[49 spoilers] Miguelito, pindicator and Adrien take Shiva by the hands

[pindicator]

[RefSteel]

The last report had my first ever MP city conquest/raze

Wow - I didn't realize! Am I reading this right that you both razed an enemy city and had a city captured from you, your first time for each in MP, all on the same turn? Congratulations on the one, and thanks for continuing the great reporting in spite of the other! And good luck bouncing back - quiet though I've been with other obligations, I've definitely been enjoying the read!

[AdrienIer]

Sorry for not participating more, I'll be underwater for the next week. Go beat them all up !

[Miguelito]

thanks

The last report had my first ever MP city conquest/raze

Wow - I didn't realize!  Am I reading this right that you both razed an enemy city and had a city captured from you, your first time for each in MP, all on the same turn?  Congratulations on the one, and thanks for continuing the great reporting in spite of the other!  And good luck bouncing back - quiet though I've been with other obligations, I've definitely been enjoying the read!

sadly, not. In my other game, PBEM64 (I think) I got reduced to my home island by TheHumanHydra all without conquest of my own (though, technically, Adrien was in charge when we were conquered ). Happy to have entertained readers.

Sorry for not participating more, I'll be underwater for the next week. Go beat them all up !

Oh yeah, I know you're very busy, that was the deal from the start, don't worry. Will do my best.

turn 79:

Cairo offloaded 2 axes and 2 Immortals on the FPH by the island city. I have a fully fortified axe & archer there, but of course that's not enough. The spear I was building is at  33/35h !

so, 1:



2:


promoted to C2 afterwards. Also got a 10XP axe out of it, which can't be bad. Maybe later against Comm a 2 move spear (or dare I say, Urukku pike) will also come in handy.
I'm playing a bit risky (again) and whipped the trireme in Nilakantha, hoping that the units in the city will be enough for what's in front of it right now (it has a spear and axe coming out the 2 turns after). Also, because I can't have nice things, changed the settler and missionary in Mahadeva and Nataraja to axes
Commodore is keeping his HA stack inside former Pashupati, but it's not fully healed yet. Will he come back? Yes, probably, considering how things have gone this game.

at least Ruff seems chill, although his power is going up as well:



and what does that mean? Does FT have those workers literally sitting there idly?


They could at least build a road to invade us...


Demos/graphs. Yay for decent research and a terrible rest. It's a proven winning receipe!

[Miguelito]

t 80/81 - this game still has a turn pace averaging above 1 per day!



Cairo reoffered peace upon seeing the spear in my city (and the double whip), so we end the war without shots fired. He's approaching double my power, so I hope he looks elsewhere now. At least we won't have to fight both him and Commodore for the next five turns. I hid the new trireme from him. I may show it the turn our peace runs out, to discourage another invasion, or if I feel I have enough units around I'll keep it hidden to ambush invaders.


You also see Ruff taking up his war with superdeath again. I approve.



Comm's units in my city as of last turn. Just noticed that the granary survived . This turn, the borders popped - the Oracle shouldn't give him culture, but the Jewish holy city does, even if he doesn't convert (is that correct?). Very unfortunate, I actually tried to have Judaism pop elsewhere, but it wouldn't.
Also STILL NO HINDUISM SPREADS besides the capital . I've had this religion for 56 turns now! Why is that?

Overview shot of the "empire"


gonna settle on the archer. I have 3 workers around, who will connect the elephants, farm the wheat, and then the rice.

Almost the same image, but with an interesting purple something:


Let's see how SD will fare against Ruff. Meanwhile, FT is sending an axe towards the barb city. I can't spare more than a scout there, unfortunately.

Demos / graphs

[pindicator]

That's correct - having no religion set will make it so every religion gives culture.

[Miguelito]

That's correct - having no religion set will make it so every religion gives culture.

Oh, the irony of getting culture crushed (slightly) by the religion we founded ourselves,  and which didn't give us anything, ever. I'm sure Commodore will get natural spreads, lots of them .

[Miguelito]

Motivation is still a bit down, so we had 2 turns without a report. I'm also getting a bit sloppy and neeedlessly lost a worker turn and also messed up micro otherwise.

Anyway, have the turn 84 report:

2 turns ago, Cornflakes built the Great Lighthouse. His Org trait gives him a bonus, although I still don't see the map as really coast heavy, but of course I haven't scouted his land. Good luck to him with that.

We founded Ajita in a suboptimal but hopefully peaceful position, so here's a new overview shot:


It was founded the turn before actually, and puts a turn into the oasis and one into the elephant, before it switches to  the wheat next turn. The wheat could have been there a turn earlier had I micro'ed better, and writing this I notice that two turns on the elepehant would have been better, oh well.

You can also see a worker farming the jungled rice, because this turn we finished Iron Working. When we start to have excess workers and military   we can even put down a single in the northern jungle W of the rice.

With a very sharp eye you can also see the iron location, but to make it clearer:


Isn't that nice? While everybody else has iron in their capitals' third ring, by the natural second or third city location, we have ours on an island that can be boated from the fog (capital second ring) by two of our neighbours!  
Well RB is all about seeking additional challenges, right?
(All good Ref, you have your reasons, but I know you understand that I can't let an opportunity to rant about external unfairness go by)

You also see a new island that I've scouted, let's have a closer look:


Cairo has had that single axe on that hill for a while it seems. In my pipe dreams I unload an axe/archer/spear or similar (chariot?) together with a settler, found a city on the banana, and port him back to where he came from. In reality I don't have any of those units yet, including a second galley, and Cairo will probably found 10 turns before I'm ready.
I could of course get 2 more triremes, declare, and sit in his capital waters until he gets triremes himself or I get the city, but look at that power difference - he's actually not unlikely to declare again next turn when peace runs out (I feel reasonably prepared).
Getting that island would spread the empire very much in the E-W direction, in any case.

Speaking of, worth looking at some graphs:




Note that he's managing this world class MFG with just 4 cities (no idea why he didn't settle more)! The power ratio has improved a little (the number on the scoreboard which apparently updates live), it was down to 0.51 2 turns ago.

I deliberated a while which way to go tech wise. Options were:

• HBR - I could probably take the border city from Ruff while he's busy with superdeath, but he's the one neighbour we have good relations with. We very probably wouldn't get past that first city, would have invested in a HA stack, and fall behind (more?) with techs
  
• Monarchy - we don't have wine, but with SPI the HR change would of course be good. We have no city at the happy cap atm, but of course that should change, either through development and growth, or through more whips. Follow up with Feudalism seems excessively expensive before Currency / Construction
  
• Writing, which I did take in the end, maybe a bit because it seemed the most traditional and safe way. I'm not planning on a library right now, or should I? I considered following up with Alphabet instead of Maths, as we'll have just three forests left by the time we get there, but actually it's doubtful that we'd get much benefit from foreign trade routes, as we have the island and I don't expect other people to have many island cities, if any. More importantly, Maths also open up Construction (we have Masonry already) and eventually Calendar.
  

Not sure if I should change to Monarchy before Maths though. Anyway, enjoy 1st place in GNP, courtesy of double prereq bonus and lots of KTB (or does that not apply to ancient / classical techs? I have really no idea how it works tbh). Not sure we'll ever get to a 1st in anything again this game




Graphs that weren't posted before:




Admittedly, Cairo doesn't look so hot on those (and neither does Comm GNP-wise). Maybe we can get a significant edge to knights (remember, also got an engineer in production)? Of course, Comm just needs Machinery for his Samurai (again, the Machinery bulb would let us defend against that with crossbows).
Cairo's combination of top MFG and low CY and GNP has me wary, though. He has to do something to use his momentaneous strength before he gets outteched / -grown (the latter not by us )

Ceterum censeo still no Hindu spread. But you saw me finishing a missionary at the cap, that's for the island, where it'll help with Moai, after the worker, who will be 2-pop whipped.

[pindicator]

Miguelito, what did you do to the map maker and will he ever forgive you for it?

[Miguelito]

Oh, the irony of getting culture crushed (slightly) by the religion we founded ourselves,  and which didn't give us anything, ever. I'm sure Commodore will get natural spreads, lots of them .

    


Yep, still none for us.

From the series things I'd like explained:


Does that mean that Commodore hasn't pastured that sheep yet? (this is his second city for all I know)

I continue to be worried about Cairo, also Ruff and superdeath made peace without trading cities, again, and there's some slight tension (Ruff's showing a chariot which could snatch our wokrers farming the wheat, I covered with a spear)

FT captured the barb city apparently, the scout will go and look at it.

Demos/graphs. Signs of slight recovery.