RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Sullla]

Couldn't log into the game this morning because Speaker was already in there. I'll take a look tonight.

[Speaker]

I'm done.

[Sullla]

Falling behind on the turns ago; I'll post on yesterday's turn first, and then today's turn a little later today:



We planted a new city this turn on the northwest island, which Speaker named Big Bethel. I don't get the reference on that one, but it's a strong city, with wheat + rice + crabs + horses + marble. We'll probably turn this into a production city/naval base, and let Vicksburg act as more of a hybrid commerce city (since it has the double incense resources). In terms of city micro, Big Bethel is working the 2/2/2 Golden Age plains farm this turn, building 4 units of culture with the center tile's 2 production. Then next turn, we swap it over to the 0/5/2 plains hill tile, for another 7 culture and a border expansion. Nice easy way to expand borders and let our workers start farming that wheat tile!

Since we're down to just 10 turns before our planned war, we should start getting some of our units into position. Speaker, let's try to use our new galley to move 4 knights over to this island, landing them on the east side of the island where they won't be visible. Then we want to sit our two galleys on the red tile. If we keep them there for a while, not moving or doing anything, they won't look suspicious to Kathlete. Then we can load on Turn 205, and move and attack on Turn 206, attacking Alderaan directly out of the ship or landing and attacking, depending on what's inside the city. Pretty easy to do, but we should get started with it now, right?



Planning the same thing over by Fort Donelson, with respect to Dagobah. We also want to ferry over some more knights here (however many you think appropriate, Speaker) and two additional workers, for 4 total. Once we finish the banana plantation, I'll road the jungle tile in red, and we can use it as a staging tile. Does Kathlete have visibility there (?) It's behind jungle terrain, but he has peaks within his borders, so I think he can see over the jungle to that tile.

Anyway, it probably doesn't matter that much either way. That tile will be within our borders, and any units we station there will look to be a defensive force, like the Praetorian we can see on the borders of Nakor's land. Then we use 4 Fast Workers to double-road through the jungle, and hit Dagobah when the war starts. No chance to gift the city away to Nakor in silly cheese fashion!

For these logistical reasons, I think we should use the overflow from Chikaumauga's temple build on a second galley for the inner sea. We might need to shuffle units back and forth rapidly if Nakor declares war on us, and it just seems a prudent move. Also note that Kathlete razed the barb city on the eastern corner of the center island (using two janissaries!) which is probably a good sign. I thought he would capture the place, although maybe it was auto-razed.

Our Sentry horse archer should be able to watch the defense inside Dagobah across that lake, and let us know exactly how many attackers we need to bring on the first turn of the war. Awsome unit positioning, Speaker.



Checked the defense at Corulag, and Kathlete has... one longbow, as expected. It's a shame that we can't hit this city quickly with Mounted units; we'll have to come through here with the slow-movers after we take out Cloud City, Bothawui, and Hoth at the outset of the war. We'll figure it out as we go along - probably will be a lot more than one longbow by the time we get here!

Three techs discovered this turn by other teams: Meditation (hehe) from plako, Engineering by Dantski, and Philosophy from Kathlete. Looks like Kathlete will probably be going for Nationalism next, which will cause some problems, unfortunately. Gonna take him quite some time to get there, however, with his treasury currently sitting on 0 gold and Nationalism being a very expensive tech to research at this stage of the game. We, on the other hand, will have Gunpowder next turn, and should have Military Tradition done in 3 turns after that (T201) even with the Golden Age coming to a close. Then we have some fun.

One last thing: any ideas on what to say about this, Speaker? Other than "no"?

Hello Killer Angels,

Thanks for your response. I understand your position. There just isn't
a lot of payoff for you to help me out right now.

I didn't look closely at the resource screen but judging by the map I
think I've hooked up pretty much every resource they have on the map
(apart from those yet to be revealed). If you notice I'm missing a
happiness resource that you have any extra's of I sure could use it
though.

Regarding map trades I'd be happy to provide you my maps again,
providing we can lengthen our NAP? Perhaps another 20 turns out so to
T225 (inclusive)? How does that sound?

Athlete
The Rebel Alliance

[Sullla]

I saw this too:

Dear Sullla and Speaker,

In contrary to an agreement we made, we noticed that you guys are spending EP on us again.
Is this a mistake or a deliberate action?

We hope to hear your clarification soon, else we might be forced to spend our EP on you again.

Regards,
Nakor

OK, Speaker - please don't mess with the espionage settings. I just saw that you changed our spending over to Nakor. We promised diplomatically not to spend points against one another. Umm, this makes us look bad in the eyes of the other teams. And we don't need more points against Nakor because we already had visibility on his research (by the way, now we DON'T have visibility on Kathlete's research because you swapped us off spending against the Ottomans). If you want to change the espionage stuff, at least let me know, OK?

[Speaker]

OK, Speaker - please don't mess with the espionage settings. I just saw that you changed our spending over to Nakor. We promised diplomatically not to spend points against one another. Umm, this makes us look bad in the eyes of the other teams. And we don't need more points against Nakor because we already had visibility on his research (by the way, now we DON'T have visibility on Kathlete's research because you swapped us off spending against the Ottomans). If you want to change the espionage stuff, at least let me know, OK?

I did let you know several days ago, right after I did it.

One last thing: any ideas on what to say about this, Speaker? Other than "no"?

I guess an audio recording of my laughing hysterically would be inappropriate?

[Adlain]

I guess an audio recording of my laughing hysterically would be inappropriate?

i donno, it would be funny to send that just as you war dec them

[antisocialmunky]

I guess an audio recording of my laughing hysterically would be inappropriate?

http://instantcrickets.com/

[Sullla]

A couple pictures from a relatively unexciting turn:



Here's our original core chugging along in Golden Age mode. Speaker wanted a couple of double-promoted muskets for defensive purposes, so that's why we're building the units there (although I successfully lobbied to swap Fredericksburg over to a missionary build after this picture was taken). Next turn will be the last of our Golden Age, then we'll pull our big civic swap and start drafting some units.

As the builds indicate, we discovered Gunpowder tech, and no other teams discovered anything this turn. Military Tradition due in 3t even with the Golden Age ending. Great Person due in 2t from Spartansburg, this time with only 4% Artist odds. Anything else would be good: Merchant (50%) for knight -> cuirassier upgrades, Scientist (25%) to lightbulb Printing Press, Engineer (12%) to knock out most of Statue of Liberty, Prophet (9%) for our shrine. What we get will probably determine our next tech after Military Tradition.

I'm going to be really pissed if we get a 4% Great Artist!



Over the course of this Golden Age, we've sure built a lot of temples and monasteries, eh? I think we had 1 monastery (in Gettysburg) back before we built Apostolic Palace. Those buildings are together producing 34 shields/turn, not even counting production bonuses from forges and Organized Religion. They should pay for themselves pretty fast.

This screen is a little screwy, because it only counts "buildings constructed", and therefore all the granaries which were already present when we captured cities are not included. Ah well, close enough. I like the 3409 hours played so far!

Mostly, Speaker and I are trying to shuffle some units around and prepare for our upcoming attack. We think that we have a good shot to capture/raze 6 Ottoman cities in the opening turns of the war (3 on the mainland, 2 on the western island, and 1 on the center island). That would leave Kathlete with their core of 10 cities, and while it will be a tough fight slogging our way through that, Kathlete's not going to be able to hold out against our superior technology and production. Especially not with slaze still attacking with a large (if outdated) military from the other direction.

Diplomatically:

- We sent an apology to Nakor for the mixup in Espionage spending.

- Dantski and plako sent out some group messages today about renewing/extending an NAP with Nakor. We had the idea to include ourselves in that discussion, and send off a proposal for a 3-team NAP to Nakor encompassing India, Korea, and Romali. If he's foolish enough to sign that, we'd have a blank check to go destroy Kathlete. Since Nakor has shied away from contact at every opportunity in this game, we might be able to pull that off. Let's see what happens.

- Asked plako if they would send us 3 caravels in exchange for the 3 knights that we gifted them earlier. We could get a ton of use out of some caravels (wonderful scouts, can enter enemy territory without OP!), and it's a fair request since caravels are significantly cheaper than knights. Would allow us to skip Optics tech for a while longer, so hopefully they'll accept.

- Had to respond to Kathlete, and couldn't do the laugh track, so...

Dear Rebel Alliance,

Thanks very much, but we are not interested in signing a new NAP at this time.

Cheers,
Sullla
The Killer Angels

[Darkmantle]

I noticed that you have some grassland next to Chancellorville that hasn't been developed. Is it just because you stuck Chancellorville onto production mode before the population was large enough?

[Speaker]

I noticed that you have some grassland next to Chancellorville that hasn't been developed. Is it just because you stuck Chancellorville onto production mode before the population was large enough?

Yes. We should definitely fix that at some point here, though with the war buildup, I doubt we will. It is actually some of the only wasted land (probably about 10 tiles total) in our whole empire. But it just goes to show you that you shouldn't plan on needing the whole 21 BFC for every city. It is a rare circumstance that allows it in every city. Even if you have as much happiness as we do, health and amount of food is a huge mitigating factor. It would simply take forever to grow all our cities to size 20.