April 20th, 2018, 19:06
(This post was last modified: April 20th, 2018, 19:06 by Chevalier Mal Fet.)
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Also, a score report 'coz it's Friday afternoon:
The bad news is Archduke is really kicking ass in his golden age. Look at that culture rate! I think that must be Pen, Brush, and Voice - he jumped up nearly 10 points of culture since my last examination! That could be all his districts kicking in. He's also got an insane 35 gpt. I think THAT is an artifact of Great General projects. I can't fathom any other way for him to have such a high gold income - does pillaging gold rewards count for GPT? Finally, he has more population visible than anyone else on the map 'cept me, and that's not counting his capital. He has more cities than I do, founding 3 to my 5, but conquering 3 as well for a total of 7. Founding my last two cities and conquering Antioch will push me to 8, which might be enough, if he doesn't eat anyone else in the meantime.
It's pretty clear that Mongolia is the team to beat. I really think our only chance to stay competitive long-term is to eat a neighbor of our own. We need the free cities, like he's got. I can't turtle against a Mongolia that dominates the entire damn map!
I also worked out why the settler didn't finish as I predicted - I didn't invest the turns beforehand in pre-building it a bit. Magnus arrived here earlier than expected, and I had to finish up some military pre-builds. Everything should precede on schedule from here on out.
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Turn 68
So somewhere I really screwed up the math on the settlers out of OCISLY:
*
One settler finishes and sets off for But Who's Counting, but the second needs 6 more turns. However, if you glance at Construction, that's perfectly in line with our timeline on the Entertainment District. We can finish and start the ED on the same turn. We'll need to invest one more turn in the archer, however, at some point. Can do that while the builder sets up another chop. JRTI will finish a builder in 2 turns. I wasn't sure if Liang would establish herself before the builder finished, and this isn't the time to experiment, so I delayed him one more turn.
Up in the north, we get eyes on our first Cree city:
It looks pretty low on production - desert and floodplains? Lots of food, explaining why it's size 6 but has only finished a monument in the city-center. There's a campus and a water mill under construction.
In the south, Alhambram plants city #4 at Tsingy, but not where I anticipated, on fresh water:
Nope, he went for a dry plant closer to me. He couldn't have known that I wasn't really contesting this spot, so he wanted to lock down the border while he could. No skin off my nose - now he's got to spend hammers on an early granary. The city does have a great tile there at Tsingy, and some rice and iron in the second ring make it a nice little city even with little housing. Alhambram went with the Ancestral Hall, as you can see he's already got a mine down at the new city. I'm already past the point where an Ancestral Hall would be useful. Later in the game my Audience Chamber will outshine it.
His warrior is also pulling back. I think I'm going to go into Antioch in 2 or 3 turns, my archers are a short walk away now. If I can pick off that warrior early, that would ease matters a lot. I have two warriors to the south, where there are 3 more Antioch warriors visible. It's...a lot of units. I might be able to snipe the city center before most of those units can get back, however. That'd be the goal.
Via the gossip screen, I discover Archduke is suzerain of Kabul:
I need to check on the other cities - it'd be embarrassing if Japper is suzerain of Valetta by now! Anyway, no other major news. Research rates ticked up a bit - I'm back in the lead on science, Archduke's culture is at a whopping 26 (  ), Japper continues to have no money to speak of...I wonder how long the classical age lasts? 60 turns or so? That's a long time for the boosted culture...
Score and overview:
*the day may come when my turn reports consist of more than just screenshots of Magnus chops...but it is not this day.
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Liang definitely establishes before the builder completes. I've used that many times. Also, Magnus establishes before settler completion, if that's ever relevant (probably not this game). The one turn difference won't matter here, but thought you would want to know for the future.
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That's good to know, aetryn.
I'm not as impatient as the Archduke, but Japper has held the save for most of a day now - on the weekend. He couldn't find 20 minutes near his computer to pass things along? It's weird that the game went faster when Emperor was still in the turn order.
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Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Turn 69
I don't have a lot of witty commentary in me today, so let's keep this short and to the point.
As my scout makes his way around Japper's borders, we spot where that other settler went. Looks like he founded just beyond the lake to the northeast. I wonder how useful the Cree's trade tile-claim ability has been? The Commercial nerf really hurts them, Japper has to build markets if he wants to fully exploit that ability. We should have vision on the city center soon...
Oh, hey, I have an envoy! Let's grab Valetta!
-click-
Alhambram has been fulfilling quests a lot, lately. He has 1 envoy each in Yerevan and Antioch from first-contact, and he's generated one naturally. That means the bugger has gotten at least 3 envoys from quests alone. I'm...not that far behind, actually. I have 2 quest-generated envoys, with a third to come once I build a galley for Nan Madol. I might toss a spare envoy that direction purely for the scouting and era points.
Here's Valetta's scouting:
Confirms the stark, barren terrain in the corners of the map. You can maaaybe spot an aqueduct city on that patch of forest northwest of Valetta, where the warrior is. But dang, there's not any land outside of the Korean basin at all, is there? No wonder my neighbors settle towards me - I'm in the middle of the only concentration of fresh water on the map so far apparently.
And just like that, it shows us Japper's second city center:
No buildings yet, but it's a new plant.
In the south...
Alhambram! 
He's clustering his warriors around Antioch. How dare he protect the city-state he suzerained and not let me add a free city-state to my empire!
This is inconvenient. If his warriors stay put, I will declare next turn and move onto the two hills west of the city. That gives me a good defensive position to start wearing down the city. Unfortunately, he'll probably shuffle his warriors along, meaning I have to take the open desert plain to bring up both my warriors, and expose one warrior to severe danger from both warriors. If I lose one warrior, I'm in trouble. If I lose both, I'm humiliated.
In PBEM2, Singaboy found a way around oledavy's scout defense of Geneva (Seoul?) eventually. I need to reread to see what he pulled there. Either way, though, I think my best option is to declare next turn, use the archers to clear way the Antiochene archer and then pile all 4 archers twoards the city center. Hopefully I can take the city in 3 turns? It'll be close, though, a very near-run thing. Maybe better to fortify my warriors next to the city and cling to my foothold, bombing the city down until I can take it. I'm rubbish at tactics, though. We'll see.
Score and overview:
Archduke is closing the gap. I'm also piling on the era score - 3 points to go to avoid a Dark age, 15 to grab a golden medieval age.
Japper is struggling after his slow start. He is dead last in military power, in research, in culture, and in gold income. The Cree UI is available with pottery and the UU is a SCOUT replacement. What gives? I've only built 1 seowon so far and yet I'm leading. Wait until my civ REALLY kicks in.
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Are Japper and Archduke at war? If so, as soon as Antioch is conquered, it's time to start preparing for the timing hit on Japper/Archduke as appropriate, IMO.
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Turn 70: Antioch starts walls.
Turn 71: Antioch finishes walls.
I'd expect that from a human, but the AI? I have to admit, I am surprised.
Warriors won't cut it. Might have to scuttle this project. Back to the drawing board...
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Turn 70 - 71
I dunno, for some reason I'm still not feelin' a big turn report, but I got two turns in today so I'll feel guilty if I don't give you guys something.
Let's try and break it down quick. We find desert beyond Japper's nearby city, and his capital borders beyond that:
Note that Japper has taken religious idols for his pantheon, which is a questionable choice to me. But maybe everything better was taken? I dunno. 2 faith on every mine MIGHT add up over the course of the game...Or is it every strategic resource? -flip- -flip- -flip- Oh, it's luxury and bonus resources. So, copper, jade, diamonds? Bleh.
In the south, here's Antioch, turn 70. On turn 69, there were no walls around the city, so it hasn't been constructing them. Now, it is:
Running out of time. I better declare war next turn and do what I can! Otherwise i'll miss my chance. I don't know why I'm bothering with this charade, you all know what happens next...
I also go ahead and recruit Hypatia, after some deliberation. If I waited another turn, I'd save 20 faith, of course. However, I'm a bit nervous that JUST IN CASE Japper might have run a project or something. The extra 20 faith will be peanuts later, and is worth a bit of peace of mind. Hypatia is a bargain at 440 faith, so there's no real harm in purchasing now. THat boosts education:
And Japper gets the underwhelming Euclid:
That should just about clean out the Classical great scientists. I should be able to land the Mathematics boost easily, so no worries on missing out on that snoozer.
Score at the end of turn 70:
Turn 71 dawns, and Antioch has built its walls in one turn. How? Did it chop them? Is the AI smart enough to do that?
It can do SOMETHING, apparently. So no city-state conquest yet. Right now I'm falling back on plan B. We need to tech up to swords, we need a battering ram, and we need 2 more envoys to kick Alhambram out so he can't block the damn thing. I'll work on saving up the envoys, I have no other pressing needs for 'em.
The more exciting news is the foundation of But Who's Counting? Since Alhambram founded Tsingyberg so close, I get +1 era point, guaranteeing the normal medieval age. Need 12 more era points! Shouldn't be too hard to land 'em, I think.
I do some rough calculations and swap the rice to BWC:
This gives me growth two turns earlier, at the cost of 6 total production. The earlier working of more production chops that cost to 2 production, so I'm paying 2 cogs for 2 earlier turns of .5 science and .3 culture, which seems like a bargain at the price. We'll build a monument here, too. Eventually I can start faith-purchasing these at newer cities. For now, there's nothing more urgent to build, although a ram is tempting.
Japper's capital lands, although I fail to glimpse the city itself. Nuts.
Scores. Archduke is up to 7 cities! :o I would match that if I had taken Antioch, but the fact is I have not. I will match it when my next settler finishes in a few turns. Rowain and Alhambram have no real news, other than Rowain finishing the Oracle - did I mention that already?
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(April 22nd, 2018, 20:23)skanar Wrote: Are Japper and Archduke at war? If so, as soon as Antioch is conquered, it's time to start preparing for the timing hit on Japper/Archduke as appropriate, IMO.
Yeah, they're still at war. I may have to cancel Antioch entirely, depending on circumstances. I think you're right, though, that the best path forward, especially if Archduke continues to leap ahead at this rate, is to conquer a developed neighbor, and Japper's laggardly growth suggests him as a target.
I'm also debating proposing a joint war with Archduke to Alhambram. Why make peace? It just gives him a chance to send his nasty +6 combat bonus trade routes. A state of Always War with him might be the way to go.
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(April 23rd, 2018, 19:07)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: (April 22nd, 2018, 20:23)skanar Wrote: Are Japper and Archduke at war? If so, as soon as Antioch is conquered, it's time to start preparing for the timing hit on Japper/Archduke as appropriate, IMO.
Yeah, they're still at war. I may have to cancel Antioch entirely, depending on circumstances. I think you're right, though, that the best path forward, especially if Archduke continues to leap ahead at this rate, is to conquer a developed neighbor, and Japper's laggardly growth suggests him as a target.
I'm also debating proposing a joint war with Archduke to Alhambram. Why make peace? It just gives him a chance to send his nasty +6 combat bonus trade routes. A state of Always War with him might be the way to go.
You could also try Sumeria for the Joint War, once their DoF runs out. I'm interested to see if an emergency triggers if Archduke captures a city now that everyone has met everyone else. It may require that everyone have vision on the city taken, which obviously isn't going to happen for a while.
I don't think this is the time for a protracted war with a city state, even if that means Alhambram can keep it for a while. Later in the game, of course, a city state has no chance of staying free against a serious attack, and it's extended enough that even in the event that you get into a war with the Dutch it would be hard for them to hold it. Maybe you even let him keep suzerinity and just build up to the 6 envoy bonus? You'll want a strong economy, and you'll presumably be building markets everywhere for the extra trade routes. Why not boost them further?
I agree that Japper has to be a target at this point (unfortunate for him, he always seems to end up on the bad end of 2 on 1s it seems). If anything is left from the war with Mongolia when your DoF runs out with Cree, you should try to take a border city or two.
Congratulations on Hypatia! Hopefully this can be bartered into a commanding tech lead at some point, even if it's just a window of opportunity for a few turns.
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