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

[WilliamLP]

In foreign news, KuruBandit made peace with Azza, and a great prophet was born, no doubt by Boldly.

Iron will finish next turn. I should have planned having 4 workers free to immediately chop and then hook up gems, getting them in two turns, but my planning isn't that good. The happiness is a bottleneck everywhere.

I need to decide on my next tech:

1. Beeline math->calendar. Calendar is what gets me the most excited, since there are so many resources to improve. I don't know if I've ever played as much of a calendar jungle empire as this.

2. Detour to meditation. I'd like to start spreading religion, but the Monastery is just not a good building for 60h, even with the 10% research bonus. Still, having just one in the capital would be nice.

3. Masonry -> monotheism. Revolting to Org. Religion would be even better. But if we wait on this to after monarchy we could do a double switch to HR. But I definitely don't want to delay calendar that much.

So I'm leaning on #2, since even though the Monastery is a bad building it will pay for itself in beakers someday, at least in a high commerce city.

[Commodore]

I know the south is the exciting, but can we see the empire as a whole?

I thought you were trusting the RNG for spreads?

[WilliamLP]

Sure! Here's the known world:




Surely there must a be a setting in the .ini so that I can zoom out further without blurring, to save myself from ever making an image that massive again?

Anyway it's easy to see Molach's iron tile in there.

The next settler will come out in two turns, and will settle the corn / copper / fish spot.




The unit supply is from me doing unnecessary noodling around outside of my borders. I should get it to 0 next turn.




The RNG has been good so far with spreads! I'm not sure if trusting it to immediately spread religion to all new cities in the future is most prudent though?

[WilliamLP]

Btw, to Plunder, I know you're busy but I do appreciate your input here when you can give it, even if it seems like I don't listen and play purely solo anyway most of the time. You're more than welcome to take the same role in PB13 with my thread if you want. I also understand if you'd have fun dedlurking someone else in that game. And did you notice we have a tribute thread already? Hahaha.

[WilliamLP]

I'm happy to log in and hear the Classical Age music!

I thought about it after playing last turn and realized there's no time like now to start working two priests. They take away better tiles, but that cost will always be there, and the reward of the shrine after 34 priest-turns will be worth it. My old plan to birth them in a new GP farm city would just take too long for the lost opportunity, especially the passive spread. I switched to them in the capital after ending turn last time, and probably should have started them as soon as the madrassas came online, really. They take away mine tiles and delay a settler by a turn, but I can live with that.

Speaking of religion:




That's a dual purpose screenshot that also shows my iron. The placement could be better, but I have it available, and Arabia isn't desperate for it for a long time, with Camel Archers. I need to decide if I want to do anything about the desert hill iron in the north. KuroBaII have iron in their empire already so no pink dots are anticipated. There is no good city plants for us to claim it, is the problem.

Here's iron in the south:




It's great news that the scout still hasn't found Molach's capital. This should mean he isn't too eager to expand further north next. Both Molach and Bandit have iron hooked up already. I wonder if Molach has AH yet, looking at his unimproved horse?

I could get Mediation next turn with overflow by working a couple of otherwise worse tiles, but I don't see that much point.

[Commodore]

You show a Roman cow pasture, by the way.

Good move on the priests, nice to see Maddrassas getting used!

[Plunder]

Looks good so far =D

I regret not having time to add some useful input here. I'm really close to graduating, and I really have to make a final push now.

Of course, if I can add something quickly on the fly I will do so ^.^

[WilliamLP]

A revised possible dotmap. Everything's a compromise.




The black X'es are iron. I don't like green dot much and I can defend moving it a few ways but I'm not sure. Red and Yellow are our next priorities, since red is the only one that is immediately productive and yellow gets gems and iron, though it will need farms and jungle chops for food.

I have no f'ing clue what to do about the N. It would be nice to claim the iron there, and the original site doesn't do that. I don't think sharing the clam is a benefit anymore, since the capital already needs to eat them all the time and they're overloaded by the black dot anyway.

Pink dot might mean war is inevitable but with walls it would also be a single point to defend. And it is only 5 tiles from our capital after all, and it gets the silks. Food is a huge problem.

I sort of like the site SE of the cow, which accomplishes some of the same things. Not being on the coast might even be a benefit for a border city. We could even re-purpose the rice to actually being used as rice.

Any thoughts on this?

[Plunder]

ok, my input on the dotmap is to leave the full shape of the overlapping fat-crosses, since overlapping tiles can be used for both cities.

It also feels that the red and yellow cities are a bit far away from the rest of the cities?

[WilliamLP]

I hear you, but it's hard to make a specific setup that puts red and yellow closer. My feeling is there just isn't enough food there to support a dense packing of cities. The other problem is how to claim the iron and still have enough food for the city to grow. Yellow gets the sugars, gets to use the lake with a lighthouse, and also gets gems so in the long run can be a good city. Red is also a strong site immediately, which is hard to say about other options.

In my last plan a few pages back I had a city on the hill 3S3E of Spaghetti but that kind of leaves the iron and clam hanging.