Anyone up for an EitB SG?

[DaveV]

I played ten turns. RIP Decius, thanks for all the floodplains and culture buildings.

I didn't see anything that needed to be done with the save, so I pressed Enter and an event popped up:



I always say No to this one; it seems like a paltry number of beakers in exchange for three population.

Golden Leane came out of revolt, and its people weren't happy to join the zombie empire:



I also conquered Timberling, losing two zombies at long odds and one at about 85%.



I got the "spiders infesting a mine" event. I always chose Ignore on this one, because the spiders will stay invisible and not cause problems as long as we don't send a scout into the area.



Decius's mic drop:



Here are the captured and newly settled cities:



As noted, the scout  is carrying the Lyre to Steinvik to pop its borders. After that, it should probably go to Kuldevind to help it fight off the holy city culture.

One option for expansion is to go after these barb cities:



I built a galley, which could carry some units up there without having to hack through the army of bears.

Another option is the island north of Sabathiel, which would give intercontinental trade routes, and provide Furs if we research Hunting. I turned on research for Horseback riding, since Mobility is a great promotion. Several of our units have promotions available, which I was saving for Mobility.

[haphazard1]

Looks like some good turns, DaveV! Poor Decius, he was doing so well until we beat up on him in two straight incarnations. But those tasty flood plains look so much better under our colors.

The spider in the mine event is a pain. We may eventually have to deal with it, as we will likely need to send scouts/hunters into that area to deal with the hordes of hungry bears. Maybe stick a sign on the tile to remind ourselves that it is there, so we do not get surprised later?

More cities could be useful, although most of that land is nearly useless without Hunting tech to improve the deer for food. An island city for trade routes could be useful, and we could certainly use the extra commerce.

Anyone have an idea why Sabathiel is listed with that "(WAR)" tag on his name?

[Mr. Cairo]

How's our economy doing? I wonder if a crash is incoming, maintenance is going to get pretty high as a lot of our cities are far away from the cap. We'll also need a pretty decent standing army to deter Sabathiel and Tasunke from attacking (or defending when they do attack, or attacking them ourselves). Perhaps we should head towards Aristocracy? Or am I just paranoid from playing on Immortal when I play SP?

Also, at some point we're probably going to get some science modifier buildings, at which point we will definitely want to be running binary science. Just something to keep in mind for the future.

[superjm]

IIRC we're in City States so maintenance isn't a super huge issue at the moment. Decius's former lands are rich enough that we'll be able to get by for sure.

[Brian Shanahan]

Have the save, will play now.

Looks to me like a set of consolidating our goals and building up our civ. We'll probably need to take somebody out to jump so I'll see if I can work towards that.

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok not much to report, it was mostly a case of treading waters.

I used our friendship to get a map off of Kandros, he showed most of the land is taken up.  The only good land available per his map is in the south beyond both him and Tasunke.  I built up most of the cities as much as I could (probably favouring Carnivals too much).

We popped gold at Tongurstad near the end of the set(we've now two, and could shop it around, Sabathiel and Kandros will give Wine Thessa and Falamar pearls), you'll never guess where:

Under the spider.  I tell you lads he's a good omen that spider.  We'll have to domesticate him.

We've a fleet of three galleys to take our PZs on a little cruise.  Unfortunately the only half way good spot in the northern island is gone, Falamar took it (and IIRC he planted so the fish are third ring, the idiot).

So I took our cooking settler two PZs and a warrior west to try and secure the Remnants, unfortunately we got this log jam:



Luckily I had decided to take our PZ army to pop the Broken Sepulchre and we'll probably be able to save the settler next turn and get him home.

On the sepulchre, it popped a great merchant (Yay!). We've three options pop Optics (meh), pop golden age, or do trade mission.  Given our current options I'd say the extra production and gold from the golden age are the best idea for the merchant.

During the set I also paid fifty odd gold for a treasure map (as you do) and got this:



Probably a waste of money, but I've spent more on worse.

And finally in spoilers, the lay of the land:

Never seen Archeron's city get so cramped.

Sorry for the lack of details, was a consolidatory set.

One final piece of advice, keep the Lyre in Frolik (the Order HC) until it pops third ring.  That Khazad city is a pain.

PS the three galleys are by Graveling, waiting for an army to trannsport.

[haphazard1]

Sounds like a solid turnset, Brian, given the circumstances. We have improved our position greatly, mostly at Decius' expense, and have secured a decent chunk of territory. But there is minimal space left for us to expand other than by conquest, and trying to build ourselves to a dominant position economically is likely to be a very long task.

[Mr. Cairo]

Got the save, will play in the next hour or so.

[Mr. Cairo]

And here's the report (exciting times ahead):

Turn 235: I decide to change the location for the settler up by the bears to the tundra hill 1W of the original spot. It gets the Remnants in the BFC and it means we don't lose out on the only flat grasslands tile there. I start collecting the PZs around where the Sepulchre was to get in the boats and head to the barb cities up north. I put science to 100% and fire off the Golden Age. I also send a PZ towards the Hippus in Balderham to see if they're planning an attack against us.


That one bear ends up suiciding on a PZ.

Turn 236: Education finishes and I swap to Apprenticeship and Nationhood. We really do need more units, so after the Carnivals already queued finish up (and a pair of smokehouses in our most unhealthy cities), I plan to focus on Pyre Zombies. I realise later that I should have saved the civic swap until after Code of Laws so I can swap into Aristocracy. Oh well, I decide tech-wise to try and fill in a few essentials (IMO), so start on Sanitation. Vargstad is founded, start on a monument working the 2/2 forested GL tile. Over in the Hippus lands we see this:

A good sign.

Turn 237: I spoke too soon:



Turn 238: False alarm, they turn around. Sanitation finishes, start Archery for better chops. Obviously with Fellowship and a lot of Ancient Forests, we might not want to be chopping everything in sight, but it's still worthwhile.

Turn 239: Pick up PZ army and head up to the barbs.

Turn 240: Archery finishes, start on CoL, but go to 0% science to build up more cash. Our PZs are ready to unload next to the barb city:


But then I see something "interesting"

 
I relocate our PZs down back down:

I probably won't try and hold Vargstad. Those Trebs are bad news, being able to damage our PZs badly without killing them and damaging they're own units from dead PZs. I'd need more zombles than those to hold this army, and even more to kill it on the attack. It all depends on where they go from here.

Turn 241: Another false alarm apparently:

Quit freaking me out AI 
I turn science back on, and load up the PZs to go back to the barbs.

Turn 242: Unload 9 PZs by the barb city:

I dropped on the deer first then saw a worker on the other tile and nabbed it before it could run away to the other city. It's an orc worker, so slow, but still better to get it earlier than later, besides, some of our PZs are so well promoted that I shouldn't need to sac any to soften the archers. Meanwhile back home most cities are on PZ duty. 

Turn 243: Capture the barb city with no losses (winning 95% and ~70% battles):

I gather our forces on one tile: that bear is unpromoted and one of our PZs has C3, so if it attacks we should be fine. Of course in the interturn it does kill that C3 PZ 
Frolik popped it's 3rd ring borders so I've taken the Lyre to Kuldenvind to counter the FoL Holy city culture there. I also trade our spare Gold for Cotton from Kandros. Code of Laws finishes and I initially start on Writing, but I decide instead to head towards Knowledge of the Ether, which means Planar Gates and eventually Mobius Witches. Our traits are focused on magic after all, and we'll probably need more than Pyre Zombies to get to 1st (but maybe not, the AI is pretty dumb after all, but magic is fun anyway).

Turn 244: It's WAR! But not against us, thanks the gods. Tasunke declares on Sabathiel. This is definitely an opportunity for us. Those PZs up by the barbs I move towards the other city there (a tougher prospect with 2 archers and 3 axes), but others I send away from the Hippus border towards our cap and the Sabathiel border. There are already ~4 PZs in our cap which I had built in case of an attack from that direction (as well as a couple more workers to improve some tiles in our core.) We should attack Sabathiel ASAP.
Tech wise we finish Myst, and start on KotE (but go back to 0% science). I also ask nicely and receive maps from everyone but Sabathiel.
I adopt Aristocracy, maintenance goes up, but we're working 20+ farms, so definitely worth it (our gpt goes up by around 20). Then I check the events log and see this:

Someone killed Acheron, but his city hasn't fallen (also note the random three Khazad Trebs wandering around there). In my experience I've never seen the AI actually attack Acheron. They'll move great big armies up to his city then sit around for a while before running away. I'm guess that this time, they decided to actually attack and got a very lucky dice roll. Whoever did it will have a very highly promoted unit out there now (when I killed Acheron at low odds in a SP game the Horse Archer got 50xp, sending it up to 95 in total).

Turn 245: I didn't do anything but queue up a few builds. For the next player, note the random Khazad trebs wandering in neutral territory by that border, and there's those Hippus Chariots we saw earlier running around in our territory.
Here's the power graph:


Hippus will probably make short work of Sabathiel's initial border cities, but it's note totally overwhelming. Even so, we should jump in ASAP. But also watch out for Kandros.
Those dips from the Falamar suggest it was they who are attacking Acheron. There are two turns of GA left, but we revolted last turn, so we're in these civics for a while. But they're pretty good ones so...

The plan right now should be to build Pyre Zombies and poach as many of Sabathiel's cities as possible. Also, this might just be my own aggressive nature revealing itself, but if we get an opportunity to wipe out Tasunke's stack as it's attacking Sabathiel, we should take it. I don't think we can take first place again without confronting our former selves, so if a first strike opportunity presents itself, we should take it.

superjm -> UP
haphazard -> On Deck

[superjm]

The problem with attacking Tasunke any time soon is that he's giving us basically all of our happiness right now. I'll see what I can do though.

I'll take a look but probably won't be able to play tonight. Tomorrow for sure I'm good though.