RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

Yes, I'll get this turn tonight after work. Should get to it in about 4 hours.

[Maniac Marshall]

While I'm thinking of it:

1) If you'd rather have a pike than a crossbow from our HE city, thats fine. Log in and change the build. Same # of hammers so wouldn't upset anything in the micro plan. I'll leave it on crossbow for now. Wouldn't kill us to have 1 or 2 of them.

2) I'm not home so I can't take a screenie, but, if you scroll down to our far SE you'll see an area marked "Green Dot" We have an archer standing over there busting the 2 tiles of fog that could spawn a barb and just generally looking around. You'll note that the Inca have an axe standing on a hill nearby. Green dot is the only spot we have markered that is not 100% negotiated. The Aztecs and Malineese have ceeded us that spot, but we have never talked to Inca about it. The presence of that Incan axe makes me wonder if they aren't planning to plop down a city on that very spot. I think we need to decide what we're going to do. We can:

a) Give up on this spot.

b) Talk to the Inca in a friendly manner and see if we can negotiate it... I dono why they would. What do we have to offer? Do we offer them a long term NAP? I'd be fine with that.

c) Talk to the Inca in threatening maner. Along the lines of: "Settle there and we'll raze it" or "Remember that Artist Mali got for music? Settle there and we'll culture bomb it."

d) We can move green in colser to HV so that it would only overlap the corners with their spot and then duke it out culturally.

[Maniac Marshall]

This turn has been played. Looking at the timer... if desired I can play one more turn, but just one more, tomorrow night. Be advised: It is IMPERATIVE we get Education from Babylon next turn so we can start Liberalism.

[Maniac Marshall]

Logged in to request Education from Babylon, did nothing else. There is an annoying Barb archer near Kilrah we'll have to deal with. I found him last turn when I tried to send the chariot out to fogbust. It declined to attack and moved onto a hill of course. I'll move the workers and such later, but feel free to move the military. If Babs have given us Edu by the time you log in, Turn research to 100 and start Libralism.

[Morgan]

Manic - feel free to play this last one if your able. I'll play in a couple of hours if not.

Perhaps we can have a pike and a x-bow, would be useful to have a couple untits handy.

[Maniac Marshall]

I'm at work till 1AM GMT, so, If you like, go ahead and play the turn. I see from civstats we got Education, so we can start Libralism, which is good.

Regarding units, make whatever you feel we need at Kilrah. I think the microplan calls for a stable to be chopped there shortly. We should probably do that, but otherwise, make what units you like there and at Pride Rock (which DOES have a stable).

[Maniac Marshall]

Turn played. There is a remote chance I can play one last turn tomorrow afternoon, but that should not be counted on. Not even sure the game will be moving at that point, as Rome has aparently gone AWOL and we may have to pause while we wait for them to show up, or start looking for a replacement...

We're nearing the end of the micro plan. Ref's stated he doesn't have time to make another one right now, and I know I don't. I'm pretty sure we were the last civ still using a sandbox/making detailed micro plans, so I guess we need to start talking about what we want to do in each city in the near term.

Haven't seen/heard anything from Ref in a couple of days. Hopefully he's still lurking about somewhere out there because I'd like to hear his suggestions.

[RefSteel]

Haven't seen/heard anything from Ref in a couple of days. Hopefully he's still lurking about somewhere out there because I'd like to hear his suggestions.

I'm here, but swamped. No suggestions at the moment. I have only an approximate idea of what turn it is. I've been reading diplo e-mails as they come in, but know what we've sent out only when it's quoted in someone's reply.

I'll continue to try to answer questions as I'm able. The problem with describing suggestions for Ornata and Smithsonian is that my ideas for them were basically mental microplans. I can and do build mental microplans while shelving or searching for books at work (I work at the library, mostly on reference, but sometimes the need for shelving gets desperate, so I pitch in) but they're holographic rather than linear; translating them to something that can be reliably followed by a turnplayer (including me) or necessarily even made-sense-of is what takes the longest for me. (That and, relatedly, testing them out in the sandbox.) The other problem with them is that if I don't translate them quickly, I forget bits and pieces. Sorry. Basically:

The three workers at Ornata start by roading the gold and first-ring jungles while it works the oasis; on consideration, it's probably worth building culture there too, to get the border to pop prior to population growth, allowing us to improve a floodplain in time for the second pop unit to grow onto it. This actually would mean at least one of those jungles shouldn't get roaded right away, which would mean at least one of those workers should not move to the jungle on T120; I'd have to look at the map to see what a better move would be. Chopping the two second-ring forests (I *think* it was two) for a granary, with overflow into something (Forge, maybe?) should complete before the city reaches a half-full bin at size two in any case.

Smithsonian gets religion and starts by building culture, working (I think it has) a plains forest to get the border pop in two turns; workers chop forests into a granary (overflow plus I-think-we-get-another-chop to library if we want NE ASAP, otherwise forge) and improve one of the pigs, improve the second pigs by the time the city hits size 2, then I think farm floodplains. (I'd have to look at the game to know for sure - we do want the non-desert hill(s) mined at some point, for instance). If we have marble (again) at the time, which might be trivial if we're rushing out settlers per your plan and the Byz-border marble/wheat spot comes just before or (I prefer) after Red Rivers, we can get the NE pretty quickly just via whip-overflow management. A more conservative approach would be to use other Specialist-Allowing buildings as the whip bait for NE overflow, delaying the wonder itself but allowing us to run a huge mixed bag of specs there relatively quickly. I wanted to dump something like five workers on this city by (e.g. maybe even starting before) the turn it was founded, with most of them moving away to other projects after the rush to bring it up to speed, but I doubt we'll be able to spare anywhere near that many.

Finally, I wanted to say, but haven't had a chance: Thanks very much for the calendar-change update! It looks terrific! I have more comments and thoughts that it's too late at night to post, but if the swamping lets up at all (I doubt it, unfortunately, any time soon) I'll try to post them ... whenever that is.

[Maniac Marshall]

Few quickies as I won't be leaving (For vacation) for 12hrs:

1) My idea for the capital is to make the missionary, then finish the mace, then make settlers for Green/Red/Smiths, then either Sankore, or if we need it, more military. If we make Sankore, we should build temples places asap for the hammer bonus

2) Idea for PR - Make a couple Knights. We'll have cureassers soon, but those aren't a HUGE upgrade.

3) Temminck - Needs the Aquaduct and a Grocer eventually, but should contribute workers too.

4) Feng Shui - similar to Temminck.

There is an archer standing under a "Do not move" Sign. I told Byz we'd leave him there for a while. Please do so.

[Morgan]

I was really looking forward to playing this turn.

I have a few ideas regarding the plans after the current set finish, i'll need to polish them a bit first - make sure they are up to the high standard.

Are you using any spreadsheets or simulations?

Is it possbile in Gmail to change a read email to unread status - like in outlook.