[SPOILERS] - Tredje and Mardoc are Sheelba of the Clan of Embers

[Tredje]

That's a brilliant catch Mardoc - though, has someone tested it in game conditions.

Although that sentence has no question mark, I am going to treat it as a question. Yes, I ran a test game and I couldn't cast the worldspell until I had trained an Adept.

Honestly, that's precisely what it depends on - when and where we put the cities. Under the assumption that cities will be delayed until the Sons are on their way and the Gold is first, Calendar buys us very little, just some Agrarian food at the cost of a revolt. If you're willing to go settle next to the Calendar resources immediately, then yes, doing Calendar first makes sense.

Let me, in order to make my argument clear, reiterate my point of view. I believe that settling two river cities right away will hurt our economy and that it will take a long time before they start returning their investment. Basically they will be a burden until we get Calendar (which will take longer due to city maintenace) or Aristocracy (which I think would take ages if we aren't able to increase our tech rate.) And I would like to settle our island city as soon as possible in order to get the Gold mined.

So let's see. The Gold city can only be settled after we have teched Sailing and built a Galley. I'm not completely sure about when Sailing will be finished, but let's assume 13/14 turns from now. After that we need to produce a Galley. A Galley costs 33 hammers. We get 16 hammers from chops, and working two mines and a forest we get 8 production in the city. So the Galley shouldn't take more than 3 turns to complete. The point of this is that the Gold city isn't too far off. If we are lucky we can have the Settler on board the Galley in 17 turns or so. Which makes me think that one of our two Settlers definitely should go to the island. The other Settler I am inclined to send north to the Incense spot. If we go for Calendar it should arrive there about 5 turns before Calendar is in, which isn't too bad and could allow us to construct a farm there before improving the Incense. At that point we can decide if we want to get more Settlers (maybe for the Cotton and another spot), or something else.

I think that grabbing the Gold and the Incense would give us a significant boost and speed us on our way to Code of Laws, and that it would be much quicker than doing it the other way around.

[Mardoc]

Well, taking a riverside city as an example - our worst maintenance bill right now is 2.7 gold/turn. Double that, for 6 gold/turn. Assuming sufficient worker presence, the turn the city is settled we can count on 1 gold from the city tile, 1 from trade, 2 from working the incense/cotton, 1 for having one fewer settler, and another .24 for improving our unit cost limit; that makes it a net loss of 1 gold/turn. When it grows, and adds another commerce, we're even. Meanwhile, the city can be working on its Warrens, growing (and becoming a positive). It seems to me that founding the riverside sites are worthwhile, so long as they don't delay the Gold site. Which, I agree, is the best commerce site we've seen (although there will be a delay while we get a worker over to it). Unless there's something I'm missing, I think they start essentially neutral and become positive fairly quickly.

On the subject of research: Calendar is worth a net 7 gold/turn, once we improve the incense and the Reagents. It pays off therefore in 166/7 or 24 turns (again, all short term thinking here). We get no happiness from it, but we could get extra food to apply to workers and settlers.

Meanwhile, the path to Education at our current rate will take 27 turns. Calendar therefore is approximately breakeven, depending on how quickly we go from 'have Calendar' to 'plantations built'. And that's just from here to Education, it doesn't count the time to Code of Laws in addition. If we get another Calendar resource in our borders in that time period, then it's a net plus. I think, all in all, I can agree with this plan.

I do have another quibble - I see that Shazak is working on a Warrior. I would really rather have a Warrens there, unless you have a grand plan for the Warriors that you haven't mentioned to me. I don't really see what they can accomplish on the Sareln front in just a trickle; more precisely, I don't see that they buy us more than the gold savings would help on getting Sailing earlier. We're currently researching at a breakeven rate of ~15 beakers/turn, with ~16 turns remaining; a warrior in Sareln's land costing us 2 gold/turn therefore costs us 2-3 turns on Sailing. A Warrens costs no upkeep, is much more flexible, and we'll definitely want it anyway eventually. Plus that nice ability to handle emergency situations by really pumping out warriors. Unless you're confident that having the warriors will slow Sareln by more than 2-3 turns, I wouldn't do it.

[Tredje]

Turn 69:

The Amurite front:

The most important thing to notice is that Sareln has gotten a Great Sage. I am not sure what he could bulb at the current moment, but I am going to predict that he settles it for a much needed boost in beaker output. If he does, his teching will increase by a fair amount. Does anyone have an idea about what he could bulb with a GS at this point?

I moved the two Archers 1N, since I didn't want to move the Warrior across the river without knowledge of any potential Animals in the desert. As you can see, there is a Lion there. It will probably attack the Archers, and hopefully it will perish without causing too much damage. XP on one of our Archers would be welcome.

The Wolf Rider has been moved so that it can pillage a farm and move away again next turn.

And a look at the current power graphs:

Shows that both Serdoa and Square Leg have suffered losses in the east. It appears as if the casualties sustained have been almost identical, which sounds good to me.

Also note that I changed production in Shazak to a Warren. I probably should have done this earlier, but when I look at 120 turns of build time I usually just pick something that can be done quicker. Of course, with the mines Shazak will be able to finish it much faster.

[Mardoc]

Does anyone have an idea about what he could bulb with a GS at this point?

Well, of course it depends on what prerequisites he has. But according the manual, there's one that just jumps out at me: Knowledge of the Ether is the first one on the list that isn't further down the Arcane tree. Let's hope that he settles the Sage instead, shall we?

[Tredje]

Turn 70:

The Great Sage is gone, and I don't see an increase in GNP for Sareln. His score also shows an increase that points to him getting a technology. Unless his GNP increases by the next turn I am going to assume that he has bulbed something, probably KotR.

There are some bad news in the east:

A barb city has spawned next to the Cotton. We probably won't be able to settle there until we tech BW and build Rantine. At least the Incense spot is still clear, and I hope it will stay so until we can get a Settler there.

On the Amurite front I pillaged a farm (for 1 gold!) and retreated our Wolf Rider to its initial position. Our Archer defeated the Lion for 1 xp, but took some damage in the process.

[Tredje]

Turn 71:

Upon loading the game I am greeted by a wonderful event:

Our economy is so strong, what's a Gem mine give or take? Haha... yeah... In my single player games I have always paid to keep the mine or collapsed it, but in this case I actually decided to leave the Spiders be. It appears that we can still work the Gems, but I assume that as soon as a unit moves next to it we will be attacked by the Spiders. I figure we have no immediate business in that area, and that we can send in some troops once we have some to spare. I am assuming the Spiders won't move or pillage anything and that we can continue to work the mine, and I hope I'm not wrong.

On the Amurite front, things are quiet.

Sareln only has one improvement left, but I can't pillage it without moving our Wolf Rider in a big circle around his capital, and I want him to be able to respond to any possible situation next to Udenarat. Also note that before the barb Warrior suicided on Sareln's capital and gave on of his Warriors a promotion, he pillaged the road on the plains hill. Well done!

[Tredje]

I also ran a test game just to be sure which technology Sareln could bulb:

So yeah, if he had Calendar, Exploration, Mining and Mysticism (which is what I assume) he could bulb KotR. That means he could get Adepts by the time our Sons arrive, and therefore be able to cast Arcane Lacuna. This doesn't necessarily mean that we can't assault him. As Mardoc pointed out to me in PM our Sons should have very good odds against Str.3 Warriors, even in cities on hills.

[Tredje]

Turn 72 played.

Nothing happened except for Sareln producing another Worker in his capital. I wouldn't be surprised if he moved them out on his next turn.

Also there is no sign of the Spiders yet, which should be a good sign.

9 turns left until Sailing finishes. Oh boy!

[Mardoc]

9 turns left until Sailing finishes. Oh boy!

[Gaspar]

Anything interesting going on?