[SPOILERS] Bobchillingworth Steals Your Heart

[Bobchillingworth]

City #5 (image is one turn out of date):





Thought about settling 1N, but eh... in exchange for locking down the horses, which I don't immediately need, I'd be quite possibly triggering a war dec from Lew, which I really am not ready to deal with right now, plus if I found Judaism and it pops in the city I'll have culture enough, and would prefer it not be in a city Lew can hit with 2-movers and be tempted to snatch.



Not thrilled that my hunting resource is furs while my opponents have ivory. Sure, furs commerce is nice, especially combined with Fin, but I'm going to be missing a rather important unit here, unless someone trades me a source.

[Miguelito]

The mod lets you builds elephants with iron
Still an additional tech required, but you're not missing out completely

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh! Well, in that case furs are a pretty sweet deal, complaint retracted.

[Bobchillingworth]

Can't post a screencap because Imgur is down, presumably due to too many people trying to upload celebratory memes, but founded Judaism in Mona, probably the best location possible. Will need to heavily fortify that city so Rusten can't snatch it, though that was always going to be the case.

[Fintourist]

How is it going? Any big plans going forward? 

[Bobchillingworth]

I'll let Immortan Joe sum up my performance:





Demographics are middling, at best:




Here's my empire:




Joker starts on a Settler next turn, and Skull does in two turns after it grows. At least one of those cities is going to need to be on an island for the trade routes. Ignore the lake being worked at Skull, that's just where the EoT pop growth was auto-assigned.

I don't have any plans other than running around, waving my hands about while on fire, because I need more of everything and have just been winging this game, because that's what I find fun.


I think my main issue, other than an obstinate refusal to simulate anything or make long-term plans is that I haven't been using my forests efficiently. Not that I've actually had all that many to exploit, but I'm almost certain I should have been chopping more aggressively.


Also, in case any other players have questioned it, I'm well aware that I need to actually adopt a religion to get the production benefit from Org Religion; I've held off doing so for the time being because I haven't had any buildings to produce in the one city with the faith (Queen just got a spread last turn). I'll convert shortly after that Missionary completes so that I can enjoy the bonus while building a library.


Lewwyn is doing really well, and will probably grab the Colossus, since I'm pretty sure he took Metal Casting with the Oracle, which is regretable given how much coast I have. I'll probably research Mathematics next.



Right now I just want to claim as much of my natural sphere of influence as possible, and then gradually build up enough strength to be unappetizing and potentially participate in a 2 vs 1 if Lew and Rusten go to war, though they're probably more likely to want to divide me (that's what I would do!).

[Bobchillingworth]

A brief update, courtesy of my discovering the "field of view" function:


Opened t86 to this bizarre request from SD (or possibly General Cav, I have no idea who's playing for their team):




Why would I declare on the Byzantines? SD / Cav have a Scout who has been hanging around my core for a while, so he has to know I have a very small fleet (as in, one Galley), and not nearly enough military to do anything. Actually, I need to build more troops for self-defense purposes, since I'm last in power (though #5 isn't much further ahead). Maybe he wants me to cancel borders because they have the GLH? Though he could have just asked me to end my deals with them, I think. Anyway, I don't mind having OB with them for now if it

A: makes them less inclined to bother me by sea, given that I have an extensive and vulnerable coast, and

B: boosts NobleGas enough to occupy their neighbors, so long as they aren't running away with the game in the process.


Also I guess Rusten and Serdoa are in a hot war? Rusten's power has been going up, and he teched HBR, but so far he has been keeping a light garrison on our border. If Lew jumped in against Rusten I might be tempted to start whipping an army; otherwise, I'm not interested, not when I have land to fill and am unsure if I could hold any gains against Rusten.



Here's my empire currently:



Settling a second city on the island in a few turns. I am displeased that Rusten settled an aggressive and obnoxious city on the stone island to the south, so that's a priority target if / when we go to war, though right now my coast is more vulnerable than that colony (on that note, I need to remember to move additional troops south).

[Bobchillingworth]

I finally completed circumnavigation, after remembering round 15 turns ago that it gives an insane +1 trade route bonus in CtH for every player who accomplishes it.  That boosted my economy by around 30 BPT, accompanied by much head-slapping. 

[pindicator]

That dog is my spirit animal

[Bobchillingworth]

A brief t100 update:



Here's my empire:




I'm about out of land, save a lousy filler or two I can cram in, though that seems to be roughly the case for everyone, at mostly comparable city counts.  Overall I guess my expansion has been "okay"; I think I was supposed to have grabbed one of those two silvers to the north, but they're both like four rings out from my capital and I'd have needed to settle in almost a straight line in that direction with just about every city, which sounds absurd and would have likely cost some decent land to Rusten.  The only spot I'm really frustrated about losing is that island Rusten settled to grab Stone for Pyramids.  I'd love to burn it, but am in no position right now to fight an offensive war with anyone.  I did pop a lucky silver from a mine at my capital, so there's that. 

Overall, this has so far been a fairly fun map to play on, though my empire is badly waterlogged and probably indefensible in the long term- all but one city is coastal, and though I'm fortunate in that I only border two plays by land, with fairly narrow strips of land to defend, neither potential front can reinforce the other without a delay of several turns.  I have a generous happy cap which will grow to truly absurd proportions once Construction completes and I eventually tech Calendar, but having so many coastal tiles means that it's going to take a long time for my cities to grow long enough to really make use of it.  At least I can whip whenever I want, I guess, though regrowing is painful since most of my cities don't have exactly generous food surpluses. 



My military, or lack thereof, is currently my primary liability:



I'm going to try to set up Mona, Panther, and Skull (once the library completes, whipping at size 7) as at least part-time military pumps, and I need to start producing Catapults soon, so that it's unprofitable for Rusten and especially Lewwyn to attack me.  The Twins is going to by my Moai (sp?) city. 

Oracle and Noir will be on Missionary duty for a little while.  Long-term, Oracle may transition to a siege pump.  All of my cities have decent economic potential, and only Joker and maybe Skull have enough food to whip often, which makes building military particularly painful... but all the libraries and markets in the world won't help much if I'm eliminated. 


My demographics range from "okay" to "disturbing":



My GNP has plenty of room for growth, but my Production is already accounting for much of my hammer capacity.

Food is bad and a function of not having many high-yield food resources and not enough expendable land tiles to lay down many farms. Might be able to move out of last place though as more lighthouses complete.

Soldier count is really bad. Have to improve.

Population is below average, but not terrible.

Approval rate says I'm not whipping enough, but Population # says I shouldn't overdo it unless it's a crisis.

Don't care about the health metric.

Exports figure is bad, but as I noted before, I'm happy to boost GasNob (with their GLH) to the extent that it occupies the other players but doesn't throw them the game. Would prefer not to have a second game which I throw to the Byzantines via negligence.



Short-term plans:

* Finish Construction
* Tech Metal Casting
* Tech IW
* Tech HBR
* Build two defense stacks, one for Lew and the other Rusten


Medium-term plans:

* Produce great people, starting with a Prophet for a shrine
* Settle on a long-term economic strategy (possibly a religious buildings economy? Need to check if the Apocalyptic Palace still gives hammers)
* Keep building up defensive stacks, and work on a strike force to capitalize on a potential dogpile. Also, build a real navy.


Long-term plans:

* Not sure at this time.