[Spoilers] Gavagai, Bacchus and Elizabeth Form a Romantic Trio

[Gavagai]

Yes, Granary is a way to go in Croyden. We will whip it from size 4.

[Bacchus]

The question is what might they realistically wish to achieve in not-attacking? They need to try to take our land or die in process. Just what ELSE can they do?

Build a bunch of wonders — they have a whole swathe of forest to the west of their capital, which pretty much can only be used for chopping into a distinctly mediocre city. If they attack, they might chop that into axemen, but I would imagine they prefer chopping into something that would sustain their economy in the longer term. I'm pretty sure they don't see their situation as catastrophic in the medium-term at least -- would you with their demos, a whole bunch of luxuries and four lighthousable lakes in the capital? I think as far as they are concerned, they have what they need to switch Philosophical on and protect themselves from us, while settling the fair lands to the west. They probably don't really have a plan how to win this beyond "let us build a robust economic engine and look for opportunities", but I think that's a fair enough plan for this stage — you can't count on everybody mapping out a path into the end-game like you like to do.

[Bacchus]

Gav asked to have a look at the graphs and see whether I can see Egypt getting Hunting. I think I can, at around 1800BC — at least there is a 6 point score increase accompanied by a 2000 soldier increase there. Of course, they could have completed a warrior in line with researching a tech. However, the previous 6 point increase happened only a few turns prior to the ~1800BC one, so it does look like Hunting.

[Bacchus]

I sure do wonder what's happening with NobleHelium. His nick went from NH, Ranter to NH, VERY ANGRY in the recent hours.

[Bacchus]

Gav isn't updating, but we have met Sian's warrior in our travels to the south-west, we have signed OB with Carthage and Mali, and Egypt whipped for 1 in two cities. Will there be war?

[Gavagai]

Yep, shame on me for lack of updates, was busy for a few days. If those whips were chariots, I'm pretty sure that we'll be able to identify threat and react in time; axes will be even easier.

[ncry]

Or maybe they're just fending off some lions ;-)

[Gavagai]

Or maybe they're just fending off some lions ;-)

It is actually possible that they have problems with barbs. Two barb warriors have just invaded my land. May be he was caught by some barbs off guard.

[Bacchus]

He does have a lot of tundra to his north, as well as generally lots of unsettled, I'm guessing fogged, land, and his only axe is over our way in Wall St. Which is a pretty silly place for it, unless he expects an attack presently, but there you are.

With these two new units, previous warrior spam, four cities and still no commerce from improvements, their gold situation has got to be pretty dire. In fact, as Wall St doesn't have real food to grow off, I'm not even sure it can feasibly fund their empire even if they throw all the workerforce onto it. It will take what, 7 turns to grow to 2, then 5 to 3, then 6 to 4. So some 18 turns on, they will have 10 commerce (two cottages would have become hamlets by then) from Wall St, not counting TR's and the city tile. They really should have brought that gold online much sooner, and they need another source of commerce, to be fair — but I can't really see one, but working the three lakes in the cap would help.

Which returns me to a complete inability to see how or why they would wage war against us. If they don't start running specialists in the next 20 turns, they will fall hopelessly behind. If they don't research Sailing and get a Lighthouse and a Library in the cap, they will fall hopelessly behind. No city of theirs apart from the cap has a 5+ food source (!), so whipping is more-or-less out of the question, certainly not before building granaries — and you'd have to whip the granaries themselves, or chop them.

[Gavagai]

Which returns me to a complete inability to see how or why they would wage war against us. If they don't start running specialists in the next 20 turns, they will fall hopelessly behind. If they don't research Sailing and get a Lighthouse and a Library in the cap, they will fall hopelessly behind. No city of theirs apart from the cap has a 5+ food source (!), so whipping is more-or-less out of the question, certainly not before building granaries — and you'd have to whip the granaries themselves, or chop them.

I think that this very paragraph pretty much answers the "why" question. They will attack us ASAP because otherwise they will die as soon as we get maces and cats.