RBP3 [SPOILERS] Hannibal of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse & SleepingMoogle)

[Bobchillingworth]

Yuck, Mukha used the great scientist for an academy. Good move for his civ, bad move for the rest of us, because when this shit all falls apart after we tear up PAT (or see CUDDLE wrecked instead) we want to have gotten as many free techs out of our former allies as possible.


Hopefully it'll pay off in the end if we stay allied long enough with him, who knows. More important things to angst over right now anyway.


We should be getting Feud this turn, upgrading some of those archers to longbows will really help, if we can eventually find the cash. I think that guerrilla + hill sentry longbows should have a pretty long shelf-life.

[Bobchillingworth]

Just talked to darrell; looks like sunrise is trying to put together a stack of 15 HA or so to hit krill asap and burn his holy city. It's a fine objective, but apparently he's having a lot of trouble getting commitments from our allies for units... he didn't ask, but can we build anything for him? We probably need all 4 chariots we have currently for ourselves, but I guess we could build at least one HA for him; the issue is that we really need those hammers ourselves to go into defensive unit production for cities 6 and 7. Although if India attacks Krill that might take some of the pressure off of us anyway.


What do you think?



Oh also he agreed to the Palpatine Proposal, which means that everyone is confirmed in Major long-term goal now is to position either our civ or India as the liberalism techer, and then "race" Kyan until the alliances fall apart and we can swing some absurdly expensive free tech. India thinks that we should tech lib, so I guess we can make the case for it after guilds is in, assuming we're still in a good position to do so.

I love coming up with these semi-pointless sinister plans, less enjoy actually putting the steps in action

[SleepingMoogle]

One or two HA's are worth having Egypt's capital razed methinks. Of all the Civs that we consider 'enemies', they are probably at the top of the list. Besides, it will also show our commitment to stay on India's good side, which is important to keep the Palpatine strategy going.

With the Citadel finishing its Forge, we build a HA there in three turns, the same time it takes for the city to reach size 9. We can build one (It's unpromoted but better than nothing), and switch to a Settler afterwards. Feros finished its second sentry archer and can build a second HA in 4 turns. That should count as solid Byzantium contribution right? We're not in Slavery, so that is the best we can do for now.

Here's a picture of the current situation. If you disagree with the HA idea, please feel free to swap builds:



Ilos expanded borders this turn, so I swapped the merchant back to working a Floodplain. Three Workers are currently mining the gold. It'll finish next turn, and be hooked up by road on T106. After that we can put down some more cottages.

Feros will grow to size 7 next turn, and will have to work an unimproved tile for a short while. A mine is currently being constructed, but working it at size 7 will cause the city to go into Starvation. We could really use CS to farm the remaining grassland and Calendar to put a plantation on the spices right around now.

Therum is almost ready for military duty. It will reach size 4 in 3 turns, right around the time its Barracks finish. At that point, we should let Therum take over military from Feros for a few turns so that Feros can build some infrastructure (Stables and a Forge come to mind). Eventually Therum should become our main production center though; Feros never had that great of a terrain to be more than a filler down the line.

Eden will grow to size 7 next turn as well, and can work the full 4 merchants by that time. Not much else to say, other than that we should probably recall one of the Workers from Ilos to improve the sugar tile soon, as we're not far off from getting Calendar from another Cuddle member. The Barb warrior near the city was removed with no damage to the attacking Chariot. A new barb warrior appeared out of the fog to the northwest, but he'll probably wander into Chariot range on open ground next turn.

[SleepingMoogle]

Also, we should see if anyone can start funding us. We are good this turn, and can probably swap around some tiles to fund the next, but that leaves us 3 turns short. We'd need about 100 gold to make it the rest of the way.

[Bobchillingworth]

Okay, cool- I sent out emails regarding the HA (does India want any from us, does the timeframe work), and a request for gold.



Poor Feros has really been a trooper, hasn't it? Obv. we want to farm another grass tile with CS, do we want to cottage the two others that will be left, or farm them as well and then place workshops on the plains squares?



Therum will eventually need some more culture than just a monument to take a couple tiles from babylon's city (which babylon can't even work), but that can wait, as Therum is right now in no danger of flipping and I think can hold on the the tiles it does have for a while still.


I assume next cities will go to the NW spot and the NE one? If we're still in Caste system when we found them we should probably run 3-turns of artist in them as well.

[Bobchillingworth]

Ended turn; not much of interest happened. Eden is on 4 merchants, GM in 6 turns. Starving, but plenty stored up.


Moved one of the sentry chariots onto Krill's; we can and should move back next turn. I just wanted to reveal both what he saw and some of the surrounding terrain.

[SleepingMoogle]

Ugh, lack of time. I moved around some units last night, but didn't have time to do anything else. We should be good to end the turn though.

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 106:

We received Drama and Civil Service on the tail end of turn 105, so our UB is now available to us, in addition to irrigating farms and Bureaucracy. And Macemen in two turns once we finish Machinery research! It might be a while before we'll see this applied though.. we can probably change into Bureaucracy once we have the great merchant in Eden (4 more turns), and go back to Slavery as well for some more whipping power.

It's a bit unclear which tech we're supposed to be researching next. We'll save the merchant for guilds, and probably spend some gold upgrading units until we know for sure.

Anyway, the state of the land:



The Citadel reached size 9, finishing its Horse Archer (currently travelling to Feros to meet up with the HA being trained there), and picking up unhealthiness. The Forge is partly to blame for that, but also allowed for the Settler to be trained in just 5 turns. The Settler will plant a sixth city towards the northwest. It has some decent commerce potential and seals off the NW, and also picks up the corn for added health.

Therum reached size 4 and is working on a Longbowman who will garrison city 6. It currently works the Winery, but will switch back to working the farm for one turn later to allow the city to grow to size 5 in just 3 turns. Workers are busy putting down some mines to make Therum into a solid production center. Bob and I were contemplating putting a Hippodrome into the city at some point to hopefully take back that Floodplain tile in the northwest (it's second ring for us and third ring for Babylon). The added food will be very welcome.

The Sentry net is also (mostly) set up now. In the northwest, the Sentry chariot has a dominating view over the entire area, so anything coming from that direction will be spotted well ahead of time. The northern archer is in position now. Unfortunately the forests limit his visibility range somewhat, but there's few other viable spots. In the northeast, a second archer is almost in place. I'd really like for the Egyptian chariot to move away from it's current position, because it is the superior vantage point. Keeping fingers crossed for now.



In the south, Feros has almost finished the second Horse Archer that will contribute to a rather devious plan. Now that Therum can take over military duty, Feros will build a Forge and possibly Stables next. With Civil Service in, we can finally start farming those grassland tiles, but we'll actually work the Spices first. Calendar research in CUDDLE will finish this turn, and the Spice tile will provide a food bonus in addition to commerce (not to mention a chop to speed up the Forge). But the most important thing is we can put some further growth into this oldtimer now.

Eden is working 4 merchants now, which puts us at a slight food-deficit, but nothing the city can't handle. We'll need 4 more turns (the last turn only needs 2 merchants) to pop out the great merchant, which will be our ticket towards Guilds. After that, we can finally focus on getting that Library finished and return to working all of those cottages. In the near future one of the Workers in the far south will return to Farm the tile north of the Rice, thus irrigating it, and hook up the Sugar as well.

Ilos has finally hooked up the gold, and is now working on getting cottages out. The city will probably grow like a weed before long, so we'll probably keep some Workers around for cottage spamming.

[Bobchillingworth]

Nice review




I think we're researching guilds next, because the bulb won't finish the entire tech.


After that I guess we might want to position ourselves as the liberalism techers, with the intention of not actually researching it until the two alliances are no more. Maybe pick up divine right first if we can swing it, dunno.

[SleepingMoogle]

T109, and Machinery research was finished. I sent it around to the other CUDDLE members and moved some Workers around. Not much else of note.