{Spoilers}Brian will write something interesting for Dave and lurkers to read

[Brian Shanahan]

Well turn forty one saw me pasture the sheep at Pale Moonlight, and I thought it was a good time to look at the two cities:



So here they are. I need happy for Inner Light, and I need food for Pale Moonlight so as you can see both of my workers are looking towards farming and I am teching for mining.

Turn 42 saw me just manoevre my workers back to the corn. 1 worker will take 4 turns so both will work on that 43&44 and then we connect the road.

My warrior was produced in Inner light, and I sent him west. He'll stand at the border waiting for the settler to produce and he'll run ahead of the settler to my second site, along with the currently scouting warrior. After the monument Pale Moonlight will produce a worker to get one for each city.

Demographics show me trailing a bit. Must get both the fp cities and education up and running:

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry for the lack of reports since the game returned, over the weekend I was very busy, and this week saw me come down with a flu, so I'm not up to big posts. I should be back up and running by the weekend though.

[Brian Shanahan]

Said I'll get this out of the way before I play today's turn.

Highlights:
1) Farmed the wheat at Pale Moonlight, and roaded the two cities.
2) Just finished Mining (at end of turn 46, so will start mining today). Education is next for cottages.
3) Pale Moonlight is growing like a weed early, I'll farm the lakeside grassland before improving the horses. Food is king.
4) Moved one of my capital warriors east to see what's happening, probably send him south from there. He met a Spider Baby!
That's about it.

Here's a pictorial of the events:







And the demographics progress:






Play the turn tonight and report on that tomorrow.

[Brian Shanahan]

Not much to report really, worker A finished the farm by Pale Moonlight, worker B continues with the gold mine.

Pale Moonlight is at its happy cap but won't grow until a turn after the gold hooks up, perfect!

My settler finished in Inner Moonlight, going to send him to the northern floodplains site, by the Mirror. I moved the guarding worker around a bit because of the scorpion coming closeish. Next build will be a worker, then a lightbringer to size 7.

Hedgimication will be in in seven turns so cottage spam will be up and running soon, I hope.

No pics, as I only have two demogs shots, and am too lazy to upload them.

And sorry for the tardiness, am quite busy preparing for a couple of job interviews, and such.

[DaveV]

You asked for advice. Sorry I haven't been providing much, I'll give my current thoughts.

If the scorpion lets you, I'd recommend trying to settle your Mirror of Heaven city. Do whatever you can to signal peaceful intentions to Yell0w; the last thing you need is a war. Power looks OK right now:



Building another worker is a good idea; it would be nice to have him now. I would build another one right on his heels; five workers might not be too many once your borders pop in Pale Moonlight.

Overview screen, without all the wavy lines that make my eyeballs bleed:




If I were Yell0w, I'd be doing whatever I could to capture that scorpion; that would make his scouts as strong as anyone else's hunters. Staying out of his way might be one way to make friends with him.



It looks like you're falling behind in this game. I'd recommend spamming out some more workers and settlers and building cottages, which seems to be the direction you're heading. Grab copper for Bronze weapons; that should keep Yell0w from getting any aggressive ideas.

[Brian Shanahan]

<snip>

It seems we're right on the same wavelength regarding the game. I think my behindedness is due to one of two things, going all the worker techs before education, or going as far down the tech line without carnivals for the +3gpt markets.

Regarding the worker/settler spam, I'm going to grow a size in the capital to the happy cap of 7 and start pumping out the settlers and workers there. Pale Moonlight is also going to start a worker or two after the next warrior is out (I was able to 1 turn a warrior, and with recent developments I thought that may be an idea).

Turn reports up in a few minutes.

[Brian Shanahan]

Yeah, I'm getting very spotty with turn reports the last few weeks, sorry about that. I've just been very busy the last few weeks, with job interviews, applications for the civil service, and the final round up of my credit union course, on top of my usual jobbies.

Anyways onto the last three turns.

Turn 50 was uneventful. Apart from one thing, my settler completed in Inner Light, so he is now moving towards the Mirror city, and should get it safely.

Turn 51 gave me this event:

Unfortunately the dice rolled relatively low on it and I only got 12 gold. Off topic, in my latest game I got the monument event, where you get to choose +2 gold, food, science or other goodies for specific civs, in one city, so now I've a +6food monument in my second city.

Turn 52 is where the goodies happened.

First, I travelled south with my C1G1 promoted warrior (I'm keeping him in the hills for as long as possible, hence the promotion). The land looks:


Second one is zoomed in but it only revealed the bones. The map is definitely mirrored.

Then I had a look west to see what was happening there:

Got my heckles up at first, but as Dave says, probably looking to play with Hank over on the flood plains. You can see my warrior/settler pair behind the Mirror, they'll be ready to plant next turn (interestingly the blue circle is the spot they're on in the picture, I don't like it, off the river, and too much desert), and I've a third warrior going north from Pale Moonlight.
I looked at the power ratings just in case and Yell0w is still down on me in power:


And finally demographics:




So next turn a new city, another warrior (up to nine now), and another worker on the way soon. Two more workers for the three cities should be enough for now, and probably one each for the next two after that.

If anyone else unspoiled wants to chime in, I'm all ears.

[Brian Shanahan]

Turns are coming around quick these days, which is good.

Two big turns to report on this time.

Fifty three saw me found DoomsdayMachine (lack of space from character limit). Anyone guess the naming scheme yet?


Must remember to get rid of my drawn in lines.

Then I kept going south, using the desert to move two tiles:



You can't see from that elevation, but an Illian warrior is standing on that Cotton down south, and therefore we've met Queen Elsa (Hiding Kneel) of the chilly civilisation.

For completeness sake I took pictures of Inner Light and Pale Moonlight too:



Inner light goes worker next turn, getting it up to seven pop.
And the five best cities list, along with demographics:



Turn fifty four saw me do something I've been kicking myself for a while for not doing:



Looks like Hiding Kneel is like me, and Yell0w is the runt of this litter (probably working on a Leaves founder run I'd say, and skipping some techs).

I move one warrior out of Doomsday Machine onto the Mirror (it's slightly annoying you don't get the vision bonus in the city which owns the tile):

And as a result of that (Yellow looks to have lost a warrior getting Hank Scorpio) I decided to move my third warrior in Pale Moonlight north to Doomsday Machine, at eot next turn he'll be in the city and numbers will keep me safeish.

More southern scouting reveals:


With HK's capital in all likelihood mirroring mine exactly. Guess what the sign is pointing to under the fog? If the land weren't so mountainny it'd be imperative to stake a claim there. But this layout means I most definitely have to go south after securing the flood plains.

Finally the demographics:


My score is finally beginning to keep pace with the big guys, and if I get cottages up and running quick (I've just popped Economics for them) I'll soon be turbo charging my gnp rate. The one big issue at the moment is what trait do I pick in 21 turns? I'm not actually too sure here.

[Brian Shanahan]

Oh, one more thing: I'm guessing those recent posts from Yell0w are along the lines of "That bleppidy, bleepity, bleep of a bleep, Brian has settled right where I've planted my next city. Murder, death, kill. Murder! Death! Kill! Hulk Rage!!!!!!"

[Brian Shanahan]

Hence the five turn report

Turn 55

Education came in allowing for the building of cottages (I prefer cottage economies where available to aristo farming in EitB) which I started on immediately.

When I saw this I thought I'd lose the second set of floodplains for sure, but I was lucky, and Yell0w decided to settle on that spot the next turn, IMO sub optimal settling.
And Demographics:

Turn 56

As I said Yell0w settled this turn where he was the last. In my cities Pale Moonlight went with a settler, due to good overflow and wanting to finish the lightbringer in Inner Light, and Inner Light queued two guard warriors and a worker for the fifth city. No worthy pictures for the turn.
Demographics:

Turns 57 & 58

Were very quiet. Just building up.

Turn 59

I took a picture of the world due to scouting

I also took a picture with the culture map on, but it didn't fit to scale properly. Hiding Kneel is south, mirroring my placements almost exactly as far as I can see, and Yell0w to my west, with the awkwardly placed Gareth Minar.
After that I got this weird glitch when I zoomed back in:

Any ideas?
And finally demographics:

This turn

Mysticism came in and i deviated for fishing. With three seafood resoruces, workboats will be good.
I also revolted, to God King and Apprenticeship. I immediately went from -6gpt to -3, later -2 when I turned off the governor in Inner Light and worked a 3/0/1 farmed plains tile over a 0/3/0 forested plains hill (less overall production but same finishing time on the worker).

My C1G1 warrior died to a bear in the mirror place of my previous scouting warrior. I don't think I'll meet Mardoc (or is Sian back?) unless I go through elves or frostman terriotoru.

Demographics

God King is the reason for my improved gnp total, just need to get those sea resources on line and get the food pumped up.

I think I'm pretty good for city four getting the southern floodplains site, and then my fifth city will go to the south east to cut off my peninsula from settlers walking up from Illian territory. I'm going to build a couple more warriors out of Pale Moonlight, then a Desert Shrine, and after that I'll pump some light bringers. My other cities will look to get in some Elder councils and do the worker settler pumping that I need for the backfill.