[SPOILERS] WillPlunder as Mehmed of Arabia: Noobs meet world

[WilliamLP]

I'll also point out that Sisu (who we haven't met) picked up Oracle and the tech with it, so got quite a large score increase.

[WilliamLP]

We seem to have crossed the population threshold recently. The barbs, they are getting frisky.




Two of them are invading in that screenshot. Fortunately it's just warriors. We have the spear by Al Dente, and two more axes are coming coming out next turn, so we'll be fine. Poor Lasagne though needed to whip to size 1 to avoid taking chances, and it now has quadruple whip unhappiness! One will go away next turn though and fortunately the only thing being whipped away there are immature cottages.

Sailing is in next turn, and immediately afterwards a chop and overflow will produce a lighthouse in Frutti.

I'm thinking of veering to Meditation after Sailing, to start getting Monasteries and missionaries out. It's cheap, not having to build a monument in a new city would be nice and in addition, the research bonus is useful too.

In the south, we met Molach. I thought this map was going to be a snaky continent sort of layout but it seems everyone to the south is quite connected.




Here are demos after working the gold:

[WilliamLP]

Sailing came in, and our first lighthouse will finish at the end of the turn. I accepted open borders from Oxy. Though, I was mistaken before about there being a trade connection. There isn't. He wouldn't have to do much to get one though, he'd just need to road a couple of tiles to connect to the very long river. A priority now is to defog along the coast.

I'd thought that Kuro had offered open borders before, and thus had writing, but I may have been mistaken about that too. I'm not able to offer open borders myself, without writing, at any rate.

A barb is being annoying:




There's a spear defending al Dente, and borders pop at the end of the turn. If the barb moves onto the copper, the axe can kill him. Also, note the city plant by KurumiBandit. This means they are our immediate neighbour down there. They don't have copper yet, so walking a spear down there might freak them out a bit.

Demos at 0% science:




We're actually #2 in power now so presumably we're not going to be perceived as ideal targets. Horses will be hooked up in two more turns.

The next tech is a tough call between Meditation and Writing, but I'm leaning to writing right now.

[Plunder]

My vote is on writing too, libs are more important, and it's our unique building too.

[WilliamLP]

The lighthouse finished. Here's a shot of the capital:




The food is now very nice! The two hill mines are being completed in the next couple of turns.

Over in the south, a border pop revealed that KuruBandit have an empty city, with an immortal guarding a worker. I'm going to walk our spear down there, to see what they do. They're not going to like that, I bet, not having copper.

[WilliamLP]

First, we were lucky enough to get another religious spread.




Next, I didn't play the clock very well, if we want a snipe against KuruBandit. I played at the very start of the turn, and they logged in and started playing at the same time. To play the clock game, what I should have done (I think) is waited until we were the last to move and then moved the spear in, to give the least amount of turns for him to react.

In any case, I moved the spear:




After that move, but before I had made all of my moves, they moved an Immortal to cover the worker.

So question for the lurkers, I assume if I want to declare war next turn, I have the right to do so in the second half of the turn timer, correct? Obviously, the first half is out because I didn't finish moving my units before they started moving theirs. So what happens if they want to delay to the very end of the timer before hitting "end turn"? Do I have a way to declare next turn on them if I want, no matter what?

The next question is if we want war or not. KuruBandit have no copper yet, so spearmen are going to be a tremendous pain for them to deal with, particularly in a flatland city with no culture. Razing the city would give a bit of gold, and give us more room for expansion. I'm not sure there's much downside. Trade routes lose value, but we have plenty of other potential partners around.

At worst, we're going to slow them down from improving the corn. Because of the clock, they have an extra turn to react (moving units toward the city) than they would if I'd have gamed it fully.

Over in the north:




A stack of THREE barb warriors is moving in. And random events are off! This is pretty annoying since I had the axe a couple of turns away from the gold.

This is a nuisance. I killed one with the axe. And I moved the warrior from spaghetti to defend the gold, leaving it empty. And I have another axe moving toward the area, 2 turns away. But if both barbs attack the gold, one will probably get through. So in the worst case the gold will get pillaged before we can kill all three warriors.

So damn... I don't know if I've ever seen a barb stack like that come out all at once without random events on!

[NobleHelium]

Yes, you can declare war after they've played next turn. If they don't end turn then you can communicate with them or seek arbitration.

[Plunder]

I'm voting against war. I don't think it will benefit us in total. We are quiet a bit behind due to our slow start (I think), and war will probably slow us down even more. Independent on the result of the war, we will be set behind. We cannot settle or keep the land directly. And the production that goes to military and upkeep would be better spend to actually steepen our growth curve. And we have a lot of land to the east to expand into! We have a high soldier count, that'll prevent others from making an opportunistic strike against us.

And then the argument from authority: I don't think Sulla ever declared war without getting direct benefit.

[WilliamLP]

Well, where the spearman is standing on right now is a fine city site, that we could settle if we razed Belvedere. And we can get pillage gold, and I'm not sure there's anything that KuruBandit can do about it. Also having a weaker direct neighbor is another factor. All of these are direct benefits.

I'm not thinking of a full total war here, but pressing with a couple of units to remove that site, and then being done. Honestly, I'm also thinking about future games I'm in, and not getting pink dotted and perceived to be a little lamb.

And... they've also shown that they are willing to be opportunistic in the early game to declare and take a city, in this very game.

[Plunder]

We don't know if they were opportunistic, maybe Azza pink-dotted them. ;-)

I think we have to be ready for a full war though. I don't expect they'll just let us raze their city and replant there. To me they don't look like a very close direct neighbour yet, weakening them will bring very little direct advantage to us. Probably the one befitting most of our aggression would be Azza. But remember that we already have some bad diplomatic karma from our northern neighbours.

Then again, if they leave that tasty worker dangling in front of our noses..... mmmmm.