[PB66] Tarkeel and civac explore the untamed wilds

[Tarkeel]

Turn 143 (660 AD)
P&P built the Statue of Zeus in Zeus, fittingly enough, and now Mjmd's raze-and-replace is under double cultural pressure.


He's also under pressure in the south, where the undefended fishingvillage of SailIntoHistory is about to be crushed by Firiona Vie. Next border pop is in 4t, and ToA will double in 14, while Mjmd's city has neither garrison nor culture. We spotted one of Superdeath's Berserkers heading north last turn, so he's most likely hitting Vanrober or Mjmd soon.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 146 (720 AD)
Superdeath declared a very expected war against Vanrober after holding the clock for an extra 24h last turn, but more unexpectedly Mjmd declared war on P&P. It was hot enough to spawn a General, but it might have been close after the previous war. Vanrober is fielding longbows in addition to the usual elephan/cat stack, and most of his cities are inland so I doubt SD will make fast gains here. Mjmd wanted to reinforce our fish for fish, but after extorting our latest bordercity and then chopping it's forest. I was inclined to let him sweat it a little but Civac talked me into being nice; we're also seeing if he'll sell us his excess gold on the cheap.


Back at home things are progressing mostly according to plan. Firiona Vie completed the Heroic Epic and Kelethin the National Epic. Monk infrastructure is mostly in place, while courthouses and forges are following soon.


Civac has been doing his micro-magic and has plotted a course to complete University of Sankore T165 after researching Paper T160, giving us time to pick up Engineering and maybe Feudalism on the way. Hardest target to hit will be Engineering T154, but we're making about 250 bpt on breakeven so it's just about doable. We expect Mjmd to be our biggest competitor for UoS, as he's been actively spreading our Buddhism.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 148 (760 AD)

Civac has been doing his micro-magic and has plotted a course to complete University of Sankore T165 after researching Paper T160, giving us time to pick up Engineering and maybe Feudalism on the way. Hardest target to hit will be Engineering T154, but we're making about 250 bpt on breakeven so it's just about doable. We expect Mjmd to be our biggest competitor for UoS, as he's been actively spreading our Buddhism.

Those micro-plans lasted all of two turns; Mjmd picked up paper this turn and is buying stone from Ginguelito so he's obviously going for Sankore as predicted. We pivoted around and found another plan to abuse Ak'Anon badly to complete it in 8 turns, including whipping for the final stretch. It's going to be messy.

Gavagai knows which side of the bread is buttered, and attacked the soft GKC instead of "splitting" spiky Vanrober (who is also fielding Knights) with Superdeath. We're moving a paltry force to "liberate" insult-city on the east coast.

[Tarkeel]

We bought worldmaps from Mjmd for 25g. Is there anything the bored lurkerati would like to see in the T150 report?

[Tarkeel]

Turn 150 (800 AD) State of the Realm IV
We are nearing the end of this infrastructure crunch, and have been adding some crossbows on the defense. The only monk buildings missing is temples in the two latest cities, which are coming soon.


The economy has recovered nicely, and vacilates between +204 and -184.


Thanks to the shrine we're competitive in GNP, and AP gives us a nice advantage in production.


We're going to hit the ceiling on our vertical growth soon.



We spent an inordinate amount of time trying to analyze Mjmd's Sankore plans. We originallly had Blow Boys pegged as the buildsite, but when the game didn't show him working his hills we started speculating on alternate plans. When it looked like that city was barely working tiles, we thought he was pressing out another great person for a Golden Age, planning to swap into OrgRel and Bureau to build it in the capital. It probably was just a bug; when I went in to get the screenshot it was showing them as being worked, so it's still the likely buildsite.


I don't think too much has changed on the opponent ranking since last time. Gavagai seems to be making inroads against GKC while Superdeath is stagnating on Vanrober, and Amica gave back a city to Gingerlito for peace.

Tier V: Dead Man Walking - MagicScience
Mjmd sent him into island-exile a few turns ago.

Tier IV: Trailing - Ginguelito, Amica
Amica seems to be the worse off here, after he gave back a city to Ginguelito for peace.



Tier III: Clinging to Relevancy - Vanrober, GKC, Alhazard, Superdeath
Alhazard has been content to build infrastructure in peace, as his power graphs seems to be mostly population growth.


Superdeath seems to have bitten of more than he could chew in Vanrober, and I don't see him making any easy gains. He might even lose if Van has enough Knights in storage.


GKC has lost two cities to Gavagai, exposing his core. He needs to turn this around soon, or he's going to get eaten



Tier II: The Almost There - Gav, Us
See above for ours and Gav's empires.

Tier I: The Big Boys - Mjmd, P&P
I think P&P have been digesting their new holdings, but there was a brief skirmish against Mjmd.


Mjmd has recovered his economy despite putting down some pretty extreme fishingvillages (see Christmas Ship, on the Desolation spot) by cottaging just about every hill. He still has some grasslands not cottaged though.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 154 (880 AD)
As predicted, Gavagai captured GKC's capital this turn, while SD seems to have stalled out after capturing the two island cities. Vanrober has been gathering knights, so a counterstrike seems likely. Hazard's war chariots beat us to the punch and captured the city GKC planted on our east coast. The attack was pretty sloppy, showing the stack a turn early for no benefit. Speaking of Hazard, we had a scout on his borders a few turns ago:


That's so criminally undefended we deleted the chariot so as to not reveal what we'd seen. We are looking at a rather late knight attack, probably striking out from Overthere to land on the hill that Forks Akhetaten and Memphis, while a smaller stack can land on the hill NE of Edfu. We've been carefully getting him used to our workers improving tiles on the borders.


Most of our energy has been focused on the race for Sankore, and Mjmd finally triggered the expected golden age, switching into Buddhism and OrgRel but also out of slavery. We finished our mine-chop this turn while he has yet to chop his two tundra forests, and next turn we can whip it. That is likely to give us the win, but he might have just enough for a cointoss.


We decided to go Engineering before Feudalism and Guilds, partly so we could crunch out Citadels while still paying for the Sankore stone. Most of our cities are set to finish production when Engineering finishes next turn. We're also looking at a low cost strike at GKC's island.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 155 (900 AD)
Engineering is completed, and it's Citadel o'clock.


Dagnor's, Kelethin and Overthere have been set up to 2-whip their Citadels next turn, and Felwithe will whip the market with overflow into Citadel next turn. Unrest has overflow coming into it, and will slow build it just in time for the stone deal to expire. Steamfount gets to finish it's courthouse first.

Poor Ak'Anon whips out Sankore, and since Mjmd didn't chop the forests we should get it next turn, providing base 76 bpt. We're currently saving gold for the Guilds push, while on Compass so as to not worry Alhazard too much.

Gavagai continues the conquest of GKC, having split his empire in the middle now. Superdeath and Vanrber are staring each other down at the border:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 156 (920 AD) Good News and Bad News
Ak'Anon completed Sankore as expected, but our joy is blunted by a senseless act of violence.


Magic Science is earning a reputation as being more random than Superdeath. We take some solace in dispatching a Wellie to finish the wounded crossbow:
C1 War Elephant vs Crossbow (3.7), 98.9%: flawless victory

Unfortunately, his island of solitude is impenetrable before Astronomy, and will be a hassle even then. While Steamfount started out as a fishing village, with the iron and hills it was actually a hefty production center, only just matured to the point of contributing units to the empire. Part of the reason this hurts is this diplo we got from Gavagai at the end of last turn:


That's a pretty clear invitation to gang up on Mjmd in 15 turns. Unfortunately we have a very untenable border with Alhazard which needs to be dealt with, and while Sankore just sped up our ETA on Knights considerably, losing Steamfount means less units. With 300g on hand we actually have enough to get both Feudalism and Guilds in 5 turns, but we we prefer spending an extra turn on Alpha to get a better overview. We sent back this, hoping to signal that while we like the idea, we need to deal with Alhazard first.


In other unreported world-news, Vanrober has counterattacked into Superdeath:


Depending on what Superdeath has in the fog to the south, this might be enough to break through.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 157 (920 AD)
We are popular. Several players are putting EP on us, changes since last turn: MS +2, Mjmd +4, Gav +5, Alhazard +8, Amica +16. We did however get Alphabet so we have reactive tech knowledge:


Some notable observations:
The "only" players (so far) with Guilds are P&P, GKC, Gav, SD and Vanrober.
Gavagai and Mjmd are probably going for Nationalism and TajMahal.
Mjmd looks like he's going for Liberalism; we'd be fine with him taking Nationalism or PrintingPress with it.
Superdeath has monopoly on Compass and Optics; he might be going for early Astronomy.
Alhazard spent some turns saving up 1.4k gold; I think he researched something 2t ago which is possibly Machinery, so I think he's got enough to get Guilds next.

We're very interested in this, as that's most likely where we're going to expand next:


We're looking at good ways to do this, but the border is ever so slightly not in our favor. The tile N of the horses is 51-48 in his favor, and not likely to budge unless we spend our Great Artist in Paineel. Building a road on the hill SE of Overthere is so blatantly obvious that we're considering it as a ruse to draw his defenders that way, while we strike Alexandria and hopefully Hieraconpolis to cut off the soft east. His power graph has been very low for a long time now, even though he's started to field a few Longbows. Abydos on the south coat only just finished a rather late Moai, that's still earlier than half the field.

Vanrober's stack got badly trounced by Superdeath, and unless he has a second wave of reinforcements, he's going to lose what's left of that stack.


Gavagai is having better luck in his conquest, and GKC is reduced to 3 cities in the north, a lone city in the south, and what's looking like a lasting island fortress.


P&P also fired a golden age (alongside Mjmd), going into Mercantilism (revealing they have Banking!), which had made us lose 14 beakers and 4 gold per turn. They are PRO with three large island cities, so they probably don't feel the tradeloss as bad as they should.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 158 (940 AD)
Alhazard whipped up a storm after we'd played last turn, 8 2-whips and 2 3-whips. We were afraid they were pre-built horchers or LBs, but it looks like most of it were infrastructure: we saw some new forges and stables. He then triggered a golden age this turn, swapping into HR, Vassalage, Caste and OrgRel (with 3 buddhist cities).


That's all three of our neighbors in a golden age, so we're sorely tempted to trigger our own. We're still #4 on GNP and MFG though, and we're not sure how to generate the third GP for a future GA, so we're holding off for now.


Tech-screen reveals that Gav got Literature and P&P picked up Archery; I missed that they're missing HBR for knights still.
Parts of Vanrober's stack is still alive, but SD got another GA countering, and burned the city it was fleeing to. Vanrober also lost a surprising city in the south, so he might be done for.