[Spoilers] SavageMoogle of the Celts

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 40:



Etheopia finished the Great Wall this turn, which was actually quite surprising. I know that Scooter was planning to get the Wonder and that he has Stone available, but I really expected either Rome or Germany to land it. Perhaps one of them is going for the Oracle (it's quite possible one of them picked up Polytheism on the way to Priesthood), but still.. why pick an Industrious leader and not pick up an early wonder or two?

Here's a picture of my progress on the Oracle:



That overflow is doing its work quite nicely. After I took this picture, I actually swapped the Sheep tile to the Furs. Next turn it will be swapped back to the Sheep, otherwise Bibracte won't regrow to size 5 along with finishing the Oracle, but getting that bonus hammer now seemed like a good idea. After the Oracle finishes, I'm setting Bibracte to complete a second Worker, then most likely an Archer or two plus a Settler for the third city.

Vienne is investing in Barracks for one more turn, before switching to a Granary. For now the city will focus on growing as quickly as possible, relying on the occasional whip to hurry production. The active worker has moved on a forested grassland, which he'll chop (to go into the Granary) and then farm to improve the food situation. I'll probably farm a second grassland tile before Mining the gold. The first barb warrior finally came out of the fog near Vienne. The Archer on city defense moved onto a forest tile next to him, so he will probably suicide himself in between turns. I was really wondering what kept them for so long, but now that they started to appear, I'll be bolstering my defenses soon.

The southern scout has finally spotted the southern edge of the map on his way west, and I dispatched an Archer on a mini-quest to see how far away the northern border is. Over in the west, the scouting warrior found his way blocked by a coastline and mountain ridge. Getting to my western neighbor may be harder than it first appeared.

[SleepingMoogle]

Some more diplomacy between scooter and me:

Just a check to see how things are going on your side of the world... Any progress on the Oracle? If it's completed already, my bad, Strike played the last couple turns for me. Have you been able to meet any new neighbors yet? I have a scout near Timmy's land, and hopefully he can find Timmy's western neighbor before he gets eaten. I'm also exploring to the west of you with a warrior, but no luck yet on meeting anyone else.

scooter

Greetings Scooter,

Thank you for your message, and congratulations on your succesful completion of the Great Wall! It should be of great help against those pesky barbarian incursions eager to take a slice off of our succes. The Oracle plan is still on the table, and our engineers are confident of its construction in Celtic lands. Surely the Gods will favor the true faith, intead of this heathen Hinduism?

On a more unfortunate note, the terrain between Celtic lands and any western neighbours appears to be quite rugged which is causing delays. Our scouts have located what looks to be the northeastern shore of the inland sea, only to find passage further west blocked by a mountain range. A side-effect of this is that we have now run out of targets to invest espionage points into. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off the generation of more points, so for now it seems most fair to split the points between you and the Khmer, and switch to new Civilizations as soon as they are contacted. Hopefully this will not adversely affect our relations, and we won't object for Etheopia to match the points spent if you wish.

As an added note, our rangers have located herds of Horses south of our capital, near the area that we marked for possible expansion in the maps sent earlier. We currently plan to place one more city towards our west first, but would then like to place a city on the marked location to take advantage of the resources there. For now, we have no plans to expand further towards your lands.

Best wishes,
-SleepingMoogle

And a quick one to Timmy, mostly about the espionage points:

Hey there Timmy,

It has been a while since we wrote each other; it probably has been a rather uneventful period for us both. In any case, I would like to give you a quick update. Our scouting party has located the southern edge of the map on their way west, so it might be possible to travel past Khmer lands without problems. If this passage is blocked though, would you be amendable to open your borders for the party to travel past. We would be happy to extend to you the same courtesy if you have any scouts near our lands.

Additionally, our efforts to contact our western neighbours have proven to be problematic. The terrain north of the inland see is very rugged, and locating mountain passes towards the west is delaying scouting efforts. As a result, we have now run out of targets to invest espionage points into. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off the generation of more points, so for now it seems most fair to split the points between you and Etheopia, and switch to new Civilizations as soon as they are contacted. Hopefully this will not adversely affect our relations, and we won't object for the Khmer to match the points spent if you wish.

Regards,
-SleepingMoogle

And yes, that last part was shamelessly copied from the message to Scooter.

[SleepingMoogle]

T41:





Well, gg Twinketoes. Germany is the only civ to go after me before the turns roll so the Oracle build must have been his. It stings losing out on it by two turns. Would I have been able to beat him if I prioritized Priesthood research? Hooking up the Marble took some time, so no idea really. Anyway, as a silver lining I now have 82 gold to burn on research which isn't too shabby. Bibracte switched builds to a Worker, no real point in delaying it any further now.

The rest of the turn was pretty uneventful. The southern scout spotted Timmy's border, the northern one is backtracking to find another way west, and the archer spotted silver to the far north, in the middle of an ice wasteland.

[SleepingMoogle]

Barbarians are finally starting to come out of the woods now in earnest. Hopefully they'll do a good job harassing other Civs, for now at least they're manageable for me.



Now that looks more like raging barbs!

And that's really all there is to say for now. Vienne got a forest chop going into its Granary build this turn, and Bibracte will finish a Worker on the next. At the end of this turn, I also finished Polytheism research and Monotheism is up next. Unless someone else is beelining it, I'll probably end up landing Judaism in Vienne. It would be nice if it could be founded in the third city, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to get it out in time. I need some Archer defenders and escorts first.

In the south, my scout gained visibility on Timmy's capital after opening borders, and found that the city has Gold in the BFC. Lucky for him. In the north, the scouting Warrior finally found another way west, which will take a while because it leads over several non-forested hills. Ugh.. well, at least we're making progress there. The archer isn't near the edge yet. I think I'll recall him next turn as the answer to where the northern edge is can be summarized as 'fairly far away'. The land looks godawful, but I doubt anyone will contest me settling it once the more fertile land to the south is claimed.

Some more correspondence between scooter and myself:

Hey SleepingMoogle,

Sorry for the delay in responding - things have been hectic for me and Strike has played the last couple turns. I hope to be more timely in the future, but a good chunk of this summer will be somewhat hit and miss for me before settling back into my routine in late July. Thank you for the congratulatory note on the Great Wall, I had stone and forests to chop so it worked out well . Did you end up getting Oracle? From the way the scores look, it looks like it was actually TT that got it, though I don't know for sure as I haven't paid super close attention the last week or so. My apologies if you didn't get it... Hope you at least have some good spending money to make up for it!

No problem about the EP thing, I understand. My northern warrior ran into a dead end recently too, so I'm having trouble finding another civilization as well. We'll get the EP thing balanced out once there's more in-game contacts for us both.

Ethiopia obviously has no objections to you founding horses for yourself... Our next city is going to our southwest, so that definitely won't be an issue between us.

scooter

Hey there Scooter,

Twinkletoes indeed managed to snag away the Oracle just before Celtic engineers finished its construction. Our clergy was saddened that the Gods did not favor our efforts, but it did generate some funds to burn on research so it wasn't a total loss. In the meantime, it looks like our scouting warrior has found a mountain pass leading west but it looks hard to traverse and will take some. Time will tell I suppose.

-SleepingMoogle

I also sent a quick note to Timmy thanking him for the open borders.

[SleepingMoogle]

T44:

Raging barbs indeed:



This is slightly scary. I'm not in serious trouble yet, but I will be training some more Archers once that Worker in Bibracte finishes. Additionally, the archer north of Celtic lands is on his way back again, heading towards Vienne.

Monotheism in 5. Vienne could use some shoring up with cultural borders soon.

[SleepingMoogle]

Ah PBEM, how I admire thee. Much as though enjoyed RPB3 in the beginning, at this point I doubt I'll commit to any Pitboss games in the future (the near future in any case). I'm not about to leave Bob to manage Byzantium by himself, but I will need a few days to ride out the current drama and work up a desire to actively participate again.

At least we still have this game. No silly rules-lawyering about double-moves and whatnot. No 15+ teams in two big alliances where you don't really have any say in what your Civ will do because it will put 7 others behind in the tech race. I understand that once you invest enough time into something, you become deeply commited to seeing that effort complete succesfully, but geez.. this is still a game! There's no prizes waiting at the end. Everyone's free to be competitive about it, but I play games to have fun, and right now RBP3 just isn't providing that to me.

Anyway, with a brief lull in the turns, here is the current state of affairs for Bibracte in a nutshell:



And I don't even have the Great Wall to keep them out.

Here's the view of Vienne:



Yep, that's 4 of 'em. Vienne has a CG1 Archer and Warrior (both with partial fortification) for a garrison. What I hope I'll see when I get the T47 save is that Barb 1 attacked my returning scout Archer and died, and Barb 2 suicided himself against the CD1 Archer. The Archer can then heal up some with a CG2 promotion (he only needs one XP for the second one), and that should keep the city save from Barbs 3 and 4 the turn after.

Now for a view of the south:



Barb 7 appeared out of the fog in between turns. It's a little too early to say what he'll do, but I'm guessing he'll advance NE next turn. Hopefully Barb 5 will attack the Warrior north of him. Defending on a forested hill with max fortification bonus should make for an easy victory. Depending on what Barb 6 does, I may have to move the archer currently standing on the Sheep hill. Right now he's covering a Worker who's pasturing the tile.

All in all, I should be fairly safe but it's still tense. Despite repeating to myself that barbs wouldn't be far away, this many as once is still a rather nasty surprise. Hopefully I'm not the only Civ under siege!



Brennus isn't too pleased with these hordes of unwashed grunts invading his lands either.


Additionally, I haven't posted any screenshots of recent scouting efforts, but here is a picture to give you an idea of what my scouting warrior has been doing as of late:



Yeah, after that I'd be confused too!

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 47:

No screenshots this turn, but it went mostly as planned. Barb 1 attacked and died, leaving the Archer with 2.6/3 health. Barb 2 attacked as well, and failed to inflict any damange on the CG1 Archer so no promotion needed for healing. Barbs 3 and 4 moved NE and will probably attack Vienne next turn.

Barb 5 attacked the Warrior, and actually did a lot of damage. For a combat with 0.7% odds, knocking the defender to half health is quite a feat. I may have to withdraw the warrior, because he is in danger of being killed if attacked again. Barb 6 moved north and can attack the Archer covering the Worker next turn, but with Guerilla I and defending on a hill across the river, it should be easy enough.

Barb 7 moved NE as expected. I'm expecting he'll move NE again next turn, which means he can attack the Warrior. For now I left him on his hill because Barb 6 is threatening the escape route, so keeping my fingers crossed. Another Barb came out of the fog and is currently south of the Copper tile. Not sure where he will go.

As Vienne is not in real danger anymore, I whipped its Granary to completion, and let the overflow go back into a Barracks. Right now the city just doesn't really have anything else to build, since Buddhism hasn't spread to it yet. Bibracte will finish another Archer and regrow to size 5 next turn. I'll get out another Settler at that point. Once the current Barbs are dealt with, I'll probably get out some fogbusters, but 5 Archers and 2 Warriors should be enough to mop up for now.

[Sullla]

I agree with you about the turn order disputes that seem to pop up in every Pitboss game. It still feels like it shouldn't be that hard to come up with one set of double-move rules, but we obviously haven't found it yet.

As far as mega-alliance tech trading shenanigans, that has little to do with Pitboss and everything to do with having Tech Trading on. Trading games will always result in large alliances, because if you don't trade tech, you will get crushed by those who do. And the trading will dominate the gameplay and diplomacy completely, overshadowing every other concern in the game.

I've come to the same conclusion, that these games are a lot more fun when each team has to research their own techs.

[SleepingMoogle]

True, even without tech trading the eventual result might very well be the same. But it probably would take a little longer to get to two mega-alliances. You might see an early dogpile or two, followed by a group of Civs teaming up for mutual protection, etc etc. The one difference is that the pace is slower, and we'd all have the same discussions in 50 or so turns from now instead.

I mentioned it elsewhere, but in hindsight RBP3 is just too big. A lot of woes could have been avoided if the number of Civs were lowered. With the amount of interest at the start, we should have gone for two games rather than one. I can't really think of anything graceful that would work for a 17 team game aside from Always War. And that is a lousy solution at best.

[SleepingMoogle]

I just played T48 and uploaded the save to Twinkletoes. Rather tired at the moment so I'll do a more detailed report tomorrow, but for highlights:

*Vienne is safe; the Archer killed both barbs without problems.

*Bibracte is still under threat but has three archers and a Warrior to defend. Settler was queued up at size 5.

*My scout ended up next to a barb warrior, so I expect him to have vanished on T49

*Still no Buddhism spread to Vienne. Judaism was founded there after I finished the turn though.