[SPOILERS] Whosit Plays Alone for Fun (and Profit?)

[Whosit]

OK, I was apparently blind, of course the Colossus was already built. I also ran into another interesting complication. Landed my 6 Jaguars on the island last turn, attacked the barbarian city this turn (lost my first Jaguar that had the best odds, of course). Just before I took the city, I moved one of my jaguars north onto a hill to get a better view of the terrain and spotted an axe/scout pair from Dreylin. Well, I had been planning to burn the city and settle 1N which was a much superior spot. The presence of these units suggests that Dreylin probably has a foothold on his side of the island, or is at least close to getting one.

My Settler for the resettle is actually like, 6+ turns away because I'm bad at logistics. While it's unlikely that Dreylin could threaten that area with his own settler in that time, being so far from his own territory, I decided that the wiser course of action with this knowledge would be to keep the city, even if it is in a relatively sucky spot. So I kept it and renamed it "Progress." I'm going to have to get a Work Boat from somewhere to improve its crabs, and I'll need a barracks to pop borders to get rice (settling 1N would have put both food resources in 1st ring, plus added a LOT more land tiles to the BFC, AND would have made the city slightly less vulnerable to naval invasion).

So it goes.

[Whosit]

2 Markets going to finish EoT btw, my first two.

Drelyin, being EXP/ORG, has Markets in all his major cities and Courthouses most places too. Bleh.

[Whosit]

So last turn I teched Meditation so I could do something this turn. I used my GS to bulb Philosophy. Just... for the lulz. I did get Taoism in Hope, though, so maybe with a little work I can take that sheep tile back? But Dreylin has the HG in whatsitsname, so probably not. I found more of Dreylin's troops on the island, but no cities yet. I'm shuttling over a couple settlers but I don't really... have enough units to protect them yet, or workers, or work boats.

But hey! Claiming ground is important enough, probably? And one of my Jaguars ended turn in LoS with his units, so he'll know I'm there. Well, probably not great news for me but whatever. He probably knows I took that barb city. Maybe. Anyway. I'm just trying to claw my way forward. Building some catapults, some more units to defend the island (ugh). A few more Workers. Oh, I teched Alphabet a couple turns ago to get OB with Jowy. That filled in a few more trade routes. Um. I'm looking forward to getting enough units and infrastructure built that I can go back to Wealth/Research builds, but I think I'm hitting that point in the game where I'm going to want to be building some important infrastructure buildings.

...I don't remember what I set my capital to building.

[Whosit]

Oh, I'm sure you all already know, but wetbandit got the MoM a few turns ago. So that happened.

I'll be shuttling some of my newly built troops over to the island. Stone island? I'm pretty sure I can secure the stone resource at least. Unless Dreylin starts pouring troops into the island, I should be able to hold it easily. Not sure if I should leave my Jaguars there or not. Eh. They will probably just get stuck there. I switched a couple cities from Wealth to Research to get Priesthood in 1 turn. Monarchy next, and then... I might actually want to pick up Feudalism before going for.... Hm. I wonder if I should just use the Vassalage civic, lol. Nah. The capital should do OK in beauro, but I think having access to Longbows wouldn't be so bad.

Also, if anyone wants to see pictures of anything, let me know. Otherwise, just text only when I update.

I'm still playing turn by turn, more or less. Casual game, right? I wonder who has been really planning hard. At least I'm not doing 5 minute turns yet.

[Whosit]

Yayyy, Dreylin is in a Golden Age and just got Feudalism, so Longbows are gonna start popping up everywhere. I'm going to pick feudalism up soon, but realized no one has built the SoZ yet. Dreylin has set Aesthetics as a... placeholder? Doesn't look like he's teching right now. I set slider to 100% and set nearly all of my cities to Research builds. I'll 1 turn Aesthetics and start building the SoZ in Hope next turn. I think I can build it in 6-7 turns. No guarantee I'll get it at this point, but might as well try. Feudalism is probably next, then probably Civil Service. I won't have a GP for a Golden Age yet (I need to get on that!), but I'll also want to scoop up HBR so I can start building WEs.

Got my third and for now final city on the island. Dreylin has a city plopped down, too. I still feel like conquering Dreylin makes the most sense geographically, but he's pretty strong and Grimace looks like he's been stagnating. I wonder if Dreylin holds a grudge or if he's more pragmatic. I wonder if at some point I offer to divide up Zululand if he'll bite.

Oh, this turn Grimace offered to trade me an extra wine for one of my silks. I declined since I'm just a turn away from hooking up my own wine. One gripe I have about this map is the luxury placements, and this is only because it looks like the intent was to make things "equal." There isn't an equal distribution of calendar resources from what I can tell. I don't have spices, for example, and it looks like Grimace doesn't have silks, while Dreylin has both (and both were definitely in his "sphere of influence"). It looks like on some of the other continents there was some unequal distribution as well.

It wouldn't bother me if we had some other resources that were worth trading around, but since we all have the same stuff, and most people don't have surplus of what others don't have, I find it kind of obnoxious.

[Whosit]

So apparently last turn Dreylin swapped to Monarchy and Vassalage. Gonna have to keep an eye on him.... It's still gonna be a few too many turns until my next great person. Um... and Fenn has Chucks. Shrug.

[Whosit]

Wetbandit got the SoZ. I was only a couple turns away, but... so it goes. I was really hoping to get it as much for the culture as the bonus XP, because that would have let the city have a shot at getting the sheep back from Dreylin. I'll just build some extra culture buildings there instead, I guess? Anyway, as expected, Dreylin is prepping to tech Guilds. I'm grabbing up HBR this turn, then I'll still have to get through Machinery and Guilds myself.

Finally decided to just deal with it and hired a bunch of specialists in my couple of GP cities at the expense of growth and production because, really, that's what they're for. I'll get either a GS or GM in 8 turns now, and that will be used for a GA. I may try to tech Civil Service and... the Theocracy tech. Vassalage might just be better though because I don't have my religion spread at all yet. We'll see how it goes. I'm not toooo far behind Dreylin, but he'll have a bit of a headstart on Knights, so I'll try to get some War Elephants built while I try and catch up.

[Whosit]

No surprise, I've drifted to the back of the pack over the last dozen turns. Dreylin is gradually snowballing ahead of me (to say nothing of everyone else on the other landmasses). I popped a silver in a mine. Wish it was gold or gems.

My current "plan" is to save up money as my next GP is about to pop, then tech Civil Service to so that it completes the same turn. Golden Age. Swap techs (and might as well religion, though my missionaries have been doing poorly). At the end of the GA, might go from Bureaucracy to Vassalage. Though I might need to stay in Bureau to remain competitive. Dreylin is still in Vassalage, I think, and is surely planning an offensive. I might really need the extra XP.

[spacetyrantxenu]

my missionaries have been doing poorly

Failed spreads? Those really, really annoy me and I wonder what it would take to mod that mechanic out of the game. I don't see a balance problem with eliminating the RNG from religion spreads, maybe someone can explain why it's necessary. But it's NOT FUN when you spend 40 hammers on a missionary and then it fails to spread the religion you wanted, probably delaying some plan you'd come up with where you needed the religion in place by a certain turn. What if you spend your 30 hammers on a work boat and it randomly fails to net your seafood? I don't think anyone would go for that. If the concern is that it would make it too easy to spread religion, maybe increase the cost of a missionary from 40 hammers to 50 or 60, or something. I wouldn't mind it, if it kept those infuriating failure message from appearing in red text....

[Whosit]

I agree, I don't think anyone likes that mechanic and I don't think it serves a useful purpose. Maybe it was included to make it harder for someone to get all 7 religions in a city? But, really, if someone's putting in that much effort in the first place, I don't see the problem.

Anyway, it's turn... something. There's actually some stuff to update on.

Finally got a Great Scientist a couple turns ago, fired off the GA and made a bunch of civic changes. Hereditary Rule, Bureaucracy, Caste System, Pacifism, and Taoism as state religion. It took me an extra turn to get Taoism into Destiny, my new GP Farm, but right now I'm running 7 Merchants and slightly starving the city. I'll do 7 Scientists next. I thiiiiink between the GA and Pacifism bonuses, I should be able to squeeze out 2 more GP by the time it's over, maybe the turn after the GA ends. I'll just pop right into a second Golden Age because why not? Wish I had the MoM but lol, like that could have ever happened. I'm trying to use this time to catch up on infrastructure in cities that need it, while also squeezing out units here and there from cities that don't need extra infra.

I just teched Guilds, so I can start building Knights, but I only have 1 city doing that. I should probably get the tech for the Heroic Epic, too. Wish I had Marble, maybe I can buy it off of Dreylin for 10 turns.

Speaking of, he offered me a map trade and open borders with a message saying that a period of peace had brought our people together (and that the OB would allow 1 scout from each nation to explore). After some debate, I accepted. I really have no chance of winning a fight against Dreylin, and sure, this could just be an excuse for him to scout me out, BUT! I have been thinking about sending him an offer to carve up Zululand together, and accepting that offer might make it more likely he accepts that deal.

Grimace has been catching up to me in power, but there's no way he could fight off both me and Dreylin. I haven't stockpiled as many catapults as I'd have hoped for after all these turns (just like, 15 or so), but now that I can make War Elephants, and Macemen, and Longbowmen, and Knights, I think I could probably take a few cities off of him at least. I'd need to shuffle some units around so I could gather all my remaining Jaguars, too.

I'm going to 1 turn Banking before I have to save up gold again. By the time all my Golden Ages end, I'll probably want to have OR or Theo available for a new religious civic, but Taoism is only in, like, 4 cities, so I'd have to do an awful lot of spreading to make either useful. At least with Theo, I only need to target the cities that'll be producing the most units.

I don't really have a timetable for any war, though. I do plan to use any GA turns to just work on infrastructure.