[Spoilers] I have enough games already. Oh look, a PBEM !

[AdrienIer]

The plan is indeed to finish necessary buildings in the next 2 or 3 turns and then start HAs everywhere.

Sian probably just got feudalism, if he has the same techs as us he could be going for guilds next. The good part is that I have sight to a lot of his tiles, I don't believe he could take me by surprise. Retep has a much easier and natural path towards Sian and Grimace, the passage towards Pappus is narrow and unroaded for now. I intend to build longbows in Pappus instead of knights (plus a WE and cat or two), to make sure I can defend myself there. So all in all I don't really think Retep and/or Sian can focus on me while the army is in the west.

Engineering might be the right choice, even though I really want calendar and CoL. Banking gives emancipation not mercantilism (which needs nationalism). Emancipation gives +2c to mines which is nice, as well as some bonus to cottages hamlets and villages (nothing to towns though).

15 knights would be about right, the question is how many do we send southeast and how many west. The stack you can see in Thu will be coming along as supports (plus the morale phalanx GG).

My last exams were almost 4 months ago I can't complain about starting the year now Here's a picture of Grimace's land to serve as the basis for discussion

[Miguelito]

First thought:
Stage in Thu so he doesn't see the stack (or even 1n) then fork Zoe and shepherd on the first turn. A single knight or chariot (or scout) who could move from 1n of gems to the first to see into both cities could be good. West doesn't look interesting to me. Lots of hills, no roads and no spoils.
Second thought:
Stage 1n of gems. He sees that, but necessary evil if we can't get engineering in time. Then first turn move knights onto the pigs. His one moved in shepherd would have to expose themselves to come in aid.

Calendar makes sense, how many breakers is it? I suspect that banks> courthouses for us, but of course the tech is more expensive as well. But you can definitely play a game with little courthouses, I remember GJ saying he built like three in pb22?. Which civic line is emancipation currently? Would we have to trade it for vassalage?
Still prefer engineering first, calendar before that is is really cheap, like 1t of research

[AdrienIer]

I don't like the idea of giving Grimace an extra turn to prepare, especially if it literally doesn't make us gain a turn on hitting the cities.
Emancipation is in the slavery/serfdom/CS line. It's probably not worth it, except we're going to have many mines so +2c on those might be ok.

[AdrienIer]

All hail the power of the lumbermill




I think it's quite decent and maybe even worth not getting the immediate +20h from the chopping. So I'll try it out in Posidonius.

In foreign news Sian is having a rise in soldier points, plus he has feudalism. I hope I didn't miscalculate. I'm building some wealth as you can see, with their help I hope to get guilds in 3 instead of 4 turns.

[Miguelito]

From the GNP graph you posted it seems about impossible that he beat us to knights. The only detours we took were construction and monotheism (BTW who got Hindu and Judaism?) And we got vassalage for free...


Might be a stupid question, but does he have iron connected?


Is that longbow on the ivory permanently fortified? Seems like a weak position to me, in particular of he gets knights, and we don't really need to protect that resource anyways?

[AdrienIer]

He could have avoided construction Poly Mono and masonry, but had to get feudalism. It seems unlikely yes.

Everyone has horse copper and iron connected.

The longbow was there when the workers built the camp, he moved before I sent the turn

[Miguelito]

Also how are you doing stealing that crab of Sian's?

[AdrienIer]

Strangely not that well, but it will be better now that I'm getting third ring culture.

[Miguelito]

Oh and if you hadn't thought of it yet, you could check if Sian has calendar resources and courthouses in his cities to see if he's in the straight guilds beeline

[AdrienIer]

Plan to build Moai in a reasonable timeframe while making the city do something useful :




Build a phalanx for 1t, giving 2h. Phalanx is then 21h away from completion, and is double whipped for 12 overflow (plus 2 natural hammers = 14h total). Which means 14+2=16h get into the moai +50% due to having stone so 24h each time. The galley will get the phalanxes out into the mainland where they will be useful for MP stuff (some will have to stay for a while, Hero might become unhappy from all the whipping).

Overview shot from after the GA. Aqueduct is because of 2 unhealthiness in Thales. I'll whip it the next turn to overflow into a knight. All cities except the southern commerce ones will be working on HAs on the last turn (or two turns if they don't have the hammers to 1t them) so as to get as many hammers into knights as possible. I didn't forget to change back to slavery (I still used serfdom this turn for 1t roads and stuff)




Demo shot from after the GA ended. Sian is first in power, does not have CoL or calendar so could well be building up to guilds.