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

[luddite]

I like the dotmap (especially with those cool colors). I would change the order a bit though, and settle 6 and 7 before 5. Also, are you sure that there's no land connection up by #9? That looks like it could be another land bridge.

It might even be possible to settle a city by #6 but farther out, and steal a little land from someone else.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I like the dotmap (especially with those cool colors). I would change the order a bit though, and settle 6 and 7 before 5. Also, are you sure that there's no land connection up by #9? That looks like it could be another land bridge.

It might even be possible to settle a city by #6 but farther out, and steal a little land from someone else.

If we push #6 farther, we lose a FIN floodplains from the only city that can work it. We could move #4 1S, but this would only be beneficial if we push city #6 farther out. I think that would be a mistake. I am fine with settling those two cities before #7 though. There will be a few crap jungle tiles with no seafood if we move #6 farther out. The best option for stealing land would be to actually plant aggressively the other side of the chokepoint.

I do think city #9 is on a land connection, but most likely it is a spoke to a central hub. We certainly could push city #9 forward in the settling order for that reason. We should be able to send a scouting chariot in that direction in 3 more turns, and then we can get a better lay of the land.

The sooner we fill up the land, the less we have to concern ourselves with barbs.

[luddite]

More scouting would definitely help, so that we could see what's actually on the other side of those connections. If it's good land then you can push for it aggressively, but if it's not then this current dotmap would be fine.

For the barbs, it would nice to keep some around long enough to level up a chariot to 10XP for the heroic epic.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I doubt barbs are going to be hanging around long. By the time cities 5-6 go up, nearly every tile on our island will be unfogged. That should happen in the next 15 turns.

[luddite]

Hmm that's true. Would be nice though. Maybe you can still level it up if the NW leads to a center spoke.

[luddite]

So I played the most recent turn. I founded a new city (Ballast Point) and that put us in the lead for food! For a civ with two late-game traits, that's fantastic. The GNP is low just because we're not researching anything (and have no culture). By chopping and then pasturing the cows, the city will grow to size 2 and finish an obelisk on the same turn. Then I guess it can build a worker while waiting for its borders to pop so it can work better tiles. Or build a granary, not sure which is better.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Good turn Luddite. Maybe we should quickly grab Fishing to build a workboat. I really want Judaism though. But at size 2, I am not sure what to do.

[luddite]

Good turn Luddite. Maybe we should quickly grab Fishing to build a workboat. I really want Judaism though. But at size 2, I am not sure what to do.

No need to rush fishing- you'll still have to wait for the borders to expand before it can work that fish. Judaism will probably land in the other city since it's much bigger. I was thinking of using the workers to chop both those hills, so we could have Ballast work a mine for a little while.

On a side note- what happened to your mass of lurkers in this game? Seems like no one else is posting in this thread anymore.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Ichabod never showed.

Fixing Darrell's mess in PBEM 20 is killing scooter.

Not sure on Brian.

Maybe we should get the GProphet from Ballast Point since we have an Obelisk there. Once fish is up, plenty food too.

[luddite]

Hmm that is true. Ballast could run a priest after it grows, rather than working a hill mine.