[SPOILERS] Dark Savant leads the noble Inca as half-noble Churchiill

[Dark Savant]

Turn 94 (525 BC) - Part 1

Our currently spare northern galley sails by Charriu's coast.



Museion is again just guarded by an axe and a spear.  Charriu is trying to make a game of it and expanding rather than just whipping to nothing (he planted another city this turn), but he's apparently spreading himself thin attempting to defend all his cities.

It's a nice effort, at least.   I don't think it can be helped; at this point he's got an impossibly wide front to defend with inferior numbers.

The galley also finds one of his newly planted cities.



Here's the attack stack I'm ready to move next to Museion next turn:



It doesn't feel like much, but it's at least plenty adequate to take Museion.

There's some more force following, but it isn't much -- I've spent a lot of resources building libraries lately for the desperate Alphabet -> Mathematics -> Currency push.

I'm also actually making use of the Incan ability to build quechuas after connecting metal, just to have a military unit of some kind in backline cities. 

[Dark Savant]

I plan to still catch up on the previous turns' reports, but here's what happened in the attack on turn 96.



Three attacking axes inflicted no damage on the single defending axe.

I have to pull back for now with my one local remaining axe (I have the other units still).     I have a couple more incoming, but that might not actually be enough, as Charriu will probably reinforce the city.

[Dark Savant]

I no longer think I'm doing well -- that attack needed to punch through for that.

[Dark Savant]

I'm also tired from lack of sleep yesterday and lots of work awaiting me upon my return -- I was planning to catch up on reporting today, but fatigue combined with annoyance at poor RNG made me just focus on playing the best I can.

Maybe I'll catch up tomorrow; I still have thorough notes.

[Dark Savant]

I should have thought of this (it's, um, obvious?), but I should chop out the forests at my moderately-new cities and come up with a bunch of axes as fast as I can.

The more mature cities can still produce research and a settler pair or two.

[OT4E]

You could never have thought of that. Take it like imminent doom. Units doing 0 damage are like they have never existed. If the game rolls unfavorable turn for you there is no real matter how much you have brought.

[Dark Savant]

It may be a fool's errand, but I'm going try to catch up on reporting even though I'm now almost 10 turns behind.  (I was still taking the turns very seriously, just not the reporting.)

Turn 94 (525 BC) - Part 2

Core overview:

• We get our first religion -- a spread of Buddhism to Castle Black.  That'll help push me ahead in the culture race there.
  
• I'm continuing to whip libraries in a lot of places to support the crawl to Alphabet and then Currency.  This turn it's a 2-pop-whip of White Harbor.
  

We scout one of yuris125's cities.  I'll withdraw next turn to actually use the work boat, though.



yuris125 isn't spending much time on each turn -- no more than several minutes, usually.  He's probably destined to be next-to-last for that reason alone.

In other news:

• planted city #13.
  
• Charriu planted another city (he's not going to actually die for a long time).
  
• JR4 planted city #12.  He's going to pull ahead in city count in the short run at least.
  

Nothing I can do about it now, but I really should have rejiggered my micro to overflow directly into the Great Lighthouse so I would have at least received failgold.  That would have made my current research so much faster.  Oh well.

[Hollybombay]

Cant wait for all the backed up reports!

[Dark Savant]

Cant wait for all the backed up reports!

I actually still plan to catch up some, but because since t105 was important I'm going to report that now.  That probably means I'll never fully report the intervening turns, though I still plan to try once I have time (real life is currently very busy!) and energy.

Turn 105 (250 BC) - Part 1

Honestly, not that much happened in the past 9 turns.  I chopped and whipped some axes while running a lot of scientists and crawling towards Currency.

I got Currency this turn, along with Open Borders with WilliamLP.  Our economy is non-terrible now!  I would have had Currency last turn, but inflation abruptly kicked in and surprise-knocked 10% off my research rate.   

I finally planted city #12, Storm's End, this turn on the northern island.  I need to get #13 and #14 soon-ish.

Here's what my cities look like now.




Monotheism has yet to be discovered.  (Code of Laws and Confucianism were claimed 10 turns ago!  No wonders have been built since 's super late Oracle 9 turns ago, incidentally.)  I'm going for Polytheism in 1 turn and making a run towards claiming Judaism.

I'm sorely, sorely hurting for happiness at the moment.  I have 3 whales in my backlines but it'll be a while before I can claim one.  So I make this trade offer to yuris125:



I hope he accepts and that holds up until I can get whales online.  I'm inclined to be very conciliatory towards him, since I grabbed all of both islands between us and they aren't exactly heavily garrisoned at the moment.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 105 (250 BC) - Part 2

wetbandit is known to have Calendar now.  He's going to have massive happiness now (Charismatic + Representation + lots of resources he can now develop).

yuris125 has a power rating as low as Charriu's.  may very well rip into him hard a few dozen turns from now.

The only war in the world is between us and Charriu.  Everyone has full world contact now, incidentally.

Oh, and this is the turn I moved my attack stack next to Museion, finally.  I wasn't expecting to attack this late -- this held up the game quite a bit, oh well.

I probably wouldn't have done this if Charriu were a better player.  He has this in defense:



2 axes (one of them the absurd super-axe that killed three axes without a scratch, one of them already promoted to Combat II) and 2 spears aren't that much defense (on flatland, with no walls and only 20% cultural defense; my 7th city is within striking distance of 40% cultural defense).

Here's what I have:



That's kind of an absurd number of axes when catapults, swords, and horse archers are now all very much on the planning horizon, but eh.  I didn't show this many axes to Charriu until just now, and he HAD been having a lot of trouble with chariots.

JR4's scout grabbed some from the corn tile we all just moved from. He, WilliamLP, and I are all at the top of the power charts.  Charriu has actually still been building settlers and expanding all this time.  I have to commend him for never giving up.