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

[Krill]

Turn 155b - Turning the screw

Building a longbow to move to either GNAP or BL to discourage a naval invasion.

Boring...

Building a longbow to send to the culture bomb city. If Nazul accept peace, it would just about get there in time for Nazul to declare war. So two or three longbows then back to the fastmovers. Cats come from other cities.

I don't have many cities building cats, so I do need to continue building them. If I get peace from Nazul I will need them for a war with azza and to act as a deterrent against Nazul.

After this catapult, I shall build a court house in 7 turns. That is the point when I intend to start building the FP in Opportunism. I don't need more pop in GNAP, I'm only growing the pop for potential whips into navy if Nazul decide to get aggressive in this area. I will have to continue using Vassalage and Theocracy for C2 boats, but that is better than having to defend every single front with land units.

With the aim of building hte FP in Opportunism, I now need to get 7 court house. I have captured one in By-tor, and so need 6 more. I must build one in Opportunism, so that is 5. DF is building a court house, leaving 4. GNAP, NS and PD drop that to 1. DP can't build one quickly enough, but it could definitely slave it. That means I do have the option of going to slavery once I discover CS and can revolt into Bureaucracy, so the aim is to minimise the slavery cost,so I am working the plains hill. I think the coast is worth it it, but if I don't slave, then the plains hill should save me gold through lowering costs sooner.

I'm building the court house this turn because I feel safe to do so. I now have 6 HA and 6 cats in this theatre, so I think any more defensive units are unneeded until I invade. I would OTOH prefer to save over 6gpt though.

As Nazuls power has started to "spike", and Pingo aren't doing anything, I'm sending the spear here to defend. After a court house I'm building a barracks.

Next turn I can either set SMS for either 14hpt and 1fpt or steal the banana back and attempt to grow it quickly. I'll make that decision next turn. I am not going to build a court house, I will build missionaries before then to continue spreading religion. I might not need a court house with the FP in Opportunism.

Three turn court house, then units to defend this front. I will need longbows most of all so build them to defend cities. HA can come from WTF? and cats I'll steal what I can from various corners of the empire.

Another court house I could slave, but I'm also aware of the need to potentially slave out triremes instead, which is the reason for the growth. Still, with no civic revolts until T160 at the earliest, I could potentially slave out a good eight pop over five turns.

After this long bow, definitely back to hte court house, but it would likely come to late to enable the FP.

Cottages can't really wait, but I still need hammers, so I'll continue to grow PRNGG onto the hills to speed up the court house and then market.

Definitely considering slaving the court house here, even if it is for 3 pop. CPH is just a whip city, it really needs a few workshops and Guilds to change.

I have two workers improving the banana, which will be done by the time the city leaves revolt. I am very likely to farm over a few tiles, OTOH, with enough worker labour, I might now. A good coastal production city, easily capable of hitting 20hpt thanks to the forge at size 7, and a good food surplus means that city size is easy to reach.

With Axrenox relegated to bait, I'm more interested in getting infrastructure into Culture than Axrenox. If Culture takes over most of the tiles, it has 13 unique tiles so can be a decent city with a good food surplus from banana and sugar. Aim is to chop all the jungle to stop it being easily accessible to an invading army. I'm building culture to take advantage of the mechanic that places additional culture into the inner ring of your cities cultural borders. I am placing 61 culture onto the banana, and 21 culture onto the jungle hill 77 of Culture which is a critical tile in the defence of the city and any attack on Archaide.

This city should be safe from an attack from Nazul because he can only attack from one tile, which is unroaded and outside his borders and Nazul have not built any fast movers yet. Wait for it to come out of revolt before I can do anythign with it though.

Inflation is a bitch.

I really need to do something about GNP. Power though is starting to get ridiculous. I almost have 2/3 more than second place. And I haven't even started using cats yet.

My power growth is accelerating...maybe I'm overestimating the threats from the other players? Nazul are spiking but they are just so far behind...

This chart is all over the place. I'm a bit below Nazul but with them losing two cities and starting to slave again, my main competitor is scooty.

Nazul are definitely going to fall off here.

Yeah, Nazul are definitely going to take a dip. scooty aren't doing great either for pop, their position is down entirely to wonders.

[NobleHelium]

So what percentage of the world's land do you have?

[Krill]

At this point I think I was at about 16-17%.

[spacemanmf]

What gets the clam off the south west coast of Mount Pleasant?

[Krill]

No where. I could have changed the dot map and placed two cities instead of MP, but that would have meant two coast cities to defend, never mind that I would have had to duplicate the city improvements, build another settler, pay for another cities upkeep costs. MP is just a front city, and it will have minimal infrastructure, build military, and stop scooty from doing anything smart. That's all I want it to do.

[spacemanmf]

No where. I could have changed the dot map and placed two cities instead of MP, but that would have meant two coast cities to defend, never mind that I would have had to duplicate the city improvements, build another settler, pay for another cities upkeep costs. MP is just a front city, and it will have minimal infrastructure, build military, and stop scooty from doing anything smart. That's all I want it to do.

Well minimal infrastructure means not many city improvements, right. Another city churning out your front navy. Such a waste of food...

[Krill]

Scooty can build caravels now and choke that seafood. All seafood not within the straight is not something I can easily hold onto, and might not be economic to improve until after I get Astro. Without that seafood a city for the clams is just junk. MP can work up to three flood plains to grow and work every single land tile which will give it just as much production as two cities split working the rest of the land. Without slavery, that clams is just a minor bonus.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I think you should have kept Cherrygrove city. Free Granary? Don't mind if I do!

[Krill]

Resettling 1E, gets three grass and gives up five ocean tiles, and there is enough food to then run five workshops and a windmill. Cherrygrove would only have been able to work three workshops and a mine, but with a two hammer city tile. I think the new city will be stronger when it comes to building frigates and later navy, which is why I decided to move it. With the one forest remaining, one worker able to mine the plains hill immediately once the city is settled, and a workboat moving over to the fish to hook that once the borders are popped I'm not really worried about get the granary done before size four with a good food surplus in place already.

[Krill]

Turn 156 - Rebuild and Reposition

So I opened the game, and this is what I saw:

Last turn I asked for 10gpt, the world map and 27 gold. Nazul offered 23g on top of that. I was not sure that nazul would offer the same deal if I declined it and had a look around, so I gambled that the most they could have done was recapture a worker and destroy a chariot, and even if they had done this, the peace deal was worth it. So I accepted.
And it turned out Nazul had done nothing aggressive anyway, so I got all of the workers I could.

The next thing I have to deal with is repositioning to attack azza. I can't waste any time, I'm racing against scooty attacking Mick and yuris getting to Astronomy and controlling the ocean. So I now get to work out what units I need to take over all of azzas land. And azza has removed a bunch of units from Vermilion. Where have they gone?

A sword and a spear in Saffron, and he has promoted some units to the anti-catapult promotion, charge (+25% against siege units). He now has 1 sword, 6 spears and 5 axes in the city. 12 units that I can kill on the first turn of the war, and I will likely have to deal with another 4 that azza gets into the city before I can attack. 16 units is a significant amount. I'm going to need more than a few catapults to deal with them.
What will I have? I already have 6 cats at Opportunism, and two more on the way down, but I'm moving every single HA that is at least strength 5.0 or higher back to Opportunism. I will have 15HA on the tile 99 of Saffron on turn 159 that can attack, plus 5 chariots. I will have a handful of units still coming down, a few HA and cats and longbows at SG. I'm probably not going to be able to both attack Saffron and still have a stack able threaten any other city, azza just has that many units.

Three of the HA in this picture are travelling to Opportunism but would not be available for an attack on Saffron until turn 160. If I did wait until turn 160, I could attack with 18HA, 7 cats and 5 chariots, plus up to 4 archers and an axe. This will leave 3 cats, 5HA and 3 chariots (one sentry) to be reinforced from PD and WTF? That's another 10 units including longbows just from WTF? and two longbows from PD. I'll grab some cats from SC as well, most likely. I'll need to keep graphs of Nazul at all costs so I know if they are stacking up.

I might just have time to send some HA down to raze Sarmation after they heal and get them back to the front by the time Nazul would be able to attack again.

12 turns to meet Cyneheard, if Commodore doesn't take Mingo Junction over.

Two turns to a GS, and I should just about be able to get CS in 3 from this turn, thanks to the new influx of gold. Run one turn of 30% this turn, then something like 60% next turn, then 100% on the last turn, should just about get it, but might need a little bit of Wealth building.

With CS due in 3, I can revolt to Slavery in 4 and whip a few court houses, then hopefully start the FP in 5 turns.

Last longbow before I return to building HA. I don't have to decide where to send the HA until two turns after they are built, the fronts are so far away from my core now.

Hopefully, with CS only three turns away, I can start farming the grasslands and grow a few more pop sizes. Though I need to consider the effect it will have on costs with no court house. Hopefully Nazul don't build any military and I don't have to match them.

I'll likely slave this city, it's worth it just for the EP and lowered costs IMO. Should only cost 2 pop points, the new one and the scientist.

I just want the EP. The other option is another settler, but I need to get costs under control...actually, with the FP, the settler is a reasonable choice. I'll swap to that.

Slaving this court house for 3 pop, the regrowing. Might slave out another worker afterwards.

This is the interesting point. Should I swap over to a catapult for the attack on Saffron? I'm not going to, because I need to get the FP down. I have enough to subjugate azzas eastern holdings with the position Saffron is in, but the core is going to require a concerted push with units from every city. I will specifically need a large quantity of cats when I push into his core. A few cats now isn't going to make a difference, but getting to Guilds quickly for a few knights definitely would. I think the FP would be able to be built eot T167.

Definitely barracks next. With a few workshops should definitely be able to get NS up to over 20hpt...

Always need a consistent supply of cats...the MM between SMS and PRNGG is starting to do my head in.

With the peace with Nazul, I need to farm a good chunk of the tiles here and mine all of the hills. PD is a 20hpt city, and I need it at that asap. I'm hooking the food res at the other cities and cutting the necessary jungle, but the rest of the attention is spent on PD.

Slaving the court house in a few turns, just growing the rest of the time.

Get the longbow, then get the court house. I could slave it if needed, most likely would only do that for 2 pop...

PRNGG is going to grow onto the four hills over the next 6 turns.

I think I'm going to slave CPH for 3 pop to finish the court house in the next 5 turns.

Hook the food, farm to the rice then farm some of the grasslands and grow to size 7. Probably build a barracks.

Culture is going to take a long time to get moving with no forests, so need to get the granary and just grow it hard.

Sacrifical lamb. I want 2 longbows in here by the time the peace with Nazul ends, along with a walls which I'll likely slave. Might have to give up on the culture build though, and try to squeeze it in before the 10 turns are up.

God damn city maintenance. Exactly why I want to build the FP and a bunch of court houses.

200K more power than second place...by rebuild I think I mean build more, rather than replace.