Dare you enter the Whizzard's Realm? Magic and Mysteries abide.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

State of play:

6 cities finally. The same turn mack gets 7, but ahead of plako/WK/mistoin. 7 will come next turn however. Nothing too much to say about these so far. We also got our GSci. He will build an academy next turn. Turned on tech this turn for constitution. Once we get that we shall save gold and wait. I favour pressing out for the SoL as it was supremely powerful in 33. 2 more turns of GA left too.

The east:

Interesting layout. WK seems to have settled 2 off the coast up here, unless that recent city has third ring borders (perhaps if he put ND in there?) the 3 off location seems a little odd as it wouldn't get much first ring. Who knows. It's whether we try and get the silver in the second ring of a city up here, or reach out for both islands.

Demos:

Lovely. The GA and full tech helps though. I expect about 30-40 points more with the academy in the last GA turn next turn.

[El Grillo]

Nice to get the Great Scientist at ~70%, I think the players who got earlier academies will have a noticeable advantage compared to those who didn't. Aiming for the Statue of Liberty sounds great if you can pull it off safely, and plako could be going for it too, what with the saved Great Engineer, Nationalism tech, and a recent Great Scientist of his own. It would appear that he's a bit slower so far due to lacking SPI and thus not swapping into his religion, but I wouldn't rule him out.

There's also the matter of needing three non-military techs in Constitution, Printing Press, and Democracy, when we know the Ottomans already have Astronomy, and your neighbor the Dutch have a high incentive to head that way soon. I still wouldn't be expecting aggressive moves this early when there's still lots of unclaimed land, but I think most of it will be settled in 10-15 turns, and that would put you roughly halfway through researching Printing Press. Medieval units coming off galleons can probably be held off with longbows/pikes, but is there any risk of Alhazard/RMOG getting cuirassiers in that timeframe? Engineers could bulb Gunpowder, but there's no clean way to bulb Military Tradition (only bulbable by an Artist and is blocked by PP). Now that I think about it, it's probably not a big risk.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Nice to get the Great Scientist at ~70%, I think the players who got earlier academies will have a noticeable advantage compared to those who didn't. Aiming for the Statue of Liberty sounds great if you can pull it off safely, and plako could be going for it too, what with the saved Great Engineer, Nationalism tech, and a recent Great Scientist of his own. It would appear that he's a bit slower so far due to lacking SPI and thus not swapping into his religion, but I wouldn't rule him out.

There's also the matter of needing three non-military techs in Constitution, Printing Press, and Democracy, when we know the Ottomans already have Astronomy, and your neighbor the Dutch have a high incentive to head that way soon. I still wouldn't be expecting aggressive moves this early when there's still lots of unclaimed land, but I think most of it will be settled in 10-15 turns, and that would put you roughly halfway through researching Printing Press. Medieval units coming off galleons can probably be held off with longbows/pikes, but is there any risk of Alhazard/RMOG getting cuirassiers in that timeframe? Engineers could bulb Gunpowder, but there's no clean way to bulb Military Tradition (only bulbable by an Artist and is blocked by PP). Now that I think about it, it's probably not a big risk.

I forgot about needing PP. Bugger. BUT Alhazard doesn't need MT. If we are still only rocking medi units, jans can cause us quite a headache.

Speaking of which, they do have a city on the body of water now.

Not sure how long for, I swear I checked a few turns ago so unlikely to make a galleon any time soon, although they have just put an explorer through us. I think a longbow/pike pair is needed in our new city now. Earliest I can get one there is in 3 turns, but it should be ok. They are the only team we have graphs on and no big power increase, we are ahead slightly.

The last GA turn

I'm itching to crack the whip now. We are growing far too fast. New city down in the south, good worker support. Tentative plan of whipping out the settler from tower next turn to go to the gold island - the new city in GA cost us, and out of it will lkely cost us 4-5 gpt. Getting an island city for those ICTRs will be rather profitable, it needs a little less worker input than most and we have the workboat ready. Baradur next turn will borrow some tile to grow for a 8-4 settler whip. Isenguard needs a little more time to make an 8-4 whip. UU will get a galley, which we can double whip. I want to whip the longbow out as otherwise there are limited tiles anyway.

The next settles after the gold island I think should perhaps be that southern island, it won't be threatened as yet, and either the HE mark or the city for the cows/corn east of our latest city. Neither of these are easy to get workers to though sadly. We could push out and try for the silver island beyond the gold island...

[The Black Sword]

I've got bad news for you guys ... you know it's spelled Isengard right?

[El Grillo]

Well that's that, better pack it up and go home

Settler whips sound good, those should catch you up to the Aztecs for the time being. I'm not sold on settling both the gold and silver islands on that body of water, RMOG might feel that you're reaching too far into their zone, and it would be a real pain to defend both cities against circumnav EIs.

Would it make sense to try and shave Constitution by 1t so you can swap into Representation right as it comes in (if I'm reading correctly and you're swapping into Slavery next turn)? Losing GA commerce, Caste scientists, and whipping might not make that feasible, though.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Well that's that, better pack it up and go home

Settler whips sound good, those should catch you up to the Aztecs for the time being. I'm not sold on settling both the gold and silver islands on that body of water, RMOG might feel that you're reaching too far into their zone, and it would be a real pain to defend both cities against circumnav EIs.

Would it make sense to try and shave Constitution by 1t so you can swap into Representation right as it comes in (if I'm reading correctly and you're swapping into Slavery next turn)? Losing GA commerce, Caste scientists, and whipping might not make that feasible, though.

So we are joint 2nd currently on 7 cities, aztecs are on 8 I think. So not too shabby. Yeah I agree they might feel a little pressured there. They don't have access to that water body yet though bare in mind. I think settling the gold city to contest the clam and some silver island tiles is a nice compromise though myself.

I have no idea how long it will be to constitution, although I somehow think it will be a fair bit longer. We loose GA commerce next turn, and are whipping quite a few cities including the beuro academy cap. I estimate more like 14-15 turns to rep. I think we will be able to have some slavery, then some serfdom before getting constitution.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Yeah, I don't think backing either of our horizontal neighbours into a corner is a good idea, especially not this early, and especially if they have a better way of harming us than us harming them. I think victory will go to whoever gets a military advantage, eats one or two opponents, uses that land to boost themselves to an irreversible tech edge, and can defend the land. It's more important to improve our tech rate, and that advantage lies with us over our horizontal neighbours. And if that means conceding some of the outlying islands, so be it, we can come back later and take them with tanks.

RMOG are vets at this game. I'm less familiar with Alhazard and Mistolin and Ipecac, Ipecac was doing quite poorly in PB34, so they may be the most likely targets.

Also, can we get a stronger defender into UU, or get a sentry out to the west? Don't want to tempt fate.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Yeah, I don't think backing either of our horizontal neighbours into a corner is a good idea, especially not this early, and especially if they have a better way of harming us than us harming them. I think victory will go to whoever gets a military advantage, eats one or two opponents, uses that land to boost themselves to an irreversible tech edge, and can defend the land. It's more important to improve our tech rate, and that advantage lies with us over our horizontal neighbours. And if that means conceding some of the outlying islands, so be it, we can come back later and take them with tanks.

RMOG are vets at this game. I'm less familiar with Alhazard and Mistolin and Ipecac, Ipecac was doing quite poorly in PB34, so they may be the most likely targets.

Also, can we get a stronger defender into UU, or get a sentry out to the west? Don't want to tempt fate.

The galley will be whipped next turn, but they do not have a city anywhere near that water, so anything naval is very unlikely, unless they have marched a few workers to fort tiles out of their culture.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

It's no longer golden...

Well regardless we are holding up well, and were at 198 GNP until the 4 pop whip in tower. So overall cannot complain there really.

Looking nice. Tower settler out this turn. Should be able to 1t a worker next. Baradur is borrowing pigs and deer to grow to 8 in 2 turns, so it can 4 pop whip (already enough hammers in settler to do this straight away). UU is only making 7 hammers now by running a priest. I toyed with the idea of giving it some of the hills and an eng, but being able to 2 pop whip the galley is probably better overall. SM whipped another longbow - it would have had nothing to work otherwise. Isenguard can whip in 3 turns the settler. Yhodshapura has a lot of nice tiles to grow onto which are getting improved fairly quickly, and Hariyhylata has horses now, and when it can grow the banana will be available.

Next GP in 6 turns from the cap. Will likely be a prophet or a engineer. 10% odds of either an artist or a GS though.

What do we need to plan - settling order. Gold city should definitely come next IMO, allowing 2 free happy per city and ICTRs. Then what? Baradur will make the settler. If that uncharted island is strong it could be nice to go there perhaps, and fill out our ICTRs. Otherwise to the East of tower, but worker labour is limited in that area, and we are probably better waiting for the Isen settler for that.

Where to put gold city? I do lean heavily on 6669 of Isen over 669.
Plus the Southern dotmap, from the http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...#pid609624 post. Longterm this is good, although this is difficult to get a lot out of in the early turns. A lot of cities down there have no food first ring. If the city that you have claiming the cows goes 9, then the city claiming the wheat can go 6. This does loose us a grass hill and grass tile, but these can be picked up with a filler on the ice later getting the spare silk also. Means that we have one city with ready irrigated corn and cows to go first ring, that we can perhaps settle either after gold city or the city after.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'm leaning towards settling 6669 as well, extending culture all the way up to and including the silver islands can shield us from WK's circumnav east indiamen.

Also, another note, for the filler city between SM and double-rice/cows, we should put it at 2, which frees up a river grass, and gets coastal bonuses.