[Spoiler] PB42: Rusten and mackoti play Krill playing Bismarck of Portugal

[Krill]

Problem of Wealth and research building:

That's like a drug addiction, double counting MFG in the "When I start building an army these cities will make units" and the "I can keep on teching and keep the tech lead up"

I'm not falling for that trap. But superjm might fall for the Rep variant: working specialists to tech but failing to grow cities or get settlers out, especially if he swaps to Caste too early, even with SPI: he is going to have to micro between growth, working specs and whipping settlers to build up his production base.

He is the next player to get graphs on. I need to keep an eye on him.

[Krill]

Turn 102

Espionage slider shows OH is 14 turns from Currency via research alone and saving gold, so more likely to get it before then. T108-ish. He is also quite likely to uncover the road to the front city around T104 or T105, that may necessitate some worker micro changes (nothing significant) to keep the road hidden. Nothing really exciting shown this turn though.





I might have taken a wrong turning. I'll see next turn, in which case I'll need to back track, or carry on with the work boat and send the Galley on a bit more of a southwestern route.








Anti-clockwise around me are Lewwyn, probably DZ, OH, probably Cairo, OT4E and then Superjm to my east. That misses out Gav and his Elkadian acquisitions, and superdeath. These two workboats are going to come relatively close together then likely head in separate directions.





98% odds next turn, but even if the HE chariot candidate gets shafted, the axe can cleanup.









Soon to be 16 cities. Gav has 12, everyone else has fewer, but Gav has about 52 pop to my 38, and I'm going 6 pop end of turn because I finally have gems hooked. Gav makes about 50 more fpt that I do, which would be scary if he was close by and not broke. I'll make up 28 food just from settling 4 cities in the next 8 turns, but of course, how much is he going to grow by in those turns?





Gav and OT4E are still saving gold, in preparation for a Currency push IMO, as is OH. No clue what everyone else is doing.

[Krill]

I need to figure out the tech path after Calendar. Realistically, if the aim is MoM, then I reckon the first GA needs to be triggered just after it is built: That will be roughly 20 turns after Calendar is finished. One weird point is I think it makes sense to interrupt an MoM build to get a forge, because it pays the cost of itself back once 240 hammers are passed through it: if MoM has not yet reached 200 hammers invested, the forge should speed it up. And I'm going to need forges everywhere. And I don't know if I want to tech HBR and scare OH, and I don't know if I want to rush Machinery for watermills and Xbows to counter preats, and I might want to rush Lit for HE and NE and I might want Construction fora +2 happy colosseum in the capital etc etc etc.

[Krill]

Turn 103




HE unlocked next turn. Sugar chopped T107. City B settled and fish hooked T105.





Trade routes with Cairo should be in place on T105, I currently have 10 routes that are not at 3 commerce, but that will rise to 14 by T105.





Yay...sugar...





Found Lewwyn proper, looks like he is already heading for the islands. That will make attacking him more difficult, but it's more a case of needing the 2K hammers for the transport Carracks and island hopping siege units.





Micro: T103 do this. T104 take the pig back, plus pig, minus cottage. T105 same. T106 minus cottage, plus plains hill mine, grow@8 eot106, market complete. Run max slider to use up stored gold T105 and T106, which is a turn of 100% science and a turn of ~50% science worth roughly 300 base beakers, which would put Calendar to around 410 beakers invested, need 562. Calendar eot108 is still not impossible...





OH has used cheap temples for happy, and will make his shrine this turn.





At max tech we are #1 GNP.

[Krill]

Turn 104

I think I'll hit Calendar eot107. Look at the bpt in the scouting screenshots.





Barbs are not through with me yet though! This axe doesn't really matter much. It will affect road construction, but I already have the roads in place for a T110 settle, and I will have a trade route through OH's eastern front city. The chariot heading north from 3S will be able to attack it on the turn the axe moves adjacent to the city, or if it moves onto the tile the worker is on, on T106.





Lewwyn, I want that silk.





Gav has scouts everywhere, and he has Alphabet. Don't know if he has Currency but I would expect it by this point, just from research builds.





Over 200 base bpt. Currency will be a 2 turn tech after I settle the sugar city next turn. So put a few minor cities onto wealth after they finish builds to make sure, and blitz it. This means sugar hooked T112 at the latest, or T110 if I double up workers with a worker whip on T106 in 3S. I think T112 is fine, looking at current city growth.





Settling Night Wind reset the trade routes, so it actually saved me gold. Second forest chopped next turn, corn hoked T107, sheep hooked T109 and then likely farm the grassland shared with City Q site before splitting the workers to mine the two hills at AM. Grow and whip, but I think culture doesn't do too much and may consider an early walls whip. Flatland after all. I do need to double whip a settler out of here though.





Gav is now 46fpt higher. I'm going to try and catch him up by no longer whipping the core cities (except a settler whip in LBJ on T107) and just grow the western cities plus capital onto cottages, and BCR onto hills for HE. And spam the remaining 5 allocated settlers to fill the remaining food locations on the mainland before T120.

Addendum: City count for each remaining player, superjm excluded as I've not met him:

Krill: 13
Gav: 13
OT4E: 12
Cairo: 12
OH: 11
superjm: 10
Lewwyn: 7
Donovan: 4

[Krill]

I need 5 settlers for mainland cities. The island city location can be whipped from the current city.

2 pop whips from JJ, NW, AM, 3S and WB will get all of them. That will be 14 workers for 20 mainland cities and all available food resources settled for. 4 filler locations still to be settled.

Going to double whip a worker pair from 3S, and get a single worker out for LBJ eot109. 17 workers. Tight but doable.

[Krill]

Turn 105

Oh, god this game.




So I loaded the scout from LBJ and moved forward. I can't unload it now. Given I haven't won a single battle against barbs at below 90% odds (except maybe one with a scout versus a barb animal?) I am waving goodbye to this galley.





OH declared on OT4E, I reckon a scouting declaration as OT4E will have denied OB due to trade routes. There are also no hidden units behind Free At Last.





That axe is being a little bitch and won't move forward. Going to attack it on T107, I reckon, and I will move the archer to be backup to the chariot, using the spear to keep the city happy.





I have 45 pop, so it is not a joke when I say Gav has about 20 extra pop. The larges city is size 8 though, so I am unsure if he just has lots of pre-calendar happy, or if he has managed to get to Calendar and is growing on that.





That 20 extra pop is generating 43 extra food, so it looks like Gav has pop working food neutral tiles, rather than growing faster; the excess food total is roughly similar between us. I do wonder about getting a trade route to him, to see what resources he has, but I reckon he is between Cairo and OT4E on the map due to how players have certain contacts, so I'm sending the eastern workboat right to that patch between those two players.

[Krill]

I think, with research visibility on OH, next tech path is straight to Machinery. I have raised the happy cap, now I need to improve the tiles to work.

[Krill]

Full report to come later, when I am allowed access to my pc, but OH had a settling party of 3 workers and a settler, with a lone unprompted chariot in GloryGloryHalle, able to settle the city G site on T108, two turns ahead of me.

So I looked at it in my rather sleep deprived state, and decided to declare war. We are now in a turn split, but my chariot teleported to a safe tile and threatens the settling party moving forward, and I killed OHs scouting chariot when it teleported next to my spear.

Knowing my luck, OH whipped a spear last turn and will kill my chariot and move up under the chariot. If he didn't, I should be able to lockdown the hill city on T100, or a city behind on T109

[Dreylin]

How much did it cost in lost routes?