Gavagai's spoiler thread

[Lewwyn]

After reevaluating I decided that monk economy doesn't worth it. I think that I have a pretty good shot at conquering Gaspar eventually; my other neighbor is Bantams who currently has, like, four cities and this is while playing as Sury. He is already forever behind. I should just focus on grabbing as much land and as quickly as possible.

So... HAs and cats and conquer?

[Gavagai]

I will decide in a few turns. One option is to take few exposed Gaspar cities with HAs and later finish him and Bantams with knights. Another option is to skip this phase and just wait for knights. The reason for waiting is that there is actually a lot of prime land I can take peacefully, I probably won't run out of it before Guilds.
(Also, I'm not sure that I want to cripple Gaspar before he builds his shrine. It is possible that if I strip him of all hope to keep his Holy city, he will do something stupid with his prophet.)

[Gavagai]

Micro for this city (important not to screw up, so better have it written down):

T85 - put nine hammer overflow into a workboat while working second cottage.
T87 - workboat has 19 hammers in it, next citizen arrives. Put him on a mine.
T89 - workboat finishes with five hammers overflow. It will net eastern clams on T94, need to have a settler there by this turn.
T89-T93 - a worker is being built. It will receive 15 hammers per turn. On some of these turns a third cottage should be finished. I will need to switch a citizen to it from the mine, burning an overflow to still finish it in time.
T93 - grow a city on a mine (whip unhappiness will wear off a turn before) and through whatever overflow left into an altar.
T94-98 - put 60 hammer into a settler, whip, overflow into an altar.
It will give me city #10 on T100.

[Gavagai]

Gaspar offered me a tactical puzzle this turn. For some reason my googledrive doesn't want to upload files, so I will have to use an older screenshot.



Gaspar moved an axe (combat 1), a chariot, a skirmisher and a spear to a tile 1N from his city, threatening to attack my units on a forested hill next turn. I had an archer and a sentry chariot there and also was able to reinforce the tile with an axe. Also, I had two workers cottaging riverside plains 2W from Beryllium. They could have been sniped by a chariot next turn.
I had to move away the workers. I have a spear on the theater but it was to far away to cover them. This, actually, sucks because the cottage should have been finished this turn and Beryllium has a pop to work it. Now I will have to work an unimproved riverside plains tile for a turn (next turn it will be whipped away).
Regarding the hill battle - I ran sims and they gave varied results. A lot of will depend on a number of hits which an axe and a skirmisher can land in the first two battles. Also, he can have an extra chariot in the fog and some hidden promotions on units in his stack. But even taking this into account, I should be able to hold the hill and be ahead in the hammer exchange, though I may lose some units. So I decided to move an axe to a hill and challenge Gaspar to attack.
(At some point I will have to surrender this hill but the later it happens, the better).

[Gavagai]

Well, Gaspar chickened out and returned most of his stack to the city. Still keeping the hill...

[Gavagai]

Seven settled two cities this turn and rival best food jumped from 104 to 113. I think these events are connected. Also, Seven's score started to visibly surge.
To contrast Seven's position with mine, Gaspar now has Barracks in his capital and, I suspect, works max hammers there (his mfg is one of the highest in the world but GNP is almost non-existent). It is a very bad sign. I think, I will slot in HBR after Mathematics as I just won't feel myself safe without HAs.

[Gavagai]

I have technical problems die to which I can't upload screenshots, sorry lurkers. Two important events:

1) I'm exploring a large island to the north and it is very very rich in food and forests. It has a freshwater lighthousable fish - just to give you an example.
2) My galley explored one of Bantams' cities and I just couldn't believe my eyes. The city has been there for forever and at size four it is working two unimproved riverside grassland, unimproved fish and a rice farm. It has no infrastructure, not even a granary. And yes, Bantams play as Sury.

I'm now choosing between two options of future development, variant Alpha and variant Omega. Variant Alpha is a HA attack against Gaspar circa T110. By this point I'll be able to have a little more than 20 HAs, most of them stable promoted. Variant Omega is knights attack circa T140. I'm now more inclined to variant Omega as it allows me to settle the northern island in a reasonable timeframe. But both variants would require me to slow down expansion - in favor of military in one case, in favor of tech in another.

[Gavagai]

Also, Seven started to visibly run away from the pack.

[Gavagai]

...and I've been able to download some pictures at last:

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Impressive cottaging!

Certainly looks a lot better than this: