[PB28 SPOILERS ] Fenn Presents: A Comedy of Errors

[Cheater Hater]

You still haven't explained how you haven't thrown the game away to Jowy by throwing away 7 units--I'm not kidding here, Jowy has this continent now, and thus the game is over.

[Fenn]

I think that's a little premature given he hasn't taken any cities from me yet. He's probably out of gold rn since he blew 3 turns of 100% research on Priesthood; he did that to unlock Ziggurats, because I imagine his gold costs are through the roof with all of the Vultures he's been building and walking through AM's territory. He's 0%'ing on Math so it will take a while for him to reach Currency. And if he walks over a dozen units into my territory it's only going to get worse for him.

I can 1t Masonry and build Walls in my frontline cities too; it's probably worth delaying Currency for that when Jowy has no siege. So, no, I don't think the loss of 7 units will hand the game to Jowy.

Edit: And it's not like Mardoc is rolling over and dying either. In both this turn and the last he's taken a city off of Jowy. Not 100% sure if it's two razings or recapturing and re-recapturing one city admittedly.

[Cheater Hater]

I think that's a little premature given he hasn't taken any cities from me yet. He's probably out of gold rn since he blew 3 turns of 100% research on Priesthood; he did that to unlock Ziggurats, because I imagine his gold costs are through the roof with all of the Vultures he's been building and walking through AM's territory. He's 0%'ing on Math so it will take a while for him to reach Currency. And if he walks over a dozen units into my territory it's only going to get worse for him.

I can 1t Masonry and build Walls in my frontline cities too; it's probably worth delaying Currency for that when Jowy has no siege. So, no, I don't think the loss of 7 units will hand the game to Jowy.

Edit: And it's not like Mardoc is rolling over and dying either. In both this turn and the last he's taken a city off of Jowy. Not 100% sure if it's two razings or recapturing and re-recapturing one city admittedly.

You know, some of this would be more helpful if I knew it before declaring the game over

[Fenn]

OK that's true, I'll try to be more informative.

Won't be able to play this turn for a few hours but in the meantime:


Next turn the Pasture will be complete and I can start in on the Chariots. Growing on a Granary for now, but maybe a Work Boat would be better? The other cities have been busy with military builds, but I can probably have Dropsy (which lacks a Barracks) build the first Work Boat in advance of the borders popping.



Jowy's massive army stationed in Velociraptor. He has 12 units in that stack, but I have 11 units (8 Archers and 3 Axes) available to defend, with more arriving all the time. He's got some Spearmen in that stack though (one with Formation even), so Chariots won't be an I-win button on this front. He doesn't have any spears near Nilfgaard though, so I'll probably send Chariots there. These CRII Vultures are why I'm tempted to go for Masonry/Walls next turn, they could do a number on my Archer defences.

The bright side is, Velociraptor is useless for production right now and pretty isolated from the rest of Jowy's productive empire; any reinforcements have to trek in from the east or from the AM front. Of course that means they may head for Nilfgaard and Mange instead. I'm roading the forest 1W of Yaws and will pre-chop it; if Jowy decides to invade here I don't want him to have a forested hill to sit on right outside the city.

[Fenn]

Huh.

The turn before last Jowy had sent me a "10t Peace for Mange" offer; when I received it I sent back a white peace offer, not expecting him to to accept given I had just gotten a bunch of units killed for no reason and pillaged a few tiles. But he accepted my offer. I guess he wanted to focus on eating Mardoc. Well they're probably dead now that Jowy doesn't have to worry about me for 10t, but at least now I can build infra/Settlers and work commerce tiles/Scientists and run to Currency.

I should still head to Machinery sometime soon though, I bet Jowy isn't going to just forget about me forever.

[Fenn]

Turn 100 has been played, I'll put up a bigger-than-usual update tonight to celebrate the occasion

In brief, Currency is 3t away, I'm going to settle an Ivory island or two, and Jowy keeps building up power.

[Fenn]

Turn 100:

In the current lull I find myself in, I'm going to colonize one or both of these island spots:





The one by Cholera has more tiles to itself, while the one by Scrofula doesn't need a Work Boat to work improved seafood and may have its own seafood resource to boot. I'll defog those seas with the Work Boat that I made in Dropsy to improve Scrofula's Fishes, and if there is more seafood there that's the spot I'll settle first. My only Galley is off exploring to the southeast, so it'll either be a bit late or I'll have to build a second Galley.



With one chop Scrofula can build this Granary and 1t a Work Boat a turn later to improve its other seafood; borders only pop in 5t so it'll probably scout a bit beforehand. This could be a decent Moai spot, 12 coast/Fish tiles and enough production to build Moai quickly.



I wonder if maybe I shouldn't have settled this spot...it's very good but it aggravates Jowy and is a bit distant from my other cities, so I'll have to put in a sizable garrison to ward off Jowy. There is every possibility that he'll attack the turn our peace treaty runs out or he finishes Mardoc off. We did exchange a Deer/Deer offer a couple turns ago, but who knows if he actually cares to share this continent with me.

I have two Workers on the Wheat which will finish in 2 1/2 turns; after that I'll cottage the grassland and mine the riverside hill. The Work Boat here is destined for the island southeast of Cholera; I'm not going to bother to contest the Deer tile, this city has enough food as it is. I might build a Library eventually to maintain control over the NE lake tile; Jowy's new barb-captured city has that tile in second ring.



The Library will complete sooner once I have more of those hills mined, but for now Grippe is working commerce tiles; I'm 3-turning Currency by a razor's edge. Once that happens I can chop a forest or two to complete the Library and overflow into a cheap Market for the happiness. I'll soon have 3 more happiness in every city with a Market; with my Expansive trait and the abundance of food here my cities will be able to balloon in size



Dropsy's huge food surplus and lack of anything better to do makes it ideal for Settler production. Putting 3 or so turns into that Library was probably a mistake, when Currency pops this city will have its hands full with Settlers and a Market. Might want to build my second Galley here too.

I had considered teching Masonry and building the Great Lighthouse here; all six forests would make 180 hammers, and whip overflows plus natural production could have provided 120 more. But without Currency, GLH is only worth 4c/turn to me, and teching Masonry would have delayed Currency by several turns. Denying it to Jowy (he teched Masonry recently) would have been nice, but I think my best bet is to get Currency as soon as possible and build an economic advantage over him.



Yaws is starving a bit to employ two Scientists so I can 3t Currency. It's no big deal if it's not size 8 immediately, so long as it gets there soon after I get Markets/Ivory connected. Might have to build farms instead of cottages on the grasslands here to support that.



Filler build while I wait for Currency. This Worker is destined for one of the island settlements. After that is a Market and more Chariots/Archers.



Same story as Yaws here; a Market will be great in a place like this, which easily has enough food to support Size 9.



Plague's working every hamlet and cottage it can to keep them growing; the extra food is nice to take us closer to Size 8. One day, I will road the other Deer tile.



I like how I stand here; based on what I've seen from Jowy I'm 99% certain he's doing binary science and that 8 turns to Math is as good as he can get it. Dreylin's a more longterm threat with one more city than us (claiming Ivory early) and roughly equal GNP, but happily he's currently whipping himself raw in some conflict with Grimace.


Despite having Metal Casting, Jowy's MFG is about equal to ours. Maybe that tick at the end is the beginning of a production overhaul.


We're all about even...well, except for poor Mardoc. Sorry for leaving you out to dry, but you might have been more cautious settling against the guy with Vultures.


Jowy's power graph continues to worry me. I can't afford to skimp on military just because we're at peace right now.

[Cheater Hater]

Any updates? I know I didn't post anything on the big T100 post, but there wasn't much to say--we're hoping Jowy can't take us out too quickly

[Fenn]

Not too much...Currency was teched so we're starting the Market builds:


Mange is building a second Galley to service the eastern Ivory island and make contact with the third continent; otherwise it's Markets all around.

I'm going to settle the southwest island first, as it has its own source of seafood in addition to the one it shares with Scrofula:


This place will never be very great, but it brings in Ivory and intercontinental trade routes make it a net positive from day one so it's well worth founding. Once we've got the mini-islands settled, there's one more spot on our landmass (north of Dropsy) for us to settle, then it's on to the faraway islands if we dare.

In wonder news, Hanging Gardens and the Great Lighthouse fell, and Wetbandit founded the Buddhist shrine:



Anyway, that was all a few turns ago. Since then Jowy's Power has leveled off and he's pulled his troops away from our borders. Our enforced peace is almost up so he could attack at any moment soon, but we'll have a few turns' warning if he tries. Thanks to the Colossus + Fin coast his gold rate is much better than us (36 vs 22), but we're still up Math+Currency on him. Dreylin and Grimace have continued to fight each other, though the whipping's slowed down in the past couple turns. I've been saving gold on Masonry, I think I'll finish that up and move on to Metal Casting next. After that, we could try Machinery+Construction if we wanted war, or Code of Laws if we don't.

Personally I'd rather focus on settling the neutral landmasses, because a fast and successful war vs Jowy is unlikely - better to make ourselves an unattractive target and develop our economy.

[Fenn]

Some pics from turn 108:



Settler, Galley, Archer and Workers in position to found our first island city; it'll be founded on T111.







Cholera and Mange are preparing for settling the second island city.



For lack of anything else, Yaws builds Wealth. Not really sure what to do here before I get Metal Casting...



I also met wetbandit via his scouting Work Boat and exchanged maps with him. And here I thought I was doing alright at expanding! You can see he's even got Calendar resources.

Anyway. On Turn 110, Jowy offered a city trade: Velociraptor for Mange. This mystified me for a moment and I've declined for now, but I can see why he'd make such an offer. Take a look at Velo:


Yaws's third-ring borders have overwhelmed its Pigs tile; just to the northeast of the city, Mardoc has an Axeman parked on the forest. Even when it finally pops second-ring borders, its good tiles will be vulnerable to pillaging, and it's very far from Jowy's core. I doubt it's good for more than whipping for Jowy.

Also interesting is that a barb city has appeared to the west of Velociraptor; this barb city claims Wines and two food resources, which would make it very attractive to me if I could get it and Velociraptor.



This is Mange. Jowy recently chopped the Deer tile near us, I guess to spite me. Mange is not close to my core either, and it would be a wonderful pickup for Jowy: with Financial and the Colossus, these lake and coast tiles would be extremely lucrative for him.

I think perhaps Jowy is trying to untangle himself from his endless Mardoc war but is unwilling to give Velociraptor to me for free; so, he wants the relatively vulnerable Mange in return. "Give me Mange and you can have the west", or something like that. Personally I think it's a bad deal for me; Mange is a much, much better developed and located city than Velociraptor, which is curiously unguarded. Jowy only has a couple of Vultures left in there - I could declare war on him and just take it for myself.

Of course, that would mean breaking my second pledge of friendship with him in a row, and I don't know if I ought to be quite that dishonourable, not to mention the costs of another war with the guy. Maybe his forces are moving on Mange as we speak - it would explain where they all went from Velociraptor if not towards Mardoc...