Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[SevenSpirits]

Quick turnaround: I played t51 just now. Pretty simple, just continued the micro Ranamar set up last turn really. [No pics since I assume we will be getting t50 pics.]

We finished Literature! Marble should be incoming this next turn or the one after, I think GES said. I politely asked him to offer it immediately when it's improved.

We also got our Great... Prophet! This is the better result for us as long as we get a scientist next. We'll settle him for 2h and $5 in the capital, improving our economy and the build time of our wonders.

Capital's build queue should now be set to: GLib, NEpic, ToA, Parthenon. Note: with ToA and Parthenon it's actually OK if someone else steals them. The failgold multiplied by 2.5 is good too, and the wonders themselves are not that special. Hence building the more powerful National Epic first, even though there's no competition for it. (Forge will be inserted into the queue there when it's available.)

From this point until when we get marble, we should work as many cottages as possible. Not sure about mines vs scientist. Hopefully we get marble immediately. When we do, we work max mines.

Meanwhile, the other cities should keep pumping out settlers and workers. I started a galley in Grey Havens as this may allow us to colonize a bit of Yuris' land.

And... we have to choose a tech.

* Metal Casting is 400b and will give forges (+1 happiness and hammers)
* Math -> Calendar is 530b and will give +2 happiness! Also, we'll have Math which is useful for chopping and for...
* ... Currency, another 350b which will give a bunch of trade routes (about $14 worth) and allow mediocre (no happiness) markets. Not as good as Calendar (2happy > $2 in each city) but pretty darn good.

I think our breakeven tech rate will be about 50bpt (modified) so for example 8 turns for MC.

[SevenSpirits]

Chatted with GES.

* He has offered marble. Woohoo! (Now we just need a free worker and for MNG to give us a gold or ivory for the heck of it and for rivers to magically spring up everywhere, and balance will be restored. )

* We agreed to a NAP until t100.

oh yeah, speaking of which, want a longer formalized nap?
jtgoldsmith: Sounds good to me.
me: ok
hm
I dunno, t100?
jtgoldsmith: I'm chatting while trying to play MW2 Xbox
sounds fine by me
me: ok
no declaring until t100
and no being a bastard
jtgoldsmith: Indeed, no settling on the other land mass or giving troops to an enemy or dumb stuff like that
me: exactly
cool

I feel extremely happy with our current diplomatic position. Stealing some of yuris' land will probably be a good idea. And GES is probably going to be aggressive vs Commodore.

[SevenSpirits]

Played ANOTHER (turn 52 now)!

Research to 0%. I put the 1 beaker into math but I'd like to hear what you guys think is best.

BD will finish GLib t57, with assistance from a single chop. We'll probably add National Epic 5 turns later (62) and get another great person 3 turns after that (65), without running a single specialist!

We have 8 (really just 7) workers and I feel like we need more. Capital could use another mine, new cities need cottages and mines and roads still. So those are a good build in our secondary cities.

[Ranamar]

T50 report...
On looking through the images, it appears I neglected to screenshot graphs. We have graphs on 2 of our opponents, and we need to remember to move espionage to a new target so we can get more graphs.

Anyway, first, the routine stuff... scouting!

We've started walking into Hapshetsut's France... and yes, we already knew they have gold, and it turns out to be near their borders, not that it matters much.

In the center, we continue to find oodles of seafood and furs, and not much else.

Finally, here we go: we've just about gotten world wrap for the N/S direction to prove this world is toroidal. If we just defog one more vertical line of tiles... then we'll just have to do the E/W direction.

This'll be out of date by now, because we've had more turns, but.. cities:






I don't have a whole lot to say about them, for better or for worse.

Finally Cities and Demographics:

[NobleHelium]

There isn't a circumnavigation bonus for toroidal is there? Never played one.

[Ranamar]

Played ANOTHER (turn 52 now)!

Research to 0%. I put the 1 beaker into math but I'd like to hear what you guys think is best.

BD will finish GLib t57, with assistance from a single chop. We'll probably add National Epic 5 turns later (62) and get another great person 3 turns after that (65), without running a single specialist!

We have 8 (really just 7) workers and I feel like we need more. Capital could use another mine, new cities need cottages and mines and roads still. So those are a good build in our secondary cities.

My take:
Math->Calendar will give us 1 happy immediately from where we sited Edoras and another happy when we hook up the incense.
As was noted in a chat with Seven, Iron Working will net us another happy from sugar and a second gem site for a bunch more commerce.
After that, I'm going to start favoring metal casting again, because it's hanging over my head going :neenernee.

Minas Tirith and Osgiliath have whip anger to work off, last I checked. I figure they can afford to build some more workers while waiting for that. (Alternately, we could build settlers, but we were just complaining we have insufficient workers for our cities.)

Also, if we manage to actually get the Temple of Artemis too, I'm going to start lobbying hard for the Pyramids, because Representation is a permanent 9 bpt right there. (Actually, it's 12, because the settled Great Prophet would give us 3 as well.)

[Ranamar]

Played a turn that I labeled in my screenshots as T51 because I wasn't paying attention. It's T53, right?

Also, apparently, I neglected to take a screenshot of Yuris's territory. It's not as interesting as the others this turn, anyway, and I'm sticking to that story even though I just made it up.

To our south, however, we actually visited GES's marble...


... and in the center of this landmass, Strider bravely pushes onward despite his injuries.

WTF? There's silver over there? All we have on our end is furs!
Also, Strider is likely to be assaulted by that warrior, who is likely to defeat him.

As for what I actually did, well, two chops finished the granary in Edoras. A third worker moved to start on the horse pasture, and it'll be all of 2 worker turns after this to finish it.

One of the workers, by the Gray Havens, whose name escapes me, finished a mine last turn and went to start another one. I expect the Havens to be quite the forge city, when it grows up and we get Iron Working to clear the gems.

I also finished the road on Dale's corn, although that may have been because I wasn't feeling inspired for something for him to do, even though I have a feeling there were better things to do. Next turn, we'll have a bunch more new worker turns to direct, anyway.

I sent the workboat to Lorien's fish. In unrelated news, we don't have enough cash to finish Mathematics yet, so I left it on cash to wait a turn. Maintenance eats a little over 40% of our incoming cashflow. (I'm drawing a blank on whether it's 22 or 23 gpt.)

What are we trying to do with Barliman? I wonder that every time, which leaves me suspecting he's going to wander eternally between Dale and the Gray Havens. Maybe we should send him North to that point which would get us N/S circumnavigation.

Oh, and Barad-Dur is going to grow into unhappiness next turn. Do we care? It could be easily remedied by moving off the sheep to another cottage, and we have a spare cottage, but that would lose us a hammer, too.

[SevenSpirits]

WTF? There's silver over there? All we have on our end is furs!
Also, Strider is likely to be assaulted by that warrior, who is likely to defeat him.

I've given the map a lot of benefit of the doubt. But yeah, it seems pretty unfair. I guess that means we need to rise to the challenge, right?

What are we trying to do with Barliman? I wonder that every time, which leaves me suspecting he's going to wander eternally between Dale and the Gray Havens. Maybe we should send him North to that point which would get us N/S circumnavigation.

He's just a garrison for Grey Havens. But he's hanging out between GH and Edoras for now since the garrison happiness isn't needed yet.

We already have N-S circumnavigation. We have uncovered a tile in every row.

Oh, and Barad-Dur is going to grow into unhappiness next turn. Do we care? It could be easily remedied by moving off the sheep to another cottage, and we have a spare cottage, but that would lose us a hammer, too.

Yeah, we shouldn't grow into unhappiness. In the medium term we will get a third mine up, making things easier. (Let's do that right now with the worker on the forest east of the horses.) In the short term we can work a scientist over a cottage (and give that cottage to Osgiliath), potentially not work the sheep some of the time, and/or use the Avoid Growth button. (Which in case you didn't know is the only governor button with an actual gameplay effect, namely, you don't grow when the food box is full, it just stays at exactly full.)

[SevenSpirits]

Played 54. Strider died.

MNG built GLH. Either MNG or yuris got a great scientist. Let's find out.

Yuris has two ivory hooked.




Dear Gaspar: What the fuck.

2 gems
2 whales
1 sugar
1 spice
1 incense

Those are all the happy resources we have. Furs isn't even in reasonable reach. We have walked straight through yuris land and he has at least:

1 gems
2 wine
1 sugar
1 spice
1 dye
2 ivory
1 fur

We have 23 riverside tiles. He has, based only on our limited stripe of vision, 45 or more.

We have ~16 food resources.

He has 12 visible. (This is the stat that is most hurt by our lack of vision by the way. I'm sure he has more than us given the amount of fog, especially seafood ones.)

He has marble (according to another player; maybe not). We only have stone, which is worse.

This level of asymmetry is not OK if the borders are so clearly defined.

[Ranamar]

Given that rundown, I'm going to say, yeah, let's see if we can manage to steal Yuris's bridgehead city. If we do it right, we can steal his spices, too, IIRC.

Of course, then we'll want to road down the jungle ASAP for reinforcement purposes because, as has been pointed out, we won't have sea superiority if he doesn't want us to. But... it sounds like we need to be aggressive to make up for our starting position.