[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I liked seeing the isolated start analysis. Yes, it’s nice getting only one neighbor, but it can be a curse as it was for me in pb44

[pindicator]

103

Superdeath had no whips again, and I'm seeing the last forests in his land disappear. Elephants or catapults? That's the question. Honestly it doesn't matter too much; I just need to get Construction right away.

I think I out-smarted myself a little last turn. I could have had 26 hitters ready to smash into Shrimp Skampi née Coos this turn. Instead I moved my two-movers into Yamhill, with the idea that I would try to sneak around Superdeath's main stack and try to raze Boil it in 2 turns.




I get too cute sometimes. I should have just set everything up to smash into him. And so I moved back so I could do that next turn, but now I think maybe I hold off still and wait for catapults. Because with some Wealth Builds I can get Construction in 3. So that's what I did: turned on the slider and threw in some wealth builds.




Meanwhile, I'm moving some units east because I don't know what Cairo thinks he's doing. He's loaded the Impi into his galley and unloaded a worker. His galley can hit Lake amphibiously if he chooses - but I have a CG3 archer there and am moving up the archer from Clackamas to make that less appealing. Multnomah will have an axe/spear combo guarding it in 2 turns. I also made sure he saw my Numid stack with the warrior he has by my huge spear stack. That's another reason I don't want to commit any forces; I don't want to let Cairo think that this is a good time to come after me. And plus I'm probably going to be seeing some catapults and elephants here myself, so better to wait until I have the catapults to deal with them first.


Except it really bugged me to swap off the library at Clackamas, so then I said fuck it and whipped it.




I don't know if this was right or not, but it's annoying me just how many times I've put off popping the borders and getting that cow improved here. Like there's always some emergency and I'm on the verge of another, and I was just waiting for whip unhappiness to fall away but like that's ever going to happen - so I just went ahead and did it. It cost me a wealth build and some commerce but these borders should have been popped 50 turns ago. I should have had a religion spread here 40 turns ago! (Seriously Buddhism, it's been forever since I've gotten a free spread anywhere.) Golden Age and Monotheism needs to be in my future, but that's probably a plan for Kyoto and the library I'm chopping out down there.

Superdeath continues to chug along at +25gpt. Very nice. Another reason to be patient: killing units might actually help him, so when we kill them we want to make sure we take minimal losses and he has to whip.

PRO: 24 (457)
FIN: 16 (361)

I'm seriously starting to think PRO is really good here guys.

I liked seeing the isolated start analysis. Yes, it’s nice getting only one neighbor, but it can be a curse as it was for me in pb44

Yeah, perhaps it would have been better to make an avenue for Superdeath and Mr. Cairo to meet north of me, and have another inland lake to my north instead of the outside sea? I'm not sure I'd be any more boxed in than I already am, and it would give Superdeath another avenue besides playing a duel with me.

I don't blame Superdeath for his choices, but I do wonder if whipping as much as he did was the right call. If he had just teched straight to Construction and THEN whipped hard - would I have been able to stop that? Maybe. I'm already really close to him in Construction, but some of that is because I've slowed him down - and yet he has also slowed me down. I have no idea really.

[pindicator]

104

City #13




This one definitely costs more than it brings in, but those furs are worth it.

And Mjmd declared war on Cairo - that's what the tech thread issue was about. Cairo now has only 1 Impi in Escape instead of the 2 that I noticed before. I wonder how much of a war this is.

When I hit enter Superdeath built the Pyramids. So he wasn't chopping out elephants. Makes me feel better about my upcoming push.


PRO: 26 (483)
FIN: 17 (378)

[pindicator]

105

I think Superdeath made the right choice of civic here.




So half his cities now get 3 more happiness, it's effecitvely 1.5 luxuries and he has an abundance of libraries so he'll be actually able to tech.

Here's my criticism: we've seen Superdeath build 2 wonders in the last 5 turns. What happens if all those hammers had been additional horse archers? I'd be dead and Superdeath would be your runaway leader right now.

Instead, here's my guess at what happened. Superdeath was going to just tech away like i was afraid he would do. He was going to target Pyramids and Great Lighthouse. Then he sees me go straight for Horseback Riding and realizes he needs to whip up a defense soon. Perhaps he decided to tech Horseback Riding himself as a defensive precaution and it just so happened it was exactly the right call for the situation. Then when he sees me attack Gira and vanrober he sees and opening and goes for it - or perhaps fears that I'll become a runaway if he does nothing and feels he has to intervene. So he whips his cities to the ground except for those two building wonders. Now his economy is in shatters but he has the two best economic wonders in the game. So give him enough time and he can turn into a powerhouse.

That long-term advantage I was referring to earlier? It's disappeared rather quickly. I don't think it's entirely gone, but i have to keep pressure on him otherwise his economy is going to recover and he's going to be able to regrow his cities. I don't want him to be able to grow cities; I want him constantly whipping cities. Which means when Construction is done we're going to whip out a round of catapults and threaten Coos.

Meanwhile ... I keep changing my mind with Giraland. The newest city, Curry, is quite a cost: I think something like 20gpt for founding it. But the happiness is worth it because a number of turns would have grown into unhappiness this turn without it. And I'm going to be whipping again shortly, as we've just discussed. However that city can't really produce anything - and the lighthouse seems silly because even with it the city can't really grow. So what I'm going to do there is just have Curry pump out workers. It can take that Iron tile and just slowly build workers all game for me. Or at least until we get to Optics.

Belisarius is going to get its granary chopped and then get defenders built for each city. Then I'm either going to chop a barracks and then build Numids or I'm just going to build boats here. Likely I'll build boats later in the game so Numids are good here now. It's too far away for anything but 2-movers.

I changed my mind on Crook after taking the screenshot: I will do the lighthouse here. The growth curve from +4/+5 to +5/+6 is really worth it. And we'll chop out Numids with the forests in its second ring. Josephine will just go Stables -> Numids.

Klamath is more difficult. I could really see this being my great person generator. On the other side, it's got a forge and a lot of forests and I think I could do a lot of damage with a stack of Numids hitting Superdeath while most of his forces are tied up at Shrimp Skampi née Coos. I need to get a great person from somewhere - and I need to figure out when that first golden age is going to be and what I want to get out of it. I think chopping out Numids from Klamath is the safe option, though.

But no matter what, these cities minus Klamath are all still 10 turns away from being productive.



Demos are looking good




I've got about 25 hammers tied up in Wealth Builds, so my GNP isn't quite that good. But it's getting better every turn.


PRO: 26 (509)
FIN: 18 (396)

[pindicator]

I love how the top 5 players in this game are still within 30 points of score. You lurkers must be enjoying this one.

[pindicator]

106

Got my naval blockade out to protect my fishing boats.




His stack is up to 20: 14 horse archers, 2 axe, 2 spear, 2 archer. I'm about at the same as before: 20 in my stack on the hill, and another 8 behind it.

Superdeath has his 1 galley, and I used my sentry Numidian to make sure there wasn't anything lying in wait behind it. Then I stuck the two galleys I had made to block him from getting to my work boats and whipped Lincoln for its work boat. I wasn't really keen to whip Lincoln again (it's up to 23 turns of anger now), but the capital is going to need to grow quickly and soon, and then it will give itself a work boat. Then it grows to its happy cap.

Did I misjudge if Superdeath got Construction? Do the rivers get bridges in the fog or do you have to refresh sight on the tile before the graphic will update?

Anyway, I have construction now, and I'm building catapults:



Decided not to go crazy on the whipping. We're going to whip where it makes sense - where cities are either over previous whip anger or where the overflow is the best. I'm trying to see this as a middle ground. So I probably don't get enough catapults for my attack for 5-6 turns.

My other sentry Numid, down south, wanted to make sure that Superdeath wasn't trying some kind of end-around, and found that he was guarding it for the same reason:




Jowy and AT are at war now. I wonder if this one will be better than the Cairo - Mjmd whimper we had last turn.

Metal Casting next, ETA is 7 turns. I don't research well without Wealth builds.

PRO: 26 (535)
FIN: 15 (411)

[pindicator]

107

I found Charriu!




Looks like they had a disagreement earlier. Doing the tech scrying before and after Charriu only shows Polytheism go up, so he isn't ahead of me in any of the big classical era techs.


Whipped the first two catapults. And then I saw that he didnt move his galley.




Why didn't he move his galley? I scouted with my sentry numid and there was no galley behind. I checked the odds - 32% to win, and even if I score one hit against the galley in a loss then the next galley would have 80%. Why didn't he move it? Why shouldn't I attack?

As I clicked the attack it dawned on me: he is only a few points away from a Great General, and he wants me to attack and lose on his territory so he can get triple great general points. Ugh, giving him a great general is not worth killing a galley - why did I attack?



Well, Superdeath isn't going to like that.


PRO: 26 (561)
FIN: 18 (429)

[pindicator]

108

Somebody tell me to stop whipping my cities and grow to my happy cap already.



Except dang that's a lot of units that superdeath has stacked into Coos. Looks like we're up to 23? One could almost say that when the catapults come up we're going to see a super amount of death Speaking of catapults, I think we're still a few turns away. I'm thinking turn 112 or 113 is when we attack, as we'll have about 8 catapults to throw into that by then.

Cairo grabbed that last spot up north, which is why his Impi now stands patrol on my northern border. Need a library in Lincoln or something to pop borders. Maybe I should look at getting a missionary pump somewhere. Actually, maybe that's a good plan for Josephine or another of the southern cities.

Speaking of the south:




The barb galley changed my plans for me. I ended up putting my chop at Klamath into a galley instead of the planned Stables. Josephine also got a free Buddhism swap, so that's what has me thinking about a Monastery here instead of the Stables plan. I need to get them out of somewhere. I'd say Clackamas up at my core would be ideal except it doesn't have Buddhism.

Internationally, AT decided that my open borders weren't worth anything to him:




Unforunately to him, I know they're not worth 3gpt for me and so I declined. After I looked and I had lost 4 trade routes for 4c total. So I guess I could have taken it and made out slightly ahead, because AT isn't exaclty a threat out east. But I also got another weird trade proposal.




Charriu, I don't know if you're trying to tell me something or if you just need Gems. But I could use a friend on that side of the world. So I accepted. And I offered another proposal:




Speaking of Charriu, here's a city picture that you asked for in the Close to Home thread:




Now we are really honestly going to grow to the happy cap.

One more whip next turn. I swear, just one.

Maybe two.


PRO: 26 (587)
FIN: 18 (447)

[pindicator]

Okay, I think I'm ready for the weekend!  Meals for Friday through Tuesday, breakfast at bottom and work up to dinner:




I still need to grab two more dehydrated dinners but my friend has those for me already.

And there's a turn to play! That's a good reward for packing!

[pindicator]

109

The most eventful thing of this turn was that Mjmd bit down hard on the anarchy turn, and all for just getting to Organized Religion (?). Doesn't seem worth it to me, but maybe he has a plan.

Back home, I am working more cottages and less mines, trying to get cities to grow. This first wave of catapults is honestly going to be the majority of what I make for now - the rest will have to come off of natural production or when my cities get to the happy cap (without whip anger).

In a bid to help expenses, a barbarian galley has volunteered its services




With just one movement point left, my work boat will be eaten next turn.

Notably, Charriu has not played since I did 108 so he hasn't said yea or nay yet on open borders. I suspect he will go for it, however.

Finances are not great:




As work would say, our earnings are great but we have to find a way to cut costs.

Superdeath chased me off from where I stumbled upon his warrior




I wonder if he'll be content there or if there's more incoming. I noticed a horse archer was pulled away from his stack.

Also - I think I was wrong about Superdeath having Construction. I don't see any bridges on his lands! So did he then get Currency and his economy is just that much in the toilet? Possibly. We are doing a fine job crippling each other so far.

I promise to slash unit expenses by turn 113. I foresee many pink slips that turn.


PRO: 26 (613)
FIN: 19 (466)