[SPOILERS] Patience is a virtue

[plako]

Screenshots. Found Commodore behind the sea. Buddhism landed and I got my 3rd scout. One of them is practicing lion taming next turn.

[Krill]

That is a lot of map knowledge for pre turn 20.

[plako]

That is a lot of map knowledge for pre turn 20.

2 scouts and quite a bit of barb luck.

[Rowain]

And very patiently we ask for news from plakonia

[plako]

In barb trouble currently. Had to build couple of Archers to handle that. It is not very surprising though. There are huge amounts of free land around me. Great wall would be useful, but I think I can't divert any hammers to that after building Stonehenge. Everything will be going towards expansion and keeping me safe.

This map is quite something. Clearly I got a short stick in land quality, but probably long stick concerning the amount of it. I've very few food resources close by. Others are whipping left and right, but it doesn't really make sense for me so I haven't even converted to slavery.

I haven't met anyone, but Commodore so I guess he is my only potential land neighbor and I should have easy time to seal him off from northern part of our continent. This setup gives my inner sim civer lot of pleasure and I think I should have a shot, if I just won't be too far behind when I get the continent properly settled. As said I really have lots of peaceful expansion room. The main problems are the quality of my capital and areas near it. Hard to keep up in expansion race with them. I'm already last in food and situation won't improve much in coming turns.

Lost my all 3 scouts long time ago. I wasn't patient enough. I've also lost a warrior or 2 to barbs that have become real annoyance.

[Rowain]

1 month has past so we have proven our patience and can ask for another set of news

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

1 month has past so we have proven our patience and can ask for another set of news

[plako]

I'm currently below average in demographics. I still have long term potential, but I'm not sure I really can catch up. Most of my cities have just 1 food resource and often even that single one is only 4 food. Based on the development of Crop yield of the leaders there probably are nations having multiple cities with 2-3 good food tiles per city.

However my main short term probelm is the lack of foreign/off-shore trade routes. This hurts a lot. I've only met Commodore and Dreylin and they've not been very willing to work with me. Commodore has declined to open borders and Dreylin accpeted them, but not a map trade so I canceled the OB deal. I'll try to send some scouting vessels to meet others to fix this. I haven't had coastal cities that could have built ships to be sent intresting directions or settle off-shore. This will be fixed in the coming 10T.

There has been masssive amounts of barb activity. I can't check this now, but at minimum 50 barb units has been already killed. I've been able to avoid losing cities or even tile improvements, even if I've lost couple of very high odd battles against them. This has meant that I've been forced to invest a lot to military. I've already 2 Heroic Epic unlocking units. At the momen Barbs have spawn Spears. Earlier it has been only Axes/warrios. So I need Vultures instead of Chariots now i.e. another batch of defenders are under construction.

I'll get Currency in couple of turns that will also help and I've also built a Shrine worth 8 gold at the moment.

I've already built couple of UBs so I dominate espionage points both against Commodore and Dreylin and see e.g. their research. Commodore just switched to HBR. I'm glad I didn't get greedy and settled the border city in the safe spot in the hill. That will be pretty hard for Commodore to dislodge so I think I'm safe.

[Rowain]

Thanks and can we please get a screenshot of your lands

[plako]

We've a little skirmish. Last turn I moved a settling party in the forest. Commodore did have an Archer in the hill. Pretty much as expected he declared war to make my settling a bit more of a gamble. This time I got a win. Offered peace that I suspect he'll take. If not, that is annoying, but shouldn't be much trouble.

Strangely I've been forced to raze 2 barb cities because of interference from other teams. The one in the neighborhood of the settlin party and the far east where HAK landed a War Chariot. He killed the 2nd last defender there. The city was just 1 pop since it did have built Worker so I had to capture it to calim the worker an capture gold.

I'm not too happy about my status. I'm far from the leaders and have really struggeled in settling the continent. I'm not only having massive lands and their capital regions are typically better than mine. I'm also having happiness troubles. I've just 2 eary resources and several wines and absurd amount of Insence. From what I can see Germanjoey, dtay and Gawdzak are doing extremely well.

Barb onslaught