(April 22nd, 2021, 10:58)Rusten Wrote: Sounds alright. Don't love leaving high-value food idle on the mainland, but with granaries we'll expand everywhere quickly anyway. And the happiness should help a lot indeed.
Good neighbours! 
If it helps, we settle corn/rice before (settler from Paraná), and after that there are just the western deer and pig left on the mainland in terms of 5 food tiles.
But really, I am worrying that we are getting "too much" food, despite doing our best to share between cities. After the settler, Paraná will already have 28 turns of whip anger, making it happy at size 3 only because we get the gold online. I will try to keep that city going slower for a while, sharing the food away and work cottages / the mine. Part of the "problem" is that the only possible 3-whip project are settlers, and growing back 2->4 is just very fast when every city has 2 food resources available.
But aquiring more happy should get high priority for our research plans.
encapsulating our war with Elkad. He had the warrior just on the city 5 hill, and I did not only want to move the settler, but as well a worker onto a forest. I'm sure he'll take it lightly.
I spied with the settler, and Elkad has his 2nd or 4th city W of the third one, also directly north of the isthmus leading to us.
Here are the new contacts.
We should see if we want to compete for the corn/copper island by Mjmd. If that's his capital we shouldn't, if it's some minor city it is an option.
For now I hope for good relations. In particular I hope that he techs writing soon in order to get his cheap libraries, so we can start with overseas trade.
Charriu found us. In this mod version he has str 5 spears for UU, which is surely interesting, although I'd expect that it will not be relevant for us. Looking at the pick, where do you think he came from? I'd like to find his borders to establish a trade route, so we can try to catch some hinduism (and who knows, maybe he uses Ramesses for AP?)
More generally, it appears clear now that Lewwyn seperated players with jungle covered areas, both landbridges and islands. This make me like the MC->IW tech path more. It gets us gems, which makes our forges 2x
buildings, and we can settle those spots earlier than others hopefully. Of course clearing jungle is still a pain.
Otoh if we get the fur markets are also at 2
already. But you want more forges than markets...
Mjmd meanwhile has his gems and gold online already:
Also horses, but no hunting happy. I really hope that the 2 precious metals are balanced by something. Or maybe he settled on a jungled gems? With our start and Cre that would certainly be an option. In a just world our gold would be hooked already, now it will be 3 more turns.
None of our contacts has a tech that we lack, besides the mysticism line. (Mjmd, unsurprisingly, has no Myst)
Here are the terrible demos that I mentioned:
The rival best in each category makes us look pretty behind. Also second in power, which you would think is a bad sign. But against the barb/Elkad combination the current level would be barely enough so they wouldn't cause any disturbances. Least approval means that we're winning though, right?
Bit of player analysis before I fall behind again:
Mjmd playing
Zara Yaqob of
Portugal (Cre/Org/fishing/mining)
An African leader for the Portuese civilization would be the perfect fit for the capoeira theme I'm running here!
We dedlurked Amica together in PB55, and I'm still on his team in PB56 providing low quality input. He impressed everybody with his performance in PB52, although ultimately he was no match for Old Harry (not saying I would have done better). PB54 where he played the same Vicky of India combo turned out less successful. He got superdeath'd, but also seemed a bit aimless? In PB56 there are good and bad parts.
I think it's totally not beyond him to use caracks for some naval terrorism even if he has little to gain from it himself, if he feels it's a fun thing to do. He also values the circumnav TRs enough to beeline optics, surely moreso with his UU on it. So watch out for that.
In the draw Vicky again cheated on poor Mjmd. Org however was my dream trait for this game, so I think he can't complain about the result there. Zara has a nice something early / something late combo. Portugal provided him with pretty strong techs, and he has the option to cause some havoc with Optics, or be first to possibly existing astro land. The game could last long enough for feitorias, but despite the very strong effect they still replace an expensive building that you normally don't want, and come late so it seems difficult to still get payback from them.But I'm sure he'll build them if he gets the chance.
Our relations hopefully will be peaceful and of mutual benefit at least for the first half of the game. With island borders him being Cre is less of a problem for us. As I said, we have to assess whether us getting the corn/copper island would be acceptable for him to set a peaceful border.
