Q's Quietly Quitting Q Puns

[shallow_thought]

I wouldn't say the chances of Coldrain quietly accepting that he pushed too far are great - I'd actually be more worried if he seemed to, as that would probably imply he was just waiting for the right moment to get revenge.

But if he can be persuaded to delay the inevitable death match while you fill up more land (post burning his city, of course), that's worth something, and a strong argument for trying to hold your WS as a future threat rather than spending it now.

[Qgqqqqq]

Yeah, I ended up deciding not to pull the trigger. Well, I should say I decided to only promote two horsemen, and leave the others. If he leaves it defended by one warrior I'll still burn it.

The main factors were scouting Bing quite close to the south-west, and reassessing Coldrain's position. I'm quite a bit ahead in food, and I'd forgotten just how many techs Ljolsofar mages need. I should have time to attack later before he hits a power spike and after I've settled the south. Besides, I'm not sure who he was at war with (unless he lost a presumed hunter to a barb, which seems unlikely) - if it's Auro, need to be careful about balancing rivals.

I'm really sorry about the pace of reports this game, by the way. I've just been so busy with volunteer work (and family earlier in the month) that just playing the turns (especially when there's big decisions like this one) have been taking enough of my capacity that there's not much room left for reporting

[fireblaze]

no worries, was the holidays and life in general calls before gaming, much less gameposting

[shallow_thought]

Yeah, just post when you can .

[Qgqqqqq]

Long time no update.

I somehow missed for 4 turns that Auro (presumably) had landed the Drama bard

So that's a ton of wasted beakers. Serves me right for switching off - it's no way to win. On the other hand, I'm kind of happy with that. I've been enjoying keeping the pressure off and just playing each turn as it comes in and not worrying about it - which is after all one of the things I've been trying to do for a while.

Anyway! I took a barb city, and now Bing is using his entire army to settle near me in an awkward location:



If he settles on the marble, whatever. It orphans the crabs but ah well. If he tries to settle south of the elephant we'll have to come back and raze it.

Meanwhile, I got startled by a treeant appearing:


I thought initially it might just be spawned from a gobin stepping on a forest, but nope, he's cast MotT, and lost power the previous turn. So looks like a hot war, with either Auro or Mig. Oh well, looks like we try vulture in five turns

Our military is real, but entirely horsemen. We don't have a good source of collateral. We could try Veil->Priesthood, but it's such a long way away. I've mostly just been noodling along, aiming for Foreign Trade and trying out a trade route based economy.

The core:


Demos:

We're barely in it, being melted by Auro's GA in GNP/Production and maintaining respectable food. But we have no long term future.

Any questions

[fireblaze]

Any chance of turtling into lucky island/sea expansion options and hoping your opps blast each other enough to give you an opportunity to jump on Auro? Maybe get open borders and dec with cold and send an expeditionary force to fuck around and delay a bit? Dunno how the diplo dynamics tend to play out without real direct lines of comms beyond morse code via trade offers

[Qgqqqqq]

There don't appear to be any galley-reachable islands. Astronomy is a long way away, unfortunately.

[shallow_thought]

Yeah, those numbers could be terrifying, particularly when you're the FIN/EXP one. But I'm checked out by a beach right now, and you seem respectably calm. Just keep nibbling where possible I suppose? Going Veil could at least throw some chaos into the game.

[Qgqqqqq]

What the bloody hell Bing?


Can't you just go away and let me attack Coldrain once his worldspell wears off? There are like twenty units here, no workers, and no first ring tiles.

It also means my settler for this spot is running to a indefensible location in the jungle

Coldrain is also settling a demilitarised spot right on our border...while in a hot war with Mig. I kinda want to just attack him given how little the Sidar peninsula matters.


I'm quite sanguine in general, because I've mostly given up. I do have one longshot plan I haven't put nearly enough thought into...

[fireblaze]

That's a "I've come to bash your skull in" city if i've ever seen one lmao. Do tell with your longshot plan, maybe we can give a couple helpful suggestions for it.