[Spoilers] Boldly Going...on a Bender and Pissing Off Xenu

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I got the turn right when I was leaving the office yesterday and couldn't play from home, so I played in about 3 minutes. Only one picture and demos:



I killed a barb in the north, nothing much to say about that. Under the interface you can just see a Slowcheetah axe, so either he's finally exploring some over there or (more likely) he's got designs on a city in that area. We'll see. I could found 2N of CC to claim my resources and share the fish with CC, which has plenty of food. That will probably be city #5, when I can afford it.



Demos are...horrible. I have two cities settling in the next two turns. I have not yet looked into a sandbox to divine how this will go with my already sagging, heavily-whipped cities, but.... it ain't gonna be good. But, we'll grow ourselves out of this hole.

I'll found #3 next turn, turn science back on, finish Monotheism, and hope for the best.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Megatron is born:



Let's see how this hit the financials:



And, how we're faring overall:



Enjoy the teching now, because it's going to be very painful, very soon...

[Catwalk]

Awesome border pop! Time to for some pop growth now, I'm a little concerned about all the whipping. Have you been unable to prioritize camping that ivory? Looks like the extra happiness will help immensely.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This will be the exhaustive screen dump report. You've been warned.

Did I say very painful very soon? I meant, immediately, and for the foreseeable future... I really should have simmed this out and spread out my new city founding dates, because, well, this is a problem. Welcome to the world, Swiper. I hope you don't mind a little poverty:



Sorry, I don't have a religion queued up to insta-pop borders. I think Commodore will accept this city plant. It's very close to my capital, secures my resources in a non-obtrusive way, and is planted realistically as far from his city as I could. Besides, it's on a hill, so why bother with it? For now at least...

Other info: Slowcheetah moved his axe back to the NW, but it's covering a worker now. If he's thinking that's his sheep, sorry, yours is the one underneath Sian, take it up with him. Or, I suppose I could just gear up to take out Sian's city. I don't have any buildings to throw down except barracks at this point, and for the next zillion turns anyway. We'll see how this goes. I have an axe up that way, we'll see what we can see.

Dark Heart:


Two turns until the previous whip anger wears off, and I am loathe to whip here again until I can get HR, at which time I have very little incentive to whip because I can grow. Once I net my new clams and crabs and farm my wheat I'll be able to get up to 13 health, so that's where I'd like to take this city...Just as soon as I can tech Monarchy. Man, this is going to be painful.

Cobra Commander:


I still have the axe in the queue. I want to delay putting it into the field as long as I can so I don't pay unit maintenance. I'm not excited to pay for this new worker, but I have to lay down cottages as though my life depended on it, because, well, it does. If I can't tech my way out of this extreme stagnation, I'm dead. I hope at least one other team has over expanded as I have done. Each city is going to be a contributor, so I don't regret having them, but I do regret not spacing out the timing a bit. I'll get 12 overflow from the worker, then 8 more from the axe. I'm hoping that I can churn out a couple of chariots from here, clear out Sian's axe-sentry, then go do some fundraising on cottages. Nothing is out of bounds, and he hasn't hooked up his horses yet. The tile flipped this turn to Sian, so I don't have much time to cause problems there. I haven't seen any spears yet from him, hopefully he'll neglect that a bit longer. He may not know about Swiper just yet.

Megatron:


Last turn the forested PH was in my borders, Sian got it back this turn, looks like he just popped 4th ring from 'Henge (it's at 55/44 after my turn). I'm hopeful I can get it back soon for the chop, but we'll see. I'll finish off the WB next turn, grow to 2, whip the second WB, then go for the terrace. I see a lot of 4/2 whips here until I can really grow it. If I can't do anything more than whip units to pull my neighbors back into stagnation, I'll do that.

Swiper:


Named for the villain in Dora the Explorer, I guess? Xenu put it on the list, and the name feels appropriate enough. I'll finish pasturing the horses next turn, road the following turn, then see what fun we can have with chariots. Fundraising units, mostly. Grow to 2, work the gold ASAP. Starving for commerce >>> grow city fast at this point. Swiper will have to take one for the team.

F1-8:

I'm waiting to see which religion will spread around for me before deciding on one. I need one in DH, and CC is already at the cap, so I hope it's Hinduism. But, I still need the free culture in Megatron for now. Finances, yeah, I've covered that. I wish I could build wealth right about now. Guess the old debate of which to take first, Currency or Monarchy, rages on...the funny thing is that I usually go for Currency first, about 95% of the time. I just really liked the idea of the early HR/OR switch with religions to pop. After seeing how Krill was controlling the map from early artist bombs in PBEM 34 (I think? The one that was abandoned), I thought under our rule set this would be the best alternative. I may have just tried it a little too fast with Swiper. It may have been cheaper on my economy to take out Sian's aggressive plant for horses.

F9:

Pretty sure that's everything. Let me know if you want anything else.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Awesome border pop! Time to for some pop growth now, I'm a little concerned about all the whipping. Have you been unable to prioritize camping that ivory? Looks like the extra happiness will help immensely.

Yeah, the whipping has hurt since I haven't prioritized hooking up the ivory. While doing my screendump I figured it would take me 8 worker turns to get the ivory camped, including movement and roads. I should have done this before now, but I didn't prioritize workers early enough. Someone told me I wouldn't need that many. Now that I'm stuck at a low happy cap, I have plenty of food to pump out workers and settlers... that I can't afford.

A better bet for now, given the clustering of my workers at Swiper is to hook up the gold, then swing a worker to the north for the ivory. By the time I can get gold online my whip anger will be gone, so that's +2. That should give time to get to the Ivory, if I prioritize it. But, as I grow, I'll need worker turns to lay down cottages. At least at DH I have several worker turns here and there already into partially completed cottages. The two new cities are heavily skewing my approval rate upward, but it seems that others are just as constrained in this regard as I am. My guess would be Sian is ok with his CHM 'Henge.

[Catwalk]

I think you might be able to connect the ivory without any roads. If the river isn't enough, a single road S of the ivory would do the trick. If you have the time, test this in WB as I'm not 100% sure on connection mechanics. I would have built the camp rather than the cottage, given that you had lake tiles to work instead. Or did you get Fishing too late for that? The first luxury is immensely valuable, makes a far bigger difference than the next one IMO. Someone wanted to produce axes instead of workers

I agree that getting the gold first instead is fine, main thing is that you get one fast. Getting the second a little bit later is np, you will need a little bit of time to grow into the luxury anyway.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Quick report today:

Overview:



Emphasis on Slowcheetah's workers chopping a distant forest. Prelude to a new city? I think so, just getting the free hammers that would otherwise be wasted:



More thoughts on this another time.

City screens:

Demos:

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

One picture, I'm watching UGA take Auburn to the woodshed:



Slowcheetah showed up with a chariot that is a good distance from home. Time to build spears. I have two axes that can chop it down next turn, should he come any closer, any variety of 2N will do, and I'll have 76% odds straight up, but something to clean it up after in any event. I'm not taking chances on having my workers chased around, so if he comes north, he has to die. Nothing personal. That's all the Civ news this turn.

Auburn is terrible at football.

[Catwalk]

I don't think you've overexpanded at all. Having very low research at this time is okay IMO, your economic growth depends mainly on hooking up luxuries and growing your cities. Unlike a normal game, where racing to Writing and Currency or competing for wonders matter a lot more. I would cool the whip a lot now, using it only for urgent military needs. Are you still planning on invading Sian? I fear that would end badly, especially with him fortified on the hill. Your cultural control over the hill tile improves every turn unless I messed up the maths, it'll be very hard to wrest control of it from you. If you were to do any military actions, I'd suggest patrolling the silver area to discourage cheetah from settling there.

[spacetyrantxenu]

RE: Chopping the forest in Sian's land by Megatron - This may require simming but I think you can chop that forest tile anyway even though it is inside his borders. You are at war after all. I think you can chop it because it is in a tile bordering your empire/trade group. I don't know 100% if this works or not though, or if the hammer yield changes since it's outside your culture. Definitely sim this, but I think you can still get your hammers even if he has control of that tile. Be sure to protect your worker, he isn't going to like this.

In Swiper I know you're dying for commerce but if you could get the wheat improved you could at least grow slowly while working the gold on your way to Monarchy. Also, that's desert gold so it's fairly icky anyway. I'm sure it gets you to Monarchy faster than just growing onto FIN river cottages but as soon as you get into HR you should dump that gold tile and get back to growing Swiper to be a productive city.

RE: Ivory - you need to camp it and build a road on both the ivory tile and the grass hill SE of the ivory to connect it. You don't have Sailing so the river/lake can't connect it to your capital.

Just bite the bullet and build more workers. Working those coast tiles sucks when you're just a few worker turns away from finishing multiple cottages at your capital that would give you the same yield immediately. I know you don't want to pay any more unit costs but new workers will pay off rapidly by letting you work cottages. You don't have another way to build commerce right now, it's just off tile yields, and that's about the best you're going to do for now.

Also, I know you can't afford it but I don't like being last in power and first in land area. It seems a precarious place to be. I know you have phantom power in the build queue at CC, just keep an eye on what these guys are up to. Also, watch that axe in the build queue at CC, he'll start decaying off hammers if you wait too long.

Finally, while I like the idea of a pillaging army to help fund your research I think it's a bit too risky to go through with it. Even if you were able to keep the units alive and pillaging a few tiles the revenue generated would quickly be offset by the increased support cost of having the units in enemy territory. I think you should focus on defending what you have for now, sadly.