[SPOILERS] Dhal checking in.

[Dhalphir]

It appears Hashoosh is more cautious than Gazglum. As soon as he got peace with Yuri the first thing he did was whip two spears back to back in his island city of HMS Pinafore. That puts the garrison at an Archer, Vulture, and 2x spears. My three axes and three HAs won't do much against that.

So instead I've already rushed out two settlers - one already finished, the next finishes next turn. They are going to claim the two spots on the southern peninsula.




So I miss out on the awesome plains hill plant, which would have grabbed a bunch of resources plus be a canal. However, these two cities will claim those resources anyway (except the marble), will be more profitable than a single city thanks to island trade routes, and will also still be able to serve as canals with a fort on the plains hill. If I'm understanding forts correctly, that is.

I also popped a merchant in Duna, which I thought about using for a trade mission but decided to go for a Golden Age. That GA will allow me to pop two more great people in two cities quickly, which I can either use for another GA or whatever takes my fancy at the time.

Civil Service also comes in next turn, so I will double revolt to Bureaucracy and Caste System next turn. That should put me more on the level with Ilios, as he's been in Bureaucracy for a dozen turns now and is in his own golden age.

During the GA I am actually very slightly in the positive at 70% science - before the GA I was in the positive at 60%. So I really do need these extra cities. I have a third settler finishing to claim the last backfill spot in my core. After that I'm going to need to tackle the jungle peninsula near Whosit. I forgot to take a picture of this from the current turn, so here's an old picture from back when Duna was my just-founded fourth city.




Ignore the X there, that's an old city placement idea. My plan would probably be to found 1E of that X, on the grass hill 1N of the dyes, and then found another city 1S of the peak.

As you can see, it's some nice land, but it will need heavy worker labour. I have the workers to do it, though a big chunk of my workforce is on the island and will be needed there for some time. I have more to spare on the mainland, though, so that isn't a huge deal. What is a big deal is the time it will take to clear all of that and make it profitable, while simultaneously widening my front with Whosit from one city to at least two. Combine that with the fact that I do need to keep my borders with Ilios and Gaz protected, and things could get very messy.

Really what I need to figure out is what Ilios' plans are. He will need to conquer somebody soon, but will it be me, Yuri, or Whosit?

[Dhalphir]

Nothing interesting happened this turn except my civics switch into Bureaucracy and Caste System.

Demos before the switch



Demos after the switch



I'm pretty sure everybody has Aesthetics except me, so the prereq discounts on both should be even.

As you can see, despite my position, Ilios is ahead of me and in his own Golden Age, and Yuri is a strong competitor for that second place position - though I think that I am doing better on most fronts than Yuri.

[Dhalphir]

So, since the weakness of HMS Pinafore under Gazglum was plugged by Hashoosh, I went ahead and had a big settling spree. I'd like to say I planned it this way, but I didn't. All three cities got settled this turn.




This city is mostly being settled to claim that fish outside its borders, and also because I can actually get it off the ground pretty quick by chopping the five forests. It won't be an amazing city, but it's worth settling for the free forest chop hammers alone.



This one is actually a pretty nice city. It nearly got settled 1N, picking up the fish in first ring, but then I decided to scout into the forests with that horse archer and it showed the fur. If I had put it in the original spot, then it would have pretty much orphaned the fur, so it got moved. This is another city that it will be quick to get going due to the forests, but apart from that it's also a great city, claiming a unique happy resource that I don't have yet as well as grabbing two food bonuses. The actual terrain around it isn't too good, mostly plains and tundra, but you can make that work down the line. The trade routes are nice.



I really wanted to put this city on the plains hill. This was the city to settle after razing HMS Pinafore from Gazoosh, but since I couldn't make that work, this is not a bad secondary location. It does pick up the whales, and it enabled me to found Ike where I did, instead of having to found it on the peninsula 1E of the wheat.

Future settling sites I guess!



I'd like to nab this island west of Vall. I'm not sure what's south and west in the fog, but a stone resource and fish on a two tile island is always worth settling - it's very rare for a fishing village to have any production so when they do it's nice!




I really want to grab these cities soon. Whosit can't defend them if he takes them, but I may not have the army to attack him if he does take them and packs a longbow or two in there. I'd much rather grab them myself and dare him to attack me, but doing that can be dangerous with the last place player.

But, the future settling doesn't need to happen that fast. I'm losing 7 gold per turn at 60% science with my three extra cities while in my Golden Age, and I imagine that will drop down to slightly in the red at 50%, which is a good place to be during horizontal expansion mode.

City counts

Dhal - 15
Ilios - 12
Gazoosh - 12
Yuri - 9
Whosit - 9

[Commodore]

Dhal - 15
Ilios - 12
Gazoosh - 12
Yuri - 9
Whosit - 9

Impressive!

[Dhalphir]

Feudalism came in this turn, and I started on Guilds. Only 1 turn to finish. That will boost my workshops by the extra hammer that they are currently getting from my GA, so my production will be almost as good outside the GA as it was in it. Of course, my production is still behind Ilios', but I'm a solid second and also solid second in most other categories. I'm not sure what Yuri is doing, but he needs more cities or he needs to conquer Gazoosh sooner rather than later. The war he started doesn't really seem like it was worth it. I am also near second in power - Yuri is actually seocnd, but he's only ahead by a few points and he's miles away. I'm way above Gazoosh and Whosit in power, and even with Ilios. If Ilios wants a target to conquer, let it be Whosit, because he won't make any easy gains from me. I assume he is probably making knights now, and I already have pikes fielded. Go fight the guy who doesn't have Engineering.

[Dhalphir]

Short update here - I will pop a GA turn after next, I'm up to 17 cities after capturing one from Whosit in a location I wanted, and I think Ilios is gearing up to hit Whosit.

[Dhalphir]

Ilios is also still at 12 cities, though he probably has 30% more population in those 12 than I do in my 17. That said, he needs a short successful war against Whosit where he gets most or all of the spoils in order to be successful.

[Dhalphir]

Yeesh.




Should be okay. Got six longbows in the city, three of which are CG and three of which weren't there when he played his turn, so he won't be expecting them.

[Dhalphir]

So Duna held on the first attack, but the second attack I was unable to reinforce very much and it fell.

Whosit has now also moved the remains of that stack over to the west to attack my other border city with him.

I'm not particularly happy about this move by him. I think it's very poor sportsmanship to continue an attack where barely three tiles away your capital is about to be razed in a death struggle. Even though I was the aggressor in the war, sniping one of his poorly defended cities, I don't feel that justifies it. I've always felt that MP Civ should be played with some degree of roleplay, in the sense that you should play as if you are actually commanding a nation state, and no nation would ever pursue even a defensive war against a third party if under threat of total invasion and extinction.

I understand WHY Whosit makes the move - it's perhaps sort of a pride thing - I attacked him, so he will make me pay even if he takes me down with him.

Unfortunately, what he's done is actually handed the game to Ilios. Ilios' chances to win were already nearly absolute, and now he's been handed an invasion where he only has to fight half an army, due to the other half being used on me. In addition, when Whosit he razed Duna, he nabbed a great artist that was to be used for a military buildup GA. The whole empire was ready for that - workshops replacing other improvements everywhere. I would have had more MFG than Ilios, and been able to build up a significant army of Musketeers (Gunpowder just finished) to go and attack him before he had a chance to recover from his war with Whosit.

I believe that could have tipped the balance of power - even with all of Whosit's gains, Ilios would only have a couple more cities than I do.

However, that's now impossible, so I have PM'd Commodore signaling my intent to concede to Ilios after the conclusion of his Whosit war.

[Gazglum]

Hey Dhalpir, nice thread. I had you pegged as 2nd place from early on, and you did a good job challenging Ilios. If it wasn't for the bad luck with losing your Great Artist, you could have had a shot.

I'm relieved to find out how narrowly I avoided being attacked by you on the island. I hemmed and hawed for hours over that border plant, and in the end I made the worst of all possible choices by chickening out of putting it in the canal, but still apparently pissing you off enough that you wanted to take it out. It was another case where the lack of diplomacy frsutrated me, because I thought we could have made a fair division of the land if we talked it out.

I rejected your map trades a lot at the beginning because I was desperately trying to land circumnavigation, and was worried that if I accepted them you would get it before me instead. I don't know if that was true or not. In the end, Yuri beat me by a turn so it was all for naught.