Speaker's super top secret thread for the purposes of world domination; Neener Neener

[Speaker]

Most likely the first scientist will go to me, since Sunrise and I have a nearly-completed road connection. It would take 20 turns or so for a scientist to travel manually to Sullla's land. My capital isn't nearly as developed economically as Sullla's, but I should have 6 or 7 cottages going within another half dozen turns, along with a forge and library. Once I grow to size 14 or 15, I will probably crank out a bunch of 2-turn settlers.

[Sullla]

Let me know if you're around tonight, sunrise, and we'll knock out our team's turn together. Speaker is unavailable this weekend, and I'll be covering his turn.

[Profane]

Pardon my MP noobness, but does playing in a locked Team mean that all teammates share from the same GP points counter?

[Sullla]

Yes, teammates share Great Person points, along with line of sight, research, and the benefits from most wonders. That's why sunrise (as a Philosophical civ) might as well produce all of our Great People; Speaker and I won't get any discounts from creating our own.

Turn 108:



The forest chop at my capital finished the Library after I ended turn. I knew that that would increase science by a good margin, but what I forgot about was the fact that we have Currency tech, so building the road to Janna Monsoon also added another trade route in each city. (There's a road on each tile where the three workers are standing. It looks really weird at the moment, and will get cleaned up by the game graphically when the next turn rolls over.) In terms of trade routes, I went from having +1 commerce in Requiem and +1 commerce in Tibbers, to +2 commerce in all three cities. 4 more base commerce is worth another floodplains hamlet, and is pretty noticeable this early in the game.

Last turn, my civ was making 70 base beakers/turn. Now I'm making 95 beakers/turn, an increase of 35% (!) With sunrise feeding me gold as needed, we're making really good progress on Machinery tech. We started on Turn 105, and it looks like we're going to be finished on Turn 111, so... 6t total research? Not too shabby...



Look at how ridiculous this capital is. I sincerely hope for the sake of the other teams that they have mirrored starting positions, because if they don't, we probably can just win the game off of this absurdly fertile location. Requiem is now working all 8 of its floodplains cottage tiles, most of which have already grown into hamlets. I'm also working another 3 floodplains cottages at the other two cities. Next up, I would like to get a cottage on the plains river tile, and then two cottages on the non-river grasslands, which would get me to 11 overall. Then I still have two more low-priority cottages on the non-river plains tiles, plus two 2/0/3 lake tiles of semi-usefulness, and three riverside hill tiles for production as needed. This is an absolute monster spot, and it has enough food to reach size 18-20 with no real difficulties. I should be able to max it out before the game finishes.

In its present state, Requiem is a filthy, overcrowded hovel. Just look at that health penalty: -5 food, still growing at +8 food/turn. (As a note to future map designers, this is why creating this kind of super-fertile start makes things a bit silly. Too many good things going on at once, IMO.) It reminds me of some of the early modern cities in Europe, where London in say 1600 had more deaths than births every year, yet was still growing at a fantastic pace as more and more people flooded into the city from the countryside. That's basically the situation that Requiem is in now. I'm going to look at the numbers on what to build next; I have a lot of overflow from the chop, so I'll probably swap to a worker and funnel the Expansive bonus into that overflow. Should be able to get a 2t worker, and heavens know I need more workers (5 currently).



The other big news from the turn was close contact with Rome (Team 3, WarriorKnight). We spotted this Roman explorer poking around sunrise's borders in the east, and then saw how close the borders of a Roman city were located. No idea if this is the capital or another city planted later, but that's not far at all. Maybe there will be some actual fighting on this map after all! Our other fronts are easily defensible, with enemy civs very far away or separated by gigantic stretches of jungle.

The biggest danger to our team has always been the lurking threat of an Aggressive Praetorian rush. However, now we're very close to Machinery tech, and we should be able to have maces on hand in time to deal with anything from WarriorKnight. That's why emphasizing research has been so important - we knew sunrise was in an exposed position. (It's also why sunrise rushed to get his third city out, and settle it on top of copper, just for safety's sake.)

At this point, I almost hope that they'll send 3 or 4 Praetorians... just to walk right into 3 or 4 of our maces. I think Shoot the Moon/WarriorKnight's Team 3 is doing by far the best of our opponents, and they represent our biggest competition. (We have barely seen Team 2, and Lewwyn built the Colossus early on, while Team 4 seems to struggle to play their turns. No further comment!)

[darrelljs]

Requiem is pretty darn silly. Makings an Academy there pretty important .

Darrell

[sunrise089]

FYI at current levels of road development it's a 7t difference getting a GScientist in Sullla's cap vs Speaker's.

[darrelljs]

How many turns until the second GS?

Darrell

[Speaker]

My capital has gotten unhealthy really fast, between chopping forests, growing to size 11, and finishing the forge. I'm going to pop out a 2t settler, send it toward you, and complete the road, Sunrise. Trading for your spare cows, clams, and fish (and I can give you a spare rice) will help me immensely. Should be done within 5-6 turns, I hope.

[Sullla]

For anyone who missed it, Team 3 discovered Machinery last turn and can now build maces. (Interesting question: if they were planning to rush Civil Service -> Machinery techs, then why pick Rome as a civ? Or perhaps they didn't think that far ahead with their civ picks?) That means we could potentially see some pressure from Aggressive maces against sunrise... Fortunately, we'll also have maces in plenty of time to counter, and we have some archers in good sentry position near the Rome border for early warning. We also may decide to use our Great Artist to culture bomb a location along that open front, as it's honestly the only place where we're at all threatened from other teams.

We need to decide where we're going to place sunrise's 4th city - he just finished a settler in his capital when we ended turn. We could discuss it in this forum thread, or we could play the turn together as a group next time... not that I'm thinking of anyone on this team in particular...

[sunrise089]

One promising note from yesterday's turn I shared with Sullla already - I have visibility on two tiles from the Roman front city. Both are 2-move terrain (a forest and a hille) and neither has a road even though the hill is improved. It's a small thing, but it means the player moved the worker off the hill rather than road it, which suggests he doesn't see roading it as too important, otherwise he might not have wasted a worker turn.

Grasping at straws due to limited intel of course, but I view that as a slight sign they're not gearing up to rush units towards me from that city.