Seems alright. Could be worse. With another Spear and another Axe coming into the city next turn, this stack should not be enough. Of course, I'd be surprised if there isn't more coming
Decided to burn my gold reserve on Iron Working. This force is not enough to take the city, but it's certainly big enough to pillage the copper. I should have a safer iron somewhere, right?
Wrong! This is the only source I know. Right on the border with Azza, which is not safe either
Instead, he's coming for Zendikar. Which makes a lot of sense, considering it was going to reclaim the gold in a few turns, making the attack much more difficult
Seeing my garrison and Oxy's stack, I almost said goodbye to the city. And then thought - wait a moment, I have a large garrison in Ravnica, which is not threatened anymore.. and even more units coming over from other cities.. maybe I can counter-attack and threaten Market Garden again?
First, I moved our a Warrior from Ravnica to check to Market Garden garrison
Well, that's not scary at all. So... here goes
There's also a Chariot and a GG Axe who will be able to join an attack on Market Garden in 2 turns
If Oxy turns around to kill this stack, I perfectly fine with that. If he keeps moving onto Zendikar and razes the city, I can accept it as well, it's not that valuable, and I will be able to refound it. If I also manage to take out his city, it will be perfectly acceptable. Although I hope Oxy decides that keeping it is more important. Which would be perfectly reasonable, Azza is catching up with him in score, don't think he wants to go and start losing cities right now
There is no guarantee this move saves the city. But I think it was the best play I had
Other than that.. whipped Walls in Zendikar, whipped a Cat in Ravnica, it will be able to build 2 more Axes in 2 turns with overflow + chop. Stacking whip unhappiness - don't have much choice, have to do it
No new screenshots, the news is that my move did force Oxy to retreat. I wanted a break - I got it. Building up more forces, trying to get to CoL. Confu was founded, but I can live without it. I just really really need Courthouses, and should've made CoL a much higher priority
Azza took over the score lead. I'm still first in crop yield. If my GNP wasn't so miserable, I would've been in an ok spot. I still think it's ok. Longterm. If I don't lose any cities
Well, I don't know how, but it looks like I weathered the storm. Zendikar reclaimed the gold tile, no new attacks reported, and with the help of a few Wealth builds, I might be able to finish CoL in 3 turns. Looks like a good time for an empire overview
The north
The east
The south
I'm probably out of room for expansion. Azza is claiming the land to NW, I might be able to send a few units there, but don't want to get too many off the border with Oxy. Need to think what's essential and what's not. There is a stretch of land in the southwest, to the west of Mirrodin, but expanding there creates another front with Oxy, I'm not ready for that yet. I do have a lot of room for vertical growth, just need more happiness... need Calendar, need Metal Casting... I think my civ is the most backwards ever, we don't even know Sailing in 650AD! So... was too focussed on defence and didn't make plans so far, but it looks like my most realistic way of expansion is by annexing Retep. And that's not happening just yet
Graphs
The GNP graph very clearly shows the hole I was in... very happy it looks like I'm out of it
I was leading in MFG for a while, but switched to cottages now, so it plummeted. Not worried too much about it
Interesting that I'm still competitive in crop yield. Demos show me in the lead by a few points. Very happy about it, although not sure how I've been able to maintain this position
Power shows that I was way too complacent after winning the first big battle with Oxy. I'm lucky I was able to keep all my cities and get my army back to respectable size
Oxy's score went down by 20ish points since last turn. Makes me worried
No other new developments. Just building stuff. Turned on research, CoL at the end of next turn
I'm sorry for not updating for a while again. The good news is, it's because nothing was happening. Attacks from Oxy finally stopped, and I was allowed to develop in peace. Which is all I was dreaming of. I finished researching CoL, then got Calendar, then returned to the main plan of going to Gunpowder via Guilds and Nationalism. A few turns ago, I claimed my first first-to bonus of the game by bulbing Philosophy and founding Taoism. Things are looking up
The main in-game event over the recent turns was wetbandit eliminating retep. While I didn't gain much out of it, I managed to sneak a city in the north to claim the pigs pasture which was built by retep for the city I razed ages ago; it's been sitting in my borders and tempting me for a while, and finally I got a chance
Here's how the empire looks now
North
West
South
As you can see, I've been busy growing my cities and building improvements. All my land is finally covered in cottages, which helped me to stay relevant at this stage of the game, and even get to the 2nd place in score (screenshots show me 3rd after I quad-whipped a Forge in Kamigawa, but I jumped back to 2nd after ending turn)
Demos look solid, especially for a civ which has been hanging out between 3rd and 4th place for most of the game (GNP at 0%)
Techwise, I just finished Machinery, and now started on HBR - I'm going through Guilds anyway, so no reason not to give myself an option to build Knights. After that, it's going to be Guilds - Gunpowder - Nationalism
Since I teched Alphabet to open the Philosophy bulb, I can compare my state of research to the others. Didn't have time to figure out how exactly the comparison looks, but my tech is competitive
One gamble I'm taking is that I'm skipping Civil Service. I'm going to switch to Nationhood as soon as it's available, Civil Service is off my primary tech path, and I don't think the time I will spend in Bureaucracy will justify the detour and the turn of anarchy. This also means that I'm not taking part in the Liberalism race. But I feel staying focused and getting my Aggressive Musketeers as quickly as possible is the best way to improve my position
So, the immediate plan: build a Monastery in Shandalar and spread the religion. The plan for the next 10-15 turns: get the remaining techs to enable Musketeer draft, go through a round or two of drafting, go kill someone. Not sure about the direction of attack yet, will depend on the power rating and the situation in general. Didn't really think about it yet. Northern border seems like the best option, other directions are full of chokepoints, which severely limit Musketeers' strength. Long-term plan: decide what to do after the Musketeer attack
![[Image: Image.ashx?multiverseid=373623&type=card]](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=373623&type=card)
