RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[WarriorKnight]

It might be to our benefit *NOT* to find India straight away so we don't have to trade Mathematics the turn we finish it.

I don't think we can get away with that. DIM has sent us complete directions to India and we would be silly not to get there ASAP. While it might indeed threaten the HG, let's see what the conditions of the alliance from Krill are first.

T48:

2nd chariot is complete. Moved him onto the sheep tile. I see our naming department has been slacking off slightly and we now have 1 warrior and 2 chariots that need to be renamed.

Anyway, chariot1 revealed:



A silk, but it is too far away from city3 unless we give up the wheat (not happening).

I decided to go 100% for writing even though we will again be 1 gold short of finishing it. If that's a move or anything let me know.

Anyway concerning the growth plan, do we have any plans for another worker (or 2)? We will certainly need them after city 3 goes up and more workers never hurts.

[Sockboy]

I decided to go 100% for writing even though we will again be 1 gold short of finishing it. If that's a move or anything let me know.

I think this is the right move, with changing tiles it's a bit difficult to check exactly if it's optimum. Worst comes to worst we do what we did with pottery (i.e. reduce science rate on the last turn).

Anyway concerning the growth plan, do we have any plans for another worker (or 2)? We will certainly need them after city 3 goes up and more workers never hurts.

I think we've got time to get another one out of Nemedia to help with chopping for the HG, we've also got a trade for another worker around t70 with DIM. Hopefully that's enough for the short term (till around t90).

[ad hoc]

nice to see another happy and with Lobo gone we should be able to claim it without any territorial disputes.

i've renamed the units, chariots being Valeria and Belit with the warrior being Tarascus.

we will need some more workers especially when the Hamman are built and the extra happies kick in. i think we also need at least another three cities for a total of five for the HG to make sense, any less than this and i don't think it will be worth it.

[WarriorKnight]

we will need some more workers especially when the Hamman are built and the extra happies kick in.

Agree. I think we are focusing a bit too much on infrastructure ATM. Granaries are essential when we are whipping (which we are) but I currently don't know if building libraries this early will be worth it. We certainly will need more workers when the happy cap is risen and more settlers is always good.

i think we also need at least another three cities for a total of five for the HG to make sense, any less than this and i don't think it will be worth it.

True, but we will hopefully/probably have at least that many when HG arrives.

[Sockboy]

Ok t49 played: Getting Alcazar and Castranno set up for settler chops this turn. We'll need to halt production of the granary in exchange for a settler in a couple of turns time. Then we can whip it out the next turn with overflow completing the granary. Sweet!

Our newly renamed chariots continue their exploration, Valeria spied this as she heads towards Krill (cheers for renaming the units Ad Hoc!) .


Mmmm more silk. A bit of discussion leads us to probably head SE/SW next turn. Looks like there's a grassland hill there to help uncover a bit more fog and that should be en route to Krill. Oh and whilst they look so good here's a demogs screenshot. Check out our awesomeness, all 1s and 2s. I feel like a 8-year-old boasting about his report card. "Look mum, I got an A in production"

[WarriorKnight]

2 messages from DIM:

To the leaders of the glorious Ottoman (or should I say Hyborean?) empire,

The tech trade of the cheaper techs can be iniated between the members individually. We can trade Hunting/Masonry for Writing, not a problem. The more expensive techs (Monarchy, HBR, IW, Alpha, Maths, Currency, MC, Aesth, CoL, Calendar,...) should be traded to each member once it is discovered. You will be able to trade it around once you get Alpha from Krill. This will give us a small but important tech lead with the remaining teams.
I suggest you talk to Krill soon so he can lay out the general plan again.

The trick is to keep this as quiet as possible, because as soon as the teams that are left out get wind of our alliance, they will immediately band together and try to take us down. That's why it's important the initial trading round contains as many teams as possible. We were thinking of around 9-10 teams for the alliance. We definitely want Carthage in, which is why we need to meet up with them in the near future.

We have recently met England, and they already have a sort of loose agreement (the thing A4 and DIM had before the alliance) to research certain techs. They've met Mali and Babylon, whom we shall probably leave out of the alliance. I will be discussing this with Krill, but we'd like to include England as well.

Do you know if Carthage has met other teams and is considering a tech deal? If not, you could already send them a message you would like to talk to them about it after Carthage meets up with us. We hope to get our warrior at the lake soon. I might have to give you his coordinates in relation to your capital, so you can guide us should we miss the rendez-vous.

Thanks for the info on your gold/sheep site. We will plan accordingly so we can get some culture at our marble site.

Let's keep in touch as much as possible.

Highest regards,

Ilios for DIM

Hi,

India has asked us to relay their wish for a meet-up. They are currently north of Krill's lands, so maybe you could swing that way once you've made contact with Egypt?

Regards,

Ilios for DIM

Ilios caught me reading G-Mail and we had a long chat. They wanted us to disregard the 2nd mail about India.

I sent the picture with Valeria's position (didn't edit out anything else ) and DIM forwarded it to Krill. They want us to move SW,W,SW,SW,NW in order to meet India (who has a warrior down there). Krill has a warrior a couple of turns away from our eastern border so we can probably skip finding his borders for now.

Since Krill will give us writing in 13 turns, they also suggested to save money so we can go straight to math after krill gets alpha. It cuts the ETA of math down significantly but we can't go straight onto a lib in nemedia. Since we have other things to build, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Only other problem is our writing for hunting/masonry trade, however they said that they will see what can be arranged and if needed they can just gift us the techs.

Also they want us to tell Carthage about the alliance and that it is in their interest to meet others in it. We should probably tell them about it and they should go for HBR.

Also Krill is 1st in GNP, DIM is 3rd. Both have a working gold tile.

[WarriorKnight]

After the huge diplo news in the previous post, we will undoubtedly be the 1st to math. However we will probably have to trade it away, and now if we do go for HG, we might not have enough cities for it to be worth it. I don't know if asking for a no-build clause will be worth the diplomatic fallout it will create.

I have switch research to 0% since getting maths quicker is always a good thing. What do the rest of you think?

We are now 7th in GNP but hopefully we can fix that soon.

Anyway, we seem to have included Carthage in the alliance, which means that we have allies on most sides. We should probably just go for a full out REX.

We should follow the directions given for Valeria since meeting other teams is what the chariots 1st priority is. We can scout out the other land later.

Belit could probably scout out the nearby land, but could also go and meet Aztec.

[ad hoc]

Oops, should have read the reports before moving, shouldn't be a problem though... hopefully

Went SE SW with Valeria which did reveal a couple more resources, haven't ended the turn as i wasn't sure if we changed to settler this turn or next, can someone go in and make necessary changes

[ad hoc]

So just to clarify, Krill gets the oracle and takes alphabet, he has to give us writing (or we get it in trade from him) so we can research maths. once we get maths we can then trade that to Krill for Alphabet so we can then trade maths to everyone else.

[Sockboy]

Hmm... big news. Let's follow Krill's directions for now, if we head SW/NW next turn we're only delayed by a turn, so it shouldn't matter too much and we've uncovered a food resource we wouldn't have otherwise which we can't complain about.

WRT saving cash, I'm not sure I like it much. It delays us for 5 turns to a library, and if Krill somehow misses the Oracle (unlikely, but possible) we're up the proverbial creek. I'm wary of anything that could potentially significantly delay us to Maths since it's our only way of getting an increased happy cap. Getting to maths earlier doesn't really help us a lot since as you said we've got other things to build ATM, so really we're just helping everyone else, particularly if we need to trade the tier techs around ASAP.

Looking at HG we can get it around 7 turns after Maths is complete. Without too much work, we can also get 3 settlers out in time, although whether the last one has gotten into place and settled in time is very tight (I'm assuming Maths around t74 -> HG t81). Actually the more I think about it the better it is. Ok, I've talked myself round With us needing to settle a fourth city around t62 (I'm assuming silver/sheep) I'm not sure what our research rate will be like, but we should have enough time to get to 6 cities for HG. And it cuts down the competition on THG to whomever we meet before we get mathematics.

The no build clause is a bit more difficult, but perhaps we claim it'll take a turn or two longer than it will, to disrupt the plans of other teams in case they head for it? I think we've got such a good position for the HG that we shouldn't give it up. It might be worth discussing with India though if they have stone they could beat us, we could offer stone/marble (after we've used it) in exchange for a NBC on THG? Or we could just assume that they're not going to go for it and hope?

All this of course depends on us being able to work out something for getting us Masonry before we get Mathematics (at least 4 turns, but preferably ASAP). We might also need to lean on DIM to get the worker for chariot exchange on t70 if possible, we'll need it to chop/whip out a settler from Nemedia.