RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

Could you at least generally tell me what you were planning? After Sunday I'm not going to be doing any more planning either for at least 2 weeks.

[Maniac Marshall]

Fine with me. As long as I'm not the one planning around it.

Fine with me if we don't. Just keep in mind that we won't have another GP for a zillion years then, because there IS nowhere else to run specialists unless you'd like to keep running them in Temminck. Personally, I'd rather work 2 mined desert hills there and make some hammers than to keep running scientists there. Not saying thats the BEST option there, working more cottages likely is, just saying it's BETTER.

Not sure what we'd do with another one anyway unless it would be build another academy or do a trade mission with England for cash if we got a merchant. Both help the alliance a lot more than us directly anyhow. So yeah, bad idea, lets forget about it.

Sounds great if we have any place to build it. I saw the e-mail where you're talking about building it at the capital. If so, we should probably whip the settler for Smithsonian Park (Orange Dot) to overflow into it.

Agree. I'd be in favor of getting a second settler out of there first even. I don't think it's going to be a hotly contested wonder and if someone wants it in a big hurry, great, they can have it.

We'd have to scrounge up a missionary from somewhere for Smithsonian too.

Worst case scenario, we could build culture to pop the boarders.

It would also be nice to have some workers to send up there. Maniac and I disagree about the urgency of getting new cities (in comparison with e.g. more workers) but I'm happy to defer to him and leave the planning to others, as I won't have time to build a complete plan anyway. I realize now that my plans for Ornata and Smithsonian Park are pretty much irrelevant, since the plan for every city depends on every other. Everything depends on the number of workers we have available for each city, and when they become available, which in turn depends on when improvements are needed/completed at other cities, which depends on city growth, which depends....

See, here we go again. I'm not going to be able to do planning after Sunday till the middle of July. I've already spent so much time on this game the last two weeks that I DIDN'T HAVE, that I hope I don't make a complete fool out of myself next weekend. In any event, I should just leave the planning to you, because I suck at it, but, here is my (I'm sure) incorrect opinion.

Yes, I think when we're 2-3 cities behind everyone else, it becomes a problem. Other PAT members are worried about our members all falling behind as well. Krill even suggested we "bite the bullet and whip a couple settlers" the other day (although he was suggsting that as much because he wants us to put cities in Byz's face as much as anything). Every turn a city is in existence, it generates some food/hammers/culture/coinage. I know it isn't much, and you for sure don't want to screw over other cities by having them work a bunch of unimproved tiles, but you do have to balance things a bit.

You have, IMO, done a spectacular job with developing the cities we have currently, and that's because we've managed to stay near a 2:1 ratio for workers. We should do our best to keep that up for as long as possible. If we need some workers, we could whip one/two each at Temminck and FS and maybe HV. Those cities grow very fast. No, it's not ideal to whip them, but if we have to, then we have to. I for sure don't think we're CURRENTLY desperate for workers. Eleven for 6 cities at the pace this game is going is NOT gimp, especially for a non expansive civ.

IMO, We should try to finish settling the south asap after planing SP. That would be the Marble/Wheat/Silks site by Byz, Savannah (before Mali's city pops 2nd ring), and, if we're going to settle it, Green dot. After THAT, I think we can take as long as we like to settle the sites in the north. (Ref)Steel Claws, Red River Valley, Lyons, and Violet Dot are all non contested/non pressured at all sites. I have also pretty much gotten an OK from Krill for the rice site, and all the other.

I do worry a bit, especially so when the land is drying up for most people, other civs will start saying "I know we told Maya they could have the site, but since they don't seem to want to settle it, we're going to." We're not exactly declaring war on anyone with this military to enforce our claim...

In any case, at this point, if you're serious about not doing the planning anymore and for the record, I'm DEAD serious about being done with doing the planning for about 2 months after this weekend. Not saying I won't make SUGGESTIONS but I won't be the one making micro plans, then, really, we should probably just let Morgan take over the decision making from here on out.

BTW: I can and want to stay involved in the diplomacy. However, Morgan, you should feel free to jump in as much as you feel comfortable with doing right now.

[Maniac Marshall]

Well, here's a lovely 1AD update.

Here's a loo at our civ as it stands now.




As you can see, happiness is a bit of an issue at Feng Shui temporarily because we have gifted our gold to the DJ's as we promised. This was done to secure the gold site, and hopefully some goodwill from the DJ's. I think darrell genuinely sees us as friends. Not sure about rego. We might have let ourselves get fleeced a bit in this deal, but hey, we DID raze one of their cities, a crime for which we never really repaid them. Yes, we gave them MC, but they allowed us to research it. It WAS their tech to research originally.

Anyhow, back on the subject of Feng Shui. It's brush with unhappy is just temporary. Next turn, it will benefit from the spices being hooked up. The turn after that, it gets hinduism. Not long after that, it gets a forge for 2 additional happy points.

The bigger concern going forward is health. Temminck is smack up against that now, and as you can see, 2 other cities are nearing the "danger point" as well. Temminck is working on an aqueduct off an on... I would suspect we will need to look into grocers at some point as well, both for the extra health, and for the coinage... we're not going to be able to research at 100% forever, so...

Anyway, here is a more indepth look at our cities.



You can see what the current build queue has in store for the next few turns. What you see is what you get here, with an additional Missionary and a settler started in between. If we can get some stone in about 10 turns, we're considering building the University of Sankore here over about 8 turns. I dono, we might instead just want to build more military. It's hard to say that far ahead. I don't expect anyone else to be hot after this wonder, but then, there are only 2 civs that get hammers out of religious buildings that are also doing research: Us, and Carthage. Now, maybe Ottos or Portu is building monastaries and temples and would want it, but I highly doubt it.

I'm not longer really convinced we needed the mace because we're finally getting a real sentry net up . Oh well, there are still a few barb trickle in points, so it can't hurt. And it does make us look a little more fearsome (more on that later)

It's swapping that hill in the SW back and forth with PR. Speaking of Pride Rock...




This city makes me a little sad because I had such high hopes for it and it's just kinda been... ok at best. I was expecting it to grow up and knock out a "real unit" every other turn, but a combination of the whip, and hill raiders from Fierias kinda made it lose it's way a bit. It might be making a bit of a comeback now, we'll see. It's finishing our very last chariot ever (because we'll have Guilds next turn) after which it'll build one of the two maces we'll ever build (Axe killing backup). The plan I had for it after that was to build Knights while the HE city built a couple crossbows, then pikes like crazy. I'll leave it to Morgan if that's the way he wants to keep going with military, or if he wants a different unit mix. Regardless, it should probably keep on military as much as possible, and we should get future settlers/workers elsewhere now.

Here's a city that has NOT dissappointed.



What a nice commerce city this has been so far. It's going to finish that GS on T119, which will make an academy in the cap to boost science by about 45gpt.

It's also set to generate a worker, a monastery, and a needed aquaduct over the next 10ish turns or so. The couple hammers into the pike are for emergency whipping, though, if India and their (we think) 30 HA came for that city, the one pike probably wouldn't matter much unfortunately.

Next up on the city tour is Feng Shui, or "happy cat"



This city grows like crazy, and generates commerce like crazy too! You'll note it's not working the gems this turn. Well, thats a makeup for the lack of funding one turn that caused our 3 move roads to come a turrn late, which, in turn, delayed the spiced getting hooked, which lead to a need of Furs from Carthage and a 1 food from growth dilema that could only be solved by working a 2 food tile instead of the 1 food gems for a turn. This turn was the one to do it anyhow, since we're saving cash for the liberalism run. It'll whip that forge soon, and whip a monastery soon too. The pike is, again, an emergency whip provision.



Ah, here is the city that will be called on to try to make the Friendly Kittens less of a Paper Tiger. Next turn (116) It's going to make good use of the Marble we're borrowing from Kyan. It's going to tripple chop the HE. The plan after that called for it to build 2 crossbows in case we needed units to take care of maces... I dono. I know I asked for these a while back but now... honestly, should we just build pikes? We wouldn't have to change the micro plan other than subbing the work Pikeman for Crossbowman. Pikes and Crossbows are bout 60 hammers I can't see anyone walking a stack of maces up to us. Seems it's all going to be about 2 move units. What do you think Morgan?

And finally...



Slave central. It'll whip the forge shortly. After that, it'll whip a monastery... trippling it's hammer production. I have no idea what the plan for it is after that. I'd thought maybe a library and then run 2 scientists, an engieneer and a priest and take what we got, but Ref seems to hate that idea with a passion, so I guess we won't do that. Possibly a barracks and a never ending supply of unit whipping is in the future for it? I know the IDEA was for it to be the globe site, but, we keep pushing theaters back... We'll probably have infantry before we could build globe. No idea. Someone who has time to figure this out can do so.

I have more screenies, but it's 2:30am, and I have to work tomorrow so the second half of the report will just have to wait till then.

******************
On a completely unrelated note: The turn rolled while I was typing this up, so I went ahead and played most of it. However, there is a new chariot in Pride Rock that is unmoved and unpromoted. We could use suggestions for it. I could see it going into the northwest wastelands to sentry, I could see it staying at home to slay barbs that get past the net, or I could see it being a medic. We DO have Gratha, the SE chariot, that can still take that promotion.

Another note: There is a barb warrior who will step onto the rice at Kilrah next turn. We want to kill him with the HOLKAN (99.6%) not the chariot, because that will get the Holk to 10XP, so he can be a C3/Formation badass.

That's all for tonite...

[Morgan]

Thank you for the detailed write up Manic, you've put alot of effort in to this game - you deserve a break.

Ref & Manic- can we get together for a chat sometime? Maybe today? I'll be flexible I'd like to know your near and medium term plans / ideas and where we want to be in 30 / 50/ 80 turns.

Land = power (usually), however settling has diplo recupassions in this game. It is certain we must settle 1 or 2 cities in the near future.

I look forward to talking later today.

[Maniac Marshall]

I'm about to grab 5hrs of sleep and then I have to go work a 10hr day. There is a CHANCE I could gchat tomorrow at work. Saturdays are unpredictable. I might be busty the entire day, or I might have some dead time around 10pm your time. If I can, I'll be there. My gmail should be obvious from the Friendly Kittens account.

If we can't connect tomorrow, I will be available Sunday whenever you like, just give me a time in GMT and I'll be there. Ref is currently out of town and has limited availability for the next few days I think. He's never available during the days on Saturday in any event. Our best bet to all get together would be Sunday.

I'm REALLY going to bed now...

[Maniac Marshall]

I expect you're asleep now, but I'm arround on my personal gmail at least somewhat. If you do happen to be around and you want to message me there, keep in mind I am at work, and so may be slow to respond.

For the lurkers, if there still are any (lurker thread hasn't been posted in like a month, but that may change with the impending war) the second half of the 1AD update will be posted in 5-7hrs or so.

[Maniac Marshall]

OK, now that I've been utterly destroyed by a combined attack from Shoot the Moon and Sunrise in an MP game, here's the rest of the update.

Here's a look at our civics...



No we're not in Monarchy... nothing against it, just with our lack of units, our multiple happy resources, and our 3 happy making forges, we've not needed it nor had a real use for it. It's certianlly not been worth revolting to yet. When we get another civic we want to adopt, we'll revolt to it of course.

Here's a look at our financial situation:



I really have nothing to add to that.

Here's our demographics:



OK, I jimmied that one a bit. I turned research on, even though we're spending 3 turns on cash until we can start on Liberalism. It's a bit more reflective of where we're at, since we're researching 95% of the time. Now that we have guilds, we're going t have to start thinking about grocers. Both for the health, and because we're not going to be funded forever. For a long time, yeah. Forever? No.

One thing I find rather humorous about the demographics is that we're #1 in pop, but #13/14 in land! Fear our urban sprawl?! (For the record, we're a very close 2nd to India in "real pop".

Here's a more graphic look at our progress vs some of the other nations.







And now, I saved the most alarming one for last.

Instead of "Friendly Kittens", we could call ourselves the "Paper Tigers" Now I know we're fortunate in that we have no enemies, and everyone we boarder in the other alliance we're NAP'd with and so our need of military has not been much so far... well, other than the unit's we've needed to slay a legion of Barbs heh... And with the tech moving at a lightning pace, we've not felt the need to build a lot of units that will obsolete quickly, however... At some point we're going to need some units just so we don't look like fresh meat. With at least 8 more sites negotiated, we don't need a big offensive military, but we're going to have to start pumping some defensive units now.

[RefSteel]

Could you at least generally tell me what you were planning? After Sunday I'm not going to be doing any more planning either for at least 2 weeks.

I'll try, but might not be able to resolve it into comprehensible language by the end of today, at which point.... (This is why we desperately need your help, Morgan. So, THANK YOU for coming on-board!)

Fine with me if we don't [get a GP from HV]. Just keep in mind that we won't have another GP for a zillion years then, because there IS nowhere else to run specialists unless you'd like to keep running them in Temminck. Personally, I'd rather work 2 mined desert hills there and make some hammers than to keep running scientists there. Not saying thats the BEST option there, working more cottages likely is, just saying it's BETTER.

Sorry - I put two mostly-disconnected things in the same sentence, after writing something (never +/- eternity) that even at the time, I realized was probably too strong for its amusement value to justify it. I'm actually fine with getting a GP out of Hukawng Valley if you think it's worth doing. I'm not going to be the one to plan around it because I don't have time to plan anything; it has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing. By the way: I would rather run two scientists (if they'll be contributing to the generation of a GS) than work 2 desert hill mines unless the city is above size 10 and we've had lots of GPs already. Desert hill mines are pretty awful, especially with our levels of happy (and most especially at Temminck, with its health issues). Though it took a while to realize it, a scientist was better than the desert hill gold mine there (at least once we got through the desperate get-us-back-in-the-game run to MC).

Not sure what we'd do with another one anyway unless it would be build another academy or do a trade mission with England for cash if we got a merchant. Both help the alliance a lot more than us directly anyhow.

Helping the alliance and helping us are the same thing -- especially with a GS (whether for a second academy, settling in the capital, or bulbing) -- no matter which alliance we may happen to be in. The value of a civ to its alliance in this game is vital to that civ's future ... especially when that civ has good relations with its alliance's enemies!

Worst case scenario, we could build culture to pop the boarders.

I'd want to get Hinduism there and build culture to pop the borders. Hinduism gives a 25% hammer bonus on chops in addition to everything else, and there's a limited amount of culture a new city can build each turn. I was hoping to chop the granary into either a library or a forge before the initial food box was half full, and we want the first border pops for the pigs (and another forest as I recall) ASAP.

See, here we go again.

No, this is just me miscommunicating again. When I say I'll defer to you, I mean it. When I say I won't be able to plan it, I mean it. By putting the two in the same sentence, I probably made it sound like these are linked, but they're not. They're just both true.

[Maniac Marshall]

Hmmm, well, never got an attempted chat time from Morgan. I'm going to go do stuff I need to do now. It is my intention to play one final turn either before bed, or at lunch tomorrow. After that, I likely wont be able to reliably turnplay for a while.

[Morgan]

Sorry Chaps, weekend and time differences conspired against the chat.

So to confirm, you'll play this current turn?

Edit - i logged on to have another poke around, set the build to X-Bow in the new HE city - no other actions completed. SmithS will be a good city, this and Red should be settled soonish. I'm have a bit of think and another look at the current plans.