[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[yuris125]

Yeah, would be good to know. I know that two cities on the same river are considered connected pre-Sailing if there is a river connection which is fully inside the borders. But Nashe is off the river, though it has the same river as the capital in its BFC - does it count too?



(Nashe is the north-eastern city)

[Nicolae Carpathia]

When they say tech unlocks connections along rivers/coasts, they mean it applies to tiles outside your cultural borders.

Rivers and coasts inside your cultural borders are always part of a trade plot. Extremely useful when, say, you need to connect a resource asap and you lack workers to build roads.

[Maestro]

Ahhh. Thanks, Nicolae! I just gloss over a lot of these smaller details in SP. I also wasn't sure if anybody outside the game was actually following it. I hope we're keeping it interesting!

Played turn 46. Til explored E into the safety of a jungle hill, rather than risking a plains tile SE. 1-pop whipped Best FM as planned. Nothing interesting in the event log. We gained graphs on Ranamar at end of turn. I'll spend him to equal with MNG and then split until we find Commodore.

Research netted +1 at 0% or 100% before the whip, but after whip gets +1 at 0%, 50%, and 100%. Math is 9 turns at breakeven. I went with 0% research for now; we might actually get a library or two up in the near future, so we can create a few beakers by saving gold now. And if not, no harm done. Screencapped the demos in case C&D hasn't gotten completely impenetrable.

[Maestro]

We met Commodore, and I had a chat with him:

(10:58:29 AM) Commodore: Hey Maestro, did I do right in writing you and Yuri?
(10:58:53 AM) Maestro: You sure did; I was composing a response as we speak!
(10:59:00 AM) Commodore: Awesome
(10:59:19 AM) Commodore: Just a quick question, were you about to play or this that going to wait?
(10:59:43 AM) Maestro: Oh, look at that, the save came ot me 5 min ago
(11:00:06 AM) Maestro: I'll take care of that first, then we can chitta-chat about all the other important stuff
(11:00:14 AM) Commodore: Ah, cool
(11:00:17 AM) Maestro: Yuri is out of town this weekend, so I'm on point
(11:00:44 AM) Maestro: I will propose open borders
(11:00:49 AM) Commodore: I'll play then to move it along too. I only ask because I'm about to go mow the yard, figured I'd not hold anyone up.
(11:01:09 AM) Maestro: so you can accept right away
(11:01:16 AM) Commodore: Yep, thanks!
(11:01:44 AM) Commodore: Oh, I do have routes with MNG, so if you guys have routes with him too, we might be getting loooong distance routes.
(11:02:49 AM) Maestro: How do you feel about a loose, short term NAP to go with OB? Something like turn 65-70 or cancellable any time before then with a 10 turn notice? It makes us feel a little better about opening borders :-)
(11:03:12 AM) Commodore: That's short-term enough for me, done
(11:03:14 AM) Maestro: I know that lurking PB4 we don't want to lock in anything huge
(11:03:32 AM) Commodore: I try and avoid long-term NAPs based on what I've seen in other games.
(11:03:36 AM) Commodore: Yep.
(11:03:50 AM) Commodore: But 'till t65? That's fine.
(11:04:08 AM) Commodore: I understand, and once I get to your borders by all means direct me.
(11:04:25 AM) Maestro: 65 inclusive, or with a 10-turn cancellation notice. Done! And I will now disappear to play the turn... back in a few!
(11:04:36 AM) Commodore: Cool, good luck
(11:14:04 AM) Maestro: buh, played and forgot to open borders Lemme delete the save and replay
(11:14:14 AM) Commodore: Naw, it's okay.
(11:14:18 AM) Commodore: I can offer them
(11:14:30 AM) Commodore: I'm not about to be inside them
(11:15:00 AM) Maestro: <- noob already deleted. :-p
(11:15:05 AM) Maestro: the replay will be quick though
(11:15:12 AM) Commodore: Ah well, it's fine. ;-)
(11:17:36 AM) Maestro: lemme know if that worked
(11:17:49 AM) Maestro: I know that I accidentally forwarded bad turns before by replaying, but I think I did it right this time
(11:18:06 AM) Commodore: Cool, checking now...
(11:23:10 AM) Commodore: It worked!
(11:23:14 AM) Commodore: Thanks.
(11:24:27 AM) Commodore: Okay, off to mow the grass, cheers.

tl;dr version: Opened borders and signed a NAP to 65 inclusive, or cancellable with a 10 turn notice.

[Maestro]

Short update tonight. Things are going as planned overall. Ivory is connected, 100% research on Math will get it in 4 more turns. Maximum is pumping more units. The scouting workboat revealed what I suspect is MNG's spoke to the inner lands:



I'll spoiler the pics for the last several turns worth of demos just so they don't take up a bunch of space.

Turn 46:

Turn 47:

Turn 48:

Turn 49:

[Maestro]

Played turn 54. Things of note:

• MNG got Great Lighthouse in Rheims, so I switched Maximum from lighthouse to granary. I optimized tiles to get it in 2 turns. We should rework them afterward for better growth. With Pigs + farmed FP + granary we should probably whip Maximum every 6 turns.
  
• Math is in, but Hammams need masonry. Went 0% research for a turn. There was some overflow, so I could have gotten masonry at 60%, but we don't need it right away, so I went with 0% for the free beaker.
  
• Wasn't sure what to build in Ultra. After some thought I went with a Settler. Moved a worker to chop the forest at white dot, which will give 16 hammers (plus forge bonus) toward the Settler.
  
• Till passed an axe from RL7 on the eastern bridge. We can see his borders now. Do we think it's a fogbust or another scout? I wouldn't be super happy about RL7 sending a second scout into our land.
  
  
• Center land is tundra-y, but has a site that would bring in silver, 2 fur, deer, clams. Unfortunately, that land is too distant for us to settle it any time soon.
  
• Deer revealed near the southern bridge. We could settle on the bridge to grab deer + fish (both 2nd ring though). That spot would also provide some military value as a choke point+canal.
  
  

[Maestro]

I just realized that contact with civs means we can check their city count (duh ). As of turn 54:

• MNG: 6 cities + Great Lighthouse
  
• RL7: 6 cities + Stonehenge
  
• Us: 5 cities + Oracle
  
• Commodore: 4 Cities
  

Poor Commodore. It feels like he's already behind the curve. His rathauses better pay off in a big way to make up for lost ground.

Is it cheatish / poor sportsmanship to check old saves and find out when our opposition settled? Is that information even worth the hassle?

[yuris125]

I don't think checking old saves is cheating, but would appreciate lurkers' opinion

Good choice re Settler in Ultra, although the chop won't come in before the Settler is finished. I gave Ultra the wheat back for now, had to slow down Nashe because it was going to grow into whip/no garrison unhappiness

I think Red and somewhere next to the marble are the next priorities to settle

There is one wonder we didn't discuss yet, The Hanging Gardens. With us building Hammams everywhere, it makes a lot of sense for us to go for it. Maybe in Ultra, with Maximum working on Colossus, and then MoM

A big update due, I know we passed T50 without an empire overview

[Maestro]

I gave Ultra the wheat back for now, had to slow down Nashe because it was going to grow into whip/no garrison unhappiness.

That's fine, but I think the axe was going to arrive on the turn Nashe became unhappy, thus removing the garrison penalty. We can check on the next turn.I only mention it because we have lots of hammers but not a super-ton of food, so ideally I'd prefer to use food for growth instead of convert it to production on a settler.

[yuris125]

Yeah, but we still need Settlers
The axe was one turn late, I did check it