My name is Ozymandias, King of China: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

[flugauto]

Amazing creep spread!

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I think I've gone mad.

Tankra's had 2 power increases, that resemble 2 dogs. I... don't have a single warrior guarding my land. Not that they're worth a damn defending against dogs, but I'd still want them spread out to form sentries.

The kicker is where copper lies. BW will come in at end of next turn. If it's far away, or I need to settle far for it, and Tank comes at me, I'm dead. Like, there's nothing I can do besides tech archery (and who wants to do that? You with me, Commodore?). Luckily, I've confirmed that Stick attacked Tank, which points those dogs at Stick. Whether it's real or a ruse to pick on the dude with the dead last power rating remains to be seen . Tank has basically lost this game, he's dead last, has a single size 2 city, the question is will he ruin Stick's game or mine?

I expect Sian's BW to come in fairly soon as well. We've got a similar tech path, except he needs fishing. My one warrior is going to scout out and fork his capital and his first city. Nothing overtly hostile, merely passive aggressive, telling him to "please build warriors (instead of infrastructure) to cover your workers ".

But otherwise, this farmer's gambit makes me feel scared and unconfortable. Granary at end of next turn, then 2 warriors (one to sentry the south, one to MP the capital), then I can start working on the stoneless mids.

Also, maintenance is *expensive* on Emperor.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Oh that's bad.

Copper all the way south, and awkwardly placed to boot. Because I wanted to settle 63 of the copper for a strong front city against the dude with phracts. I could settled 3 of the copper, it's still a hill plant, but it's much less aggressive and won't piss off Mr Cataphracts And Insecure About It as much. But it loses 4/1/2 sheep from first ring, and claims fewer floodplains.

The problem is it'll take 14-15 worker turns to road to that site, which will be bloodly expensive. Ugh, Commodore, 2/5 players picked Civs with resourceless S4 unique units, shouldn't you have made the strategic resources a bit easier to find?

Sian got lucky, he settled 6 of the copper. It seems like a blind settlement, as I don't think he had Bronze Working when he settled (I'll need to check the power graphs next turn, to see if he had a similar power spike to me ~3 turns ago when he popped out a settled). I wouldn't have settled that site straight off, while it claims more land, it has dry wheat + clams, which is weaker than plains hill center + dry wheat + plains cows.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

How about a long-overdue update?

I moved up to Sian's city to get vision on it. Only 7 hammers into it, I'd like to see what it becomes next turn. My comment about leaving him alone will be important, else he will rush to improve the desert copper (which is 6 worker turns, notwithstanding the 1 worker turn left on Chiton's dry wheat). I'm more vulnerable than he is, as Sian got lucky and settled for his copper. The power graph shows he Bronze Working the same turn as I did.

Not sure whether to sentry on the gold hill or the forest hill. The gold hill gives more vision, and is more provocative. I don't want to provoke the guy. There is a window between me getting Bronze and him getting Guilds that I could put pressure, but I definitely don't want something that would piss him off.

I've been doing a bit of simming, and it turns out that desert roads only take 2 worker turns to complete on Quick speed. Great! The plan is to grow to size 6 on T32, put a turn into a settler on T33, whip on T34, move onto CD4's wheat on T35, and onto the copper city on T36. Meanwhile, my 2 workers will be roading up to the next city. Depending on how much pressure I'm under, the earliest I can connect the copper is T38. If not, I'll improve the wheat first.

Another change of plan, CD4 isn't going to finish the granary on size 2, instead it's going to pump out a 4-turn worker. Maybe even another one. Extremely suboptimal, but what else can I do? I need worker turns and I'll need them now if I want to get the mids before T48.

(Note the picture was taken at EoT, when I got two pop growths, and a huge bump in my score. My sims have started diverging due to opponent tech decisions and met civ bonuses, and I can complete masonry in 2 turns instead of 3. I won't, I'll sandbag it for after I've whipped my capital so as not to stand out).

Sian's capital. I have a granary, he doesn't and he's expansive. But that's because I play risky and eco-style and push out military as late as possible. If I do have troops, I push them out to sentry my borders. It has 26 hammers inside it, a Granary then? I should check how many hammers it had last turn, and how many it accumulates next turn.

Sian also got a lucky forest growth, meaning if he's already working max hammers, and has no more tiles to improve, he can get 13 hammers in 4 turns. In fact, this is my big disadvantage in wonder races, he has five 13H forests and two 10H forests. I have three 13H and two 10H.

He can build the mids in 10 turns if he has enough workers to chop. All he'll need are 3 workers to deforest everything. Will he sacrifice that many worker turns to do it? He probably can, as I need to spend worker turns on getting my copper connected.

It will effectively take 12 turns for me to build the mids, but I'm less reliant on chopping, and am in fact planning on doing a pair of 3-pop whips to into it. But we'll see, the second whip is optional, and I may sacrifice that.

Confusing thing: SAT's deer is still unimproved, this late in the game. With two (2) hunting resources, and a unique unit that requires hunting. What.

Picture of Tank's power spike. While sandbagging, I don't know if I should run a turn of 0% science, or 100% science into Archery.

Tank could very well have 2-3 dogs out right now. It will take ~10 turns to walk from Tank's land to mine. I don't think he'd do anything like that. He's no Ioan. But you never know, hence I'm talking calculated risks here. If he turns up out of the blue with 3 dogs, gg. Hence, I'm thinking about Archery.

During turn

End of turn

Top of demos! I will, however, lose 3 hammers and gain a food when my second cottage finishes, and I switch to that. I want food to grow and power a whip cycle, while warriors now will be useful for garrison and sentry purposes, it won't help against dogs. And I'll be falling behind as I power towards the mids. Let's hope I can still catch up.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

:jive:

I live! Indeed, Tank is *not* crazy enough to be at war with party A and invade party B.

Good times. I won't be able to start the 'mids next turn, but I will the turn after. Hence, I'm going to run a turn of 0% science for a turn. What next? Writing so that Representation can be useful immediately? Or Myst-Poly-Mono?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

A little more simming, I can actually get the mids on T46 if I want. If I whip off an unhappy citizen, I can get it down on T47.

The refinement is that I don't bother building a mine on the grass hill 63 of my capital, and instead chop a forest.

Also, I'm not going to road the wheat tile at CD4, and instead road the tile 6 of it. That gives more flexibility. The wheat is done. Hooking up a second resource is pointless.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Interesting, Sian grew his capital to size 5, and whipped a monument in his 2nd city. Not a great move, he doesn't need the border pop.

Sian currently has 26 hammers in his capital's production box. Was this the same 26 hammers from earlier, a worker that was inhibiting his growth, while he spent the last couple of turns building a warrior to let him grow? If so, then bad call for him. Plus, this is a whip capital, and he's not even building his cheap EXP granaries yet! My capital's full-price granary is already out. I sacrified early military to do so, and indications are it will pay off.

Me, I've done a 6>3 whip in my capital, finished Masonry, and will overflow into the 'mids. Wish me luck!

[Commodore]

Good luck. Could we see the current micro setup?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'd like to give a picture, but I just quit out of Civ4.

Suffice to say, I'm going to grow 2 sizes, and I'll probably switch off the 4/1/0 deer onto the 0/3/0 plains hill forest. My next worker is going to build an extra mine. After I'm happy with the set up in my copper city, I'm going to bring back one of the workers to mine the plains forest hill. Then it will be two BFC chops, and two 3rd-ring chops to get the 'mids.

If I'm feeling safe, I'll do another 6>3 whip to get a T47 'mids date and my gold city online. If I'm feeling anxious, I'll delay the settler whip and get a T46 'mids date (actually, this may be a better idea, as otherwise I'll be building the gold city while lacking worker support). If I'm feeling scared, I'll need some axes. Luckily, I'll have the 3 main approaches sentried fairly shortly. One warrior on the southeast Sian front, one warrior on the southwest Tankra front, and a scout that will loiter around the northwest Tankra front for the next couple of turns, before I bring him south to map out the south.

Oh, and I've landed circumnavigation. It was probably a waste of time

[NobleHelium]

Never underestimate the power of...3-move work boats.