[SPOILERS] Peter of the Ottomans carries a big stick

[thestick]

Hm, should I slow-build the Settler or just outright whip it? I'm starting to think whipping it is a good idea. Only issue is a lack of military and Worker labor, which will both be fixed in the next couple of turns. Maybe Size 5 -> whip?

[thestick]

Tankra settled the city of Repel a Leper on the spot where his Settler stood. SAT settled the city of Vocabulary somewhere. In that case, I'll whip the Settler. It'll take some time for the Workers to road through all those forests, though.

[thestick]

While we're waiting, here are a few assorted thoughts:
1. Other possible tech targets are Aesthetics, Metal Casting, and Iron Working. Aesthetics and Literature for the Parthenon and Great Library sound good. Metal Casting for forges, and Iron Working to get rid of all that nasty jungle. They don't seem like good 'next tech' choices, but they're out there.

2. We're probably going to have to have a large military. This map really makes defending somewhat difficult once you've grown. There are four possible attack directions! Plus, with AI Diplo, we'll need to be semi-vigilant on most of them. On another note, SAT barely edged ahead of us in Soldiers last turn.

3. Can we run a specialist economy without the Pyramids? Probably not, but we are the only Philosophical leader.

4. I'm thinking of converting Krakatoa from a production city to a Great Scientist farm eventually. +8 surplus food and grassland rivers? Uh, yes please!

5. Being on the far side of both of the Industrious leaders, it doesn't look like we can conquer our way to wonders.

6. Should we put down the Stone city to help with the Hanging Gardens? That city is terrible and has no food and screws up any other floodplains city we put there. Is it worth it?

7. How high of a priority is that other landmass? It seems pretty low, but we'll still need to get some scouts running there one we get a southern port.

[thestick]

Apparently I've miscounted a turn somewhere along the line, last turn was T47, not T46.

Everything is still going according to plan. I whipped the Worker in Aral Sea and Krakatoa grew to Size 5. We're still rock-bottom of the scoreboard. I think having no popped borders other than our capital is affecting that. SAT has four cities, Nicolae founded Hinduism, Sian founded Buddhism and has two wonders, and Tankra's Creative. I decided to let the Granary slow-build in Katrina instead of one-pop whipping it. Only three turns away! Research rate is now abysmal, about 7 beakers per turn. A Worker is starting to build those cottages near Krakatoa, and the new worker will do the same near Aral Sea. Our Gold source gets connected next turn.

The only problem with roading to Horse city, albeit a tiny one, is this SAT warrior. I'll have an Axe moving up there to prevent any strange DOWs that destroy our Settler,


Here's Tankra's city of Repel a Leper:

I kinda wish I had more than one Axe in the area so I could jump on that city while it's fresh... there's only one Dog Soldier there! I still feel our military is a bit too spread out.

We'll get enough hammers from the whip to two-turn build a Worker if we want to. Do we? The other options are a one-turn Monument or a one-turn Axeman.

[Bigger]

for some reason i never get emails when you post in here, weird - it works fine for the other threads im subscribed too.

when will you need me to take over turn-playing? Next Monday? are you playing when you can, or not until you get back?

[thestick]

when will you need me to take over turn-playing? Next Monday? are you playing when you can, or not until you get back?

Yup, next Monday. I'll try to play when I can. I'm honestly a bit worried that I'll somehow end up without internet and be unable to tell you so. If I disappear for more than 48 hours, assume that I can't find any internet. Should we put your email in the tracker?

[thestick]

Okay, here are my current thoughts. Feel free to disagree on any of these points.

[SIZE="5"]Short Term Plans[/SIZE]
-Krakatoa grows to Size 5 next turn. Put a turn into a Settler and whip it T50.
-Aral Sea gets 25 hammers of overflow. Funnel that into a second Worker and let it complete T50.
-Katrina grows T52 onto the Gold Mine. Let it do so.
-Complete the road to the north next turn. Move the Axe that finished on the turn roll onto the forest Deer to guard against the north.
-We will have one spare worker next turn. I don't want to move it onto the plains hill forest for fear that SAT will declare and destroy it. I'll wait for the Axe to move onto that hill to cover it. Therefore, send one worker to dump a turn of roading on the Wheat tile. Then, move it along the roads to the plains hill T50.

[SIZE="5"]Medium Term Plans[/SIZE]
-Build cottages in Krakatoa. Grow onto the sheep Mine and Ivory, then grow onto Cottages. Whip when necessary.
-Build cottages in Aral Sea. Let grow for a bit and stay off the whipping.
-Build a cottage, then a farm in Katrina. Katrina will have a +3 food surplus while working the Gold. Pushing that up to +4 seems worthwhile. Try to not whip below Size 3.
-Improve the Deer at the fourth city, followed by chopping the forests and improving the Horses. Chop out a Work Boat, then a Granary, then a Monument.

[SIZE="5"]Long Term Plans[/SIZE]
-Road the forest near Aral Sea sometime.
-Convert the sheep mine to a pasture
-Hire two Scientists in Krakatoa and pump out Great Scientists
-Prechop a few forests and complete them when Mathematics rolls in. Chop out the Hanging Gardens.
-Settle the fifth city, either the norther Copper source or the southern floodplains. Both will need significant military garrisons.
-Build a couple of Spears and Chariots. Tankra will be sending Chariots and Horse Archers eventually.

[SIZE="5"]Really Long Term Plans[/SIZE]
-Conquer Tankra or SAT.
-Convince Tankra to invade Nicolae.
- (?) Use Great Engineer from Hanging Gardens to bulb Machinery, build Crossbows, and eat Tankra's Dog Soldiers alive. Research Civil Service and get Macemen.
-Build a southern port and colonize the southern landmass.

I think we want the Hanging Gardens. At the very least, we want Hammans. It seems pretty obvious that if we want to build the Hanging Gardens, they'll have to be built in Krakatoa. It's our major produciton center, has four forests in the fat cross, two more in the borders (three if we're desperate enough to chop the deer), and enough food for whipping.

Yes, I know I've said many of these before, but it felt worthwhile to put them all in one spot.

[Bigger]

I like those plans. Anyway it seems unlikely I'll be playing past "medium term," if even that. Not sure how fast the turn pace will be while you're gone, tho.

email is rb.bigger AT gmail.com. yes add me to the tracker, you can tell them once you are ready to let them know I'll be turnplaying . Go ahead and send me a save Friday or Saturday, for 2 reasons. 1. I have the vanilla and BTS CD, but not the warlords. I don't think I need it, there's nothing on warlords that isn't on BTS except a few firaxis mods/scenarios, but I'm not positive - need to make sure the versions match up. I can prob pick a copy up real easy if it turns out I do need it. 2. might get a new perspective once I can open up and look around, and it would be good to get your feedback before you leave on your trip.

also I haven't been paying attention to how the tracker works, so would be good to familiarize myself with that before it counts.

[thestick]

In local news, Krakatoa started on a Settler, which would complete in four turns if we weren't whipping it. Expansive continues to impress me:


We almost one-turned a Worker. Two more hammers! And the Worker was whipped at 11/40, we could get that to 14/40 and still be able to whip for two pop. Soon we'll have six Workers. They fear our army but what they should really fear is our peasant army.

And yes, we are losing money at 40%. And are planning to settle a fourth city. Have I gone crazy or have I gone sane? I am planning on focusing on economy and military rather than whipping, though. (Is that a bad plan?)

I sent the Axe near Katrina to take a peek into the SAT borders, and I found the city of Arithmatic [sic].



That's the mirror of our Aral Sea spot. Arithmetic was their third city. It appears to only have a Granary. It doesn't seem to have a Monument, which feels odd considering the Crabs in second ring they don't have access to. Maybe they don't have Fishing so they don't think it's important? Also, are they working an unimproved Wine tile? I think they aren't leveraging Expansive enough...

There are two Warriors in the area. I don't think we can jump on them with just one Axe. We really need a more concentrated military. If we had a couple more Axes, we could jump and raze that city! I'm thinking of building a few Scouts and Archers to serve as sentries to free up some Axes to be used for actual striking purposes. In unrelated news, I'm sending the Axe near Repel a Leper to get another peek into the city before returning to sentry duty. Also, a couple of Chariots for mobility would be great.

I think we should chop a grassland forest in Aral Sea. We currently only have room for two grassland cottages, so we'd better clear up room for a couple more. I'm debating between the NW forest and the SE forest. The NW forest is backline and will be relatively safe. On the other hand, clearing out the SE forest turns that tile into a flatland so that Tankra's invaders (who will probably be coming eventually) won't have forest cover right next to our city. I think that chop should go into a Library, which will be two-pop whipped to completion later. There doesn't seem to be a rush to build a monument, the only worthwhile things past first ring borders are those two hills in the south.

I wonder why exactly we want the Hanging Gardens. It costs 201 hammers. With four cities, we only get 80 hammers worth of whipping fodder or 100 if we funnel those whips into Workers. The health boost is almost meaningless right now. We're Expansive with Wheat, Deer, Crabs, and Cows, and we can hook up Sheep and Fish later. The only other draw I can see is the Great Engineer points. Is it worth it? I'm not so sure anymore.

Basically, for the tracker, all you need to do is send an email with the current save attached to 'rbpbem35' at gmail dot com. I think it'll only work if your email address is in the tracker, considering how it didn't work when Sian sent the save in from a different email address. You'll get a copy of the save forwarded to you, or you can get the save from http://mistbinder.org/tracker/tracker.php?game=bts35 by clicking 'Download.'

[thestick]

Nothing terribly interesting happened this turn. Krakatoa ended up getting 24/65 into the Settler, so we couldn't whip it. Oh well, overflow will help build more Axes. Tankra's moving around a Warrior in the south to scout out our lands, but since we have some actual non-Warrior defenders, it's no big deal. SAT moved an Axe into Arithmetic, so I backed our Axe off back to garrison duty.

SAT has the largest army in the world right now. Nicolae settled a fourth city.