RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[WarriorKnight]

Popped another one!

Ok this actually isn't that great for us since I was trying to maximise the hammers we could get in Aquilonia utilising the forge + Bureaucracy bonii. Now we're a hammer down. I think our best bet now is to grow to size 12 and then stagnate. Growth to size 12 happens in two turns.

While it's indeed not one of the better pops we could get, it's not that bad (It's better than silver ). 1 hammer for 7 commerce multiplied by bureaucracy is quite nice (although losing the hammer in our production city is unfortunate, shame it couldn't be copper/iron or gems).

I think we should park it on size 12 for now. India will attack sometime within 5-7 turns and when that happens I'm sure they'll start invading us.

Also note that Carthage have popped a GS. Wonder what they'll do with it?

Probably an Academy (or bulbing Edu but who knows?)

Ok that's a bit earlier than I had planned, but should still be ok. I think we'll be able to get a knight quickly out of Brythunia, Zingara, Nemedia and Cimmeria. Aquilonia can also build knights quickly. Since it's coming in so quickly our cities will be rather small if we whip them all. I propose we leave them all in build queues but don't whip them unless it becomes necessary to do so. Thoughts? Most(all) of those cities don't have necessary infra to build at the moment anyway, unless we count theatres.

No need to whip them to death unless we're losing the defensive war. I agree that we should leave them there and grow a bit (we've been whipping quite a bit lately, which is good for infra but we're running out of useful infra to whip)

Speaking of Theatres have we reached a consensus on where Stygia goes? The settler will be complete in 3 turns.

I'm still for the hill site. Are we are going to put a city N of Cimmeria? (in which case hill is preferred) Also are we putting Globe in Ophir? (Hill is also probably preferred, since there are more tiles for hill to use)

I'm thinking yes to both of these questions, hence my preference to settle hill.

Edit: Also requested Research Gold from India and Rome. Who are the funders for CUDDLE ATM? I don't see too many civs with stockpiles of gold anymore.

Funders are still Inca, India, Aztec and Rome. There has been some talks of Byz becoming a funder after they get Guilds (to focus on Cataphracts) and India replace them as techer but it hasn't been mentioned enough yet.

BTW, I asked CUDDLE to send us their map info so we can get all the map info together, Ruff style. So don't be suprised by all the map trade requests whoever logs in first next turn and can you keep track of who's map you've got?

[WarriorKnight]

News just in from Byz:

Hey,

With guilds coming in in just a few turns, I think we all really need to start coordinating on military strategy, and defining the roles of every member of the alliance for what may be our best opportunity to strike at PAT.

I have it on very good authority that PAT will have engineering "much sooner than [we] would like". India, what's the status of the proposed raid by you guys against Krill? If you can't get those HA over to him in large numbers very shortly, then it makes no sense to deploy them only to have the units be shredded by pikes. Did the requested troops commitments from CUDDLE ever come through? If the ETA for striking Krill doesn't look good, then we need to consider repositioning the units. While I admit and agree that it would be very expensive, gifting at least part of the HA stack to me so that I may upgrade it to cataphracts may be the only way of assembling a strike force of sufficient strength in a short enough period of time, before enemy cities are fortified with castles, and bristling with pikes- or worse. If someone can cash a great merchant soon then that may provide sufficient funds for me to field a large army of promoted chariots and HA; even if nobody will have an appropriate merchant, standard per-turn funding will allow me to supplement my forces piecemeal while I slow-build and whip 'phracts.

My civilization has also been struggling to expand while carrying out our dual objectives of teching and preparing for war, and we have been less than successful in this regard. Inca, would it be possible for you guys to gift me some settlers and workers, both of which I am in dire need of? That will help free up my production for purely war purposes immensely. I am currently 2-3 cities behind most other civs, and I would rather not be forced to make difficult choices between developing my civ's long-term potential through growth, or throwing myself into a destructive war effort which will award me no cities. I can catch up in city count easily enough, but again something has to go to accommodate that priority if I'm building the settlers & workers myself, which will inevitably be military production.

Is anyone else capable of striking at a PAT member, excluding Maya or Babylon, preferably at Krill or Carthage? We need to coordinate who can attack where with what, so that we can hit them at multiple points at once, with large numbers. I understand that India has been building up militarily, and my civ will shortly begin to do so as well, who else can start to prepare stacks of knights and/or maces with catapults? There's been a lot of silence on this front, and we need to all start preparing to launch a world-war if we are to at least slow the PAT.

Apologies if this email is exceedingly panicky, but I have just recently received and confirmed some very troubling intel; suffice it to say, we will very shortly find ourselves desperately behind that PAT technologically if we do not strike quickly, and with decisive force. We will then be picked apart by unbeatable forces & and our alliance annihilated. We've all been watching PB2, we've seen what happens when an alliance fails to adequately coordinate & strike at a runaway party- and in that game it was only one civ the alliance had to contend with. We need to take action now.

-Bobchillingworth

Not really the best of news, but at least it's another push for CUDDLE to be in military mode. We need to start getting an army out really soon (fortunately, that's exactly what we'll be doing).

[Sockboy]

Ok two more HAs queued in Cimmeria and Zingara. The mace completed in Aquilonia and we're starting on another one there. Depending on the timing it might be just in time to start on a Ha/Knight. Alternatively should we consider getting a library in Aquilonia since it has both the palace and a gold tile? It'd be a really quick build (2 turns? Maybe one if there's overflow). If it was up to me I'd be getting a library there and a theatre, before the HE is unlocked since we want to minimise turns not on military once that's up and running. I might look for good times to slip them into the build queue.

Our borders of Ophir have expanded pushing a Kysit axeman towards our pigs/spices site(s). I've covered all of the workers who could be threatened assuming they don't declare (I'd guess they'll move onto the pigs tile this turn). I don't think it'll cause to many issues, but best to be cautious I guess.

Diplowise I've not made any trades/requested any gold (Other than gifting the HAs to India). Paper is in, but no one requested a map trade whilst I was in game. I'll leave that to our Minister in charge of Foreign Policy. Speaking of which, I noticed that Carthage have had esp on our research for a few turns now, we've just prevented them seeing our research this turn I think. However Kysit are getting close to seeing our tech too and I'm not convinced we can hold them both off. We should look at splitting our ESP against them next turn I think if we want to try. Otherwise maybe we should forget it and try to get visibility on one of our enemies (Carthage make most sense I think). Some quick number crunching suggests we should have visibilty on them within around 8-15 turns, depending on the number of courthouses they get up.

Oh I took a screenshot of the Indian Troop build up, since they suggested we stay on the road network and that the southern city was the rally point I thought I'd get a quick bit of scouting in (I realise paper is in this turn, but seeing troops is handy). Have a look.



That's 15 or so HAs in position to move out by the looks of things. The two units to the NW of the city are a HA and a settler(!). India's been busy expanding. We should do the same, hopefully they're not pressing for the sugar site. We're whipping a settler next turn, but maybe Aquilonia should build another one relatively quickly?

[WarriorKnight]

OK, done some things.

I've cancelled OB with Maya. They get a bonus trade route with us while we get nothing in return.

We've got Portugal's map. I've offered a map exchange with everyone else in CUDDLE. Wonder what the map will look like now?

We've switched to complete military mode unlike what SB has said above since I suspect that we'll be in a war really soon. With that question, where do we put our army? I thing somewhere near Aquilonia is probably the best place since Nemedia can still be attacked.

India is scary on the power graph, they've gone and jumped way ahead of England. Krill is climbing quickly though, wonder how successful the HA attack is going to be? Hopefully we'll be able to start climbing up there soon.

EDIT: Forgot something

Portugal offered us their spare pig in addition to paper and world map exchange. I accepted since I didn't realise at the time that we already have pig, but haven't hooked it up yet. I offered our spare gold to them since we are forced to keep the pig for 10 turns and they could probably use the gold wisely.

[Sockboy]

T114 micro done:

Aquilonia grew to size 12 this turn, so it's back onto max hammers (43 hpt). It's finishing another Macemen, then it can either make another one or it can start a HA and get 49/50 hammers into it. I'm happy either way, but if we want knights ASAP this might be the way to go. It will limit us to 2 maces for the short term, perhaps it's better to get another mace? Nemedia, Zingara, Brythunia and Cimmeria are all on HA builds, which will swap out to Knights in a couple of turns. I think we'll leave these builds in the queues and only whip them if necessary. Most of these have finished their infra for the moment so they can stay on military for the moment (although Brythunia has a very low hammer count).

Ophir has whipped it's settler this turn, I'd like to grow for 2 more turns then run a single scientist to get the GS to pop before the GE pops in Aquilonia. It shouldn't delay Education for us since Education isn't a complete bulb.

Map trades with quite a few CUDDLE members have gone through, we can see Indian, Aztec, Portuguese and Roman lands. We're still waiting on the Incans, DIM and Byzantium. I haven't requested gold from anyone for the moment, I'll do that now I think.

[Sockboy]

Athlete logged in whilst I was in game so he's handed over the cash for another turn of research. I also requested a turn of research from Ruff, so we should be ok for a turn or two.

I had an epiphany about the GS and realised that if we run the scientist this turn (whilst building the settler) we lose hammers rather than food. Since we've already whipped the settler and it'll complete anyway it's two hammers from the courthouse which is getting the overflow. I prefer to pay for the GS in hammers rather than growth so I'm running the GS this turn. Then we can run max cottages in Ophir whilst growing. We'll probably get our next Settler out of Ophir as well since it's got a large food surplus. We just need to decide whether we want another pair of workers before or after the next settler. (I'm leaning towards after).

Edit: Question, Should we be passing paper round to everyone in CUDDLE? I see no reason to hold it, unless it can be used to prevent bulb paths or something. Anyway just wondered about that.

[ad hoc]

Question, Should we be passing paper round to everyone in CUDDLE? I see no reason to hold it, unless it can be used to prevent bulb paths or something. Anyway just wondered about that.

i logged in to have a look round and there was a request for Paper from Inca along with their map, couldn't see any reason to hold onto it.

Inca have planted a city adjacent ( 1 north) to the sheep/flood plains to the north of Cimmeria so we won't get those within a BFC of any city on the hills.

Have we decided on Stygia's placement yet, i still vote for Desert mainly as i'm coming round to not having the globe in Stygia, whipping one of our best commerce cities doesn't seem the way to go

[WarriorKnight]

Athlete logged in whilst I was in game so he's handed over the cash for another turn of research. I also requested a turn of research from Ruff, so we should be ok for a turn or two.

CUDDLE is running a bit short on gold ATM, so don't request anymore for a turn or 2.

Edit: Question, Should we be passing paper round to everyone in CUDDLE? I see no reason to hold it, unless it can be used to prevent bulb paths or something. Anyway just wondered about that.

Only if they ask for it. No sense giving it to them if it isn't a high priority, and they'll ask it when they want it.

We've had a bit of a team discussion and decided that we'll put Globe in Ophir and therefore Stygia is on the hill. We are also thinking about turning Nemedia into a GP farm and putting NE there (since most other sites lack food and Nemedia doesn't have a clear direction ATM).

Oh, and we have everyone's map I'll send it back to everyone else in CUDDLE when I can log in again.

[Sockboy]

T115: It's 1AD!

Anyway nice present for you guys, turns out that the Byzantines have finished teching Guilds! And we've got it!

Aquilonia was going to build a mace before Guilds came in but it's started on a knight straight up. It finishes in 2. The HAs in builds everywhere else have not upgraded yet. I'm not sure how simultaneous turns deals with this, but I'm not touching the build queues so hopefully they get turned into knights at the end of turn.

In other news the GS has popped, I've moved him to Aquilonia to chill out. Kysit's axe has wandered off to the north, Barb hunter could give chase, the workers aren't in any danger at present.

Otherwise things look good, although Krills recent border pop in Lancre has made our scouting down there a bit troublesome. We might need a non-mounted unit to scout down there and sit in a forest (spear perhaps?). Something to think about. Settler for Stygia is en route to the plains hill. Will be in position next turn, to settle on T117, there's an axe on the tile covering it.

[WarriorKnight]

Hi guys,

PAT just got Guilds and Engineering this turn so they are well on track for their steel slingshot. My guess is Carthage is now researching Gunpowder and they are even building research in some of their cities. What with all the scientists that were born recently, as soon as Gunpowder comes in they could bulb chemistry.

We badly need to beat them to Liberalism or at least hurt them now. So could Ottomans build research in any of their cities, or build units for a strike at Carthage to slow them down?

We've started on Banking this turn, eta is 6 turns. What is the eta for education?

Mukha
CBE

My reply:

Hmmm, not good news.

I'll need to talk to the rest of my team about this. Education ETA is currently 17 turns, but we haven't used the bulb yet. I'll try and get a more accurate ETA soon.

We can decrease the time it'll take by building research, but the main problem is that we are currently building units since we will possibly need them for defense in case PAT counterattacks us when India attacks. If we do decide to build research, can anyone nearby provide some units so we can build research to get Edu ASAP?

As an aside, Babylon and most likely Carthage as well can see our research, but we'll get visibility on Carthage's research in 2 or 3 turns.

Also, we have everyone's map now, and we've offered it to everyone. Ruff, I would probably be against the map trade with Krill, but if you want to do it, make sure that you haven't accepted our map.

Enough Talking!
WarriorKnight of A4

PAT with cannons would be really bad for us (we'd probably be the first target for Carthage and Krill). If we do build research, how soon can we get Edu?