[PB70] Charriu tries to promote the arts again

[El Grillo]

The timing was very unfortunate, and I understand you feeling and responding the way you did. I hope this didn't cause you too much stress during your holiday.

[Charriu]

The song

https://merregnonrecords.bandcamp.com/tr...rono-cross

Music: Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus - Fantasy III: Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross

If it wasn't obvious already, I am a fan of Merregon Records. This is another piece out of the Symphonic Fantasies concert I attended in Cologne. Well not this recording, which is the only one available to buy. Chrono Trigger of course is one of the most beloved games out there and that also goes for its OST. If you look at sites like Overclocked Remix you will see that Chrono Trigger sports the most remixes of all single games. But one should not dismiss its sequel Chrono Cross, which may not reach the same highest as Trigger did, but the OST is definitly great too. It's fair to say that these two are Yasunori Mitsuda's masterwork.

This arrangement is once again a medley across both games. Now one thing you will notice quickly in the piece is the noticable presence of one percussion instrument: The Darbouka played by Rony Barrak. An excellence performance, which also shows how varied this instrument can be. We will most likely see him again in a later post.

Of course you will find all great tunes of the two games in here, but takes the cake for me is 'Prisoners of Fate' beginning somewhere around 8:50 after a dramatic intro on the violin. I don't know why but this song always gets me with its melancholy especially when the full orchestra joins in at 9:50 and the crescendo at 10:09. But it doesn't stop there, just wait a moment and witness a beautiful mix between 'Prisoners of Fate' and 'Chrono Trigger Main Theme'. Just awesome.

As for buying this piece you can do so at bandcamp. If you want to know more about the concert and/or buy tickets you can do so at https://www.gameconcerts.com/en/welcome/.

T68:

---

I settled my first island city: Mitsuda. The city is named after Yasunori Mitsuda: As may already know from the song section the game most players know him from is Chrono Trigger and its sequel Chrono Cross. But he also worked on other titles like Xenogears and contributed to Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Xenoblades Chronicles
Main reason for settling this city is to have access to stone for the future. You can see that I am already connecting it. Plan is to use the stone to invest some boosted hammers into The Pyramids, which will then converted into nice fail gold once Ginger/Scooter finishs The Pyramids. Note I do not know if they will go for Pyramids. But why should they not. Their trait combo screams Pyramids, so I might profit from it.
The other reason why I settled this city now is that this will be my Moai city and I would rather get Moai up sooner then later so that the city will contribute to the empire. Great thing about the city. It only needs the quarry and after that it doesn't need much worker attention for the future. It later will get a lumbermill on the forest, but that's for later.

But that was not the only event this turn...



Bing, Bing, Bing. Why did you settle this city in that way. Of course you wanted to deny me the last spice resource, but I was already expecting you to take that resource away from me too. It's clearly meant to annoy me, which is why he settled it closer to me without any food in first ring. Well yes the placement is somewhat annoying as I am a bit afraid of loosing the gems island there. I have to find out via diplomacy if he has Sailing and therefore can settle the gems. If not I can still settle 1N of gems or did he think he would deny me this spot by settling in that way?
Anyway if he doesn't have Sailing I should be safe to settle 1N of gems. My CRE trait will take care of the borders. Bing looks to chop the forest into a CHA powered monument to get access to the food, but even that will take at least 10 turns. I should be able to have the upper hand culture-wise in the future.
I have to admit though that I initially planned to settle my next city there, but now I will direct the settler west and settle 1NE of the pig in T74. That pig city will be good on defense on that side and will put pressure on the Bings city of Gao. Speaking of Gao. You see my galley coming along there. I will try to pillage the fish tile there for some gold and of course to slow down Gaos development. That's why I'm staying behind him from T69 onward so as not to interfere with the upcoming sequential switch.
So why am I thinking he may not have Sailing. Well thanks to Scooter I know that he doesn't have settled an island yet. He only put down 1 city to his north. All his other 4 cities went down south and at that distance they should cost him a pretty penny, especially because they don't contribute a lot of money or important resources yet. Both Gao and the new city did not bring him in new resources. I also have his graphs which confirm my suspicion somewhat.




Yes, my GNP is bonkers even if you remove the extra GNP from CRE-culture. Don't worry it gets more crazy when I finish Currency in T77. Should be one of the earliest Currency times here at RB. More importantly though look at Bings graph compared to Scooter and Superdeath. All of them have 6 cities, so they are pretty much comparable. Even Mjmd with 2 more cities and without his extra CRE-culture is doing way better in GNP.
So Bing is clearly overexpanding here. Now remember from the incident I had with him, that he does not have Writing yet, so he's pretty far away from Currency and any way to get his economy up quickly. Therefore my advantage towards him is to out-tech him. Let him pay for all these far away cities. With gems and pigs settled all of the other cities I plan to settle are pretty safe backline cities. If all my settlements go to plan I will have 12 cities, which is more then enough to compete here.

Now you may say but what about happiness. I remember Mjmd mentioning that this map is rather happiness poor in the long term and he is right. The only happiness resources around every player are 2 metals, 2 calendar luxuries and ivory. Of course you can trade for more calendar resources with the other players. But the map is actually very kind to me as it gives me some options. Here is the happiness I can get rather easy:

Base happiness from Emperor: 3
Dye: 1
Gold: 1
Ivory: 1
Gems: 1
Theatre: 1 (thanks to map giving me dye and since I'm CRE this is a very cheap building that not only gives me culture against Bing, but also happiness from dye. Well and I need 6 theatres build anyway for Globe Theatre, so an easy extra happiness)
Religion: 1 (I should get a religion at some point anyway)
Forge: 2 (Important building anyway and the extra happiness is appreciated)

With that I will have 11 happiness, which should be good enough for the mid-game. In the long term I will add these sources too:

Representation: 3
Nationhood Barracks: 2 (cheap building at that point)
Temple: 1

With that I am at 18 happiness a solid foundation for most cities. But there are some more options. A Market and a colosseum both give another happiness from ivory or just as a base for those special big cities that need it. Last but not least I may even do something that most people probably forgot exists: Running the culture slider. With theatres in place in every city every 10% of culture gives another happiness. I would have to do the calculations of how good this is later, but it is an option. And colosseums also do give culture that way.
Looking at this all spice is also one of the worst calendar resources as it does not give any extra happiness through any kind of building. So Bing be happy with your 1 extra happiness.

[Charriu]

I went through the thread and noticed I missed to report on a few diplo interactions. First Superdeath from the beginning of April

Charriu: Thanks for the OB. I totally missed to send let alone talk with you about it ?

Superdeath:

Charriu: Just curious. I will also research Sailing next. Do you already get trade routes towards me?

Superdeath: aye

And a few days later this.

Superdeath: Accidently went a little too much on EP, I apologize

Charriu: No problem. Congratulations on founding Hinduism

Superdeath: Thx, was worried I'd miss it after seeing Buddhism go

Charriu: Yeah, but it seems that Buddhism was only a side project there

Superdeath: Yep. Early metal casting as well, likely to go colossus

Charriu: I doubt it. I expect an early Pyramids with an Engineer

Superdeath: What's up with the early GS?

Charriu: Just having some fun. ?

Superdeath: Making bing look good on the city count

Charriu: Don't worry the next city goes up next turn

Superdeath: Good to hear

So Superdeath did take Egypt for the Religion/prophet/shrine play. I will have to talk back with him at some point discussing the marble island between us.

Next up Mjmd

From end of march

Mjmd: Fyi your warrior is on site of my 1 northern city

Charriu: Ah ok thanks. Will move it back home anyway.

Mjmd: I can send you updated map with my dot map in the north. I should have done yesterday since you shared yours

Charriu: You don't have to. I trust you.

When my scout was at his border

Charriu: Are you interested in open borders?

Mjmd: Yes in 4 turns. Or now I guess. Now is fine

Charriu: I already have foreign trade from other players, so my only advantage is moving my scout back through your territory ?

Mjmd: Ok with me

And when the incident happened

Charriu: Just checking the reload request has nothing to do with me? Where to would we reload?

[Later]

Charriu: Thanks for intervening. I now know that it involved me. Of course this had to happen on the first day of vacation.

Mjmd: lol
I thought "switch to sequential" before war was clear, but I see I missed explicitly stating it at some point
and I've NEVER seen anyone declare war on someone mid turn
at least on purpose

Charriu: Well I have to say that I'm very much annoyed with Bing this game. He only communicated the bare minimum and really does not seem to want to engage in diplomacy.

[After the incident]

Mjmd: [insert popcorn picture]

Charriu: Am I to understand that you would like to know what happened?diplomacy.

Mjmd: No I saw bings new city plant
It is spicy

Charriu: Yes, clearly meant to annoy me, but not food in first ring. So he has to chop a monument and wait for 10 turns. His skirmishers will keep the city safe. From what I know Bing settled all cities except for one in my direction. So much about my erratic neighbor. How is your "erratic" neighbor treating you?

Mjmd: More peaceful than yours. I havent seen any war chariots yet

Charriu: Ah so he actually took Egypt for the religion/shrine potential.

Mjmd: Well I'm sure if he were closer to someone that may have changed lol. Egypt is flexible which is an advantage of the civ

And last but not least Scooter. From end of march

Scooter: congrats on joining the 3 city club! same turn for both of us. hopefully me settling wasn't too annoying to your scout

Charriu: Oh not at all. I was actually surprised to see my scout in a different spot. ?
I just try to get back to the coast. My plan was to follow it until I'm back home. That way I have trade routes with everybody. ?

Scooter: yeah, I'm trying to make the world trek too. little bit behind you because there was some backtracking done, but hopefully I'll meet Mjmd before too long.
I picked up your demo graphs this turn and was amused by how our food graphs were nearly identical
obviously had the same ideas with our starts

Charriu: Probably. Let me guess the deer forest first then the other deer. In the meantime build a work boat for the lake?

Scooter: pretty much. Granted I missed the first 15ish turns, but that's basically how it seems to have been done

Charriu: I was suprised to see Bing actually settle a second city. I thought he sticks to the one city challenge. ?

Scooter: Same, but I also noticed he forgot to revolt to slavery. I’m guessing you’re happy like us to be next to a neighbor that’s a bit behind

Charriu: As expected. Another thing about Bing. You may know he does his turn reports as youtube videos. Well while doing those he tends to make mistakes. Hard task to multitask reporting and playing at once. So you can always hope for mistakes on his part.

Scooter: I saw one of those for another game. Mostly I just see short login times so I don’t think there’s much planning going on

Charriu: Yes, I'm happy with Bing as a neighbor. By the way he doesn't seem to be that talkative?

Scooter: Yeah I think we’ve exchanged maybe a half dozen messages tops despite having met him before I played a turn

Charriu: Oh by the way. I saw you are at war with Superdeath. Is he moving through your territory with a scout?

Scooter: Vice versa, my scout hit a culture dead end. I asked if the other side was open and instead he just told me how to get through. Don’t love killing trade routes but I wondered if the other side would close by the time I circled back

Charriu: Ah ok. I was wondering if he would have built a second scout, because I saw his scout just a few turns ago

Scooter: one funny thing - I forgot until last night that CtH does not nerf slavery

Charriu: Well I'm off for now. Dinners ready.

Scooter: enjoy!

Turns out Bing is a mute towards other players too. Who would have thought. A few days later we continued.

Charriu: Congratulations on founding buddhism

Scooter: Thanks! Eager to see what city popped it when I’m able to login. Was consulting your DLL thread the other day to get a refresher on how the rules work ?

Charriu: I already know which one. But I assume you don't want to be spoiled

Scooter: Oh I don’t mind, which one?

Charriu: The one with the gold

Scooter: Gotcha. Makes sense

After he built the Oracle.

Charriu: Congratulations on executing the Oracle-Metal Casting plan. I expect the Pyramids around T75 thanks to an engineer? ?

Ginger: The wonderful thing about engineers is they've got so many possible uses

Charriu: Well said ?

Scooter: Congrats on the scientist by the way. Very curious to see how the american UB works out for you

Charriu: Me too especially as I am playing Russia ?

Scooter: HAH that’s right. Mjmd is who I’m thinking of

Charriu: To be honest I'm constantly confusing his graph with mine. I'm still in the PB67 groove, where I was America. By the way. I noticed your scout is camping at my southern-eastern border. I was wondering what it does there.

Scooter: oh yeah I was going to mention that, that was mostly me being super clumsy. I was trying to get past your city without stepping on any of your good tiles

Charriu: But we have open borders ?

Scooter: I didn't want to step on your wheat and copper obviously
oh i'm an idiot
LOL
thanks for the morning laugh
as you can imagine the oracle stuff has taken up more of my attention. ?

Charriu: You can even use my roads and I won't charge you for it. ?

Scooter: anyway my scout actually moved southwest out of your borders already so when they show up trying to get past a different spot west, that's why

Charriu: No problem. But I can understand that oracle was more important. Do you know where Bing's 5th city went?

Scooter: it's like I said in our thread. the tedium of lining up a 1T wonder is annoying, but the outcome is satisfying
I actually was gonna ask you. I don't know
I'm moving a warrior near him now to try to figure out where he's planting all these cities
I'm 7 tiles from his capital and don't see any cities yet

Charriu: I know of 4 of his cities thanks to connected resources, but like I said I can't find the 5th

Scooter: but I expect one of them is fish/copper/floodplains

Charriu: Maybe but both resources are still unconnected

Scooter: is he settling towards you?

Charriu: 1 went to his gold, 1 to his SE copper and 1 S of the gold for a second spice

Scooter: actually we can share screenshots right? I can take one, I'm in game now. ah so definitely towards you

Charriu: Of course we can share

Scooter: Here's what I can see. not much currently

[shared a picture, but no city of Bing in the north to be seen yet]

in a few turns I'll be able to confirm/deny the fish/fp/copper/pigs general area

Charriu: Yes and check the fish and copper. They should still be unconnected. Just hover over the resources for that

Scooter: assuming tooltips are still accurate, unconnected

Charriu: And all those other resources are also still unconnected?

Scooter: wheat is farmed but not connected. pigs/fish/copper showing unimproved

Charriu: I have to get out a good screenshot from the past

Scooter: I can approx guess what you mean by looking at my own land
sort of surprised he went south of the gold already before getting this stuff
so our warriors passed each other, and then as you see he stopped and fortified on that tile
I initially took that to mean he's got a settler coming, but now I'm not so sure. may just be making sure I've only got a warrior

Charriu: I'm pretty sure 3 of his cities are here:



Scooter: ah ok. that southern city is fairly aggressive

Charriu: But all the other tiles are still unconnected and he settled his 5th long ago that he should have connected someting new

Scooter: maybe an island? would be surprised I guess

Charriu: Yeah I was annoyed by it too, but even with the same expansion rate as you guys I couldn't have prevented it. Mainly because I also expected him to secure a silk tile in your direction. I doubt an island he settled the 5th before I had Sailing and then only Superdeath had sailing

Scooter: he may not be super worried about happy tbh. ah ok, rules that out then. yeah weird. i'll have a more conclusive answer in a couple turns

Charriu: My guess is he went for the 3rd spice, which is totally unnecessary

Scooter: yeah that would be super annoying

Charriu: Anyway now you know you can take all 3 silks to teach Bing a lesson. ?

Scooter: He’s quite a mysterious player. I was shocked when I saw him get to 5 cities

Charriu: Must be costing him an arm and a leg I hope if he didn't settle the floodplains for cottages yet. Well have to go out with the dog now. Bye

Scooter: Have a good one.

[Later that same day]

Scooter: FYI Bing's 5th city didn't go towards you. He settled Fish/Floodplains. He just hasn't netted the fish yet nor popped borders

Charriu: Ah thanks. I was really wondering where it went

Before I start about the obvious stuff. Notice how Ginger found the time to put in one chat message there, when I tried to sniff out their wonder plans. I have to say I'm quite happy with Scooter playing as he seems to be more open then Ginger about sharing information. Diplo with him is fun similar to a certain other PB67 player. Who was that again.
But the important stuff is that we both learned more about what Ginger is up to.
Next up Scooter was understandably curious about the Bing incident. This conversation started as a private message to me. Scooter probably used the wrong chat by accident. So for transparency here is that part immediately followed by the actual diplo server part. There was something about Ginger in the tech thread, which started this conversation.

Scooter: sorry for the hassle. I honestly thought he was gonna be back full-time starting like... a couple days ago. and nope, not yet but I know he's reading still and paying attention to some degree because he'll occasionally slack me reactions to things I've written, and then silence again

Charriu: Hey don't be sorry. We are grateful that you are covering for him. Me asking about the switch to sequential was purely because I was back from vacation and SD is soon back from his

Scooter: Yeah totally understand. I think I'm just realizing I should head this off before I find myself committing to a bad timeslot and hurting us down the road if he never fully returns. and I put the odds of that happening (him not returning) higher and higher each day. Or returning and flaking again. The "good" news is I don't think much actual in-game time has passed since you left due to The Incident hah

Charriu: Yeah if you want to know more about that I can write it down for you tomorrow

Scooter: Yeah I was gonna chat you about the game during the time but figured you had enough on your hands trying to handle it all remotely and figured we could catch up diplo-wise once the dust settled

Charriu: Thanks

[here I moved the discussion back to the proper server]

Charriu: So what happened the last turns. You may have seen a little bit with your scout nearby. Basically this is what happened during my vacation:

- Bing moved a skirmisher near my worker
- My sub missed to move the worker to safety
- Mjmd called for a reload, because he saw unusual war declarations (I don't think he had a detailed view of the matter)
- I talked to Bing (yes he can actually talk) about the issue. He admitted that it was an opportunity grab of the worker and would give it back to me. Good sportsmanship on his part. We concocted a plan to avoid a reload.
- Bing then said he would actually want to continue warring me moving with the skirmisher against my city.
- I then tricked Bing into accepting the deal to return the worker and continue warring against me.
- What Bing didn't know (because he didn't count to 5 for a CRE players city) is that my city border popped and teleported his skirmisher one tile away. Delaying his skirmisher by 1 turn. This is the part I was apologizing for as I took advantage of Bings good sportsmanship.
- Bing cried for a reload to rectify the situtation. He wanted to continue with his skirmisher against my city.
- Lurkers decided to reload back to T64, so that my sub could rescue the worker.
- Bing moved his skirmisher to the previous position of my worker, so same situation as before just my worker was saved.
- Importantly though Bing forgot to declare war, so the next turn my borders popped again and his skirmisher once again was teleported.
- He then decided it's not worth declaring war and moved on with his skirmisher. Basically the same results as if we would not have done the reload except that I loose fewer worker turns.

TL:DR Bing is a totally erratic player. Throwing a coin like Two-face and acting on it.

In other news Bing settled another city in my direction settling the last spice city without 1st ring food. I wanted to ask you for a small favor. In case you don't have Sailing yet, can you tell me how much KTB aka how many people have Sailing yet? It's the number in the bottom right of the tech in the tech screen.
I wanted to know if Bing has Sailing already

Scooter: Ok catching up here. So, I just picked up Sailing so I can't check anymore, but as of a couple turns ago last I looked, he did not have it
I imagine his tech rate is incredibly low right now
He's started flashing Skirmishers at me too. He has quite a few at this point
Anyway, my scout can see he's got another Skirm headed your direction. He's got at least 2 down there, and I honestly think it's 3. Just FYI

Charriu: Thanks I have axes incoming so I should be safe especially as I will only have to defend two cities at his border. And it means any island cities do not need defense now. I will also start pillaging his fishing boats. His tech rate according to graphs is low. If he starts expanding in your direction he will be totally overexpanded. According to himself he doesn't have Writing either

Scooter: I expanded in his direction the last few turns, which is probably why he flashed a Skirm at me this turn. But at the very least that may cause him to ease the pressure on you a little bit

Good news and bad news. First overall it's great that Bing might not have Sailing. So the gems island might be safe for me to settle. Granted I still need to build a settler and galley for that. My plans have me founding the city T81.
The bad news is that Bing has possibly 3 skirms in the area. I know I wrote above that I would pillage his fishing boats. But having written this here I started second guessing myself. Should I really poke at Bing right now, when he is at the height of his UU power? He might attack with his skirms and honestly it might be better if I can just settle those last cities in piece; build up defenses and push culture onto him. If I can overwhelm his cities with culture they will be a drag on his economy. I'm not sure I have the manpower to kill his skirms. He might not take a city, but can start pillaging my tiles. Small wounds will only spur some bigger retaliation.

Scooter and I went to a different topic.

Charriu: By the way since you and me are both PHI and you IND too I just wanted to let you know that I won't compete with you for the Pyramids should you go in that direction.

Scooter: Thanks for the heads up. I do intend to complete it, and I don't think my ETA is beatable by a race from anyone anyway, so I wasn't really too worried about it. I guess there's not much point in being secretive about those intentions since anyone paying attention will know that's in the cards.

Charriu: Yeah I actually try to profit from that by investing some stone boosted hammers for fail gold.

Scooter: well, I'll do you a favor then. It should be complete EoT 76, so that should give you the time needed to know whether or not you can get some gold out of it. I'd prefer you not repeat the date to anyone even though I think it's pretty easy to guess that's the rough date

Charriu: ?
No word will go out

Scooter: My main concern in the game is Mjmd right now. He's threatening to run away at this point. So it's mostly him I'd prefer to keep in the dark as he could probably benefit the most from failgold drafting

Charriu: Mjmd has Superdeath as his other neighbor. So the only question for this game is which of his neighbors games he will ruin.

Scooter: Superdeath and I have a jungle belt between us that seems likely to diffuse or at least delay tensions, so I'm hopeful things work out well there

Charriu: Mjmd and I also have a jungle belt between us

Scooter: Yeah, i wonder if that will push the two of them together

Charriu: Thanks for the ETA. That's 20 extra gold for me. ?

Scooter: nice! Mjmd acknowledged already to me he can't really push the islands between he and I because we have trireme access long before him, so he's going to have to go somewhere

Charriu: Mjmd and I had good relations in our past games. Mjmd and Superdeath not so much

For the record I have no intention of doing something against Mjmd right now. I enjoy our peaceful relations and would like to continue that. Let Superdeath do the heavy lifting. It's also great to see that Scooter is opening up to me more. We continued.

Charriu: Speaking of islands. I plan to settle the northern tip of the marble island between us. I hope that is fine with you since you still have the marble between you and Mjmd. And of course you can still settle the southern tip

Scooter: Do you happen to have a screenshot of it? I haven't seen what that one looks like yet
I'm a little behind on naval scouting which I'm working to fix shortly

Charriu: Will send you one when I'm back at my PC

Scooter: Sounds good!

Charriu: What I gathered from naval exploration is that all islands are mirrored except for some sea food placement. I would guess the same is true for the marble island

Scooter: yeah that makes sense. That was how it seemed too from what little I have seen

Charriu: I remembered posting about the marble island a few turns ago



Scooter: ah nice, thanks. I had a WB headed to this exact island to scout and then he got diverted for a change of plans city plant

Charriu: As you can see settling NE of the marble makes a lot of sense for me

Scooter: yeah for sure

Scooter is awesome.

[Charriu]

The song



Music: Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra - Sim City (SNES) 'Town'

Last time we hear the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra from the 2010s, now it's the same orchestra from the 90s. This is one of those piece that if you play it to a random non-gamer person they would certainly think this is a classical piece from one of the big composers. The Sim City (SNES) soundtrack is seriously underrated as is this arrangement. Just listen to the original here: https://youtu.be/m1SxYoBtqdI. Amazing what they've done with this.

Yes, the arrangement stays close to the original unlike the piece 'Village' I posted back in PB67, but it's so well done. Using the flute for the main theme near the middle as well as all the harmonies provided by the strings. I love it.

As for buying this piece and the albums of the Orchestral Game Music Concerts. You are most certainly out of luck. These are very rare albums and hard to come by, so get them where ever you can. I myself attended some other concerts am still hoping to get some sort of recording of those some day.

T71:

---

So in the end I decided not to declare war and pillage the fishing boats. Better not poke the tiger. Speaking of which. Bing seems to try to tank is economy even further by building more military, most likely skirmishers. He's the only one pushing military right now and of course both his neighbors have to follow him in that regard. It will hurt all of us. As you can see I plan to settle the next border city towards him in a few turns.

You already know that I'm complain alot about Bing especially him not being interested in a diplo game. I have another example for that. As I said I did not declare war in PB69 when I move my galley directly at his border. Next turn in PB70 I opened the turn to an OB deal from Bing. I declined that, but did not declare war. Now why am I saying this is an example of his disinterest in diplo. Well tell me, what would be the most natural thing to do in a diplo game, when a neighbor moves a galley near you? My guess is - and I think you would agree with me - that I would send that player a message like "Hey saw your galley. Do you want to move through or is this serious action? If you want to pass through we can agree to an OB."
And what did Bing do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. No message in anyway. Just sent the OB without any word. Even now that I declined the offer dead silence from his side. Even before our incident I tried to start some sort of conversation by gratulating him to a new city. Nothing from him. I don't know why but it really bothers me if someone subscribes to this kind of game and then just handles it like every other game.

[Magic Science]

As I said I did not declare war in PB69 when I move my galley directly at his border.

PB69 SPOILERS! .
.

Anyway, I sympathize with your frustration with a player who doesn't want to participate in the main gimmick of the game, but I think that problem might solve itself, right?

[Charriu]

The song



Music: JApan Game Music Orchestra - Donkey Kong Country 2 Suite

A great medley for one of gamings greatest OST. I love the fact that they even arranged the Rare logo melody. Aside from that you can expect the great classics of this game like K.Rool Returns and Welcome to Crocodile Isle. But what really surprised me was their arrangment of Jig Jig. It's one the more underrated songs on this OST, but they managed to give this song some great foundation. It's just so fun to listen too and brings back good memories of jolly good times. I think Mjmd with his sea shanties would like this part.

Soon after we turn to one of the greatest songs of this OST: Mining Melody. I'm always amazed at how David Wise took some sounds of literal tools and used them as a foundation for this song. And JAGMO takes this idea and improves on it. Think about what you hear in the beginning of this song. I leave you time to guess which instruments you are hearing. For a solution you can see those instruments in action at 4:41. Speaking of seeing, this is one of those orchestra performance in which it is very worthwhile to watch the actual video. What the tech team does with the lighting in the background is amazing at gives the pieces so much atmosphere. It's like the lights are an additional instrument. If you want something visual during orchestra performance I recommend this setup as it does not distract from the music like a video of the game does. On the contrary it supports the music as can be seen by the change from Mining Melody to the next song Stickerbruch Symphony. Everybody probably knows that song best so just enjoy.

We end the medley with another somewhat underrated song: Haunted Chase. Oh my and what a trip this is. It's amazing how the orchestra elevates this song to new heights. Love every part of it.

Unfortunately I don't know where to buy this specific arrangement. This arrangment seems to be from the album: Symphonic · Gamers 2 ~The Reviving Heroes. I found JAGMO on Youtube and liked it. According to their VGMDB entry they are in financial trouble right now. Support them however you can.

T74:

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The next city was settled this turn: David Wise. The first western composer I am writing about here. You probably know David Wise most likely from his work with the Donkey Kong Country series, but he produces the music for some other notably Rare games like the Battletoad games, Diddy Kong Racing, Star Fox Adventure and recently Yooka-Laylee.

I think the reason for why I settled it should be very obvious. It will be a production focused border city towards Bing. Now unfortunately Bing managed to finish a Monument in time in Gao. Would have loved to take away the Cow for a few turns, but alas it should not be. Nevertheless my city should be able to put some culture pressure on Bing with the addition of a library and a theatre down the road. The city also provides access to my only pig resource, so not totally unimportant there.

As you can see a few more events happened. Scooter is getting ready to finish the Pyramids and Superdeath finished the good Lighthouse like he loves to do. I myself of course will finish my own wonder in T76: A very early Currency.

I also continued my diplomacy with Scooter which was very interesting and entertaining for me:

Scooter: fyi, Bing is also pushing skirmishers at me too. He's gotta be broke

Charriu: Definitely and he keeps building military and constructs cottages on non-river tiles. Do you have his graphs? If not I can provide you them.

Scooter: I do have his graphs yes. I think he has around 7 skirms

Charriu: Bonkers. You don't need that much military at this point. Add to that he doesn't communicate at all. He is playing this like a standard non-diplo game which will hurt him

Scooter: He was upset that I took one of "his" spots - no different than spot he took from you and i told him "well I'd recommend you build settlers instead of skirmishers"

Charriu: That's what happens if you only push towards one player on this map. Now I'm really curious what he considered his spot. Will you mention that in a report?

Scooter: You know the city he planted northeast of you? I settled that same spot

Charriu: But with food in first ring?

Scooter: yes, my version of the spot is much better resources. sheep/banana/corn. it's a bonkers spot. I marked it with a pink dot and pushed hard for it.

Charriu: Job well done.

Scooter: I think in the long run we should eventually consider dividing up Bing ... maybe once his skirmishers are less of an issue. He's going to fall far behind in tech

Charriu: Exactly my thinking. Let him build this territory up with workers and then we take it

Scooter: Yep. I don't know exactly when yet, but let's keep that plan in mind. I'm just going to try to do the minimum to prevent a skirmisher choke, but I'm not planning on being helpful to him beyond that. This is what he was mad about


hopefully that eased some of his attention on you hah

Charriu: Me too. Let maintenance do it's work against him. My culture against his border will hurt him too

Scooter: oh yeah. creative + libraries, have fun

Charriu: And theatre. Speaking of attention. There were two skirmishers in a birder city near me and now it's only one. Will keep an I on it. Great pink dot

Scooter: I have my scout poking around his border cities, I'll let you know if he moves Skirms towards you. but he's mostly just fortifying them in cities

Charriu: I really love that the pink dot has this mountain for extra vision

Scooter: Same. I have huge advance warning of shenanigans.

Charriu: Same for me thanks to border pops

Scooter: It’s an expensive city is the drawback. But everything’s a trade off

Charriu: Yes maintenance is a bit higher here as Bing might already noticed

Scooter: I think the thing i’m most puzzled about with Bing is that he built all these units but didn’t commit. Like, if I had already built all those skirms and claimed that land, I’d say “well I guess we’re enemies no matter what I say now” and go in

Charriu: Yeah, but better for us that way

Scooter: He could have choked you massively and instead he’s just parked them in cities. Yep

Charriu: He definitely could have done that. What annoys me the most with him is that he's not really interested in diplo. Last turn he sent me an OB without saying any word
I declined of course.

Scooter: haha that's great

Charriu: Only Mjmd has OB with him. Good for him he is PRO

The Anti-Bing alliance is coming along. Now I'm very well aware that in any split of Bing I am the junior-partner, because Scooter already has taken some of Bings land with the pink dot. But I think it's still worth it to split Bing. Better take some land then none and I would love to punish Bing for his behaviour in this game.

[Charriu]

Quick question for my lurkers. Scooter will finish the Pyramids this turn T75 with his engineer. When he rolls his turn it's already done. Can I still invest hammers into it then? And will those be converted to fail gold? I'm not used to sequential.

[Charriu]

The song

https://rebeccatripp.bandcamp.com/track/...lent-light

Music: RebeccaETripp - Chrono Trigger 'The Silent Light'



T75:

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Just a quick follow up from diplomacy with Scooter

Scooter: congrats on the second scientist. a very eventful turn-and-a-half

Charriu: Thanks. I almost wanted to gratulate you too, but figured I better wait a few turns until it is done. ?

Scooter: I admit I was hoping we’d squeeze in 2 turns today so that I could see it built tonight, but looks like it’s not gonna happen

Charriu: Mjmds fault he ended his turn later than usual. I had to get my turn in the morning, which then was to late for Superdeath

Scooter: Oh it's fine, we're at the point where it's hard to rush some of the turns, so it'll be a rarity going forward. so did you settle this scientist or is that a state secret?

Charriu: Normally I would have asked you to guess, but it seems you already know what I'm up to (from PB67?). Yes I will settle that one

Scooter: I sort of figured after the early academy that a second this early probably make more settling sense than bulbing. very interesting

Charriu: Yeah I try to break up the usual (boring) cottage meta. ?

Scooter: yeah definitely. Bing settled a city towards me fyi. I seem to have spooked him. His GNP was 13 this turn

Charriu: I somewhat expected that city going in your direction since there is no good spot near me. Yeah his GNP is atrocious compared to everyone else

Scooter: So when you said there's no good spot near you... You were correct. However...
Just spied this happening


hopefully that eased some of his attention on you hah

Charriu: Man this guy likes to burn money in maintenance for nothing. Why would one ever settle this city when there are better spots

Scooter: it's insane. on a map this lush you settle a foodless city that claims no new resources. In related news i'll be fleeing my scout back to your land before i get culture trapped

Charriu: But think about the property value with the view over the lake. ? Of course come in with your scout

I mean what is Bing thinking here. This city has absolutely no worth at this point in time and never would I have settled there, when I still have spots to settle elsewhere. Just stupid.

[Magic Science]

Quick question for my lurkers. Scooter will finish the Pyramids this turn T75 with his engineer. When he rolls his turn it's already done. Can I still invest hammers into it then? And will those be converted to fail gold? I'm not used to sequential.

After the Wonder is completed, you cannot invest more hammers into it.

If you try, you will not get any more failgold, and you will lose the hammers unless you have something else queued behind the Wonder.

This is second-hand information, but no-one else was answering.

[Charriu]

Oh yeah thank you for answering. By now I already tested this myself in a separate game and found your answer. Thanks a lot.