[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Fintourist]

Plako countered 3gpt. I think that's pretty weak since we are offering him possibly a 20 commerce boost. I declined for now. What do you think about re-offering and demanding 6 gpt? The other option is to just to demand 5 gpt again.. Or 4 gpt.. In reality he should pay at least 10.. This deal is valuable for him and he should realize it. We have Alphabet and thus a chance to fill our trade routes with other civs too.

[Fintourist]

• Chatted with Harry
  
• Re-offered 5gpt-deal to plako
  
• Made the most obvious worker moves
  
• Moved Parkin + Lunch in the west
  
• Left some signs containing micro suggestions/ideas
  

He would not have seen the city.

Yeah, you're correct. Any idea why he retreated? Sign of good will? Or is he trying to make us believe the border is peaceful so that he can surprise us and attack in 3 turns?

Harry mentioned an idea that we could take control of that jungle tile (where suttree kept his units) now.
Pros:
+ A bit more visibility
+ Until Hastings pops borders that would delay an attack from that particular direction by a turn or he has to remove our units
Cons:
- Our units are out of position and e.g. suttree's movement to tile SE of Hastings becomes way more dangerous.
- Unit support costs!

I guess we don't do that, but just wanted to hear your opinion

[Old Harry]

Turn 106

Last night Hykephalos killed the barb axe.


Today first we continue negotiation with Plako, I sucked badly at this in the demogame, so lets see how it goes here. We don't want incense, so I declined.


We do want money though. If 7 of his 9 cities are coastal this 4 gpt deal would actually favour us, if 8 are it's even. I think we should probably have accepted the 3gpt deal, but let's hope he goes for this.


Also sent this in a very vague hope of something or other...


We have a bit of C&D catching up to do. Last turn dtay got a 35 point increase, which could be the Statue of Zeus, a classical tech (perhaps alphabet) and four pop growths in his 11 cities. I think I'm starting to worry about him... Suttree also got a classical tech this turn, I think he only had Maths before so the options are Aesthetics, Alphabet, Calendar, Code of Laws, Construction, Currency, Horseback Riding, Iron Working, Metal Casting or Monarchy. Global soldiers went up by 33 000, so it could be any of the above. Most likely Currency, Construction or Horseback Riding though. We'll know for sure when the graphs update (in one or two turns?)

Cannae can work a 2/0/2 cottage this turn, then the 3/0/0 sugar for two turns to grow a turn earlier and work sugar and cottage together. That's 3 food vs 2 commerce, but because we're near the happy cap now food isn't so important and we'd probably better to stick to the cottage.


Dunkirk grows again this turn and can work the copper next turn, so the chariot should be ready quickly. If Suttree completed HBR a spear might be more useful, or possibly a spy (40 hammers) so we can track where his stack went?


The temptation to move Flugauto to the tile suggested is strong, but I think his invisibility is his biggest asset right now, so I'd rather send him back SW.


I've no idea where that barb axe went... Also wouldn't this desert make a nice border with Ichy?


I moved our new axe (remember how I said if you hid any other goodies in our territorry you get more units BRick? Well that's two silvers worth - what else have you got?) to the cow, I left the warrior there too, for flexibility. Mattimeo the bowman could head for Hastings, but I think he's needed for city L.


Power


Demos

I haven't ended turn because of the build in dunkirk, the movement of Mattimeo and the movement of Flugauto. Any thoughts?

[Fintourist]

We do want money though. If 7 of his 9 cities are coastal this 4 gpt deal would actually favour us, if 8 are it's even. I think we should probably have accepted the 3gpt deal, but let's hope he goes for this.

Actually, plako gets at minimum 10 commerce from opening borders. We have 10 cities and even in the worst case ten of his 2 commerce trade routes upgrade to 3 commerce trade routes. However, unless plako has 3 island cities, which I doubt a bit, he is working some 1 commerce trade routes. The true value of open borders is consequently somewhere between 10 and 20 commerce for him. I think 5 gpt is a completely appropriate cost for that commerce. And we also deserve that reward for researching Alphabet early..

We have a bit of C&D catching up to do.

I'll do the GNP analysis in order to find our whether anybody has construction..

Cannae can work a 2/0/2 cottage this turn, then the 3/0/0 sugar for two turns to grow a turn earlier and work sugar and cottage together.

I like this!

I haven't ended turn because of the build in dunkirk, the movement of Mattimeo and the movement of Flugauto. Any thoughts?

- I think Chariot build is good in Dunkirk for now, I'll comment if I manage do dig up new information
- Mattimeo should support the city L!
- Agree with your suggestion concerning flugauto

[Old Harry]

Okay, can you end turn after moving Matt and Flug?

I'm only considering the extra trade route plako gets due to GLH, everything else near enough balances between us IMO, but yeah, we should so get a bounty for researching Alphabet so he didn't have to! I think you're right about offering open border gnp deals to the others too, even if they don't benefit us.

Perhaps offer TBJowy a map trade as part of it?

[TheHumanHydra]

How soon till Hastings and Jamestown each pop borders? Yeah, probably don't want to move up. Is it possible he only just realized now we could see his staging tile across the water? Otherwise, either decided not to attack for now or is trying to trick us into thinking so.

[Fintourist]

About this turn

We haven't whipped granary in Jamestown yet! I think we want to do it, right? I'm strongly voting for it!

---------------------------------------------------

Plako accepted our offer. It seems that we only ended up demanding 3 gpt? Well, nevermind, assuming Ichabod accepts our offer we will have 20 3-commerce trade routes at the end of the turn, which is awesome. Plako is benefitting nicely from this deal (he only has 1 island city so far). So let's secure us trade routes with less dangerous opponents during the next 10 turns, cancel that deal and demand a significant price if he wants to keep benefitting from us.

About other trade offers, I think even trade with slowcheetah a bit before our trade with plako runs out (maybe in 7 turns) + a small gpt earning + map trade with Jowy/TBS and some kind of friendly deal with dtay could be done.

We got a lot of map information from the deal, I let you post those screenshots if you want, but here are my first impressions:
- I found two city ruins. One between Ichabod and WilliamLP, one between plako and Dhalpir
- Ichabod won the land lottery. When you remember that he is EXP, his marble-plains hill capital is just ridiculous. I think he has produced 8 hammers per turn after the first border pop. That's simply double the speed that we got. We needed 15 turns to get our first worker out. At that point Ichabod could have had 2 workers, or worker + 2 WB.. His land is awesome in other aspects as well. More food resources than we have and 10 flood plains tiles. The worst new is that the pig-fish site that we are targeting is just ~7 tiles away from his capital. We are not gonna be able to keep that peacefully even though we would get it..
- Slowcheetah lost the land lottery. His northern tundra are is pretty weak and thanks to Ichabod's monster capital there probably was no chance for him to secure better sites in the early expansion phase
- Retep, Bacchus and WilliamLP have close borders with each other. Retep is in the middle and completely f***ed. No idea whether it's his own fault or was he just unlucky.
- I envy plako for having 2 wet corn resources next to his capital and another 6-foodhammer resource in the form of grass cows. Those things really speed up your early expansion. Overall his geopolitical situation is annoyingly easy. I think he can absorb Dhalphir without any problems. We are too far to interfere, m_h is too weak to interfere. Bacchus does not look too hot either and Ichabod is also a bit far away. Maybe someone sails from the west and takes half of Dhalpir's land..

I don't know what I was thinking with the GNP analysis. We can't select HBR because we don't have AH and we can't select Construction because we don't have Masonry. At the same time I'm totally sure that I was able to select HBR earlier..

If Ichabod accepts OB offer I think we might be able to finish AH already this turn with breakeven research..

I'll be out the rest of the evening and have to study early in the morning. I might be able to give quick comments still later today, but probably our discussion about the next turn will happen tomorrow. Especially if suttree does something let's take some time to think about it.

[TheHumanHydra]

Can you please post the world-knowledge screenshots, Harry? Remember I can't log in. No rush of course though.

[Old Harry]

No time to do a stitch tonight, so you'll have to make do with this, can you tell who is where?


I whipped, moved those units and ended turn.

[TheHumanHydra]

That's great, Harry.