RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[Sockboy]

Logged in to check a few things, I think we should swap out the chariots duties, let's send Sancha over to DIM, it can get there in time and it's still on 0xp.

Our other chariot should either swing round to see DIM and defog the river connection to their city there (maybe healing in their city?). Or it can check out Carthage's northern city (and maybe heal there).

If we do that then, the axe we've got heading over to the east can move into Cimmeria and the chariot there can head over and fogbust the pigs. The gold will be defogged by Sancha as she heads over to DIM territory.

The real stupid thing I did was tell them that IW was in 5-7 turns when it's in 2.

Don't worry too much about it , someone needs to let them know they're no longer in the CAN. Sucks that it's got to be us, but that's life. It would have been better if you hadn't misrepresented our research rates though, honesty is usually the best policy I think. I think with them out of the CAN they won't be getting IW from us. Sucks to be them I guess.

We need to get started on working out what we want out of our cities, we'll have six of them and they'll need improvements, so far it's been pretty straightforward which improvements were needed first, but we should start thinking long-term. I'll post screenshots of the cities and what improvements I think we should be making (and rough priority). Then we can discuss them. also I think we'll need a few more workers since we'll be at 6 cities and 7 workers, so I think we should chop/whip another two (at least) out of Zingara after the HG lands.

[Sockboy]

Ok, city round up time! Here's how I'd improve the cities if it's up to me. I think most of it's pretty clear, but there are a few points which I'm undecided on.

Aquilonia:



Ok, so we'll have a happy cap of 9 here with our Hammam and metals hooked. I think we want to cottage the tiles to the SW first then farm up a few tiles and add the mines as they're needed. Question: do we want to cottage any riverside tiles? We're going production here so maybe we're better off farming them? If this wasn't the capital I would just farm/mine the lot but since it's got the palace there too I feel like it should have a couple of cottages.

Nemedia:



This is a bit of a hybrid site, I think the farms need to come first since the food surplus here is lowish. Maybe get another mine or two before cottaging the river. This site won't have workers straight away since the nearest ones will be up improving the gold site. Maybe we need to hammer/whip one out here after the HG? It'll struggle with unhappyness due to the settler whip just prior to the HG completing so building a worker maybe solves a couple of problems. Once Calendar comes in we'll hook the spices too.

Zingara:



I admit I had this site marked as a hammer city from the time we settled it, I think Ad Hoc was the first one who noticed it's actually a strong commerce site. It's almost entirely grassland with some river thrown in. I think we should basically just cottage this one up, we need one farm to irrigate the wheat, but otherwise we just cottage the hell out of it. It's also going to be a backline city assuming the CAN holds together for a while, so it's pillage safe. With a single farm and the wheat we've got a food surplus of 5/6 and each grassland feeds itself, so we just need a worker to keep adding cottages as it grows. We should try not to whip too much here and just grow. I'd like to chop/whip two workers out of here and maybe put another chop/whip into a hammam but otherwise we should hammer/chop it's improvements.

Cimmeria:



This is the opposite of Zingara, with the silver and riverland it looks like a commerce site but is really more hammer heavy. We'll have two workers who can start hooking the silver as soon as the HG chops are complete. This site will be pretty food poor so we need to farm the two grassland tiles, then improve the cottages. Question: Do we consider cottaging a couple of the riverside grassland hills? I almost never do this, but don't really have a reason why. Maybe it's just that hammers are harder to come by than commerce?

Gold-City:



Obviously commerce here. First order of business is to hook the sheep then the gold. If the sheep are hooked before the borders pop then we can put a couple of turns into the floodplain farm. After that we want to cottage up. I'd prefer to cottage the tiles to the SW of the river as it will probably be a frontline city. Question: Is this enough food here? If not we can farm the rivergrass tiles across the river.

Pigs-City:



The workers will start in the city centre tile, first order of business is to farm the floodplains, then hook the pigs. Then we improve the other floodplain. I'm undecided as to whether we should cottage or farm the other floodplain... This site is hammer-poor with only a single hill to mine, so we'll need to whip a lot here, does that mean we want to farm the second floodplain to speed regrowth? We could set this up as a GP farm is we want too, but for the moment lets concentrate on cottaging it.

Ok so that's what I see. We should end up with a couple of production hubs in Aquilonia and Cimmeria, commerce in Pigs, Gold and Zingara and a hybrid in Nemedia. Anything there you guys object to?

[WarriorKnight]

Logged in to check a few things, I think we should swap out the chariots duties, let's send Sancha over to DIM, it can get there in time and it's still on 0xp.

OK, sounds like a plan. Only problem is that are we leaving the city undefended? Or is another axe going to be around the same area? If so then i'd feel a lot better.

Don't worry too much about it , someone needs to let them know they're no longer in the CAN. Sucks that it's got to be us, but that's life. It would have been better if you hadn't misrepresented our research rates though, honesty is usually the best policy I think. I think with them out of the CAN they won't be getting IW from us. Sucks to be them I guess.

Response from DIM:

Hey A4,

No worries abour IW, you can always claim you were confused or something. In any case, we aren't obliged to trade our classical tech until the other team can provide one themselves. The deal of the Cartel was that the cheap early techs would be provided for free.

Ilios - DIM

Talked to DIM about it a bit. We are going to claim that both teams need their classical tech before we trade. DIM have HBR on T72 so they can wait 1 turn. Portugal aren't researching so they can get it immediately. England has no metal so they get it (which is ironic since France stole a copper spot from England). Krill should get monotheism any turn now. No-one else has met France.

Still, this probably won't work but we'll see.

Our other chariot should either swing round to see DIM and defog the river connection to their city there (maybe healing in their city?). Or it can check out Carthage's northern city (and maybe heal there).

Ruff posted a new map with Carthage included. So there is now a India-us-Aztec-DIM-Carthage map so we know what is to our S. They have 6 river cottages up with 2 furs and a gold, no wonder they are near the top in GNP. (They don't have stone hooked up yet though , I think everyone will have some combination of stone/marble)

All we want are trade routes, which I don't think need to be defogged (resource trades do, but only one team has to do that). I'll test this when I can, but our chariot should heal first. If we don't have to defog anything from DIM, then it should go to the area W of Zingara which is currently unknown to us.

Heh, cross-post but I'll comment later.

[Sockboy]

If we make the moves I suggest, then we'll have on t77 (aka tHG)

Aquilonia : Warrior
Nemedia : Warrior
Zingara : axe + Warrior
Cimmeria : Axe

Gold* : Axe (building in Nemedia ATM)
Pigs* : Chariot (Livia/Injured Chariot?)

(* These cities need names)

After the HG I'd have the capital on purely military builds, and I think Nemedia pumps a worker, Hammam + barracks and then military. Was looking at the city builds and maybe we should get a barracks up in Zingara rather than a library there after the granary and pump military too. Pigs can whip a library after the granary, work two scientists and still grow.

What size military do we want around t100? Ignoring city garrisons what size stack would make people feel safe? 5, 10, 20 units?

All we want are trade routes, which I don't think need to be defogged (resource trades do, but only one team has to do that). I'll test this when I can, but our chariot should heal first. If we don't have to defog anything from DIM, then it should go to the area W of Zingara which is currently unknown to us.

Ok if you can check. In the meantime let me enter, for the defence, exhibit A. This turns demographics. We're doing pretty well in most categories that aren't to do with money. Expect to take a nosedive here in the near future.



Note the imports/Exports line, where we're in last place. We're exporting 8gpt to someone and getting nothing back in return, all our trade routes are domestic (I went and checked). We do not have a connection to DIM or to Ruff at the moment, I haven't check Ruff's latest map but would suspect we have a connection to Nice Shot via the river which runs by the furs (They also have 4 cities which would be needed for 8gpt, 4 cities x 2g per trade route). As we can't see any of their cities we don't get their trade routes but they must have seen (at least) one of our cities to get ours.

I think we need to scout out their nearest city and the sooner the better, once currency hits we'll want trade routes from both Nice shot and DIM if they're both at 5 cities that's 10 potential trade routes but we'll have slots for 12 (Ruff's one will come online once the penalty for declaring on him dies down). Part of Nice Shot's ferocious GNP is due to us

[WarriorKnight]

I think we need to scout out their nearest city and the sooner the better, once currency hits we'll want trade routes from both Nice shot and DIM if they're both at 5 cities that's 10 potential trade routes but we'll have slots for 12 (Ruff's one will come online once the penalty for declaring on him dies down). Part of Nice Shot's ferocious GNP is due to us

Hmmmm, checking in-game reveals we do have a connection to Nice Shot. Since that chariot don't need to scout SE anymore, defogging the river is his next job.

Also, there is nothing wrong with giving our best researcher more GNP ATM. As long as they get maths and currency earlier .

Expect to take a nosedive here in the near future.

Up or down?

Was looking at the city builds and maybe we should get a barracks up in Zingara rather than a library there after the granary and pump military too. Pigs can whip a library after the granary, work two scientists and still grow.

Zingara? You mean Cimmeria?

Nonetheless I still think we should run scientists in Cimmeria. 2 cities building military should be enough (let's get an economy of some sort first)

What size military do we want around t100? Ignoring city garrisons what size stack would make people feel safe? 5, 10, 20 units?

Hard to say. Let's just keep following the power chart and try to keep near the top there.

[Sockboy]

T70 played. Big News! We have Mathematics! And our first Maths powered chop has come in too, with our next to come next turn.



Ok there are a few other things I'd like to draw your attention to in the pic. I've tried to mark out where the chariots and axe should move in the next few turns. We want the axe to garrison in Cimmeria, Livia to go check out the pigs and Sancha to head over and fogbust the Gold before handing her over to DIM. The axe can't cover Cimmeria this turn but I think next turn it should be safe to send Livia out to start fogbusting the pigs. Zingara is building an extra axe which isn't needed for garrison purposes at the moment, do we want to leave it in Zingara or shuffle it up to pigs?

The other thing to note is that the micro for workers D and E needs to be slightly changed to get our silver hooked a turn earlier. Essentially worker E needs to put a turn of roading into the forest before it chops, so it must move onto the forest tile on t72, road for a turn on t73 and chop on t74. Worker D is free in t72 so he's finishing the partially improved road on the tile S of Cimmeria (alternatively he can spend *one* turn chopping the jungle N of the silver), then on t73 he moves to his foresthill and chops on t74. This lets us get two workers onto the silver by t77 to have silver hooked end of t81. Gold should be hooked another turn or two on from that.

Finally I've dialed research down to 90% to save a couple of coins. We'll need pretty much every cent we can save from here as we're about to crash our economy. Getting silver and gold online will help a lot and the trade routes to DIM and Nice Shot will also help. All the nice cottages we're going to be running soon will get us back in action.

[ad hoc]

looks okay doesn't it, the other thig to note from the piccie is that Mono has been discovered, can we find out if this is Krill? if he gifts to Ruff then can we expect a missionary soon as payment for the chariot loan?

[Sockboy]

Two things I forgot, thanks for the reminder Ad Hoc! Krill did research monotheism and founded Judaism. He hadn't traded it around as of my last log-in. Not sure if we should be expecting him to (I would think so, but I'm not clear on how things are being handled in the CAN). We should be expecting missionaries from both Ruff and Krill, although I think we'll probably get natural spread from Ruff along our soon-to-exist trade routes.

The other things was when I logged in the French had asked for open borders. I saw no reason to deny them, they don't have any troops nearby as far as I know (the military advisor doesn't show any).

Diplowise we should send a thank you to Nice Shot and tell them that IW in in next turn, we'll send it to them or they can request it. Maybe we should also send out a press-release like they did and mention we're going back to saving gold (and building up our economy) until the techers for the next round of techs are decided.

The techs in the next round should be (in rough order of importance) :

Currency
Code of Laws
Calendar
Construction
Feudalism
Metal Casting
Aesthetics

and the techers should be...

Carthage
DIM
Us
Krill
Babylon
Malinese
England

Perfect match 7 for 7. Who wants to match them up

[WarriorKnight]

and the techers should be...

Us

The only thing I can see us going for is aesthetics. Everything else is too expensive and/or needs to be researched ASAP.

Feudalism needs monarchy, which isn't in for 10 turns. So that should be there instead and raised a little higher. Otherwise looks good.

Diplo wise, just sent this out:

Greetings all

As you may be aware, Iron working is due next turn. Feel free to request it whenever during the turn and we will accept it when we can.

Enough Talking!
WarriorKnight of A4

It's best for us to not draw attention to our sad economy. Best thing to do is probably save cash while heading to aesthetics.

[WarriorKnight]

T71:

IW in. We have iron 3S of pig. Not the best news but we do have copper and horses so it doesn't matter that much.

We get 8 gold per turn at 0%. Not only that, we still have 2 more cities to found.

I would like to object to some things about our plan here. Firstly, we have 4 unit costs with 2 axes coming in soon. We are also 2nd in power right now. I think we have enough military until T100 so we should do any more ATM ( not for the near future anyway).

Also, I know HG is important, but we are chopping while we are broke and we should be cottaging. I don't know what we could do (maybe build research or gold when currency comes in?) but I just don't agree with what we are doing ATM.

Also found this regarding DIM worker exchange:

I need to check our micro, but I think you could pick up the Worker around T75-76, probably from our Horse city (SW from our capital)

If we have to go pick it up at T75 from their horse, then it won't be able to help with the gold site. Maybe head to Nemedia to help there and Nemedia could train another one for gold?