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

[WilliamLP]

Actually, I think being at war with Suttree might actually improve our relations in the world, since he's the one to beat. I don't think there's any peaceful relationship except a tense one, and right now I'm pretty sure that having a war threat is more of a nuisance for him than us.

For backfill, the way I see it there aren't enough resources to justify putting 4 cities instead of 3 in our empire doughnut. The city 2S of the cow wouldn't have much point to it, working only grass, and probably doesn't justify the cost of the city.

[WilliamLP]

Wow, I can't believe I fell to the bottom of the recent posts list!

Some highlights:




This is what Suttree's border looked like last turn. He chopped out walls, and moved in a couple of axes, a spear, and a catapult. That's more than enough to get me to move away, and it's all I really intended anyway, to get him to commit to defense. The walls in particular are one more offensive unit he didn't build.




Operation Barb Farm is a success! It's crazy that barbs still are making warriors this late into the game. I ate one of them but unfortunately they're only worth 1xp each, and the 9/10 axe took a lot of damage, so will have to spend a couple of turns healing up before taking the final swipe for HE status. Still, this is way better than risking losing him since the HE in the Moai city will be immensely valuable.

Note the Great Wall build - we're taking some of Boldly stone sloppy seconds! It's a pretty goofy and questionable play but still I think it's worth building with stone. 75 hammers gets 2GPP per turn, and the great general buff is a minor disincentive to attack us. Keeping the barbs out of borders isn't relevant anymore. (I don't think it works against barb galleys?) The unfortunate part about it is that I actually don't want the artificial inflation of score. I want to be below the radar in this game.




One thing I haven't done well is taking advantage of open borders, to scout people out relentlessly and keep careful watches over them. I do have a scout in Kuro's territory. I should really have a couple cheap units looking over the south right now too.

Boldly has some drama going on. Note our scouting chariot to the north sees Hell Below completely empty! So the drama doesn't involve planning to attack us, methinks. I moved a couple of defending units back away from the workers improving the banana, and I'm currently gifting them Banana too! So I'm basically shouting out for peace so we can focus on other threats.

Suttree may try a counterattack, but I don't expect him to persist when he sees we have cats and 2-promo horse archers available.

The perfect situation for us is we're left alone, to take advantage of having a world monopoly on marble! I don't mind taking Parthenon and GLib at all if they're just hanging out there!

[WilliamLP]

Wetbandit cancelled the marble deal on us. Maybe he's worried we'd be able to sweep all the marble wonders at the top of the tech tree, and then run a 36 turn golden age with Taj? It's such a silly thing to be concerned about.

I made a mistake and accepted giving him spice for ivory when I logged in, because I'm a noob and didn't realize he had cancelled the marble deal. (Like everyone else I wish you could postpone decisions on trades until after looking around.) Without that we'd have a lot more leverage to get a deal from him, facing so unhappiness. I don't know if it matters though. I think he can get a 1-1 happiness trade elsewhere anyway. Boldly has some calendar resources hooked up now too, in the jungle east of us.

So as painful as it is, we're going to have to build HE and NE without marble, though I believe they're still worth it. Temple of Artemis, not so much. I'm still going to make a run at the music artist, I think. Of the people who could beat us: I don't think Molach is going there, having invested in Civil Service and Code of Laws. Suttree has been running the highest military in the game and has Construction and Code of Laws, but I don't know how much GNP power he has. Retep I know very little about. Bandit has the motive to go there, with marble, and is in a golden age, but I think we still have a research lead on him. So it's only a chance, but the reward, an earlier GA, would be incredible for us. Our next natural GP would be in about 14 turns I think.

(Lurker question: Can you tell in the F6 screen when someone gets a tech great person? I.e. does the "first to learn gets an x" text go away? I think I've only seen one artist in the logs and it's accounted for but I'd like a sanity check.)

The silver linings of losing marble are that we already got arguably the best marble wonder in the game, and we also get silk back, which is a market-boosted happiness resource. Currently the Moai city is the only one that is happy cap constrained right now, but it's pretty important!




The fake war with Suttree is over and he accepted peace. I offered it to free myself up to secure the border here. I cleaned up one of his scouting chariots before this, but lost an axe at 75% before doing so.

With the state of the board, the city of Hell Below is nearly impossible to defend, and would fit much more nicely into our empire than Boldy's. I'm sure this point is not lost on him.




I wonder where Kuro's settler is going. There aren't may locations between us available but it could be sea-bound. Is he going to try to settle for the silk? Good luck with that if so. The perfect scenario is that he settles 1N of the cow, and then we capture the city.

Boldy's scout axe on that island amuses me!




I founded Noodle Lake City to claim the dyes. In four turns a border pop to the SE will grab incense as well, so our citizens are so happy they're literally rofling.

Here's a world map for fun:




Our relative size is an optical illusion due to spherical aberration, but after we've filled everything in we'll have a pretty nice blob! And Kuro's 6 cities there are all he has, and I can't imagine he has anything for maces and catapults.

Azza and Sisub have 1 city each, and I wonder who will leave the game first? My guess is Sisub since his last city is probably more valuable.

A rough outline of a plan is: 1. Get a GA, maybe even a double 24-turn one. 2. Tech to Maces, Feudalism, eventually Guilds. (I don't see a run at Lib for us.) 3. Wipe out Kuro, consolidate the north side of our part of the world. (It would be a war for the sake of the clams, who yearn for a net.) 4. Have enough stuff in the south not to die during all this.




At 100% science these numbers look quite good! It's not crazy to think we could get into the lead if we're allowed to have the Music GA.

[WilliamLP]

This is a bit of a pain:




I did all that work clearing and planting the banana, for Boldy to work it! I'll get it back though, next turn when borders pop or the turn after. Hell Below is a sitting duck if I want it but I believe I get a lot more out of a peaceful border and trade routes with Boldly than I would from the city.

I'm just running peaceful builder turns, while building up a small force of HAs and cats, which is perfect. I think I can get music at EOT 133. Oh man if I get the artist this econ is going to be a monster during a golden age, with lots of mediocre cottages getting boosted.

Oxy offerered the 10 turn NAP again (declaring and offering peace) which I was quite happy to take.

Where to station the bulk of my army is a tricky choice for me, since where I want to go with it eventually is north, but I really don't want Kuro to think that and go into Slaze-from-PB2 mode. And I don't want Molach and Bandit to start massing against me either. So I guess the SE may be the best choice, where I think I can keep it hidden from Suttree.

Let's see if Wetbandit is in the mood for a very Faustian bargain:

[Plunder]

Well, he has to settle north of the cows right, silk and 1E of the silk both are one tile away from another city.
Maybe move up a unit of two as a welcome gift? :D

[WilliamLP]

Yeah, the dotmap chess really limits his settling options, if he wants to try it. We have a scout permanently patrolling his land though, and the settler disappeared, so it could be heading toward another yet unknown island or something.

Also, Kuro played two turns in a row, taking 8 minutes in total. I think it's safe to say he's checked out.

[WilliamLP]

So, not much to screenshot from the last turn. A great artist was born, almost certainly by Boldly since he got a 27 point score increase. (Music is a tier three tech worth 18). Fortunately we hadn't invested too much in it, and we can switch to more normal economic techs like CoL (finally).

Our backup plan for a great person:




This is actually my very first GP farm attempt, in any game ever. It's not a great one, but Civil Service and irrigated corn will help it eventually, and improving the hills can get NE up someday, aided by some whip overflow.

Oh, we finally got 10xp on our W2 axe, from the farmed barbarians! I wonder if some day we could get him to the mythical W3 + Medic 3 status.

[Plunder]

gratz on the 10 XP axe! =D

[WilliamLP]

Sorry for the boring reports, but everything is just going fine. Oxy asked for sugar for free, I said sure. Anything that makes him a thorn in the side of Suttree is good, and he's no threat to us at this point. (Famous last words?)




Today I learned that Molach's farms spread irrigation to me, even though I don't have CS! I usually cancel orders every turn, but in this case I want to leave him farming, so Molach doesn't think I'm trying to do road micro. It would be an odd place to try road micro but still.




CoL is finished, so I'm putting up some ORG courthouses. That should help us get some graphs back that we've lost. Right now we only have graphs on the people who don't have courthouses, which is the wrong set we want.




After much thought I think I'm going Monarchy -> Feudalism -> Civil Service. I'd never do this in single player - I basically always beeline CS. But points for this way:

- Feudalism will make us a veritable hedgehog in the south, so we can focus on moving troops northward.
- There's an overall beaker savings with Feudalism before CS.
- We get a golden age in 9 turns, and switching to Bureau soon before that would be a waste of anarchy.
- It's on the way to Camel Archers.
- Running serfdom for a while during a GA might not even be totally crazy.

The biggest point against is delaying irrigation (for example Primavera is a terrible city without it), but our workers have plenty of other things to do right now.

Demos that are one turn out of date, at 70%:




We're in the 400s for GNP at 100%. Someone else has flashed the 500s, probably Molach.

I could 1-turn Monarchy right now, but it's not a useful tech, and I actually don't want our score to be too high right now.

[WilliamLP]

Sorry for the lack of reporting, but the last couple of turns have been really routine. Courthouses are finishing. A settler is on its way for the next interior city. I cancelled free banana to BoldlyTyrant, and re-offered for 1gpt and they accepted. Profit, baby.

Golden age is due in 6. I decided to hit CS before Feudalism, even though the latter is a prereq. This is so I can go Bureau immediately during the golden age. I figure this will be worth more beakers (plus hammers too) than the prereq discount would be worth. Suttree and Oxy are now at war, and all my borders look really peaceful, so I don't see an urgent need for longbows in the next 6 turns.

In other news, someone got Philosophy and Taoism, either Bandit or Retep. I don't think we're in the Lib race in this game, which is fine. Earlier maces and knights are more important I think.