[PB62] naufragar and Rusten earn their wage in rostygold

[naufragar]

We are so broke. Planting this next city might kills us:


The settler is stacked with the axe and ready to found next turn. Bing's cap is currently -7 gold per tun.  Next turn, we want to shift off commerce tiles. (Shuttered Palace moves off lake+sheep for pig+wheat, e.g.) So it's very possible we'll be in the red even at 0% science.

Veilgarden is putting 5 hammers into a safety spear. This doesn't affect the granary timing; we'll still be able to whip the granary to get the full half bar of food.

In the north, we prepare to push back the barb archer:


After the capital's axe, we want a worker not a settler. We desperately need cottages rather than more maintenance costs. But we've started the Pyramids in The Flit and we'll get done in a cool 167 turns. 

[naufragar]

We are so broke. Planting this next city might kills us.

Yup! We're dead!



We're making -3gpt at 0% science. We actually make -5gpt but our new city Wolfstad is working a lake instead of an unimproved corn. The worker 2S of Veilgarden is building a road. I think that this road will connect Shuttered Palace to our trade network. If so, we'll get another coin per turn and that warrior won't complete but instead queue-upgrade into a spear, which is what we want. We have enough warriors around for garrison duty.

Speaking of warriors:


Presumably, next turn the barb archer suicides against our axe. If he doesn't, we should be able to kill it easily.

Let's talk about our crashed economy. Truth be told, I'm not really worried. I'll send one or two of the stone workers to improve the furs (quarry only needs one more turn). We can pull more coins out of Shuttered palace by switching off the grass pigs and corn for coastal tiles or sheep. (Yes, yes. Physically painful to move off a 6f tile, but going to be necessary until the furs are on line.) If we need yet more cash, we can slow down Pyramids progress, but that's a last resort.

Honestly, I think we are able to just take a rest at rock bottom while we build cottages. We've got all the tech we need for a while, and we've got enough food to work a ton of cottages. We don't have an abundance of great cottage tiles, but we've got two at our capital and three at Bing's and a non-river grasslands all over.

My only unhappiness at completely crashing the economy is that Mjmd will likely be able to get to sailing to get that one tile island before us, and it will be pretty impossible to invade afterwards while granting desperately needed intercontinental routes.

[Charriu]

The worker 2S of Veilgarden is building a road. I think that this road will connect Shuttered Palace to our trade network.

I doubt it. For that to happen you would need to have the river tiles in your culture or Sailing.

[naufragar]

I doubt it. For that to happen you would need to have the river tiles in your culture or Sailing.

Oh nooo! That's a bummer.


While I'm thinking about this game, I'm thinking that Mjmd is going to blow a gasket when he logs in and sees where we've settled. I might need that spear from Veilgarden sooner rather than later. Wolfstad will always be pretty vulnerable, but I'd like to make it expensive for him. If we can hold it for 5 turns, the cultural defenses + vision will help, but if Mjmd just throws together 4 skirmishers, we lose the city.

On the other hand, for us in the long term, that city is so amazing. It dramatically weakens Mjmd's OakAshThorn and if we can keep vision on the forest north of his elephants, we'll have excellent defensive foreknowledge. A spear whip might be in order...

Edit: Whipped. Gpt now at -4. Oh well. Would be a catastrophe to lose Wolfstad.

[Amicalola]

Are you struggling at all for happiness? It seems like a lot of whipping is happening.

[naufragar]

Charriu, if you're around, in previous version of CtH you could see how many turns another player's worker had put into an improvement. Has that been patched out or is it still in the game?

Are you struggling at all for happiness? It seems like a lot of whipping is happening.

We're pretty ok for happiness. I'll do a city by city rundown since I missed t50.

[Charriu]

This has been removed. You only see that info inside your culture

[naufragar]

Thanks! Turn report to come. My question will make sense shortly...

[naufragar]

I ask because Mjmd is apparently unhappy about Wolfstad:


There's a worker under that chariot. If he just moved there and didn't start to road, we're fine, but that's an insanely naive hope. I'm annoyed at myself for not getting that spear our sooner. I could've saved the city but for some idiotic reason I was valuing Veilgarden's granary over it. Unforced error.

Of course, Mjmd will have to die for this.


That barb spear in the west showed up this turn just to be as much of an asshole as possible. In fact that entire desert waste to our west is going to be a thorn for a long time. No one's going to settle it, so barbs are going to keep coming. I'm sacrificing the pig pasture, because Shuttered Palace already more than enough food and will get worker labor to replace it. I want my second axe pressuring Mjmd. I thought for a second what I would do if Mjmd had another chariot bin the fogged area by the silks. That would be exceptionally devious, so he deserves another city if he does. I don't think he does have a unit there though. Again, maybe I'm surprised.

I haven't drawn arrows on the composite, but my expectation is that Mjmd razes Wolfstad with a chariot. I would guess he deletes the chariot after the city capture. Either way, we move our stack to the corn 1S of Wolfstad and push in. This backfires if Mjmd produces an axe at OakAshThorn. (By the way, its borders expand next turn, so the Shuttered Palace axe won't be too surprising.) If we can make it to the forest 2E of OakAshThorn, we'll try to push into what I assume is his cap. He shouldn't lose any cities to us. Skirmishers are too good, but his Financial trait isn't doing anything for him yet, I don't think, so I plan to cause as much trouble as I can.

Here's the North (I rolled the turn, so I know we're going to have to deal with a barb warrior and a barb spear complicating fur hook-up plans. These barbs have been terribly timed.    )


Look at that Pyramids construction time.  That's not even as many hammers per turn as it could be. I'm working the oasis over the deer for money. Next turn we finish the road 1S of the cap and road the sheep tile. The furs need 3 more turns, and then if memory serves, a road on a tundra tile takes three turns.

In spoilers are the cities.

We can't quite grow in one turn, which is sad. We might actually grow to four and whip that settler next and settle him by Bing's copper, since we're losing the maintenance costs of another city. This capital will be able to produce quite a bit of commerce shortly, between the oasis, fp cottage, and furs. You can see that we're maxed on happy, but in 3 turns we lose a frowny face and in 4 turns we hook up a luxury. I believe it was Rusten who told me that if you've got a big gap between your happy cap and your current unhappiness, you're wasting potential. You should either grow to it or whip it down.

Veilgarden is putting its overflow into a spear in case Mjmd doesn't delete his chariot. We don't kill it with our stack because it would slow down our harassment push. We let that razing chariot live and kill it with this spear the turn after next. (That jungle road makes this possible.) No happiness problems here.

This city does nothing interesting for a while. Once we've got a little bit of spare change, we switch to a hammer tile. The deer hammer isn't stellar, since it brings us to an odd number and doesn't get boosted by the stone. I've got a notion that I can get the chops done in time with just two workers (the one currently on the stone and one of the furs workers). 3 forests each at 4 turns per forest? Yeah that sounds ok.

One day Shuttered Palace will be an excellent city. Today is not that day. Here's a place where happiness could become an issue, since we've got more 1 pop whips lined up. (Stupid barb.)

Laslty, poor Wolfstad. This is my fault. I should have been much more protective.  Oh well. At least my decision to work the 2f/2c over the 3f tile has been vindicated.

And that's it. There's an argument to be made for just retreating and offering peace after Mjmd burns Wolfstad, since we'll be tied for city count, I'll have been buoyed by Bing's spare worker and capture gold, have a decent shot at the Pyramids etc. etc. But that argument is made by softies. For the next considerable portion of the game, we dedicate ourselves to extracting from Mjmd more pain than he's caused us.

[naufragar]

Playing a turn but needing several hours before I can write up a report just kills my motivation. Anyway, here ya go:

As expected, Mjmd burned Wolfstad, deleted his chariot, and offered peace. We advanced:


Mjmd's power graph seems to have 5 4k bumps. We've seen 2 chariots and a skirmisher. I'd expect another two skirmishers. If his troops are around, he can kick us out pretty easily. Otherwise, maybe he has to make some uncomfortable axe whips. I thought his borders would have expanded on turn 55. Maybe I miscounted.

You can see how confident I am about barb behavior.  I should be able to connect Shattered Palace without a problem, so I can whip out a metal unit in time. Speaking of, notice how we spotted a city of Vanrober's? I'm pretty bad with colors. Does that look like a diffeent purple than the one to our West? Folks, I think we found Superdeath. We are #2 in power and an unknown player has 14k more than us. That's...considerable.

Mjmd founded a city near our stone.


Let's say that's one of his skirmishers. We play second and The Flit has 10 hammers into a spear, so I'm not worried. I'd be annoyed if our war interfered with the Pyramids timing, but you can't just let someone raze a city off you.

Barbs are obnoxious, but should be ok. I hope.