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

[RefSteel]

I think my preference would be to send the Taoist missionary to HV.

PR = Jewish Monastery (so we have one place that can make missionaries if we swap from OR)

For the reasons mentioned above, I'm not convinced we want non-Hindu monasteries at this point. I'm especially not enthused about putting one in PR before we even have Hinduism (for the hammer bonus) in the city. I do notice that we don't have any siege machinery in our kingdom. If we plan to plant green dot, PR might want to build a Cat or two at least, to help with the defense. If we don't want to bother with siege until cannons, I'd rather have it build Missionaries now than a Monastery whose only use will be to let us build them later.

Temminck = University?

I think so. Depending on what tiles they each have available, I think I would let Temminck grow, using at least one of the fp farms it shares with FS if this can be done without pulling it off of cottages or resource tiles. I *would* pull it off the gold, but not if we're hoping to shave the last fractional turn off of economics. (No idea if we can; I just saw you say in an e-mail that we were hoping to do so.) The university and grocer will both be whipped, but I don't know which should come first, or when. (I'm not sure what Temminck and FS look like right now exactly.)

Feng Shui = Bhuddist Monastery?

As mentioned above, I'd rather build missionaries than monasteries. We can whip one or two of the latter shortly before we get Scientific Method if needed. In particular, I'd suggest a Hindu Missionary (NOT Buddhist) out of FS soon if we can fit it in. (Like Temminck, it also wants a grocer and a university, but neither is *quite* as urgent as at Temminck.)

Kilrah = ... Maybe the next 9 turns making 6 pikes? I think we should make these while we can.

If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, we've got two knights so far, right? If we're founding green dot, I'd say probably Pike - Knight - Cat or two? (if PR isn't building them) - Pike - Pike - More Pikes until we can build Cuiraiosities. If we're not founding Green, I'd suggest just Pikes (with maybe some cats still mixed in) but I'd suggest starting with a couple of Hindu buildings, and then I'd duck while you throw things at me.

[Maniac Marshall]

Had a second chat with Kyan and Bob from Byz earlier, the intent being to try to bet Byz to join PAT. The mission failed. Byz keeps holding out this idea that the 3 of us, Mali, India, and Portugal can break away and form an new alliance... Which sounds great in theory, except I think we'd get killed. The 3 norther PAT civs know both how dangerous a tehcer we are, and how weak we are militarily, something we only get away with because of our NAP's frankly.

One interesting thing that came up, however was this: Kyan says his 3 best friends are Us, Byz, and Mali. He feels he can't win, that Byz can't win, and that MAli can't win either, but he thinks we CAN, and all but pledged himself as our vasal going forward if we keep going the way we're going. According to him, our civ is the "Gem of the game" right now, only no one has realized it.

[Maniac Marshall]

I think my preference would be to send the Taoist missionary to HV.

OK, I'm not going to ask why, but I trust your judgment.

For the reasons mentioned above, I'm not convinced we want non-Hindu monasteries at this point. I'm especially not enthused about putting one in PR before we even have Hinduism (for the hammer bonus) in the city.

My thinking there was just that we needed ONE of these, and that somewhere that could make a missionary every other turn if needed would be a good spot. I suppose it can wait, however. (Where is Sirian to say "What can wait, should wait?")

I do notice that we don't have any siege machinery in our kingdom. If we plan to plant green dot, PR might want to build a Cat or two at least, to help with the defense. If we don't want to bother with siege until cannons, I'd rather have it build Missionaries now than a Monastery whose only use will be to let us build them later.

Agree that we should make some cats. That was next on my list after the monastery for PR.

I think so. Depending on what tiles they each have available, I think I would let Temminck grow, using at least one of the fp farms it shares with FS if this can be done without pulling it off of cottages or resource tiles. I *would* pull it off the gold, but not if we're hoping to shave the last fractional turn off of economics. (No idea if we can; I just saw you say in an e-mail that we were hoping to do so.) The university and grocer will both be whipped, but I don't know which should come first, or when. (I'm not sure what Temminck and FS look like right now exactly.)

The extra tile the Temminck would be working is a plains farm. Pulling off the gold is not an option atm for the reasons you discussed above. We're within 40 beakers now, but, may lose some with the whippings. However, waiting 2 turns will let us whip it to exactly regrow 1 pop without borrowing the FP farm, and, after consideration, I don't want it to drop that far in pop, so I prefer to wait.

The extra tile that FS will be working is a grass hill mine or possibly the cottage it shares with HV. While I'm not terribly worried about the pop drop there, it will similarly exactly grow back, and hey, the hammers are nice.

As mentioned above, I'd rather build missionaries than monasteries. We can whip one or two of the latter shortly before we get Scientific Method if needed. In particular, I'd suggest a Hindu Missionary (NOT Buddhist) out of FS soon if we can fit it in. (Like Temminck, it also wants a grocer and a university, but neither is *quite* as urgent as at Temminck.)

If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, we've got two knights so far, right?

One. The 2nd got delayed. It completes this turn.

If we're founding green dot, I'd say probably Pike - Knight - Cat or two? (if PR isn't building them) - Pike - Pike - More Pikes until we can build Cuiraiosities. If we're not founding Green, I'd suggest just Pikes (with maybe some cats still mixed in) but I'd suggest starting with a couple of Hindu buildings, and then I'd duck while you throw things at me.

JANK's military is atrocious. Worse than ours by far...I think... I'm going to do this - Cats at PR. Pikes at Kilrah. Settler to Green... ugh... You know, we need a settler to head to Savannah in aproximately 15 turns or we'lld have to fight for that wheat...Perhaps we shouldn't have planted Red Dwarf yet... This needs some thought...

[RefSteel]

OK, I'm not going to ask why, but I trust your judgment.

Please always ask why. That way, one of us learns something, and I get to find out if I'm insane. My reason for wanting it at HV is just that I foresee HV getting everything it needs via the whip, and being able to whip (or even build, thanks to its hindu buildings and possible engineer) missionaries in short order when needed. Or even a monastery at some point. The capital is even faster as long as we're in bureaucracy, even without the whip, but I suspected it would want to build other stuff for some time to come. (First Sankore, then catching up on infrastructure - grocer, etc. - then hopefully Oxford...). PR would be a good choice too, except that it already has a non-Hindu religion, and too much risk of a spread failure for either Tao OR Hindu would be annoying.

(Where is Sirian to say "What can wait, should wait?")

Indeed!

I agree with your thoughts on delaying the whips at Temminck and FS.

JANK's military is atrocious. Worse than ours by far...I think... I'm going to do this - Cats at PR. Pikes at Kilrah. Settler to Green... ugh... You know, we need a settler to head to Savannah in aproximately 15 turns or we'lld have to fight for that wheat...Perhaps we shouldn't have planted Red Dwarf yet... This needs some thought...

I think our limiting factor is workers. (If PR can use Cat-based overflow to build some, that would be neat.) A little ways back, I wrote:

Note that we can get ANOTHER one-turn settler out of HV (regardless of where the first one goes) about 7-8 turns after the first, though working merchants might delay things a bit.

I think we can have two more one-turn settlers (NOT counting the one already planned) out of HV, with the second completed by turn 148. The timing of the first one (and whether I'm right altogether) depends on the effect of merchants on the city's growth curve. (I haven't spreadsheeted it yet.) That said, Savannah WILL be competing for its BFC with Ruby Tuesday's third ring; the question is now just which city gets a head start, and how much of one. All of our next three cities are going to be ... interesting!

[Maniac Marshall]

All of our next three cities are going to be ... interesting!

More fun that way :neenernee For their part, Mali won't be fighting us for that wheat since they can't work it... I think we can manage it. It's a junk city anyhow compared to most of our other locations. And I missed the TWO (Thats one MORE than one as T-Hawk said in a particularly memorable Civ 3 always war epic report) more settlers. We need to come up for air and stop for a while at that point. That's 12 cities. We have 4 more sites, though 3 of them are complete filler.

Question on the future iron site. Should we bother trying to make it a national park site?

[RefSteel]

You didn't miss the "two." It wasn't there in the first post. The first post projected *one* by hopefully T140-141. But, yeah, we should be able to get two by T148, I think. (Not sure about growth with those merchants is the only thing. Depends on when (and what) tile improvements go on those last two fps. Running growth tiles instead of engineers will help, for what it's worth.)

One other thing, partly contradicting what I said about Kilrah: Our existing Hindu monasteries will all pay for themselves, but new ones are questionable. Their hammer bonus (and Sankore beaker bonus) disappears when we get SciMeth. (Temples and Mandirs keep the bonus until Mass Media though). So, I suspect we do NOT want a Hindu monastery in Kilrah, nor (probably) anywhere else that doesn't have one already. Temples are a different story, obviously. They'll pay for their own hammers ~27 turns after completion, and even at this game's ludicrous tech pace, Mass Media is a lot more than 27 turns away. Plus of course there's the happy, and the beakers if we land Sankore.

On Incan military weakness: The issue isn't that we might lose a full-scale war to them, but that we want to ensure we don't suffer an opportunistic attack. Total power isn't necessarily relevant to a border skirmish. What matters is units available in-theater. Also, our total power includes Miltrad and stuff, so....

[EDIT: The iron site is a while down the road. In answer to your question ... I'm not sure. At all events, I have to go; have a great weekend; I'll probably be back sometime Sunday morning/afternoon (US PDT) though a brief appearance Saturday night is possible.]

[EDIT 2: One last thing. I think we may have to come up for air SOONER. I don't think we have the workers to support all those cities, and green still seems like a ridiculous stretch to me. I'd go for the western site next and let HV grow and whip its infrastructure and run merchants and things.]

[Maniac Marshall]

Believe it or not, PAT may have sci meth in less than 20 turns, though we do NOT have to take it (nor research it)

The tech pace could be worse... You never played unpatched/very early patch deity Civ 3, where your build order in some cities could look something like this: Warrior -> Grainery ->Settler/Worker -> Factory -> Space Ship Part.

[RefSteel]

believe it or nbot, PAT may have sci meth in less than 20 turns, though we do NOT have to take it (nor research it)

I know. We'll need it to receive or research the techs it opens up, but probably needn't take it immediately, which is why I estimate HV's Hindu Monastery will pay for itself but anything later won't. And I guess I should've put those edits here. Have a good weekend!

[Maniac Marshall]

See you Sunday! (BTW, if it's a few hammers short of paying for itself, I don't care. It's beakers. If its 30 hammers short, I care...)

[Maniac Marshall]

I've played turn 130. I just want to confirm with you guys that this is the best spot to put green dot.



There is obviously a lot to be said for 1SW of the sign, but that's an awful lot of overlap, and, I believe we told Ruff we would not fight him over those spices, so I suggest not.

The other two possibilities are 1W of the sign, which effectively trades a desert hill and 4 floodplains, for a desert, 2 floodplains, an overlapped floodplain, and a river grass, but has the advantage of having the sugar immediately in range (ok, this is likely useless), and being closer in for maintenance and defense, or 1SE, which has the major advantages of being on a river and minimizing overlap and trading some desert hills for plains ones, but has the major disadvantages of having more desert, less flood plains, and being waaaay out there for maintenence and defense.

Unless I hear objections, I'm going to plant it where the sign is. If you have objections, please dont hesitate.