[Spoilers] rho21 follows the works of Homer... D'OH!

[rho21]

A quick report as I played in my lunch break.

Turn 85

Western front
I am attempting to set up a position to ambush the eagle warrior west of Menaechmus with three archers and a warrior. We'll see how that works out.

Northern front
Apparently I should have gone to Mysticism first, as the Aztecs have gained a fourth envoy in Geneva, causing a war declaration. I've switched Mysticism in now, due in 2 turns.

Housekeeping
As well as cancelling the quest, threatening my units up there and potentially getting the Aztec scout out of trouble, that also stops my trade routes causing me to lose 8 and 6 per turn. Why did I allow this to happen, again?
So, do I leave the trade routes idle for a couple of turns, or send them to other destinations? I decide to rebase one to Pythagoras, to trade with Pataatje Oorlog or Hong Kong, the other to Menaechmus to trade internally for food and production to kickstart the young city.

In the long run, I don't need to worry about envoys, as I get a bonus one every time I finish an Acropolis and I don't have anywhere except Geneva to send them, really.

Elsewhere I did the two scheduled Limes chops. Stonehenge will be done next turn at Hippocrates, the Encampment will take 2 turns at Xenocrates.

Still no idea how the Aztecs are getting 1.5 great write points per turn.

[rho21]

Turn 86

Score tracking
Since a couple of turns ago, Aztec has gained a tech and a civic. The tech was apprenticeship, I can see the change to the yield of the jade mine next to the mountain passes.
Kongo has a settler out (it's right next to my hoplites). They've gained 4 pop and a tech in the past 2 turns.

Eastern Theatre
A second barbarian sword is finished off by my hoplites. Looks like 15 damage healed per turn in Kongo's territory, incidentally. May be doing a fair bit of that in the coming turns.

Western Theatre
The trap is baited: an archer aims a shot at the eagle warrior, doing 23 damage. The archer is safe from immediate counter-attack, and if the eagle advances to chase it off it will run into fire from two other archers and a warrior. Honestly it's unlikely this trap will work, but it costs nothing to try. (See the picture below.)

Nothern Theatre
None of Geneva's units attacked mine this turn, for some reason. I can't chase the Aztec scout though, as it is retreating through Geneva's borders. If my chariot moved anywhere near it, it would be in range for at least 2 archers and a warrior to attack. Instead I kill off one of Geneva's archers for the XP.

There's no way out for the scout in the long run, especially once Geneva goes neutral, but it could still make a bit of a nuisance of itself.

Housekeeping
Stonehenge completed, Parallelism founded! So, what beliefs seem best?
Out of the limited options for the first belief it really has to be Jesuit Education, letting me purchase campus and acropolis buildings with that I've been amassing. I have 630 right now, though a fair bit will need to go on missionaries.
From the rest, I want Defender of the Faith and Church Property, to address my military and monetary problems. I start with Church Property: as there's no race on at all, and it will take some time to spread the religion to the front lines anyway.

Hippocrates still has most of 100 overflow after finishing Stonehenge which I devote to the commercial hub, now due in 4. The other good news is that building the wonder claimed the tile for its campus, so I'll be getting that placed as soon as I can chop it.

[Garath]

Wow, chop management with Limes is really busted. *A hundred and twenty* production into the Pyramids? A hundred *more* overflow after finishing Stonehenge?? How did anyone ever think going back to a system that didn't pay attention to differing production modifiers was a good idea?

Meanwhile wow, I also didn't come close to realising how bad Aztec meeting Geneva could be for you - it looks like they must have never put any non-quest envoys into any other city states, I think? Which makes sense since they knew they were planning to kill them, but it hadn't occurred to me. Geneva declaring war on you is really unpleasant though.

I think those trade routes sound pretty bad to lose and I would probably wait to reapply them. But you do also have new cities that could use the help from an internal route... tough one.


To ask a different question, how is worker management going at the moment overall? The older core cities don't really need more improvements I guess since their population growth has gone into settlers instead, but everywhere seems to want amazing chops and the new cities must want improvements. How are you doing on keeping up? I remember talk of storing builders mostly-built from the production policy into the extra charges policy, but I can't remember what tech that's on so I don't know if it's happened yet.

[rho21]

Yeah, big multiplied chops are insanely powerful. Thankfully we're pretty much limited to one chop at +100% per city in the earlyish game on a pangaea (on other maps there's a +100% for early naval units that's worth running). Still, +50% is no joke. I'm trying my best to put almost every I generate into something with a boost, using overflow to finish anything I can't boost. Not that that's possible fully or indefinitely.
How they thought a governor to give an additional +100% to chops was a good idea for the expansion I have no idea.

The amount of overflow from Stonehenge is a bit misleading. That +100% stone harvest for 162 provided the second overflow I had applied to the wonder, and the overflow from Stonehenge also contained the turn of production I devoted to it right then. Still, it was a bit absurd.

I was expecting Aztec to have spare envoys, but one fewer than they actually had because I hadn't looked closely enough at what they would have on the civic tree. Oops. That was really careless, frankly. We're going to be dueling with envoys here for a while, I suspect.

In the end I decided the trade routes could serve double purpose by generating useful roads through my territory.
So one is running from Pythagoras to Hong Kong for 31 and a road that goes over hills all the way to Aristaeus, then continues over more rough terrain through a Kongolese city.
The other goes from Menaechmus to Euclid for 12 and a useful road through Hippocrates the central mountains. This has really helped to make that city productive.

There will be another commercial hub done in a few turns, hopefully I can make a trader promptly and send it to Geneva.

The +2 charges policy for builders is at Feudalism, 4 turns away. I have builders waiting in the queue essentially done at Pythagoras, Apollonius and Aristaeus. I have a couple of other builders around with one charge left which I'm holding on to in the hope of landing the Pyramids to give them an extra charge.

As far as labour goes, I'm not too badly off because most of my cities have hit a soft housing cap so aren't growing fast. It sucks to have all my cities at size 4 though, so I want to put down a few farms to get some growth going (with the extra food for adjacent farms at Feudalism). There are also quite a few tiles that will need a mine soon but are just outside borders right now.
There are a couple of wall chops (Apollonius, Menaechmus) pending and a chariot chop (Xenocrates) too. Apollonius has a couple of tiles to repair too.
The new cities will want some improvements soon but right now they are working 22 tiles anyway so not in dire straits.

In short, I'm expecting the new builders to cover my needs for maybe 15-20 turns.

Anyway, on to this morning's turn:

Turn 87

Score tracking
Looks as though the Aztecs gained a big influx of money when I finished Stonehenge. Apparently there was a race on after all.

Eastern Theatre
My hoplite was shot by a barbarian archer. The two hoplites are on 37 and 41 health; they both retreat out of range of the archer.

Western Theatre
The Eagle Warrior is retreating SW towards the nearby Aztec city, ignoring my trap. Hardly a surprise. I get a second shot off at it, causing 27 damage.

Housekeeping
Aryabhata is mine, boosting Education (recruit a great scientist) and the Enlightenment (recruit 3 great people). That's some serious science and culture, and his power is to provide the eureka for 3 more random classical or medieval techs.
Applicable techs:

Tech	Boost value	Requirement	Thoughts
Celestial Navigation	60	Improve 2 sea resources	Unimportant, not likely to be boosted soon
Shipbuilding	100	Own 2 galleys	Unimportant, not likely to be boosted soon
Stirrups	195	Have Feudalism	Done in 4 turns
Military Engineering	195	Build aqueduct	Done at Xenocrates within 10 turns
Castles	195	Have a 6-policy government	Going to be a while

So I can guarantee the important Castles boost as soon as the aqueduct can be chopped out at Xenocrates. Albeit it comes with boosts for two rather less relevant techs (for the time being), but that's just an indication of how well I've been hitting the boosts so far.

The next great scientist is Emilie du Châtelet. She costs 240 points and gives 3 boosts for the renaissance and industrial eras. Miles away for everyone and not a particularly valuable power anyway.

Mysticism is done. The envoy goes into Geneva, achieving peace. The Aztec scout is back out to the NE of the city, trapped by the archer unless they have another envoy to invest (and even then without a good route out).

I get a change of government, of course, and it seems that I need neither Limes nor Ilkum right now: all my builders are pre-built and I have no further charges to spend on walls chops in the next few turns.

Accordingly, the new government is Conscription, Urban Planning, Charismatic Leader, Manoeuvre and one of:

• Caravansaries for 4
  
• Corvee to speed the Pyramids up
  
• Conscription to get a head start on more settlers
  
• Agoge to finish off the archer in Hippocrates before Machinery
  

Corvee won't actually save a turn, from the looks of it: Euclid produces 16.8/turn and needs 50 to finish the Pyramids.
Conscription will get at most 3 turns of use at Pythagoras, but I could just build a chariot there for now.
Not really worth Agoge just for that one archer.
So I decide it's best getting a little more money for unit upgrades with Caravansaries.

Chariots are now in production at Xenocrates and Menaechmus. Apollonius gets started on a shrine, though I plan to chop that (via the walls) once Feudalism is in. I'm definitely going to need some missionaries, as passive religious spread takes ages with two cities contributing.

[rho21]

Turn 88

Score tracking
Aztec either gained 3 more pop or a district that doesn't give specialist points. I strongly suspect they are aiming for the Colosseum, so it's quite possible they finished an entertainment district, especially given their unique arena.

Eastern Theatre
An Ngao Mbeba has helped out with the barbarian archer leaving it severely red-lined. I kill it off; hopefully there aren't yet more barbarians following. My hoplites will take 5 or 6 turns to heal up.

Western Theatre
A new barbarian camp has appeared in the north. The archers that were menacing the Eagle warrior move that way; one of them shoots the scout it spawned.

Northern Theatre
I shoot the Aztec scout with my archer. A poor roll means it's still alive, but it can't get out of range.

Housekeeping
The friendship with Kongo has expired. They proposed a renewal, which I accepted.

Here's a view of the new barbarian camp with approaching archers:

[rho21]

Turn 89

Score tracking
All players finished a tech this turn. The Aztecs gained yet more population too.

Southern Theatre (renamed)
No more barbarians. The hoplites start the long healing process.

Western Theatre
The spear has advanced from the camp towards my archers. It dies to 3 archer shots, two of which give promotions.
I can see an Aztec ram waiting at the city west of Xenocrates. I don't think they're likely to actually launch an attack before they have a great general in 7 turns.

Northern Theatre
The Aztec scout is caught and destroyed. Theatre closed, finally.

Housekeeping
Machinery done, research now goes to Education (due in 6).
Aristaeus' builder is one turn from completion, it starts work on a granary while we wait for Feudalism.

Pyramids (fingers crossed) and commercial hub due next turn.

[rho21]

And here's a look in strategic view at all the potential city sites I have marked right now.

Backlines in the east

Most of these you've seen before.

• C10: Loads of food and plenty of hills for production. Not much to chop.
  
• C11: First ring truffles for more gold. A bit short on food until the borders have expanded.
  
• C12: My only source of horses which I'll want to get some horsemen built once I'm done with chariots. Other than that only a mediocre city.
  
• C16: pure filler, it's the only legal site. Has a fair few chops though, so will be well worth founding down the road.
  

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In the north west

• C4: two grain and plenty of hills, a very solid site. There have just always been higher priorities so far. This is the defensive plant in this area, securing the northern part of the river that flows past Menaechmus and Xenocrates.
  
• C14: truffles for gold and a few things to chop. Salt water, so lower housing. Most importantly, the coast here makes this relatively defensible.
  

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Further west

This is the stretch city to attempt to secure the northern flank. C15a looks much more defensible to me and will be quicker to stand up with all those chops. It also blocks the annoying route NE from that Aztec city that I currently can't cover. Will need a significant force to actually get founded though, and the terrain is not conducive to kicking the Aztecs out if they have troops there already.

I have my great scientist heading out this way to uncover a bit more territory and check on Aztec movements.

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Down in the south west

C13 occupies a strategic position securing the flank of Xenocrates against Aztec incursion. It has chops to get up to speed, but is dry so will need an aqueduct post haste.

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Off to the south east

C9b is the only remaining legal city site down here. And that's about all I can say for it. Almost pure junk.

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Conclusion
I want 4 settlers as soon as possible, for sites C4, C10, C11 and C12. C15 is far too much of a stretch for now, but might become possible after a couple of rounds of military units.

[rho21]

Oh, one more bit of news: Hong Kong finished a harbour a couple of turns ago, which means international trade routes there earn +3. Geneva is working on its own harbour, incidentally.

[rho21]

Turn 80 has appeared in time for my lunch break. The big news of the turn is that I landed the Pyramids. In less good news, an Eagle Warrior cleared the camp in the north. Proper report to follow later.

[rho21]

Sorry for the delay in reporting: I forgot to transfer the save game from work to home so I didn't have the data to do a report on turn 80. A couple more turns were played last night, but nothing much has happened. I'll catch up this evening.