[SPOILERS] Getting my feet wet in multiplayer

[Charriu]

T70:



Quite a few bad news this turn. WilliamLP managed to settle a city in the isthmus. To be honest I almost expect to be late for that as soon as I saw the roadwork. The only good news is that he did settle on the plain hill or 1 tile W of his new city. That way I can settle my fallback city on the hill. I will do a quick analysis of what went wrong here in a seperate post. Academia will grow this turn and then start on the next settler, so I can settle the southern border city. In good news my Great Lighthouse will finish in 3 turns, with the last chop. In another bad news my axeman far in the west near wetbandit was killed by him. I moved near his settler, but I expect even without the settler there he would have gone for the kill.
I also got connected with JR4's trade network.



In lighter news I'm pretty sure I found the player with the overall best city naming scheme at least for me. I'm a Beatles fan and for me this is just an awesome scheme. I had to laugh so hard. Love it. I hope wetbandit will settle a lot more cities just so I can see more of this.

[Charriu]

So what went wrong with founding a good blocking city in the isthmus to WillemLP. I think these are the reasons:

• Because of WilliamLP's warrior I had to produce another worker within 3 turns to finish the Great Lighthouse. This could have been avoided if I placed a defending axeman near the worker sooner or if I had just taken than 1 extra turn. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one going for that wonder. But even if I did this right, I would have failed to settle on the plain hill. 3 turns would not have been enough.
  
• Building the Great Lighthouse (as fast as possible)
  
• Scouting the area to late. I should have moved my starting scout more towards WillemLP as soon as I found out that there is no player near me in the south-east.
  
• Bad micromanagement of the whip and small things.
  

[Charriu]

I worked on my dotmap for the east and south. I put in WilliamLP's city in brown with the borders that I expect will be established. I still hope that my northern blue city can capture the plains hill from him. The other light blue city can take another grasland tile which is not that interesting.

• Blue: This is my fallback city from previous post. Unfortunately it loses the marble and the sheep, but this city's main goal is defense towards WilliamLP. I will build this city up for production.
  
• Light blue: Another important border city. I will build this city as a mixed commerce and production city. Later if I may capture WilliamLP's city, this city will go full commerce and will be good at that.
  
• Yellow: This is a filler city just to use up that land. It will help light blue and my capital in growing cottages and after that will have use as a minor commerce city. Should I not be able to settle light blue than this will be my next best border city.
  

• Purple: This will be my border city towards JR4. This city has a lot of potential regarding food. By my calculations I can run up to 5 specialist without starving here. I also will use the 5 hills for production.
  
• Pink: Just like purple this city also has a lot of potential in food. But this time I will build this city up as a mixed commerce/specialist city.
  
• Red: My dream city. It has great potential in production and secures a lot of resources. The peak and the lake also block it from JR4. The biggest problem is that JR4 is expanding fast. He already has 6 cities including that barbarian one. If I can get this city it would be a miracle.
  

So here is my goal for the next turns: Expand as much as possible. This means pumping out a lot of settlers, military and workers. I will settle in this order:

1. Blue
   
2. Light blue (Fallback yellow)
   
3. Purple
   
4. Any filler cities
   

If I manage to do that I'm looking at 11 cities for me not counting the red one near JR4. I can live with that for now.

[Charriu]

T71:



I promised you a screenshot of wetbandit's territory. Well here it is. Back at home the Great Lighthouse will be finished in 2 turns. I started a road towards my fallback city. WilliamLP's warrior stands close by, but our peace treaty holds for another 6 turns so I'm not afraid of anything. After the Great Lighthouse Lyceum will starting pumping military. I'm a bit weak right now. Also I noticed that behind one of JR4's city it's says (liberate) behind it's name in the trading screen. I'm afraid that he is also closing in on me, which is really annoying. Have to send a scout towards him.

[Charriu]

T72:





Well that's what I call a classic Civ moment. I had only one turn to go for the Great Lighthouse. I looked who got it and it was JR4. Well congragulations JR4, well done. The only two good things out of this are that I got 154 gold in fail gold and I now know that it was actually not that bad to attempt it if somebody else with more experience did it. Well played.



In better news I founded my block city now known as Pushpagiri. I immediately started a barracks to pop the borders. I also set Lyceum up to build a settler. with the overflow from the wonder it will finish sooner than if Academia build it. Also in another good news WilliamLP and wetbandit went to war. We'll see if that is only a scout kill or something bigger. I also offered WilliamLP a deal (clam for rice), to signal my peaceful intentions.

[Charriu]

T73:



I whipped Lyceum by 2 pop to finish my settler sooner. I don't want to miss out on any other cities. My axeman in Academia will finish next turn also, so that the settler and the city will have a minimum defense. I also will use both workers to start on a road towards soutb border. In Pushpagiri my worker started on a pasture on the horse. This should speed up the barracks production there. I also whipped the barracks in Taixue. This one wasn't a perfect whip because I didn't have enough food in storage to grow back immediately, but I did it so that Taixue pops it's border sooner.
WilliamLP and wetbandit are at peace again, so it was only a scout kill or something.

[Charriu]

T74:



My settler started moving towards SouthBorder. Unfortunately my peace treaty will expire in a few turns and a warrior from WilliamLP is still around, so I can't move as quickly as I want. I started the next settler in Academia and an axeman in Lyceum. Dark Savant founded another city near my border as you can see above. I'll put some hammers into a library for now until the city grows again. I'm thinking about finishing the library. I don't expect Dark Savant to start a war any time soon. My reasoning is that he will go on vacation on the 8th and I don't think he's wants to do any turn splits during that time.

[Charriu]

T75:



Another barbarian moved in from the south. I moved the axeman from Museion in to take him out. You can also see my settler on his journey to the border. Most important I got graphs on WilliamLP and we are even in power which is a relief. Dark Savant on the other hand is way more powerful. I'm actually better in GNP then Dark Savant and even with WilliamLP. Food is a different story, both are way better here than I am. I will need to step up my game in that field.

[Charriu]

T76:



So not that much happened this turn. The biggest event was that my axeman in Lyceum finished and I started a spearman just in case. But I now have graphs for all my neighbors which is a good time to show you some of them. First GNP, you can clearly see when JR4 got the Great Lighthouse. I'm also curious what happened at WilliamLP at around 2520BC. It's also interesting that Dark Savant's graph is going down that much. I think I will find the answer for that in the power graph.



I think I prefered production to much in the beginning. Also notice how Dark Savant's graph is peaking and WilliamLP's is dropping.



My biggest mistake in this game so far. I'm dead last in food and that for a long time. This is also represented in the overall score. Everybody else is between 251 and 267 points and I'm dead last with 203. I really feel like I never played Civ before.



As I said before I'm even with WilliamLP, but JR4 and Dark Savant are way above me. Seeing as Dark Savant drops in GNP, has high production and peaks in power this can only mean one thing. He's building up to attack somebody. I know I said I don't expect him to attack me during his vacation, but you never know. I will establish a bigger military presence at his border, just to be on the safe side.

[Charriu]

T77:



Oh man, don't I ever get a brief respite.  As you can see JR4 is also right at my doorstep. Good thing I already started a settler in Academia and was able to whip it this turn. I hope I get my dream spot there or at least one of my alternatives. Biggest lesson learnt in this game: Expand faster.