[PB 59] Donovan Zoi Reflects on Over 100 Turns (of LIES!)

[Donovan Zoi]

Are you still expanding?

Definitely!  I still intend to claim my full mainland, and will try to expel anyone who dares to snag part of it.  There are 5 more continental plants and 4-6 islands I'd like to control.

My settlement progress is a bit behind the others (as usual), but keeping a smaller footprint allowed me to tech fast enough to found Confucianism and also be the first in my region to Currency.  I have future plans to snowball tech, but will need to focus on military for the immediate future.  With AT making his last stand against civac, it wont be long before Sumeria will be looking for its next victim.  I would be the next stop on the momentum trail, so the next 10-15 turns will likely shape the rest of the game for me.  I am making my current decisions based on the belief that war is imminent and I am woefully unprepared.  But my cities are also resilient enough to recover if I have to whip them excessively to counter what may be coming my way.




Yeah. Ouch.

And just to give you an idea of what I need to protect:




I discovered CoL on T98 and my religion has already organically spread coast to coast -- to 7 cities so far.  And my Holy City of Minotaur is on the frontline of any hostilities from civac.  Strap in, folks, this is about to get good.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 106

Discovered Metal Casting this turn, with enough overflow to complete Iron Working on T107.  I have 4 workers hovering the Gems in Whiplash so they can finally remove jungle and then build a mine there in consecutive turns.




Increasing happiness will be a primary objective over the next 20 turns since I have Forges and Markets available to build (2  resources each) and 2 Calendar resources to bring in a bunch of Gold and 2 more happiness across the board.  You'll also see that I am 7 turns from a Great Scientist, which I plan on using for a GA.  I still have some wiggle room to take Hydra off of that mission for a few turns, since I wont be ready for the GA on T113.  Because I made a deal with myself for choosing MC/IW before Construction/HBR that I would go for Machinery next. 

Machinery gets me a gold boost for the Lumbermills I am just beginning to build, and most importantly, provides the best counter for Sumeria's crazy amount of Vultures.  I am sure that there is more to their stack, perhaps a few supporting Spearmen.  But other than that, I have only encountered their soon-to-be-obsolete UU.  Assuming I have access to Iron next turn, I won't want to enter a GA until I have discovered Machinery and whipped several XBows to send toward Minotaur and hopefully into the NW jungle landbridge itself -- just defensive posturing for the time being.  I'll try to post about my upcoming GA soon so you have an idea what I intend to accomplish.

Here's a look at my flagging demographics, which should get a nice boost once I can arrange a growth spurt.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 107

IW discovered!  Along with 2 unworked (but accessible) sources of Iron.  Here's a look at the base tech times with just a small bit over overflow from IW. I am going Machinery in 6 but all told, it will likely be 9-10 turns with binary research and some Wealth builds.




I was able to get a Warrior back to his original post in the NW jungle, and still no claim from civac.  I am feeling a bit better about getting XBows before he has a chance to advance now, but will remain hypervigilant.  I am also sending a Chariot, Spear and Axe that way to see if I can get away with some friendly scouting of the war torn region with the Chariot while adding additional support to the jungle with the Axe & Spear.  Back to the Chariot: The more of civac's land I unveil, the more cities I can get visibility on once I am able to turn up the EP points against him.

All Eyes on Whiplash

Along with the excitement that comes with producing Gems in this fledgling city, the folks here also discovered a new plot of Iron.  I'll make sure that this gets connected by the time I have Machinery; the back up is located on the island of Kraken.  I'm looking forward to the border pop here so I can bring in the 2 floods & Corn for explosive growth.




Next turn, I'm hoping to introduce you to my 11 cities and break down my plans for each as I prepare for my first Golden Age.

[Donovan Zoi]

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering how I end up spending so much time in-game, to the tune of 2 to 3 hours a pop....

ATTACK OF THE GIANT NAMEPLATES!


Mostly just a lot of fretting, and messing with the BUG mod...

[Lewwyn]

Early machinery sounds fun! Hope it pays off, hadn't thought about lumbermills, glad you're trying it.

[Donovan Zoi]

Early machinery sounds fun! Hope it pays off, hadn't thought about lumbermills, glad you're trying it.

Yeah, I am bit excited to take the edge off with a solid unit (XBows) that can provide a counter to both of my main rivals for now -- civac and Miguelito/Rusten.  No one else really matters at this point (except for maybe Elkad, who has taken the time to use OB to get through my territory and map out my northern unincorporated lands when I thought he would just pass through.  I am on the lookout for a possible settler boating but am not sure where he's at yet.).

It was an early decision to retain forests for Lumbermills, a gambit which has definitely contributed to my being behind in cities claimed since I think I have only chopped 3-4 forests for the entire game.  But I am almost to the part where it hopefully all pays off, as long as I don't mess up in any response to what civac has in store in the meantime.

At some point during the Medieval era, I would like to switch up to Caste System and stay there for quite awhile.  This would happen once my city pops are maxed out and after some significant military whips give me the confidence to move to the Caste System civic in lieu of Slavery.  And since the land is 80% grassland, there is more food support available to work several forests.

With my plan for bagging the CoL religion paying off, this will also make things much more cost effective when targeting large domestic builds like Markets, Courthouses and Wonders (!) with a 50% production benefit once I have Organized Religion.

The main catalyst for this, believe it or not, was Environmentalism being the favorite civic of Sitting Bull.  Now, this won't be a role play to the ridiculous extent that Templars exhibited during the Apolyton DemoGame, but just a fun way to play out a strategy I think will pay off.  In fact, should I really get back to reporting, I plan to use the traits and favorite civics of other leaders to lay out a story and perhaps make some basic decisions/assumptions (within reason).  For instance, civac is Skaka of Sumeria -- totally playing out AGG/EXP to a tee while having Police State as his favorite civic. So as a Protective Philosopher -- already not a big fan, but then I get to lay eyes on portions of his land where the forests have been laid bare and the Environmentalist in me really wants to take him down. But, um, baby steps...

With all that said, I am glad that I'm going Machinery now because I'll then grab that gold benefit from the Lumbermills immediately as they get built.  And the next few techs are going to bring a nice mix of gold, military and production enhancements as well.

[Donovan Zoi]

Gonna work on the T108 report shortly.  But in the meantime, can you determine which of us is the PRO civ with its own domestic trade route bonus? 




I accepted OB with:
Cornflakes -mutual scouting, goodwill, to allow Galley through
naufragar (since this was taken) -same as above
civac - mutual scouting

I offered OB to:
Elkad - to get him out of my lands more quickly (or so I thought)

My OB request was refused by:
Miguelito - offered after his pink dot city plant in the NE jungle

I refused OB to:
Ichabod - only he would benefit
Charriu (after he war dec'd earlier to pass a WB) - only he would benefit.

They never asked:
Jowy
AT

Right now, I see Cornflakes as the best chance at a long term friend in this game, but will need to see how things develop.

[El Grillo]

Growing onto lumbermills and then swapping out of slavery is one of my guilty pleasures in CtH, I’m looking forward to more reports and hoping your plans go well.

[Donovan Zoi]

Growing onto lumbermills and then swapping out of slavery is one of my guilty pleasures in CtH, I’m looking forward to more reports and hoping your plans go well.

Welcome, El Grillo!  My apologies for the delay, as I have been preparing for a short vacation and was traveling all day today.

And so far so good re: LMills. Good to know it’s a viable concept!  The commerce from Gems and the few Lumbermills I’ve built have shaved another turn off the base Machinery research, so I should have that tech on T115.

On the Sumerian front, no advancement yet.  But this turn I did send two units to scout his holdings in the former AT territory. It will be interesting to see if civac closes borders (or worse) in response to my snooping.  However, at first glance it does seem like he  may be planning to rebuild and regroup instead of pressing forward.  I should learn his tolerance of my presence when I play T110 later today.

Some of the screenshots I’ve promised may have to wait until I get back on Sunday, but I still want to keep you apprised of the turn-by-turn.

[Donovan Zoi]

T110

civac is letting me move into his captured territory from AT, and so far I have only seen 4 Vultures, 1 Chariot and a 4 unit stack of....Workers. So it does seem that Sumeria will be working on rebuilding to recover what has to be an abysmal tech rate.  I don't want to make too many broad assumptions on this since I am not sure how much conquest gold has factored into their tech success, but the maintenance costs for his extensive amount of troops (BUG has me at 0.4 of their power) have got to be crippling.

AT also moved back up to 3 cities from 2 a few turns back, so my guess is that civac is still devoting most of his stack to quell that resistance.

So far I have sight on only 9 of Sumeria's 23 cities, and have seen very few forests remaining.  At some point, I will need to talk about how to best improve that land once I make a play for it, but it will be much different than I am doing with my own land.

But in the meantime, it looks like my GA plans with go forth as planned.  The one wild card is my need too make a quick jump to Caste System in order to get Academies in Valkyrie and Minotaur, but there is never a good time to do this if war is imminent.  I'll want to complete Machinery and whip some XBows for a bit of safety and see where things stand before making the move, and would be back out of Caste System before the GA ends.  The other prerequisite tech for the GA may be Calendar, which would allow for more Gold and happiness (thus 2 more pop points) to be enhanced for the 8 turns.

Civil Service (Bureaucracy/Macemen!) and Poly/Mono (Organized Religion), as well as finally converting to Confucianism, will be the main objectives of the GA with a readiness to grab HBR or Construction if needed.  This should leave me in a real good place afterward, with an even faster tech rate and paths to Engineering and Optics on deck to gain further advantages in any conflict.