[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Old Harry]

C'mon, guys, why don't you have a religion-founding timed to pop borders in that city the turn you settle it? Micro, people, micro!

Between western and eastern J I prefer western. We'll just have to make sure we have a good strong zone defence, and settle one of the other river valley cities soon (if we feel we may be settled up on from the north).

After checking the combat odds and with the vision that the mountains will give us after Hastings borders pop I think you're right, we should risk the western one.

Having not opened your save stack yet: Does the settling of eastern J require the pillaging of that road. I'm still pretty skeptical about leaving that bowman completely exposed. Partly, because combat roading is possible even if we destroy that road, partly because Suttree will have odds to just kill the bowman with chariot and return to the jungle tile with extra XP.. Well.. -1 unit costs is something I guess.. And do we have a reason to do it now, instead of e.g. next turn? Situations change so quickly that I think we should delay this move as along as it's reasonable. Note that destroying that road also costs us the vision of that jungle tile, which sure is improving my sleep currently..

If we're going to do it we'd do it this turn to stop a chariot sitting on J this turn or next turn to prevent two chariots pillaging the road from Hastings to J when Suttree realises what we're doing... The chances of chariot-on-J are low, but two chariots to pillage the city ruins then pillage the road could be accompanied by axes and make a tough nut to crack. (I think our axes would kill the chariots and then our bowmen would trade 50-50 with the axes, but I haven't checked).

Hydra: I think the odds that Harry wrote included bowman's city defense bonus ability.

bowmen get +50% city + 25% hill and + 50% melee. I've had to look that up about fifty times so far this game...

Utilizing Caste artists will be a good approach in the future as long as we are sure that we don't need emergency whips!

Agreed, our initial plan will be: let's grow BoP a bit and then double-whip a settler for a city in the south. We might just be able to get enough worker support as the most urgent jobs are finished around Cannae, Dunkirk & Gallipoli.

Sounds good. I look forward to the save stack!

Actually Agincourt has an issue with growing too fast so another worker or settler there would be good too.