So azza had the chance to double move, potentially slave an archer or a long bow…and in the end moved a work boat out to the fish. I debated leaving the city for a turn to see if azza would kindly net the fish, but the deletion of the fast worker makes me think he is just trolling me.

 

 

First thing I did was promote the catapult to accuracy and remove 16% culture defence. The next move was to attack with the F2 HA. I promoted it to C1 to try and do a little bit more damage to the longbow, but it doesn’t chance the odds perceptibly.

 

 

Got a retreat, which is pretty nice, because the HA won two rounds of combat which it had less than 50% chance to do.

 

 

I chose to attack with the C2 HA instead of the C3 HA because the odds of not dying were less than 5% lower, and gave more XP if the HA won.

 

 

Which it duly did. So one final razed city for 5XP to my third GG and 47 gold on the side. Perfect outcome, really, I couldn’t have expected to capture a worker or the fish to already be netted.

 

 

Yeah, it’s getting razed.

 

 

My WW with azza has increased by about 10 due to this battle. I’m not expecting to attack azza in his land now until I’m ready to invade to take over all of his remaining cities.

 

 

azza isn’t really much of a threat any more, he isn’t building new units and he is just trying to be defensive.

 

 

azza is adding longbows to Fuchsia.

 

 

Yay religion spread. I hate it when missionaries fail to spread religion…

 

 

So, it looks like everyone has Machinery except for azza which is a good thing, I suppose. Not that he has either iron or horse so doesn’t have anything better than longbows and cats to fight with. I don’t care about Monotheism or Theology, I will only research them if I want to get DR for another religion to spread for more gpt (not likely) or Versailles and Spiral Minaret, it’s a long term play and I’m not looking at the long term right now, but it is feasible if I get UoS.

Philo I don’t care about either, until I want to get Nationalism or Liberalism. I care about Compass and Optics. I will shortly have two GS that I can use to double bulb Education and push out Oxford, and tech Astronomy to take the fight to scooty if they don’t want peace. That forces scooty to research Astronomy as well and obsolete the Collosus, wrecking their tech pace. I’m going to focus on getting the necessary tech and the rest of the scenario hinges on their decisions.

 

 

The front city against scooty. It is coastal so I need to defend it properly once scooty get Astronomy, with a real defensive stack of longbows and muskets, but with seven forests I have plenty of hammers stored to use in a pinch.

 

 

Oh hello scooty. It is looking like I will have to remove one caravel, one trireme and one galley from the straights. I suspect that two caravels, a trireme and six galleys will be enough to do that. So get Optics and throw the caravels out of By-Tor. If scooty tries to reinforce or just adds more caravels…revolt back to Vassalage and Theocracy after fast growing coastal cities and slave out a bunch of C2 caravels. I’ll have odds on every battle and will have numbers. It will slow me down as I will not be able to use coastal food but scooty are going to be focussing on dealing with me, using their core cities for production and I’m not even going to have slowed my core development one iota.

 

 

Let’s see what their offer is. I don’t see them accepting it, but their reply likely shows if they want war or not. A minor war with the units they have in place is perfectly reasonable, they have already invested in those units, but if they just keep on throwing caravels at me when I have double promoted caravels…well, I’ll be annoyed because they could be making better plays that would hurt me more.

 

 

An overview screenshot of hte eastern part of hte island. That barb galley will be a pain, I’ll have to get a caravel out to attack it somehow, probably via two chops at MP once I’m in Vassalage, but that will probably have to wait until I know that scooty are not streaming reinforcements at me.

 

 

I’m building UoS this turn without stone, which will be hooked on T177, because it just edges the UoS out one turn sooner. UoS will finish on eot T192, although it might be one turn faster because I will run an engineer after popping out this GS. I could also steal a plains hill for Crapital after the GS has popped out and GNAP finishes the settler.

 

 

Keep on swimming…

 

 

This longbow is heading up for the silver city.

 

 

Next I’ll finish the court house to save a bit of gold at the expense of a one turn delay on growing to size 11.

 

 

Holding hte overflow behind the wealth.

 

 

Boring.

 

 

Keep on growing…I would like to get a caravel or two out for sentries, but I doubt I’ll be able to do that for a while, need the population to work some workshops. I’ll make do with the forge.

 

 

For Greed, and I will make another missionary for TO afterwards.

 

 

I’m farming the last remaining unimproved grassland, and will then workshop three farms and both plains to within one turn of completion so that once NS reaches size 13 all those tiles are turned into workshops, and one hill is windmilled.

 

 

The chop from that forest has sped up the missionary so it will spread religion to the horse city on T179. I need to build a chariot and use it as a garrison for happiness.

 

 

In a war against scooty I need naval superiority, which I will get eventually. But before I do I need to be able to hold my cities, so I’m going to have no choice but to build units in PD once the forge is finished. Longbows and then knights are the main builds.

 

 

I’m not going to be able to get any caravels from this coast towards scooty for such a long time, I’m just going to continue to build workers from BL.

 

 

Grow onto the coast…and currently completing the necessary workshops. Should be fully grown by eot T184

 

 

The market will probably be followed by a library, then a bank. A forge doesn’t make any real sense because the main output of PRNGG is commerce through gold and beakers, and a forge will only be used to speed up the construction of those multipliers. The break even point would not be measured in hammers (480 hammers) but in the gold and beakers produced by those buildings which would actually be a little bit later than the hammer break even point. That’s too complicated for me to work out on a back of the envelope calculation.

 

 

I have decided to send one more worker to improve CPH, I don’t think I will stay in Serfdom for very long, maybe 10-12 turns because of the need to time other civic swaps into Feudalism and Theocracy.

 

 

I want this trireme out, but I would prefer to wait until I am back into Vassalage and Theocracy, so I will swap back onto a galley once the trireme is one turn from completion. I might just about get that galley out, but worst case scenario I can 1 pop whip it for overflow into a caravel. The galley, trireme and future caravels can be promoted to C2 to get odds on the choking naval units. I can then clean up with the N1 galleys.

 

 

I’m going to be forced to build those damned workers aren’t I…but I suppose I’ll have another reason to use slavery for 5 turns, if I use it to get out a few caravels as well.

 

 

Axe will never build any caravels (in this section of a war) so slavery would perhaps get me another two caravels, both of them 4XP…it would mean any engagement against scooty where they don’t increase the amount of choking units is over very quickly. Yeah, I’m going to consider swapping back to Vassalage, Theocracy and Slavery for five turns.

 

 

Size eight with irrigation to the wheat is the aim, get that and I have 20hpt, which is enough for three turn caravels. Shouldn’t be too difficult to get that, and the tiles improved if I strip a few workers out from TO.

 

 

If I am revolting back to slavery immediately once it is available, then I am most likely going to slave the Buddhist monastery for two pop, and one pop the temple. That means that once Sistine finishes Saffron will make 16 culture per turn without any specialists. That then allows me to push out borders fast enough to take over the inner ring much more quickly.

 

 

Um, more workers please?

 

 

This silk tile will be handed over to the new desert city next turn, then onto the grass farm and time to ignore the city for a bit.

 

 

Next turn…build a granary with two forest chops due a few turns. The seafood will be out of use until I get some caravels onto the water to force scooty away, but I will have a work boat safe in FS for that eventuality.

 

 

With scooty looking like they are getting restless, I’m going to be keeping a few units in MM, including galleys. Once I marshal the caravels, I’ll sneak them into MM and scooty will either back out through the north, or head south west towards Greed. I need a force of caravels at either end of the straight, but MM is where I will base those I don’t want out at sea.

 

 

It’s amazing how fast you can expand when you want to. I settled FS on T172. FSx was settled on T175 and the island will be fully settled by T179.

 

 

The sugar is the main tile I need to get hooked, and I have four workers here. I need to use those four workers to improve Greed, TO and SA though. The stone will be hooked next turn, and used at size two.

 

 

Three commerce trade routes with my own cities is always good. I also think this city location is closer to five other players (including Plako) so I’m quite pleased to be the first to settle it. Once borders are popped I want to get all of the flood plains farmed and split them between FSx and MP to grow them. The focus is on making the island capable of self defence, I am not bothered with the gold cost beyond getting court houses. No cottages, just farms, workshops, watermills and mines. The island is tasked with stopping scooty from taking over Mick’s lands and from threatening the continent.

 

 

I will use the forest hill this turn, and the plains forest hill next turn, than back to the grass hill forest for a three turn culture build. That will take the goody hut over, probably popping a few axes. Might get gold or a map though. Once the barbs are gone I can farm the flood plains and both grasslands. Size eight is the aim, 17hpt. Can’t do much with DBP, but it will be another basic hammer city. Granary, forge and court house, all I want here.

 

 

Machinery is not quite researchable in one turn, so I have researched it at 10% so I can finish it on T177.

 

 

Again research at 100%, with the known tech bonus of up to 50% now in effect.

 

 

scooty are either second to last or last in power. Probably second ot last. They just are not investing in units.

 

 

And this is why, they do not have the MFG to match Nazul, yuris, Pingo or myself. Maybe they can slave units? I wouldn’t have thought that was much of a threat considering they have so few cities.