RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[antisocialmunky]

We have France nad Carthage to poach sites from and France is moving slow. I want to get a chariot along the river NW and to explore aroudn the river to the NE. However, grabbing a position over there seems like a bad idea if HRE or France gets angry at us since they don't seem to be getting along. Its pretty far out there.

[Cyneheard]

Suggested change of plans for Royal Guard:
Let's send him SW, to scout out the land between us and Mali. We need to negotiate a settlement line there, and to do that we need to know where they are.

I'm not sure that getting France angry with us will be an entirely bad thing. This map is going to get too small for 15 civs, and if the HRE is looking to fight France, who knows? Maybe we join in the fun at some point. A 64x64 map will not see everyone live. PB1 is a lot bigger, and with fewer civs.

Also, this game is going to be a LOT harder to defend than PB2. PB2 only has to really worry about two directions. Toroidal + all land = everyone has to make sure all 4 sides are covered, either diplomatically or with military might. Right now, it looks like W and E are the least contested directions for us.

I see our three current cities as our long-term core, and we'll basically want a full ring of cities surrounding them: 2-3 in the S (Drunken Pigs + something to the SW, and maybe something in the mountain pass. Given the lack of water-based choke points on this map, I nominate Gibraltar as the name for any city that we place between either a mountain pass or a gap between two lakes. We're talking 10-12 cities when all is said and done.

Interesting demogs:
The Pitboss 2 team of Kalin, Athlete, Nakor, and Jowy have been working their pop to death. The Inca have whipped half of their population away since T50, down to 3 pop total. But they got Pottery T48. Terraces, anyone? And probably a 2-pop whip for a barracks + Terrace via overflow. Also, we have more cities than the Exp/Imp civ. Krill they are not. Somehow I don't think they're using their second trait all that well. Maybe they're stretched too thin with their teams' performances in the other game?

[haphazard1]

I thought Royal Guard was going to head SW after checking out what is south of those mountains? If there is food there we can plant a nice food + silks city. If there is no food, maybe my desert spot sharing the GH pigs could work. We will see. I agree we need to know how close Mali planted Uberfish.

Unless someone other than Korea died when I wasn't looking, we still have 16 teams on this map. But I agree in general -- this is going to get very crowded. And having to defend in all directions will get messy. Once the stone is hooked up we may want to consider investing in some walls. Not a high-priority thing, but the effect of reducing pre-GP siege weapons could be well worth it. Culture will give us decent defense, but forcing any enemy to bring up a HUGE stack of siege or take many turns bombing your defenses can provide time to rally troops or support.

We have some decent land around us still for our outer ring of cities. Not quite as nice as our core, but still plenty of rivers, cottagable grasslands, and a few resources like spices and sugar. Certainly we are going to want to make Calendar a fairly high priority with 3 happy resources plus extra silks to trade. That is a ways off yet, but eventually someone will have to spend beakers on Sailing. May or may not be us, though we could maybe get some foreign trade routes going along the rivers.

The Inca may yet slave some settlers -- with terraces in place and IMP they will be able to pump them out very rapidly. Let's not discount the Inca just yet.

Let's see how long it takes Rome to roll the turn.

[Cyneheard]

Right, it's 16 civs. I've been doing so much C&D work, where everything's divided by our 15 opponents. . On average, then, we're looking at 256 tiles per civ on the whole map. However, there were 4096/17 = 241 tiles per civ before Lobo.Thibron's demise. 10-11 cities is the max before they have to be taken from other civs. We're not using all of our tiles (there are some unused tiles between AF and BR. If it wasn't for the horses moving AF 1W, I don't think there'd be any).

Well, Rome's not going to roll the turn while I'm awake today, unless they do it in the next five minutes. Always fun to start a day with a civ turn.

The Inca should be in grow + whip mode for their settlers now (a la Adv 38 ), I'm sure they'll continue their "Most Population Whipped" award for some time to come.

[Cyneheard]

Intro e-mail from Byzantium:

It appears as though our scout Jenkins, aided by our Babylonian friends, has come in contact with one of England's exploratory teams. It is our great honor to finally make your acquaintance, and hopefully this will be the start of a lasting, mutually beneficial friendship.

On behalf of the Spectre council,
-SleepingMoogle

So, we should respond. From my chat with Babylon, Mali/Babylon/Byzantium are looking to form an Alphabet trading deal. HRE doesn't want us to make any commitments quite yet (the secrecy about their meeting seems odd). Therefore, I think we should respond tomorrow with a "welcome" greeting as well, try to see who all they've met (I see no reason not to mention everyone that we've met so far). Ideally, we need to know what our tech trade plans are by the time Pottery finishes, or at a minimum before Hunting finishes. We need the Furs' happy and commerce, unless someone's like 10t from Alphabet, or we go Writing-Math.

Babylon got Pottery in 12t. Since their tech speed should be slightly faster now that they can build cottages, they'll probably finish Writing around T62 (12t: Writing's 155 base beakers, Pottery was 120 for them). If they double-chop on T63 to insta-build their library, and then run 2 scientists as expected, they'll get their Academy T72, and should be able to finish Alphabet in the mid-80s or so. Hunting + Archery + HBR will be really difficult to finish in that time.

[Cyneheard]

Update on Tricky Dick - he is now 6 tiles directly W of the horse you guys are hooking up. We've made contact with Carthage this turn as we're now on their borders. We're working on an ETA for the other 2 units I'd mentioned - should be pretty soon considering how fast we met Carthage.

Regards

Meatbalz for DIM

Note the "borders" comment: Carthage isn't terribly far, either. That's room enough for 1 more city between us and them.

Proposed response, which I'd have sent already if gmail wasn't temporarily down:

Thanks for the update. After moving T53, we're 3W1N of the horses. Should we tend to move more W or SW to contact the other civs?

Cyneheard of Avalon

Domestic update:
Pottery due in 4 @ 100% research. Workers are improving wheats all across the kingdom.

Should Gulliver head NE, looking for France?



Royal Guard: SW to find Mali (although S next turn for the hill's scouting), or NW to scout our near territory?



More Screenshots:


London is the finest city in the world! This calls for :2dance: and all around. Oh, and how convenient of France (only civ to found on 3920BC), to let me know it's their capital that grew to 5 this turn.

Demogs:



Our GNP looks a lot better after you add in the 9 beaker bonus of researching Pottery with both Fishing and Agriculture. Ruff of the Aztecs discovered the Wheel, the Inca grew their capital to size 3, and Rome grew its 2nd city to size 2.

[haphazard1]

Yes, I saw the message mentioning Carthage's borders. Has everyone in the world settled towards us?

Message to HRE about the meeting location looks good. I also agree with sending a greetings response to Byzantium, and generally asking about who they know/have met. We are far enough apart that there is no need for more just now, I think.

Maybe something like:

Greetings to the Spectre Council from the lords of Avalon!

We were pleased to receive a report from our explorer Gulliver that he made contact with Jenkins, as arranged by our Babylonian friends. It is good to meet proper civilizations and not just barbs as we explore this world.

We have knowledge of a number of civilizations -- Mali, HRE, Babylon obviously, Carthage, France, Maya. May we inquire which civilizations you have met?

We look forward to strong relations which will benefit both of our great peoples.

Team CHASM, lords of Avalon

Gulliver generally NW (using hills and such as usual, of course) towards France sounds good. Royal Guard S next turn, then generally west and north. (Which may include some SW-NW movement as terrain permits.) We need to know if there are any resources which could be combined in one city with the silks. It's looking pretty meh straight south of London, although hopefully we will see something next turn from the hill.

On tech path...yes, we are going to have to work fast to have something to trade if the other civs can meet those time lines. Cottage spamming will help a lot, and we are going to have to work those cottages so fewer hammers will be available. And if we found another city (or two) we are really going to struggle. All I can really think of here is cottages, cottages, and more cottages.

[haphazard1]

Side note: Ottomans just whipped, dropped their score to 75. First time I have actually caught that happening on CivStats.

[Cyneheard]

We should drop "Carthage" and "Maya" (Where are the Maya? I can't keep track of who all's where): we don't have official contact with them yet.

And I assume you mean NE towards France for Gulliver?

Nice catch. That's an Ottoman double-whip, taking their capital down to size 2. Looks like a granary to me: Pottery came in a few turns back, and they're Zara, so no Expansive for them.

[antisocialmunky]

Let just head south with RG. That one grass tile and 3 forests may be important... :-p

Lets for NE with Gulliver. Lets have BR Warrior go check around the corn to the N/Coffee and then SE. We can grab both with one city on the northern river. If we road to it, we can get a river trade route with HRE later but we would block the French from HRE and vice versa until OB. I want to find out the HRE borders so maybe we can swing NE with Richard after we meet Carthage.

We can swing RG north to make out the river. So pretty much those three warriors will make in a clockwise scouting pattern around our lands.