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

[yuris125]

Good chat! If we can stay out of the action against MNG, I'll be happy. The only problem with selling Triremes to Commodore - how do we do it logistically? We need to have them in his borders to gift them to him, and I'm not even sure we can get there by sea (we can in the outer sea, by going the long way around the continent, through TL7's and GES's territory). Even if he captures a city on MNG's central landbridge, it will take us at least 10 turns to bring the Triremes there, won't it be too late by then?

[yuris125]

On the matter of RL7, I'd also prefer to ally with them, if at all possible, and try to get a lategame win, either military or peaceful. But with their current lead, and us being behind, they might be tempted to attack after the NAP expires. Hopefully we will have Janissaries by then

This reminds me, I wanted to send them a message and ask about adopting Vassalage

[Maestro]

Turn 83 in the books:

• I meant to switch us to 50% science for Bureaucracy, but forgot, so it went to 70% automatically. A definite oversight, but hopefully not a particularly costly one. We still finished, we'll just have a little more overflow.
  
• Great scientist popped at Best. I calculated it, and Academy + Bureaucracy will take Ultra from 59 beakers per turn to 120 at 100% research. It should grow onto as many cottages, even plains cottages, as it can.
  
• Our scouting workboat is at GES's border. For scouting, do we ask for forgiveness or permission?
  
• Turned settler around, heading toward inner hub.
  
• MNG has settled in the inner hub, on the northern peninsula south of Maximum.
  
• Commodore declared on MNG.
  
• Started a settler in Maximum
  
• Lib finished in Nashe, started courthouse.
  
• Reassigned EPs to split between RL7 and GES.
  

[yuris125]

While the turn isn't here, we've been doing some diplo. We discussed wonder builds with RL7, and they're not going for AP or UoS. Christianity wasn't founded yet, so I think we have a good shot at AP. There could be competition for UoS with GES, who already has Paper My estimate for Paper is 10-15 turns, so if GES wants UoS, he will definitely get it. And there's no stopping him for getting Liberalism first. We might want to go Philo - Nationalism after Paper, to get Taj. Or even before Paper, Taj is more important than UoS I think

Also agreed an unconditional map trade with GES, this should solve our scouting problems

[yuris125]

Sorry, missed your question

• Our scouting workboat is at GES's border. For scouting, do we ask for forgiveness or permission?

We're free to move through his land. His exact words were

You can scout wherever your like so long as we have some sort of NAP arrangement in place for the time being just so I know you won't get grabby with any of my workers etc. It can be to a certain turn, or just a 10-turn notice cancellation type thing.

And we signed a 10t rolling NAP after that

[yuris125]

T84

The map trade came from GES bundled with a health resource trade (corn for banana). Didn't see any reason to decline, so accepted

Revolted to Bureau and OR

Stopped the Worker at Dinamit FM from chopping, I think chops are lost in anarchy

MNG sent us an email asking for our thoughts about Commodore's war against him. Since we promised to help Commodore, I intend to stall for as long as I can, and initially reply with a long-winded speech on the lines of "we can't have an opinion before we listen to both sides of the argument" etc. Then tell him that we can't promise we won't attack

We also need to think about city placement in the middle, I will post screens and thoughts after work

[yuris125]

...and Commodore just let us know that MNG is conceding the hub to him, so the war ends, and my elaborate diplo plan won't be needed. Not that I'm complaining

[yuris125]

About the centre city locations, here's my plan:



The Cyan dot can be moved 1E, but I like this location much better, because its only food is in the 1st ring this way

The only thing I don't like about this dotmap is that we don't get a canal city from north to south. But I don't see how we can get one, any possible canal location blocks either the Cyan or the Orange dot

Of course, grabbing both Red and Orange would be tricky, I'm sure RL7 are also eyeing these spots

Thoughts? Should we use the Settler we have for the safe option (Cyan dot), or go for e.g. Red?

EDIT: Maybe we should talk with RL7 and concede the Orange dot to them, if they concede Red to us. Otherwise they can found 1SE of Orange and block Red. I wouldn't mind gifting them furs for any period (including for the rest of the game) if they ask for it

[Maestro]

I was looking at the center area earlier and independently came to the same conclusion about teal dot. Founding on the plains hill is actually a better site in the long term. Ice/tundra is completely worthless, so the only profitable tiles in the middle are resources or water. On plains hill, teal gets 2 resources and 10 water tiles, enough to actually be profitable.

I don't think we need to discuss teal dot with RL7. Out of good faith, we probably should talk about Orange and Red. It's hard to be impartial about land rights, but I want to get all 3 dots. If we can only have one, I think I actually like Orange better than Red. Orange gets 3 resources + 13 water tiles. Red gets 4 resources and 7 water tiles, but 2 of those resources are ice furs, which I believe are 0/0/4 and 0/1/4, which are worse than 2/0/4 coast. It would take a long time for red to be profitable.

Teal is the most important. We want to get it and get culture in it quickly, because forting the tundra S-SE of it gives us a 3-way canal. That canal gives us direct interior water access to all 4 opponents.

[yuris125]

We definitely aren't going to discuss Teal with anyone, it's indisputably in our zone of influence

Orange vs Red - Orange is a better location, but if we give up Red, land access to Orange will be blocked by RL7, and we won't be able to defend it, should they become hostile. They're both marginal spots, as you would expect from tundra cities, and I think the question of how easy it would be to defend them is the defining one if we need to choose one