[Mjmd #52 no players] Working on the Homestead

[Mjmd]

There is another option...... I withdraw. Instead of worrying about Jowy hitting me, what if I just held back? Hit him once he has taken. I don't think he has enough hitters to take and if he stops to bombard so much the better?

The other option is to swing my stack north and take berserk falling while I'm already there and then still be in position with a mostly healed army. Assuming Jowy doesn't attack across the river, our attacks would actually be on the same turn on the respective cities. Except as mentioned I don't think Jowy will have enough hitters, so would take him 1 additional turn. This is probably just better than withdrawing.

I won't play until kid nap time. Thought to mull over. Jowy whipped 12 pop on his turn.

[Mjmd]

Charriu made the decision much easier. He's emptied berserker except for 3 pikes, 1 longbow and whatever he whipped. I'm moving that way. Might leave a couple rifles and sentry horse archer behind. My 7 cavs will go to hill next turn and then probably attack. I'll let Jowy weaken himself and see what happens. Even as good as that cap is, it is not worth losing my stack.



Meanwhile OH pirate sunk a caravel. He sent me 30g for it. I sent him a fish for fish and sent back 15 of the gold. He has some frigates out. I think he is mainly afraid of me burning his cities atm. Those galleons may have done nothing tangible, but they certainly have been a nice distraction for both Jowy and OH to worry about.

Warning long section, feel free to skip as its just on 1 city.
Scooter talked about showing cities doing things and I mentioned French Toast last turn, so thought I would go through one of the top 5 most important cities in the game!

-It is of course a top 5 important city in the game for the shrine. I set research to 0% and this city accounts for 13% of my gpt......... (216/1653 pre expenses). Shrines on big maps. I forgot to check, but I think I have the only shrine this game.
-Remembering Charriu's section on where holy cities pop, it was only about 36%? I think chance to pop here. Which was way better than Pancakes as I was able to consolidate more infrastructure builds here.
-Also as mentioned I was able to place better western cities because this city grabbed the elephant for the happy. Religion also spread pretty well naturally.
Mismanagement:
For a long long time French Toast and the capital swapped the cow back and forth frequently (I think well). This stopped probably 60+ turns ago as I kept whipping / drafting the capital, but stopped whipping this. For some reason 60+ turns ago mjmd didn't grow it to size 10 instead of 9 (wasn't working silk). By the time I noticed I had very mature villages during golden ages that I didn't want to not work. I had also built a lot of infrastructure here, but the capital had far less, meaning I didn't want to quickly grow using the cow as it was worth quite a few beakers difference  (think race for lib, race to rifles, race to nationalism & Taj). Was this correct? I have no idea (prob not). But in any case with coming up on democracy and chance to grow cottages faster along with more even infrastructure decided to grow this city again. Capital is only down a university atm.
Future: obviously wall street is going to be disgusting here. It's also one of my few cities on a river for levees.

[Mjmd]

Jowy elected to not cross the river. He does not have enough hitters. Meaning we get to see who will blink first! Personally I'm spending 2 turns of my army being a huge expense in anarchy for civics swaps! You can also see I've already figured out where I'm going when the peace comes close to expiring, just in case

Cav are going to take the holy city next turn unless I get super unlucky, but as cav have odds it should be fine.

OH continues to go for military safety techs / offensive techs? I mean to be fair ironclads will also insure naval dominance and cannon would stop me from invading. His strength is getting close to mine........ How much of that is frigates vs cuirissars? I plan on doing to assembly line instead of steel atm. My production should go up quite a bit just due to civic swaps. I meant to take a before and after demo screenshot, but I was right around where he was at 385, so will see.

[Mjmd]

Lost 1 cav, which is probably slightly better than average results. Jowy did not bombard capital at all; neither did I! Fun times. Pictured below is both my stacks; one on bottom is the backup stack I assembled / healed up. If Jowy doesn't bombard again next turn, I might wheel 6-8 cav up and take that AT city I've been thinking of for a while. Just complicate turn play order to all hell. For the record Jowy sent me a PM that the turn order is Charriu, Jowy, me. I'm assuming due to contested city he wanted to be before me. Mind this was before he knew how much was in there. In other words it is going to be really hard to get on first half of turn timer with Cairo...... Is it ok in this situation to just take after AT? My goal is literally that 1 city atm if I do indeed decide to do.



I don't' think I mentioned it, but Cairo is in a golden age. Of note he researched nationalism this turn? so I would expect some drafting to bolster his army.
Jowy continues to do large whips, but I think that is just producing rifles in a painful fashion .
OH did 6 two pop whips last turn. I turned 1 tailing rifle back around. Some number of those could be buildings still, but I'm curious how many are frigates.

[superdeath]

What is your End-The-Game plan?

[Mjmd]

This game would be over if I was in literally any other position on the map (and literally everything else was the same, but that's history for you).

Somehow survive a pile on by 3 players via the power of factories and infantry? Cairo will take a while to be a threat just moving through AT, so have a little time there.

Short term, hope Jowy messes up.

Keep using my GNP advantage to out tech everyone in general. Nice thing about Charriu's cities is that most of them are good / will be (I think he farmed over some of his developed cottages sadly). I've seen some of the Carthage filler cities OH threw down. They are fine little production cities for what they are, but especially with his short term focus on military techs, I can hopefully just build an insurmountable tech advantage.

[Mjmd]

So I like taking pictures doing multiple things. This one is both noting inflation which is another contribution to me not winning, seeing beakers for later math, and more importantly showing I'm going to attack AT at end of turn next turn because no lurker answered my question on etiquette so I'm just doing it.



So ya two turns anarchy. Was it worth it? I have no idea. For the record it was two turns for either 1 civic swap or 2 (T-hawk had a formula I was looking at and then I just decided to test in world builder before I did). So I lost lets say 1300 beakers. Now the trade off is obviously production, which I need to be leading in by a significant margin to pull off this whole in the middle thing.

This picture in addition to showing demo's also whos culture bug far to the right where I'm getting the river watermill, but not the banana.

Note: pretty sure #2 GNP is Cairo in golden age at full tilt. Production went from 385 to 416, which isn't a huge jump honestly; I was expecting more. So that's 770 tons lost production for 30/turn. That's a 25 turn!!! payback period!!! which is horrid. Now I do have forges going up in some cities that previously had horrible production. Those cities will now be able to build additional infrastructure and even units someday because of this. Also, obviously I can put factories in those cities. The other obvious benefit is that all my cottages, hamlets, and villages are growing at double speed! which is pretty much every tile not on a river in old territory. Also, have a lot in new territory as well. Obviously once it's a town it gets an extra 2 commerce and 1 hammer. If I accelerate that by 20 turns average across 40? tiles that is a significant amount, especially going through modifier buildings. So in conclusion I think it was ok based on growing commerce city infrastructure and raw output? I wouldn't have done it if I couldn't have gotten both in two turns of anarchy as I think each individually would have come up short. 

Also, obviously building Statue of Liberty. 28 turns..... I think I can shave a turn off, but expensive it is!

Jowy and I both continue to not bombard! I'll prob move my army back 1 next turn. I actually was unhappy in 1city last turn thanks to war wariness; then completed a market and everything was fine.

[Mjmd]

Did not attack AT. Jowy finally did something interesting. He moved towards my newly captured city. My instinct was to mirror, but I think I just should have let him. I think my 2nd stack can take his along with the 9 cav as long as I attack first. Wish I had a couple more cats in that stack. Peace treaty expires T218.

You can also see OH is growing bolder. I should have my own frigates shortly, so will see what happens.

I think on fairly boring turns like this I'll highlight one city if lurkers don't have other requests. Seriously any other requests?

Buckets started as a missionary pump that I then whipped HEAVILY. I think I mentioned at the time how happy I was that Hinduism spread here naturally; I would say 1/3 of my cities got Hinduism from this 1 city. It's also been whipped for units and drafted once. It actually needed a garrison at size 6. I started working the plains cottages so it wouldn't grow into unhappy. It still in fact has 1 whip unhappy and I'm not entirely sure when the last time I whipped it was.......  You'll note the number of turns until the tiles grow. This city is a good example of how good increased growth time is going to help as well as a city the extra production will help. One of my few port cities not producing navy atm, but with multiple towns growing soon finally wanted a bank here.

[superdeath]

What was the worst mistake you made in this game, and why was it not helping me?

[Mjmd]

In order:
1) I may have early morning given Pin ivory........... I then couldn't build my own. This was at like 6am.
2) I settled original Salmon* 1 tile too far east letting Charriu see the culture with his horse city, thereby starting a war I wasn't really preparing for as I was building Stonehenge at the time. Early war obviously slowed me down significantly. I had dot mapped it 1W and then forgot why I had done it that way......
3) Teched Calendar instead of currency for a bit. A mistake I've never made in my many single player games. Especially frustrating as I was checking to see if other people had finished literally every turn.

There are many many many more.

I did help you! I invaded with my very first batch of knights and burned 3 cities and burned replaced another. I think many people will forget how bad my production was at that point in time. I basically had nothing. Look at my territory. All my good production is in the west, which took a while to develop. Some of my other medium production cities were the filler southern ones. Point being I wasn't really set up for a long protracted war. I do regret not risking a little and trying to take the island city. The extra trade route income alone........ Speaking of if GKC reads these still. What is with the lack of islands?