[spoilers] Vi Viqsi Veniversum Vivus Vici (or possibly just embarrasses herself)

[Commodore]

Note: Gold is poppable.

[Viqsi]

Note: Gold is poppable.

Do such pops still happen if Random Events are turned off? I would have thought not.
then again, they did exist in vanilla CIV, before "Random Events" were a thing...

In any case, I am still bitter.
But I'll let you off the hook. For now.

[Viqsi]

...onnnnne turn away...
Can the backlog be cleared tonight?



T65: Our Herbal Roman scout is now well into the interior of the Pho'Ni Empire:

Speaking of which, I wonder if the Herbal Roman Empire has finally gotten its third city with that Settler I saw. So let's go take a lo-OMFG WTF HAX

THAT WAS NOT THERE LAST TURN
...I'm going to go ahead and guess that when he whipped Dill, that was also to get a Settler.
Sadly, this doesn't seem to instantly end the trade deficit; only Elderflower is hooked up as a trading partner at present (with Mechanical). But, hey, it's an improvement there.

Equally sadly, my Exploring Warrior has yet to see any signs of these two new cities:

(The borders are unchanged, so far as I can tell.)

Meanwhile, out to sea... yeeep, definitely out of coast.

Well, I'll follow along this island and see if any miracles occur.

And it looks like my explorations of Numenorian territory are going to be similarly cut off:

Phooey.


NOW IS THE TIME ON SPOILERTHREAD WHEN WE DANCE DEMOGRAPHIC:

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions and discoveries:

• In addition to adding Elderflower and Fennel, the Herbal Roman Empire saw Cayenne reach size 5 again.
  
• Chip 'n' Charge has reached size 3.

I'm beginning to wonder who's the "junior" partner in the Hydra-Azza trade routes, too. That one continues to be unbalanced, and is getting even moreso.

[Viqsi]

Backlog clear!
And now, time to build up a new one...
well, hopefully not



T66: And now, we can shoot things:

From here, we shall learn the fine art of drive-by shootings, from back in the days when it was a TRUE ART.

As unfortunately expected, our Numenorian explorations stop here:

Well, unless I can get an Open Borders agreement. Haven't proposed one yet, but it's something I'm considering.
I should be able to have an easy trade route path very quickly...

...indeed, I took that screenshot at first intending to ask why I didn't have such a route yet, considering when I got one with Sareln.
(My current theory is that Sareln, from scout movement, had defogged the tile that Mechanical was later founded on - which gives him a direct path, even though he doesn't see the city.)

Explorations in Spiced Rome, however, continue apace:

The hill 1N is next, and that should reveal Dill.

Speaking of Numenor and Spiced Rome... both of their scouts are visible from Mechanical.

And yes, I do keep those tutorials on. It can be a nice way to keep you from accidentally overlooking something blatantly obvious.
The worker getting that suggestion - along with his partner - was instead sent over to pasturize Selenitic's pigs now that its borders have expanded.

Island exploration continues, revealing little in the way of paths eastward...

...but those Wines will really come in handy someday, seeing as though I'm now tight against the happy cap with nothing to build:

So I'm killing time building Axes and Settlers.
I'm beginning to wonder if, after HBR, I should divert to CoL and get me some (hopeful) religion and courthouses, and then go after my Cothons. I still haven't gotten a Buddhism spread, and that annoys me.

In the meantime, tho... I has a galley in Riven!

Well, just outside of Riven, now, in any case. (And note that Riven's also working on a settler now, for similar reasons - at the cap 'cause I whipped it earlier.)
The plan is to do a cursory explanation of that southern island so I can see if there's a good city spot for that Settler so I can get that Ivory into play.
There's a MUCH better overseas city spot on the island directly east, but it doesn't add any resources I don't already have.
(And I really don't want to try to place a city such that its resources are on separate islands!)
So I'm keeping that in reserve if there's no good place on the southern island.
But one way or another, I intend to have an overseas city soon.

Finally, I note that Azza's city populations have changed, again:

And on that note... demographics time!

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions and discoveries:

• Huzzah, trade relations are finally normalized!
  
• My Power rating is kind of going upwards at what might seem like a frightening rate. Hopefully that doesn't provoke anybody... well, any more than another 15000 points of soldier power among rivals, anyways.
  
• Fintourist had two cities grow today: Ace is now size 6, and Chip 'n' Charge is size 4. (Can't be Roland Garros, as that's listed on Top-5 Cities as still being size 3).
  
• Dill is now size 3. Sareln also has another 12 points whose origin I cannot divine. Two techs in the same turn isn't possible again until Liberalism, and setting aside the fact that it's way too early for that, I didn't get any notification of same. I'd assume land control, but Land Area didn't go up during the time that would have been necessary. So I'm confused. He keeps getting these points and I don't know whyyyyyy...
  
• Hydra likely has a tech! And that's all.

The GNP graphs and the civ scores both suggest that Sareln, Fintourist, and I are presently in one tier, and Azza and Hydra are in another, lower one. Dunno if that's truly accurate or how long that'll last. I've got significant Power and Manufacturing capability while being, if not necessarily competitive, at least respectful in GNP. Fin's rather seriously overtaken me on crop yield, tho, and that's a pretty good equalizer for that sort of thing. So overall it looks like I'm in semidecent shape. Maybe. Possibly. Probably. Maybe.

[Viqsi]

T67: In accordance with the prophecy, the holy city of Dill is revealed:

Granary, Forge, (Great) Lighthouse. No major surprises.
Forgot to take a screenshot of that, tho.

Sareln's scout, meanwhile, is getting a good look at Selenitic:

Actually, he has the right idea. Let's take a look at Selenitic ourselves:

Switched from working the horses to working the newly pasturized pigs. The pigs provide enough food that we're no longer in a rush for the work boat (I'll finish it regardless), and the next pop point (now due in 2 turns rather than 5) will promptly be back to working the horses anyhow.
Also, it's not in the queue here, but after the Work Boat comes a Granary. Not sure what's next after that, but it's likely to be more infrastructure.

On that subject of rival scouts in or near our territory...

Hydra's scout has disappeared (probably moved 1NW), but we have a new guest - Azza! Everybody wave hello!

Sailing 'round the outer islands continues apace. The Fishing Boat to the North continues its search for paths eastward, finding little of interest:

My southern Galley, OTOH...

I'ma think we'll be settling that island soon.
If only that river (just in the fog) extended 1 more tile north, tho!

So, based on the data so far, I've done some tentative dotmapping.
North:

(Holding off on placing at the center 'till I can see if there's seafood on the other side.)

And south:

The "nice isle city" is a spot I mentioned much earlier.
"Tenative Ivory" is set up to take advantage of Riven's Fishing Boats (Riven doesn't need 'em right now; it's got that rice farm all to itself).
Holding off on a western island city 'till I see the lay of the land, but there's pretty much definitely one going around the stone and corn.

Finally, I've uncovered all the fog I can near Numenor:

...so, after much deliberation, I did this at the end of my turn:

We'll see if he takes it.


And now... demos!

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions and discoveries:

• This Turn's Growth: Cayenne is at size 6, one of Romenna or Madrid reached size 3, and Roland Garros is now size 4.
  
• Azza's whipped Ambling Alp down 2 pop points to size 2. Wonder what he's up to.
  
• Trade Relations are now normalized for everybody! Huzzah.
  
• I do not like what Fintourist's GNP and crop yield are up to. I do not like it at all.
  
• Judging by the Power graph, I'm guessing that maybe some of Sareln's "mystery points" from last turn were a tech worth soldier points.
  
• I am still Undisputed Champion Of The Industrial World. So I've got at least one hypothetical advantage.

Oh, and there's a cute sorta-new tool I added to my demographics spreadsheet. Anybody who's been looking at it and scrolling REALLY far to the right may have noticed that I've been making a half-assed effort to record city populations to make sure I'm tracking growth and whips accurately. But I was doing all the math by hand.
"But Viqsi," I said to myself today, "it's a fucking SPREADSHEET. And doing the math by hand takes forever and is a large part of why you're being slow. Automate that bitch, bitch."

My wish is my command.
That's the "Population Tracking" sheet within the file, in case anybody wants to follow that more closely in the future. (I ain't takin' screenshots of a spreadsheet every turn. )

One final note. It occurred to me as I was finishing this writeup that trade relations might have normalized due to Open Borders being cancelled somewhere. So I opted to double-check the Foreign Advisor, and found something else...

No, nothing cancelled... but Sareln has opened things up with Fintourist!
That seems to potentially put a damper on my wild half-imagined hope that Sareln might try to kill him early before Fin gets those Janissaries. Oh well. Maybe it'll be a instead.

[Viqsi]

T68: We have Open Borders with Hydra!
So let's go take a look-see here...

Welcome to Romenna. So far doesn't look all that sexy as a second city, but I'm probably not seeing its best side. Has a Granary and a Monument.
Incidentally, I'm learning one of my own little mental limitations here - I keep forgetting that some people actually build Monuments for reasons other than the Statue of Zeus, and that early game culture can come from things other than the Creative trait, the Palace, or religion.
I just can't stand investing time and resources into monuments. Hate 'em.
But my way is not the only way.

Still, though, there does seem to be a distinct lack of sexiness for a second city so far. Compare and contrast with, say, Dill:

SHARED triple food bonus. (Which I would have had with Riven+Myst if I hadn't moved to that hill on T0. Meh. Priorities.)

Our sailors continue on their quest to find paths East, with some encouraging signs:

And in the south...

...yay crabs!

Almost no news domestically. Just working on the road network and more cottages at this point.
Overseas settling is currently being preferred, but I only have the one galley. Not very logistically sound.
The problem is that most of the mainland sites right now that aren't going to cripple me with support costs are - at this stage of the game - practically parasitic fill-ins. Will be great once up and running, but will take notable worker labor because they're a tad low on resources. (Been busy picking the low-hanging fruit.)
And that's bad when one doesn't have Courthouses and/or Currency tech and/or something else to offset.
So I'm hesitating to plan to send settlers there. I probably will anyways. But still. I twitch.


Anyways. Demographics time! Now including regular "surveys" (read: screenshots noting current pop) of revealed cities, because I just wasn't taking enough screenshots:

[Demographics Spreadsheet]

Impressions and discoveries:

• Azza gets a massive jump in score partly due to land control bonuses from the founding of Cash Cow, and equally due to every single Alliteration city except Broken Bones adding a pop point this turn. Very nice.
  
• Ace has just become the first size 7 city in our world's history. Chip 'n' Charge is now size 5. And Fintourist's crop yield is ungodly high, as well as his GNP. Very nongood.
  
• Speaking of which. I am exceedingly unhappy with being #3 in GNP, and starting to seriously wonder about that "superweapon preparedness" research plan. Really hope my paranoia doesn't get me killed. I've got more cottages going up, but not fast enough. Lack of additional happy is startin' to worry me.
  
• Barcelona's size 2 now. Selenitic will be size 2 next turn, but isn't yet. Sad viqsi is sad. Hydra also is getting a significant score boost from Madrid's founding land control.

I don't like seeing other people with demonstrably better economies than me. It makes me sad.

[Bigger]

so, did you stop playing this game, or just stop posting?

Do a final update! I forgot about this game because I was only reading your thread :/

[Commodore]

What's up?

[Viqsi]

Still in this game, just haven't had the available time to dedicate to updates of the thread.

Really quick summation:
* I lost out on circumnavigation by ONE TURN. To Fintourist, of course.
* Pushed quickly for Compass as I started really worrying about my GDP about then.
* Set up a nice little plan that involved whipping out a bunch of Cothons all at once and making up for the pop loss with Hanging Gardens. I miscalculated how quickly I could get the Cothons up and running, but I did get the Hanging Gardens and thus started kicking some moderate ass in GDP thanks to all those trade routes.
* Made an attempt to pick up Code Of Laws to found a religion. It didn't work out, but the effort kept me current.
* Watched Sareln get pretty much kicked out of the game by Fintourist's attack. Glad it was him and not me...
* Worked on some vague plans to attack Hydra. Ended up discarding them as I had little to no military infrastructure AND since my economy is based on trade routes it'd potentially sink me in the process. Later on Azza and Fintourist got the same idea.
* Right now the research effort is Democracy (in the perhaps vain hope that Fintourist, in his efforts to conquer the world, has left the Statue of Liberty open for the taking), and I just completed a side-step into Gunpowder so if the big boys decide that I'm the next tasty target I can go on a drafting spree and really fuck up their day. (I remain #1 in population for the time being, at least, so there's plenty of citizens to turn into soldiers...)

Future plans, assuming I'm left alone:
* Attempt poaching of the SoL.
* Charge towards Rifling, which requires that I pick up some other techs along the way. I don't have Feudalism, for example. (I do have Civil Service and Machinery, tho, so there's Maces in a few of my cities. Small comfort, tho, when Fintourist's Janissaries are marching across every corner of the continent...).
* Draft an army if I haven't been attacked already.
* Possibly take Sareln the rest of the way out if he's still there.

I don't really have a path to victory. I think Fintourist put that out of reach when he successfully bushwhacked Sareln; at this point I'd need him to make a mistake and I doubt he will. But, hey, if we always went with the evaluations we see on paper, then there'd be no reason to play the games.

[Bigger]

pictures?