TBS: Suleiman of Maya

[The Black Sword]

I've got about 10t now until we have enough beakers to finish education and the liberalism bulb opens up. I've settlers out for all visible good city spots. So this 10t is mostly about growing, which requires a few more workers, and putting up infrastructure, which requires spreading my religion.

I shouldn't count on landing the Taj Mahal because without marble I won't be able to 1t it. But I should be able to get about 500h in on the first turn, so I'll have a very good shot at it. It should be possible to adapt my plan to get all my GP out in 1 8t golden age from the Music Artist.

When I throw the golden age, I'd like to save gold and focus on getting 6 Universities and Oxford up. I'm not sure how realistic that is without slavery, so I'll check it out. Meanwhile I shoot out 1 GS and 2 GM in Pacifism, for an Academy and double bulb of Constitution.

When I turn tech on I have two options; the Military option - tech Gunpowder and Military Strategy for Cuirs and drafted Muskets, or the Economic one - go to Guilds and Banking for Mercantilism. I'm leaning toward the military option but if the targets look too tough I should keep the economic one in mind. I'd really like to finish the golden age in Merc but again, I'm not sure how realistic that is. When I get to Military Strategy I'll want to do a lot of whipping which would surely affect my tech rate.

I'd still be generating great people - probably just focusing on Merchants, except for the Oxford/Academy city that goes scientists(and engineer pollution is generally good). Merchants can run trade missions to keep me teching with my research multipliers, they can also bulb Banking and Economics which could be useful. Scientist bulbs are unfortunately blocked by Printing Press, which will be a pretty useless tech for me until I want to go for Liberalism. If get too many scientists though, I can just bulb it. I'm thinking we could manage something like 3 Merchants, with a Scientist and something non-scientist to be completed after the GA, that can be combined for GA number 2.

GA number 2 would probably be focused on Scientist bulbing around Communism and switching to a hammer economy.

We are almost beelining Cuirs with this strategy(Constitution being the only unneccessary tech, but it's bulbed and might be important for our tech rate), so hopefully there would be a good target. I need to keep Astro in mind too, if the water becomes more important than it currently looks I can change that way.

[The Black Sword]

I'm um, actually getting killed by barbs. 

Up to now, I've pretty much seen LBs keeping to themselves in the barb cities. Then my explorer got ambushed by 2 horse archers coming out of the fog. But, I had Elephants and Holkans, horse archers aren't too scary? Then the maces showed up and the horse archers pillaged my ivory. Not that my elephants would have odds on the maces anyway, because the barbs evidently have barracks and I don't.

My scrambled defenses in the west just about held them off, mostly because chumchu has forced me to build them up a bit higher than usual. There's another mace incoming though and I'm not sure I can re-build the ivory until he's dealt with.

Meanwhile in the east:


I'm pretty sure they're going to raze Izancanac. My WE killed a longbow already. I have a WE, an archer and a holkan guarding the settling party for the T141 city spot, but I'm not sure that's enough defense ...

I'm number 2 in power also btw, it's not like it's a full on farmers gambit.

[The Black Sword]

Gave up the city. Switched from 13 city Hanging Gardens to 11 cities, but I get it next turn. New settler redirected to settle Izancanac, I'll try to have walls immediately chopped when I resettle. HG will give me the pop to whip in walls in the southern city.

Gained top power, lost top food and my happy cap is all over the place. The Mayan UB might turn out to be pretty useful after all.

[The Black Sword]

The barbs kept my city, despite it never growing to size 2. I guess they're able to break that rule? So much for resettling.

Everyone else has teched Machinery and Feudalism now btw, but a couple of barbs are not scaring me out of a Liberalism bulb.

[Tasunke]

City was kept because it was culture popped .... cities autoraze with no pop or culture pops, but even a culture pop can prevent the auto-raze.

[The Black Sword]

Ah, never knew that, thanks Tasunke. I think the maces showed up just before I popped borders, so I could have left them unpopped.

[The Black Sword]

Both Gav and Cairo settled hard toward GJ.



I bet he's not happy with Cairo having no second neighbour either.

[The Black Sword]

This is a cruelly designed island:



In other news, Gav declared war on me, after taking Izancanac from the barbs. I can't hold Altun Ha from his knights, so I've just been whipping spears. When I get to Gunpowder and drafted muskets I may feel comfortable to send some real defenders, assuming it's still alive. 

[The Black Sword]

Mmm ...




I'm pretty sure all these hammers would have been better off as an army, but I'm channeling my inner Commodore. (Comm would have that last grass cottaged already though  .)

[Commodore]

I'm pretty sure all these hammers would have been better off as an army, but I'm channeling my inner Commodore. (Comm would have that last grass cottaged already though  .)

Hrm, for Med start? Nah. Those should all be workshops. You've got coast for your coin needs.

100% approve of the color, though. How you gonna win this thing?