Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[SevenSpirits]

Played t30. No decisions to make really. I am trying to ensure that Gandalf defogs the coast so we will get trade routes.



We're also exploring the middle arm, but no new land tiles are revealed this turn.



Also visible is 1 unhappiness in Minas Tirith. Oops. Well, it will only last one turn, then the whip anger is gone. That isn't terrible (it doesn't delay growth or the WB AFAICT). After that, it will be fine for a little longer due to the gems happiness. But we will definitely want another warrior there soon, before the granary for sure.

[Ranamar]

I noticed pottery came in (on schedule, of course)
IIRC, we were saying fishing for next tech. How long does it take for beakers to start decaying? Once we get the gems and a couple cottages online, I wonder if we might be able to get Polytheism squared away in one turn. (... since it was 2 turns out when I switched off it...)

I might be impatiently waiting for the Oracle shoe to drop.

[NobleHelium]

I'm pretty sure beakers don't decay. Only production decays.

[Ranamar]

I'm pretty sure beakers don't decay. Only production decays.

I could have sworn one of the file loading warnings was that beakers decay eventually, too.

[Kuro]

To my knowledge beakers decay, but only after 50 turns.

[SevenSpirits]

NobleHelium is spot on, beakers don't decay.

Btw just had a short email exchange with GES:

Hey, are you planning on getting Writing and a coastal city anytime soon? I think getting international trade routes up would be quite nice for both of us.

Seven

I am planning on having a coastal city very soon, but I will not have Writing for 10+ turns. I will be getting Monotheism ASAP.

GES

Makes sense. We'll see then which one of us gets there first. I'm not sure what we are going to be teching.

I am totally down with Open Borders when someone gets writing, even if it only benefits you for some period of time. That is how good relations are maintained.

[Ranamar]

Played turn...
Workers kept building their mines.
Planted the city as planned and ... forgot to name it. Will rename it this evening. It took the wheat from Barad-Dur. Barad-Dur is now working two plains forests for a base of 12 production, which is neatly the amount for an extra bonus hammer.

Pottery came in. I set research for fishing (4t) and discovered that, after our new city was planted, maintenance was 5gp. We had 5gp in the treasury, so I set the tech rate down to 0 because we're working an odd number of commerce tiles. Unfortunately, the fact that this gives us +14gp means we might have to do another turn of reduced science later, but the gems should be coming online to speed things up next turn.
Note for future: Remember to turn science back up.

Warriors moved. Images only reduced to 75% so you can actually read the numbers in them.
Strider found out why the game was recommending a city where it was:


Gandalf looked around on a forest hill:


Cities... and score!

Mr. Nice Guy got a ton of points this turn. I'm guessing that's land, because he's creative, and it has a 20-turn delay.
Yuris got 8 points, which is probably a population rounded up. Everyone is at a size 4+ capital, after all.
No other changes this turn, except for us. We got a bunch of stuff, but we already know that.

Next turn... IIRC, new worker (Needs a name... Merriadoc? Peregrin Took?) goes to cottage FP. Samwise joins him the next turn to finish it early. I think Frodo roads the gems back to the river after finishing the mine? Who are we sending over to mine the copper, and when? I actually forget on that one...

EDIT: I'm planning on going out for dinner tonight, so I won't be home until late please go ahead and play the save.
If the (unnamed?) warrior in Barad-Dur can get farther NE (using roads) than Denethor, stop Denethor in Barad-Dur and move him.
Our mining workers should finish mining this turn. Make sure that mines are being worked this turn.
Make sure to set the research rate back up to 100%.
I believe the new worker should be starting to cottage the floodplains, but it would also be reasonable to finish the road on the sheep and then have Samwise and our new worker (let's just call him Peregrin Took... the one after that can be Merry.) work together to build the FP cottage in 2 turns afterward. Same endtime, and all those worker turns would need to be used eventually. (Fishing is going to get us trade routes to unnamed Osgiliath before roading would.)

[Ranamar]

apologies for the lack of updates last night...

Played another turn this morning.

-> Actually named Osgiliath and Peregrin Took

Pippin and Sam both put turns into a cottage on the FP this turn, along with one turn put in last turn. Frodo roaded the now-mined gems hill.
Next turn, Frodo will road to the river (getting us a happy resource) and one of Pippin or Sam will have his cottage-build command canceled and go over toward Osgiliath to get started on mining the copper in a couple turns.

We got graphs on GES last turn... you can see our revolt as a pause in our espionage values, so it's interesting to note that you can't see one of those on his part, but his power has gone down a couple times. His power is the same as ours, currently, although it jumped a lot this turn. I can post graphs, if you want.

Yuris finally built the Oracle. I will show you city pages and you can guess about tech, but I'm betting it was MC because that would make sense.


Looks like a bunch of people grew their capitals this past turn. I'm not sure how many points the Oracle itself is worth, either. Also, I know there's a place to look up tech values...
Yuris got 24 points.
MNG lost 7 => whipped a pop
GES gained 8 => rounded-up population growth (capital; you can see it)
Com of Modor is static, which means either he was the previous 5, or he was one of the previous 4s and still hasn't (lastingly) grown.

scouting:

I suspect I need to move onto the gems hill to actually defog the entire coast, unfortunately.


Thoughts on trying to cram a city in the middle of nowhere on this bridge?

Demographics:

[Ranamar]

I don't think there's anything terribly surprising we're going to be doing soon...

GES said that he doesn't expect to play many turns this weekend, but, if you see the save before early afternoon, I'll be completely incommunicado, so please go ahead and play it.

[Ranamar]

Briefly and without pictures because I'm tired and should have played this hours ago:

New worker is Merriadoc Brandywine. Overflow goes to a granary, which is 2 turns.
Workers, can't remember which... roaded gems to Minas Tirith for +happy to everyone; finished FP cottage; New one and other one on FP went to grassland 1N of farm to start a cottage. One will finish it, the other will move 1W to start another cottage; They will finish those together and then move to the copper, unless someone can point to the micro plan I failed to look up.

Moved scouting warriors. I'll give you pictures tomorrow or you can look at the save... whenever it gets in. One continued to follow his land bridge. The other went SW onto the gems, which I knew would be a dead end, but gives a good idea of the shape of the coastline.

Queued a warrior behind the workboat in Minas Tirith. Workboat completes in "1" and warrior in "2", so I think that's 1T each.

Whipped a workboat in Osgiliath. Regrowth is in 2T. EOT, it finishes; next turn, it moves into position and borders pop. The turn after that is the earliest we could deploy it anyway, due to travel.

EOT brings in fishing, which connects Osgiliath to the network. We can build lighthouses now, but we can't build The Great Lighthouse until we get Masonry. It's a 2T tech. I recommend we go for it soon; maybe next.