I'll do a great big empire-wide report next turn when I kick off my GA, but there's some stuff to relate for this turn.
I received 3 diplo messages this turn. The first was from Dreylin, offering sheep for sheep. I'm assuming this has something to do with Adrien's city Coucroutte, since Dreylin declared on Adrien and took/razed the southernmost of Adrein's cities. I don't know what exactly it means, whether he wants it, is offering it to me, or what. Either way, I have no intention of throwing my army at Adrien's while Dreylin powers up and Ichabod lurks nearby with a thousand Cataphracts.
The second was from Gawdzak, offering fish and 10 gold for fish and 10 gold. I think this is his way of offering another 10 turn peace treaty, without the whole declaring war bit. I don't really know though, so I decided to reject the offer and send it back. But I have no idea what that gesture will even mean to Gawdzak, so we'll see.
The third was from BGN asking for my spare whales. I declined for the same reason I declined his earlier plea for my spare Iron.
In other news, a wild gems appeared outside of Anywhere Is, rendering the trade of incense for gems with Dreylin useless. I may keep it however, and try and trade the gems for another happy, but the only one I could see was silks from Ichabod. I haven't yet decided if I will though.
Anyway, Civil Service finishes next turn, and I get to kick off my first GA. My main goal during the GA is to tech, get the last few bits of vital infrastructure in some of my hammer-poor cities, and build up my military a bit; not to take on anyone else, but to act as a deterrent. My tech plan is to beeline Rifling and try and make something happen with Redcoats.
OK. Golden Age launched. Switched into Bureaucracy, Caste System, and OR, as well as converting to Judaism. My main goals during the next 8 turns are to tech to Banking, finish infrastructure builds (mainly courthouses), and get a more modern military: longbows for the border with Gawdzak, cats, maces, and knights for the other continent. I'm also exploring to the north, going around the globe wrap into Nyle's southern coast. There are some islands there I might settle, and who knows, maybe Nyle's southern coast is undefended and I can expand there at some point.
Here's a stitched-together map of my empire:
And here's an overview of all my cities (demos will come in a couple of turns when I'm at 100% science)
Wild Child
Bureau powered cap is good, although underpopulated compared to the caps of the top civs. After the GA, I'll focus on growing it as much as possible (taking the deer and sheep), but for now I need hammers. The missionary is going to spread to Anywhere Is, which will pump them out to spread to the 5 or 6 cities that need it. After that it's Triremes and more Triremes. Anywhere Is
A lot more commerce here thanks to those gems, so I'm quickly getting a market, then getting the missionaries I need. After that, it's going to be nothing but units, as before.
Memory of Trees
After the courthouse and library, this city will pump out units.
Aniron
This city needs to grow, but it'll be slow going. Nevertheless, it has decent infrastructure, and the forge will help that even more. After the forge, it too will build units, probably longbows.
Pax Deorum
Another city that lacks food. After the GA, I'll try and grow it up quickly, moving from mines onto coast temporarily. But, during the GA, I'll try and get as much infrastructure here as possible while it has the hammers.
Only Time
This city has been whipped a lot, and with the fish given to Amarantine, it isn't growing very fast. In fact, I think that for the duration of the GA, I'll work that plains cottage over the coast. After the GA, it'll get back the fish and focus once more on growth. I think also, the forge isn't worth it, just not enough hammers to make it worthwhile, so I'll switch that to a courthouse.
The River Sings
GP farm during the GA. It has the courthouse, which is the main bit of infrastructure it needs, and the market to take advantage of the merchants, but it's not likely to be producing much of value for the time being (other than the GP).
China Roses
Decent midrange city, mostly going to be getting infrastructure.
On My Way Home
Same as above.
May It Be
First city I took from Adrien, way back when. Produced the GP that set off this GA, and will take on that role again once it grows and gets the "Dandan" fish back from my newest city.
Amarantine
Going to be my Moai city, so I'm taking the fish from Only Time to grow as much as possible.
Sumiregusa
The first of Adrien's cities to fall in my "current" invasion. Lacks food, but there's nothing I can do about that right now. But, it came with well-developed towns, so not a total loss. Once it gets the lighthouse, it can grow using the coast, albeit slowly, until it can get back the cows.
And Winter Came
The reason Sumi doesn't have the ccows, is because Dreylin's culture swamping this city. I will eventually get the rice back, which means Sumi can get the cows back, but all told, these two cities don't have much going for the right now.
Tea-House Moon
This city on the other hand, is doing just fine. Happiness is of course an issue, but that is to be expected, and I have plenty of units nearby that can act as MP. I really ought to get a Prophet in here at some point for the shrine, but it's not an immediate priority.
Blanquette
Adrien's original capital, un-renamed out of respect while Adrien is still in the game. Despite half its tiles being unavailable, it still is a good city, and can only get better once the pop gets high, and Adrien's cities to the east fall.
Fallen Embers
One of Adrien's island cities, finally got its crab workboated, and with the granary, it can just grow, but without the lighthouse, not very well. I think that I'm going to have to switch back to Slavery at the end of this GA, instead of Emancipation, just cause there are still a number of cities that need vital infrastructure, and don't have the hammers. Really wish I had razed this city so I could settle on the grassland.
Drifting
The better of the two ex-Aztec island cities, has tiles to work before the lighthouse, and the mines will help get the lighthouse faster as well.
Caribbean Blue
My newest city, founded this turn. A forest chop will get the granary, and the fish will help fill up the food box as fast as possible. Once it grows, I'll give the fish back, run an artist to pop the borders to grab the clams, and go from there.
Here are my demos while at 100% science. I've also set May It Be to max specialists, so I have two cities working on the GP, I want to get my second GA as soon as possible after my first. I'll use the time between them to whip out infrastructure in the cities that need them, then switch to Emancipation permanently during the second GA.
I may take some time over the next few days to play a SP game using this version of RTR mod to evaluate the changes to the civics. On paper, Emancipation looks good, but I don't know in practice.
Empire Report T162
My GA just ended, and it's been while since I've updated, so here's a large status update.
1) I'd have to say that my GA was fairly successful, I picked up Machinery, Guilds, and Banking, which is what I wanted. I also finished off courthouses in most of my cities, as well as forges; although I have been wondering whether forges are worth it in those cities without much base hammer production when I'm not already ahead, seems kind of like a win-more building for most of my cities. Well, I'll be happy for them if I do manage to survive the next 100 turns. My current tech path will be to get Theology (for the 20% bonus to paper, and Theocracy civic for my Redcoats), then Paper, Printing Press, R Parts, Gunpowder, Rifling.
2) I fear that Gawdzak is planning to attack me: he's been putting EP into me, and there's all the activity on his thread, and BGN is almost gone. However, he did play this current turn before I finished my turn, so maybe I'm just being paranoid. In any case, I decided I needed to reinforce that border. So I offered peace to Adrien, hoping to be able to shift a lot of my army over to the other side while I started to build up a more modern army. I didn't expect him to accept, there was no reason for him to do so, but he did, so I'm in the process of moving a good amount of my army over to the border with Gawdzak. I also built a few longbows for those cities before I got Guilds and started on the Knights. I'm also building up a good amount of cash, in case I need to upgrade some units.
Screens Adrien Front
I've left some units here, I don't want to give up these cities if I don't have to, but if Gawdzak comes at me at force, I may have to pull everything out of here to go defend.
Dreylin Front
I've been able to move some units out of And Winter Came as Dreylin moved some of those galleys out of striking range. Also, relations between us are pretty good at the moment, making money from the OB, and exploring eachother's territory.
Gawdzak Front
Here's where the main danger lies. I've put some more units in Pax and Memory of Trees, and am going to station others in between those cities and OFlow.
Fighting near Yuri
It looks like Yuri isn't doing so well, Brick took back a lot of the cities Yuri took from him, and now Nyles and AT appear to be closing in.
Advisors
Finishing up some infrastructure, and military builds everywhere where I can afford them.
I'm going to switch to Emancipation during my next GA, which should be ready in 10-15 turns. It'll be worth it just from the amount of mines I'm working alone.
Need knights. You can also see where I've been exploring.
Only Ichabod and AT have paper, so I only know what they have. With Ichabod I'm up CoL and Mono, down Paper and Aesthetics. With AT, I'm down Paper and Gunpowder, and up Banking.
Demos and Graphs
0% Science
100% Science
Not the best, but not the worst either, I think my GA helped me catch up a lot in tech, and get some essential infrastructure, especially the courthouses.
Cities
Wild Child
Bureau-powered Cap. Obviously I would like more pop here, but I need the production rn. If I decide that I'm safe at some point, I'll try and grow it, and all my other cities, but for now, that's not really an option. Anywhere Is
#2 hammer city. Getting Guilds for the 3-hammer workshops has allowed this city to give away a lot of the mines it used to have to other cities, without losing any production. Aniron
Mediocre city. I'm going to use it to make Triremes for now, I want to have some on my western coast to defend against any potential sea-borne shenanigans from Gawdzak there. Memory of Trees
#3 hammer city. That farm is going to be replaced by a workshop, which the city will work instead of that plains cottage. Orinoco Flow
Being on the front line, and having a stables, this city will be making knights, although not as quickly as my other knight-factories. May It Be
One of my GP farms, this one will produce my next GP, a scientist hopefully (ran all scientists while in Caste). Pax Deorum
A mediocre city, but on the front lines so important. I managed to get the essential infrastructure here during the GA. It just whipped a knight, and will be on max food to regrow the pop before stagnating at 8 and probably building Longbows. Amarantine
My soon to be Moai city. It still needs some infrastructure, but long-term I think this will be one of my more valuable cities. On My Way Home
Another mediocre city, also building Triremes. China Roses
A pretty decent city here after it got some mines from AI. Needs military infrastructure, but once it has a barracks and stables, it'll start making knights. Only Time
Now that it has those fish back, this city can actually grow and start contributing more, but there's not a lot of tiles for this city to work, so it will remain fairly weak. The River Sings
My other GP farm. With more pop, and more specialists available (once it has the library), this city will make the GP after May It Be, probably a Merchant (ran all merchants while in Caste). Sumiregusa
Just going to grow for now, since it can't really contribute much until it does. I can always switch over to more hammers if need be. And Winter Came
Same as above. Drifting
Also growing, whipped the lighthouse last turn, going to get a market and grocer next, using that EXP bonus. Fallen Embers
Exactly the same as above, but with less potential. That cottage is going to be turned into a workshop to give the city some hammers. Tea-House Moon
Putting a workshop on that rice has started to turn this city around, giving it the extra few hammers it needs to be able to actually build some useful infrastructure. After the forge it's going to build a barracks, then pump out Longbows for a while. Blanquette
Adrien's ex-cap. Pretty good even with half of its BFC taken by Aztec culture, also going to just make Longbows for a while. These longbows are in case I need to move more of my army over to the main continent, and in case Ichabod gets the urge to continue riding west with those Cataphracts. Caribbean Blue
My newest city. It just needs to grow, whip that lighthouse, then grow some more. I'm going to turn those workshops into cottages when I get Emancipation for the extra food, but turn them back to workshops once the city has grown sufficiently.
Coming soon: Player rankings, and big world map (maybe).
Tier One-One of these two are probably going to win Ichabod & Bobchillingworth Wang Kon of Byzantium
In the best position to win at this point. From what I've seen, Ichabod successfully executed a Knight rush, made even better by the Byzantine UU. He conquered Jowy very quickly, seemingly without much issue, and Jowy was large and well developed. I haven't seen much of his territory, just a few cities along the coast, and I can't speak to his other borders. He is behind on one key tech: Code of Laws. With his huge empire and large army, having no courthouses has got to hurt, but his FIN trait + Colossus would help deal with that for now, and he's not likely to be attacked any time soon, giving him the time to get CoL and build those courthouses. Has a decent set of wonders in the Oracle, Colossus, and especially the MoM.
Gawdzak Louis of Persia
Only slightly behind Ichabod, Gawdzak managed to expand to a large empire very quickly, and then, just like Ichabod, conquered a large and well-developed neighbor in BGN. However, BGN put up a lot harder of a fight than Jowy did, and Gawdzak didn't have the advantage of Chataphracts. However, I think his tech path has been slightly better, not on the military side, but for economic techs: CoL firstly, and next turn he'll get Nationalism, which opens up Mercantilism. Hopefully my knights will be enough to keep him from going after me next. Also, Gawdzak has the advantage of neighbors. Brick, Nyles, and Yuri are all quite far behind at this point, and have been fighting eachother for quite some time now, whereas Ichabod has the entire of the next tier on his continent. He's also ahead on wonders, with the Apostolic Palace, The Great Wall, The Hanging Gardens, and the Pyramids (those Mids giving him Representation from quite an early time).
Tier Two-Decent chance to win, but playing catch-up with the top two. AutomatedTeller Gilgamesh of the Ottomans
There's no reason to rank AT ahead of Dreylin here other than AT's recent DoW on Yuri. If it's a real invasion, then it could be the action he needs to get ahead, and close with the top two. He's got his Janissaries, and I can't imagine he isn't going to use them. However, if he is attacking Yuri, he's going to have the same issues I had when invading another continent while only on galleys. He has the Great Lighthouse and Temple of Artemis, which a economic good combo of wonders. Other than that, I know nothing, but I'll start exploring his land soon and have a look-see.
Dreylin & Auroarcher Zara Yaqob of Egypt
Managed to get here seemingly without fighting anyone, managed to out-expand his neighbor Adrien in the early game (although Adrien's was kinda constrained in expansion options), and is now in a strong position, with a lot of big cities, first control of the islands to his south, and as far as I can tell, secure borders. But I think he needs to do something more if he wants to win. He has a decent amount wonders: The Parthenon, Great Library, and Statue of Zeus. Who knows, maybe he doesn't need to attack anyone to catch up, but I think that eventually the additional cities that Gawdzak and Ichabod conquered will push them too far ahead.
Tier Three-Needs something spectacular to happen for us win now Mr. CairoThat's me Mao Zedong of England
In retrospect, I wish now I had focused entirely on defeating Gawdzak earlier. If I had, I may well be in Gawdzak's position now. Nevertheless, I'm not out of this yet, although my conquest of Adrien could have gone better if I had fully committed right until the end, and finished the conquest before Ichabod had reached the end of Jowy's land on Adrien's border. Right now, my main worry is Gawdzak: I'm the only civ on that continent that could worry Gawdzak, and I hope that I can keep him from taking a shot at me. Future goals are to not die to Gawdzak, finish Adrien, and tech up to Redcoats asap, and then try and make something happen with them.
Molach Tokugawa of the Mongols
I haven't met Molach yet, so I have no idea if I should put him above me or below me, but he's close to me in score, hasn't been involved in any major wars, and has one wonder: Notre Dame. However, as Toku of the Mongols, I wonder why he didn't try and make some waves with his Keshiks. Maybe he did, but it didn't work out, but as far as I can remember, he hasn't taken or lost any cities so far. Possibly, his neighbors (Ichabod and AT?) have just been too strong. This placement may well change once I actually meet him and learn more.
Tier Four-Still around, but not likely to make much more of an impact, but may still have some surprises left NylesStandish Charlemagne of India
Pretty close to joining myself and Molach in the next tier, but I recently had a look at an army of his that's attacking Yuri, and it's all Classical era stuff (swords, axes, cats, and spears); his cities are also pretty small thanks to constant whipping. If he can take some of Yuri's cities without bankrupting himself, and not get eaten by Gawdzak in the next 50 turns, he might be able to drag himself back into this game. Built Stonehenge, and has the Buddhist Shrine.
Yuris125 Pericles of Germany
After what appeared to be a rough start, with early wars against Brick and Nyles, Yuri finally appeared to get the better of Brick, but things have really started to go downhill recently. He lost many of the cities he took from Brick, is being invaded by Nyles, and possibly AT. Doesn't seem long for this world, but hopefully will put up a good fight.
BRickAstley & spacetyrantxenu Shaka of the Vikings
I don't know what exactly happened with Brick's start, but he has not had a good game. Beaten up by BGN, Nyles, and Yuri, he was recently down to as few as three cities. He managed to take back a bunch of his cities from Yuri, but at this point, I can't imagine he'll be able to put up much of a fight against the next player to come knocking.
AdrienIer & Mardoc Suleiman of the Aztecs
Despite a lot of activity on their thread and probable enthusiasm for this game, they never seemed to get into a good position this game. Now that I've seen their land, I can understand why. They did not have a lot of room to work with; being on that small peninsula, they needed to aggressively expand to their right, claiming land before Jowy and Dreylin got there, like I did to the south against Gawdzak. Maybe by the time they discovered their hemmed in position it was too late (and losing that island city to me can't have helped. I only wish now that I had been able to finish the job, as much for their sake as mine, as I can't imagine playing on with only three cities left is a lot of fun. I could have done it too had I fully committed to the war, constantly building units right to the end, but I ended up switching into infra builds, and despite some amazing luck with the RNG on my part, they were able to get enough units to stymie my army. If you're not eaten by Ichabod, and I feel as though Gawdzak isn't likely to go for me, I'll come back, and this time with knights, to finish what I started all those turns ago.
Eliminated Jowy Joao of Russia
Got off to a good start, expanded well (a hell of a lot more cities than I managed), then crumbled in the face of Ichabod's Cataphracts. GG Jowy.
Coming next, I'll try and stitch together a map of all the world that I've explored.
I don't have much to report this turn, other than, as I had feared, Gawdzak got the Taj, and only a couple of turns after researching Nationalism. If he funnels all of that extra hammers into military, I don't think I stand a chance, I just have to hope he holds off on attacking long enough for me to get to my next GA, which should come in 11 turns (as long as the RNG doesn't hate me (if that does happen, I'm pretty much screwed, so I'm not even thinking of it.) My hope now is that Gawdzak will instead go after Nyles, if he does, it'll give me the opportunity to finish off Adrien, and tech up to Redcoats unmolested. If I can get to Redcoats intact, then I'm going to have to go for some sort of big play with them while they give me that edge. The other ideal situation is if the war between Gawdzak and Ichabod, which atm seems to be pretty cold, heats up, and they start going after each other instead of their weaker neighbors. It seems unlikely, considering they don't share a land border, but maybe one or both will decide that they need to take down the other now to win.
So I've begun to think that maybe Gawdzak isn't planning to attack me, mainly because I'm sure he knows that doing so would essentially hand Ichabod the game.
Also, there's this:
Those civics and that worker tell me that maybe he isn't all that interested in attacking me rn. Nationalism is a little scary, although he can only draft maces now, but he probably could get gunpowder during his GA. I'm going to test this out a little bit as well by sending an unescorted worker down to his border to improve a tile there. Hopefully he'll get the message. I also took the slight risk of setting a couple of my cities to grow a bit, including my capital, which at 12 pop can get enough hammers to 2-turn knights without overflow.
However, I must remain vigilant, and keep my power up. My current plan is to wait until 2-3 turns before my peace with Adrien is up, then DOW Gawdzak and offer peace, hoping for another 10 turn peace during which I can go and conquer the rest of Adrien's cities.
So, I am now convinced that Gawdzak doesn't want to attack me, so I'm turning my attention once more on Adrien. However, there's a snag. Ichabod is giving a whole load of resources to Adrien, including Iron, and I get the feeling that Ichabod wants to keep Adrien there as some kind of buffer, so he may not like my taking those cities.
So, what can I do to make Ichabod not intervene?
I need to make it clear that it wont be worth it, and for that I need pikes and a military that can take those cities from Adrien without losing too much in the process. For that, I need Engineering, which I should be able to get in 3 turns, a reasonable amount of pikes, more knights, and a lot of catapults. I had thought about getting maces, maybe even upgrading my swords, but Adrien will be building xbows, so that's not ideal. Instead, it's just going to be more knights, and enough cats that I wont need any maces or xbows of my own. Basically, I don't want to lose any units other than cats taking those cities, and have a decent amount of cats left over.
Domestically, my cap grew up to 12, so I was able to set it up in this fashion:
with 45 hpt, it can 2-turn knights, which is what I wanted. I'll probably put the overflow from this knight into a Stock Exchange.
In other news, I got a Great Scientist, as planned, with another GP coming in some number of turns, I haven't worked it out, because I just came up with a new plan for getting it that involves running no scientist specialists, thus guaranteeing that I get a non-scientist great person.
Originally, I want going to get a GP in 7 turns with this set up:
The mistake I made was building the library (finished this turn) in this city instead of a grocer, I'm not entirely sure why I built the library, maybe I had already started it before I got guilds and didn't want to switch or something, in any case, I don't want to risk not getting the right GP by polluting the pool with scientist points. So, I'm going to build that grocer, and run only merchants (plus the one spy). This is my current set-up:
It borrows the cap's farm, which isn't ideal, but whatever, and is going to focus on food. I'm going to whip the market for 2 pop when the city gets to size 11. At 9 pop, it can run the 5 specialists I need. It only saves 1 turn from just going with 2 merchants and the spy, but it nets me a market, and a decent amount of commerce over the next few turns, so I think it's worth it. If I was still worried about being imminently attacked by Gawdzak, I'd probably just risk getting the GS and go with the original plan, but I think I have enough leeway that I can afford to wait a few more turns to ensure I do get the GA.
we'll see.
