A Record of Joey's Journey to Immortality

[GermanJoey]

Time Player Event

8/10/17 5:49 pm Donovan Zoi Logged out
8/10/17 5:46 pm Donovan Zoi Logged in
8/10/17 5:17 pm Dark Savant Logged out
8/10/17 5:16 pm Dark Savant Logged in
8/10/17 3:25 pm Dark Savant Logged out
8/10/17 3:24 pm Dark Savant Logged in
8/10/17 12:37 pm Donovan Zoi Logged out
8/10/17 12:32 pm Donovan Zoi Logged in
8/10/17 10:19 am Dark Savant Logged out
8/10/17 10:18 am Dark Savant Logged in
8/10/17 10:09 am Dark Savant Logged out
8/10/17 10:08 am Dark Savant Logged in
8/10/17 10:01 am Donovan Zoi Logged out
8/10/17 9:51 am Donovan Zoi Logged in
8/10/17 9:49 am Dark Savant Logged out
8/10/17 9:47 am Dark Savant Logged in
8/10/17 8:34 am Donovan Zoi Logged out
8/10/17 8:20 am Donovan Zoi Logged in
8/9/17 10:25 pm Dark Savant Logged out
8/9/17 10:24 pm Dark Savant Finished turn
8/9/17 10:08 pm Dark Savant Logged in
8/9/17 8:53 pm Dark Savant Logged out
8/9/17 7:31 pm Dark Savant Logged in
8/9/17 5:19 pm Dark Savant Logged out
8/9/17 4:56 pm Dark Savant Score decreased to 302
8/9/17 4:55 pm Dark Savant Score decreased to 304
8/9/17 3:34 pm Donovan Zoi Logged out
8/9/17 3:32 pm Donovan Zoi Finished turn
8/9/17 3:25 pm Dark Savant Logged in
8/9/17 1:57 pm Donovan Zoi Logged in
8/9/17 12:00 pm A new turn has begun. It is now 525 BC.

[Fenn]

Chiming in to say thanks for the detailed updates and thoughts. Hard to believe a game started in March only just got TGL built.

Good luck going forward!

[GermanJoey]

Thanks, Fenn! Thankfully, turn pace is finally picking up a bit. If y'all have any questions, by all means ask away.

T98.

Finally decided to go for MC. It was a tough call... I feel like I'm starting to fall behind in tech a bit; I think most civs  have at least one classical tech by now, and I know for a fact that JR just got Currency. That's gonna be huge for them, with 11 cities already and 3 of their Exp Market happies. I'm not sure if they're top GNP or not, but at any rate the top GNP is like, almost double mine at 100% slider. yeesh. *tugs collar*

But, I think I'm even more production/happy-crunched than I am w/ commerce. I want so much stuff right now... I want more galleys in both the eastern and western seas, more workers to lay down infrastructure, 3-4 workboats for seafood in 5-6 turns, more military for both my islands and my land borders, a partially-built Moai to complete, more libraries, settlers for a billion islands, etc. But yet my cities are either happy-capped (or above it!) or newly planted, leaving me with limited means to get all this junk. So, I want some forges. I can let my cities grow a bit over happy-cap now, and then slam down 3 and 4 pop whips everywhere. The forge will give me +1 happy immediately (silver), +1 in 11 turns when I hook gold, and +1 in like, I don't know, 17(?) turns, when I hook gems. That gives me an extra 112 production in extra whip hammers per city just right there, plus whatever I can pull in from turn-by-turn production. Very fast pay-back time. It'll also be great to have forges pre-built in time for my first Golden Age, which will be in about 15 turnsish.

I have 12 cities now, planting the most recent one this turn, and I'll soon plant 2 more in a 3ish turns. (the settlers are en route to farish islands) That's probably all my economy can handle for a bit... I'll probably be forced to head directly to Currency after this, as it'll be worth an enormous amount of commerce by that point. That'll be followed up by IW and then Construction, but not necessarily in that order. I'd still love to found Judaism if I can, because I still haven't gotten a religious spread anywhere but yet Theocracy will be super important on this navally map. Maybe if its still there in 20 turns, heh...

Demos:




I'm starting to open up a little bit of a consistent crop yield lead... and this is with running 2 scientists and not working a lh lake due to an unhappy face. Yet the victory screen tells me that I've only got 13.46% of world pop as compared to JR's 14.00%. So my growth rate is really damn good right now, relatively speaking. I'm sure a big reason for this is in that MFG number... it appears my rivals are working a lot more mines than I am. I suppose that might be becaues they're hurting for happy cap and thus are not as able to whip as much as I can. I mean, if I'm Cha and I'm having problems with it, the non-Chas cities' must be rather miserable, so to speak.

Top power is Dark Savant, who appears to be spiking up somewhat. I still don't even know where he is on the map though, so that's none of my business. Go get em', tiger.

Finally, a bonus. Donovan manages to deftly avoid every single plains hill in this area, in order to plant on a flatground coastal tile adjacent to where I already have an established city that will soon pop borders.   Come on, man! You already got bit by this same thing in the east!

[Fenn]

How do you feel about your civ/leader pick after a hundred turns? You've mentioned how helpful CHA has been for you - I take it the map is heavy on food compared to happy resources.

How's your capital looking - anything interesting going on there?

[GermanJoey]

Civ - pretty solid. Greece's starting techs were a bit slower than other options, but I think the Phalanx has been pretty nice for saving me some hammers early and helping make some passive-aggressive plays possible. Well, one passive-aggressive play, to the northern border with JR; I sorta thought I'd be doing the same thing to the south, but then Ventessel was like vapor in the wind down there, heh. I'm also looking forward to the Odeon, for helping me shore up my northern border against JR's incredibly aggressive culture push. My northern city is pushing out 7cpt (library, 1000 year monument, barracks, great wall) and yet is LOSING the culture war against the Mongolian's Buddhism/Barracks/Monument/Library/Monastery. I think it'll also be nice for helping me get to that 2nd golden age without needing to first completing a bunch of very expensive buildings or running caste. And of course, having that come with an extra +1 xp wil be pretty sweet.

Leader - liking it. First, half-priced granaries (Pro RtR, Exp BTS) have always been one of my favorite traits and one I know how to use well. Second, in terms of playstyle, I think I'm one of the more aggressive whippers here in terms of micro-style, at least in the early and mid games. By which I mean, uh... like, alright let me try to explain it like this.

Think of "city micromanagement" has being plotted (in an abstract way) vs yield that results in a pareto-optimal space. Things like choosing to grow onto a grass pig put you at the edge of this space (on the pareto-optimal curve), while stuff like choosing to grow onto an unlighthoused coast move you far from the curve, for the most part. However, along the edge of this curve where you'll eventually come to a decision where, in isolation, expert micro-managers will agree that "to whip" and "to not whip" in this situation has roughly the same benefit and payback time in terms of your goals. Or at least, is pretty debateable, if the civ was being run by a team. Therefore, for a single-player civ like mine, the decision to whip or not whip comes down to a personal style/preference. And my personal preference comes down on the side of whipping earlier. That's for a mishmash of a bunch of reasons, in no particular order:

a.) I like to save some trees for later, to help speed key expensive builds like forges, courthouses, and wonders, because I know I'll want some sort of extra edge later to help me win.

b.) I'm a stronger believer in "boots on the ground" theory when it comes to Civ (that the player who gets to a spot first has "rights" on it) so I wanna get dem shoes on some feet as soon as I can.

c.) I like completing sub-goals as soon as I can because it frees up space in my mind to think more strategic builds. Like, if I've decided that a regional production center like Heavenly Star up there needs to build a workboats for a new island city, a settler for the penninsula, a couple of military units, and a forge, then when exactly will it find time to build Moai? In 20 turns? 30? Maybe that is the correct answer for my civ, that in 25 turns or whatever that city should work on its Moai statue. It's just harder for me to reason about that if Maoi is, say, the 6th item in the queue as compared to the 3rd.

d.) I think of "extra happy faces" in a city as a resource, and I don't like to squander resources! Just as my daddy used to tell me that I can't get up from the dinner table unless I cleaned my plate, I don't let my overseers rest easily unless they've cleaned out their workhouses, so to speak.

e.) I tend to prefer being active in my decision making; i.e. if I don't know what will happen next, I will prefer to "do a thing" rather than "wait and see." In other words, if I've narrowed down my future decision space to a small number of discrete options and I don't know which will be best, I will want to choose one as soon as I can rather than waiting to seeing to see if new information will come up that will help me make a better decision. (of course, I know how to wait when that is beneficial, but there's a small bias I must overcome to do that. I'm just talking about my preference when all other things are equal)

f.) i liek 2 press buton

So, anyways, I like to whip, and Pro gives me more pop to whip sooner and Cha gives me more happycap to pay for that. The other side of Pro (the defensive part) is also pretty nice for the islands, as it gives me confidence that a hill-settled spot will be adequately protected, for at least the near term, by a single archer.

My capital - not much going on right now. I'll take a picture of it next turn I suppose. It's size 10 right now, growing up to size 11 (and into unhappiness) next turn. I have a chop completing into a forge, and I believe the micro will work out that will allow me to 2-pop whip the forge to take my city from size 12 back to 10. At any rate, the city recently completed a library and is trying to work up some late-laid cottages... I expected to have more at this point, but there's so many good island spots (and I was able to claim so much freaking land) that I haven't been able to spare a settler for a cottage-working filler spot that I had planned to settle to the west. I'll probably be forced to delay that until Currency, unfortunately.

[GermanJoey]

Any guesses to what just happened here?

8/16/17 11:19 am German Joey Logged out
8/16/17 11:18 am German Joey Finished turn
8/16/17 11:15 am German Joey Score decreased to 382
8/16/17 11:10 am German Joey Logged in
8/16/17 9:42 am German Joey Score increased to 425
8/16/17 9:42 am A new turn has begun. It is now 300 BC

Real update a bit later today.

[Mardoc]

Any guesses to what just happened here?

8/16/17 11:19 am German Joey Logged out
8/16/17 11:18 am German Joey Finished turn
8/16/17 11:15 am German Joey Score decreased to 382
8/16/17 11:10 am German Joey Logged in
8/16/17 9:42 am German Joey Score increased to 425
8/16/17 9:42 am A new turn has begun. It is now 300 BC

Real update a bit later today.

I like to whip

Now you haz an army?  

Edit: More seriously, given your tech situation in the last report - you whipped the Colossus to completion?
Edit2: Last possibility I can think of is Forges everywhere.

[mackoti]

Any guesses to what just happened here?

8/16/17 11:19 am German Joey Logged out
8/16/17 11:18 am German Joey Finished turn
8/16/17 11:15 am German Joey Score decreased to 382
8/16/17 11:10 am German Joey Logged in
8/16/17 9:42 am German Joey Score increased to 425
8/16/17 9:42 am A new turn has begun. It is now 300 BC

Real update a bit later today.

whiped a wonder?

[mackoti]

middddddddddddds.

[GermanJoey]

T100 - T103.

i wish it were the mids.  but no, the big lighthouse was really expensive for me and I didn't feel OK about starting it so late. at any rate, gavagai got it 2 turns ago, oh well. my plan was to to use some hammers on this turn to put some overflow into it for failgold, but i guess its not to be. =/

mardoc, you got it on your 3rd guess! planned my whips, paused, then let 'em rip, and then unpaused. a little bit of maskirovka for fun... its such a huge weird obvious thing in tracker that im sure most people will eventually figure out what the hell was going on.

in total: (and remember, I grew these cities into unhappiness on purpose (or rather, it was the best way to make use of their huge food surpluses) specifically for these huge whips):

1 pop whip for a workboat
1 pop whip for a monument
1 pop whip for a granary
5 pop whip () from 10->5 for a forge in Masked Moon, which had 3 unhappy faces and was about to grow again.
4 pop whip from 11->7 in Seven Mysteries; 3 unhappy faces here as well.
3 pop whip from 12->9 in State of Yue for a forge and some overflow (which was to go into the mids, but now into a settler I guess)
3 pop whip from 7->4 in Yellow Maple; the Colossus will be complete there in 3 turns.

And on the next turn, t104, I'll whip Heavenly Star for 4 pop (8->4) for a forge there as well. I'll have another 3-4 forges in other cities within a few more turns as well, so my MFG will skyrocket as soon as these cities recover from these whips.

Here was my promised capital shot, taken a few turns ago:




A couple more screenshots from T101:







I'm at 14 cities here, and I don't think anyone else had more than 12? looks like dtay just settled his 13th on T104. pretty swell for me.

my economic situation is kinda bad right now, so I diverted a couple workboats I had planned to use at some newish city to make contact with Gavagai, Coeur, Krill, and Yuri for the KTB. I've made contact with Gav and Krill so far. i'm not too worried though.... the colossus will be worth a huge amount of commerce right away (assuming I get it, and I'm pretty sure I should, as I think most people went for Math and Currency as their first classicals, just from guessing @ the average GNP number skyrocketing), and I've got a Great Person coming on T107. I'll want to use him on a Golden Age to get me to Currency, IW, and Construction, but I'd like my pop in all my new cities to grow a bit more first to make the most of it. I'm guesstimating at about T115 or so.