[Spoilers] PBEM 62 - Ichabod's Thread, feat. Mardoc and retep

[Ichabod]

I chopped a missionary in my new city of MC to get to the new island city. Culture is very important in Fleur de Geisha, because we need it for the second seafood. It also makes the lighthouse and Moai build faster through OR. The idea for FdG is easy, whip granary, WB and lighthouse. Whip into Moai. That's basically it.




Getting some defense in Milk. PPM is 2 turning units and I plan to keep it like that for a while. Mostly spears, because we are afrais of HAs and WCs.




Preparing the way for the city to our north, I think we get it at turn 65, not entirely sure. Unfortunately, we'll work unimproved sheep for 1t to get the city settled 1t sooner by roading the city tile. Worth it, obviously, but could have been better, perhaps. Right now, I'm not simming anymore, just playing by feel ald my notebook.




We'll also get the southern city settled at t65, if my math is correct. I think we can afford this 2 cities, considering our aconomy looks pretty good. It'll not delay currency, because I'm actually waiting for the GP before turning tech on again. We can 2t currency at full research, even before the library in EG.




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Overview:







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Cities:

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Demographics:




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If anyone wants to know anything specific, ask away.

[Ichabod]

By the way, I'm planning to put National Epic in GT and HE in PPM. Not that we'll have HE anytime soon, I guess...

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

What's your take on the dazed/tth war? They are both now really close to you and you've mentioned com/pin a lot (I assume because you see com as a bigger threat?). tth's thread stopped a while ago a dazed never had one... Noticed anything as a neutral state?

[Mardoc]

Yup, I noticed that while taking a look at the save. Commodore's power remains the same, as far as I can see, so Pindicator probably evacuated his city. I wonder why Commodore didn't keep it...

I can think of several reasons, all depending on the details of what's going on.

We are close to being very safe from Commodore, on the other hand. With a missionary coming for Milk, soon to be 4 spears in the city + archery tech, we are good to go.

Yeah, that plus emergency whips if required should be sufficient until cats. And we should get to cats first, I think.

The economy is really good too.

The amazing thing to me is that we're clearly #1 GNP despite our low slider, and despite not much culture output.

build knights and double our lands. THH land is really beautiful, by the way.

At this rate, just one opponent will only be +50% to our lands . You're doing a great job of profiting from others' wars.

I'm teching archery with REP beakers only. I will do the same with Medi and Priesthood, to get another prereq bonus for CoL and Monarchy (needed for Feudalism and guilds), and get access to temples and monasteries (I think they are a decent build in cities like EG and IB, with lots of commerce and that need the happiness).

Sounds reasonable. At some point a shrine will make sense, too - although so far I think I'd still rather an Engineer for a free wonder and an academy and maybe even a golden age.

The idea for FdG is easy, whip granary, WB and lighthouse. Whip into Moai. That's basically it.

We'll probably need to whip units to get overflow for Moai. I'd request one axe or maybe archer to stay in FdG and defend against amphibious axes, and then whatever the rest of the empire wants.

We'll also get the southern city settled at t65, if my math is correct. I think we can afford this 2 cities, considering our aconomy looks pretty good.

Yes, it really helps that you're working so many cottages. I guess the happiness from Rep is helping us more than the specialist beakers!

What's your take on the dazed/tth war? They are both now really close to you and you've mentioned com/pin a lot (I assume because you see com as a bigger threat?). tth's thread stopped a while ago a dazed never had one... Noticed anything as a neutral state?

The fish NW of Oolong changed from Pink to Yellow. Other than that, the main thing that I can see is both sides have lost a LOT of power - enough that we're 2nd/3rdish with our spears, ahead of at least THH and about on par with Dazed. And both sides still have about the same number of cities as each other.

That implies that there's been real battles, but not much winning. Which in turn suggests that it will keep going for a while and prevent either of them from swapping over to us. Basically the perfect thing from an outsider's perspective - costs them both a lot, keeps them busy while we go ahead.

The reason we focus on Commodore is that he's clearly winning his war (and is #1 Power). So he could afford to divert and hit us, and perhaps even should. We're ahead in demos, but most of that lead is being plowed back into more demos, which means time is on our side. If he waits until we've got established culture and better units, we should beat him.

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Random thought: Maybe we should consider giving Commodore open borders after all? It would help him more than it helps us, but it would also give him a reason not to attack us. Maybe he'd go try picking up something from the Dazed/THH war instead of trying to slow us down.

At the moment I think that's the main thing we want - 20 turns of peace.

[Ichabod]

Hey guys, long time no update, right? Well, if you read the tech thread, you'll see that people are forgetting to send the turns, so not that many saves reached me.

Well, I'll wait until i receive the next save, than I'll update. Everything is looking great. We are number 2 in power and Commodore lost quite a bit of power without taking any cities from Pindi, which is really nice.

Anyway, I'll say more when I do the next update.

[Mardoc]

It does look pretty good. Top demos in everything but power, and not far off there anymore. And two more cities coming very soon to keep the snowball going . And I see we're getting nearly as much beakers from Rep scientists as we are from everything else! Mids just keeps seeming better and better.

Commodore's about to claim the whale island toward us; we'll have to make sure to guard that coast. And keep enough units in Earl Grey to avert any GG-morale tricks.

I can see why we'd want to get Currency and CoL soonish. Lots of tech we want soonish, really, but those two in particular would be nice. A couple cities have 11 gpt maintenance costs, definitely in the range where a courthouse is reasonable. It'll get worse, too, as we keep the expansion going.

We might consider a little bit of propping up. Either now or in a few turns when it's easier. THH has no strategic resources at all, and Pindicator has only copper. I don't think we want either of those wars to wrap up if we can help it. The risk, of course, is that we have only the 1 horse/1 copper ourselves right now. Might not be wisest to make an enemy at the same time as we lose the ability to build units. Maybe when we hook the northern horses with the new city, we should give them away? Maybe when we get to Iron Working we can give someone metal, too. Or it could be worth the risk to give someone a hand right away - archers might be sufficient for a peaceful civ when the neighbors are distracted.

Also, I don't think THH has lost any cities lately that would explain the no-strategics, so he's probably getting pillaged to death, so giving him a resource might not matter for more than one city. Although if Dazed has a bunch of chariots spread out in THH-land, even a handful of spears would make a big difference...I really want to know more of what's going on.

Dunno. Maybe it wouldn't actually be bad for Dazed to conquer THH, and have to deal with the same expansion-econ problems we have except without a compact well-cottaged empire and Mids. Maybe that's the best way to keep him ancient-era until we get knights.

When it comes to foreign policy at the moment, I think I'm glad to be just a dedlurker

[Ichabod]

Settled the 2 new cities, The du Hamman and The des Amants. If we had a bit more worker support, they could be on a slightly better spot after settling, but I think it's good enough. The idea is to cottage these cities and later whip them to get knights.













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Just discovered that FdG is actually pretty safe, since no one else has water access to that particular body of water. The city is getting ready to whip another workboat and a lighthouse.




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Just discovered where the conflict between Pindi and Commodore probably has taken place: notice the improved crabs with no Culture nearby. Commodore seems to have a lot of land, if I'm reading the map layout right. Let's hope that our early start is enough for us to not allow him to catch up before we can run over a neighbour or two.




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My initial plan was to get currency in 4 turns. There was a possibility I could do it in 3, but it wasn't possible in the end. So, I reverted back to the 4t plan. Commodore already has currency and he's likely building wealth, because his GNP had a really big jump after currency. I wonder where he's heading next... Probably Calendar, for MoM and happiness. if I get the GEng, I'll race him for the MoM; if not, I'll go for Civil Service, also building wealth, since our Capital will be great with it. Meanwhile, I build a temple and market on the Capital and keep growing (enough for size 13).







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Overview:










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Questions?

[Mardoc]

. Always good to see more cities. And currency should pay for them, too.

Any thoughts on dotmap for the next batch of cities? Or are we going to slow up and focus on getting to knights? Seems like we ought to be able to at least grab the island south of Earl Grey and maybe the peninsula between the new cities - but it might be worth trying to take some of the east too instead of letting Commodore have it all.

Also, can we get a second unit into Earl Grey? It almost doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's a body between the city and a possible GG-Morale unit from Commodore's galley.2

[Ichabod]

. Always good to see more cities. And currency should pay for them, too.

Any thoughts on dotmap for the next batch of cities? Or are we going to slow up and focus on getting to knights? Seems like we ought to be able to at least grab the island south of Earl Grey and maybe the peninsula between the new cities - but it might be worth trying to take some of the east too instead of letting Commodore have it all.

Also, can we get a second unit into Earl Grey? It almost doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's a body between the city and a possible GG-Morale unit from Commodore's galley.2

The settler for the island city S of EG is already being made (I'm building the Great Lighthouse, so we need that city ) and, as of last turn, there's a second unit inside EG. The city can still fall next turn if Commodore has 2 GG units inside that nearby galley, but that's close to impossible. A 3rd unit will soon join them. it really helps that, as far as I know, Commodore doesn't know we have our Capital there.

I plan to get 2 cities to the E, 1S2E of the cows and 1N1W of the cows. The first one, I plan to get after the island city already got the rice inside borders. The second, a bit after. It's really difficult for Commodore or Pindi to contest us there, considering their war and our power.

But we'll see. It depends on how fast the race to guilds go. Perhaps we should focus on that a bit more, because THH's land is better than these new cities. With some wealth builds and decent planning, I'm confident we can hit THH before he even has longbows.

Do we try to scout THH and risk making him close borders with us? Any scout info we can get would greatly help in war, but THH would probably read the writing in the wall when we start doing it.

[Mardoc]

Ah, that was going to be my other question, whether we were going to try for any more wonders. GLH is good. I think it might be worth trying for the Great Library, too. We've got everything to make that better: marble, lots of libraries, representation - it's be worth at least 15 bpt, more if we build it in the capital with an Academy. I'm pretty sure that would pay for the research detour, even if we get no other benefit at all from Aesthetics-Literature and count the GPP as worthless. (261+174)/1.2 = 362 base beakers = 24 turns to pay back. 17 turns with Academy. Of course, it may not be the most urgent thing we can do, but it looks worthwhile to me.

I think we can get away with scouting THH with one minor addition: look like we're there to watch the war. Plus, well...in his shoes how does fearing England change what he's doing, again? He still needs the best non-strategic resource unit he can get, he still need to build a lot of military. And....he's still rival worst GNP, at 9!

The bigger concern I have is that it won't be THH we invade at all: it'll be Dazed. THH is down to five cities, still has no strategics, has basically no research, and looking at the Power graph, lost a battle recently. But if anything, that means scouting THH is an even better idea, since we'll still want that land even if it's Egyptian at the time. But if we scout while it's Chinese, then Dazed won't know about it.