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

[Commodore]

Wait. Did you pillage Kuro's clam nets or something?

[WilliamLP]

I only have 1 galley and it hasn't done anything but scout and be a ferry so far. (Omgwtf the ones in his capital aren't netted?!)

[WilliamLP]

So the worst news for me is that Azza's city Engineer - with the marble - was captured this turn. The game still says I have it but it should vanish next turn. And I have 4 MoM chops scheduled to finish next turn! Arggghh.






I don't know what to do about it yet. Wait for the city to come out of resistance and try and get the trade from Wetbandit? Carry on and try to build it resourceless? I should have done better micro planning to speed this probably.

We got graphs on Azza. They're the least useful ones but I was most of the way there before meeting retep and halvgud.




This would be fine if Molach weren't in that picture. Our 0% trend line is a little ahead of Boldly's and will get better with currency.




This is the best thing about the empire right now.




And we're starting to be able to grow onto a few hammer tiles.




Oxy is scary now, and our biggest threat, especially since we stabbed him in the back. But his play doesn't look like he wants war. We have two enforced peace turns left. If / when the marble is broken next turn, I'm thinking of just gifting him sugar for goodwill.

Molach is acting very peaceful which is good. Wetbandit's army is paper-thin on our side so he's clearly focused on finishing Azzaland.




Demos at 100% are competitive for sure. I don't know why our Exports - Imports number is so good, since we have open borders with everyone but retep.

Both Kuro and Sisub have open borders with Retep, which shows why the GLH is so good in these games. Someone will always do it.

[WilliamLP]

Lurker question: The UI says I have marble from a trade, but it now isn't in Azza's culture (I think). Will the hammers I put into MoM this turn get the bonus?

[Plunder]

It's not unlikely Oxy wants some revenge and is maybe of the opinion that we're over-stretching.
I'd definitely keep an eye on his borders, maybe even send a scout...

[WilliamLP]

With Oxy, I'm curious why it's necessary to login, play half an hour, whip some stuff, and then hold the turn to play last after doing that... I'd call him out on it in the IT thread but I don't want him to go to war with me. Maybe he just forgot to end turn.

He seems to have moved his big garrison away from our borders, which is awesome! Also I accepted wine from him for gems, since he just got Monarchy. So we're certainly acting kind of like peaceful neighbours...

[WilliamLP]

So Azza actually took a city back!




And the game says we still have marble. Later in the turn after I played, Azza lost the city again.




I really hope those chops go through with the marble bonus! (I'd love to know what happens if Azza loses the marble, whether I lose it on the chops this turn or not.) It's also possible that he has it in third ring borders or something?

I'm kicking myself now for not doing the math on MoM micro but just winging it. I'm sure I could have sped it up by at least a turn sacrificing a bit of growth for hammers.




So what's Oxy up to? We have really good vision on everything in range of Primavera, and Oxy has moved away almost his entire garrison. This is awesome news. I think that settler was just chopped out, and I don't know where it's going. I can't see him trying to plant in our face like on that plains hill 3W of Primavera. If he's going for a site like that I'll have to think long and hard about whether to bother contesting it. The city sucks and he doesn't need metal though.




My view of the world. Azza is not long for it. Note I can just see Suttree and Sisub's culture poking through, though I haven't even met Suttree yet.

[WilliamLP]

Bonus micro tip:




Food is overrated in Civ 4. Especially food that has commerce built in. Thus lakeside plains farms should be preferred to seafood where possible, to increase hammers and save production on the work boat.

[TheHumanHydra]

You had me worried for a second there, WilliamLP ...

[WilliamLP]

I have no pictures for this report. I should have expected that the marble trade would be broken at the end of last turn, before my hammers were applied to MoM. So damn it Azza, couldn't you have held onto marble for just one more turn? Now I have 276 / 450 (I think) hammers invested in it so I'm kind of pot-committed at this point.

Wetbandit offered to trade Gold (1/2) for Spice. I already have gold so I took it be symbolic diplo to offer it for gold per turn. I offered it to him for 15gpt, which he'll probably think is insane. I have no idea what a fair price is in MP. The inherent value of an extra happy cap point per city can be pretty high, depending on how big the empire is.

I'm thinking about waiting until the marble city comes out of revolt, and trying to trade it off of wetbandit then, postponing MoM in the mean time. It smells like a bad idea, even though I don't see anyone with marble or calendar resources yet. What I have going is that I'm giving wetbandit sugar for ivory, so we're establishing a sugar addiction. Then I could pull sugar away from him (I don't need the ivory) and offer to trade sugar + spice for marble and he'd be left with a bunch of unhappy cities if he doesn't accept. This is basically what the US and Coca Cola do with high-fructose corn syrup so why not, right?