[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

[Amicalola]

T93 (Double-Turn; T92 Above)

The big action now is scrambling to get my axes up into the north, as the focus temporarily shifts onto Cairo. Here's an overview of the northern Empire, which you haven't seen in a while:


As you can see, military is... stretched. 

The big news up here is that Cairo's jaguars didn't get on that galley. At least, not yet.  That's very kind of him, because it should give me time to prepare my own Southern axes into position, and prep an archer or axe whip in a few key cities. I also now have time, hopefully, to whip a galley/trireme on the inner-sea, and contest him there. Thank God he didn't attack within the last 5 turns. I'm also trying to maximise forges anywhere possible, without sacrificing my Cairo defense. So far I have one in the core cities of Unison, Cocoon and Pagan Poetry.

I've found another WoodyII jaguar and chariot in Cairo's lands. I had thought he wanted to park them on the island, but now I'm wondering if instead he's just planning to attack across the land-bridge. Makes sense, I don't have any units there either.  I'll be keeping a very close eye on these.

Let the scramble begin!

[Amicalola]

Holy shit I didn't even mention this. Superdeath cancelled trade a few turns ago, which happened alongside all the other bad stuff. Probably because I have the GLH. My economy took a hit that I really could not afford. But this turn, I got trade routes finally with TBS, and all my cities are back to foreign ICTR again!

[Amicalola]

T94



I've spent a while thinking about defending this fur island, over the last few turns. I thought about building walls and getting a decent military on the island itself, but the fur's forest is a great spot to land an invasion, and I reall don't want to chop it. So instead, with these two triremes in the area, I should be safe from any naval attack from now on, at least until Cairo gets triremes of his own. This also means I save 25 hammers on walls. The triremes will also help in two potential scenarios:

1) I decide to settle the northern clam/horse island too. Somewhat realistic, depending on how slow Cairo is to get there. I wonder if that's what his galley was for. 

2) I go to war with him and want to harass 'x new city' on either that island, or the coast trying to pick up the fish. 


Speaking of the fish, I haven't got a work boat ready because I assumed Cairo would settle somewhere and chop out a monument for it. But I'm thinking about netting it myself, now that I have control over the sea. I should have thought further ahead there. Early IND Metal Casting has a serious side-effect I've never considered before; I'd expect any IND player to control the coast between about T90-T110. Unless they're greedy and build forges before triremes.  

If Cairo doesn't settle for the clam island, I'll try to nab it around T105-110. I want to settle the landbridge first, to prevent any Jaguar shenanigans.

[Amicalola]

T95


HMS Beauregard meets Commodore on her quest to navigate the seas (in like, 100 more turns). Looks like Tarkeel is in-between Commodore of Rome and Superdeath of Superdeath - Ouch.  


Commodore (Lieu-Ye, ORG/PRO) of Rome (Praetorian / Forum)
I love the pick. Lieu-Ye has insane teching in the early-game, such that you can get to Iron Working, Currency and Construction before your opponent. Then you use your Roman praetorians to mercilessly crush your nearest neighbour, and pay for it with your traits. As long as you fully commit to the crushing (think Mjmd in PB56), I think this works most of the time. Romans also have one of the best starting tech combos in CtH, in Fishing/Mining, which helps alleviate the slow start. 

Commodore probably has the means to do it too. I think he's meant to be quite aggressive, which obviously works for this pick. I imagine he's about at the point of getting to currency, after which he'll nab construction and use it to hit someone. If I was Tarkeel, I'd be freaking out right now...

[Amicalola]

T96
Cairo finally settled his coastal city, and it looks like I will get to keep that fish tile! Ethiopian Stonehenge.



With T100 coming up, I'll do a big ol' report. Is there anything lurkers would like to see/know?

[El Grillo]

I expect you'll cover these, but - How has the early going been for you compared to how you expected it to go? What's the tech path from here? Anything you wish you had done differently in hindsight?

[Amicalola]

T96.5 Ramblings - The Case For Industrious
I've been thinking about how people say Industrious needs a buff in Closer to Home. As someone who's played it twice in a row, I disagree. I think people undervalue the cheap forges; not only do you save 60 hammers per city, you also build them way earlier for a total boost of far more. The difference between having to 3-whip a forge, vs 2-whip with overflow (or even just use overflow from a civilian) is enormous. On a big map, IND is a pseudo-expansion trait: It makes both slow-building settlers/workers viable, and whips more efficient. Really it just makes everything more efficient.




Unison has just 3-whipped a settler with decent (45) overflow, and now has exactly enough foodhammers for a 1-turn worker; only realistic with forges. As a nice side-effect, the mines are as good as food resources for civilian-building, so the food resources are freed up for growing cities instead. Overall, this speeds up the growth curve significantly, assuming there's still land to settle following Metal Casting.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Cocoon can now 3-4 turn settlers, and 2-3 turn workers with its forge. That's a BIG difference to 4-5 and 3-4, and the bonus never goes away. By now Cocoon is 4-ish turns ahead of where it would be without a Forge, roughly on-par with how long the Forge took to build. But that excludes the growth during the Forge build, so really Cocoon has already profited, and again that bonus just keeps snowballing. Having a good ROI this early is insane; it's only T96!

Personally I prefer to consider ROI holistically, rather than pure numbers (This came up a lot in PB58 re: barays). The fact that I can 1-turn this worker in Unison means I don't have to whip/build it later, for example. In the long-run, I gain food as well, and the next civilian is whipped faster. Maybe this is all obvious to vets. But I'm only realising it with these games, so I want to record that.

I expect you'll cover these, but - How has the early going been for you compared to how you expected it to go? What's the tech path from here? Anything you wish you had done differently in hindsight?

Thanks, will answer these in the big report.

[Amicalola]

T97



Here are Pindicator's lands following his defense. He has seven total cities, all of which are settled towards us - he must be more scared of Naufragar, who I presume is to his east. Sucks for me, but probably reasonable. I feel like I'm a ticking time-bomb for some

Peacefully, Pindicator is also doing remarkably well for someone who had 4-5 cities taken (I think Naufragar got 2, but I might have miscounted in the heat of the moment). I think he'd be equal or ahead of us if we hadn't attacked, with a better-scaling pick. So I'm glad we knocked him down a peg. I like my new fur island very much; not many other players have 2 furs so far.

[Amicalola]

T98
Beauregard the Work Boat met GKC in Commodore's borders. Sadly he knows zero techs that I don't.


Mackoti settled the central(?) island. You can also see his borders to the north, and Naufragar's to the east. It looks like we're on a 5-pointed star, of which there are presumably 5 total. So that would make our island Amicalola - Cairo - Mackoti - Naufragar - Pindicator - Amicalola. That's a pretty strong island, and I'm the weakest link.

GeneralKilCavalry (Julius Caesar, IMP/ORG) of Mongolia (Keshik / Ger)
Alongside TBS' Catherine of China and Mjmd's Zara of Portugal, this is my choice for strongest combo in the game. Like TBS, GKC's path is straightforward: expand out to fill up your land using IMP, use Ger-fueled keshiks to crush a neighbour, and use ORG to pay for it. Alternatively, use ORG to get to Guilds before your opponent, and do the same with knights. It's strong.

GKC I think(?) is pretty good, if not one of hte strongest players here. But I've heard he suffers from engagement issues, so maybe he'll be checked out before he can use his combo. If he stays engaged though, I'd expect GKC to be a serious contender.

[Amicalola]

T99

Landbridges: settled.





Now let's see if I can hold them.

Edit: Looking at the map again, I should have settled Stonemilker 1N of the current spot. That would have prevented Cairo from settling for the bananas.