[Spoilers] GES, Roland & Friends (Mansa of Egypt)

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Another chat with 7:

Ranamar: hey

me: what's up

Ranamar: thoughts on potentially delaying hinduism on your end?

me: Nah, I am headed for Judaism. I don't want to delay it. That is my tech priority.

Ranamar: I'm not saying delay it

me: Well, one real problem for me is that if you land Hinduism
there is way too high of a probablity that it lands at the choke
giving you complete control of that strategic point
If I land it, there is no such risk to your self defense
If I can beat you there, unlikely as it is, I have to try

Ranamar: man, where is this easy-to-get-along with guy I was promised?

me: I didn't know easy to get along with meant that I am supposed to give up my major strategy so that I can get completely boned culturally

Ranamar: your major strategy was to steal hinduism from us after we try to settle the race in a constructive manner?

me: In addition, I was very much relying on an early religion for some free border pops
you have Henge
you have no such issues
How am I stealing anything?
I told you I was teching it.
I started it before we ever had a conversation.
I never agreed not to tech it.
You have a very strange sense of entitlement.

Ranamar: you would be if you pump your commerce to intentionally beat us to it after we told you when we'd be getting it, out of friendship
which you just now said you were going to do

me: No, I never said anything about pumping it.
It will still found on the same turn I told you last night.

Ranamar: you said: If I can beat you there, unlikely as it is, I have to try

me: Meaning, if you are lying to me.

Ranamar: if that's the case, then no worries

me: I have to find out.

Ranamar: oh, sure
well
I think we are probably good then, and I'm getting pumped up over nothing

me: But you do realize that you are seriously screwing with me founding it in that city.

Ranamar: if you land it t29, we will officially be pissed off
hm
we don't mean to be
I'm hoping it will land in the other city

me: I am not saying you could've planted city #2 anywhere else.
But if it lands there, I cannot hold culture on that chokepoint.
Without chopping some wonders or doing something weird.

Ranamar: yeah, I understand

me: Like Caste artists.

Ranamar: I mean, it's just going to be controlling part of the bridge, but, I agree it wouldn't be ideal
I really am hoping we can get it in city 3

me: Essentially, you are likely going to be able to one-move my copper city.

Ranamar: but obviously, it's random
really? where would your copper city be?

me: Well, it isn't totally random. I've considered planting my copper city and whipping my other cities to get the pop down.
To try to influence Judaism

Ranamar: I can't imagine it will get anough border pops to 1-move you

me: maybe not. But if I plant just south of the jungle, the only tile that can force you to not be able to skip around my choke point city, any two move stack will be above to one-move it

Ranamar: my view of the military dynamics of this map are actually that land attacks will be fairly irrelevant due to the chokes. and having our holy city adjacent to both seas would just be a big drawback

me: Potentially yes
I mean, I am clearly unattackable within 20 turns until you can boat me, because a war chariot/axe stack on a jungle tile is impossible for you to break. The question is what happens late in the game I suppose, when you have knights

Ranamar: yeah
let's just hope it lands in city 3 instead
I guess if not, you can build your copper city 1s though and it will be safe

me: Where did you guys send city 3?

Ranamar: still deciding

me: I would prefer not to have to settle that choke since we agreed on a reasonable border there
I think I would prefer the cow/fish/gem city

Ranamar: we won't settle further south, don't worry about that

me: although that damn jungle is infuriating

Ranamar: yeah
if you want
settle a city on the gems
we'll raze it
bam! no more jungle

me: lol

Ranamar: hehe
but no, of course not
where did you say the marble was?

me: I think there were two fogged tiles in my photo
see them?

Ranamar: 3

me: which 3?

Ranamar: 2s of city 2
3s of city 2
and then 1sw of that

me: I think dyes are 3S
and marble is on the SW
When I saw your stone, I knew the marble was either stone or marble

Ranamar: dyes: jungled?

me: I just didn't know which

Ranamar: hehe

me: Umm, yeah, I think

Ranamar: that's too bad too
well, unlike our stone, your marble is actually reachable with an early city

me: Yeah, if someone's capital is as close to your northern choke as yours was to mine
someone could even take that from you

Ranamar: yep
we were assuming from our start that everone was on the clockwise end of their blob
pretty pissed that this does not seem to be the case

me: You could have a silly crab/fish/sheep/sugar/corn city
Yeah, I would much prefer we were on opposite sides
with five teams
I think that has to mean that one team has both people far away

Ranamar: yes

me: seems a little unfair

Ranamar: definitely

me: I hadn't played the turn yet because I was debating with Luddite if I cancelled our NAP if you would switch to Archery
He thinks yes
I decided it wasn't worth it

Ranamar: heh
yeah, good choice
we wouldn't
and we'd also be pretty annoyed
and we'd get copper units out

me: Luddite has tried to talk me into chariot rushing Lewwyn like six times

Ranamar: lol!
getting into an ancient war with lewwyn: probably the best idea ever!

me: I haven't followed his games.
I really don't know if anything about it.

Ranamar: people attack him and then he gets really pissed and never makes peace

me: I just like to pick someone and harass them.
Yeah, that is my impression.
I saw his message in Sandover's thread.

Ranamar: heh
I don't know what is up with that game
(though, don't say anything spoilery)

me: Reminds me of WarlordDr, with better justification and nowhere near the nubbery

Ranamar: yeah

me: You really confused me earlier in the chat

Ranamar: oh?
what?

me: Being so angry about Hindism
I couldn't figure out why you were so mad

Ranamar: haha
yeah, I guess I misinterpreted what you said about trying to beat us to it

me: You wanted a picture without Blue Marble
I have no idea how to turn it off

Ranamar: hm
yeah, me either
I guess don't worry about it

me: It isn't like it is a mod that I load up each time

Ranamar: right, I know

me: Is your naming theme just random LotRs

Ranamar: pretty much

me: I've never been to Seattle, but I hear it is awesome

Ranamar: yeah
so what is your naming theme?

me: Any guesses?

Ranamar: random adjectives?

me: haha
You a beer drinker?

Ranamar: ah, no

me: Oh, they will be so cal breweries

Ranamar: heh, not much chance of me guessing that!
(the adjective idea is solid though! you should run with that instead )

me: Yeah, Stone is super famous, but Alpine is a totally unknown local

Ranamar: aha

me: Future cities will include such goofy names as
Green Flash
Ballast Point
Lost Abbey
Pizza Port

me: If Luddite plays for me, be warned

Charlie: well, they'll probably win culture control of the tile north of it
but that shouldn't be a problem

Charlie: or... you could just rush...
win the holy city that way lol

Ranamar: lol

me: Even now, like an hour later he just chatted me out of the blue:
if they weren't mali i would definitely say go for it
but skirmishers... man
those suck
He is the devil on my shoulders this game I think

Ranamar: nice
hope you meet someone else

me: Yeah, I've still only declared war on Amelia
Where is she this game?
I cannot wait to meet her

Ranamar: heh
she probably has FFH units, I'd be careful

tl;dr: 7 freaks out thinking I am rushing Hinduism to "steal" it, then everything simmers down. I whine about their pushing culture into the checkpoint and then we just prattle away and bitch about the mapmaker.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Turn 27:

Still teching Hinduism. Monotheism is a good tech for us anyway. OR will help with granaries and libraries.

Worker due EOT.

[Roland]

Diplomacy usually being my strong suit (WW notwithstanding), is there any viable way for us to beat their Hinduism tech? I'm not saying we should, necessarily, but you do raise a solid point on the culture choke. I think it's worth looking into. Just my thoughts.

[luddite]

Someone else finished hinduism last turn (turn 28). Not Ranamar/seven, apparently. I would guess that Commodore got Buddhism since the HRE starts with mysticism, and yuris got hinduism since they're financial. But that's just my guess.

Anyway it should be pretty easy to beat the others to judaism.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Seven strongly believes that yuris founded Buddhism, on his way to Oracle.

I should have a more extensive update ready for tonight. Luddite has played a couple turns for me here lately, so those turns haven't been updated.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Exchange with Luddite before he played the turn:

From me:

Handing off to you again. Can you take some photos for me?

Finish horses but I think still work FP to grow this turn. Food surplus should be six after adding horses.

Move chopping worker to finish FP at capital. If we micro off grasshill and onto FP, does it cost a turn on the settler build? If not, I guess do it if the cottage completes.

From Luddite:

OK, i worked the FP. Looks like there will be just enough food for it to work the horses and grow next turn.

The capital needed 2 turns to build the settler either way, so I switched to to working the FP cottage.

I also switched to 0% science, so you can run 100% science for a while and avoid the rounding error (which costs a beaker). That's why the demographics show you being 5th in GNP. But, #1 in food!

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Turn 31:

Been a few turns since a proper update.

We lost Polytheism but we are finishing it anyway. Next is Masonry and then Monotheism to hopefully found Judaism. Might have to take a detour to Fishing if I can pop the borders for the fish tile.

We have finished the pigs and horses at Alpine and grown to size 3 working the FP which is being cottage. At size 4, it will be time to halt growth and whip a worker or settler. As long as it be at size 3, it will be a great city, working a pigs, FP cottage, and horses. Eventually, it will get access to wet corn.

Finished the FP cottage at Stone and finish settler EOT. Using the workers to road to the next city site and then will pasture cows and then chop into a granary.

Demos:

We are #1 in food and production on T31. If we can maintain anything close to that for the next 50 turns, we are going to be in crazy good shape given our FIN/SPI traits. I am pretty happy to be keeping up at all given the lack of EXP/CRE/IMP traits.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Possible dotmap and order of settling:

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I would love to settle #4 before #3, but it will take 2 extra turns to settle. I will try to get the settler for #4 out of Alpine using the worker who is cottaging to chop and road to speed up settling #4.

Cities 5-7 are all debatable in order. City #5 is the best site, but #6 is a blocker city, and #7 allows me to begins fighting the culture battle against RL7.

Cities #11-13 are filler sites, although city #11 will be pretty good. Cities 12-13 are pure filler. They might get settled long after some as yet unknown sites.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Played two turns yesterday. The photos are on my computer at home.

The settler is in place to found Ballast Point. The worker can either road a forest so that a turn isn't lost getting back to chop it, or they can move and immediately start pasturing the grass cows. Ballast Point is going to be my production hub for the early-mid game. It has 4 hills, plus grass cow and plains copper.

FP cottage will finish at Alpine.

War chariot finished at Stone. Now we need to decide whether to 1-turn an MP warrior for Stone so we can send the WC out scouting, or build a worker immediately. My inclination is to build the worker first, that way it can get to Alpine in time to help the settler that finishes there to speed up the wet corn at city #4. Then finish the warrior and send the WC out scouting.

Once Masonry finishes, we should save a turn of gold, and then finish Mono ASAP and revolt to Judaism and Slavery/OR whenever it becomes useful. We need to determine the best place to get a GProphet from. Maybe Alpine at size 4 once its happy cap raises. Grow to five, whip to 3, grow to 4 and work GProphet and three good tiles.