sticks and BRicks will break their bones! {spoilers}

[thestick]

Bureaucracy came in, bumping breakeven research to 107 bpt at 60%, or 100 gpt at 0%. I polished off Sailing in preparation for Calendar.

Sternum's full sized until Calendar comes in, so I'll give the Clams to Os Coxae and stagnate on Workers. I'm running a little short on those.



(I'm pretty sure waiting 6 turns for a blank cottage to mature is better than a lake tile)

For Worker labor, the two Workers by Ulna are clearing riverside grassland forests, the Worker by New Scapula is clearing the Silks tile, one Worker by Tibia is building a road on the hill for looking into Be, another Worker is roading to the Spices, and the Worker by Pelvis is farming.

I'm preparing to whip Markets in New Scapula and Tibia.

For once, I'm starting to feel better about my chances.

[thestick]

Whipped Market in Tibia. Calendar comes in in 2 turns. I'm feeling the labor shortage, I'm getting tired of working all of these lakes.

[thestick]

Interesting times have arrived. AT moved a War Chariot onto his Sheep hill. It was in range of my Impi, so I killed it off. What the Impi saw, though...




I can hit Silver with 3 Impis next turn, and 3 Impis, 1 Horse Archer, and 1 Axe on the turn after that. Question is, do I want to? I'm waiting for BRick to come back to discuss this.

Stinks how Silver is behind a river...

[BRickAstley]

Rough glance, if you could do that without compromising defenses from a counterattack, I'd say do it. Definitely too far to keep safely though, so raze it. We're behind as it is, so razeing will be helpful without allowing AT an easy way to get back up.

[thestick]

Great! I'll start transferring some spare Impis from Os Coxae.

Here's the situation:



On second thought, we should spend this turn moving the Impis into position, and moving them all in T90. Hopefully he won't dry whip an Axe this turn, so we'll only have to face 1 dry whipped Axe and whatever he can muster into position.

AT can't see into Ulna or New Scapula, so we'll have surprise on our side, unless he metagames us by looking at this thread's post count.

We can either set up on the Marble tile or the Sheep Hill. I think we should set up on the Sheep hill, since we'll actually have defensive bonuses (in case AT counterattacks) and we won't have to cross a river.

So I think we should move one of the Workers from Ulna to a position where it can build a 1T road 2W of New Scapula. Yes, it wastes Worker turns from moving onto forests, but this is probably more important.

Just let me check if an Impi can move from 1W of New Scapula to that hill in one turn. (Moving further West will let AT see us)

[thestick]

And yes, I just mixed up East and West.

One quick test later, and we can move from 1W of New Scapula to the Sheep Hill in 1T with Impis and Horse Archers if we build a road 2W of New Scapula. I say we do it, moving our Impi and HA to 1W. To disguise our intentions, I think we should move the Worker 1S of Ulna onto the Silks forest, and move an Impi onto the Deer Forest near Ulna (the one the Axe is standing on).

Also, I think we queue up a Settler in New Scapula and rebuild Lava 2E of its current position. It's on a hill and nets us Sheep and Marble. I also think we should queue up an Impi in Ulna, just in case we need to whip it.

And in case AT has a huge army in the fog, we just turn our Impis around.

Combat calculator shows 62.8% of 2 Shock Impis beating a fresh Axe with 20% cultural defence. Works for me.

[thestick]

This was the starting situation:



AT whipped an Archer. More importantly, he moved his Spearman out of Silver. I promoted my Impi on the hill to Shock, and killed his Spearman with no damage. The big thing about this is that I can send my Horse Archer against his inevitable dry whipped Axe. I'm feeling better about my chances here. I just hope he doesn't have any forces in the fog.

Turns out I didn't need the Workers to road 2W of New Scapula to move onto the hill in one turn. Also, in my rush to play the turn I left the Axe uncovered on the forested Deer, in range of AT's War Chariot. Oops.

I stored up money for Machinery, as Maces will keep AT away. The tech after that is probably Construction to get Creative Colosseums online, then possibly Drama for Theaters.

[thestick]

This was the starting situation:



AT apparently upgraded his Warrior. Don't know why he's defending with a Chariot again...

My first Shock Impi died suiciding against the Axe, but knocked it down to 2.8/5. I got lucky when my CR1 Impi beat his Archer at 30% odds. Impi beat wounded Axe, CR1 Impi lost to Spearman at 60%, Impi polished off wounded Spearman, then Horse Archer polished off War Chariot, leading to this:



First victory of the game! I attacked with the Horse Archer so that AT's Spearman couldn't pick off my weakened Impis. Razing knocked AT's Crop Yield lead from 20 points to 10 points. End state:




That Horse Archer's going to die to AT's Axe, though. I should be able to pull my Impis back next turn. The Settler from New Scapula completed EOT, and the replacement city is ready to be settled. Not sure whether to settle it on the hill and be vulnerable to border issues, or 1E of the hill and lose the hilltop defence. Despite my Worker shortage, I'll queue up a military unit in New Scapula next.

In other military news, my Sentry chariot got a look into Be:



My military's too weak to jump on Be, though. I'm back to 3rd in Power.

Domestically, I'm still waiting for Calendar resources to come in. Ulna is Size 5 but doesn't have any improved tiles, so I'm going to whip a Library. Os Coxae ran out of lakes to work, so it's working a Scientist.

Machinery, and by extension Macemen, comes in in 3 turns, then time for Construction. I'm been 2nd in GNP and Crop Yield for the past few turns . AT's 1st in Crop Yield, but his 0% GNP is the lowest of us all, plus his banter comment makes me think he has economic troubles. Kjn is tops in GNP, but he's bottom of Crop Yield. I'm actually feeling good about my position here.

EDIT: I decided that settling right on the border of the civ with the largest army would be a dumb move. After Construction, I'm debating about heading up the Monarchy->Feudalism line for Heredity Rule and Longbows, or (assuming my 10 EXP Impi survives) Aesthetics/Literature/Drama for the Heroic Epic and Theaters.

[thestick]

AT wiped out my Impis and Horse Archer, though one of the Impis killed a War Chariot on the way out. 6 Impis 1 Horse Archer to take out 3 War Chariots 2 Spears 1 Axe and 1 Archer. I lost more hammers than I killed, but it was probably worth it to burn AT's city. The Settler is, of course, chilling in New Scapula until more units come online. AT triggered a Golden Age, picking up Bureaucracy and Organized Religion. Guess he's gunning for Maces, too. I should be able to defend at tech parity; might want to hit Feudalism to be safe...

I've dropped to last in Power; I'm cranking out Impis in Tibia and New Scapula to fix that. Spices and Silks come online next turn, horray!

[thestick]

Spices didn't come online because they haven't been roaded yet. Oops. Judging from the banter thread, Judging from AT's score drop and the banter thread, Catwalk took a city off of AT. That had the effect of making me 2nd in Power

Since this report is rather dull and it's been a while since my last overview, here are my cities:

Impis, gotta love them, although they'll go obsolete once one of my rivals gets Knights.

As you can see at Sternum, New Scapula, and Ulna, I'm running short of tiles. I definitely need to whip a Market in New Scapula the next time I have excess pop. I probably should be pumping Workers at Os Coxae. That city will suffer once Sternum takes its lake tiles back.

Demographics: