[Spoilers] Dtay's first PB: When you play a game of CIV, you win or you die

[Ceiliazul]

Are you hinting I missed something super obvious?

That's what I thought at first too...

[flugauto]

Are you hinting I missed something super obvious?

That's what I thought at first too...

LOL. Sorry.

[dtay]

Overview shots:













Finally, I forgot to mention this earlier, I got a free Hinduism spread from TBS. Noice. Peace ftw.

[Ceiliazul]

kind of excited to see some scouting, that map was looking pretty shameful for this part of the game.

[dtay]

Oh yeah its pitiful. I might build a scout out of EC actually cause I can promo it to woody 2 out of the gate for speed.

That galley out west will set out as well. If this island continues / runs into other islands I'll try to get to another continent and trade maps there. I don't want to give OH or TBS my maps though. No need to let them see my exact layout. Especially TBS, would just let him plan an ideal counterattack (hope for peace but plan for war and all that).

[dtay]

So given we tried to reload to the save right before TBS, pretty sure the error has something to do with him (or commodore given commodore logged in in the middle of TBS). We don't have a turnsplit anymore, so it can't be a war thing given he hasn't met anyone else. Trade error? Not sure how without someone else to trade with besides me. Automation error? Plausible.

Impossible to tell I guess. I could load up and check for clues, might do that if I get bored of physics work.

[Ceiliazul]

might do that if I get bored of physics work.

In other words, you will *definitely* do that.

[dtay]

So I think I figured out what happened. I think the disappearing-resource bug happened between TBS and some yet unmet civilization. When I logged in TBS was missing the Ivory from his trade screen but hadn't traded it to me.

Notably... this means TBS has met someone else. And not OH. Maybe someone located due east of OH on the other coast? I don't think TBS's scout went down there before it died, but maybe he built another or <unknown civ> sent a unit up to meet TBS.

All the better if so, more neighbors for him means he can't just go all out "punish dtay" mode.

I think he's responding well (or at least pretending to respond well) to peace overtures though. He offered up his Marble to me for free instead of the Ivory trade. Notably i can't DO anything with that Marble right now and I get my own in like 5 turns, but I think that was the point. Positive gesture.

Once I have currency I think I'll offer 1 gold to both OH and TBS, more nice gestures. I'm in a good position if the next war doesn't happen until I've pulled way ahead of TBS in tech.

[dtay]

Fair amount of happenings (not in chronological order).

TBS offered a map trade. I thought about it. In the abstract I don't want TBS to know where my stuff is. However, he currently has a chariot following my borders, and in the 10 turns of peace (and time after that where I don't want to attack him) he'll figure it out anyway. So I accepted to get some knowledge in return.

Glad I did. TBS has gotten his hands on the map of an entire other continent. Very interesting. Notably TBS doesn't really have islands to expand to , commodore is going to block him off:





Here's TBS's horse city:





Some demographic developments, OH is going up in power, somewhat scary. He has bowmen though, so some of that is the archery tech at least. EC is starting its military pump, all the way until size 7 (prospectively, obviously that could change).





This is a shot of the land between OH, TBS, and I. I'm pretty satisfied if I ge the stuff north of the desert.




I also had another map decision to make. I offered a map trade with OH. Two reasons: 1) giving him a map of the other continent doesn't REALLY affect things for him but seems nice of me. 2) He's also scouting my borders with his bowmen, and unlike TBS I don't have a peace treaty so its pretty annoying (notably he's around where my next settler wants to go). So if I give him the maps first he doesn't have to go scout them by hand.

Finally, look at this beautiful spike:

[dtay]

REXing away. I'm up to 9 cities now, with a 10th to be founded in 2 turns. 11th settler is in production in the capital. I'm still burning through gold reserves so science is booming, but I checked and I'm at -1gpt at 40%. Sign of aggressive expansion! Currency comes in in 2 turns to improve that a bit though, and I'm thinking of trying to make the 11th city another island one for the trade route boost (other choice is to secure the oasis/rice spot).

Shot of the boat:



This island sucks until I can pop borders super quickly.

Newly founded city: Rush Valley. Anyone who knows their FMA could get a reasonable idea of where my cities are located lol, since I'm keeping them at least accurate by quadrant.





Expansion is causing a dip in GNP (plus whoever is breaking 100 turned on science again), but MFG and Food are up




I lead in foodhammers for what its worth, though I think we're approaching the point in the game where GNP is more imporant than raw settler/worker production ability.

Shots of the rest of the empire:






A note on long term strategy: I'm leaning toward a bit of a wonder rush. Grabbing the statue of zeus and the great library would be pretty sweet, allowing triple promo knights out of EC when the time comes. THis means my tech path would be aesthetics-mysticism-polytheism-literature. Very peaceful.

This tech path forgoes 2 other options: military or happiness. The Happy-path would aim at monarchy for wines/HR, but I think with silver/ivory/gold/maaaybe-hinduism i'm good enough on happy for the nearterm. Military, eh. If TBS's power starts spiking I'll have to rethink but I don't think military aggression is the best play right now.