Ok so here's the setup for our first Wonderbread payday:

https://i.imgur.com/y7YqI9y.png

T70, the capital will 1-pop whip an almost finished axe for max overflow into Oracle on T71, timed with a chop. Nearly 50 hammers, doubled for marble.

T71 Babaorum will 1-pop whip its granary, overflow into Oracle on T72 for a handful of overflow hammers. Nothing to write home about but enough to contribute.

T72 Petitbonum will 2-pop whip a 4/35 axe for max overflow on T73 along with 2 chops. That will complete the Oracle and we'll put the overflow into an axe and/or a sacrificial altar.

T73 We get Oracle and over 100 fail gold. That's 20 turns of 100% research. Calendar is in sight.

Beyond that: Altars for lower maintenance, a few more towns for more wonderbread sources, and a bunch of 2-pop whips for Altars, axes, missionaries ... to overflow into the next marble big thing. With ToA, I hope to gather closer to 800g - and that someone else completes it.

T70, 1200 BC

https://i.imgur.com/D9XTxgb.png

Even with good growth, our GNP is dismal. Babaorum will work dry grass cottages to kindof fix that but it'll be a long time before we've got anything to show for it. City #4 will go for a quick library to push a GS academy into the capital. Still, we'll need calendar for spice gold if keeping up is to be an option. Perhaps before construction even. We'll see how the ToA payday works out.

Also, Killer is really hurting. We may as well assume that last place in demographics is him.

https://i.imgur.com/c6t6EV9.png

PP and I are taking off — my good turn was writing + pop increase, I assume his was similar. Meanwhile, Matrix pulled a pyramid out of his hat:

https://i.imgur.com/LEERkiK.png

Unless his neighbors wisen up really fast, it'll be a tough game.

Ynnek has met our wonder-full score leader through a work boat somewhere while Astérix reached Stapel's borders right on time for open borders.

https://i.imgur.com/Lo3kUyl.png

He's got barracks and pushes out 3xp archers to raid barbs in the jungle. This being noble difficulty, they'll stay hungry most of the year. He's also been hoarding all the religions. I guess he didn't feel like learning to write any time soon.

Which leads us to the very linear, very snaky state of the world map:

https://i.imgur.com/X2AGXQ0.png

And the inevitable conclusion that those gems ought to belong to the Aztecs.

https://i.imgur.com/bJjCcu3.png

So the sensible move would be: farm everything, whip everything, mass ele-pult to clear the way southwards, establish a forbidden palace zone at or near the gems, regroup and see about a guy who started with stone and way too much gold in his capital.

Ynnek is gonna be ruffled when the Oracle hits his culture and I steal his lighthouse-clam. Then again I was bummed when he stole the clam to begin with so part of me hopes the religion also goes to Petitbonum, to really dial the culture up to 11 (or even 14). The only spot that could use a quick culture hit from missionary spread will be Spice-Town so I'll try and appease him with a gift horse religion.

This will be a 2-part log, too much happening all at once.

We built the Oracle

https://i.imgur.com/zm6lwfq.png

Then, we built the Oracle

https://i.imgur.com/TTIJhJV.png

And the Oracle was the gift that kept on giving, on

https://i.imgur.com/6nxiQ6G.png

and on,

https://i.imgur.com/QfD6GY5.png

and on,

https://i.imgur.com/M58KTBI.png

and on,

https://i.imgur.com/qVGUEho.png

and on.

https://i.imgur.com/h5B71yB.png

That's a rather slow tech rate, well under the world average GNP, but with our wonderbread payday it can be sustained at 100% for another 15-20 turns. This'll get us to Calendar and spices.

https://i.imgur.com/yuYgkkR.png

From spices on, the regular economy should be a lot more respectable.

T80, 875 BC

https://i.imgur.com/m40XHsI.png

How on Earth do I have 68 GNP?!

https://i.imgur.com/MdGfuOf.png

Ok, so culture is counted and the Oracle (+8, soon +16) makes our GNP look bloated. We're not even on the top 5 cities for culture yet, so all the cultural civs have been pulling this for a long time. $-wise, I guess our start ain't so bad after all.

https://i.imgur.com/FZV2neI.png

You can see the spike at Oracle, and a lot of whipping for Altars. Killer is also whipping himself raw down there, while Ynnek and PP are making the most of their high-food tiles. Matrix is still at 2 cities so his quick rise to #1 couldn't be sustained.

[ynnek] Ynnek and I are on 4 cities ; his capital is really pretty nice:

https://i.imgur.com/6ZumD4H.png

Stone, gold, fishes, it's got everything. Everything double, now that he's got the desert copies. Only thing he needs is to improve that rice and those hills.

https://i.imgur.com/bYHzxys.png

His #4 is a bit early to be that far out but he might have felt the need to close up the position, with an eye on backfilling later. Gonna hurt his economy for a while.

Stapel also overextended forward, very agressively:

https://i.imgur.com/cYp56CD.png

It's all jungles. He needs to pop borders for fish and chop every single jungle tile there to make it work. Preposterous. Distant. The Bay of Faith is far below, and similarly underimproved:

https://i.imgur.com/SlLtB9w.png

His score is stalling, and no wonder. He needs like 4 more workers STAT. Iron working, too. But he's researching MC, probably to fix his economy with forges and Colossus. Good plan, in the long run. Short-term, he needs iron working and workers.

https://i.imgur.com/tmoCCJM.png

Diplomatically, Stapel is a jolly good neighborino who's happy to let aztec axemen roam the jungle to fog-bust and farm XP. He's got religions and marble, we have religion and marble, so I threw him a bone and offered not to compete for ToA. Make no mistake, we'll build ToA, we just won't finish it [pirate]

https://i.imgur.com/XIJL9sn.png

[doomsol]

Matrix has been met. His warrior scout is down in the Bay of Faith, about to trek North. He'd rather not open trade routes until he can benefit from them - fair enough - and has set all his espionage points on us. Even while curating our leads on the other 2, we've got 6:4 on him so, slowly but surely, we'll get there.

We owe this encounter to Astérix's bravery in combat:

https://i.imgur.com/6W1hCHF.png

https://i.imgur.com/YfMCdSf.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...6/Asterix1.png

Now, a bit of math. Can't help it, gotta convince myself this wonderbread strat is worthwhile.

At face value, 1 pop whip = under 18 food -> 30 hammers -> 60 overflow gold. 1F => 3.5$.

Let's compare a wonderbread farm to a wonderbread town to a commerce economy town (1F vs 4C).

https://i.imgur.com/mT6ss5R.png

Say we whip a missionary for 2 pop in the capital, cycling from 4-6. At +5 FPT growth, Altars mean it'll regrow in roughly the same time it takes to wipe away the unrest: 30 food total, /2 for granary, x2 for 2-pop whips. 30/5 = 6 turns so I've got some to spare. If we add a farm, it becomes 30/6 = 5: the exact same time as the unrest.

Now that means we produce roughly 10 hammers x5: 50 hammers (10 of which go into a wonder), plus 60 (35 to production, 25 to overflow) for whipping: 75 hammers into production and 35 into a wonder. With modifiers for Org. Rel. (not forge), that's about 80-90 hammers of production and 75-80 hammers of overflow gold.

Optimally, over 30 turns, we repeat the cycle 6 times: 85x6=510 production, 75x6=450$ overflow.

If we work a town for 30 turns instead, we get 4 more GPT and 1 less cycle. 95x5=475 prod, 75x5=375$, Village +120$: 495$ overflow.

That's ... actually lackluster for the farm vs town matchup.

Let's now suppose we do 30 turns of 1 hill mine and 2 towns instead of the wheat and farm. No growth, no whip.

Hammers are at 12, OR makes it 15. Extra gold is 9 for 2 villages and a river grass hill mine.

15x30=450 hammers, 9x30=270$. Even if those were financial towns, 11x30=330$ still falls way short of the 450$ mark. [:O] Damn.

And we don't have to wait 70 turns for towns. And we get whipped infrastructure early all the time.

[:O]

T90, 625 BC

https://i.imgur.com/XkpKEOh.png

The age of wonders has crept up on us, with GW and GLH coming online:

https://i.imgur.com/WgQZ5EK.png

Stapel will get a good boost to his economy from GLH, but imo, he needed 2 workers and a settler MUCH more. That and iron working for a gems city.

Between Pyramids and GW, Matrix is setting himself up to be under-expanded. His territory is starting to take form, with a very recent 3rd city to the SE:

https://i.imgur.com/oLBJkAd.png

And I now have him on the demographics graphs.

https://i.imgur.com/8VAqI6x.png

A barb city has popped up in his backyard, onto which ynnek already has a scout warrior posted

https://i.imgur.com/VrWlqpH.png

And we'll race them there with a galley of axemen

https://i.imgur.com/OwYT4JS.png

The northern little fishing village hasn't been built yet as it will take more time for it to go online, with lesser rewards. Our 5th city is a handful of turns away, right on time for calendar. Ynnek got his 5th first.

https://i.imgur.com/syfoNWx.png

We're almost 10 turns ahead of him towards calendar, with CoL in the bag, which is a sizeable tech lead. Can't wait for the next wonderbread payday.

https://i.imgur.com/Q7GbkyU.png

Killer still in the gutter, Ynnek and I maintain the whipping pace, Matrix still up there despite being underexpanded. BrunchTime the greek coming up like a rocket, recently surpassing PP.

T95, 500 BC

[estwing]
We have confirmation that continents are split 4:3, with Killer on his way to the grave, making it a 4:2 split. ProPain has now captured his outer city. Long-term plan: get a Great Spy over there on a caravel. I'll start working on one in short order.

[ynnek]
Ynnek is out of pocket for a bit so things will slow down. Our partnership is going great, with both of us doing a bit more than would be 'reasonably curteous'. Among other things, I'll clear a city near Matrix for him, spread my religion over and give him iron when connected, while he informed me I did have iron, has sent gold ahead of time and conceded future rights towards the gems city.

[doomsol]
Matrix has a size-10 capital with Pyramids, Great Wall and Stonehenge. Talk about flaunting his stone ; Stonehenge is of absolutely no use to him, he only got it to deny others just-in-case. With religions, Stapel and I have little use for it and no stone to build with - so I guess it could be seen as the first intercontinental offensive action.

[afro]
Stapel made at least 1 more worker, which is good. He needs a healthier workforce if he is to ever build ToA and give me a good wonderbread payday. Artemis is at 550 hammers accumulated so far. Our Oracle money is all but gone by now, falling 1 turn short of yielding 100% research through Mono+Math+Calendar+IW.

Don't sell the bear's hide before killing it, as we say, but I foresee a future where Matrix tries to play ynnek against me and/or where I ram through Stapel with elephants and catapults while riding the $ wave of ToA fail gold + conquest bounty. Unfortunately, Stapel will go into the grinder either way: his mass religion tech path, combined with under-worked, far-away expansions, left him far behind the pack.

T100, 375 BC.

https://i.imgur.com/de55EHm.png

https://i.imgur.com/fnMo8UC.png

The F9 screen has taken a jump upwards with Killer eliminated. The "Rival Worst" from T100 is above the "Rival Average" from T90, across the board.

https://i.imgur.com/DDsFXbZ.png

Ynnek with calendar is going to take a good boost upwards. He needs it, what with his first circle having low food to grow. None of my business, but he should've settled 1 tile closer to tile-share his capital's fishes and rice.

https://i.imgur.com/4AP9hWU.png

We're still in good standing with #1 score, thanks to high pop and a few big techs.

https://i.imgur.com/YIWxafo.png

Still, we have urgent matters to attend to:

https://i.imgur.com/Z2tKOjw.png

GLib + Pyramids in a 10-pop capital. I know how that ends.

This means war. [ninja]

https://i.imgur.com/xzxe2gZ.png

Catapults, Triremes, Elephants.

His territory is gorgeous as well, but I only spot one metal ... so far.

https://i.imgur.com/yLeaOFq.png

This may mean that I can camp it with a stack of shock axemen for a while. He'll soon expand west to grab iron #2. I need to be ready for that as well.

Burn and pillage.
[doomsol]

T110, 125 BC

https://i.imgur.com/NxZTlR3.png

The game's 2nd war is upon us.

https://i.imgur.com/bv4vo7b.png

*snickers* [col]

We are at polar opposites of the map, which makes things logistically difficult. Galley #2 comes out next turn, so we'll have some backup in case of naval battles, then triremes within the week.

https://i.imgur.com/SS7nI5J.png

The first wave consists of 5 axemen: 4 stacked up by his iron, and 1 sowing the seeds of chaos in the heartland.

https://i.imgur.com/9ih0taT.png

His 3 strategic resources are in jeopardy: Ynnek has made a fresh settler this very turn, and has a galley ready to make the trip south. Stapel should be able to handle the horses, should Matrix even get there with 3rd ring culture. And most importantly for now, his current source of Iron has been successfully pillaged at the cost of 1 scout decoy. RIP Asterix.

https://i.imgur.com/DgFwccV.png

He has 2 axes and an archer in The Hague, 1 injured axe (from the scout), 1 archer and 1 catapult in Rotterdam.

https://i.imgur.com/qxJqRss.png

Both Ynnek and Stapel are dragging along on expansions with low food and high worker needs. Things are looking up while their development takes off. PP and Brunch seem like they're having a very close heat matchup over there. Meanwhile, our lead wanes as the Oracle boost tapers off. As for Matrix, his wonder combo really shows.

https://i.imgur.com/Sk4uYMt.png

That's just nasty. Icarus' hubris. Our only hope is stopping him within 50 turns before he can just ridiculously overpower everyone. The Aztecs' part will be to capitalize on high food output to whip everything relentlessly.

We made a deal with Ynnek and Stapel: he needs to be stopped. Else Matrix wins, no contest. They agree. And they need to keep Gronigen. Else I win, no contest. So we are at peace until 500 AD while we sort things out in the Netherlands. I'd be content just grabbing Amsterdam for a domestic source of gold.

1AD

https://i.imgur.com/WlOD2iY.png

Whipping 2-3 pop constantly like a motherfucker

https://i.imgur.com/QtB9BNj.png

2 Forges up. HBR next turn for elephants. Ynnek will start being scared soon since he sees it all get ferried over. We'll probably have to start discussing land concessions then.

https://i.imgur.com/wC5Cgxp.png

Temple of Solomon is a neat 8 GPT, in a strong commerce city no less. Nothing close to Pyramids+GLib+Gems but hey, we make do.

https://i.imgur.com/Bb4xlri.png