[PB81] naufragar is a rock. He is an iiiiiiiiiisland.

[naufragar]

Got EP vision on TBS. It's just full enough to cause me to make bad assumptions:


Note the jungle tile that could be hiding 100 knights.

TBS has landed a scout on the New World, so very soon he'll start thinking about how he can contest me for it. I've got two cities on it already. We'll see if I can hold on to them.

Meanwhile, I'm teching to Astronomy, not for Galleons, which would require Paper and therefore obsolete my Great Lighthouse, but for transoceanic trade. It'd be worth something like +50gpt conservatively, I think.

I don't have a good pic, but as I've been sailing down Gira's coast, I can't help but notice it's all defenseless... Well, in due time...

[naufragar]

We continue to be vexed by The TBS Question.


TBS is one turn away from Nationalism, and then presumably only a tiny handful of turns away from the Taj. He can also tech Liberalism at will and neither Mjmd nor I are in any place to contest him, so forget Liberalizing Steel. He could feasibly Liberalize Railroad.

He's also built the Apostolic Palace and I imagine he's working on the University of Sankore to start getting a monk economy going.

I have to consider disrupting him, which isn't impossible. His ports aren't especially well defended, but that would require bending my civ toward it, while sacrificing my island development. And even if I did, if he gets paranoid, he has knight to build for defense, whereas I'm still at Maces off of Carracks, which is where I was 50 turns ago.

I'm still holding out hope that Astronomy is a deeply unappealing tech for TBS (look at all the 2f/3c coast he's working with Colossus). At some point I'll obsolete my Great Lighthouse, which has carried my economy since the early game, in order to build Galleons to wreak havoc on the other continent. If TBS looks vulnerable then, that would be the time to start sniping ports. (If I decide to grab Paper, obsoleting the Lighthouse, it's at that point that I would contest Liberalism. Until I'm willing to take a big GNP hit, I can't fight for Liberalism.)

Otherwise, the continental dynamic remains unchanged. Mjmd is building. TBS can't hit him across the isthmus until (I'm guessing) cannons. With the monk economy, TBS should be able to maintain dominance despite Mjmd's land edge. We'll see. I keep telling myself that one day we'll get an idea of how strong TBS's empire is outside of a golden age, but he does seem to just have golden age after golden age.

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks for your reporting.

[naufragar]

Thanks for your reporting.

My pleasure. It's probably 50% of the enjoyment of the game for me. I'm surprised that there hasn't been much reporting on this pitboss. Gira and Dreylin has been in a war for forever; presumably there must be something happening there. TBS was never a super thorough reporter, but he's got all sorts of stuff he could be commenting on (e.g. he's about to pick up Printing Press. There are a lot of tech path options that must be appealing to him right now). It's be interesting to hear Mjmd's thoughts on his position: geographically unassailable, but in an economic hole. I don't really know anything about Xist yet, but being the top dog on his continent surely has some fun story involved.

All that said, nothing too dramatic is happening. Have a pic of my island with its resource bubbles turned on:


TBS's tech pace is still just stupid. He's grabbing Printing Press in 1 turn. And he's not in a golden age!

Things I'm looking out for: cannons, airships, rifles to a lesser extent. Basically, how does he turn that tech lead into a military advantage? And remember, he's got to have a strong enough military to hit me while holding off Mjmd. (If he goes for a mainland assault. Once he gets galleons he can wrestle the island away from me while defending his own mainland.)

For my part, if I can just get half a breath of a pause, I can start eating Gira and we'll see what that does. In the meantime, desperately need Astro to prevent overseas settling from killing my economy.

[superdeath]

How we looking?

[naufragar]

How we looking?

I've made the greatest trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever.


(Researched Astronomy.)

[superdeath]

Looking pretty good. Usually im on the other end of that......

[naufragar]

Looking pretty good. Usually im on the other end of that......

It got a little worse as Xist closed borders. Hey man, my free money wasn't hurting you!

He also declared war on Dreylin just as Dreylin made progress on the Gira front, so that looks like it could be a nasty stab. I don't have any land units to explore with.

TBS for his part revolted to Emancipation and Nationalism. Somehow I missed that Emancipation gives +2 hammers to each specialist. What?!?! That's broken as heck.


And TBS will be leaning into that with the Statue of Liberty. (Btw, in Pergamon, he's built a galley and trireme up to ~40 odd hammers. Very suspicious.) Believe me, I'd love to sneak a naval force down to TBS' south, but there's no way to swing that that I can see.

[naufragar]

I worry that people think I'm a warmonger. The truth is my favorite part of Civ4 is the building:


It's been a challenge building up the island. I've been using Carrack chaining to get settlers over as fast as I can. My last imported settler is on the Carrack 1N of the crab. He'll get to the city site 1S of the wheat on t153, which is when the workboat from Macau is able to improve the clams. Micro is fun. (Yes, yes, I know that Macau is not in the Caribbean. I was rewatching Shogun when I picked Portugal, hence the Macau=Portugese base idea.)

I only brought over two workers, so I'll need to build the rest of my needed worker labor from the cities already on the island. Macau has 3 improved tiles (I'm giving the deer to Antigua), so it can just whip excess pop away. Tortuga builds its own worker for some lumbermills.

These cities have so much potential. If I can hold on to Macau, it'll be at ~22hammers per turn with a forge. This is perfectly respectable and would be an amazing military base. Who knows if TBS is comfortable with a strong city so close to his coast.

[superdeath]

i think so long as Gavagai and myself are around, no one else can be called "a warmonger"