[Spoiler] Any volunteers for a human sacrifice? Brennus of the Aztecs, by Krill

[Krill]

T127 - I hate Mornings

Mornings shouldn't exist. Getting up before 1200 is an abomination, so me playing a turn at this hour is something I try to not do. But it seemed like I would be the last player in the turn so it seemed best to play early and then play later in the evening to limit or remove any double move impact.

Looks like yuris has a city between the cow and the corn, overlapping the iron with the northern city. decent cottage city with that river.

That island looks pretty good from a food perspective, but I don't see how Nazul are going to get it settled any time soon, they don't have a good port city on that coast.

4 turn worker, 4 turn GS, 4 more turns of losing food so I lose 8 total, so I've definitely got enough food saved to stop Crapital from starving. After that, the city will be reconfigured for maximum beaker output, which leaves me with a single scientist left, both river plains villages and a grass village. 62 base commerce (including cottage growth), a 1.95 multiplier (25% library, 50% Academy, 10% FR, 10% monastery) for a total beaker output of 120.9bpt. Even with the decreasing empire wide gpt I should have at the very least 6 turns worth of 100% science, maybe 7.

Still boring, but with the border pop in this city I'll have culture on that hill in the south, giving me a better view over the sea for any coastal attack from Pingo.

This city is single handily keeping me at number 1 in power when there is a hot war on another continent.

Yeah, another settler definitely seems the right move here.

Another settler, taking 10 turns, or Moai, taking the best part of forever, next.

Boring.

More boring.

I have screwed this city over so much... but I'm going to improve the food in a few turns when borders pop. I'm going to rely on the workers from the north to cottage any more tiles here.

Missionary to DP, one worker, then...?

Still boring, but Nazul don't look like doing anything about PD.

Granary, and monastery, total of 120 hammers, 1 chop means I need to make up 90 hammers. I need to try to figure out a way to get both of these in 6 turns to minimise the chance of slave revolts screwing over the rest of my cities. Probably need to do a 1 pop slave and a 2 pop slave to actually get it done, buit OI don't see how that is possible in the time frame I have, so might have to rely on 1 pop slaves.

Downside of making 1 turn HA is that they do cost gold in upkeep.

For posterity...and scooty have rather high GNP...

[Krill]

Turn 128 - Second turn in a day? Unpossible!

That's a lot of workers on a single jungle tile...

I moved the W2 jag down, uncovering a Nazul worker. So next turn I have the option of attacking the former barb city, which should be a rather interesting choice.

One question I have to ask is why exactly has azza decided to road under my sentry archer? Obvious answer is he wants to settle for the iron. My options are to use my settler to stop him, or let him, drain a few more units from him to defend an area I'll take out later on with cats and WE and go take ivory from his northern city. I think I'm going to let azza mess about a bit and take him apart systematically...also note the religion spread to Saffron. Borders pop in 10 turns, 13 turns to control the inner ring.

Boring.

More boring.

Boring^3.

I'm still waiting for an original thought.

I wonder if this city will need a garrison next turn for happiness.

Still boring.

Wait...a forest grew here after T126, so something new at last! Save it for a granary chop, or for a worker? I think the granary makes more sense, but it wouldn't be bad to time the chop to come in the turn after Maths, with one of the workers streaming down from the north.

Something I've just considered...4 forests is 120 hammers with Maths, or 240 with marble. ToA is 350 hammers, meaning I would need to make only 55 base hammers to build the ToA for 8 culture per turn. Parthenon would cost a further 25 base hammers, but for 10 culture per turn. I'll have the workers easily enough. T136 Parthenon? Now that is interesting...

NS is now basically safe.

Worker can go south to Opportunism to go chop out a wonder on the front lines, during what should become a hot war. I'm sure nothing can go wrong with this plan.

Moved one worker onto the grass hill 2 of PD, for a mine to work at size 2. The other worker is going to go chop jungle.

Why road the pig, I already have one and it's worthless as trade bait? So I'm going to road towards to the iron for this turn, next turn I'm going to farm the flood plain next turn with two workers and continue the iron road with the third.

HA are expensive...

...

This map would look nicer if it was covered in green, right?

[Krill]

Turn 129 - Scooty!

Looks like yuris has not settled this island.

Nazul have marble...and a rather bad gpt figure for having less cities than me AND Currency trade routes. And a GS was popped in a distant land, along with a GG. Am I the only person to save a load of gold before popping their GS?

Decisions, decisions. I don't think I'm going to attack Nazul, as I don't want a two front war, and razing that city isn't worth the hassle when the next war with azza will have a large effect on how I play out the rest of the game.

Hmm, actually, I'll explain this a little more. With azza trying to settle a bunch of land outside his core, I want to take this opportunity to take out his entire north and take his capital. If I can do that, and hold the capital, I'll basically remove azza as a threat to me for the rest of the game and will remove him at my leisure...over the proceeding 20 turns. azza's land is basically safe from invasion until galleons, so the hammer cost of defending it is effectively nil, it's just the gold cost, and I will have a lot of court houses to build to enable the FP in Opportunism. But Pingo are also weak economically (if not militarily) so I would then progress to removing Pingo form this continent, take over my third holy city and Henge, and then just manage the game. What I need to do with Nazul is to make any attack from them huge in cost and low in profit, and not just provoke them into making an emotional decision to attack me because I annoyed them.

azza has more units on that corn than in the city. Things will be rather interesting when I attack him, because he will either retreat the units into the city, or move them forward to attack Opportunism, and I only have 1 archer in the city. I really would need a couple more, about another 3 to be really happy he can't do anything down here, that or 3 axes...but I'm not going to be making them anywhere. I'm going to go with the Parthenon plan, and culturally crush Saffron and force him to beware a one move of his city, and hope he retreats everything into the city. The moment he does that I know I can wait until catapults to attack the city, cats and anything will basically win that battle.

Bollocks. I'll build another missionary later on, but it seems like I have a casus belli already.

Time to work the hill for the extra hammers, and I think I'm going to build another worker after this one, it should finish a turn after Currency is researched, so after that worker Crapital can go onto a market.

The grass cottage is 6 turns from growing to a hamlet, but I'll pass it over to Crapital so DF works the grass hill and the cottage from RVC. THat should speed the library up a fair bit, might even finish during the next tech period.

HA*4, the last of which is only 6XP, then I have to decide between more an archer then more HA, or a stables and/or growth. azza's power will likely decide that.

This settler will plant the city directly south of SC, for the banana and mass cottage city.

Oh look, RVC does not need a garrison, so the archer moves down to DF and the warrior will move up to RVC. With RVC giving up the plains cottage to DF, it will likely not finish this library any time soon. I need the specialist slots though, as the city lacks reasonable tiles to work, so I'll take what I can get. Other option is to work 3 plains cottages. I could do that, I suppose.

To go for max growth here, or to just drop it onto the hammer tiles. GNAP is not a good military city, it needs to drop at least 60 hammers into a barracks, which is 5 turns worth of hammers at max hammers. It could build settlers for the jungle though, but I'm not sure how many I really want, and SC is doing that anyway. I think maybe keep it growing as I want the commerce from the coast.

I'm going to chop the north forest next turn, it drops into the second worker to speed that up, and the first worker will chop the southern forest to speed up the third worker, then all of the workers (there will be four in the area) will go down to the jungle to chop madly, hook up calendar resources and cottage. I hope I have enough. DP will then build the granary slowly...

Parthenon eot T135. Next turn have to work a grass forest instead of a sugar, and on T135 I need to work all of the hills, even though none shall be forested, to finish with zero overflow. All of the forests will be chopped on T135 as well. This means that azza will not pop borders until T137, I think, then puts 21 culture into that inner ring tile. I'll already have about 70 culture in the tile, and the end result is by the time he gets ahead of my in culture, Opportunism will pop borders again and start putting 33 culture into the tile and take it straight back. He might have 1 turn, possibly even 2 holding the tile but I should get it back, leaving him with another problem to solve.

chopping the jungle hill atm, but once the borders pop, get the cow hooked, then try to get the banana hooked.

This worker needs to run down to chop the eastern hill forest in Opportunism (2 turns to wait, so can put worker turns into chopping jungle on the way there). Worker MM to come later.

I need to figure out what I want this city to be, it's got potential to do anything with a bunch of grassland tiles. I'm thinking it's probably going to get a bunch of workshops, simply because most of the tiles I would otherwise cottage are next to Nazul. Workshops and windmills, so a hammer city, which means that I want to get a barracks here...

One day I'll get around to doing the MM for this city...but Parth will help, pushing this city past 20gpp/turn...enough to rival the GL.

I need to start killing azza...

Looks like scooty have an academy now...TBH, that figure isn't incredibly scary. Enough to get a tech edge then hurt someone, but not enough to run away with the game with the tech cost bump after Paper. I look forward to T132 so I can see my GNP figure...and the bump on T135 when I get Currency.

Addendum
I logged back in to move the chariot and jag near Nazul, and scooter was playing hte turn at the same time to meet me. Might look like a coincidence, but he would heve met my chariot if I had not moved him, so nothing special, really. But here is the diplo screen:

He also has 107 gold saved up and is at 0gpt, so is researching. This leaves me with just Cyneheard and Mick to meet.

[Krill]

Turn 130 - Graphs are overrated

A note for those that think the game is going slowly. Compared to a quick speed game, we would be on turn 86/87. Tech does seem a little bit slower than PBEM20, but not by much, easily explained by the lower quality land.

This island has very few resources, but still seems like it could house at least four cities, right off the coast of azza...and yuris is playing the Netherlands. Not going to be a fun late game...

OK, this is where things get interesting. The worker on the jungle hill moves 777 and then roads on T132, T133, chops on T134 and T135. The western worker on the forest hill roads on T130 and T131, then chops on T132, T133, moves 8 and chop/cancels on T134, and then moves 2 and finishes the chop on T135. The eastern worker on the hill chops on T130, T131 and then moves 7 on T132 and then chops on T133, T134 and T135. The worker at SMS chops the eastern forest hill on T135, the MM doesn't matter as much.
The HA are within reach of Opportunism, so can easily defend the city, but are also within 2 turns of Pink Dot and Naming Scheme.

Hello Nazul. Please go away...I moved the chariot back up but I don't want to show my hand just yet, not threatening. OTOH, why not be aggressive when I've thrown this city down? So I have the ability to use the jag out scouting to declare and put on the jungle hill to annoy Nazul. Let's wait for the reply...

Two turns to the GS. One turn to the worker. The forest on the silk tile will be chopped the turn after Maths is researched, for...something. Or saved for a market.

I'm thinking rush out the library, instead of taking the plains cottage...or rather, swap the grass cottage for the plains cottage wit RVC, and work the grass hill, to speed up the library and then market.

Boring.

I really need to get civil service for this city to grow.

Still boring.

Workers should be built on turn 131, 133 and 136.

I really need to get civil service for this city to grow.

Still boring.

Workers should be built on turn 131, 133 and 136.

Grow on T130, work all of the forest hills on turns 131 through 134, and on turn 135 work the plains hill, cow, farm and three sugars, to complete the Parthenon with zero hammers overflow. After that, it's managing growth, and workers improving the sugar and hills. Aim is size 9 with maximum hammer output.

Not long until I can improve a cow! And guess what, it's the only grass cow I have, out of four cows.

Definitely granary next, I think, I can micro growth and hammers to get the food box half full whilst waiting for hte chop on the forest.

It would be nice to have that stone hooked, wouldn't it?

I think I'm not going to revolt to slavery for the tech phase, but I might revolt to it at the end, when I have more pop in the city to slave away...

Yay, no unit supply. Looking at these figures, Vassalage would actually save me a good 10gpt. FWIW, I could theoretically go Maths>Currency in 3 turns, and have enough gold left over to 3 turn Feudalism. If the GA was not available at Music, that would be a viable tech path, however, I need to make 100% certain that someone else does not use the Music GA to settle forward and bomb me, making my life a living hell...though with my power, I'm not actually sure the other players think that would be a wise idea.

Someone has turned on tech and finally overtaken me in GNP.

I wonder why this screen needs EP, when in MP you see the scores every turn, it really ought to be available to everyone all of the time, regardless of the EP values.

Looks like Pingo have somehow gotten a huge amount of beakers...building research?

Nazul MFG increases, their CY stagnates. I dropped my MFG to grow so now it's going to absolutely rocket. And azza is all the way down there...

Commodore is doing surprisingly well here, and yes, Nazul have stagnated their growth...it's not even particularly high, either, compared to the bottom three lines.

Two points: City specialization FTW, and Don't try this at home.

Nazul are CRE, and I'm making more culture, yay wonders?

[Qgqqqqq]

Umm on T151 what is up with the pictures after Pink Dot (on the blog)?
I think they're from earlier in the game as your capital is size 1 and called Name Me Please.

[Krill]

Fixed. Reason is that when you upload two files with the same name to Photobucket they relabel the new file but I use a somewhat quicker but less robust method of writing reports and coping links.

[Krill]

Turn 131 - So, how much gold did I save?

Turn 131 is the last turn I get to save gold before turning on tech. I should have a total of 720 gold saved, unfortunately my costs have risen to 130 gpt, so I will only have enough gold to research for five turns at 100% and one turn at about 70%. This shouldn't be a problem though, as two turns of 100% and one turn of 70% should be enough to get Maths and then Currency, leaving three turns of 100%, enough to get Music or Calendar plus Construction, or even Feudalism.

There is a point that I perhaps should have restarted research the moment I could reach Currency, and that would have been about 4 turns ago when I had around 400 gold saved. The reason I didn't do this, is because I'm keeping my eye on the Music GA: I value that more than Currency, because I don't want to deal with any GA bombs right now, I want to focus on an taking land, not trying to defend. Music requires Maths, so I would need to research for five turns without the Academy or FR just to get Maths and Music, and I only now have enough gold to actually do that, but the Academy basically gives me enough extra beakers to get Currency, which also gives enough commerce to then carry on getting Music.

The tech choices I'm making aren't necessarily right or wrong, I'm simply reacting to what scooty do or don't do (specifically, them not researching Music) and then trying to make all of the other players react to what I do. Trying to defend against a GA bomb at this stage of the game is almost impossible for some people, and just trying to defend can be enough to derail a game plan. I think it is the best way to continue on the way to continental hegemony.

Nazul now know what I have to defend PD, but don't realise that I could destroy their axe. They have not increased their garrison in Archaide, in fact the axe that is exploring was part of hte garrison there. There is a part of me that is reconsidering bombing Nazul and taking all of their front cities from Archaide south.

azza is settling forward again...I hope he settles 1N of the iron...

Hmm. Pingo culture expanded, which makes an attack on azza a little more difficult. Not that difficult, but I would not be able to use any jags to cover the fast movers. And if Pingo cut OB, I'd just have to declare war on them, and I'd be less worried about taking CPH away from them with the artist bomb on the azza front city.

Still exploring...

Last turn before tile reassignments and turning on tech...

Library finishes one turn after I tech currency, which is OK IMO. One more pop growth and all the land tiles minus the tundra will be in use, so I think with the new Calendar resources that's likely to happen at some pint in the next 30 turns...

More boring...

More settlers?

Working the hill to get enough overflow for an 8 turn settler. Next turn loses the commerce tiles and works the hills, the settler will likely become a spare for the jungle area, I do need it, but I'm unsure when I will use it.

Enough overflow for a 2 turns worker after this with the chop is quite nice, but not sure what I'l do with the northern chopping worker...looks like I'm going to have plenty of workers for the jungle area

4 turns of -1fpt, and one turn of +5fpt...and a wonder. Not shabby.

Almost there...

Actually, I have to build a missionary after this to get the borders of the eastern jungle city to pop to open up the second banana, and then granary after that.

Then turn it grows to size 3, the borders pop, and the clams are hooked for 9fpt.

Going to be fun to compare it to next turn...

Ditto.

[Krill]

Turn 132 - How Many Beakers?

The turn is finally here, the Academy, the civic swap, and finally getting Currency after half the other players reach it.

This island is pretty damned big, even if it does lack food. In fact, it might even be so large, and extend so far east that azza has a route to settle the island if he settles another city.

Hmm, barb archer...I'm not going to redirect a HA here, but I might use the jag to try and kill the archer, to get the jag to 8XP.

Yay new civics. Now let's have a look at Crapital, with the Academy.

That is quite a good bpt figure, and a forest chop on turn 134 means excess overflow will go into a market for sure. The grass cottage grows to a hamlet in 2 turns, so I might swap from the scientist to that hamlet. Long term, the clams will give me 1 health, silk, sugar and banana will increase the happy by 2 and health by 1, the market is worth 2 happy, not counting ivory. With these city improvements and resources, I can grow Crapital to size 16, but an aqueduct makes size 18 possible without losing food. I could cottage the grass hills as well to increase commerce, which IMO seems like a reasonable option. So after this worker is finished, it is growing vertical and making city improvements.

Never ending infrastructure builds now for this city.

Options here are to complete the HA, go for a stables, or focus on growth. With the aim of wiping azza off the map in the next 60 turns, even 6XP HA are worth building IMO.

Chug chug chug.

Not a bad little commerce city atm.

8 turn settler as planned. This city has been a tidy little investment so far, it was settled T78, so has been around 54 turns, build this infrastructure, 2 chariots, a warrior, a workboat and one settler, using whatever tiles Crapital and WTF? haven't been able to use.

So, Worker>Worker>Granary, granary likely finishes at size 6. I probably need to get the plains river tile farmed though.

3 more turns...and this is a definite site of a court house, as I want to build the FP here.

Once the food resources are hooked I need to focus on getting both hills mined, for the granary and probable court house build. After that though...NS can reach 7 fpt, so can just grow vertically and work 2 cottages on the jungle tiles for the main cottage city in the area, after that, still not decided yet.

SMS is probably going to build a court house immediately once CoL has been researched.

And another site for a court house as third build, after a granary. Both forests are going to get chopped (likely straight into the granary and finish the wall as a slow build). I'll then have to finish chopping the jungle tiles adjacent to the city, and then mine a jungle hill or two.

Boring...

Thanks to the shrine, I have enough gold saved to research Maths, Currency and Music in five turns. I can then save gold for a single turn and research Calendar in two turns after that, eot turn 140.

AT LAST! First in GNP again :D

[Ichabod]

I'm a bit confused: did you or did you not make the demand for Nazul's jungle hill city on turn 141?

[Krill]

I did demand the city on T151.