RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[WarriorKnight]

So just to summarise, these techs should be discovered in next ten turns or so by members of CAN..... so do we get them

Well, lets go through them one by one:

England Monarchy T81

Yep. England owe us for IW and this would be it

Carthage Construction T82

Not really sure. We've already given them math for IW, so I'm not sure if we could get this.

Maya Metal Casting T85

They already have IW, and the chance that they give us MC for free is kinda unlikely

Mali Calender T88

Yep. We've already negotiated a deal for IW up front for Calendar, so this should be ours.

HRE Code of Laws T90

We have nothing to give DIM for this, but we have good relations with them, so I don't see why we shouldn't get this.

Babylon Currency T92

We haven't met them yet, but they don't have IW, so we can probably negotiate a deal for that.


So we should undoubtedly get Monarchy/Aesthetics/Calendar. Currency and CoL are kinda unknown but I think we should be able to get them.

Construction and MC are the least likely but let's think about it a bit. Since we are in a a tech alliance with 10 civs, and everyone has in the past just shared the tech when they get it, I don't see why we shouldn't get them. The good news is that some civs aren't are just as bad as us in tech so keeping them in the loop and us out would strike some suspisions (and we could exploit it diplomatically).

[Sockboy]

100 beakers by T100?!?

Have you done a sandbox with these figures? If not then I doubt we can get that high by then. Then again, we didn't go bankrupt at all so maybe it might be right. For starters though, we are past the max unit support costs, so our latest 4 workers will cost 4gpt! The good news is that we will have silver next turn though, so that's not too bad.

I've seen numbers up there around high 80s without trying to maximise it or anything, but this is obviously at 100% science, where we bleed money. You also forgot to mention that Belit is coming back too, we can see her in the current screenshot, so she should be back this turn or next turn. I had a look at the unit supply costs, and at the moment we're at 9 of 10 free units? (this is after two of the four workers were built) Maybe this takes a turn or two to update? In any case this shouldn't affect the beaker numbers @ 100% as they get subtracted after coins get split into commerce/culture/beakers (at least that's how I understand it). It will affect our breakeven science rate though.

Belit returning is a good thing, cause we've got barb trouble big-time. There are 5 barbs or our borders, good news is we can deal safely with most of them. The biggest issues are up near Ophir where we only have a chariot to deal with one (and who is the city garrison) and over the Brythunia where a barb potentially threatens a worker next turn.

I've started shuffling the warriors from Zingara to Aquilonia and from Aquilonia to Ophir, so we should have an extra warrior in the city by the time the barb strikes. I think we're better off moving the Chariot (Livia?) from Ophir into the forest to the NW. That should let us cover both the workers and the city.

Over near Brythunia we have a chariot which I *think* is currently headed south? Maybe we should turn it around, to cover the city whilst the axe in the city moves onto the floodplain to prevent any delay to the worker plan?

Finally the axe down near Zingara just defeated another warrior without damage, and is currently acting as city garrison as the warriors shuffle around. Belit of the axe can take out the remaining barb down near zingara next turn, although if Belit is gifted next turn it will leave Zingara undefended for a turn, it shouldn't affect happyness in the city though.

[Sockboy]

Other minor news...

We received Monarchy this turn!

Scorewise... we're not scoreleaders anymore, which is probably a good thing. I was looking through the various teams scores and there's a few interesting notes... Obviously Krill, the DJs and us are up there, since we've all built a wonder each. But also we've got England, Carthage, Babylon and Portugal in and amongst it too. My question is why are these other civs doing so well score wise? Are they one or more techs up on us? Is it just population that we've been whipping away and they've been growing? Do they have more territory than us (probably not since we're second in land and I would guess Krill is first with three holy cities)?

(EDIT) To partially answer my own question:
Portugal has construction and Monotheism (explained)
Carthage has construction and Monotheism (explained)
England has Monotheism (partially explained...)
Babylon we've not met yet...
Can't see who's got Theology, as we've not got Monotheism (can check it in the f4 screen under "can tech", but I'm tired) would guess only Krill

Thinking about this it's probably worthwhile keeping a list of techs others have that we don't. ATM is it only Krill (plus whoever he's gifted it too) with monotheism and theology?

I think us teching Drama next is a pretty good idea, it's cheap enough that we can get it and it's not important enough that a turn or 3 delay in getting it is critical for us or other teams. Hopefully everyone else is ok with us doing that. One thing we should try and make sure though is that the techs that AWTA is getting cover significant military techs too. So we should try and get one of the AWTA members to tech either Civil Service or Machinery I think. (assuming that construction goes to everyone, otherwise that's pretty high priority). I'm not sure what the ETA will be, but I think t92 is probably pushing it, My guess is t100 is probably closer to reality, but I haven't tested this at all. The real issue will be saving enough gold to run 100% science.

OTOH If construction doesn't get handed out then we should probably either find someone else to tech it (unlikely I think), or prepare to tech it ourselves... and prepare for war from Nice Shot...

Final thought: What techs is Maya hoping to get for MC? and which other civs are likely to be left out in the cold here? If we do get locked out of MC we might be able to get some diplo credit with other locked out civs, maybe a good way to recruit into AWTA?

[WarriorKnight]

Belit returning is a good thing, cause we've got barb trouble big-time. There are 5 barbs or our borders, good news is we can deal safely with most of them. The biggest issues are up near Ophir where we only have a chariot to deal with one (and who is the city garrison) and over the Brythunia where a barb potentially threatens a worker next turn.

Well, I didn't look at much else, the silver is just too awesome!

I've started shuffling the warriors from Zingara to Aquilonia and from Aquilonia to Ophir, so we should have an extra warrior in the city by the time the barb strikes. I think we're better off moving the Chariot (Livia?) from Ophir into the forest to the NW. That should let us cover both the workers and the city.

Yeah, that's fine since we can just go right back in the city if something goes wrong. I've done that.

Also you forgot to mention the barb warrior who is NE of Ophir who, hiariously, is next to an incan quechua who got pushed out of Ophir's border expansion.

Over near Brythunia we have a chariot which I *think* is currently headed south? Maybe we should turn it around, to cover the city whilst the axe in the city moves onto the floodplain to prevent any delay to the worker plan?

Well, I moved it down there so if a barb appeared near Nemedia, it could play some zone defense. However, it's needed in Brythunia now, so I've moved it back up there.

Finally the axe down near Zingara just defeated another warrior without damage, and is currently acting as city garrison as the warriors shuffle around. Belit of the axe can take out the remaining barb down near zingara next turn, although if Belit is gifted next turn it will leave Zingara undefended for a turn, it shouldn't affect happyness in the city though.

If it heads onto the stone, then we attack it with the axe. Otherwise we just wait until it covers the copper or on flatland and then strike.

Other minor news...

We received Monarchy this turn!

However, I talked with Krill recently and he said he would give us mono. I've asked it off him for now.

Scorewise... we're not scoreleaders anymore, which is probably a good thing. I was looking through the various teams scores and there's a few interesting notes... Obviously Krill, the DJs and us are up there, since we've all built a wonder each. But also we've got England, Carthage, Babylon and Portugal in and amongst it too. My question is why are these other civs doing so well score wise? Are they one or more techs up on us? Is it just population that we've been whipping away and they've been growing? Do they have more territory than us (probably not since we're second in land and I would guess Krill is first with three holy cities)?

We haven't had enough time to get land points for Brythunia or Ophir yet. That means, score-wise, we have 4 cities. I also think the pop that we've been whipping away has something to do with it.

Can't see who's got Theology, as we've not got Monotheism (can check it in the f4 screen under "can tech", but I'm tired) would guess only Krill

Thinking about this it's probably worthwhile keeping a list of techs others have that we don't. ATM is it only Krill (plus whoever he's gifted it too) with monotheism and theology?

Krill's not trading theo ATM since he wants the apolstolic palace, which he's probably already started to build.

I think us teching Drama next is a pretty good idea, it's cheap enough that we can get it and it's not important enough that a turn or 3 delay in getting it is critical for us or other teams. Hopefully everyone else is ok with us doing that. One thing we should try and make sure though is that the techs that AWTA is getting cover significant military techs too. So we should try and get one of the AWTA members to tech either Civil Service or Machinery I think. (assuming that construction goes to everyone, otherwise that's pretty high priority). I'm not sure what the ETA will be, but I think t92 is probably pushing it, My guess is t100 is probably closer to reality, but I haven't tested this at all. The real issue will be saving enough gold to run 100% science.

The next round will have to wait until the breakup, since otherwise we don't know who's going to be in it. Negotiations have started on that but we aren't really that well placed tech wise anyway:

India have a GNP similar to ours
Ruff is crippled
DIM is finishing CoL on T90, so they can't start researching anything else for a while.

If we can't finish Drama sometime around T92, then we might as well not go down that path. CAN will probably break around then (since the last major tech comes in) since waiting a few turns for drama from us probably won't be worth it. I would say T95 at the latest would be a good estimate.

OTOH If construction doesn't get handed out then we should probably either find someone else to tech it (unlikely I think), or prepare to tech it ourselves... and prepare for war from Nice Shot...

It's more complicated then that. Nice shot could probably research Feudalism in the time it takes us to get construction. Still, I have no reason to believe that we will get locked out.

Final thought: What techs is Maya hoping to get for MC? and which other civs are likely to be left out in the cold here? If we do get locked out of MC we might be able to get some diplo credit with other locked out civs, maybe a good way to recruit into AWTA?

Well, Maya wants the rest of the techs in CAN. It sounds like we should get MC but if we don't then we have some diplo currency to use against them.

[WarriorKnight]

Slightly outdated diplo update:

Krill will send us a hindu missionary, and it should be gifted to us on T85. Combined with Ruff's missionary, which cities should get the religions?

He's also going to send us mono so we can double revolt in HR/OR (I've asked for that since I don't think he did). He's holding theo while he builds the apostolic palace though.

We've got a response to the AWTA call:

A4,

We were quite glad to receive your note, almost as good as landing the Hanging Gardens would have been! There has been too little coordination between AWTA members, however we have taken great comfort in our membership...espeically in light of the fact that France assumed they were CAN members until the last second. To that end, we agree with you that we should plan for a post CAN future, and indeed we should consider being the ones to end CAN rather than waiting for a sneak attack from supposed allies.

Assuming France passes, we will be down to 14 civilizations in the game. We think the next block should be at least 8 strong, and we think again it should be our inner alliance inside an outer alliance. The catalyst to end CAN and build a new reliance around? Plunder of course. We have just completed the sale of our Great Prophet to Egypt, which will go to another shrine. We propose forming an alliance of eight teams that surround Egypt, with the goal of taking out this most dangerous opponent and sharing the income from the shrines, independent of which civ actually controls the shrine.

If we do decide to take this path, we must be very cautious in how we recruit our additional members. We are fairly certain Egypt has a post CAN strategy, with civilizations already recruited. We have to avoid tipping them off at all costs. We propose an IM summit where we can have a frank exchange on the merits of this plan.

PARTY ON!
DJ Civ
India

AWTA,

AWTA - really? What does that stand for? I've taken DJCiv's capital location and plotted it in an excel file (see attached - the boxes are the 2 civs that we don't have fixed locations for and are based on guesstimates). This should help us eyeball civs that might be in a good position that we can approach. While we still have some non-CAN members, I agree that we should start to plan for the world when only CAN exists. I like the idea of picking off Egypt but agree that this will need to be done with great stealth.

Ruff

, looks like India are completely in, so let's stop worrying about them for now.

Anyway, they want to attack Krill, which is hardly surprising. However, its both going to be logistically difficult to do that (since we are closest but still on a diagonal). Also, they are overstating the value of the shrines (India's prophet will be the 1st shrine) and plunder can come from the other civs.

We don't get much from a move like this. While we are close to Krill's land, there are others who could gain much more from it. Also India do want to eliminate them since it leaves just them as the superstars. While we eliminate a possible threat for Korea's land, others just gain so much more from it.

Before I can be convinced to attack Krill, I would like to ensure Carthage is on our side at the least. A 'mega gang up on Krill' alliance like India is suggesting i'm not that keen of.

I'll think of a response to this, but I'm not that keen on an Egyptian strike ATM.

[WarriorKnight]

Talked to DIM a bit about India's message. They aren't that keen on a Krill strike either since we both suspect that India just want to eliminate Krill (the other rockstar). Also we kinda suspect Ruff is playing along with India (for attacking Krill anyway).

So now we are going to play their own game. Our response will focus on attacking Carthage if they don't join us (with their massive GNP, shouldn't really be that difficult) while they focus on attacking Inca. Diplo game inside the diplo game, kinda funny.

[Sockboy]

Turn rolled again... and worker micro done.

Now welcome back to another exciting instalment of Barbwatch™:

Latest reports show we've got one hanging around near Ophir that didn't choose to suicide on our chariot Livia. It's currently on a flatland tile although it is across river from us. I still think we should attack it, since next turn it *could* move onto a forest tile next to the city. In fact most of the tiles it could move to are forested.

The other one that might cause trouble is between Cimmeria and Brythunia. It could threaten the gold, I think the chariot (unnamed?) should cover the gold. Alternatively we could shuffle the axe there and move the chariot into the city, either way is good I think. If we choose the axe, then he needs to move this turn, the chariot has already moved so if he's to guard the gold then he can wait a turn.

All the other barbs have been taken care of, including the one which appeared next to the amazing teleporting Quecha. The Quecha is at 1.0/2.0 and probably due for a promotion. Sadly he's not ours. When do we expect barb axes to start roaming?

In other news...

City wise we're set to finish our stables in Aquilonia this turn, so we can start getting some HAs out soon. Cimmeria is also finishing it's barracks in a couple of turns, after which I'd like it to alternate axe/spears for a bit (until we need a Hammam here) unless someone objects?

We should also work out where to store units for Zone defence, I like the tile that the chariot was on earlier WK, except it's technically outside our borders, which incurs expenses (or will if we station more troops there).

The soon to be produced HAs should release our chariots to continue scouting out the map. I think it's worthwhile to get some sentries out in a few directions, I'd send one or two towards our Iron/Krill and another pair out towards the Incans. I also noticed that we've uncovered Animal Farm the English city, it appears to be on the same river that DIM is on, although I could be mistaken (we might have a big map which covers that... I haven't checked yet). If so we could get a few more trade routes here pretty easily by defogging the river tiles (2/3 turns I think). Worth thinking about if the chariot isn't needed for contacting the last civ.

Also Ruff did return Belit this turn, probably worth sending him a thank you. Belit can deal with the remaining barb near our stone, who's been meandering about down there for quite a few turns now.

[Sockboy]

And now for diplo...

Good message from the DJs and Ruff... Glad to hear everyone is a) still keen to work together and b) thinking about recruiting post-CAN. Unfortunately we're attacking Krill??? I'm gonna have to agree with WK and DIM here and say I think this is bad news for us, we don't really want to be the frontline civ if we don't have to be...

I will disagree with the Shrine income though, I think it will be substantial (although maybe not once split 4+ ways). I presume he made a similar pledge to all CAN members about handing them a missionary and spreading his faith and even if half the civs take him up that's plenty of cities with his religion. Add in the Apostolic Palace for extra hammers and I think it'll be a pretty dominant religion. But I think this is moot, I think we're better off working on a defensive rather than offensive group, unless we can somehow ring an enemy?

So now we are going to play their own game. Our response will focus on attacking Carthage if they don't join us (with their massive GNP, shouldn't really be that difficult) while they focus on attacking Inca. Diplo game inside the diplo game, kinda funny.

How serious is this? Are we going for pointy stick diplomacy already? I think we should be trying to get Carthage onboard pretty heavily, I'm not sure threatening war is the right way to go... With that said, we do have a good position if we want to strongarm them since we're high in both military and production and we're nearby with HAs incoming... I just don't think it's conductive to long term teamwork.

OTOH If construction doesn't get handed out then we should probably either find someone else to tech it (unlikely I think), or prepare to tech it ourselves... and prepare for war from Nice Shot...

I was thinking here that if we don't get construction and other civs do (at the moment 4 civs have it I think) we're at a disadvantage, and should be preparing ourselves for a *defensive* war. I'm pretty sure they can get longbows before we get cats, but cats are handy on the defence too. AS I said above, I doubt we'll want to wage war on Nice Shot, since until we get a few more economic techs and get some cottages grown we can't afford to hold any land we do take. A pillaging strike would suit us better if we do need to move on anyone, since we'll probably have quite a few highly promoted HAs.

Anyway on the whole promising messages from our allies, it's probably worth finding out if anyone has had much contact with Krill or not (who are his war buddies? Is the war going well?). And we should try and steer AWTA away from this destroy Krill mission.

[WarriorKnight]

And now for diplo...

Heh, now I have to explain myself a bit.

Unfortunately we're attacking Krill??? I'm gonna have to agree with WK and DIM here and say I think this is bad news for us, we don't really want to be the frontline civ if we don't have to be...

We are IMO just throwing around suggestions on who to attack. Nothing's been confirmed yet though. Krill is just who India wants to attack since eliminating Krill would give India the benefit of being the sole rockstar.

I will disagree with the Shrine income though, I think it will be substantial (although maybe not once split 4+ ways). I presume he made a similar pledge to all CAN members about handing them a missionary and spreading his faith and even if half the civs take him up that's plenty of cities with his religion. Add in the Apostolic Palace for extra hammers and I think it'll be a pretty dominant religion. But I think this is moot, I think we're better off working on a defensive rather than offensive group, unless we can somehow ring an enemy?

True, the shrines might be useful. However, India's message was clearly overstating the value of them (by saying that plunder from Krill is the only method).

How serious is this? Are we going for pointy stick diplomacy already? I think we should be trying to get Carthage onboard pretty heavily, I'm not sure threatening war is the right way to go... With that said, we do have a good position if we want to strongarm them since we're high in both military and production and we're nearby with HAs incoming... I just don't think it's conductive to long term teamwork.

The best thing that could happen for us IMO is if Carthage joined us and AWTA decides to go for the Inca. That way we could continue REXing into Korean territory while not joining any wars. However, we have to assume things won't go our way. If Carthage don't join us then we practically have to attack them since their GNP is through the roof.

Oh, and we are going to threaten them in with us via war, that's just silly. We'll ask nicely and if they say no then we know what to do.

I was thinking here that if we don't get construction and other civs do (at the moment 4 civs have it I think) we're at a disadvantage, and should be preparing ourselves for a *defensive* war. I'm pretty sure they can get longbows before we get cats, but cats are handy on the defence too. AS I said above, I doubt we'll want to wage war on Nice Shot, since until we get a few more economic techs and get some cottages grown we can't afford to hold any land we do take. A pillaging strike would suit us better if we do need to move on anyone, since we'll probably have quite a few highly promoted HAs.

Well, no point not asking for construction. If Portugal have it (and they do), it's a safe bet to say that we can have it. I've requested it.

Also, why declare if we are playing defense? A strike on Carthage would be to help lower their GNP, which a defensive war doesn't do. If you mean that other teams are going to attack us, that probably isn't going to happen.

DIM through to India is safe, since they are in AWTA. England and Carthage we have NAP's with, and hopefully they will join with us in AWTA. Krill is the only dangerous one ATM, but still we are building military to counter that.

Anyway on the whole promising messages from our allies, it's probably worth finding out if anyone has had much contact with Krill or not (who are his war buddies? Is the war going well?). And we should try and steer AWTA away from this destroy Krill mission.

Well, I know Krill hasn't talked to DIM much either. I agree that we should steer them away from Kill Krill.

[WarriorKnight]

Sent to the AWTA discussion. I was waiting for DIM to respond but they haven't yet, so I've gone and done it myself.

Yeah AWTA stands for Alliance Within The Alliance. It isn't the best name but if you can come up with anything better, I'd like to hear it.

Anyway, an alliance of 8 teams sounds like a good idea to ensure that we all aren't left behind post-CAN. 2 civilizations that I would like to see on our side are Carthage and England. We have good relations with Carthage, and they have one of the highest GNP's in the game ATM, so that would be really valuable. We have dealt fairly with England so far and they would have several troops left from the France campaign to spare on attacking someone else, so that could be useful as well. We don't really have a strong preference on the remaining 2 civs that join us, so we'll let you guys think of some possibilities.

However, an alliance with the sole aim to take out Egypt is IMO not really in AWTA's interest. Sure we eliminate a dangerous player and capture some shrines, but in reality, AWTA is too far away to really gain much of Egyptian land long term. Splitting the shrine income to the victors won't work either since an alliance to destroy Egypt will not last long after that objective has been reached, and therefore since we won't control the shrine (we are too far away) very little of it will go to us long term.

The main target for AWTA is Inca. 3 of us border them, they are behind in tech and we can settle a good portion of their land since Rome is preoccupied with Portugal. If Carthage did join another group instead of us, we might be forced to attack them since their high GNP would be a threat long-term to us. It is still preferable if Carthage join us instead though since we can attack other people instead.

Is the IM summit you are proposing a chat between the 4 of us? If so, that's a good idea. We would need to find a suitable time where we all are available though (I am available most times, but if not another member of A4 can take the call).

Enough Talking!
WarriorKnight of A4