RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[Sockboy]

In world news, apart from the slew of new cities popping up around the globe(toroid), a few more techs were researched, here's what I've got so far...

Last turn:
Lord Vetinari picked up Bronze Working
sSs picked up Animal husbandry (I think, nothing else really makes sense)
Broker + Co picked up Animal Husbandry

This turn:
Kyan&Co grabbed Bronze Working
ManiCat Marshall&co took Animal Husbandry

So by the current turn we've got everyone with Agriculture and Mining. Most people have also picked up Bronze Working and Animal Husbandry. The only other techs people have gone for are Meditation (Ruff only) and the Wheel (athlete&co, Rego&co; note that a number of civs already have this as a starting tech, so this is not a complete list). I'd expect to see a bit more variation in tech paths once people have the basic worker techs out of the way, I predict Pottery will be very popular as a 4th tech

The other weird thing is this last turn saw a major shift in Soldier points from an average of 16733 to 18066. That's a global increase of 20000 soldier points!

Now 8000 of those come from Kyan and Co, and another 2000 from ManiCat for their techs, but that's still 10000 points unaccounted for. One possibility is that a couple of barracks finished somewhere along with a handful of warriors. The other (more likely) possibility is that someone(s?) has started making either bronze units or chariots. An Axe would be 6k points and a spear or chariot 4k. Judging by the lack of whips, they must have built/chopped the unit out. My guess is Dantski and Mukha, since they've had a second city long enough to hook a resource, although perhaps one of the newer cities was founded on a resource? Good think we're only a handful of turns from chariots ourselves!

[WarriorKnight]

Hopefully the road to be built, which connects the two cities will help ameliorate the cost of city maintenance!

Actually, it won't. Now that we have city maintenance, we will always have some sort of deficit at 100% (unless we get a shrine, but we have no plans for it). This is because trade routes, like most other sources of income, go through the slider.

Oh, and message sent to DIM with the suggested change from Sockboy (we don't really want Carthage in our possible group but will invite them if necessary, so I left them out of this message ATM).

I predict Pottery will be very popular as a 4th tech

Actually, they need the wheel for that, which we already have.

[WarriorKnight]

Just had a interesting chat with Ilios regarding trade partners. Here is what he said.

• Krill will land Oracle on t62 and take alphabet
  
• he will give it to all of us in this tech group and we trade the lower techs around
  
• then everyone goes for a higher tech like CoL, Maths, Monarchy, MC, Currency, IW, etc and trade that around
  

Currently India, Krill, Dantski (who is NW of Krill apparently) and DIM have committed. They were thinking of inviting Ruff as well and maybe Carthage (although we have control there ATM). Also we need to keep it to ourselves until we commit although that will not be a problem.

They also suggested trading a chariot of ours for a worker at about t70-75ish. I think that is a great deal we should take with both hands.

We need contact with as many people as possible in this group when Krill lands the Oracle. One chariot should probably go to Egypt and then Dantski while exploring the W on the way back while the other one goes to India and then Aztec.

[WarriorKnight]

New message from Carthage.

Dear Ottoman Brothers,

We just wanted to shoot off a quick note to congratulate you on the founding of your second city, Nemedia. Are you all Age of Conan fans?

Previously, you had mentioned trying to help us set up a rendezvous with DIM. We should have a scouting unit available for work in the North in around 10 turns. Any advice you could give us leading up to and during that time would be appreciated.

Finally, we want to be clear that our intention is to only spend 43 EP on your team. Unfortunately we will hit that point very soon and with no other contacts it looks like we will pass 43 EP spent. We plan to switch EP away from you as soon as we have other teams to investigate. We hope that you have the same intentions.

Well, it's simple and to the point. We still can't give them the exact location of DIM and we won't be scouting in that direction anyway. The espionage agreement we can agree with but we still don't have another contact yet.

[ad hoc]

Ouch on the maintenance, never played a torodial map but that is going to hurt.

i think we see if we can join with the other four in a trading bloc, Pacal wouldn't be too bad as well, not sure about Aztecs.

i think we just direct Pacal the other side of the long lake to our SE, he can't go the side where we met him because Nemedia's culture will block him off.

[WarriorKnight]

A reply:

Greetings Team Nice Shot.

We thank you for congratulating us on our 2nd city and would also like to congratulate you on achieving the same feat.

We haven't yet had a reply from DIM about meeting with you, probably because they also need more time to discuss messages like us, however we shall keep you updated. We should inform you that there is a long lake stretching N-S to the E of where we met, and our culture will soon block of the northern way around it. You will probably have to go south around it, although we are not sure how long it is (probably goes some 5-6 tiles).

We would also like to reach an espionage agreement with your team. Unfortunately we, like you, are lacking in contacts ATM and we have already arranged an EP agreement with DIM. However, we will move EP's away from you when we have another contact.

Enough Talking!

WarriorKnight of A4

Only thing we are really giving away is the espionage agreement with DIM, which probably isn't much.

Crosspost with ad hoc

Ouch on the maintenance, never played a torodial map but that is going to hurt.

Good thing we are ORG. Also everyone else is in the same boat so it shouldn't be too bad.

i think we see if we can join with the other four in a trading bloc, Pacal wouldn't be too bad as well, not sure about Aztecs.

During the chat I got the impression that they want 7-8 people in this group to tech all of the most important next techs at once. I am not really sure how we are going to control this but it looks like we will have to go along with it.

i think we just direct Pacal the other side of the long lake to our SE, he can't go the side where we met him because Nemedia's culture will block him off.

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Message updated.

[WarriorKnight]

So DIM finished their turn and we are onto the next one:

Castranno is finished, build for Aquilonia is finishing that 1 turn warrior.

Castranno roaded the sheep, while the other 2 workers get ready to road the plains hill next turn.

I've kept research at 0 because we will need the gold to finish pottery. Go 100% next turn since we will have enough.

[WarriorKnight]

Warning, wall of text ahead!


So I finally managed to take a good look at the growth plan.

It looks good. Cheers to whoever keeps updating it (Sockboy and Pegasus I think?). A few things though (assuming option c cause that looks like what we are doing).

After the warrior finishes in Aquilonia, it should work on a barracks for 2 turns until horses get hooked up. Likewise after the granary is finished it should continue with the barracks until it reaches size 4 again. The reason is that we will have 3 warriors (the 2 being built and Kull) and won't really be needing anymore except for HR MP which is a while away.

Also, we are whipping twice in Nemedia soon. This is fine but right now we don't have an impressive happy cap. It will (hopefully) be running scientists when we get a library but that is still a bit far away for now. Maybe our workers could be mining some of the hills instead of farming grassland tiles which would result in some extra production instead of more growth into unhappiness.

I know that we haven't talked much about where the 3rd city could be, but my suggestion would probably be to the SW with copper. My other suggestion would be to the NE site with silver, but that is not worthwhile until we have IW and can hook up the silver immediately. Most other sites are too far away for now with toroidal maintenance costs.

Also we might as well reply to DIM about the tech alliance. I will assume that we want to join?

Honorable Triumvirate of DIM

Please forward this message to the members of the tech alliance (India, Krill, Dantski)

Just so that it is recorded in writing, the A4 are willing to commit to the tech alliance that is currently being formed between ourselves and neighboring nations. As you probably already know by now, we have a preference to research math.

We will be building some chariots that will be able to contact all of the currently committed civs before the T62 deadline (including Aztec, should they be included) unless barbarians decide to be a major problem. Hopefully chariots can overcome these and establish contact with everyone.

Regarding Carthage, we don't really have any objections to including them in. We currently have friendly relations with them and we are their only contact ATM. The only problem is that they might remain out of contact when T62 comes, although they don't have to be in contact with everyone when we swap the lower techs around.

May we meet soon
A4

Might as well have this message forwarded onto everyone else in the alliance. The only thing I am not really sure about is including Carthage, but having neighbors on all sides would mean that we can avoid major military buildup and focus on our economy.

Also haven't included the traditional 'Enough Talking!' because that should be saved for actual contact (forwarding our picture when trying to organize a tech alliance is risky business).

Also just for DIM:

Honorable Triumvirate of DIM

Just a quick response to the deal you proposed in our recent chat.

We would be happy to trade a chariot for a worker sometime around T70-75.

Enough Talking!
WarriorKnight of A4

Trading a chariot (25H) for a worker(60F&H) is a great deal and I see no reason why we shouldn't accept.

And T40 is up. I might do a T40 overview to satisfy the lack of pictures in recent posts.

[WarriorKnight]

T40 in words:

Our workers Alcazar and Brutos both finished the road connecting our 2 cities together. Castranno joined them and all 3 will go to improve the horses next turn.

Our cities are connected , but they do not have each other listed on the trade screen, despite our GNP increasing in the demographics mid turn. Maybe they will only appear next turn.

Aquilonia has finished a warrior (what's his name going to be?) and has started on a barracks.



Turn 40 in pictures:

Our lands haven't changes much since T38 so I will just reuse that one instead



Only difference is our capital is building a barracks now and we have a road on the sheep and plain hill NW of Nemedia

Our Mighty capital:



After building the settler, we whipped a worker (Brutos) and used the overflow and a chop to build another one (Castranno). Now we are just growing back while waiting for the horses to be hooked up.

Our humble second city:



Not much improvement here either in 2 turns (which is why i have reused this picture too ). However our 3 workers have just finished roading the plain tile NW of the city and our borders expand soon meaning that Nemedia will be able to work improved horses and corn in the next few turns.

And our current Demographics:



Despite being tied for the worst population, we are 3rd in food, so we can catch up quickly to everyone else.

Other than that, everything else listed is either useless or expected (production). Our GNP is an illusion because we are creative so we hopefully will fix that soonish.

[Sockboy]

Good work on everything so far WK, Message to Nice Shot looks good I'd send that off, kudos to Ad hoc for the lake comment. I missed that also and it's good friendly advise for them.

WRT the micro plan, the extra turn or two delay in pottery means that we should spend the next few turns on a barracks like you want, any hammer put into a warrior now end up starting to decay. I still think we should send overflow from the granary whip into a settler, but we can discuss this later. For now everything is on track.

The other thing worth dicussing is the workers around Nemedia, they're pretty set up for the next 4/5 turns but then they're essentially free until we need them for settler chops in Aquilonia. They could either be mining or farming, and I'm not sold either way, I've been trying to find a way to get a cottage or two up on a riverside grass tile, but having trouble getting good timing on it.

One thing, is the chariot for worker deal acceptance of the settlement arrangement? Either way I think it's a deal worth taking, we should have no problems getting another couple of chariots by turn 70 I think (one for home defence, one for them). One small point, I think chariots are 30H, but it's still a good deal nevertheless.

The 7/8 team tech deal has me a little concerned, obviously we need to be a part of it, but I don't think there are that many techs worth researching simultaneously... I wonder if they're looking to piggyback off people for the moment then cut the dead wood later (probably one by one if they can swing it)? For the moment it's in our best interest to join, but we should be wary about this, or else find ourselves hung out to dry. OTOH perhaps later we'll just have 4 teching and 4 feeding gold, so maybe I'm worried about nothing... The other point is this deal makes tech haggling pointless for the moment, since everyone is getting all the techs anyway?