[PB63 - Spoiler] JackRB attempts to avoid the sophomore slump

[JackRB]

Turn 50 (2000 BC)

Quick overview of our empire so far.



3 cities so far, next city planned to be settled soon (Worker whip overflow into settler), was planning, and had workers set up to road up to planned new city site, settling towards pindi (RIP) again, although given the elimination definitely suggests to me that we should look south instead. Does mean my worker micro has been a little suboptimal, but ah well. Building a few spears to replace as garrison, and the initial road network is a few turns away from being completed.



Another more obvious prompt to start locking down the SD border is well, a settler on the move. Time for a popquiz on where this goes, and how we can settle around it, hopefully without kicking the hornet's nest that is SD.

[Hitru]

Anything you want input on? I'm pretty lost as I have only read your posts here but aak away if you need an opinion, that's why I'm here

[JackRB]

Turn 51 (1960 BC)

Logged on to see a war declaration and subsequent peace offer from SD. A little confused, but I see this is just a 'polite' way to tell my warrior to bugger off. I have no intention of throwing my warrior into holkans, so I retreated to the plains forest, and re-offered a 10-turn peace. I am at least, hoping, to delay the settling from him here, even if its just a little. I'd rather try to lock this border down peacefully, although I am wary of where SD might settle, and given that my foward-most city has good production, we could crank out a axe or 3 from there, and smack around some holkans. Time will tell.



As a side note, we also met Ginger of Rome, off in the distance. A little scary to check their trade screen and see 5 cities already! (everyone else I have contact with has 3 at the moment), but we still have no idea where they are. Our scouting also continues, and have almost got our scout around the world. (A very small, very minor gripe, I really do not like being awkwardly on the worldwrap lol). We also note that Cornflakes has declared war on Fabled this turn also. Godspeed and good luck stopping those chariots, Fabled.



In terms of questions/advice requests, I don't have any in mind right now, beyond perhaps next tech beyond Pottery (my default choice would be just go Writing without thinking too hard about it), and perhaps what exact city to settle on the SD border

I also forgot to post demos on turn 50, so here's some belated demos. Food's good at least?

[JackRB]

Turn 52 - Turn 53 (1880BC - 1840BC)

Didn't have time to post some an update (forgot to play last night so had to play before leaving for work, not great), but SD made an interesting (?) proposition



I'll have to think about it, because I'm still not sure I'm happy at where SD's new city is concerned...



but at the same time, where else would he have really gone? Can't act on it for another 8 turns (peace treaty) anyway. Can at least peek inside via the plains hill if I want. 



This is the plan for the next settler to go, anyway.

We're crawling towards Pottery still, but we're almost there, and we can use some sea/riverside tiles to get over the hump quickly.

[JackRB]

Turn 56 (1760 BC)

ParanoidAndroid, the 4th city, now founded.



Bit of a cop out naming-convention-wise to pick two songs released by the same band, but eh. The naming convention picked is interesting personally, but not exactly condusive to naming cities quickly :P
This is one of my favourite songs by them point blank, a 6 minute prog epic, with 4 very distinct sections, not remotely pop-friendly. Like Bohemian Rhapsody, except with more anger and loathing (and much better).

Back to the game, note that another settler is being built, which is going to the 'NEXT' sign (top right of the screen). Doesn't feel great expanding with 10%, but heh, what else it there to do? SD built Stonehenge last turn also, which, is something? to keep in mind I guess.

[Tarkeel]

Did you get that fifth city settled?

[JackRB]

I'm, uh, sorry guys again for completely abandoning reporting again. For all that I enjoy it, my rather addictive style of gaming doesn't mesh too well with the "1-turn-a-day" incremental progress, but that's just a me problem.

I'll get a comprehensive report of my empire [city views, tech, demos etc.] in the next 24 hrs or so, because lurkers deserve to know whats going on (well that, and I'm in my fairly traditional 'kinda-don't-know-what-to-do' midgame phase - and I'm half-worried I'll sleepwalk into throwing any chance of doing anything through mere inaction).

The short version though:
I've not done much other the econ game. Mainly out of necessity, the extra difficulty costs + expanding a tad too fast overall meant I was pretty economically weak for a long time (and I'm still fairly technologically behind, if not economically, based on the units other people have running around). Over the last 20/30 turns I've started to focus research and build slots to more units (atm Catapults and handful of Crossbows), although I'm a few turns away from Civil Service and Macemen Beserkers, which does worry me a little having seen Knights on the map already.
Not sure what the plan is, any military action is going to involve quite a lot of buildup, although I have had half-an-eye on attacking BING of Mali, and half-an-eye on Cornflakes' military conquest over Fabled. SD, bless him, has tried to get me to do something, anything, but I really don't feel in any kind of position to war in the immediate future.
On the other hand, I'm hitting the vertical growth ceiling on most of my mature cities, starting to feel a little restless after boring economy-ing, and could really do with some more land. hmm.

[JackRB]

well nvm

thats annoying, I've played this far worse than PB61 imo, but uh I don't think there's any way to defend a 3 front war ever


I'm also probably not cut out for these type of games I've learned, ah well, because it is fun, I just don't think I can adapt to this kind of play

[JackRB]

Turn 139 (580 AD)

Well, I was a little pessimistic about my chances, considering the triple war declaration from all directions, but I've come out alive, albeit at the cost of 1/4 of my empire, ceding three border cities, 1 each to SD, Cornflakes and BING.  Reminds me of the First Partition of Poland, although who exactly is Russia, Prussia and Austria in this situation, I'm not quite sure.

Cities gifted extorted by my neighbours:
1. Can We Fix It? - To Cornflakes

This was definitely my most exposed city in terms of distance to capital, and I currently do not have anything that can beat Knights. I would love to take a pop at it again, even if just to serve as a buffer city, although, taking on the largest civ in the game, heh, not at the moment.

2. ParanoidAndroid - To SD

Whilst still a border city, very fustrated in being forced to give this one up, but desperate times are afoot. Was threatened by a handful of HA's plus a few other units I don't remember, not exactly an overwhelming force but enough to take down a Axe/Spear combo I still had in there... Why I thought this would be a nice defined border when SD is the other party involved, I don't know.

3. Flat Beat - To BING

Another exposed point of the empire, and whilst I had totally and utterly fumbled in moving some units away from here in a vain attempt to reinforce up north in 'Can We Fix It?', a stack of ~10 catapults, a few Crossbowmen and Skirmishers would have been plenty to punch through what little I had. One thing to note was that I wasn't threatened immediately, unlike on the other two fronts, leading to me believe it may have been a totally opportunistic, or even bought war?

I now have 7 turns peace with SD/Cornflakes (10 with BING), and whilst I was drifting away in lala-land earlier, my goals are now incredibly simple, I need to:
a. Scramble towards military tech parity as fast as possible. I'm close to picking up Pikes, which will at least fend off Knights better than anything else I'm fielding. I'm unfortunately still 5 techs from Longbows, and 7 from Knights though [sure, Myst/Meditation/Priesthood/Monarchy are cheap enough, they're still all 1 turn minimum :/], so might pick up HBR after Engineering, just to have some mounted unit available.
b. Whip out another round of units, likely Pikes to complement my whipped Beserkers/Crossbowmen.
c. Rustle up some anti-Cornflakes/SD/BING coalition diplomacy/action, pulling directly out of my ass. I really have no idea what to do here, I offer out Incense + double digit GPT to Ginger and Mjmd to stop trading with BING and SD respectively, just to try and signal something. I've been fairly good trade partners with both in terms of resources, hopefully something can materialise further if when I end up at war in the next 10 or so turns.

Demo's... are not looking great, naturally.

My Food and Production have taken a significant nosedive, what with a recent round of whipping and city ceding, and still last on soldiers! welp, its not looking good.

[JackRB]

Turn 176 (1160 AD)

Not updated in a while, but proud to announce I am, somehow, still alive and kicking. I've fought off invasions from superdeath and BING and am actually free of invading units for the first time in around 20-30 units, at least in the short term. I've also gotten through relatively unscathed in terms of city count, with only Blue Room being burnt to a fiery crisp.
I'm not sure I deserve to be in this "strong" of a position either (strongly relative, of course), having got pretty darn lucky, but at some point I needed to roll the dice considering I was always fighting an uphill battle, and the civ gods have at least spared me for now.
[I also, some? time ago now threw in 4"33' at some point to plug some a few unused tiles, and to get another production queue.]



Of course, in the grand scheme of things, my cities sans-capital are either whipped to death  or have zero infrastructure post-liberation, and that's not... great. and the demos do not make for amazing reading either:



Cornflakes is technically the weakest, but I'm not really doing much better here heh. I'm going to see how long I last, try to refound Blue Room with a newly produced settler now that SD is busy scrapping with the far more threatening Ginger. I've offered a straight peace with BING too, he could definitely still grind me down and win, I'm basically all out of whips at this point, but Knights are, um, quite good units. The research plan is to gun straight to rifles to continue clinging on, although I'm researching about as fast as a slug on a bicycle right now.



However, in the meantime, I'll bask in this sea of green in the logs.