[SPOILERS] Isabella of Carthage, starring Ellimist, SleepingMoogle, and Nicolae

[Ellimist]

Right... Ummm, I was just testing you guys.


This isn't the first time sugar being considered a luxury has thrown me off.

[Ellimist]

From the tech thread:

I'm sorry, but I have to hold the save for a bit. It should not be too long, at the most just today.

If I had to guess why, it's because he opened it and saw the results of our 3-city transfer to NH.

Kuro hasn't replied to my email from a few days ago, so I expect he is demanding an explanation from NH. The beautiful part of this is that NH can't really tell him very much. I've already told Kuro about as much as NH can, that we did in fact make a deal with them and we can't disclose the details.

NH wouldn't tell me anything about any NH/Kuro attack plans, but the pattern of evasiveness on the subject does tend to indicate that they did have something in the works with Kuro. He also said that they had a NAP with Kuro, which I don't see any reason for unless they were planning a joint military action. Several turns back NH mentioned Jkaen/Ioan pushing hard for one and not getting it, and Kuro's power isn't that different from theirs.

We gave the Elementals team an offer they couldn't refuse, and now Kuro should hesitate to attack us unilaterally after his "ally" abandoned him and can't even really tell him why. If he does, it will only benefit the team that just went from about 650 points to maybe 750 in one turn.

[SleepingMoogle]

I guess the coup was indeed pulled off eh? Nice job!

With NH having cities on the inner ring now, does it make sense to go after that barb city in the center for denial purposes? I didn't see much reason to hold it before, but I'd rather not have NH capture it and start pushing back our borders. We probably need Maces to effectively crack it (hill + culture + attacking from a boat = ouch), but on the bright side, so would they, and we'll be able to ford the ring faster than they can.

[Ellimist]

I agree Harrapan is more of a priority now. I've been meaning to set up a sim and see how tough it will be to crack.

We can reasonably expect to get 5-7exp units due to civics, but I'd really like to attack before the city has longbows. Plus if we're the first to get maces/etc., we can probably liberate some of Kuro's cities as well.

We should be getting the save soon, so we'll see how things look at that point.

[SleepingMoogle]

Ooh, good thinking. We might be able to get a 10XP unit out of the attack as well then. That by itself should make the effort with it.

[Ellimist]

Played T103. Noble's score shot up about 175 points last turn, which is insane and definitely my fault(at least in part.)

I founded Antares, Fomalhaut, and Alphecca this turn. Castor will be founded next turn, and three more cities soon after when the settlers arrive. Right now, I expect Polaris to be the first of those three. In addition, we can produce more settlers for the final two sites on the home island, which will require relatively little worker labor.

At eot103, we have 14 workers, with two more finishing next turn and two more the turn after that. We have five seafood in the central ring, and three workboats moving to position. Next turn (104), we'll overflow Arcturus into a forge, allowing a 3-pop whip on T105. Once the new cities get set up, some of the load can be taken off Arcturus for boats.

We'll have six workers active in the center next turn. Alphecca and Antares will be able to complete their granary using a chop instead of a whip, and probably Vega as well. (Fomalhaut doesn't have any forests available.) In total, our four central cities have 17 resources(11 uncontested and non-seafood), 7 choppable forests and 13 jungle(two in barb culture). For comparison, NH's 3 cities have 15 resources(11 uncontested and non-seafood), 2 choppable forests(both in barb culture) and 15 jungle.

[Ellimist]

Okay, I set up a (long overdue) sim. The terrain isn't correct, yet, but the shape of the landmasses is and the Harappan defenders are. We'll be able to use it for simming other things as well if we care to do the relevant editing.

I haven't figured out the most predictive/productive ways to run it, yet, but if either of you want to take a run at it, feel free to do so. I set it up with 4 stacks of 20 units, Numids, Axes, Swords, and Maces. All of them have 10 exp so we can apply whatever promos we want to test with.

In other news... I think that Harappan may indeed have the Great Lighthouse. I added it to the city in the sim, and it isn't visible. Perhaps this is a result of the city not having any access to saltwater? It really doesn't make sense for Krill to put that city there and also ban the GLH, but not put the GLH in the city. Once we have culture overlap of Alphecca/Harappan, we'll be able to see if the Harappan culture is actually increasing each turn or not. There are no culture producing buildings visible in the city, so if it is increasing, we'll be able to be reasonably sure.

EDIT: Okay, that's weird. I ran some tests of taking Harappan, and the GLH disappeared upon capture. I don't really know what this means. Some glitch related to the non-visibility of it?

[SleepingMoogle]

What would be your reasoning for the barb city having the GLH? We have defogged all the tiles surrounding the city, and it's not visible from what I can remember. Do barb cities have separate rules when it comes to displaying wonders?

[Ellimist]

I posted a link to a combat sim I put together in my last post. Try opening it in WB and adding/deleting GLH. I think the bug that would prevent it from displaying is related to the city not having any sources of saltwater adjacent to it.

I suspect Harappan has the wonder. We won't have to guess, though, once we can determine the city's culture output.

[Ellimist]

Okay, I'm overdue for an update. I've been a bit distracted lately by something that happened to my family, but here's the current state of the empire, which mostly consists of producing workers and getting the newer cities started.


[SIZE="6"]The Home Island[/SIZE]
Currently, we have only Sirius and Canopus, but I aim to settle the other two sites very soon. Canopus finished one settler at eot107 and the next one will take exactly four turns(2 food and 23 hpt). Once those two cities are founded, Canopus can lend them hammer tiles while it grows working coastal tiles.
Meanwhile, I wanted to grow Sirius to take advantage of its excellent coast tiles. Sirius grew from size 8 to 10 while building a Hindu temple, which took 3 turns. Next it will produce a workboat(2 turns) and keep growing. We have the happy cap available to grow quite far due to more luxuries about to be hooked up.
Nicolae suggested, and I agree, that we whip a market in Sirius as soon as we can. Our breakeven slider is quite low, around 38%, and each market will give two happy as well. Canopus will build a market in the usual way, after the next settler.

[SIZE="6"]The Central Island[/SIZE]
Currently we're working artists in all four central cities until they pop borders. We're also chopping a granary in all of them except Fomalhaut, which will have to whip instead. Very soon, we'll be finished with this stage, and we'll be able to get the cities developing pretty rapidly thanks to seven workers present for the task.
So far, our workers have gotten some critical roads up and started chopping three forests. The deer camp(4/2/0) between Fomalhaut and Alphecca will be finished next turn(T108), and the two cities will be finished with their artists the turn after that. In addition, the incense plantation at Alphecca will also finosh next turn, and the three workers present can do the silk and banana after that. After the Vega worker finishes chopping its granary, I'm planning to have it chop a forge and/or a lighthouse, then several culture buildings. Vega has a lot of international overlap, so a strong culture focus is important.
Fomalhaut, Antares and Vega each have a fish netted now, and only two seafood sources are left to net. The fish west of Alphecca will be shared between 3 cities, and the Fomalhaut clam will be shared with a mainland city eventually.

Even as small as they are, these cities are costing significant amounts of maintenance. Courthouses will be a priority, as well as Hinduism to make the courthouses affordable. Luckily we got a free spread of Hinduism into Vega this turn, which is nice but it's only the second free spread we've had all game(Sirius being the first.)

[SIZE="6"]The East[/SIZE]
Arcturus has been busy whipping. The city whipped a forge on T105 but finished something else, then on T106 whipped a temple and finished the forge. Next turn(108) we'll complete the temple and overflow 31 hammers into a WB on T109. Thanks to double corn, Arcturus should regrow rapidly enough that we can whip several more things when we go back to slavery.
Very soon, we'll receive our first settler from NH on the space 2N of Arcturus, which will be sent north to the Polaris spot. Denebola will finish a WB in time to net the fish when Polaris's borders expand, and I have three workers in place to get the city going quickly. They'll be be able to rapidly chop the two easternmost forests on the border with NH, which are otherwise up for grabs by either of us. After that, they'll improve the corn and iron, and probably a few cottages.

[SIZE="6"]The Core[/SIZE]
Over the past several turns, Regulus completed some workers and whipped a courthouse. Next, it will probably produce either military or missionaries while it grows toward the expanding happiness cap. The new cities can really benefit from Hinduism while getting infrastructure up, but I'd like to get free spreads of the religions we don't have yet. Pollux will never get a free spread of religion, so a missionary is mandatory for it.
Castor has several workers currently present, with a focus on cottages, especially of the tiles it shares with Pollux/Regulus.
I'm planning to settle two cities very soon at the coastal sites to the west of Arcturus. They won't require as much worker labor as the Kuro border jungle sites, and we ought to be able to quickly make them productive.

[SIZE="6"]The Jungle[/SIZE]
Sites not yet on the timeline.