The Devel's Workshop I - CS Slingshot

[Velociryx]

First Contact

Lest you think we're playing on this continent alone, we just got our first contact, in the form of Spain. Should have guessed that she was around, given how quickly Budhism got founded. And if she's our nearest neighbor, then she'll be the first victim of our Praetorians, too!

[Velociryx]

Second Contact, and More Progress
3000 BC - "The Wheel" is ours, and we are an important step closer to Pottery.
In 2920 BC, the Americans find us, but now we're making progress. Our garrison warrior is in place, so we're not totally defenseless, and our woody II warrior is south of the capitol and continuing his exploration efforts.

We're also now working the gold hill, even tho the mine isn't complete yet, and note that it shaves some three turns off of the acquisition of pottery. This is important, and it foreshadows what will be in store for us in the future (note that our beakers per turn has grown by 20%...from 10 to 12...a good beginning!)

Defensively, our plan is to post two warriors in the capitol, one on the corn, and one on the gold mine, as these two structures are our life's blood. We lose either of them, and it's a big setback, so we want to protect our investment.

[Velociryx]

Gold Mine in Operation

As a side note to the main news, we encountered more of our neighbors, meeting Ghandi in 2880 BC, but the really exciting news is that the gold mine is now up and running, and have a look at what it has done to our research! We're up 80% from what we were at game start...that's HUGE.

[Velociryx]

Our position in the tree
Given the way that this particular game has played out, it makes no sense NOT to go ahead and snag Writing at this point, with a plan to build the Library and be working on generating that Great Scientist WHILE building the Oracle in the capitol....may as well get a head start on the Academy, so we're off and running down that path....

[Velociryx]

2540 BC, Woody Finds Spain

The more I uncover, the more I'm liking this map! We're protected by a broad sheath of jungle, and we've got the kind of start that is well suited to relative isolation....can't ask for a better mix, IMO! Anyway, we now know where one of our neighbors lives...we'll note it and move on, zipping around the jungle with our Woody II warrior!

[Velociryx]

2440 BC, Switching Gears at Home

With four warriors and our capitol properly garrisoned, it's time to think about something besides building another warrior. I'm starting in on a Granary, with a plan to chop rush it to completion as soon as our worker finishes his cottage tile.

[Velociryx]

It's Official - 2320 BC

As of this year, we have (more than) doubled the research output of the capitol, and we haven't even built any infrastructure yet! Time to start chopping a tree, to speed the Granary to completion so we can get ready for Librariness! God this is gonna rock.

[Velociryx]

Writing is in-hand!

With writing in hand, we're now RACING up the religous arm of the tech tree in an attempt to get to Priesthood and snag the dang Oracle! Of course, we still have one important objective to meet after getting to Priesthood.....that being, Code of Laws!

[Velociryx]

The Completion of the Library of Rome

And just have a look at our research capabilities now! More than thirty beakers per turn....more than TRIPLE what we had at game start. Plus, we're only one tech away from beginning the Oracle, so we're "idling" - we'll need another worker anyways (when we begin to think in terms of building our next city), so we're working on one now....also, this will help us if we need to chop the Oracle to completion, cos you'll note that we've got almost no production in the capitol...nonetheless, this has not hampered us in the least, in terms of building infrastructure (4 warriors, two workers, a Granary and a Library so far, with our four hammers per turn)

In getting to this point, we passed a few other milestones, noteworthy in their way, but not enough to warrant their own picture. These were:

2200 BC, Found America (same region as Spain)

2140 BC, Work begins on the Library, with a plan to chop-rush it to completion. Why? Because the quicker we finish that Library, the quicker we see another boost to beakers per turn, and the quicker we can assign two scientists and start collecting those all-important G-Man points. Get that scientist a few turns quicker via chop, and we get another 50% kick to our research! Well worth a few trees.

2020 BC - Mysticism discovered, and steaming ahead toward Priesthood.

Library completes in 1890 BC - Scientists assigned, and we're rolling.

[Velociryx]

Continent Mapped

By 1810 BC, we've pretty much mapped the whole of the continent....okay, so not the ENTIRE continent, but we know where our two closest neighbors are, and the long and the short of it is...they ain't close, and we got a big jungle separating them from us. So we're packing it in. And, we're gonna let them come to us. We've got some juicy city sites nearby that we can develop while we're building our unstoppable ancient era army, so let them come. Let them build crap cities in the jungle (and you know they will), and we'll sit back here with our research beakers and prepare for them (and also, prepare to move into the cities they will so willingly provide for us). Faaaaaantastic!

In other news, our cottage has grown into a Hamlet, now producing three gpt (so there's' another beaker of research), and we're only 8 turns from completing our second cottage, and only 3 from completing our second worker (which in turn, will speed the second cottage along). Once the second cottage is in play, we'll focus on getting the desert hill mined...once we pull our scientist back off, we'll want to avoid growth, since we're right at the happy cap now, and the desert hill will a) give us badly needed production, and b) allow us to not get bigger.

Rock on.

[Velociryx]

1780 BC - The Countdown Begins

Second Worker completes, and we begin the Oracle.

The relevant numbers are:
Oracle - slated to complete in 112 turns
Code of Laws - Slated to complete in 32 turns
G-Man - Slated to arrive in 39 turns.

The goal is now one of timing. We must make all of these things happen as close together as possible, with the necessity that either the Code of Laws or the G-Man be the first to complete. Fortunately, this bit of it seems to be taking care of itself, given the long build time listed for the Oracle, but...we'll see how it goes.

More progress by 1670 BC - the desert mine is completed. Important, because despite having two scientists pulled off, our capitol is still growing (albiet slowly). We will probably have to do some tile re-assignments in the near future, slow down our research (move from the newest cottage to the desert mine), and speed up the Oracle. Of course, the Oracle is about to be enormously sped up anyways, because now that our workers are done with the mine, we're off to chop some trees....

Numbers as they stand now:

Oracle: 101t
CoL: 21t
G-Man: 28t

And the countdown continues. Note that it's pretty much set in stone at this point. Aside from speeding the Oracle up, there is NOTHING else we can do. No matter what, we cannot get the G-Man any faster, and we're already cranking as much research as we possibly can, so the die is cast, and has been for some time.

We wait.

[Velociryx]

Status Report 1590 BC

Initial chops are completed, and we've re-assigned a worker to the desert hill this turn. Some hunger, yes, but we have a vast surplus of food, so there's no danger of losing population.

And the numbers are:
Oracle: 28t
CoL: 14t
G-Man - 20t
Getting closer....

[Velociryx]

Barbarian Troubles
As usual, just when things are rolling along beautifully, something goes wrong.

In this case, it's a minor wrinkle though, and nothing we weren't prepared for well in advance. (Note - That's "Woody II" home from exploring and parked in the woods just south of our "Corn Warrior.")

A barbarian warrior decides to come mess up our party, and threatens the corn field. Our warrior has been fortified there for a loooooong time, and gets the full defense bonus for being dug in. He easily defeats the offending barb, with 1.3 points of his strength remaining. We rename the unit "Children of the Corn" to mark the occassion, and get back to clock watching.

[Velociryx]

1500 BC
Second round of chop (third tile chopped for this build) has completed, and the numbers are:

Oracle: 6t
CoL: 5t
G-Man: 11t

Unfortunately, our barb troubles just got worse (Barb warrior approaching the Gold Mine, Barb Archer approaching our cottages and desert mine), and we adjusted our defenses to plan for it, pulling a warrior out of the capitol, and parking him in the woods east of Rome, in hopes that the defense bonus he gets there will enable him to kill, or seriously maim the marauding archer. Sheesh.


Things begin to come together
A rapid-fire series of events culminate in the completion of several more elements of our plan, and they are:

1490 BC - Our warrior who went out to battle the archer lost terribly, but we won the battle for Gold Hill. Barbarian archer still at 2.4 strength, however, and moving in on our only city, whose defenses we just weakened. Lovely.

1480 BC - Archer demolishes desert mine and keeps coming. Woody II is moved into the city and fortified, bolstering our defenses to two units again.

1450 BC - Archer attacks from cross-river and dies. CoL is researched! Confucianism is founded! (we don't adopt it yet...no need to antagonize the Spaniards until we have some Praetorians to beat her with). Pop rush the Oracle for one point of pop and 30 turns of unhappiness (Marathon, 'member?). Begin researching Animal Husbandary.

1440 BC - Oracle Completed. Civil Service taken as free tech. Switch to Bureaucracy and suffer a turn of anarchy.

And now...only one thing remains. Let us hope that our first G-Man is a scientist. It is overwhelmingly likely that he will be, but still....

And our beakers per turn are looking quite handsome, don't you think?

[Velociryx]

G-Man
Here he is! The last piece of this puzzle has arrived!