Economically the strongest competitor looks like to be xist10 with the GLH. Looking at map positioning, the most likely military threats to me are xist10 and Miro.
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[PB79] End of the beginning?
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Turn 100
Have I mentioned this game has been flying forward? Oh yes I did, but I still feel like I was caught by surprise how fast turn 100 was reached. I’ll probably do a short overview update now, and then full city tour and future plans later. View of north and south:   I’m about to settle city #14 in south, for the rice and silver. I’ve built a second galley (third completes soon) to shuffle around workers, settlers and defenders on the many islands. My most far flung islands have been left without worker support for a while, this will be fixed soon. In south, a returning galley took a small detour and uncovered a very juicy island with fish, pigs, stone, cow and whales. I think the best settle spot is on the PH cows, to set up the city faster and be in range of whales too? Workers have been busy chopping forests to granaries and building cottages. I’m at a point where whipping away population feels more damaging, as then I’m temporarily working less cottages/villages. I try to cycle whips in a way that nearest cities can swap tiles around when population is lost. Calendar is now a 2-turn research at 100% slider, but I need about 230 gold to churn through it. Espionage vision shows Miro going for machinery (they recently finished metal casting and IW). I probably need HBR soon to counter a possible cho-ko-nu invasion. One of the coastal cities of xist10 has a 4-5 stack of axemen, I’m going to reinforce closest islands with more hill fortified archers. The way my game goes from a (relatively?) strong position into the gutter if I get surprise invaded. I think I’ve done a good job establishing my empire, considering that PHI has given me zero benefit so far. More on great people plans in a later post. Oh, and I’ve been really enjoying boosted CHA in this game. It allowed for more frequent whipping and I didn’t need to immediately connect happy resources so I could focus on food, chopping and cottages first. Demos: 
Thanks for the overview images, definitely need to keep an eye on supply lines in the islands and maybe prioritise Metal Casting for some Trireme defense.
In the South I’d probably settle North of the Cows or Pigs and borrow the crabs for a fast start, and then stick a second city between the Fish and Sheep on the tundra island. It’s a secure spot though, so no rush. Would be great to look at finances and see how things are balancing out.
Turn 108
I keep pushing back the city overview (too many to do at once), so I’ll include a few here. But first, we’re at T108 now, so time for a new overview of north and south parts of the realm:   Calendar was done in T104 and masonry a turn later. Spice plantations and a sugar plantation have been completed, more will follow. Stenn Desert 2-pop whipped library for some overflow (didn’t optimize this fully) and started Mausoleum. Workers are chopping to complete it faster. In south, I founded city #15 on island, directly on PH cow. I had completed a WB in advance, so I estimated that faster access to the fish is worth it over founding another city later on tundra sheep island. Another island settle is in position in east, near Ricketyclik. I think I’m encroaching on his side of a 50-50 split of these territories, but early bird gets the turf I guess? I have to admit, I didn’t expect so many islands to be in reach based on the starting area. Maybe ORG or PRO would have been quite powerful here? In foreign news, Gira adopted representation some time after completing the Pyramids. I wonder why the switch was delayed? Xist10 founded both Hinduism and Judaism, the latter holy city will put pressure on my cultural control of Shem island surroundings. He also got a great merchant this turn. No one else has calendar to my knowledge and no construction either. I’m saving up gold now while slow teching HBR for military back up against cho-ko-nus, but I could swap to metal casting or IW instead. City overview, part 1: Let’s take a look on the first three core cities.  After BW was done, capital was whipped pretty much every 10 turns, sometimes even more frequently. Now it has been avoiding settler or worker whips for a while, and has focused on cottages and growth instead. Happy cap was increased after calendar and a worker is on its way for the bananas. More cottages will be added too, and for now I’m generating first GS in this city. I’m considering chopping + whipping market and/or forge later here.  Stenn Desert has built most of my offensive capable military units and is now building MoM. In the early game, settlers and workers were whipped from here too, but less frequently to keep working the great production tile. I’ll maybe try for Hanging gardens here after MoM, if it is still available then. Or I might start it elsewhere. I will first connect stone and of course need an aqueduct too.  Spider Plains has built a mix of military and workers/settlers and completed the first set of libraries together with capital. And connected the first happy resource too. Will keep on military duty for the foreseeable future. More in part 2 later.
September 12th, 2024, 14:27
(This post was last modified: September 12th, 2024, 14:30 by coldrain.)
 (September 10th, 2024, 13:27)civac2 Wrote: Your Mausoleum attempt seems unfocused. Is Mausoleum merely a nice to have item for you? I have three workers chopping forests, one of which was started before calendar was finished. I could have sent two more workers to chop, but I think I have enough of a head start by getting calendar first. Mausoleum is not necessary for my strategy, but would be a huge boost. I'll get it in 2 turns if no one snipes it. Speaking of wonders, Xist10 completed I believe a 16 city Hanging gardens, leading to a massive score jump. I'm still ahead in crop yield by about 25-30 to closest competitor. EDIT: And I forgot that resource bonus only gives +50% production modifier in this mod, so I miscalculated the amount of forest chops needed for completion. |
