[SPOILERS] Kurumi & wetbandit serve you Hannibal's Breakfast Cocktail (of Persia)

[wetbandit]

The pop numbers are a little misleading. Our pop is scattered among 3 cities, most players only have 2 cities. 27,000 pop is a size 3 and a size 2, if I recall correctly. That huge 110,000+ pop figure I'm guessing is the Stonehenge capital, or a regular old size 5 or 6, plus a smaller second city at 1,000 or 6,000.

The important part is with 5 pop, we are solidly in the middle of CY, MFG, and GNP. And we're going to have some great tiles coming into play.

Short term micro. I think we should have put another chop into the cap's worker. Oops. It's going to be growing onto some great tiles, albeit a little slower. I don't think we can actually decrease the worker time by chopping now, but if we can, we should.

I think our next tech actually should be mysticism, which is a 4 turn tech. Pottery is also 4 turns and is obviously important and will be next. The workers will be busy roading and hooking up the horse and then the cow; no time for cottages. I could go either way on this, but I think it would be better to get a border pop in mad dog for defense, greater sight, and to bring the plains cow and oasis (3/0/3!) into play sooner. We also need a border pop to get the 2nd clams in...clammy. That's going to be fun for the rest of the game.

God, do we need more workers.

Target? Bronze. And some immortals.

[wetbandit]

T50 (and T51) Update

"A special Providence protects fools, drunkards, small children and Hannibal's Vodka Brawlers." - Azza von Bismarck (disputed, sourced to every lurker of PB11)

Fortune smiles upon the fledgling Vodka Brawler Empire at 2000 BC. We've had tremendous success in war and will hook up horse within 3 turns. The capital is poised to grow at a breakneck pace once it pushes its worker out. (size 2: +8; size 3: +10; size 4: +11). Here are our cities:

I should have chopped into that last worker to get the capital growing faster. Oh well. The capital will take over military production during its growth spurt, hopefully getting 1 immortal and probably 1 warrior for its MP.

On t51, continuing the potential , I started a scout in Clammy. It will be done EOT53 and will help us explore what's to our east. It's clear that Molach has met others, and it will be helpful to get an idea of how close those others are. Molach also has a second city somewhere, maybe we see that, too.

Azza is also dumping all of his EPs on us. Eventually, we will need to deal with him. His capital city is on a hill and is about to get the 40% bonus. I don't see being able to finish him without at least metal units, provided that he gets archery. And why wouldn't he? Immortals make attacking fortified archers somewhat more palatable, but we'd still need to dump quite a few hammers into them. I don't know if whipping out a ton of immortals will make sense. We'll also have a road connection to azza next turn which will let us see if he hooks up a resource from somewhere.

Financial already is giving us 3 extra coins a turn and we haven't started cottaging yet, we have riverside grassland which is begging for cottages.

To the west, there is a little bit more land than we had previously thought, including two potential land bridges: the first due west of Azza and the other due west of us. Our first scout is heading in a northern direction to see if that land links up and if there's anything of which we should be aware.

Overview shots:

[Kurumi]

I love us.

[Kurumi]

23:31 - wetbandit: hey you won't believe this
23:31 - Kurumi: I don't.
23:31 - wetbandit: azza has horse 4W of his capital
23:31 - Kurumi: ETA on our horses?
23:31 - wetbandit: hooked up in 2 turns
23:31 - Kurumi: We whip.
23:31 - Kurumi: Everywhere.
23:32 - wetbandit: but he just planted in our face for that reason
23:32 - Kurumi: We ain't goin' down without a bang.
23:33 - wetbandit: I think its just funny that he settled in our face when he could have secured the horse, he could have settled to share food in his cap, or a dry wheat first ring
23:34 - Kurumi: He just wanted to fulfill his threat title.
23:34 - Kurumi: methinks
23:35 - wetbandit: myst (3 turns) or pottery (4 turns)?
23:36 - Kurumi: Cottages?
23:36 - Kurumi: Pff!
23:36 - Kurumi: We need monuments.
23:36 - Kurumi: For our greatness!
23:37 - wetbandit: now that I realize it, the 2 workers on horse will need something to do, probably cottages
23:37 - Kurumi: Nah.
23:37 - Kurumi: Let's make wooden horses.
23:37 - Kurumi: WEll
23:37 - Kurumi: Just kidding
23:37 - Kurumi: I think
23:37 - Kurumi: going pottery
23:38 - Kurumi: and going granaries
23:38 - Kurumi: then whipage
23:38 - wetbandit: 4 turns, then another 4 for myst
23:39 - wetbandit: we are #1 gnp on pottery
23:39 - Kurumi: VODKA STRONK
23:39 - wetbandit: ha!
23:39 - wetbandit: #vodkastrong
23:40 - Kurumi: #101%

Lurkers. Hi.

[wetbandit]

In all seriousness, I can't really blame him for settling there and trying to push us off that spot early. Couldn't have expected us to be lunatic archer rushers looking for (and finding) horseshoes.

In other news, Molach settled his third city to our south, picking up the corn, spices, and plains cow. He has hardly put any EPs into us while Azza is spending all of his EPs on us. I've adjusted to compensate for that.

AH came in, horse will be hooked up in 2 turns. You can see that Azza has a source of horse 4W; his aggressive plant was to deny us obviously. He was roading there last we checked, but hasn't settled a new city yet. His power also hasn't gone up, so he is potentially vulnerable in the meantime.

There is some promising land to our west, including wet rice that can feed a gold mine. The scout is heading up that way to see if we can find bronze, which would be amazing. The archer moonlights as a lion tamer at night.

Tech set on pottery, due in 4 turns. T53 sees us first in power and first in GNP. Will T53 be the zenith of our fledgling empire?

[wetbandit]

T54 pictureless:

Scout found a second Plains hill gold 1N of the desert hill gold. He also found a lion, so he's got a 2.25 vs 2 roll against the lion if it attacks.

Azza settled his 2nd city last turn. He continues to dump his EPs on us. Horse is hooked up, Mad Dog finishes a warrior, then will start on an Imm or a worker. It can already 6 turn a worker.

Where should the next settler start?

[Kurumi]

I think Clammy, we'll need a monument after that, we're out of improved tiles and our capital needs to regrow.

[wetbandit]

Clammy can get a cottage in 3 turns, but yes, it's limited by poor food surplus. I hadn't considered this, we could start a settler now and whip as soon as we can instead of staying on a worker. We can put one chop into it, too. It may lack worker support initially, but Mad Dog could add a worker given its big production already. That's probably the fastest way we can settle east. Clammy is 7fh/t, so it wouldn't even be able to whip that next settler for another 7 turns. That eastern spot will grow like a weed with wet corn, but we need a worker there.

We only have 3 riverside grasslands which, by the tenets of the Financial, trait Must Be Cottaged. With a monument, it can grow onto the clams.

[wetbandit]

Moved scouts, but didn't end turn. Thinking time (because I like flip flopping):

Are we just better off fighting Azza? Look at all that land to the west. Plus, with the way he's spending EP, we're probably his mortal enemy.

The cap can chain whip and build immortals at a very high rate. Size 5, it can generate 7 hammers and +10 surplus. Growth in 3 turns, whip at size 6 for overflow. We can sneak a granary in to improve that if we want. Unimproved, 4 immortals in 10 turns, plus another 2-3 from Mad Dog, maybe another 1-2 from Clammy.

Take a look and let me know what you think, if we want to fight, we should probably switch that worker build to an Immortal.

[Kurumi]

We're in tight situation - our neighbours are really close. We might of course expand, but military is really important.
By the way, I am going away today and I'll be back sunday so if something bad happens post in my PB12 thread and Maiar should see and he should help you out.