[SPOILERS] Charriu and Zalson are fighting the honorable post count war!

[Charriu]

Shallow whipped in 2 of his cities. Those could be 2 immortals. Good that my warrior is scouting the area between us.

[Charriu]

T58:

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War Wilhelm got a bit more to see of Shallow, but the best view will be from the hill east of him in the next turn. I'm really interested what he whipped last turn.

Other than that the plan to settling the south island is on a smooth sailing. I still have some error or wrong numbers in my maintenance cost; somehow my calculations give me way more maintenance cost then the ingame. That's why I was expecting Sailing to finish in 2 turns and not next turn. Which brings me to my current tech prio (still nobody has founded any religion):

1. Writing: Karlabos could start working some scientist to give me an "early" great scientist. The culture for Karlabos will be also appreciated.
   
2. Mysticism: I'm curious to see how many players already have researched this according to KTB. Obviously I would make a play for religion here. Going this way I will propably go all the way to priesthood for the tech bonus towards writing. It also makes Masonry cheaper and priesthood has that nice Oracle for which we have the marble.
   
3. Masonry: It could be that some players have developed this already. Quarry on the marble will be nice and the walls give me some more security. This may go up in priority depending on what I see at Shallow.
   
4. Iron Working: To attack and conquer RFS.
   
   

[Zalson]

I’ll vote writing and an early scientist, followed by religion.

[Zalson]

And ack we need more workers!

[Charriu]

Well the good thing with southern island city is, that we don't need workers there. But yes we need more.

[Cornflakes]

Fell behind while out of town but have caught back up again. Happy to see that the latest barb situation ended much better than your first, and didn't cause too much disruption,

According to the change log, there is no known tech bonus until someone reaches the classical era. You mentioned lack of KTB on Animal Husbandry, Sailing and Mysticism in a couple posts ... but at this stage of the game there wouldn't be any KTB regardless of whether anybody has researched them yet, right? Or am I missing something?

Can you post your current dotmap? most recent one I see is from about 2 weeks ago. What us the timeframe you estimate for getting Cities 5 & 6 (rice and gold) and the 1-tile-island?

I agree that early chariot rush vs RFS is not a good option, and writing/religion are better options. Are you going to start a library right away once writing completes? If not and your build queues are full of settlers/workers/etc. then writing does nothing for you immediately, and religion first might be better.

[Charriu]

Fell behind while out of town but have caught back up again. Happy to see that the latest barb situation ended much better than your first, and didn't cause too much disruption,

According to the change log, there is no known tech bonus until someone reaches the classical era. You mentioned lack of KTB on Animal Husbandry, Sailing and Mysticism in a couple posts ... but at this stage of the game there wouldn't be any KTB regardless of whether anybody has researched them yet, right? Or am I missing something?

Can you post your current dotmap? most recent one I see is from about 2 weeks ago. What us the timeframe you estimate for getting Cities 5 & 6 (rice and gold) and the 1-tile-island?

I agree that early chariot rush vs RFS is not a good option, and writing/religion are better options. Are you going to start a library right away once writing completes? If not and your build queues are full of settlers/workers/etc. then writing does nothing for you immediately, and religion first might be better.

Yes, you are absolutely right, there is no KTB in the ancient. When was starting to think about it, I just looked for the info about KTB in general and forgot to look if RtR changed anything. This of course changes a lot of my assumptions about the techs of the other players.

I will update my dotmap, but so far not that much has changed. Give me a bit of time to do a proper update. 1-tile-island will be settled in T65, and I planned to settle the other 2 in the next 10 to 15 turns after that.

About RFS: After my galley shipped the settler south, I plan to scout towards RFS. Currently I'm looking how I can produce an axeman in time and bord the axeman and  an archer to the galley. If his corn city is lightly defended and/or Shallow attacks him, there might be a chance to grab it. With writing I plan to start a library at least in Karlabos as it has enough food to support specialist and can't contribute so much to settling 5th and 6th city because of distance.

But this all can change depending on what Shallow is doing with his whips.

[Charriu]

Shallow is definitely planning something, because he did not finish his turn immediately. I hope that RFS plays soon. If Shallow plays after RFS, that should be a good sign.

[Charriu]

T59:

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Sailing is in and I can trade with RFS. Well not that much to see here. I wonder if his 3rd cities name is also related to the city position like his 2nd.



I've got a good look at Shallow's city and highlighted his forces for you. The axeman was whipped last turn, which would explain the direction it is looking. There's only a road leading NE from the city. That also mean that he has build a barracks in his city in the last 10 turns (no border expansion). I plan to move to the hill in the south. That way I keep vision on Shallow and this should open trade with Shallow. I also noticed that Shallow loged in 2 minutes after me. I must say I don't like that, but he may also have waited for RFS and me to play, so that the we don't know, who he's going to attack. On a side note I can trade world maps with Shallow, so he must have discovered writing. I'm propably paranoid   
Oh and we should get graphs on Shallow next turn or the turn after that.



As you can see I deceided to go with writing and plan to build a library in Karlabos.

[Charriu]

T60:

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International: Shallow moved his axeman into the fog east of his city. That's a good sign, but he could also just hide it in the fog so that he does not have to show his hand. But there are other bad news from the north:



Coeurva founded Buddhism and more important he improved the cow and founded his 5th city. I see 2 scenarios that grant him the cow:

1. He founded his 4th city somewhere nearby. In this case I suppose that the cow was not in this cities first ring, because he founded his 4th city in T51 and would have improved the cow immediately. He may have founded on the hill, where my sign is or 2E of there. This would be our best case scenario.
   
2. He founded his 5th city on the cow. I would say that this is a poor city. It would only have the flood plain and the city tile itself for food. The problem with this city is that he's a lot closer to the gold.
   

No matter where he founded I have to settle the gold ASAP. I will produce a chariot to scout the area for potential cities from Coeurva or the Barbarians and will produce a settler as quickly as possible. Maybe I settle only the gold first and the rice city a bit later. That would need a bit more military for defense.

The biggest problem on a long term scale is that Coeurva will become a monster. His immediate neighbors are hurting themself and are weak, which is mainly Superdeath fault. This allowed Coeurva to expand in peace. RFS is his other far-away neighbor, but they even don't know of each other. This leaves me as his only serious competitor for the gold. All in all Coeurva has the best chances to win this game as of now.

National: Back at home everything is peaceful so far. The production of the southern island settler has started. I'm now starting planning for the next 10+ turns.

Normally I would do the graphs now, but I will get Shallow's graphs next turn, so expect them next turn.

EDIT: Magic played before Superdeath this turn, so maybe Superdeath finally gave up fighting.