[SPOILERS] Out of retirement and into the fires of war. yuris125, Pitboss 68

[yuris125]

Graph confirms the big fight - and Commodore suffered bigger losses




Moreover, looks like the fighting continues, rival worst number for soldiers is even lower this turn

Meaning, after me sitting in front of the screen and hesitating for good 10 minutes - please meet our new city




Once Math is in, I will chop the leftover forest into walls, and with 1-pop-whip set up, will feel reasonably safe about developing and growing this city

Thoth's stack moved out of view - wonder if he wants to continue the build-up out of sight, or if looking at these numbers he sees an opportunity to pounce at Miguelito's holy city

This may seem as an opportunity to pounce at Commodore ourselves, but I'm very hesitant to do it. As you say, it's all about careful and conservative growth for us - which means making sure our cities are well-defended, not attempting to take new territory through opportunistic strikes and potentially exposing ourselves to an attack from other direction. Thoth has to gain territory somewhere, and if he sees an opportunity to gain it from Miguelito and not from us, I'm all for it. We're well positioned to play the economic game with the land we have. Ideally this new city is the last risky play we make

[naufragar]

Excellent news! Welcome, Boros Burn.

Thoth has no reason to keep units on the gold until he plans to attack with them, so it's hard to say what he's doing in the meantime.

Just because it's my job to always jump at shadows, the next threat is probably horse archers. They don't trade well going against our bowmen behind walls, but the high base strength would make dislodging them with axes+bows a bit of a pain. Not that I think Thoth has the gas in the tank for a horse archer push, but I mention it to put it in your mind.

I really like the way the game is shaping up. Commodore won't be happy with that new city, but unless Thoth starts troubling Miguelito, hopefully it's too secure for him to do anything about.

[yuris125]

Yeah I keep asking the research adviser if anyone knows HBR. No one does as of last turn. In fact, I haven't seen any changes in the research screen for a while; people must be researching techs we already know (such as Writing)




Since I logged in, here's also the latest power graph. Poor Commodore is losing his fight




Thoth cannot reach Gruul Smash in one turn from deeper within his territory. It probably is more valuable for him to hide the stack so that we don't know the exact numbers / composition. But from our perspective, as long as his stack is not on the gold, we can keep units between Gruul Smash and Boros Burn rather than in the city

[yuris125]

Sailing will take 5 turns at 0% after I hired two scientists in Gruul Smash. Don't think we will save enough money to 100% Construction immediately thereafter, but we'll see. I will start Construction right away in any case, even if it will be have to be at 0% at first

The next few turns will be a bit of wheel spinning as we slowly grow the cities, build forges (I forgot they were 120 hammers! thought it was 90) and wait out whip anger - only to whip some more, because those forges won't build themselves, and the only reasonable way to build them is with overflow

[yuris125]

Some thinking on future great people. Right now I'm working scientists in Gruul Smash because I don't want it to grow, it has 20 turns of whip anger and is bumping into unhappiness. We will continue having happiness problems there if we keep whipping, and I would like it to complement the capital's great person production, so converting food into GPP and a bit of science is valuable. But generally speaking, another great scientist wouldn't be all that valuable right now. The next tech on the bulb list is Alphabet, which we will have to clear at some point to unlock more valuable bulbs, but there is no rush

I'm thinking of firing the scientists in the capital once the Math great scientist is born, and running them alongside an engineer after the forge finishes. If we can get a great engineer, we're spoilt for choice between the standard Machinery bulb and a lot of nice wonders (Oracle is still the only world wonder built so far). Running just an engineer would probably be too slow, but I'd like to have the odds of a great engineer rather than a scientist as high as possible

If we do end up getting another scientist, I think a golden age would be the best use - we should be able to switch to HR and adopt a religion by then

It may also be time to get some barracks up and running; we couldn't spare the hammers so far, but with Thoth's stack gone elsewhere and his power not growing, and Commodore and Miguelito losing a lot of units, now may be the time

[yuris125]

Random overview of current plans




The capital is going to whip the barracks next turn, overflow into a forge, then regrow to 6 and triple-whip the forge to completion. As we fire the scientists, regrowth should be relatively quickly

Gruul Smash I'm kinda hesitating. This is the most difficult to manage city, as it currently has 18 turns of whip anger, and no production whatsoever - everything it produces is via whipping. The most logical thing is to double-whip an axe or something, overflow into a forge, and then triple whip the forge to completion as in the capital. Problem is, this will only exacerbate the city's happiness issues. Also, we don't really need another axe right now, it's all calm on the borders, and we're paying 9gpt in unit maintenance. So yeah, not sure how best to handle this

As a side note, I do think Gruul Smash wants a forge, even with no production, just to make its whips more powerful

See-Scape has a perfect granary double-whip set up, and will whip it as soon as it hits size 5, overflowing into library to completion. Then probably onto a forge as well. This is the most food-rich city in the empire, and wants all the buildings with specialist slots it can get

Big Red Dragons is the only city which will hard-build things. It currently has 14 hpt, I probably will mine the grassland hill to push it over 16 and get 4hpt forge bonus. This is the one city I don't want to whip; its food situation will get better once we can plantation the banana, but for the moment it has a good number of strong tiles to work, and regrowing it after a whip will be painfully slow. I might do some light whipping to help with the forge, but mostly this city will hard build stuff (or build wealth when/if we get to Currency)

In world news, things have calmed down. Commodore and Miguelito are rebuilding military, while Thoth doesn't seem to be adding to his stack




There were two great generals born during the Commodore / Miguelito fight, one of them died in combat right away. Hard to tell whose one survived (although since Miguelito appears to have won the fight, smart money is probably on him)

However, notably, despite Commodore losing the fight, he's still comfortably second in crop yield - he's absolutely still in the game

[naufragar]

That power graph does put a smile on my face. Take that, Agg Rome.



You mentioned previously about stagnating on Scientists at Gruul Smash. Could we mine the grass hill and work that mine plus the fish and a couple scientists? (Or cottages but toggle avoid growth). When the forge gets 30 hammers invested, we switch to growth and grow to size 6 in something like 4 turns? And then trip whip the forge. The forge whip is happiness neutral because of the metal luxury, so don't worry about that.

[yuris125]

Yeah mining that hill makes sense. I think I'm wary of falling into pitfalls not-very-good players tend to fall into, such as relying on mines instead of whips for production, and using the avoid growth button to manage happiness. But I should remember that both tools can be used when the situation calls for it

And absolutely, I think we have the right to be happy with how we handled the praetorian threat!

We do need to improve the economy somewhat, our current breakeven rate is 30%, and Construction would be a 13 turns research at this rate. But this should come simply from growing the cities and working more tiles

[Ginger*]

But this should come simply from growing the cities and working more tiles

Answer is always to grow your cities and work more tiles

[yuris125]

Yeah that's generally the solution. That's exactly why I intend to triple-whip all our cities for forges, plays right into this plan :P

Just as I said that fighting between Commodore and Miguelito calmed down, this turn the great general from a couple turns ago died in battle. Things are still happening on that side of the world