TBS gathers his thoughts

[The Black Sword]

I went fishing for a small loan to improve my micro again(Greece bit) but it seems Cornflakes is a bit annoyed by me bothering him now. He sent back this:


It's only the second time and he accepted the first though.

[The Black Sword]

That's the 2nd volcano to explode on top of this Oki. Poor guy can't catch a break. 

Also, check out all these bonus yields, they're nuts. 

I could have finished off the Theatre civic this turn on my way to Natural History, but decided against it. That would be worth 8bpt but it costs me an economic policy slot which is worth at least 5hpt anyway. I'm not even sure that's a trade I want to make right now. Instead I'll go up Games and Recreation -> Military Tradition. This will allow me to slot in +30% hammers on Lighthouses in a military slot I'm not really using instead. (There was no point starting G&R earlier anyway, since it needs the Construction Inspiration). 

Barbs are also being weird, but I forgot to take screenshots and so far it hasn't disrupted any plans.

[The Black Sword]

Settled Dustrbinger for city 5, a pair of horses are on their way to Mohenjo and Skybreaker is building some back up. Strength 36 vs Strength 20 means I should be able to kill it fairly easily even if I can't siege it. 

There's a barb camp west of Dustbringer. Its scout somehow managed to not catch sight of Skybreaker before my flexibe Oki returned to finish him off.



Two horsemen in production for the assault on Jerusalem. There's an activated barb scout and a spearman west of the Ilopanga volcano. They've been quite unpredictable. 

The capital's settler will probably set the border with Rome south of Hudson bay. Then it will start on this lovely Lighthouse and growing to 10 for the Mercantilism Inspiration. I'm mulling over trying to get another settler each out of Windrunner, Lightweaver and Skybreaker before the Feudalism builder push. The rate of return for new settlers is not that great anymore, but neither is too much else right now. In civ 4 that would indicate it's time to kill someone. 

I will keep in touching distance of Coursers for when the DoFs run out, since I'll have a bunch of horsemen out available to upgrade anyway. That should be fine to defend against Legions or attack Russia if the opportunity arises.

Liang is jumping around cities every 5t to give an extra builder charge, Lightweaver is next. Pretty happy with the choice of her over Magnus. Further chopping is probably delayed until Feudalism, so I might ignore him one more time even. I've got Construction so Lumber Mills are beginning to go up for those 2/4 hill forest tiles.

I took the Culture bonus for my golden age. I have 3 districts right now, but the inspiration bonus should not be underestimated either. Assuming you hit the inspirations(which I mostly am) then instead of needing 60% to complete a civic you now need 50%, or for every 5 culture you get a 6th free. So it doesn't show up on the screen to other players but it's like I'm getting an extra 6cpt right now. Pretty nice. I delayed finishing my 2nd campus by 1t to get the Recorded History inspiration under this bonus - an extra 17 free culture.

Still pretty worried about the long term though. Alhambram looks to have 2 neighbours killing each other on the 2nd continent, navy might be important to interact with him. And it seems like only a matter of time before Greece is out teched and overrun.

[The Black Sword]

Declared war on Jerusalem a bit early since they had a trader under my warrior. Horsemen are just going to beeline the city, the warrior will deal with the chaff. Had to hit the barb scout standing in the way last turn. 2 Horsemen should be enough, should do roughly 50 dmg per hit to the city. There's also a settler coming down to finish setting the border. I don't really think Rome'd settle this area next, but it would cut off Jerusalem too and the quality is not that much below my other choices. 

Windrunner is building a settler for the south west, where the exploding volcano left some nice yields.

The capital is finally starting on these +30% Harbour+Lighthouse pairs. It's especially powerful in Bondsmith because it will add another hammer to all my trade routes.

Lightweaver is getting out the last pre-Feudalism builder. It will unfortunately have to build at least 1 fairly useless farm, to inspire the 150 culture of Feud. I might be able to get some housing out of them at least.

Did I mention I was going for Feudalism next? Russia has clearly joined Australia on Recorded History and it's free beaker card. I considered that, but I'm still in the phase of valuing hammers over beakers, so decided it wasn't worth it yet. I also considered Civil Service, which will give my Mekewaps an extra 1hpt. I need to grow the capital to size 10 to inspire that though, and the timing is slightly off, so it will come after. Since we're going for Feudalism, pretty much every city will slot in a double-buffed Feudalism builder next.



I set up my alpha strike on Mohenjo-Daro last turn and declared this turn, clearing out both their archer and warrior. With the extra redundancy I have here, I feel a lot more confident about taking the city than Jerusalem. Mohenjo has just started building a theatre district, wasting a perfectly good tile to its west. Still I'll be interested to see what the mechanics are and how much it will cost to build when I take the city. 


The barb camp west of Dustrbinger spawned another scout rather quickly, but he again has somehow managed not to catch sight of a city. I switched to a heavy chariot build to be careful. Also Feudalism will inspire the Knights tech, so I could upgrade some chariots when the DoFs run out. I have an archer coming up from the capital also, I should probably just clear the camp so I don't get anymore surprises.

Skybreaker locked in a harbour to it's north. I would have loved to put the harbour in the sea for another shipyard, but the economic cost of waiting seems too high. Long term I should have quite a decent number of frigate-building cities, including my capital which will have the most hammers. 

Dustrbringer got one of the magic trade routes for a flying start. Now 7f, 2h, 4gpt!  And two good border pops!   Both cities will struggle a little to get the housing to deal with their food surpluses. The Feudalism farms might actually be useful.

Archduke just settled Timbermist, and I was surprised my Oki didn't teleport back toward my cities. I'll get some exploring done while I wait for the naval tech to get him out. Archduke also has a warrior in the fog by Cardiff who could mess with my next conquest. Sailing around him is always an option though, I want to wait for the eureka for the tech, but it's not that important.

Speaking of tech, I couldn't find anything I really want next. In the end I'll sided with apprenticeship and it's mine boost, because at least that is *something*. I only have 1 mine right now, I'll pick up a few from the city states though.

[The Black Sword]

Captured 2 new cities:



The archer in Jerusalem made things dicey, I think with bad rolls it could have taken another turn, and with terrible rolls I could have lost a horse. I'm setting up to take Cardiff soon too.

Planning to get 5 harbours up relatively quickly after the Feudalism builder push. That will activate the discount on an Industrial district at the cap and some commercial hubs in my land locked cities. At least that useless Holy site in Jerusalem will help with the discount.

I have a bit of a military advantage over my neighbours right now from fighting these city states. What to do with it? Fighting Rome doesn't look fun - look at those chokepoints, and imagine them defended by Legions. Attacking a Defender of the Faith doesn't sound fun either. But I might as well at least poke at one with my excess units I think and Russia looks the easier mark. Maybe just some pillaging. I sent Rome an iron for iron to signal good intentions.

Long term I'm still casting about for a way to win. Russia looks the strongest after me, followed by Rome and Australia IMO. But they all have some easy prey to expand. The only two obvious routes to me are invading the 2nd continent or overpowering Russia before Cossacks. I'll need to commit to a tech path soon ...

[The Black Sword]

There is a window of sorts to attack Russia. I could get to the Mercenaries civic in 10t, giving a 50% discount on unit upgrades. That seems to be the bottleneck for efficient attacks with medieval units and it dovetails with my two advantages right now - civic research and cash flow. I could upgrade at least 3 knights, more with some loans, and attack. He should be at least 5t behind me to the civic and his cash flow is much poorer than mine too. He could build swords to counter, that would be S45(with Oligarchy+DotF) vs S48 knights. I haven't seen any iron drops IIRC though, just horse ones. Horses don't get Oligarchy so that would be S41. He'd just be getting Feudalism about then, so could chop out some crossbows(S45 ranged with DotF). But 180h takes a bit of time, even with chops. And he probably doesn't want to ruin his tile appeal by chopping forests either. 

It still sounds like the sort of thing that could do some serious damage, stall out in a couple of turns, and earn me an enemy for life.

Alhambram is still on 3 cities to our 7 btw. Maybe I'm giving him a bit too much respect? Pin and Suboptimal would probably struggle to have Medieval defenders for when I attack with Renaissance units. But then I'd be the only person with an empire strung out over 2 continents and it would almost certainly mean letting Russia get to Cossacks. Also I have no idea how this game works after the Renaissance.

Can't quite figure out what to do ...

[hzhp800]

There is a window of sorts to attack Russia. I could get to the Mercenaries civic in 10t, giving a 50% discount on unit upgrades. That seems to be the bottleneck for efficient attacks with medieval units and it dovetails with my two advantages right now - civic research and cash flow. I could upgrade at least 3 knights, more with some loans, and attack. He should be at least 5t behind me to the civic and his cash flow is much poorer than mine too. He could build swords to counter, that would be S45(with Oligarchy+DotF) vs S48 knights. I haven't seen any iron drops IIRC though, just horse ones. Horses don't get Oligarchy so that would be S41. He'd just be getting Feudalism about then, so could chop out some crossbows(S45 ranged with DotF). But 180h takes a bit of time, even with chops. And he probably doesn't want to ruin his tile appeal by chopping forests either. 

It still sounds like the sort of thing that could do some serious damage, stall out in a couple of turns, and earn me an enemy for life.

Alhambram is still on 3 cities to our 7 btw. Maybe I'm giving him a bit too much respect? Pin and Suboptimal would probably struggle to have Medieval defenders for when I attack with Renaissance units. But then I'd be the only person with an empire strung out over 2 continents and it would almost certainly mean letting Russia get to Cossacks. Also I have no idea how this game works after the Renaissance.

Can't quite figure out what to do ...

Decisions, decisions... Nice work with those city states btw. 

[varcharmander]

As a lurker

[The Black Sword]

Long term plan is still up in the air, but it looks like we'll do some dancing with the Archduke over Cardiff when the DoF wears off.



The CS is a 2-city swing for either of us against out biggest rival. So I can understand why he's trying for it, but I'm not sure it's a viable move. The biggest issue is that I can put boats in the water here to support my land units much faster than he can. I also have first strike since he is the one who offered the DoF to me. And the opportunity cost for me is lower since I don't have much uncontested land left, where as he can still expand West. I'll probably take this seriously and go for Knights/Quads.

Alhambram sailed a galley up my coast btw, forcing me to drop hammers into a galley without a bonus card in place(and delaying my Lighthouse) before he accepted a DoF.

[The Black Sword]

So Archduke had a trick up his sleeve, settling a city on the wheat where Cardiff's archer is in the screenshot. This teleported my units out of the chokepoint. And I couldn't declare war due to a DoF that I guess favored him after all.

I still plan to control the seas here, long term and short term. I'm getting Qaudriremes out and I'm heading for the first Great Admiral too. That should be enough to take Cardiff if I can slow him down long enough with my ground units. So I'll be trying to harry him as much as possible while I get the ships in position. There's not really enough land tiles now to make great use of next era ground units so I decided not detour from the good economic path(except for the ships). The outcome is not really clear right now tbh.