[SPOILERS] [PB46] TBW

[TBW]

My iron is now hooked up with no issues and I'm going to settle my 8th city next turn. I still feel like I've had an extremely weak game so far, but 8 cities by T100 without IMP feels decent.

[TBW]

Elkad built walls in Footfall this turn (T99), and offered another fish for fish trade, which I accepted. He clearly understands the danger of having a flatland city next to AGG Rome post-Iron Working.

[Juri]

lol @ offering the fish trade while settling someone else's island

[TBW]

To be fair, I don't know what his home island looks like. I mean it must be fairly decent for him to already have Aesthetics and have time to build Statue of Zeus while still keeping pace on the power graph but maybe he only had room for a few cities. That seems unlikely based on the amount of space I have and what I've seen of Krill, who has settled at least 7 cities that I can spot by borders and blocked off enough space with them to settle, like, 8-10 more cities in that territory, but it's possible.

[TBW]

TURN 100 STATE OF THE STATE

OVERALL + DEMOGRAPHICS



Here's my empire on turn 100. I'm definitely not doing well so far. I'm definitely curious about the poor bastard or bastards behind me on GNP, hammers, and the guys with even fewer soldiers. No religion and sparse luxuries means I need to get Monarchy immediately after Metal Casting, even though I don't want to put off Code of Laws I have to start working more tiles. I'm still dangerous thanks to praetorians but I have to actually get them built before I have neighbors with longbows.

GRAPHS

I've been astonishingly competitive on GNP somehow, having to work coast tiles to make any headway on crop yield is what's keeping me in the game here.


Not doing extremely well here, but with my low crop yield and lack of luxuries it's been hard to work the mines I need to catch up here. Elkad being that far ahead of me is definitely a problem.


Here's the story of the whole game so far. As you can see from my map there's just not a whole lot I can do about this besides keep expanding and grabbing the few food resources that are available here. I can also start clearing jungle out and farming, which will help a little.


Right on pace with my neighbors, nobody's got any kind of advantage here. Elkad will be watching this like a hawk for the spikes that indicate praetorians, I'm sure.


Stands to reason that the guy who gets 15 hammer monuments + has Statue of Zeus and a modifier for libraries would be outpacing me on culture, same with the guy that has a double modifier for libraries.


Nobody near here has courthouses up yet, so I'm doing just fine here.

CITIES

I'm microing right now to get a spear and an archer out on the same turn. Having exactly one potentially cottagable tile in my capital really bothers me a lot, but there's nothing I can do about it.


This city is my powerhouse, with up to 4 lake tiles it's able to grow efficiently and you can tell that by the amount of improvements I've got in it. The jungle tiles are candidates for cottages once I get them chopped.


My third city, the gold tile is what kept my research competitive in the early going. Once I finish the library there and pop the borders out it'll have 3 lake tiles for food and mines.


The most important city I have, due to it being my sole practical source of iron. This one will be a big league worker pump once the lighthouse and library are finished. The corn tile is where I managed to get my first two workers devoured by a panther.


The border is about to pop, which means it gets enough seafood to start really growing, and this will be my Moai city. Should be a powerhouse of a city once it finally gets online.


My first island colony, this one is just here to work coast tiles and fuel research. I intend to settle my second ICTR city on the City 9 spot asap.


Very recently settled city, it's here to compete for the incense and keep Elkad penned in his part of my territory.

FUTURE OUTLOOK
Overall I think things should start picking up over the next 15-20 turns for me. Metal Casting will get me building faster, Monarchy will get me working more tiles, and more of my cities will be coming online soon. The problem is that I'm playing against very talented neighbors who will also be coming online. Will my praetorians be enough to tip the scales my way...?

[TBW]

Elkad is packing even more archers into this city. No surprise there. It's unfortunate for me that he's pumping out CG3 archers from his Statue of Zeus city, because that drops C1+1 promo archers down to roughly 50% odds on attack. On the other hand, as long as it's just archers in the city, I don't really have to worry about any kind of attack. However, I must point out that Elkad has given me an opportunity to snipe two workers that I think I'll be taking. If I use the two workers sitting on the forest 1S of Mediolanum, road the cow, I can use the axe in Mediolanum and then kill the archer at 90ish% odds. I'll be moving my scout to the hill 1N of where it's currently standing to make sure there's no chariot lurking before I commit to this.



This is another interesting opportunity, but I don't think I'm going to go for it. I figure I've already got one direct neighbor who I'm going to eventually be fighting in some capacity, I don't need to antagonize my other neighbor for an attack that would almost definitely be repelled by a spear or archer in the fog, especially since Krill's had more than one turn advance warning on me sending the chariot out there.

[TBW]

Definitely smart of me to not try to poke at Krill with this chariot.


Even smarter of me not to have tried for the workers one turn ago, which I seriously considered before I went for the forest chop instead. Somehow I figured nobody here would play badly enough to put two workers in sniping distance like that without a backup plan ready. I know I would never do something like that.

[TBW]

I'm not dedicated enough to do all of the math it would take to solve exactly which of Elkad's power increases are population/tech/units, but based on comparing power graphs and looking at what he's got visible in/around Footfall compared to my unit count, he's got something like 4-6 units covering the entire rest of his territory. I think my best strategy here would be to cut off his sea access with triremes and just leave the archers and single chariot marooned, since there's not a lot he can do to me offensively with CG3 archers and a single chariot.

[TBW]

Met three people in-game that I hadn't met already this turn. I discovered that Hitru is north of me with my galley, I'd been thinking about settling on that island but I might rethink it now. I could theoretically drop a couple CR praetorians up there, but having just met the guy and seeing that he's way ahead of me on score and GNP (he's making twice as much gold per turn right now), it's too early to be thinking about serious conquests. He also has an open borders agreement with pindicator, who has a spear in that city. Maybe they have some sort of mutual defense agreement? I also discovered that GeneralKilCavalry is at war with pindicator. As long as other people are fighting each other, they're not fighting me, which means I can keep trying to crawl up the ladder.


Rusten also sailed up to me with a work boat last turn. Good to know there's a coast route that leads out that direction and doesn't go through Krill's territory; I should think about securing more territory in that direction while I still can.

[TBW]

Rusten sent me an open borders agreement, which I accepted. As far as I can tell this isn't going to cause any diplomatic issues, though I guess there's a possibility he could send in his scout work boat and map out my territory. Other than that, I've got two more settlers coming out over the next two turns and I'll be grabbing territory where I can actually justify building cottages. True story: I've only started building my first cottage two turns ago, and I'll be clearing out jungle to make room for more over the next few turns. It looks like I'll finally be getting decent cities online just in time to get rolled up with knights.