[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Coeurva]

Game decides to bug out again and fuck everything up by moving all units on a tile, even when I make very sure to have only one of them selected. Nice to see. Lifeblood now has 2 unhappy and no garrison because why the fuck not. This has also happened on the turn of razing Atlantic City way back when.

Report and answering your posts later.

[Coeurva]

T98

I played this in two log-ins (since I quit the game immediately after seeing the same bug happen at Rhapsody). On the second log-in, the game played nice again, with absolutely no lag or involuntary stack-moving. Go figure, another issue to keep in mind and micro-manage.


The Lifeblood settler is destined for X13. It'll go faster once we can reclaim the plains mine next turn. And the less said about that, the better, because my mistakes are one thing, but when the game refuses control that's really unacceptable.

2-whipped at Whitehall for two reasons: a) it works bad tiles otherwise (although building GPP with a scientist might be alright, since Whitehall will produce more GPP later anyway), b) we need the galley to shuffle workers to Styx, which is growing rather impressive as a city with the iron unveiled. Build a lighthouse while Whitehall supplies more units, then get barracks up and keep deterring Savant both militarily and culturally. Who has built walls in Fountain Head, by the way -- just a preventive move in general, or did he fortify his flank for a strike on Ignis?

Whitehall actually needs to decide on work boat (either for X11 or Sherry i.e. X10) or archer.

Iron also makes the eastern island much better to settle, only problem is that it stretches our defenses again. Ignis will build archers from here. The iron in no man's land could be snatched by a daring Savant settle 6 of it, also threatening to take the silver from Ignis while sharing pigs with Harmondale, but the city itself would be rather dangerously placed and Ignis probably pops third-ring borders before that one would feel safe to place. He probably won't do it if he wants to attack Ignis, either, it just wastes units on garrison particularly if we can road towards it.

Already pushing to improve iron at Rhapsody and Vermin, the former Ignis worker will help at Rhapsody. The capital's iron can be shared with X13, for that matter, so maybe don't even build a lighthouse first, but a granary.

We need more workers (Styx and Nat'l Epic -- which I'd suggest as X14 even if only for the silver -- are beckoning) and we don't want the tallest cities to grow quite yet, so I've put two more in the queues.

Not really looking good here, even when considering two tiles at Lifeblood being lost for the turn, and we've whipped off 3 pop. At least our GNP can shine, and we'll put nets on two clams soon, but I still don't like that the only player behind us in Crop Yield is Dark Savant. Krill has founded 3 cities on this turn and the last, by the way.

No increase from Savant in power and a dip in MFG. We can now see his city of Vertigo (X5) on what I presume is his analogy of Whitehall's peninsula.

----

Sentry chariot inside Spire could see Yuri's capital, yeah, but he could see the thing as well. Since it doesn't do much at Ignis, I might push it back to the south anyway, but then again the extra unit at Ignis could save our bacon while Yuri isn't even adding power (even as dtay surely is). Still not sure, but it has to head south for the following turns anyway. I doubt Savant would kill it, that would just give us more turns to emergency-whip units at Ignis.

Heroic Epic will be even cooler if we can 1t some cats, so let's take Construction before Aesthetics -> Lit. Skipping MC might be fine, although those +3 happy would be really nice to have at Rhapsody and should be included in a payback calculation (or Fermi guess).

[Coeurva]

T99

The turn pace has been excellent lately, by the way.

The gold city has an ocean fish for second-ring food and a banana for first ring. I'm more worried that this city is closer to GermanJoey than it is to anyone else, probably double the distance from Rhapsody as from State of Yue. Think we should be so bold? A chariot will reinforce the archer next turn (along with the two workers making landfall) and if Savant stays quiet in the west, we can use Hebona to ferry over more archers (and perhaps even establish a galley chain with the new-built one).


Decided on WB first at Whitehall, that brave little sloop will supply the tip of Hammerhead. The dreaded return of the lighthouse build at Ignis also features -- but it brings in +1 surplus food (4f->5f -- relevant at size4 + granary, 1t faster regrowth) as soon as it completes, which I like. Didn't want to double-whip barracks. Styx is now running on two seafood tiles and will become a powerhouse soon enough -- just need to ferry over some workers, whip the granary, and chop a lighthouse. I'm getting more cheerful again.

0% science because we can save a turn on Mathematics that way, if we can scrounge up a few spare beakers next turn (surely we can, not least since we'll found two cities).

Dark Savant manages to expertly culture-troll us again , Vertigo popping second-ring borders just now, so that our scout boat gets blocked and has to take another detour. At this rate, we'll meet dtay before Gavagai, not that it's the worst thing to know what he's been doing. Other than that, Savant remains mysterious as ever, but has moved his swordsman eastward. His empire is similarly-stretched as ours, it seems -- and without HBR, he'll have a hard time moving units between his two fronts, so perhaps that -- combined with Gavagai's threat -- will help us to keep him at peace.


Also we remain #1 in soldiers, if nothing else (but this is 0% science), and could increase our food already. MFG is somewhat troubling, but we can add iron at least. Rival Best Pop should be Joey, who is the only other player with a size10 capital at present (the Khatunate double-whipped something, probably their 11th settler which has founded a city last turn).

Savant is probably Rival Best MFG, looking at the graphs. More reason for him to attempt a military breakout, unfortunately. He has ~40g and makes ~20gpt.

EDIT: Looking at the mini-map, we must be the worst offenders at settling in a line (or rather a crescent) in this game. Another reason to build up Styx fast now.

Tech path will be Maths -> Masonry -> (Polytheism?) -> Construction -> Aesthetics -> Literature. Since we'll need Poly sooner or later, I'm wondering if we can grab Judaism; forgot to check the event log this turn, but it had not fallen yet on T98. Savant would be a candidate if he wasn't going for Currency (he must be, right?)

EDIT: I'm also hoping that JR4/Ref get the hint about espionage -- I've left it at 43 EP and am spending everything on Krill again (who should get our graphs in a few turns). 43/43 is the optimal investment for two nations each wanting to see graphs as cheaply as possible (because 43 / 143 equals about 0.3007, but 42 / 142 < 0.3).

We could meet GermanJoey next turn, but I think that would only be detrimental. I certainly don't want him to pay attention to us while we can hardly supply the gold city. There's probably an easier-to-settle gold city in the eastern sea which was meant to be ours.

EDIT: All is Edith. Considering just how good Calendar will be for both the gold city's autonomy (first-ring bananas) and our best (present or future) production cities to bump their food, as well as for National Epic, maybe we should slot it in before Construction. Another tough choice, since whatever we choose, we'll wish for the other if we make the wrong call on Savant's plans.

[Coeurva]

Filler X13 doesn't look all that convincing to me anymore if we want to pursue a fast Literature. We can't get the galley out in time at Zodiac Spire to use the settler on Marble Island, though. But our southern workers are well-positioned to chop banana/silver, while the guys working on the gems can easily proceed into the jungle near the National Epic site from the north. Economically, Nat'l Epic is superior already by working silver over two lighthouse lakes (and probably three, since it gets started much faster), and Filler X13 would steal food from Lifeblood and iron from Rhapsody just as we connect +2 happiness resources. Styx will also receive a lot of worker attention, and having first-ring food at the gold city would make a huge difference to its defensibility. That makes me think Calendar will be the best pick after all.

In that case, we need to build extra units since we won't have catapults to compensate. The lighthouse at Ignis can finish with a whip to overflow into a 1t axe/archer eoT102, while Whitehall finishes two archers eoT101/103. If Rhapsody builds wealth, Sicil probably doesn't have to, and maybe not even Vermin. Nat'l Epic can be protected initially with a chariot drawn from Zodiac Spire, and subsequently supplied from Vermin.

The 1 extra pop from Calendar (generally speaking here) can then be whipped into our double-speed colosseums where applicable, so that the delay on Construction doesn't hurt as much -- need to finish the Heroic Epic before we can really build up on swords/catapults in the south, anyway. Getting the National Epic site started earlier might allow us to use it for producing the GP roughly anticipated for when we reach Feudalism/Machinery/Civil Service (still in the cards), which frees up Whitehall for more extravagant whipping and production of archers, which we'll need to protect our western islands.

There might be a merit in contacting Joey after Gold City pops borders: to set up a triangular situation where neither of Mongolia or Greece can attack us without having to fear that we make an alliance with the other, tech Metal Casting, and go Unlimited U-Boot on their seafood and colonies. Moreover, if we trade maps with him at some point before discovering our eastern gold, he might understand better why we settled what "should have been his": for all we knew, that was the only gold we could settle for. He'd still look to attack it, of course, but there'd be less of a chance that he'd feel "insulted" by it. Then again, we don't really want Joey to have a map of us.

If Savant becomes more unruly, teching Calendar still leaves us flexible to change plans.

I'm thinking to offer Open Borders to Savant in a "Krill move" -- just to force a clarifying reaction. If he accepts while we have a sentry chariot right next to his borders, we can probably scout out any stack he might have, and this will ease tensions between us both. If he declines, we'll know better about his motives -- for all we know, he might just build a lot of soldiers because he's stuck between us (#1 soldiers for almost the entire game, attacked neighbour early and razed two cities), Mongolia (island garrisons which are larger than ours; strong economy) and Gavagai.

The trouble is that Mongolia might not like this move, and we don't want them to open borders with Savant. I'm basically hoping that their front with Savant is so wide compared to our naval border that they'll consider him the more attractive target (if he starts falling behind in tech while we can keep up with soldiers, all the better).

[Coeurva]

T100

Dark Savant one-upped me, as I was greeted by his offer to Open Borders for 8gpt on this turn. I've declined as we want to 1t Maths here (and 8gpt is a bit much), to flip the sci switch right after hitting the next commerce peak, but I offered back Open Borders for 10g. Not a great deal for him, but I didn't want to blow him off, rather show a general willingness to concede a bit of gold. I'm assuming he'll decline. He'll get better conditions on the deal next turn -- how much gpt would you give him here? In any case, now we have to option to make Savant depend on us for a good part of his income over the next 10t, which benefits us both as we can put up more defenses against Joey/Mongolia in the west, and tech Calendar more safely. Unless he's planning to use our gold to tech Construction but we'll know if he chooses anything but Currency.

We'll still add an axe to Ignis as planned, I suggest. There's still room for a crisis with Savant, of course (over Yuri), but it might have been averted for the next 10t.

The Khatunate has teched Iron Working last turn, I presume from their soldier graph. Joey has also entered the Classical Age by now, and I think he's Rival Best Food (surprise), so he could always whip out a quick task force. I'd like to add another archer per city at least.


To give lurkers an idea of how close we've settled to Joey now. Hebona will immediately move to ferry over more military. Might even reduce Whitehall's garrison to 2 again (it builds 2t archers anyway) to strengthen our baby colonies. Sherry is just alright until it pops borders and the horse gets improved, but then it should become self-sufficient. X12 really needs the bananas, I wouldn't like waiting 18t for the border pop to bring in food. Maybe it should work the jungled banana over the gold, but it'll take those 8t before the plantation could finish anyway, so I think it's reasonable to go for max hammers in this case.

At least those clams on the southern tip of the island are still within reach for Joey. Otherwise, the plant would bear even more potential to sour relations.

Whipped the granary at Styx, a bit suboptimally for the food bar itself, but it frees up the fish tile for Whitehall to work (which is due for growth). The 2-move galley will accept two workers next turn such that they can improve the iron at Styx.

Settled X11 and X12 as planned. We'll connect gems and gold on T103. Maintenance has become painful again (forgot the F1 this turn), but as long as we can build wealth at one (mature) city per turn, we should be fine. Another reason to tech Calendar: we can pick up the 6c plains incense at X11.

As mentioned, Lifeblood grows (whip anger will wear off eot) building wealth, the settler will be resumed either at size9 or later -- I want National Epic to work improved tiles right away as X13.

We'll connect two iron resources next turn. Maybe Lifeblood will build 1-2 swords before the next settler.


Just a cute map anomaly.


Not so worried about food on this turn, since we're closer to Rival Best (after Joey whipped off three pop or something, he's also Rival Best Pop for sure). GNP looks good, but the Khatunate has shown an impressive 1t spike on their graphs -- curious whether we'll surpass that one. I don't think we've run 100% sci on any turn after getting Currency yet.

EDIT: The scout boat has proceeded so far north that we can actually meet dtay in 3-4t, guaranteed. With Savant appearing more willing to cooperate for the next 10t or so, we could perhaps delay our search for Gavagai to meet dtay first.

EDIT: Wait, 8gpt over 10t is exactly what we've made Savant spend on that warrior upgrade, wasn't it.

[Bacchus]

Short note -- I wouldn't give savant any gpt just at the moment, his economy is in the tank, let him find other ways to fix it.

[Coeurva]

Counterpoint: his precarious GNP means that we can insure ourselves now with the smallest cost to our gpt, since Savant will see benefit even in scraps. On the other hand, I don't want him to reach Currency so much earlier that his wealth builds (using his current 20hpt advantage) start to push him ahead again.

I find it difficult to decide, but I'll go with not offering gpt on the following turns.

The tech path I'm thinking of now is Calendar -> Masonry -> Poly -> Literature -> Aesthetics -> Construction (for the next ~25t or so), i.e. settle marble, get the Epics early as you've suggested, and supply them (and other cities) with banana plantations + incense + sugar for food/happiness. No immediate need for forge happiness that way, and we might even be able to trade sugar to someone due to Calendar resource asymmetry. I forgot whether Savant has more than one dye, but that could also be a way to placate him.

[Coeurva]

T101

Savant declined 10g for Open Borders. Not that I'd have expected him to accept. He didn't counter-offer, though. His gpt has shot up notably from 20 to 32gpt, with 92g in the bank; he has connected gold, which explains half of this; the rest could come from the second gems. We've spotted two galleys of his, one near Vertigo, and one in the eastern sea. I've placed signs.

Does his increase in gpt mean that 3-4gpt extra could be a better price to pay for OB? It's your choice, I'm not willing to override your decision here.


There's a lot going on. I've decided to work iron + grass mine over two hamlets (13t to village) at Rhapsody to ensure the 2t worker and subsequent eoT103 growth; we currently have twelve workers supplying just as many cities and I'd like a 4-worker task force to improve National Epic once settled. Worker pairs will start improvements at Styx and "q" on T104; this takes 2t of transit/landfall starting next turn. The lighthouse at Ignis overflows into an 1t axe. At Styx, we whip an axe next turn (screenshot lies about the lighthouse) and load it plus an archer onto Hebona, reinforcing our western colonies (axe for X12, archer for Sherry). The whip also ensures Whitehall can keep the fish, and set up a barracks 2-whip for next turn -- we're still losing 1%/t on that fish tile to Savant's cultural push. Zodiac Spire grabs second-ring borders and thus its last forest on T103, which we'll chop on the same turn and put the hammers into a granary, then whip the galley to settle marble as X14 (needed for epics). X15 should be western wheat, I think, and follow shortly afterwards.

It would be optimal for our tallest cities to grow eoT102 due to connecting +2 happiness on T103, but that's only going to happen so precisely at Sicil. Could have engineered it at Lifeblood, maybe, but slower growth actually helps it (somewhat) because it has to pass a tile to Vermin next turn.

The lighthouse at Ignis improves the whale with +1f. The city doesn't really have tiles to work past size5 (once we complete the mine), which means we'll whip off all growth immediately. Regrowth with a granary takes 15f (size4) / 16f (size5), which means that 1f -> 2h at this city, which means that the lighthouse pays back on whips within 30t. That should be fine. There's also the potential pay-off of giving us 1 more pop to emergency-whip (maybe) in the event of a Savant attack, since we'll hit sizeX+1 more frequently. Happiness is basically not an issue at this point.

I think that the beauty of CHM + lots of happiness sources (resources, forges, colosseums, etc.) lies in how you can take your time whipping stuff aggressively as long as your stacked anger can be managed by Hereditary Rule MP at the point that it threatens to overwhelm you. Even cycles that whip growth every 3t become sustainable (but don't do this at every city unless you can conquer someone who went cottage happy, lest you'll just lack mature cottages later).


Joey is #1 CY/pop (although State of Yue being size11 and Mysteries being size10 distort his actual numbers due to the weird non-linear scale of that stat), Mongolia and us are #1 GNP (Mongolia has more food, we have more MFG and probably GNP), Savant is #1 MFG and #2 soldiers. Can't say anything about the others. The spike I expected from our GNP didn't take because we 1t-ed Maths, of course -- forgot about that; losing the 20% bonus will also drop our 100% sci GNP when it becomes visible next turn.

Still no sign of Gavagai. I suggest we just turn our ship to dtay, whom we can reach within 3t.

Thought about Shwedagon Paya again, but even at its maximal hammer output, Vermin takes a bit too long to build it without forge/workshops (~11t). It would be great if we could failgold it, though.

Too tired to think of what I might have forgotten to write about. Just one last note: Joey can presumably see the borders of the gold city, and the Mongols can definitely see inside Sherry. JR4/Ref should be on 12 cities, Krill on 11, and Joey in the same ballpark. Nothing new to report about Yuri that we could see.

[Coeurva]

T102

Someone we lack contact with has built the Pyramids. I think it was Gavagai.

To prove that I'm excellent at staying true to prior plans and keeping my word, I actually did go against your suggestion and offered Savant 3gpt for OB this turn. So -- I'm sorry.

The reason is that he'll found two more cities anyway (we can see the settlers) and he spent all his gold on something that, apparently, wasn't Currency (gpt stayed at 32), which means that the 3gpt aren't going to speed him up meaningfully. We can also see the third swordsman trickling into Sorpigal this turn. I'm tired of having to keep building military against him, we would both profit from slowing down this arms race (before the Heroic Epic comes online, that is). I'm not willing to give better conditions than this; if he declines, I'll let him build his swordsmen if that's what he wants.

Our exploring galley found news in the east:

Aside from how lush these islands are, that unexpected Savant colony (X10, I assume) worries me because it's so distant that I can only guess he founded it to pick up a gold resource. If true, that means Joey is locked out of both his "natural" gold resources. Ours is unfortunately closer to him.

Galley move: 31 or 39? Or something else?

We'll also meet dtay via boat next turn -- inevitably; he has founded an island city on the way to Gavagai. I'll laugh if it pops borders. Don't think we should give him our map, since we don't need him to know how Yuri's first cities are placed.


Lifeblood has no tiles to grow onto right now; I think we should just finish the X13 settler on T103-T104. We need to grab Calendar by eoT105 for the best effect (can immediately improve incense at X11 after the deer camp finishes). The lighthouse at Westward Ho! is the last piece of infrastructure I think we'll need there for now (and which we'll whip), pushing clams to 5t and adding a 302 tile; other stuff will be slow-built from here.

I'm aiming to finally fulfill our strategic ideas regarding the Vacant Sea. Perhaps Lifeblood will go settler -> worker -> settler. Not sure yet. Zodiac Spire will put a chop into the granary, whip, overflow into galley, whip again, then build a lighthouse (maybe), then units.

I'm not sure what to settle after marble. I still prefer western wheat, but there are other options especially with Calendar online. The eastern grass wheat island would be nice to settle, if we can hold it, for which I'd prefer the eastern wheat as a stepping-stone.


We produce lots of dirty things and shiny things and dirty shiny things. We do not produce food. What's new? 169 food was also ranked #6. Dark Savant is pulling ahead of us in food again, by the way.

Judging from their 1t spike, Mongolia at full research is probably not much worse than us -- if at all (they're making ~60gpt; Krill: 40). That worries me; it's clear that vertical expansion won't be enough for us from here. We need to pick up more food resources. (Of course, vertical will do that as well to some extent -- X10 and X11 have lots of food to pick up yet)

Yuri still seems stuck in the Ancient Age. He popped his Great Prophet this turn, though, which I guess he'll use to bulb something (which tech?). 103 gold, 10gpt, probably heading for Mathematics.

[Bacchus]

I guess Savant needs to be putting all these hammers _somewhere_ and he can't build either Wealth or Libraries, so swords it is. Still unfortunate, and being 1St soldiers whilst not waging or even planning a war is sure annoying. Still, makes 1St GNP ever more so impressive.

Don't mind the 3gpt too much, as you it's small change by this point.

Still in Scotland cycling, so short thoughts, but I'm reading.