RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[antisocialmunky]

BTW-what are the NAPS with France/HRE/CArthage?

[haphazard1]

EDIT: We're going 100% gold until T70, when we get Mono from Krill. Just to make it clear that's the plan; we need that long to get enough gold anyway.

OK, this gives us our target to get our libraries up.

I defer to the majority on the cottages. London returned to the cottage, and will prefer cottages over mines as able. Still, we're very split on whipping the Settler or Library out of London. We can still go barracks-chariot-settler (Whip)-library: It might finish T71 or so instead.

How long would the settler take, without a whip? If we grow to size 6 (furs hooked up) we ought to be able to crank out a settler very rapidly. Would the whip actually be worthwhile, compared to working more tiles?

Unit maintenance is going to be expensive. We're just going to have to deal with it. The furs will help a lot. We'll get 2gpt when AF grows and works the horses again.
Let's look at what we have for a military at the moment:
3 exploring warriors. We do need a full set of contacts, so that's necessary. Gulliver just needs 1XP for Woodsman II, which will be a huge help for that.
Conan. We need something beyond just warriors. Especially with barb warriors about, as he's proven.
5 workers: Well worth the cost. "Too many workers" is nearly impossible, and we're about to hit 4 cities.
3 garrison warriors. Necessary. And they'll be HR happiness soon enough (~20t).

Agree on all of this, and we may want one more worker as we get to 4 cities. HR will help greatly, as our garrisons will start contributing to larger cities.

The problem is, running low military can get us killed. Yes, each unit costs -1gpt, so we want to get the best bang for our buck. Still, we can't go 1-unit-per-city. Also, what are our cities going to build? We have 2 barracks built already, and 3 granaries. Yes, we can get libraries done soon (the chop's going to accelerate AF's by a bit). But that's really it, and those are cheap. Even with the whipped settler, we could then knock out the Library. We don't need libraries online until T70, and the library would be done pretty close to that (EOT71?).

With Alpha there is the possibility of building research. Once we get HR then building more units becomes attractive; really starting a handful of turns before HR we should start building more. But do we really want to start building units now, before HR allows them to grow cities and work tiles to pay for the unit maintenance?

Maybe we could pre-build units, getting them to 1 turn from completion and then queuing another unit? Then start completing them as HR comes in? We should able able to do an archer and a chariot in each city that has hammers available, and if we do it right the timeline is short enough to avoid hammer decay. Get the units rapidly as HR comes in without paying maintenance for turns beforehand.

I am very reluctant to burden ourselves with unit maintenance costs unless we really think we will need them during the next 12 - 15 turns. After that point we can crank out units and use them for HR, and the larger cities can work cottages to pay for it all. But until HR comes in we have to be careful.

Units we are going to need, medium-term (by T80-85):
A sentry net. 2 chariots (Conan where he is, at least until Mali expands north) in the S-SW, and probably 1 to the SE. Knowing what's coming is worth having to shell out some gold and hammers for the unit that's going to tell us.
Some Horse Archers + a chariot or two for mobile defenses. I think we'll want to keep a large portion of them in London: they'll have the mobility to go where we need.
Gibraltar will need some garrison units, an archer, an axe and a spear would do well for holding it.
HR happiness units: Those can be anything. Not just archers, since we'll need to be prepared for mounted and melee units at some point.

Once we have a basic mix (archer, spear, axe), additional HR units should probably be the best/toughest we can build. With an occasional other type to maintain some mix/combined arms. Otherwise generally agree.

We have iron, or else Sullla has some explaining to do. Don't worry about axe-chariot trades. If we don't have any iron, then this game is lost, no matter what we do. Period. However, if the iron is far enough away from us that we have to defend that city (say, to our SE), then we need a military.

Yeah, there better be some iron somewhere fairly close. Otherwise there is just no balance to this map at all. Some civs with first-ring copper and some not is already a serious issue. The early happiness distribution also seems a bit off, although we need more map info to really be sure what is going on.

I'd rather have Conan be a fixed sentry, than trying to have him patrol a specific route. He's on a hill, with no forests or hills around him, it's hard to get better than that. The only reason to have him mobile is if we're hunting for XP, and I think we'd be better off having a second unit being a more mobile patrol somewhat to Conan's NW. Or having the 2nd unit (chariot is preferred, since he can run in the event of an approaching force, or hit a stack of axes) spell Conan.

Did we ever manage to find and kill that bear who ate poor RG? It had 66/100 HP after the battle, so Conan ought to be able to kill it easily.

A good suggestion from ASM: One of our cities should build a stable. Animal Farm looks like it's the strongest; it's got plenty of hills, great food surplus, and is well-developed.

Not sure why we would limit ourselves to only 1 stable, unless we plan to specialize our military production with all horses from one city, all spears from another, etc. With whipping likely to drive HA production, we may want stables in multiple cities. Two-promo units make a sizable difference, although we would have fewer units due to hammers going into the stables. But given unit maintenance costs, fewer stronger units may be the way to go anyway.

We will have many more things to build once the first round of classical era tech trades comes through. Having too many hammers is likely to be a very short-lived problem.

[antisocialmunky]

Mail:

1) 1280*720 in window mode, Alt+i, no resource bubbles, scrolled out to just below cloud level.

2) they are about 20 tiles NW of your warrior, but they also have a warrior about 10 tiles west.

Krill

Greetings to our friends CHASM,

We wanted to shoot a quick note to you to help you in your continued quest to meet new Civs. I have attached a screenshot of the rough area where your scouting warrior should be. In it, please note that you should be about 3 tiles SE from A4 culture. Hopefully this information will help you make another contact.

Until later,
Mr. Nice Guy for Team Nice Shot

[haphazard1]

That lake in the eastern portion of that screenshot may be the biggest body of water in the world.

Actually, I think we have seen a two-tile lake, probably the southern-most portion of that same lake, to the north as we moved to meet Krill. So we are probably not far from the A4 culture. This is very helpful of our Carthaginian friends. What can we do to repay them -- do they need directions to anyone we have met?

[Cyneheard]

We're on the grass hill just north of John Keel, Egypt's warrior.

Where Richard's meeting spots are:
1NW: Meet Aztec next turn
Continue NW until reaching Ottoman culture.
Then head farther west, to meet India's warrior, in approximately 5t.

That lake is at least 5 tiles. So, yeah, that's a good 10% of the world's 49 lake tiles.

4 hours to tech trading day.

[Cyneheard]

I was about to run, but HRE dropped me a line:

We should write France an e-mail, telling them what we know:
Go East to meet Krill. Our contacts are literally on the other side of the world from them.
Carthage has a warrior to our southwest, quite a ways away.
See if they'll tell us where their settler is going.

So, according to Babylon, Byzantium had been gearing up for a chariot rush against them (over Leviticus, their copper site). I doubt that's going to actually happen. However, someone is going to get attacked with those chariots. We're a little far away for a chariot rush. France isn't. Do we tell them that we suspect Byz. is looking to chariot-rush someone? I think so. Up to you two.

DIM: you there?
me: only for a few minutes
DIM: could you maybe give directions to France
me: sure. what do you need?
DIM: well it would seem they sent an email two days ago, asking for directions to the other members
me: right, but we don't really have anything to tell them, Krill said they knew they were west of him
DIM: how so?
me: Carthage has a warrior to our SW, but that's really it
DIM: just send his warrior towards Krill's unit you just met
me: that's 20 tiles away
DIM: i haven't got a better idea
me: they should send someone east
DIM: they'll have to run
me: Krill wasn't worried when I talked to him yesterday
DIM: well i'm not either, but they're bugging me
me: they've got a settler built, looks like they're going to get the copper site
DIM: they are? hmm
me: well, they know it's there, and I saw the settler last turn
DIM: well that might be a problem
me: yep, but we weren't willing to fight a war over it, and that's the only thing we could do. if they weren't in the group, they'd be out of luck; we could easily have made sure we claimed that site given the tactical situation. They also need it sooner: Byzantium's been gearing up for a chariot rush, but I doubt they're going to do it to Babylon
DIM: ok
me: we're going to meet the Aztec next turn, and Ottomans soon after
DIM: then we need to get you Iron asap
me: aye, but I'm not worried about a rush from Babylon, we've got a NAP
DIM: i wish we could just take them [France] out, take all their cheese and women
me: and we'll live off of chariots and HAs until Iron's online
DIM: that's the problem
me: what's your ETA on HBR? our neighbors don't have Hunting
DIM: you guys need Archery for Horse Archers
me: Aztec already have Archery
DIM: you met them already?
me: we meet them next turn
DIM: that's good news, ok we'll keep in touch
me: we'll need IW and HBR ASAP, but we'll be fine
DIM: let me know what France does with that settler
me: I lost sight of him, moved away when we chose to stand down
DIM: as soon as trade is done and we're safe froom the south, i want to plan on rolling over France and divide the spoils
me: ~T90-95? When? France won't be quick with their tech
DIM: depends on the political situation
me: I'm not sure what our plans are long-term, but certainly crushing France is an option.
DIM: to that we agree talk to you later
me: ok

[haphazard1]

Sending the info we have to France, and asking their intentions with that settler, sounds good to me. Despite the copper site issues and their late entry to the cartel, they are fellow members. So we should provide semi-valuable info such as directions and general warnings.

Do we know who is east of France? Or west of Carthage? Should be the same civ, I think. Is that Krill? Or is he in the row north of us?

More contacts over the next couple turns, excellent. We are starting to get enough known civs to feel like we have half an idea what is going on around the world. Means a lot more diplo, though.

We are not all that far from Byz, if they decided to send their chariots our way. They could not profitably hold our territory, although I suppose they could trade the cities to Babylon in return for Leviticus or something. Hopefully those chariots will go elsewhere.

[antisocialmunky]

You know, as much as I seem to be a heartless bastard with the way I talk about NAP breaking in RBPB2 and killing France in the last couple pages but I'm really not... I can't help but feel somewhat bad that they have no friends in the world so it seems :|

Yes, Krill is in our row between Carthage and France. Not sure where Byz is but attacking France seems somewhat likely... Its a long drive though.

[Cyneheard]

T63:

Krill has Oracled Alphabet.

We have gained:
Hunting
Writing
Mysticism
Polytheism
Priesthood

We do not have Alphabet. Basically, Krill's trying to keep that limited, so that Exploit doesn't get as much of a known-civ bonus. Exploit is about to get dogpiled. Let me repeat that, the plan is to kill Exploit before T72.

We are now on Monarchy.

Since we didn't reach a consensus, we stayed on the Library @ London plan.

Babylon is going to send us the NAP response this turn, they're still hammering out some details with Mali.

HRE offered Open Borders, and I accepted. We'll get Trade Routes with them once Sailing comes in, and we road our BR wheat. Carthage has a warrior on our borders, so any objections to offering them OBs?

Lurker beg:
We will get Sailing if/when we meet Portugal. Babylon will not have Sailing, but there is a river connection. Am I correct that we'll get trade routes, but they will not?

[Cyneheard]

Krill:

me: yeah, he was telling me about it, still, our nine are already known
Krill: Yeah.
me: and we need hunting next turn at the latest
Krill: Ask for it from HRe, I think
me: are they getting Alpha this turn?
Krill: They have Alpha, waiting for them to accept it. This way everyone gets the needed techs, but Alpha isn't gifted to Every one, so it is still that little bit more expensive to research
me: ah, right, there is an upside, not just diplomacy
Krill: Yup
me: makes much more sense now
Krill: See, I'm not a total conniving bastard. Well, maybe I am
me: I do think you should send an email explaining why
Krill: Will do
me: oh, I'd put it even-money or better that Byzantium is going to go for a chariot rush, mostly likely on France, they were planning/threatening to do so to Babylon
Krill: hey
me: but that's not likely
Krill: You OK with me, HRe and yourselves rushing France before we added them, right? to the Alliance, I mean. Well, I say rushing, what I mean is blood thirsty colonialism.
me: as in "after they gift Currency around"?
Krill: Ah, I meant before we added France to the Alliance, we intended to wipe France out, just as we intend Exploit not to see turn 72
me: That soon?
Krill: If he doesn't have hunting, India can get a lot of chariots very fast. well, they can get the chariots very fast either way, but without hunting Exploit is pretty much toast
me: Why is T72 a specific time?
Krill: That is the time we think Exploit will finish Alphabet. If he is dead before then...bloodbath
me: awesome. Babylon's going to make it, but that's like T80-85, they only just started Alpha
Krill: By then we should be close to finishing construction
me: when's Math due?
Krill: Currency should be down. maths, t70, t71 from Carthage
me: ok, good. That lets me plan the micro a bit better
Krill: FWIW Killing Exploit is mostly what India wanted to do
me: heh, not surprising, either you or India would be the ones with an axe to grind
Krill: I'm not going to stop them when it is both of our interests, although truth be told I don't want them growing massive. But I suppose that isn't a problem anymore. Ah, my axe to grind is that he lost my beautiful empire, now I'm going to show him that he isn't anywhere near me in skill, although he is probably more aggressive.
me: I thought that was obvious enough already. also, his PB1 diplomacy was just...being a jerk. I never intended to work with him, regardless of the map situation [OOC: He's the only time I felt this way about]
Krill: Well, he seems to have stacked the odds against him.
me: how the heck did he keep Rome on his side?
Krill: I think Rome decided they wanted Portugal dead, and hence had to side with Exploit. Problem is, Rome has half the cities as Portugal, so even with agg preats they won't have enough units and will get crushed if they try to attack
me: right, Portugal's expanded like mad
Krill: I'm already helping Portugal with a few tactics to defend. Yup, first to 4 cities. Somehow
me: we were first to 3, then haven't added a 4th in 15 turns
Krill: slouch . I was one of the first to 2. Kinda screwed up since then
me: we had to delay our first settler. lost a warrior to a lion. While being on a forest. But, then AH came in time, so we got horses, rather than have them be 1 tile outside our BFC
Krill: That sounds pretty nice though
me: yeah, it worked out. Can we get Priesthood, so we can start sinking our 1bpt into Monarchy?
Krill: yup
me: thanks