[Spoiler] Team slowwalk of the Reservoir Cats (Suleiman/Korea, slowcheetah + Catwalk)

[Catwalk]

Suggested orders

DD: Galley or Trireme. I'm leaning towards a trireme, to start harrassing Sian's ships.
JH: Market. This is a weak production city, but it can keep accumulating coast tiles. Commerce is all it can do, and we should boost it. I've removed its scientist for now, we won't generate a GS there anytime soon and we want to grow it.
OHP: Replacing a coast tile with a plains forest.
HA: Producing an axeman. I think we should keep producing units here for at least the next 3t. And yes, I'm going to insist on producing them with HA to get the XP

Others:
- Cover our tundra worker with an axeman, dazed is threatening it
- Ignore Sian's chariot by TMC, it has been garrisoned
- Galley already explored some more, I think we should bring it back next turn in order to garrison GMJ. We can get map info from xenu.


EDIT:
I went with the above decisions and forwarded the save. Sian asked us if we're interested in a NAP renewal. He has a chariot up by TMC, currently defended by a warrior and two axemen and a spearman arriving next turn. dazed has moved an axeman towards us in the tundra, threatening our worker. We're covering it with an axeman of our own. I'm not sure whether to make anything of this or not. If it's aggressive intent, it's pointless to move just one unit forward. I suggest we stay alert.

[Catwalk]

I think we should seek to negotiate a NAP with Sian in exchange for reobtaining permission to build either GLib or Colossus, his choice. Maybe offer him a small gift on top of that. I wouldn't want a long NAP, but since we don't want to attack him in the near future anyway I think we should look into this. Maybe lasting until t95 or t100. If he only wants a straight up NAP, I don't think we should go for it.

[slowcheetah]

We don't want to get the GLib now that we've pushed Xenu towards it, I don't see too much value in colossus for us anyway. Straight up NAP until turn 100 would be ok, it's not like we are going to go to war in the next 25 turns unless forced.

DD should build a galley, we need more then just one in order to transport a proper settling party to the centre island (settler, worker, defense). Triremes should come later when we are actually in a war.
JH is actually a fine military city at this stage of the game (although not currently since OHP stole its mines. Do we want to get a holy city there, if not we shouldn't grow it until COL is in to reduce it's chances.

Capital needs to be on worker and then settler production ,we should crack out one for the centre island and one for the stone city in the next ten turns. I deeply regret letting you build a barracks there :P. XP isn't that important at this stage of the game.

OHP, why on earth was I working a coast tile that's all

The chariot has been in TMC for many turns now, Sian clearly wants to ally rather than fight currently. Dazed's axe is rather worrying though.

Key point, get 3 more workers and a galley out of TSU and DD. Couple of settlers out of HA and lets get a foothold on some of these islands. I'd like to steal Sian's pigs, but we probably can't afford a city that far away without intercontinental trade routes right now. Despite your disdain courthouses will be good, it's not like we have a lot of commerce to multiply with markets but we do have lots of maintenance we can save on.

I apologise for the rather stream of consciousness post.

[Catwalk]

1) There is practically no distance to the centre island, a single galley can transport all we need easily. I do think we want to pressure Sian over there. Can we keep the trireme since it's almost half done?
2) I'm not too worried about landing religion in JH. We can keep it one size below DD and OHP easily.
3) How fast can we afford expanding? New cities cost us 15-16 gold in increased upkeep. Even with 6 gpt from trade routes, that puts us under pressure. Already we're making a tiny surplus at 0% research.
4) xenu would see a NAP with Sian as a betrayal. It may well be a much easier sell if we can point out that we're doing it in order to land a wonder and are gearing up for war after that. Harming relations with xenu to the point that he feels betrayed will bring us dangerously close to catpile territory.
5) I'm fine with putting up some courthouses after CoL, I just think they're only marginally better than markets.

[Commodore]

5) I'm fine with putting up some courthouses after CoL, I just think they're only marginally better than markets.

Okay, this statement seems curious. How are they not apples vs. oranges? Courthouses are basically a baseline +gpt, plus +2EPpt (and also a temptation for the governor, but meh). Markets are +gpt when slider is on, a couple decent specialist slots, and +2 (eventually 4) happy. I can see both being attractive, but I'm curious what makes them equal.

[Catwalk]

It is apples and oranges, yeah. And obviously it depends on where we put them. Courthouses will provide a little extra gpt and 2 EP the way our economy looks (very low research, modest commerce). I'd be just as happy with the merchant slots and the happiness for the most part. I was referring to an earlier discussion about the value of researching CoL. Given that we have markets available already, we need to evaluate the extra benefit of having courthouses available as well. I think the benefit is minimal, hence the value of CoL is reduced significantly. If we didn't have access to markets, CoL would be a fair bit better. Courthouses have the benefit of being buildable in more locations, as its value is independent of commerce. This means we can put it in distant small cities, if we decide we can spare the hammers.

[slowcheetah]

I actually think courthouses are more valuable than usual with our economy, because we are not earning appreciable raw commerce (no cottages) in almost all our cities to multiply with markets. Consequently, cutting costs is probably the more productive way to save gold, and allow expnasion. Admittedly that's just a gut feeling and the merchant specialists slots themselves could prove very valuable.

On the subject of expansion, we need to get some sort of foothold on those islands before all the land is gone. Those islands are too important strategically to leave unsettled and once the land is gone we are screwed. If we have to build wealth so be it.

I think what we should do is quit building military in HA and build a market there instead (prophet +palace gold). Headache has better production than a military city and shouldnt be wasted on it at this point. (Hence, why I hate the barracks).Then aim to knock out at least two more settlers in the next ten turns(out of HA) for stone and the big island. JH should build workers rather than a market if we have DD on naval duty.

[Catwalk]

Sian left 3 workers unguarded in the tundra, and it's now t75. I am strongly in favour of stealing them. He has only 1 chariot in the nearby city, and his power is as low as ours. We can steal it with our spear and be safe on the forest while bringing them to our territory. We have 3 copper units in the area, with another 2 in OHP to reinforce the front if needed. Sian has same power rating we do, and he's spread out thinner. I suggest bringing the nearby spearman to his game and the axeman from OHP down there as well. Are you in NAP negotiations with him already? If so, hold the turn while awaiting his response. If he declines signing over Colossus to us, we go steal the workers and offer a new NAP. We are in a position of strength here, and stealing 3 workers would be pretty big. Will leave him hurting for workers over the next several turns in addition to depriving him of 120 hammers. I know we're not super nice in doing this, but he did leave himself vulnerable when the NAP expired. He could easily have covered them with a unit, so this was a mistake on his part that IMO we should exploit. I think he thought about doing the same with the chariot by TMC, only NAP timing wasn't on his side. Also, there'd be big diplo points with xenu for doing this.

Lurkers, feel free to comment on how big assholes we'd be Roughly, the situation is this:
1) Our NAP expired this turn, t75. Sian asked us for a t100 renewal on t74. We're going to accept this offer on condition that he returns us the rights to Colossus (we signed this away to him earlier when negotiating over the Oracle, giving him the rights to GLib, GLH and Colossus).
2) He has 3 unguarded workers in range of our spearman, on our tundra border.
3) He razed our tundra city earlier and offered a settler in compensation. This was a gesture of goodwill on his part, he didn't need to offer anything.
4) He's our main rival, I think we're neck and neck.

In other news, a GNP spike suggests Sian just finished Calendar. He still doesn't have marble, so I think we're safe. He can see that we are importing marble from Mao, if he takes a closer look (I think, is that info available to everybody?).

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Do you hear it? That's the sound of the lurkers baying for blood.

[slowcheetah]

I completeley disagree on us being in a position of strength (military wise), many of our coastal cities remain completely ungarrisoned and we cant actually afford a military build up for a fair amount of time

I think we are currently ahead of Sian and will get further ahead in the medium term using our Philo bulbing spree for liberalism. After that we should attack, but we shouldn't get distracted by petty worker wars currently. (Despite lurker love for worker wars).

Edit: Our workers around OHP need to be next to Sian's borders currently in order to chop the MoM, fighting in the area you are building a wonder doesn't make sense to me, particularly with so much land left to settle.

I haven't currently been in negotiations, I haven't had time tonight and probably won't until the weekend.

I'll hold the save for another hour or so then play it