[Spoilers] Boldly Going Nowhere and Mr. Cairo go to Florida. Hilarity Ensues.

[Mr. Cairo]

Cornflakes just declared on Elkad, and has a lot of power, so this might be goodbye for Elkad. Wetbandit is way ahead in tech, he just fired off a GA and swapped into HR, OR, Caste, and Bureaucracy, none of which we can do atm. He's also caught up in food, the one stat we've been leading in for a while now. But those are not war-minded civics and his power has stopped spiking (presumably because of the peace with Elkad?). So I don't think he's going to attack us any time soon. In any case we've built up a force of Catapults and will now build up to around 10 WEs, to convince our neighbors to leave us alone.

Tech path is still towards Literature for the Great Library, we should get to it in 3 turns. Then I'll have to decide if we can afford to go for Music and the Great Artist, or if we really need to get some techs in the middle or on the bottom of the tree. Monarchy -> Feudalism and some Longbows at the very least. And then possibly keep going towards Guilds, or if attacking someone isn't an option, then Engineering for Pikes and Castles.

[Mr. Cairo]

Good news, JR4 has declared on Wetbandit, whipped a bunch as well, so hopefully it'll do some actual damage and isn't just trying to get a peace treaty before attacking us. I have a Chariot running around JR4'ss territory by our border and I'm not seeing any real signs of an offensive build up. But he could be hiding them.

Here's the power graph for this turn:



And for last turn when we had graphs on wetbandit:



So it looks like wetbandit is ahead in raw power, but some of that might be techs, and he also just revolted out of slavery, so he can't whip for a while. So once again, I do hope this is a real war, not JR4 trying to get a peace treaty before attacking us or SD. I'd be delighted to see our two biggest rivals duke it out.

[Mr. Cairo]

JR4 and Wetbandit made peace, which is unfortunate, but a forest grew in the bfc of the city I plan to build the Great Library in, so that's a plus. Currently up to 7 Catapults. 2 WEs finished on the interturn and 3 more will next turn.

I decided to go for Feudalism after Literature. We need some Longbows. Might go for Music afterwards, or stick to the bottom of the tree, get Metal Casting and Machinery, or CoL and Civil Service.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Looking good, though the geopolitical situation seems to be getting a bit edgier. Maybe a second chariot to scout in JR4's territory? It would make it htat much harder for him to hide units. My read on him though is that he is mostly cautious but determined and is going to be unlikely to make a strategic blunder. Attacking into a numerically superior opponent (us) when the border is as favorable as he could hope for is not likely to gain much for him. Does he want a major war over a single city? I think YeeHawdists is all he could likely secure and profit from. I don't see him doing that. More likely, I see him trying to split SD in half and take Mids, or just grind SD into the dust in one bite. When he gets aggressive he'll spike hard and war until it's over, one way or the other.

The wetbandit extortion is interesting. What wonders does wetbandit have? His economy must be gangbusters if he can afford to pay the Danegeld and still get a large tech lead. We've focused heavily on cottages. Did he do so more quickly? I'm interested in how he's developed his economy. Early courthouses maybe? What's his EP output? That's my best guess.

Cornflakes seems to be the big threat to get a lead and not look back. I think the meta on IND forges is underrated. I love them. You can do anything with a good hammer base. Build armies, wealth builds, speculative fail gold, etc. Great flexibility. I think we need more info on him. I scouted very poorly so you are at a disadvantage here.

[Mr. Cairo]

Looking good, though the geopolitical situation seems to be getting a bit edgier. Maybe a second chariot to scout in JR4's territory? It would make it htat much harder for him to hide units. My read on him though is that he is mostly cautious but determined and is going to be unlikely to make a strategic blunder. Attacking into a numerically superior opponent (us) when the border is as favorable as he could hope for is not likely to gain much for him. Does he want a major war over a single city? I think YeeHawdists is all he could likely secure and profit from. I don't see him doing that. More likely, I see him trying to split SD in half and take Mids, or just grind SD into the dust in one bite. When he gets aggressive he'll spike hard and war until it's over, one way or the other.

Yeah, I don't think he's going to attack us any time soon, the only units I see near our border are defensive, Longbows and Spears. Also, we're now number 2 in power, so hopefully, once that appears in the graphs, we wont be a target for anyone. WE's must count for quite a lot of soldiers, since we were 5th only 2 turns ago.

The wetbandit extortion is interesting. What wonders does wetbandit have? His economy must be gangbusters if he can afford to pay the Danegeld and still get a large tech lead. We've focused heavily on cottages. Did he do so more quickly? I'm interested in how he's developed his economy. Early courthouses maybe? What's his EP output? That's my best guess.

I forgot to check on this, I'll have a look next turn. But off the top of my head I don't think he has any wonders. Cornflakes has the Colossus and SD Pyramids. And JR4 the Great Lighthouse? I think? I'll check espionage as well. But whatever the case, he's in a GA and has a massive GNP.

Cornflakes seems to be the big threat to get a lead and not look back. I think the meta on IND forges is underrated. I love them. You can do anything with a good hammer base. Build armies, wealth builds, speculative fail gold, etc. Great flexibility. I think we need more info on him. I scouted very poorly so you are at a disadvantage here.

Yeah, and with DZ also declaring on Elkad last turn, I imagine he'll have an easier time taking the Lion's share of Elkad's land. OR, Elkad already has commited to defend against Cornflakes, and DZ will manage to easily grab some cities while Cornflakes has to slog through dozens of whipped defenders.

At home, Literature finished and I've started the Great Library:




I also want to get the Statue of Zeus and put it in the eventual HE city. I think there are two main options (other than Yokel Haram, but with the GLib and Shrine I'd rather focus on commerce there).

The first:

Decent hammer potential, especially with the Moai, but all that tundra sure does suck.

The second, and my preferred option:

Lots of food, and already some decent hammers. Also has a couple forests I can shop into the SoZ/HE. Still want to keep Moai in the other city. I'd rather use Moai to make a mediocre city good, than make a good city slightly better.

After getting Monotheism with the overflow, I was planning for Monarchy, but I think Metal Casting is preferable, to start building some workshops and maybe even a forge or two? It should only take one turn, Mono is only using up about half the beakers from the Lit overflow.

The Odeon is also about to claim some tiles back from wetbandit:

Which is nice.

[Mr. Cairo]

JR4 just whipped a whole bunch, almost certainly a lot of Horse Archers to become knights in the queue. However, I think that SD is the target, and he appears to as well:

I didn't accept it, no reason to make JR4 think we're an enemy. I'm moving the WEs and Cats up towards that border, where JR4 has a chariot on sentry duty), and keeping our Chariot sitting around where Knights are most likely to attack from.

But just in general SD is a better target for JR4, we've been building units the last little while and he hasn't, and our WEs may not be as good as in vanilla BTS, but they're still better than anything else we can build right now against Knights. Also, SD, for some reason, revolted to Caste:

That's a weird sequence of events to be sure. Firing a GA and revolting to Caste, while also trying to get a peace treaty (I'm assuming) from JR4? GA sure, but to lock yourself out of Slavery for 5 turns just seems to invite an attack.

As you can see I've also put Walls in the border cities, including the city bordering JR4.

In any case, I've done some more whips and swapped some builds, and turned tech on for Monarchy. Longbows are a lot closer than Pikes, so I'm going in that direction. Monarchy in 1 turn, Archery with the overflow while saving cash, then Feudalism.

Great Library is 5 turns away atm. There's one 3rd ring forest to chop, idk if it'll shorten the build time at all.

[Mr. Cairo]

Here's JR4 assembling his stack. I'm pretty sure it's destined for SD, but then again, cancelling OB is as much a warning of an attack as this is, although if he cancelled OB I wouldn't get to see what he's actually bringing. In any case, I feel ok about this. If he's attacking SD, then SD is aware of it (since SD declared war and I'm assuming offered peace, which hasn't been accepted) and he'll fight tenaciously. And so far, this stack, as scary as Knights are, is still not enough to conquer someone quickly, so I expect either limited gains and/or a long struggle for JR4.

If he is attacking us, well, we have Cats and WEs ready, we can certainly make a fight of it. A bunch of Spears on a hill behind Walls in Yee Hawdists will make any fast attack by Knights not cost-effective (the attacks would be pretty much coin flips, and you don't want a coinflip between Knights and Spears), so he'd have to come in with slow movers and collateral, which would give us the opportunity to hit with our collateral first.

Elsewhere, Cornflakes took a major city off of Elkad, while DZ got peace with Elkad after taking a single, presumably border, city. Neither DZ or wetbandit are spiking in power, so I don't foresee an attack from the south any time soon.

Great Library is due in 2 turns.

[Mr. Cairo]

Great Library in:

8 turns until a Golden Age. After this GP comes I'll build the National Epic in this city.

With Feudalism in two turns I'm pre-building Archers everywhere for Longbows. Wetbandit has Berserkers and his power is increasing, so I want Longbows in border and coastal cities. Possibly even Walls in the coastal cities near wetbandit.


Here's JR4s attack on SD:

I honestly think he's bitten off more than ne can chew here. He might take this city, but if he waits to bombard and SD gets to attack first, JR4 could end up losing a lot of his Knights. With their high base strength, Knights are going to be top defenders after the Cats hit and only the Xbow will defend against Pikes before the Knights do. More likely is JR4 just attacks the city this turn (he's first in their turn split) and takes it, but that'll be as far as he gets, and SD will try very hard to take it back and punish JR4. We might have an opportunity here soon.

[Mr. Cairo]

I am an idiot. Archers don't upgrade to Longbows in the queue. How many times am I going to make this mistake?

edit: it's ok. It wasn't that much investment tbh, and some Archers aren't going to hurt. Nevertheless, it's annoying, I've made this mistake before, and I ought to know better.

Here's the aftermath of the battle between JR4 and SD:

I'm not entirely sure how much JR4 lost taking the city, but without more collateral, he'll lose yet more taking it back. SD also whipped a whole bunch this turn. If JR4 has really committed to this attack, I think he can take an hold this city. But that's probably it, and at the expense of a lot of potential growth/economic development.

[Mr. Cairo]

It looks like JR4 agreed with me, he withdrew from that city and made peace with SD. This war really hurt both of them, SD whipping and forced to swap to unfavourable civics during a GA, and JR4 for the failure to make any gains despite their investment in the Knight rush. But neither of them are so hurt they are easy prey for anyone else. All in all, a good outcome for us. Also, Cornflakes looks to have had some misfortune in his war:

that second dip in power for Cornflakes isn't matched by a similar one from Elkad. Now the real question is what wetbandit is going to do, his power has been increasing, and I've been seeing Berserkers being built in the one city I can see into. Hopefully his target isn't us, but we're still respectable in power, so I'm not too concerned.