[Spoilers] Slowcheetah Slinks Ahead (Well Hopefully)

[slowcheetah]

Turn 56

State of the empire-

Apologies for the resolution of the first two spoiler tagged pics. My Civ iv doesn't save my settings for some reason and I often forget to change it. I've been trying to remember more lately.

I founded my seventh city this turn; Maragor, making a last minute detour to gain three extra grasslands and stop my nonsense idea of sharing an unlighthouseable (for Maragor) crab.

Some sheer idiocy in Drasnia, namely thinking quick speed chops are worth 30 hammers with maths, have caused the Pyramids to be delayed by a turn and me to waste some worker turns.

Algaria has whipped a monument in an attempt to compete with Mr Creative. I'm going to regrow to size four and whip a library, then it's military (both land and sea) from then on. I can't irrigate further up, due to the pasture, and the fish will almost certiainly be going back to tolnedra for most of the time. Algaria doesn't have much food suplus so it's getting cottages instead of workshops to at least try and do something productive with those tiles.

Little Riva got it's crabs hooked up, I'm mainly going to focus on infrastructure from here. If I get the pyramids then Riva will go Granary->Lighthouse, if not I'll go granary->Library (monument?) in order to get the gem happy online as fast as possible.

Tolnedra is working a grassland tile, because that keeps growth in two, and it has generously gifted the rest of its food away. Going Lighthouse->Settler from Tolnedra.

My Capital is chilling on a worker, once the worker completes she gets to grow. I haven't decided on what she gets to grow on yet though.

Nyissa is too crap to deserve a picture. It's size one and working a grasshillmine for those curious.

Musicman is flashing his war chariots, we do have an NAP and even if he did invade he wouldn't be able to hit anywhere before I could get a spear out. It's probably just there to guard the sheep, which I plan on getting back once my city eight is culturally established.

In overall foreign news, musicman double revloted T54, T55 to HR, OR and Hinduism, additionally somebody got a great prophet, probably Azza from stonehenge although it could theoretically be the Philosophical musicman

Overall City Count

Sian-7
Me-7
Musicman-6
bRICK- 6 (and his overall whedonian theme appears to have become a predominantly Firefly theme).
Azza- 3, I'm not sure what he's doing, he hasn't hooked horses or a precious metal, all of which everyone else has at least one of.

Annoyingly my two neighbours are musicman and Sian, who are ahead of me on the scoreboard and seem to be playing the strongest games thus far.


Technology path-

Sustainable tech has dropped to approximately 25% so I am continuing with Currency, which will add 15gpt at max tax. Currently I'd estimate it to take about ten turns, but that rate should definitely increase.

I'm still probably going to go COL after currency, however I want to assess whether that's the right option so I may write up some thoughts later.

[slowcheetah]

Just a quick check in, I will do a more thorough report tommorow.

Sian got the Great Lighthouse; this is deeply annoying. It's pretty powerful on this map and will effectively let him get a 'jumpstart' on currency, which everybody else (aside from the 4 city Azza) will have to research before continuing expansion. It's particularly bad for me personally because it'll give my creative and very near neighbour a small window (approx 5 turns) in which he can lock up some of our competed expansion sites. *Pic coming when I do a major report*

He can focus on me because his other neighbour is Azza who has been expanding extremely slowly (and I'd hoped had been the one to build the GLH). Sian currently has open borders with Azza, bRICK and me. I will close borders next turn, hopefully at least bRICk will join me, because with Azza's limited city numbers this will greatly reduce Sian's trade route income.

Moan concluded

[slowcheetah]

Let's start off on an extremely positive note. I got the Pyramids .

That means the wonders so far have gone:
Azza-Stonehenge
Musicman- Oracle
Sian- Great Lighthouse
Me- Pyramids

The only person to miss out thus far is Brommodore.

The settler brewing in Drasnia will be heading for city site eight, and be founded on the turn Currency comes in . I'll probably knock out a chariot after the settler, but based on the current military status across the globe (read: ridiculous farmer's gambits everywhere) I'll probably be able to use Drasnia as a settler pump rather than a military factory.

Elsewhere I'll be doing some food shuffling in order to grow my capital and whipping a very important library (for culture) in Algaria. I'm also focussing on culture in Riva in order to get Gem's online. Not really too much more to say about that.

Additionally I'm second in all of the major demographics, but I forgot to take any more pictures .

[slowcheetah]

It's been so long that we've wandered into the AD years. Sorry about that, exams and whatnot.

[SIZE="7"]WAR[/SIZE]

Anyway, since I last updated I have had my first war in this game. Although that took place just after I built the Pyramids so seems back in the mists of time to my memory.

It was a small tiff rather than a war, Sian was annoyed about me asking other people to close borders with him, and my horse city was defended with only an axe (I had yet to research hunting at that point). A road and a chariot meant that the city was razed. This was a bit of a blow but wasn't a huge loss, and seeing nothing to gain in fighting a war which would force me to whip down my capital. I immediately offered white peace. Sian accepted, and no more has come of it (although I have now researched hunting).

Here's a shot of the ruined city, place solely for horse access. I will rebuild it in the next few turns or so. Thanks to Sians creativity and longer establishment time there is little chance of me fighting back culturally, however I do want to lay a city there for fort access. Even if it ends up pindicatored.

[SIZE="7"]Religion[/SIZE]

Ok, lets see what else I can remember happening. Techwise I went much as previously described picking up currency->Hunting->COL. Unfortunately, boosted by his trade routes Sian got to COL before me and thus founded confucianism. I kept going to COL, because courthouses and access to caste still seemed worthwhile. Additionally, as I'm sure you're all aware Miss Laws is on the way to civil service.

Anyway, Sian's plan ruining antics meant that I was stuck without a religion. Fortunately I got a spread at some point in the sixties. There were two problems with the spread:

1) It's of Hinduism, that's Musicman's religion (my other direct neighbour). Spreading his shrined religion is going to cause problems if I want to fight him later.
2) The religion spread to this shithole.

Great place for building anything, no? Anyway, I did decide to spread the religion. The needed culture, coupled to the benefits OR outweighed the detractions of powering up musicman's shrine. Therefore, my next research was Poly and Mono both at 0% to build up a nice gold stockpile. The hammers for the missionary were gained by whipping a barracks to completion at near max. overflow.

[SIZE="7"]Money[/SIZE]

In addition to my 0% gold I also got some with some good old fashioned stone powered wonder building. Yes, I've built the Great Wall, and the culture from it, admittedly limited, is proving helpful. Arendia will definitely be whipping that library next turn.

I'm sure even the sparrow-eyed among you have spotted why I'm saving the gold. Civil Service is my next destination. Both for Bureaucracy (my capital is currently at 75 beakers at 100% but mainly to allow for chain irrigation to support some spec/whipping rotation.

These are probably the most notable 'events' that have happened since I last updated.

I'll continue in a second with some more overviews of the empire and then deal with where I plan to go.

[slowcheetah]

[SIZE="7"]Empire Overview[/SIZE]

Here's a picture of the empire overall. Discourteous foes seem to be squashing her curves.

[SIZE="5"]Cities[/SIZE]

Vale of Aldur

My capital and current undisputed science king. However, there are several mistakes I've made with her. Firstly, I haven't cottaged that grassland river, I instead saved the forest for wonders, which are a discussion for later. I also, forgot that whip anger was wearing off this turn and stalled her from growth. Currently, she probably isn't the most interesting city, with all the major building I've earnt already being present. I may build a Hammam here next for happiness thinking about it

Drasnia

Currently, a bit small, entirely due to the lack of improved tiles. I've used Drasnia as my main production centre. I'm going to finish the spear and then spit out a couple more workers for the mass irrigation that's soon going to go down.

Tolnedra

Worryingly, at those nine hammers Tolnedra currently has the best turn by turn production in the empire. She just finished a settler (hence not working any specialists). I think she's going to pop another one out soon too. probably to go and repopulate Algaria.

Nyissa

This city is crap. No wonder the populace were the first to turn their eyes to the sky. Whether they can actually see sky through all that jungle is another debate.

Riva

The people of Riva will soon be sad. I definitely should have given them Nyissa's guard. Still I'm not sure why they are demanding protection when they are the only ones who get a nice moat. She's currently building a workboat for marble city and will build another one after that

Maragor

I plan for this place to be my secondary commerce centre and great person generation point. This means her next build can be one of two things. If I'm feeling cowardly (prudent) I'll use the overflow for a chariot. If bold, a market will be built within her.

Arendia

Arendia was founded during the ten turn peace treaty with Sian. She's a hill city and pretty well defended (there is also a spear guarding some workers next to the city) to stop Sian being a bully. The populace were still afraid however, so they built a big wall to stop mythological howling beastmen. Finally secure, they now wish to educate their children. Consequently, thousands of the population will be killed in the following years in order to hasten a house of books. This house will teach the children of art, science and most importantly classical music. Helping to sweep away the unfortunate alphabeat craze that is currently threatening to sweep the nation

Nadrak

Nadrak is young and small, she cannot provide much at the moment (my cities seem to be overwhelmingly female, I wonder how they build any settlers?) Anyway, my plan for her future is possibly the globe theatre, the rule for one turn growth for size 5 to 6 is +10 food on quick, correct? If, so I can get rid of that cottage for a farm and she might not even need to be a filler city

Cherek

Cherek is pretty much a guard city, Hopefully she can steal that sheep back soon. Although a Library may have been wiser than a lighthouse.

Future plans and such is coming up shortly

[slowcheetah]

[SIZE="7"]Hopes and Dreams[/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]What is everyone else doing?[/SIZE]

I figured I'd begin my planning section by giving some information on where I think my opponents are. Due to my trusting nature, my regime lacks a 'Cloak and Dagger' department so my information will be pretty much solely based from what I've heard on the grapevine cougheventsscreencough.

Demographics and Graphs

Sian-
Sian is currently the game leader, he holds the great lighthouse and the coveted (by me!!!!) confuscian faith. He also has the most cities on the map at 10. The espionage screen indicates that he is indeed building courthouses, and his GNP and cropyield are way higher than anyone elses. His culture is annoying and if he keeps leading me down the tech tree then that will be a problem. I have no NAP with him and he burned my city. If I have a stronger midgame then him then he will be my target.

Musicman
My other neighbour, and performing fairly well. He has however been stuck on only seven cities for a long while now. He currently has built the oracle and the collosus to work those tasty gold FIN coastal tiles. He's another one who could really spurt up the tech tree, with his PHI trait giving him powerful abilities for an early oxford. We have an rolling NAP which can be cancelled at any time with seven turns notice. I'm going to try and found some reach cities near him and then cancel it (he's militarily light). Would also be a nice target since he holds my religion and probably has more longterm economic potential than Sian with Fin in tow. However, Sian keeps stealing my treats.

Azza
Azza is another on seven cities, he built stonehenge and I think (though am not sure) that he founded Buddhism. Currently, he is quite far away from me which is good because he is the only person with Iron working and has the largest power (looking back musicman also has iron and Brommodore has spices (which ahave jungled access). We have a copper-copper trade currently. I opened the save one morn to find Azza offering me copper, which could be a) a misclick or b) an offer of friendship. Deciding I did want to be friendly I sent him back copper/copper. He's far away and I don't think he's going to be a threat to me in the short term (militarily) or in the longterm (economically), although that could change.

Brommodore
Are now second in score with a pretty high GNP and better cropyield than mine (whether that's because Commodore has taken a more active role I'm not sure). They aren't neighbouring however they could be powerful in the future with Commodores calender possibly indicating they have designs on MoM. They currently have neither stone nore marble, but that could be obtained quickly for them.


[SIZE="5"]Where do I go?[/SIZE]

As I'm pretty sure I already said Civil service has a twin pay off with Bureaucracy being a valuable civic and chain irrigation allowing me to actually use my specialists to good potential.

Afterwards I can go along one of a few short term lines:

IW->Calender (probably save gold while research IW).
This path means that Nyissa can stop being a complete shithole. It also increases my settling area and happiness with sugar, spices, dyes and bannanas all being within reach. Allows access to the Mausoleum. On the flipside, it'll require a lot of worker labour to utilise fully, this is particularly troublesome because
a) My workers will be chain irrigating
b)I want my cities to grow during the chain irrigation, this is hard while producing workers and settlers.
c) I need more workers to deal with irrigation coupled to possible new cities.
d) I need more workers

Conclusions: If I don't see bRICK with marble by the time I've finished civil service I will head straight to this path. A fin civ with MoM sounds pretty dangerous to me so the denial value would be big. Additionally it does expand my settling areas (which are contested so I can't dillydally forever), and helps improve an eyesore and raise the happiness cap. If I do get this though I need a fair few more workers.

Metal Casting:
Forges would be nice, and I am starting to have room for them on my build queues (in my capital for instance). They would raise my happy cap by two (and three once I've built a gems road), and triremes would be good for some protection.

Aesthtics->Lit->Drama->Music??
The wonder spam route, I can build the Great Library, additionally the national epic and the globe theatre (and theatres in general) would be good bonuses. Particularly the national epic. May look more appealing if the MoM looks to be a lock for brommodore. I would actually love to have Sistines.

Construction or HBR->
It doesn't look like war is imminent, so no.

Theology-> I would like a religion, but I don't have the research to spare.

Overall, I prefer the Calender path followed by the Aesthetics line. If solely for the fact that those who get the most first past the post bonuses seem to win this game. However, I don't think that I have the research power currently to drive all the way up the Aesthetics line for music and still be competitive militarily.

I definitely need to start plotting out a bulb path.

And I definitely need more workers.

[slowcheetah]

Man I shouldn't leave these for so long each time,

Anyway, as I'm sure any who are following this PBEM are aware the main global objectives recently falling have gone to bROMMODORE. Building the Great Library and the MoM respectively. This diverted me from the previous aesthetics->lit path and although I did pick up calender and IW I went to metal casting instead.

Why metal casting? I intend to be on the guilds beeline sooner rather than later.
Stopoffs on the list include; Philosophy for pacifism and possibly Theology for Theocracy. The next technology to research will probably be philosophy because I got a great merchant rather than a great scientist pop at my capital.

I found this formula on civfanatics

Profit = 500 + 200*CapitalTradeProfit (*0.67 for quick speed)

All of my trade routes to other 'countries' capitals are the same value '2', therefore there shouldn't be too much differentiation between values of everybodies capitals, and using musicmans means I can convert him into actual value much faster.

Additional Concerns:

Sian- I don't wish to open borders, or have him scout my lands (which I'm sure would be part of a great merchant agreement). He's directing a lot of ep's towards me and I currently consider him the 'enemy' of my two neighbours.

Azza- He's pretty far away from me. This does mean a greater profit, however getting to him in a reasonable timeframe would involve opening borders with Sian, which is something I don't wish to do.

bROMMODORE- Far away, and I could get to them within 10 turns. However, they are the 'big dawg' currently so I don't want to give them a fee for using the merchant in their lands.

Domestic update coming up

[slowcheetah]

Anyway, it's turn 89 and I decided to revolt to caste system for the first time. Has I recieved a great scientist rather than a merchant I would have waited a turn, to research alphabet, bulbed Philo and then double revolted into caste/pacifism. Ah well, at least I can still build missionaries .

This will only be a 5 turn trip, because I still have some slaving to do.

To begin here is the demographics before:

And after:

[SIZE="6"]Cities[/SIZE]

The change around did lead to some decisions, which may or may not have been

Capital- The Vale of Aldur

Not much has changed here, spices will be hooked up next turn so it won't be unhappy due to growth. If she was size 15 would that increase my merchant reward?

Maragor

Provided I haven't accidently left a governor promoted spy there, maragor becomes my scientist generation centre. This is solely because it has a library but not a market.

Nadrak

Nadrak complements Maragor by being a merchant generation point, definitely better than working coast in my opinion.

Cthol Murgos

Murgos is a relatively new acquisition, it's placed pretty defensively (hill) and is receiving the artist this turn in order to open up the wheat resources in time for my workers.

Algaria

Algaria has been very recently refounded, the artist is probably much more debateable here, but I like popping borders .

Dal perivor.

Isn't doing anything special with caste (well I suppose she is running a scientist). However, I don't think I've shown this site yet, and she will be becoming my Moai site and hopefully a Jewel of the empire.


Overview of my land

[NobleHelium]

So how's everything?

[slowcheetah]

Ok so I owe those who've been reading on some kind of report. It'll probably be a long one, and I may rego up the thread somewhat (it could use it anyway:neenernee)

So first off, what've I been doing?

Here's my empire as a whole:

The North:

The Midlands:

The South

As you can see the whole thing is shaped like an L, this leads to a ridiculously broad front with Sian with the ohsofun creative squeezing.

Since I've pretty much been building (and it's the incredibly important turn 102 report) I'll do a city by city update:

The Vale of Aldur

My Capital, which in a turn of madness I decided to turn into my great person farm . The logic behind this was that there were three chops there and I wanted to get the national epic going quickly plus I've been running plenty of specialists in my capital anyway. The reality was that the best place for the epic would have been Maragor, and there is actually enough third ring trees to chop it out reasonably quickly there as well.

All in all this was an incredibly stupid decision. It means I can't get a chop assisted fast oxford in my capital, and also limits the time I can spend working mines in the vale, because currently I'm wanting to produce great people.

Other then the stupidity of that decision, the place is looking quite tidy:

Drasnia:

Two turns before was starving down in order to generate a Great person one turn sooner (came out merchant rather than engineer and will be covered later). This city is set for production, so really has very little infrastructure. She'll be getting a forge next, because I'm currently not in need of more units.

Tolnedra-

I keep wanting, "just one more settler" out of my third city, after she pops out a couple more I'll put a forge in and decorate the area with some workshops.

Nyissa-

Is still shit. I'll whip some units out of her when I go into slavery again. Probably put workshops here as well.

Cherek

I was happy with the infrastructure I have here so I'm being annoying with caste artists (besides they make 3 beakers:neenernee). Again I'll whip some units here when I go back into slavery.

Riva

Will build a settler next. Where the guy ends up pretty much depends on Azza and Sian. She's an ok city, although I keep forgetting to give her the bannana back. I've apparently put in a lot of infra here and then not grown the city at all. This was dumb.

Maragor

Is giving birth to a great person on turn 104 (I'm hoping for the low odds engineer). Is more of a science city, so markets and banks are more likely to be built here than units.

Arendia

Is again being annoying with artists, although here it's seeming a bit futile. So next turn I'm probably putting her on unit production

Nadrak

Is building up an artist pool in case I do want to culture bomb something. I'm planning on making this my globe city and infinite draft camp. So I haven't built very much infrastructure here.

Cthol Murgos

I'm growing her up. I'm being a relaxed parent with this one, and haven't really made any grand plans for the future. Mainly because I don't want my most exposed city being a crucial cog in the civilisation.

Dal perivor

5 turns until she becomes awesome (note: I did overflow build most of the statues but I've been in caste since turn 100 so I'm finishing the big heads off manually). She'll probably get a forge next and then a barracks (slotting in a military unit for garrison purposes).

Algaria-

I'm playing with artists (again). Completely throwaway border city. I will build some ships here and fort across so I can defend my capital from naval assault.

Thull-

Is pretty new, again will be pretty much farms and workshops once she grows up. Although may well get a library for culture purposes.

Kell-

Is in embarrassingly poor condition, and will never get whales because it took me too long to expand here. Basically claims resources. I do not have high hopes for this city, and I will not be putting aside anything for its college fund.


Overall, it seems like the majority of my cities are girls. Maybe I should have an amazon naming scheme or something. Or just call all of my units Buffy and go and invade bRICK.

Great people.

Since I last reported my most exciting event was probably getting a great merchant. I was sneaky with it and galleyed him in to this city of Azza's.

I recieved 900 odd gold for a deleted galley, and a satisfying sense of cheekiness.

I birthed another great merchant last turn, although I considered a golden age. It wouldn't appreciably speed up my next two great people, and I wasn't guaranteed another great merchant. I would like to run at a defecit for a while longer, so I'm going to perform the same trick again.

Units

Here is my unit screen

Technology-

Will come in the next post (half hour to an hour or so). I recently got alphabet, and although I did work out what everybody had I seem to have lost the back of the envelope I did it on.

Demographics and Graphs:

Demo's

Score

GNP

Production

Crop

Power

Culture

Espionage