g 1t ago, estimated 100% expense of -38gpt
Me (9 cities): 154g and -52gpt (with some wealth builds, breakeven is ~40% research). FIN nets me 16 extra base commerce per turn.
Greenline (8 cities): 10g and 3gpt, had 8g 1t ago, breakeven
Ruff (8 cities): 3g and 0gpt, had 57g 1t ago, estimated 100% expense of -54gpt

I'm curious to see what everyone is researching right now, I'd expect Ruff to finish a tech this EOT. I don't have quite enough per-city pop data right now to reliably estimate everyone's pop distribution, but it's clear from the score and demos and Top 5 cities screen that Khan has a pop lead over all of us right now:



In recent events, Khan accepted my peace offer, so that episode ended uneventfully enough. My unit count is heavy on archers (with more in queue in case of emergency) and low on workers. KTB forecasting indicates that no one has Iron Working or HBR (I lack Masonry so I can't check Construction yet), so I'm feeling safe with just PRO archers for the moment.



I decided to divert most of my workers to the east to facilitate my Mausoleum and Colossus plans, and it's beginning to cause problems in the west. The plan is to let my bigger cities grow two sizes via calendar resources (hooked up in 1t and 2t, respectively) and then slow-build two rounds of workers to remedy that.

On the strategic layer, there are three more contested regions that have yet to be settled, one to the south bordering Ruff, and two to the west bordering Greenline and Khan.







The indicated tiles are where I'd like cities, but the southern site is unexciting, and the western sites demand military and worker support that I won't have available for about 6 more turns. My existing western holdings are tenuous enough without a road network, though I do have a modest production city in The Forgotten nearby to 2t archers and chariots if needed. With enforced peace secured with Khan, my emphasis on the next 10-15 turns will be securing those western sites and then consolidating and growing. From the looks of the map, that would give me slightly more than my fair share of land, three reasonably secure chokepoints with greenline, but a very wide front against Khan. Exciting times incoming.

On that note, here's the city I got visibility on: Splendor, Khan's second city, Buddhist holy city, and home of both his wonders.


Sabotage Production indicates that he has ~99h invested in the MoM (I'm not sure I have the formula right for Quick Speed, as far as I know it should produce an integer value), which is encouraging (I have 175h and one chop left), but he has at least one BFC chop and many more out-of-BFC chops available. He could also improve some more mines to increase his hpt, whereas I'm maxed out at 16hpt. That said, I'm a bit jealous of the site. I understand that it's analogous to my second site with gems instead of silver, so presumably the pigs are shared with his capital, but he has copper in the first ring, and that's with 7 tiles still fogged. With hammers and commerce in one spot, combined with EXP workers for more chops, it's no surprise he was able to tech through Priesthood and win both Stonehenge and Oracle. It's clear from the diplo screens that neither Ruff nor greenline had anything close to that.

Anyways, I'll wrap it up with a brief city overview:

The capital is overtuned to commerce, relying entirely on the whip to build infrastructure. Not sure if that's been the right call. I'd like to mine one riverside hill to get to 12hpt base and cottage the rest.


I'm going to start belatedly running scientists here after growing and passing the village to the capital.

Currently my best production site, though others have more potential. Hopefully it'll be enough to land the MoM and keep Khan in check.


Future home of the Colossus. It has 34h of overflow waiting for MC to finish.


Culture and workers needed ASAP. No idea what I was thinking cottaging that riverside grass instead of farming it. Possible Hanging Gardens site during the consolidation phase.


Mediocre, but lighthouse lakes make it worthwhile.


I'm a bit surprised I got his site from greenline. It's almost too good for Moai, but that's probably what I'll go for here, using repeated 2pop whip overflow.


The city that started the war with Khan. Mediocre, but with some commerce potential.


A food-rich commerce site that secures the peak tile to deny easy attacks. Needs culture and workers and a garrison to extend my rearch further west.

[El Grillo]

T66:

Let's try to get back in the habit of regular updates. I spotted a couple of awkward things this turn:

In the northeast, Khan has a settler headed towards the Fish that I'd like to claim, though it's possible for him to settle along the coast and leave my site available.



In the south, Ruff moved an axe up to my capital. Now we have open borders and I've avoided settling in his direction for the recent past, but I didn't feel like tempting fate by having the worker finish the Dye road. I could imagine him trashing our trade routes (he's leveraged his relative isolation to get OB with all three of us, including greenline, somehow), but needless to say I'd really prefer if he didn't



Production tracking in Splendor shows that Khan added 36 hammers to 136h, if my calculations are correct. That indicates one BFC chop and 16hpt. Unless he has a few more BFC forests to the north, I think I should be clear.

[El Grillo]

T67:

Ruff's axe is skirting at the edge of my borders, a nuisance that I can't do much about. I do need to found a couple of crumple zone cities to the south, but I'm hesitant to whip off pop 6-8 in my capital, and the production cities all have their queues earmarked. In the northwest, greenline and Khan settled very close cities, so I think I'll stay out of that one.

In good news, Splendor is now showing a new build, so either Khan has given up, or I'm missing something big. Looking at the city on the map, there doesn't appear to be anything new that costs that many hammers. That means he must have gained vision on Samurai at some point and has decided that he can't catch up. But then why continue to build it, including that chop from last turn? Well, one fewer thing to lose sleep over!

[El Grillo]

T70:

Khan captured (and kept?) a city from greenline to my northwest, no idea how he did it. He only declared war a turn earlier, so I imagine a chariot beating a warrior or two chariots beating an archer or a spear? Ruff is going to beat me to a city working the southeastern clams, as well. Can't win them all.

Last turn, Khan fired his 1-man GA and swapped into Bureaucracy, yikes. I expect him to either secure Music or dash ahead to Guilds. My GA is 7 turns away, and I'm roughly that many turns from Civil Service. Hopefully the extra GA turns from MoM, and being able to grow onto Colossus tiles, will make up for a bit of that. Still, I'm sure that I could've played this part of the game tighter. I'm fairly confident that I can get to longbows in time to prevent an attack of opportunity, but I'm not sure I'll have a mobile force ready to capitalize on a war against greenline. Not sure if I dare make the first move.

Meanwhile, it looks like the land distribution will reflect Khan and Ruff getting slightly more land than expected, at the expense of me and greenline. FIN has let me stay 2nd in tech, but it'll be tough to overtake Khan as his ORG courthouses start coming online. My commerce to population ratio just won't be THAT much higher until towns mature. The obvious solutions are to gain land by partitioning greenline, or maybe by finding an island in the central ocean?

I wish conquistadors were STR 14 :D

[El Grillo]

T72:

The good news is I landed MoM, and expect to finish The Colossus on T75. The bad news is I've lost all of the settling races I mentioned earlier . Ah well, can't get everything you want. Plan now is to 1t/overflow through Monarchy to swap into HR with my golden age, then get to Civil Service by the end of it. The timings line up better, and growing onto 2/0/5 tiles everywhere seems better than boosting the capital. This also lets me audible into Feudalism and longbows if necessary.

Pics and more on T75.

[El Grillo]

T74:

Worked some extra hammers and finished The Colossus this turn for an immediate +18c (almost a 25% increase at 100% gold). Khan ended his GA with a swap to Hereditary Rule, but not OR (which seems very odd, he should've been able to fit it in, and he has a self-founded religion and is ORG). Our own tech overflow hit Monotheism this turn, founding Judaism on the border with Khan for a very welcome border expansion. The plan now is to finish whipping in Lighthouses where they're needed, grow onto all of the water, and make up the beaker deficit during our GA. What's a courthouse when any old citizen makes 5c? :D

I haven't fully decided where to head tech-wise with this GA. I could play conservatively and get Feudalism for PRO longbows to firmly deny any pre-Knight shenanigans. I could race for the Music Artist, since no one has Aesthetics yet. However, that means delaying Code of Laws and Caste System, so I wouldn't be able to power out another GP for a 2-person GA any time soon. Code of Laws into Civil Service to swap into Bureaucracy is the most sensibly boring option, of course. While typing this, I realized that I could try building Wealth to finish both Monarchy and Code of Laws so I could swap into both. This could smooth later planning enough to even be worth delaying the GA by 1 turn, if it comes to that.

In that case, I like swapping into HR/Caste, getting Feudalism so no one tries anything while I'm out of Slavery, getting Civil Service to swap into before the GA ends, and then teching Music to set up a 2-person GA. Since I know I'll be putting emphasis on that, if I see Aesthetics fall, I'll swap to that to ensure getting the Artist - even if I'm late to Bureaucracy, I can just swap into it at the start of the second GA.

Pictures tomorrow.

[ipecac]

T74:

Worked some extra hammers and finished The Colossus this turn for an immediate +18c (almost a 25% increase at 100% gold). Khan ended his GA with a swap to Hereditary Rule, but not OR (which seems very odd, he should've been able to fit it in, and he has a self-founded religion and is ORG). Our own tech overflow hit Monotheism this turn, founding Judaism on the border with Khan for a very welcome border expansion

Well, if you founded Judaism then Khan couldn't have had Monotheism and so OR was not available for him.