[SPOILERS] WillPlunder as Mehmed of Arabia: Noobs meet world

[WilliamLP]

Felix Werder of Zurich

Brass and bronze were used from time to time, more expensive but still effective.

Ah, cool! I'm sad I can't lurk many of your posts these days to get the history tidbits like this.

[WilliamLP]

I got research visibility on Retep just in time to see he's one turn away from Lib! I wonder how close Suttree is. That was a race we were never in. I'm much more interested in proving the world is round.




Exploration shows that this north island is ours though it's not looking like any great prize. And it will take an extremely awful fishing village border pop to bridge the ocean to it.




I'm trying to figure out what the most likely way is to get this caravel east of Retep, knowing nothing about the land. I don't know if that is a solid mass or an island chain. I'd also prefer to have it end on ocean, wary that he might try to gang up on it with galleys to try and slow down circumnavigation.




I temporarily lost graphs on Sutt. See if you can spot where our HE city came online. Defenses are getting pretty solid in the south and our rating is right where I want it.

Oxy has re-branded himself as a North Korean civ. This means trolling the world, presumably. I have to be pretty careful he doesn't try to play kingmaker in the wrong direction this time.

I'm deciding I can pause military in the HE city (gasp) for some infrastructure, since a madrassa and bank with all those coast tiles being worked will add up in value quickly.

[WilliamLP]

Retep vaulted in score from the U of S, and Lib into an era-4 tech, presumably nationalism. Drafts will mean he's basically immune to attack for a long time. He's got two thirds of the monk economy trio plus SPI / ORG for a frightening late game combo. He may get Taj, unless Bandit is already going for it.

Oxy declared on Suttree again!! Lol, this feels kind of personal to me, though they're actually working together in another game.




The eastern caravel is sad; there's no water pass this way. She'll have to go around to the south.




Next turn the long delayed (by like 120 turns!) city north of our capital will be settled on the marked site. I've got a bunch of axes and junk that will sit in there but not enough that it looks like I'm going to try and wipe Kuro out, yet. We'll see if this city plant affects Kuro's behaviour at all. Right now his units are distributed very strangely, all across his land, even parts which could never be attacked first.




The #1s for the top three categories are all Retep, and he has impressive food given that he has less land than us. Is this guy turning into Plako in PB8? Stay tuned! (He's even in the same part of the map as Plako in PB8. )

I'm really interested to see what happens in this game!

What's good for us:
- We lead in land, and we have more land in sight. What's east of Retep in the astro fog is a big question and could affect the whole game.
- We have a head start in massing military.
- Org keeps getting better, especially if we get to factories. So does the shrine with Wall Street.
- GLH will eventually be obsolete.
- We (hopefully) have a lead in exploring the sea.
- Retep is as far away as can be.

What's not good:
- Our capital isn't great, with coast tiles and almost no river cottages.
- Exp is already basically past its buy-before date.
- Competing against Retep's monk-power is going to be hard.
- We're a lot more vulnerable to attack than Retep is (and that's an understatement).

[WilliamLP]

Retep grabbed Taj, surely with an engineer or two. Also Bandit beat me to circumnavigation! The several turns of geographic advantage he had were pretty important, it turns out. But it was a good job by him to conquer Azza while simultaneously keeping up in tech.




Retep's demos in a golden age are... pretty frightening. And with drafted muskets available next turn he can be far ahead of the world in military if he wants.




I settled Bolognese. I have no excuse at all for not having workers ready to chop and improve the cow, just that this city is kind of an afterthought.

Note Kuro doesn't have iron yet, or is choosing to keep it cottaged. (?) He also has Metal Casting and a trireme, which showed up just a few turns ago. I think the right time to move in is coming pretty soon.

[Plunder]

We can use 1E of Bolognese irrigation to finally have our rice irrigated?

It's a pity we missed Taj =(

[WilliamLP]

We can use 1E of Bolognese irrigation to finally have our rice irrigated?

It's a pity we missed Taj =(

Yeah, we were never even on the starting block for Taj - we're nowhere near Nationalism and also can't afford to skip military nearly completely, like Retep did. Losing Magellan's Voyage is more concerning: it means Wetbandit will have a major advantage in the west seas for the rest of the game.

It all might be a non-issue if Retep is just allowed to keep teching up without resistance.

For the rice, I think it's far more valuable as a town (+4 commerce) than as a farm (+2 food) because the capital has Bureacracy, an Academy, and with a Madrassa, Bank, etc those 4 commerce are multiplied a lot! And eventually we'll probably put Oxford there too. Plus towns get more valuable with Printing Press and then Universal Suffrage too.

[Plunder]

But having irrigation next to it makes it 'wet' rice right, and boost the food income significantly?

[WilliamLP]

But having irrigation next to it makes it 'wet' rice right, and boost the food income significantly?

It makes it +2 instead of +1. Right now it's a 3/0/4 tile. With an irrigated farm it is 5/0/0, so that would trade 4 tile commerce for 2 food.

(Rice is the worst grain - corn and wheat are both better.)

[WilliamLP]

Retep finished gunpowder, and he bulbed something. He's finishing optics next turn. I think he'll pass me in score which is actually a relief!




Boldly is showing a Cataphract. This is Byz's time to shine in war, let's see if they do. I don't think we're his most opportunistic target if he wants to fight. We've got castles and pikemen and the world's largest army, and we've been the very definition of a good neighbour. (Passing up numerous chances to make a quick gain which was more than readily available.) This is if past actions matter in a no-diplo game.




Here's the north stack, along with what we see from Kuro. It's kind of a nooby stack with not enough siege. Some of that, and more modern units like macemen and longbows, are down south.

The question is, is it worth going in with this? Him having no 2-movers is really fortunate (we see 1 chariot).

Us:
3 camels, 8 HA
1 mace, 2 xbow, 12 axe
8 cats

Him:
8 axe, 9 spear
6 cats
(Plus more that can come in from the north).

With 2 movers on that flat land, his split stacks would be a big problem for him. And I don't know how useful his cats would be - he has to leave them in cities or they'd get instantly flanked.

The big weakness we have is not enough medieval anti-axe (maces + xbows) - most of that stuff is in the south right now. But, posting this out right now I think this can be pretty decisive if he keeps his stacks split like this.

For vulnerability, at this point if we needed to and switched the whole empire into emergency mode we would be quite formidable: whipping castles, pikes, longbows, camels in many cities.

The other big opportunity:




I founded Instant Noodles, a useless city planted only for its border expansion being a cultural gateway to the western seas. There is some really significant land here! To this end I'm getting Music in 2 turns for the faster border pop and building some settlers all around. That "monster" site in particular has me drooling.

[Plunder]

that's a +100% increase, clearly significant