RBP3 [Spoilers] Capac of Mali

[dsplaisted]

It's possible that the Incan Axe is 1SE of the hill you suggest moving Black onto. If that's the case, I don't think we'll be able to see it before moving onto that hill. Plus, Black has 7/10 XP, so it might be worth heading NE to get another XP out of that barb warrior.

In Sirian, we need 1 extra base hammer for 1 turn to finish the Pyramids in 3 turns. Next turn Chrissie could start a mine on the roaded grass hill tile. Cyrinda and Jana would move towards that tile, and on turn 104 finish a mine there. So on turn 104 we could fire the engineer and work the new mine, and finish the Pyramids on turn 105.

This plan "wastes" two worker turns, but at this point we have a bunch of workers and our cities are pretty well improved, so it seems worth it to me. What do you think?

We were planning on double-whipping a catapult in Blake on t105, but now that we have Machinery, what do you think about whipping a Maceman instead?

You had suggested waiting until we grow to size 7 to whip a Settler in Uberfish. I think we should switch to a Settler there now and whip it next turn. We can bring Jack down from Peak District to make sure there are no barbs in the area.

[Swiss Pauli]

No problem about switch to a Mace in Blake, but we need the workers to get started on Iron city, so the point about 'spare workers' isn't really valid. If we're shy of 1 base hammer in the next 3 turns then we could wait and see if we get a (highly unlikely) forest growth before reconfiguring for the extra hammer. Are you sure it's not a rounding problem this turn? (I've not checked this.)

I'd still like to whip Uberfish at size 7: we're in a race to Music for the GA so I'd rather have one more citizen to whip away, unless whipping at size 7 would also allows instant growback to size 4.

The problem we have in moving Jack south to fogbust is that it would expose Sticky & Uberfish to much more potential barb intrusion, with no spare units in the area to deal with them. He wouldn't actually bust that much fog this turn either because of the hills in the area.

Not sure what relevance that Inca axe has to Black moving 2SE. Do you not want Inca to know we have a sentry chariot?

[dsplaisted]

Not sure what relevance that Inca axe has to Black moving 2SE. Do you not want Inca to know we have a sentry chariot?

The issue is the Axe could attack Black if we move next to it.

[dsplaisted]

What turn were you thinking of revolting to Representation on? The turn we finish the Pyramids, the turn we finish Music, or some other turn?

[dsplaisted]

Well, I think I need to go ahead and end the turn so I went ahead and made some decisions

I moved Black towards the barb Warrior so we can get him to 8XP. I switched Uberfish to a Settler which can be whipped next turn. It will grow back to size 4 on turn 106. We may need to build research in Sirian in order to finish Music on turn 108, but I don't see a problem with that.

[dsplaisted]

T104 partial: Finished chopping the Jungle on the gems, and switched Ruby Tuesday to work that tile (2/0/3).

A barb Axe showed up NW of Blake's horses. It will likely move onto the horses next turn, and Lucky Maya will be healed and ready to whack it. Then the Skirmisher which just finished at Blake can head NW to handle fogbusting/MP duty for the Iron city.

The barb Warrior moved onto the forest, I suggest that Black moves 1W of it in order to kill it next turn. Poison Ivy is all healed up, so she can head towards Kalin's Burgers to get a peek in there.

[Swiss Pauli]

Whipped the settler at Uberfish and juggled tiles at Stick Fingers to keep Music to 4 turns. Moved Jack in to help fogbust because of the axe popping up outside Blake and thus delaying the new skirmisher's move towards Iron City:



Shuffled units at Ruby to protect workers and to fogbust between it and Blake. Moved L'Wren into the jungle at SirianFish which she should cottage. (It was too risky to move her onto the forest S of the Iron.)

[Swiss Pauli]

T100 Review

Cities:



Nice 3rd ring chop




Working cottages that Sirian will take back once the Mids are in, and the settler is whipped out at




Even Blake can work a cottage occasionally.




Getting a wee bit squished, but it was expected. England taking this spot was unthinkable but whilst we know they don’t like it, it doesn’t steal (m)any tiles from their core cities.



Spot the mistake? For some reason, there’s no T100 pic for Paint It Brown, but it’s not as if it’s changed much in two turns



Almost paid for itself thanks to one-way trade routes with Maya (who have not unfogged the necessary river tiles).


Vital Statistics

Some deeply unimpressive numbers in here:



GNP – just below average, but at 70% research and with our uncultured ways, it’s all killer no filler Actual T100 numbers are: 126 beakers, -44gpt at 100%, and 71 gpt at 0%. So while our beaker skew is better in absolute terms than our gold skew, we’re relatively strong in gold production (England produces 45gpt at 0%). Shame we’re teching for PAT right now really

Production – as you can see from our city shots, we don’t have many hammer heavy sites right now, so most of our production is coming from the whip.

Food – we’ve slipped down the league a bit here: other civs are catching up with our 6 cities.

Land – we’re not CRE, we’re running overlap, and we’re irreligious. Nuff said.

Pop – this is skewed against us because of the weighting given to big cities, but we’re suffering a little from our long-cramped happiness, and also from regular whippings.


Units

We have 9 workers for 6 cities which is reasonable, given we’re regular whippers, and our cramped happiness has actually forced us to focus more on worker than infrastructure.

Our army is barely worth the name, and costs us 6gpt in upkeep and 1gpt supply. Essentially, we have a few garrison skirmishers, some chariots to whack barbs and a couple of garrison warriors. Not a bad kill ratio so far:



Diplomacy

We had quite a long period without contact, and just when we seemed to be putting together a decent little tech group (England, Bablyon, Maya, Byz, Mali) England got seduced by CAN. This forced us to form Heracles, but this was doomed given the folly of Sumeria’s Alpha gambit. Thanks to Babylon, we were able to jump ship to CAN, which mutated into PAT when Ottomans (and HRE), India (and Portugal) were booted out for putting their interests way ahead of the group.

We’ve drifted apart from Babylon through lack of time from both sides. Frankly, I barely have the time to keep up contact with PAT civs, let alone those in CUDDLE. Though there’s a bit of jostling for position in PAT, it seems fairly solid, with full tech sharing and close co-op on group goals. CUDDLE seems a little less socialist: India made a solo play for Great Library (and failed), techs aren’t always shared as soon as they’re researched. Our closest hostile border area is with Inca, though Rome isn’t so far to the southeast of the flooplains area.

Quo Vadis?

So that’s the bare bones of the story so far, but what’s next for Mali?

We’re planning 3 more core cities:



White dot will be a very strong production city. We’ll probably chop out a library to pop borders (unless England can deliver a missionary very soon which seems unlikely) then granary, mint, barracks. We might found a filler city as indicated, but that won’t be for a good while yet.



Black dot will be another very strong production city, though it has to get a border to pop to access its own food.

Red dot is a commerce beast though the location is somewhat vulnerable given it’s not on a hill. One possible plan for the site would be to bomb it with the Music Great Artist to claim the entire floodplains are for ourselves

Aside from settling new cities, we need to seriously increase our military production. Blake alone can’t meet our needs so Sirian will have to start training units once its finished with the Pyramids. Iron City will also focus on military, but it will need time to get up to speed.

Catapults and Maces have a decent lifespan, so these should be the mainstay of our army until Knights arrive on the scene, interspersed with the occasional garrison Skirmisher (I think we should avoid Feudalism until Guilds because a Longbow is twice the hammers for a unit that is only 50% stronger).

[Swiss Pauli]

T105 Partial Report

The two barbs were successfully whacked, and Black was given 2XP for his fight, so we're now just 1 shy of Heroic Epic Unfortunately, another axe popped up 1SE of Paint It Brown, so I'd suggest moving Bill to block him/force a cross-river attack. The question is whether to promote him or not...



Seeing as we didn't 'pop one' at Sirian, I reassigned one citizen to the plains river tile to complete Pyramids next turn. Sticky Fingers is working a cottage rather than the farm as it will grow in 3 either way. Blake & Paint It Brown were whipped, and Gems mine completed at Ruby Tuesday. We also have two turns in a cottage there that the miners can complete next turn, whilst the other two workers start to farm the wheat (borders pop at the end of this turn).

Cyrinda is unmoved: she could head into the forest S of the Iron to road it, or could improve Sirian/Uberfish.

Ronnie is also unmoved because I'm unsure of a game mechanic: he could either move N to fogbust one more tile for Iron City settling. This would be a safe move if border pops happen before barb generation; if not, he would be too far away if the barb pops up from the fog 2 tiles from the city. Anyone know how this works?

EDIT: that Inca chariot in the pic doesn't have sentry

EDIT: requested 100g from Maya to fund 2t of research.

EDIT: we got Judaism in Sirian. Founded by Krill, it won't have a shrine early (that will be Hinduism).

[dsplaisted]

If we put Bill on the farm to defend against the Axe, he'll only have roughly even odds to win the fight (with the river crossing his strength should be 4 + 25%=5, and the first strikes will tip things slightly in his favor). So if we do put him there I think we should upgrade him to C1/Shock. It still won't guarantee that he'll win, but he should have good odds.

If we don't move Bill onto the Farm, Lucky Maya could attack the Axe next turn. She's at 1.6/4 health (and won't heal any interturn since she moved this turn), but we could upgrade her to shock which would heal her some. I'm not sure how much it would heal her or what the odds on attacking the Axe would be after the upgrade. If we can figure out that she'll have good odds we might want to leave Bill where he is, otherwise we should move Bill and upgrade him.

I suggest that Cyrinda move onto the hill 1S of the wheat that Lady Jane is on and road it. This will create a direct route between Blake and the Iron City.

I'm not sure about the end of turn mechanics but I would think that border pops happen before barb generation/moving.