[SPOILERS] Dazedroyalty - Brennus of Mongolia

[dazedroyalty]

Wait, I thought you were Brennus. Why wait to revolt?

If anyone is tracking the odds of a winner, I think I just dropped a few.

Well, the goodnews is that I haven't wanted to whip anything yet. But, still.... major

[dazedroyalty]

Well, Kylerean's post in the banter thread makes me think I should update this more.

Thoughts: I'm gonna hold off on an HBR beeline. I don't see it being a huge pay off since this map is pretty smal land it means I miss out on any economic goals.

Instead, I'm planning to found Judaism and switch into OR for the hammer bonus. Then I'm considering the Mids. I think with OR I would have a really good chance to land them. I need to figure out how to best use whip overflow too which I'm bad at in general. With CHM monument happiness my capital will be able to be bigger than anyone else's, therefore work more hammers plus I'll have OR which others won't. I think I can do it.

I am not sure where to go for city #3. I like the fish area to my west but it's a reach to defend it while also building Mids. I also don't know where Iron is yet, which doesn't matter now (swords? not a huge deal) but will matter LOTS later so I can build knights which will be a big plan since Ger's will give me uber knights compared to others.

Tech plan thoughts. Monotheism is immediately next. I could do Math next to get the chop bonus for the Mids or Writing which would be very nice for the library. Long term, I thinking the guilds beeline is a good play.

I'll try to take pretty picture for you all.

The good news is that I'm #2 in power and so far, I'm the only guy that hasn't lost a unit. Since I'm also CHM that means i have some well promoted units.

I've killed:

1 scooter Dog soldier
1 Scooter CG3 archer
1 Krill warrior
3 Barbarian warrior
? Barbarian animals

[dazedroyalty]

So I micro'ed Satu (my cap) to be 2turns from completing a building. I'll then switch to a setter or unit of some type while I wait for Monotheism to complete so I can switch to OR, then whip for almost max overflow that will get OR and let that flow into the Mids. Then I can tech towards Math and let some chops in. I'm feeling pretty good about it.

[Commodore]

So, what did it cost him? And what is Jewish? And do you like being blue?

[dazedroyalty]

I don't actually know yet. In a chat he said it was expensive. Will find out next turn.

Oddly, Dua got Jewish as well. I just assumed since the capital didn't have a religion that it woudl get it but I guess the anti-capital bias is stronger than I thought. It delays me a little since I have to get a Hindu missionary to the capital asap. (2 more turns) I also remembered that Scooter choose IND so I'm getting nervous he'll beat me there.

EDIT: love being blue.

[dazedroyalty]

I'm an idiot though. I was supposed to whip the granary in the queue that was 1T from finsihing now that I got Hindu in Satu. BUt.... I forgot. I'm pretty sure decay starts next turn. Dumb!

I have 5 forests I can chop too if necessary. My plan was slightly put off by awkward barb arrivals. But I'm still feeling pretty good at the moment.

[dazedroyalty]

332/335 on the Mids at the end of this turn! Argh! There was no way to micro in 3 more hammers and it woulda cost 4 pop to whip. If someone else finishes it this turn, I'll be so annoyed (hard to believe anyone could beat me except Scooter who I have been choking and is now the target of a Roman assault!)

[NobleHelium]

So how are things going over here?

[dazedroyalty]

State of my empire:



I'm late on getting libraries up. I had to detour to get Monotheism for OR and then I decided to go for HBR before Writing (but I forgot I didn't have Archery). So I went HBR then built Gers in Satu and Dua while teching Writing. Then I microed both cities to complete their libraries in one turn. Dua is using whip overflow and borrowing one mine from the capital. I had to use some non-optimal grass forests but it got the job done. Satu used lots of overflow as well, though not from the whip and I have whipped it as well for maximum overflow for the next build (I'm right at the happy cap).

I really didn't want to run research this turn on Archery b/c it would have been much better to wait for those libraries to be on line. However, I didn't have anythign good to build after the libraries so I just sucked it up and teched archery in one turn so I can start keshiks next turn.

I also have a settler and hindu missionary ready for my third city site:



I'd like to build on the hill 1E of the chariot but I'm not sure I want the maintainence. Dua has only started to pay for itself THIS turn with the library and Rep powered scientists. I'm not sure it's worth it quite yet. Of course, with Rep scientists and lots of food, I can probably make it worth it pretty quick. Still... need to raze the barb city (yay gold!) and scooter's city's culture will dominate the area. Of course, he's not long for the world, but I don't want to invest much in killing him until Cyneheard's Praets are a non issue. On the other hand, I need to settle there before his culture takes it, but I think that will take 2 border pops.

I'm really dissapointed that Cyneheard was able to capture Scooter's capital where he had JUST settled a Great Prophet. I moved an axe up to get visibility:



Defintiely don't want that coming at me soon. Only time will tell if this was a good move for Cyneheard. Yeah he got stonehenge and the GP, but even with the GP gold, maintanance has got to be killer on that city. Plus, he's screwed culturally from krill.

Speaking of krill, I just lost it because he has started putting EPs on me but I had tech visibility. He's researching Fedualism at 198 turns!!! :D I'm sure that's at 0 gold but that's still pretty awful. So what do I know about Krill? he's got skirmishers on sentry duty everywhere, he's alread teched CoL and monarchy and is on the way the way to fedualism. He's PHI and has already used one Great Artist bomb. It seems pretty obvious he's going for some crazy turtle to culture win. Which means he needs to be targeted to lose some cities. On the other hand though, with his abysmal tech rate, I'm not sure I want to try to do that right away. I could just build/whip lots of keshiks and try to raze a city but... is that the right move? First of all, I think I can get Cats before he gets Longbows, so teching to a better advantage makes sense. Second, why lower his maintenance costs for him? Let him suffer with that for a while. Then raze a city later when it is actually helping him.

Scooter is basically out of the game. Here's all he has:



He doesn't have horses or bronze. Here's hoping that Iron is somewhere in that area for his sake. I might build another two chariots and then just go kill him. Chariots get way better odds on dogs than keshiks. Oddly, earlier I did attack him once and his WARRIOR had better odds against me than his dog. I was gonna get 90% odds on the dog but only got 70% or so on the warrior. I took it anyways because I'm CHM and want XP. After I won I retreated though.

Finally, after ending turn, here's a look inside the cities:



I need more happy. I may need to change city 3 site to somewhere with some type of happy resource. I'd get elephant at my current site but that's it (and whale eventually). I need to tech monarchy for the wines. I'd really like my three cities to make a triange of sorts for defense purposes. There's happiness north of Satu (East of Dua) but little food that I see. I may need to go that way. Plus, that direction doesn't compete with anyone else which may make it safer. Obviously, will pull off two tiles to work scientists and will probably take the mine back from Dua (78 of city)

Inside Dua:



Those grass forests aren't very pretty to work but it was necessary for the library to finish. I am not a great city micro expert but I guess I'll build some cottages until I have something better to build. I'd really like some watermills. I may want to make Machinery a tech goal (definitely would stop the praets!).

I really wish i had some more civics to take advantage of. OR is pretty useless until i settle city three since I have all the infrastructure builds for a while. I may just switch to paganism for a bit. Saves 1 GPT and Dua gets more culture going from being double Holy City.

So, in review, Cyneheard is dangerous for a little while longer while his Praets have their golden era. Tentative plan is to head towards Construction/Machinery. Scooter is a non factor (sorry buddy! ) and Krill seems to be turtling which is dangerous but doesn't pose an imminent threat. I should change my espionage to Cyneheard as I don't even have his graphs anymore.

Well, I hope this is interesting to someone and doesn't expose too much

[NobleHelium]

Switching out of OR doesn't give you the double religion culture bonus, that's tied to your religion and not your religious civic. You'd have to switch to No State Religion to get the extra culture.

And yeah, that was interesting.