RBP3 [SPOILERS] Hannibal of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse & SleepingMoogle)

[SleepingMoogle]

They are probably waiting to declare a few minutes before the timer ends. India hasn't ended their turn yet either, so they may be playing the waiting game too.

[Bobchillingworth]

It's a good thing that I trust Maya, because otherwise I'd be getting pretty suspicious right now. Rego is the "master of diplomacy" after all (although how he manages to be so apparently persuasive is beyond me). Surely the Mayans have been getting dilpo spammed in the last several hours, but no word from them on any such thing. Hmm.

And no word from the Maya on just what their war plans are since a brief conversation with Ref last night where he mentioned still debating over which turn half to take. No communication from Exploit either.



I suppose we'll see.

[Bobchillingworth]

Just got a very useful image from Kyan:




England sent it to them to propose settling sites. Looks like Babylon could get one-movers into English lands in 6-7 turns, which is good, although Kyan thinks that building a road to further speed movement is impossible. England is a little further from us than anticipated, but nothing undoable, I hope.

[Bobchillingworth]

Fantastic news! Cull was able to burn the Indian copper city to the ground, and has enough experience for a shock promo, and close to full health- he thinks they'll march on the capital next. Hopefully we can join him soon!


I entirely renounce all of my unreasonable suspicions from a few hours ago! Hooray for the confusing and unnecessary tactical clock maneuverings of our allies!


Also England messaged me, the snakes, to ask about what the Maya were doing. I fed them a bunch of plausible lies and half-truths. Losers :P

[SleepingMoogle]

Awesome! We could not have hoped for a better start. We should get the Normandy down south before before the party's over without us.

Speaking of which..

Turn 62:



We founded Eden Prime this turn, which should shape up to be a prime commerce city down the road. Our maintenance costs are up to 8 gold a turn at 100% science now, which actually isn't as bad as I feared it might be. Given the presence of the barb warrior to the south, I kept our Warrior at the city to defend if needed. The citadel isn't in any real danger right now, and can whip out a chariot anytime it wants to.

The citadel is currently working max food and cottages before being whipped just before it reaches size 5. A third cottage will be finished next turn, so we have a nice mixed city that can emphasize commerce or production if needed.

Down south, Feros is 2 turns away from finishing its Granary, and will have a second farm to work next turn as well. It should grow a lot faster after that, which will help with military production down the line. I would suggest waiting until it reaches size 4 before starting on the Barracks, working the horses and stone, and just churn out military until then. Additionally, we may want to delay the planned Granary at the Citadel a bit further to get our another Warrior.

Eden Prime is starting on a Monument to get the rice and more prime cottage tiles within its borders. Two workers are on site to start improving the land. For now they will chop the forest to speed things up a little.

We'll finish Masonry research next turn. At that point we'll be switching over to Horseback Riding (I think?). We will probably need to run 0% science for another 2-3 turns to make that happen.

Finally, we only need 2 more espionage points on England to get visibility on their demographics. I moved the other two towards the Mayans. They already know we were going to do this, and we'll move to other Civs again soon enough.

I left our military units (the two chariots and Jenkins) unmoved for now, as we should limit their activities to the second half of the turns. It looks like the Warrior did indeed attack the Normandy and was killed fairly easily. The Normandy is now at 3.4/4 health. I'm not sure what that would do for odds on a fortified warrior in India's city, but it should still be good. I'd favor continuing to move south for now. If needed, we can always rest and heal in Exploit's lands and provide him with some additional defense in the meantime.

[ManiaMuse]

So is the plan to join up with the Mayan chariot and generally pester India? I really can't believe that India were willing to extend the alliance to 10 members, let's see if they offer the same when our chariot arrives at their borders. At least we know that they are definitely kingpins in the alliance. What a surprise...

[SleepingMoogle]

I think we are still headed to the original target (Karaoke Tuesday, the city founded on the stone resource). Maya's attack was a golden opportunity that presented itself and was taken advantage of. Based on Exploit's screenshot, we are still in position to attack the city by turn 65 if we don't stop to heal or run into any other surprises. We would also be in a better position to assist Exploit if he was attacked by other civs.

Edit: I sent the other alliance members a short message congratulating the Mayans on their successful attack, and asking about our intended target and tech research. Hopefully we'll know for certain within a few hours.

[Bobchillingworth]

We may wish to heal for a turn, probably in exploit's borders (unless that just nets us the standard healing in neutral territory rate). We could always just park ourselves in indian land and heal while choking them- they shouldn't have odds on us unless they get a chariot from somewhere.

Looks like we will need to see sunrise's tech thread post to know which half to move in, although we can still move in any half for this turn.


Regarding research, I would like us to go for poly and then mono- the religion will really help. We could also just store gold, but even Kyan has expressed interest in us being able to spread Judaism to him quickly, despite the fair chance that our holy city will culturally pressure him.

[Bobchillingworth]

There's a few emails that you all may want to read; I've starred the new conversations.

Exploit has suggested that the Babylonians and Maliense take on the Aztecs, while Maya keep sending troops vs. India. While the plan is obviously in his best interests, involving 3 players sending troops across the world to take out his neighbors, I do feel that it has some tactical merit. It doesn't leave much for us to do, however. I approached Cull with the idea of us sending 4-5 chariots in addition to the Normandy as soon as possible to assist them in finishing off India, with them then reciprocating in aiding us in taking out France, who is confirmed to be with the enemy. Cull was agreeable, but said that he needed to consult his teamates; I said the same. So, what do you all think? Any interest?

Whosit meanwhile sent us an email asking what our plans are for attacking England, so either no one is telling him anything on his team, or Babs still think that we're on for hitting England- which I would like to do still, although I don't believe that we can attack both England and France, and France has greater personal benefit for our civ. We should get back to him with an answer once we build a consensus.

India is playing clock games with Maya, saying that they'll quickly announce what turn half they're taking, and then stalling for hours until the Maya have little time left with which to make their moves. The sooner we can take these punks out of the game, the better. Since it wasn't clear what turn half we were going to need to take, and since we still have a turn or two before we have to follow a certain order, I went ahead and moved. Nothing interesting with our northern scouts (well, a wines spotted north of the Citadel), but the poor Normandy found that the barb warrior had not attacked, but in fact fled- and will probably hit us next turn. I could have avoided it, but that would have meant reaching India a turn later. I could have attacked (across a river), but we probably would have taken even more damage than we will defending, and wouldn't have gotten enough exp for 3rd promo. So we'll take our licks (99% odds for us to win), and may have to heal for a turn (or two). Maya is aware of the possible healing-induced delay. C'est la vie, apologies if this was tactical weed or something.

Regarding tech, both Maya and Babylon want us to go for religion, so if you guys don't mind I'd like to confirm us for Poly -> Monotheism. Exploit has a spreadsheet with research times and techs for the entire alliance that we should update once we have something planned out. Also, to the best of my knowlege all of our allies are interested in a guilds beeline after we get these basic techs out of the way- so we probably should get some production spots settled by that point so that we can produce 'phracts non-stop once able- no need to worry about upkeep costs for units, since we have plenty of people we can just give them away to (for generous compensation, of course )


I think that's about it!

[SleepingMoogle]

Sigh. I wish I could say India exploiting the turn timer rules came as a surprise, but unfortunately it doesn't. Plus it now gives me an out-of-game reason for wanting them out, as I have little interest in playing this game when it's not about Civ and diplomacy skills, but rather who can bend the rules the most to their advantage.

Anyway, we are still on for taking out Karaoke Tuesday as far as I'm concerned. It's a bit odd that the Warrior didn't attack us on the inter-turn.. didn't the Normandy have 3.8/4 health last turn? We should still defeat it easily enough, but if we lose any more health we may have to heal for a turn or two before attacking cities is a good idea.

I do in general agree with taking out Civs completely and one at a time before moving on to the next. We just don't have the forces available right now to fight a war on several fronts. Sending additional chariots down to finish off India and make sure Exploit survives to share Alphabet with us sounds like the best option for now. Once we've done that we can think about France/England.

General feeling from messages between Civs is that they indeed want us to go after Montheism. I gave them a ~T70 estimate to finish Poly.. one turn of 0% science and 6 of 100% should do it I hope. I'm not sure how fast Monotheism will be if we swap to working Mines for our next Settler though.