{SPOILERS} 2metra, Dreylin & OT4E. This is the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

[OT4E]

I'd made a mistake with the build in Samarkand; it should have been a Spearman to offer defense from a potential dtay Chariot.

It is ok, axe and warrior must be enough for the defense.

Los Millares whipped its Barracks and will regrow on the WB build. I think that this is the place to produce the Workers we need since it will have good hammers for the EXP bonus.

Good for basic military since we have built rax there. But I agree if there is no sign of Dtay's desperate chariot attack which is hardly believable with 5 cities, we must focus on workers. But he has 3 terraces already. Need to keep attention on his graph and be ready to take measures.

Samarkand does not want to be whipped and does want a Library sooner rather than later; should we skip a Granary build here and queue the Library up next?

There is granary in Samarkand... I think the best strategy is to slave this city on the higher pop (5-->4) and keep working gold all the time. Slave military, then have a rest on worker and so on. Library is too expensive at this stage imho.

Bodmin is currently working 2 cottages and the Corn to grow. If we can get the Granary to 29/60 at size4 with a half-full bucket, we could 2-pop the overflow into the Library and then regrow to another 2-pop whip to complete it. Or are you suggesting we skip the Granary build and start the Library straight away?

I think we need to skip granary in Bodmin. When we put specialits it continues working on granary. We cant afford to slave it because we need 5 pop as fast as possible. It is also pointless to slave before granary and no need to slave granary itself because we wont use it in very long future. Lets just start Library. Probably 2 forests with Maths will be enough to finish it.

[Dreylin]

I'm less worried about a concerted Chariot attack than I am about an opportunistic explorer. If dtay rolls an exploring Chariot up to our borders at Samarkand he's going to see no cultural defenses and a sole Warrior guarding; at that point we'd have to whip in the Axe (bad for us) and he still might take a shot at it - with a good roll he could have enough health to make the odds bad on counter-attacking with the Warrior and then promo-heal and attack in. Unlikely, but the Axe whip would hurt us enough. Anyway, we'll get the Spear from 54 in ~3t and it can swap with the Axe coming out of Samarkand.

I'd forgotten we already had a Granary there; whipping the high pop to finish a unit and sending the overflow into a Library is probably best; interleave with Workers during cool-off. I guess we probably do the same with Los Millares and it's Granary.

I'll switch Bodmin over to a Library this turn and keep an eye on the Granary build so we don't start losing hammers.

[Dreylin]

Good news from the interturn is that the Barb suicided on our intercepting Warrior leaving the field clear for our Workers to improve the South.

I think that I found dtay's latest city:


Looks like he's headed in a straight line towards us along the coast.

Not sure whether this changes our settling plans - at least for the next 3 cities - but then maybe we should consider pushing 4 to the front center spot.

[2metraninja]

As for course of action, we had some time to chat with Ot4e today (thank God it's Friday) and here is what we spoke:

OT4E
Incas settle quite aggressive to us in RBPB
did you see?
what do you think about it?
2metraninja
I am not surprised
what if we chop 12 chars instead of 4 settlers?
OT4E
I also think that it is nice that he is going to grow us some cottages
2metraninja
oh, you are giving him much time
to grow cottages means attack in 30-40 turns
which is too much in my book
I told you he is opportunist
OT4E
I dont think we need to attack soon
what do we gain?
raze that city?
it doesnt worth the efforts
we need to be ready to score deadly blow
while now we can only bite and tease him
his cheap granaries give him advantage for this stage and we are absolutely not ready to overcome it
but we need to defend ourselves
and grow our seeds
but I am not sure what kind of attack shall we prepare
HAs or those amazing RBMOD swordmen
2metraninja
yes, this was going to be my main question - later attack , but with what
I would love to see some swordsmen action
but I know from experience, it takes total advantage in all categories to pull off successful 1-mover attack
I saw Commodore settles aggressively towards Dtay
hopefully they come to a conflict
otherwise it will be worst scenario for us if COmmodore push Dtay and Dtay push in our direction
OT4E
with slow stack we only kick him off the middle when we are ready to take this spot ourselves
taking 1 city is very possible with minimal preparations
our axes will protect us from counter attack
but slow stack is not good for long game
but if we dont make hundreds
we can switch to mobile armies quick
2metraninja
what if we do indeed take his front city with slowmovers and supposedly his main army will be there
so we attack with slowmovers and we have fastmovers in reserve which we dont show
so we make surprise run after the bloody battle at his front?
what you think will cost us to really really heavy hit him? like taking his capitol or something like that?
the way I see it, we are bordering only him?
OT4E
chars are bad
10 chars can be stopped by a couple of spears
we cant rely on such a luck
I think we need to perform our plan of expansion
and swarm him
my idea is to slave and queue some units
and then let them go one by one
and get one more wave from overflow
1 unit can be pre-chopped also
otherwise we cant rely on him being not ready imho
2metraninja
the carpet of doom?
this requires a lot of natural production and a lot of cities and a lot of food
OT4E
only a lot of food and pop
2metraninja
I would love to see us doing this
but is it at all possible against someone with cheap granaries?
if we dont have those ourselves?
OT4E
the main thing that we dont show power
he see us slaving
but thinks that it is some domestic needs
he cant slave and bring enough when he realizes that we are making attack
but this does require granaries and high base pop
2metraninja
yes, this is my worry too
OT4E
all the slaves must be done within 10-12 turns
2metraninja
when you think we can start?
I dont think our newly settled with chopped settlers cities will be able to return the investment in less than 30 turns from now
so we are talking about attack after what - 40-50 turns?
OT4E
yes
30-40 turns
we must get both iron and HA
no baracks
2metraninja
no barracks like "we are not going to build barracks" or "we dont even have barracks yet"
OT4E
attack without barracks
2metraninja
yes, if we want to be quicker
and of course, we have the free uber-promotion
and the swords have city attack for free
OT4E
yes
we just need to have a chance to hit12:56
newly promotions will appear sooner

[Dreylin]

His expansion has pushed into the lushest areas in his immediate vicinity, and that latest city is still on "his side" of the dividing line, so it's not necessarily a provoking move ... though I agree an in-line expansion towards us is less than ideal. I agree that we should ignore short term and keep an eye on a mid-term opportunity. I think at that point I would want to hand the turn-playing reigns over to one of you guys and follow along as an observer as I don't have a whole lot of experience in the sort of things you're planning.

Question; A- was planning to defog that coast, but he could instead move 1-1 to get a view of that city tile. It would be exposed if he has a Chariot in the area, but I'm not sure his Power numbers support that. OTOH, right now dtay doesn't know that we know that his city is there, so we could divert A- South and skirt around where we know this city is in order to keep an eye on the "centre of the board" AKA territory directly between our Caps. Final alternative would be to stil A- on the Sentry Hill we have in the area and free up that Warrior to go back for MP duty. Thoughts?

Also, I should also post a picture of what we know of Commodore's area - judging from Dolly's latest moves his natural expansion direction is to the South ... at least until he has IW and can clear-cut the jungle.

[Dreylin]

Here's the news from t63:

In local news:


So dtay had advanced his Quechua and made moot my question about what to do with the Scout for now. He's circling around to the South.

Another Barb approaching from the West, and again I've pushed my Warrior to guard across the river - this time he's got C1 so better odds of winning. If he wins great, but if he loses, then Samarkand can whip the Axe and grow the next turn with the food already in the box while still working the Gold.

Promised picture of Commodore's neighbourhood:


Commodoria is bounded on the West by water, so he's really got a choice of expanding South towards dtay or into the jungle.

And here's the real news of the turn; in the far North we have finally found another civ:


So we've found plako up here in the tundra, but we're probably not going to meet him because of that Barb...

[Dreylin]

Let us mourn the passing of poor Hercules, who bravely trekked from the Southern Pole to the North and was cruelly slain on the threshold of accomplishing his goal of meeting a new civ.

Dolly is healing, but now she knows where to go and will head straight towards plako.

Better news was that the Barb Warrior died crossing the river and Samarkand is safe again ... for a few turns, at least:


Spear is out and heading to garrison Samarkand, and Axe will finish in 2t in time to swat that new Barb heading in. Then will position on the future city tile to fogbust.

Settler started and Corn regained from Bodmin (which will grow to size4 next turn without it), due in 6t, but we'll bring that down to 5 by chopping the forest off the city site. Except the other incoming Barb Warrior is heading that way. The WoodyI Warrior will be fully healed when the the incoming barb arrives, but do we want to take the (low) risk and put the Worker underneath him? We could pre-chop the current tile and wait until the Barb is gone to move onto the tile. I think we'd still be able to finish the chop before the Settler arrives, but it wouldn't go into this Settler. Probably best to play it safe, I guess.

[OT4E]

As for course of action, we had some time to chat with Ot4e today (thank God it's Friday) and here is what we spoke:

...

I have few comments. All this conversation doesnt mean that we need to throw everything and go into desparate war. But we must understand how it can look like. We need to weight options we have.

Right now I think that WE DONT NEED TO GO INTO WAR. Soon I will bring my advanced plan to your judgement.

[OT4E]

So here I am. Havent got popcorn yet? It wont be short post I feel.

DO NOT MAKE WAR, MAKE... WONDERS
First of all I tried to imagine the best development of the war. We make stack and though it can be small stack but it must be done with sacrifices to be effective. So let's say we sacrifice half of possible population into army and go. Yes, we are probably able to raze that city and continue walking on. Let's even say that we manage to blow dtay's defenses and capture most of his lands. What do we do? Having own empire in unhappyness and not developed properly and new lands bringing us maintance only. Commodore comes and takes it easily with modern and better organized army. Dont forget he is agg/pro.

The more possible result will be that we lose our armies in exchanges with dtay without achieving anything except razing that city and establishing our front. And again dtay becomes good bounty for Commodore and we can do almost nothing about it.

The main thing is that WE DONT NEED DTAY'S LAND YET. We have plenty of our own to work, we know how to do it and we will do it in the best possible way. We are not really ready to build swords, we wont be ready to build HA if we research, our dream was not to waste our advantage of gold on stupid military techs we dont need yet.

Dtay got his part of flood plains. It doesnt change anything for us. We only need to keep our eyes open and be prepared to his attack. I will repeat it over and over. Dtay has great opportunity to rush us with horses. Never forget it.

So returning to our plan. I am still confident that we need to focus on expansion getting 10-13 cities as soon as possible and making them work and grow. We must grow pop to high numbers to use our advantage. We dont have fast granaries but we agreed to make more farms to cover less goodness of our land. So the strategy for most of cities is to slave on high pop.
But in my initial plan I proposed to chop everything desperately. Right now I think that we need to chop most but thoughtfully looking further. We have decent number of forests in the CAP, SEASIDE CITY, and WONDER CITY. We must keep it and use wisely. Others can be chopped in settlers and workers ASAP. Some settlers we dont chop in new still comes from cap.

[OT4E]

SO WONDERS
My plan is to build HG in the CAP, but without big sacrifices. HG costs as much as Pyramids and it is not worth to build it before having those 10-13 cities.

On the SEASIDE we have opportunity to chop Colossus. It shows 13 turns to Metal Casting and we are still in 5 from Maths, but we have some reserve. So it is possible to build Colossus in like 20 turns. It gives us 3 opportunities. 1 - to earn more from coastal tiles that will result in getting like 10 coins of raw commerce instantly. 2 - is to grow 2nd specialist later. It can be 100% GM (with cheap market) or GM/GE, both can give us great output for us. And the 3rd thing is to less worry about cottages and focus on farms for faster growth.

In the WONDER city we can try to chop late Pyramids or consider some other wonder.