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

[WilliamLP]

I have an evil idea to run a troll sea-war against Retep someday, pillaging his seafood.

Kuro, cleverly, is prepared!

Yes, Standard Oil is still pillage-proof by the sea!

[Plunder]

Too bad blockades are banned in this game, we could really cripple his empire with that :P

[WilliamLP]

Too bad blockades are banned in this game, we could really cripple his empire with that :P

Yeah for sure, but I don't want to play with them! I'm not sure if you're in on the joke, but that screenshot shows Kuro never improved his two clams by his capital, which is practically a Civ 4 crime. (Even if the capital has all the food it will ever need, a better dotmap could have shared some food and taken advantage of it all.)

[Plunder]

No, I didn't realize that o.O
I never imagined one wouldn't improve his/her clams, especially when there is nothing else to do :S

[WilliamLP]

We've had more delightfully boring peace turns. Retep entered a golden age two turns ago, and Boldly is in one now too. This is if you can even call a measly 8 turns a golden age.

If someone's gearing up for an attack on us, they're hiding it really well. Defenders in border cities are gradually getting bolstered with longbows.

2 caravels are heading out east and west.




Retep's GA hammers with the AP are a little intimidating. We have a lot of grassland for workshops though, eventually.

Guilds is due in 2. I convinced myself back to it from Engineering, which will be next.

[WilliamLP]

Golden ages galore. Retep waited a couple of turns for his civic switch and chose Mercantalism, which may mean he just got Banking. If the guy with GLH gives up all foreign trade routes, I would think that would have to be a win?

I'm becoming slightly more aware that great person play is a big blind spot in my game. I'm just sitting back leaning on tiles and researching the normal way, while several other people are bulbing a significant number of their techs. Is this extremely suboptimal? I don't know. Great People do seem to have diminishing returns (every subsequent one is more expensive), and having produced only 3 mine aren't yet very expensive.




I guess I interpret Boldly and Retep's drops in food as them working a lot of specialists, trading city size for great people. Retep is surely going to get the Economics merchant.

Molach has shown a pikeman, so he has engineering. This is a very defensive path for him, which is good.

Guilds finishes this turn, and our golden age is over. We're not that far from a second one, but I don't see the rush. I think the first GA accomplished what I wanted it to: several techs, and a big boost to defenses and infrastructure like forge builds.

For the general direction forward: Engineering will probably be next, though it's not an obvious choice. We may already have more than enough security to skip it for a while and go for snowball techs. Retep may not be going all-in for the Lib race after all? I'm not experienced enough at this part of the game to know what's going on.

[WilliamLP]

First glimpse of (probably) Astronomy land:




The golden age is over. It's so sad. Demos at 0% are definitely back on Earth:




There are a few golden ages there.

I go back and forth a lot, but I'm now going for Banking next, to get the massive bank in the shrine city. And defenses look pretty good - nothing very alarming is happening in the south.

Long term projects:
- Gather enough spare troops to the north to conquer Kuro.
- Figure out how to get the next golden age, likely with 2 GP from the NE city.
- ???

[WilliamLP]

I'm enjoying how relaxing this game is... I'm not sure the other players feel the same way though.

We're far from first in GNP, but 3 other Civs are in Golden Ages.




It looks like this land is theoretically connectable pre-astro with culture! I'm not totally sure it's worth it, the filler city needed is terrible. But we do have Org + shrine gold + decent trade routes. On the other hand, the 2x fish + sheep + iron city at the end of a double island hop looks fantastic.

[WilliamLP]

I'm basically playing full-on SimCity in this game right now, and loving it! I'm by nature a peaceful player. I'm running a few wealth builds to get banking next turn, since a bank in the shrine city will be a big benefit.

Scouting out Kuro for fun:




Now this redefines iceball territory! That's the second known marble in the universe, though it's getting too late for it to matter much with the exception of Taj. BoldlyTyrant's borders are barely visible.

Moai city in growing glory:




But compare to Boldly's version:




19 out of a theoretically possible 20 coastal tiles, wow! I bet that took a while to build with carefully managed whip overflows.

I'm trying to view this stuff with my caravel safely tucked in the ocean right now.

Our GNP has sure fallen:




Still, three of the leaders are in golden ages, and we're at 0% on the low point.

[NobleHelium]

That's 16 coastal tiles. The other three are ocean.