[SPOILERS] Isabella of Carthage, starring Ellimist, SleepingMoogle, and Nicolae

[Ellimist]

Still chatting. I'll post the log, or excerpts from it, here later.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Where did their power spike come from? Did they whip their home island, or the mainland? What strategic resources have they hooked up?

And how many turns can we get our pair of axes to the front?

[Ellimist]

You can read the full chat logs on the gmail account. Their settler is planning on settling 1NE of the stone on T80. The power spike was the discovery of archery. They have hooked up no horse, no copper.

We can get the existing axes on top of the stone or forest-hill on turns 84/88 and attack the following turn(s). We can whip additional axes on T83 in at least 2 cities. If we fire the artist in Denebola we could complete another axe naturally on T83 as well.

If we act threatening and move our settler south of the forests, we can probably convince them that their warrior is sufficient to prevent our settler from reaching the stone on T81. We may be able to convince them to plant on the hill instead, which would buy us another turn and we'd be able to settle 1 SW of the stone before them with 2 warriors in the city on that turn. I think if we wait until turn 80 and say we've decided not to take the NAP, they won't see the settler and that could do it for us.

I'm not sure that's worthwhile though. They're willing to lend it to us for Moai and a war could become costly.

The deal we discussed is not "finalized" yet. Please do not respond to the proposal email until we are sure.

[SleepingMoogle]

I haven't read the chat logs, but it would require a whole lot more in concessions from NH and Lewwyn than borrowing Stone for Moai to convince me not to raze that city and settle one of our own. So if that is the only thing they are willing to offer, I propose getting out those extra 3(?) axes and declare when we have the upper hand.

How much have you told them about our forces in the area? Oh, we should let them settle on the low ground and move in our Axes. Getting them to settle on a hill where their Skirmishers get +50% strength on top of their other bonuses sounds like a very costly mistake.

[Ellimist]

That was the best I could get from them, with a 30-ish turn NAP. As we had suspected before, they don't really like deals that aren't strongly in their favor.

They plan to settle on T80, 1NE of the stone. If they attempt to settle the hill, it will mean a 1 turn delay and they won't end up settling at all if we put a city 1SW of the stone on T81. Right now they can see our two warriors approaching, and they believe their warrior will see our settler when it approaches as well(but we can move it south of the forests out of their view.)

I've gotten the impression from several of their comments that they track C&D quite closely. They can easily see our axes from our power rating, but I don't believe they know where they are.

Is an ancient age conflict really the best move for us here? There may be stone or other goodies on the central island, or elsewhere on the map. I'm not sure how much I'm willing to sacrifice for this source. On the other hand, if they don't settle on the hill, I think even skirmishers won't be able to save the city if we hit it hard enough.

[Ellimist]

Are either of you available for a chat? I'd like to discuss this a bit more before committing to either option.

Do you think we can raze the city? Do you think the costs of doing so is worth it? Building an axe in Denebola instead of the current plan for that city would be quite costly. Whipping axes in Pollux/Regulus would be instead of infrastructure/settlers/workers.

If we let them have the city, we get stone soonish for Moai and we secure our eastern border for further expansion elsewhere. Meanwhile they plan on building a ton of stone wonders, which isn't so terrible for us either as it will slow their expansion somewhat. If we decide to attack right away, we're facing at least 3 warriors and potentially skirmishers with 2 warriors and 1-2 axes. If we delay, we're looking at additional skirmishers(them) and axes(us). Plus we can get a trireme into their area and really cause some trouble.

If I go back to talking hostility and we reject the deal, they may decide to plant on the hill. If they do that, then we can plant the city 1SW of the stone and the "war or not" decision is back in their hands. But then we're looking at a hostile eastern border and a city planted one away from the inner coast. We may be able to pacify them by letting them use the resource, but it's not a sure thing.

If we decide to go that route, I think we can get them to choose the hill with "We've decided that our axes can raze your city before enough skirmishers get there."

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Okay hit me up on gchat, I'll be around for a bit. I'm loading up the save to get a better idea of the situation.

[Ellimist]

After a long chat with NH, I think we've reached a better deal. We basically let him have the stone whenever we control it but we get a more defensible border.

[Ellimist]

Okay, played turn 79. We've come to an agreement with NH that I think is very fair to both sides. Basically we form a stable border with them, with neither side settling beyond a certain point, and we agree to give them the stone whenever we happen to control it. I'll discuss the deal a bit more soon, but first, the turn update.

Big news of the turn is that we completed the Colossus.

Before:[SPOILER]

After:

Gigantic Statue:

[/SPOILER]We have several options on where to go from here. Overall, I'm planning to keep putting settlers out there, but we should be able to coordinate things to get Moai into Sirius soon. As part of our deal, We're obligated to hook up the stone resource and send it to NH quite quickly, but that won't require too much of a diversion from what we would be doing anyway. We have several things about to happen that will accelerate our research soon, and right now the plan is Math-Currency.

[Ellimist]

Center area:

Here are the micro plans I've come up with:

For our new city on the coast near the stone:

We'll found on T81 and immediately start working an artist. Borders will pop at eot83, and we'll go back to slavery on T84. I'd also like to get a missionary into the city asap for some additional culture and for the OR bonus on a granary/library. Having access to a 1F4H tile is useful even if we are sending the resource away, and building a library is justified by the amount of commerce we can get off all the 2F3C coast tiles.

We'll prioritize farming the wet corn for rapid growth, whipping a granary at size 2. The other priority is getting a galley(or maybe a WB) exploring the inner sea.

Worker plans:

Francisco:

Finishes the gold mine at Denebola on T81.
On T82, he moves three spaces along the road to Regulus and puts 1 turn into a cottage on the dry grassland tile midway between Regulus and Denebola.
He moves to the floodplains tile 1E of Regulus and builds a cottage.
He moves onto the forest 2E of Regulus on T87.
He roads it, finished on T89.
Then he improves more of Regulus. The road actually doesn't have to complete until the quarry is complete(T89?)

Hernán:

Hernán moves 2S to the grassland 1W of the corn on T80.
On T81 he puts one turn into a road on the corn.
On T82 he starts a road on the horse, finished on T83.
Borders pop eot83. On t84 he starts farming the wet corn, finishes on T85 with an assist from Lucas.

Lucas:

Lucas moves 2E to the plains hill 3E1S of Regulus on T80.
He roads it, finishing on T82.
He moves to the wet corn and completes the road on T83.
On T84 he starts farming the wet corn, finished on T85 with an assist from Hernán.

Lucas and Hernán from T86 onward:

On T86 both workers road the grass tile 1N of the city.
On T87 both workers road the stone.
On T89 both workers complete a quarry on the stone.

I like to "underpromise/overdeliver," so I said we could have stone offered to them on T92. If we have a reason to, we can delay this timeline by up to 3 turns. These two workers will improve horse and corn both before moving on to new plans.

Denebola:

Borders pop eot80.
Workboat nets the fish on T81. The artist is reassigned to the fish tile.
City grows to size 2 at eot85. Lighthouse construction is at 18/60.
The second citizen works the gold or copper mine, probably the gold. The city can grow further if additional citizens work 2F3C coastal tiles.

Regulus:

FP cottage completes on T80. Fire the governor's artist to work it.
City grows to size 4 at eot80.
Hire artist on T81.
City grows to size 5 at eot82. 33/28
Borders pop at eot83(We swap out of caste system the following turn.)
Francisco and Pedro will improve the city, and possibly another worker from the island. We'll probably get a settler from Regulus before too long, but it might make more sense to whip the forge first.

Pollux:

Finished WB at eot79. The WB will net the clams that Canopus picked up with the recent border expansion.
Resume building a forge on T80.
Fire artist on T80, grows to size 5 at eot80.
Hire artist again on T81, borders pop at eot81. Fire artist on T82.
Start a worker on T83.
Worker is 2-pop whipped on T84.

Canopus:

Canopus produces 19 base hammers per turn right now. It has a surplus of 1 food but is already at its happy cap. If we use an engineer, it will have zero food surplus and 18 production.
Canopus will finish a worker at eot80(next turn) with 1-2 (base) hammers of overflow. After the worker, I'm not sure what to build next.
A settler can be produced at 23-24 hpt. So we can build one in 4-5 turns.
The city produces 28-29 hammers per turn on buildings or workers(+50%).
(Library-90. Lighthouse-60. Barracks-50. Courthouse-120. Temples-80.)

GPPs:

We need 34 more GPPs, and are producing 4 per turn from the two wonders. Right now, if we do nothing, we'll get a great person out of Canopus at eot88(9 turns). We'll have odds for 81% prophet, 19% merchant.

We could get one as early as eot84(5 turns) if we use a specialist to get 7 GPPs per turn. Of course, the odds would change. If we were to hire one engineer for the next 5 turns, we would have odds for 74% prophet, 15% engineer, 12% merchant. (Yes, I know this adds up to 101. That's not a mistake.) If we think a scientist or whatever would be more useful than an engineer, we can use a different type of specialist.

Personally, I think we should do this. Even if we still get a prophet(likely,) we'll get him 4 turns sooner. It will also reduce our chances of getting a great merchant, which would be less useful than the other two options(unless we bulb currency?). A shrine will surely be less valuable than the Pyramids. Our odds are still highest for getting the prophet, but we create an opportunity for more if we use the engineer.

Sirius:

On T80, swap from grass hill mine to the hamlet. Hindu missionary is 16/40 at eot.
City grows to size 6 at eot80.
On T81, both mines are worked missionary is at 26/40.
On T82, both mines are worked missionary is at 36/40.
City grows to size 7 at eot82.

I'm not sure what to do after that until the next bit where settler/Moai are started. Maybe we can overflow the missionary into it and a turn or two of non-stone production.

Moai:

Turn X is T87, T88, T89, or T90. T(X+2) is when stone is to be hooked up.
T(X):
Sirius puts 1 turn of production into a settler, 19-21 hammers.
T(X+1):
The settler is 3 pop whipped(+112). City produces 19 hammers. Eot, settler is done with 50-52 overflow. Base overflow is 40-42.
T(X+2):
Chop finishes next turn for 30 base hammers(math). Base production in the city is 8(or we can potentially get 10 hpt in the city if we work both mines and an engineer).
Moai gets 78-80-82 base hammers with 2.5x multiplier. It goes to 195 or 200 or 205 out of 250.
Without stone, we have a 1.5x multiplier and we need another 30-34-37 base hammers. With stone we'd need 18-20-22 base hammers.
T(X+3):
NH has freely offered to let us use the stone for an additional turn. I'm not sure whether we ought to whip it or not.