[Spoilers] SavageMoogle of the Celts

[SleepingMoogle]

A belated report for Turn 57:



City 3 (Tolosa) was finally founded. Right now it's a bit isolated from the rest of the empire, but a Worker is busy building a road to link it up. With Stonehenge's free monument, it won't be long before the Copper resource is within its borders. Until then, the Worker will busy himself with farming the Corn.

Last night, I had a talk with Bobchillingworth and asked about his scout's position. Apparently he's currently on the southern edge of the center lake, so if we follow the shore, we should run into each other eventually.

There's not too much else to say right now. Vienne will have a second Archer to assist with defense next turn, and Bibracte will finish its Worker. I'm hoping that the barbs to the north and south will run into the Archers blocking their path, and give me some peace.

5 Turns until Iron Working finishes. Hopefully I'll have a native source of iron somewhere.

[Tatan]

Wow, some of those screenshots really drive home that you are on the very edge of the map. This map seems to have a lot of open, unclaimed land; at least that means more wacky Raging Highland Barbs Shenanigans !

What religions are you going to try to spread to each of your cities besides Buddhism? [Do you think spreading Judaism, Christianity, and any other religions you found will be worth it for the shrine income and temples/monasteries]?

And to finish up my grapeshot of questions: Where is that ivory that got left on the map?

[SleepingMoogle]

Barbs will probably remain a nuisance until the land to the north is all settled. Right now they are coming from the south quite regularly as well, but scooter and I will probably settle the land there soon enough. The land to the far north is quite poor, so will probably be fogbusted by sentries for quite some time. At this point it probably won't be too long before barb Axes start spawning, so I really need to hook up that Copper soon, or hope there's an Iron resource in a more convenient location.

Anyway, I'm sort of starting to lean towards using all the religious buildings to go for a culture victory. For now the Monasteries are useful for their research bonus, and Temples will let me assign Priest specialists to generate more Prophets. I would look at at the very least spread Buddhism around for now. Possibly Judaism and Christianity as well, depending on how fast I can generate more Prophets for shrines.

As for the Ivory.. your guess is as good as mine really. Sandover has a scout near German lands and I have seen the map builder place Ivory quite far north, but I suspect it will be more to the south, which means it's quite likely Bob or Timmy will be able to claim it eventually.

Anyway, on to turn 58:



Well, that's one wonder I'm glad I didn't invest into. Sandover made quite a jump in score, so I suspect he is the one who built it (I forgot to check while handling the save, silly me). Perhaps he had Stone available?

Either way, the Barbs threatening Celtic lands still don't want to play, and try to move around my Archers instead of attacking them. That is fine with me really, since it puts them on open ground and makes them an easy prey. The southern barb from the previous turn's screenshot wandered north and was killed, moving the archer up to 7 XP. Just one more and he'll enable my Heroic Epic (gogo Charismatic trait!). The first of the two barbs in the north moved SE towards Bibracte and got pincushioned by the Archer there. I had to use the Archer's promotions to get him back up to decent health, but he should have no problem against the advancing second barb now. A new barb Warrior appeared out of the fog west of Vienne as well. Archers will move to intercept him next turn depending on where he goes.

The Buddhist missionary was able to spread the faith to Vienne, and gained the city a bonus hammer from working the gold. The Jewish monastery is down to 3 turns now.

Bibracte finished a Worker, who moved onto a grassland forest to start chopping next turn. The other one was going to finish his chop this turn and I realized I could do this:



A Granary in one turn, courtesy of Mathematics and Organized Religion.

Finally, the first Prophet was born after I ended the turn. Christianity is due to be founded next turn.

[SleepingMoogle]

The appearance of a Great Prophet appears to be acting as a magnet for barbs. Three more have appeared out of the fog from the north (although I suppose that wearing loincloths in icy tundra's is also a reason to be moving south). In any case, Mahavari brought with him the teachings of a new religion, which the people of Tolosa quickly adopted.



The missionary is on his way back to Bibracte. Vienne has enough to build for the time being, and it's likely Bibracte will run out of things to do first (although with the Apostolic Palace now available to build, that seems quite a ways in the future as well).

Anyway, here's a picture of the current barb activity:



Timmy's scout in the bottom left is in a tough spot, although I hope he will do a good job from his defensive cover. Even if the barb wins, he'll likely be wounded and easy pickings.

The barb in the upper left will probably move towards Vienne, approaching it from the NW. I'll probably block the passage by placing an archer on the forest NW of the town. The one north of the city may approach Vienne from the NE, or move towards Bibracte instead. Depending on what it does, I will either block him with an Archer in the forest NE of the city, or attack him if he moves onto one of the snow tiles. Finally, the NW barb will have but one route to follow. I'll position the Archer in the lower right on the snow tile 1N of the Furs, and that should be the end of that particular threat.

The south is clear this turn, but I have two Archers on zone defense, and Bibracte is training a third just in case. I will need some defense for city 4 anyway.

Here is a screenshot of Vienne right now:



I have 4 more turns of whip anger, although there is enough happiness for emergency whips if needed. Right now, I'm thinking to complete the Jewish Monastery, swap to a Buddhist one for two turns, and then double-whip it to completion, with the overflow going into a Worker. That should keep the amount of turns that Vienne is stagnant while creating the Worker to a minimum.

That's all for now. I had hoped to do some scouting of the western patch of fog this turn, but with all the barbs appearing, I best hold that thought until Tolosa isn't potentially threatened. That barb next to Timmy's scout might decide to go for the new city over Vienne, so I need to keep some defense on hand.

Next turn I should have enough espionage points invested in Twinkletoes to see his demographics. He sent me a message congratulating me on getting a Prophet, which I have yet to respond to. I should bring up a potential division of land while I'm at it, so right now it's still being formulated.

[SleepingMoogle]

Note to self: If you're going to write a message about possible land distribution, it might be a good idea to have some screenshots to use for reference.

Tomorrow then. *cough*

For now, let's just wrap up the message and send him a new one soon:

Exalted Brennus,

May I be the first to congratulate you on your spawning of a Great Prophet! The building of Stonehenge has many benefits as I am sure you have discovered! May I be so bold as to congratulate you on the building of a Holy Shrine in the near future?

I would also like to thank you for your assistance in helping the Ethiopian emissary reach my borders this turn.

If there is anything you need, feel free to get in touch!

Chancellor Twinkletoes of the Germano-British Republic

Chancellor Twinkletoes,

Thank you for your kind words. It is true that one of our citizens developed into a visionary, however his talents were not aimed at construction. The Celts have ever been a diverse nation in their religious practices, and you may have heard rumors of a new following in the east of the precepts of Christianity. As it turns out, our Prophets work consisted of further broadening our horizon with regards of religion.

We would also like to congratulate you on establishing contact with the Etheopians, and hope your communications with their leader scooter are proceeding amiably.

-SleepingMoogle

Not much else to say really.. I was hoping to discuss land, but without proper screenshots that wouldn't be a good idea.

Also received a message from scooter:

SleepingMoogle,

Haven't talked in a while, so figured I'd ring you up and see how life is in Celtic lands? I finally met Twinkletoes and Sandover officially in game in the last week, so just have to meet Bob now. It's a shame my southern scout died awhile back, otherwise I might have met him already by now. Thank you again for arranging contact with TT and Sandover, it made finding them much easier!

I actually have a question for you regarding your future plans... It might be a tad intrusive, but I think you'll understand the nature of my question. I'm sure you're probably about due for a Great Prophet shortly, and I guess you could say I have a strong curiosity of what your plans are regarding this prophet..? I would like to make a run at Code of Laws and nab Confucianism, but I would be pretty disappointed if I got 2 turns away only to see it get lightbulbed by a prophet . Do you have any plans for more religions, specifically Confucianism? If you have your mind set on getting it, there's likely nothing I can do about it, but I'd rather find out now than later, if that makes sense.

Thank you!
scooter

This one required a bit of thinking on my end. If scooter is planning to beeline towards Code of Laws, would I be able to beat him to it? At this point, the answer would be most likely not. Additionally, aside from the religion Code of Laws isn't actually that great for me. Caste system doesn't allow for unlimited Priests, and unlike scooter, I won't get half-cost Courthouses (although at Noble difficulty, I doubt they'll provide a great advantage to him either). I assume that scooter will mostly want the religion so that he can adopt it as a state religion and spread it around for the Organized Religion bonus. Being Creative, the culture doesn't really help him all that much.

Anyway, without feeling like I could stop him at this point, the best thing to do seemed to be to acknowledge that I wouldn't race him to it. Even if he gets beaten to it, it should further solidify our relations.

Hey there scooter,

It is good to hear from you again. Congratulations on successfully contacting Germany and Egypt! That mountain pass must have been as tough a route for your scout as it was for ours, and traversing it is a feat worthy of praise. Hopefully your communication with both nations is proceeding amiably.

Time has been fairly well to the Celtic people. Barbarian incursions remain an annoyance, although our Archers seem to welcome the opportunity to improve their skills. Their reputation seems to be spreading amongst the tribes, as few seem willing to directly engage our defenses anymore these days. Unfortunately one of our scouts trying to find the civilization west of the Khmer did appear to have been killed by barbarians, so the lands are still far from save. We are hopeful that the scout that originally established contact with Germany and Egypt will be more successful.

As to your question, you may hear rumors of a new religion being founded in the north, however it will not be Confucianism as you might expect. The Prophet brought with him the teachings of Christianity instead, which was happily adopted by the citizens of Tolosa. While we would look to improve general awareness of Celtic law amongst our citizenry eventually, at this point everyone seems content enough that crime numbers are sufficiently low not to make this a priority. Indeed, animosity looks to be aimed mostly at the barbarians looking to steal from our lands!

If you are intending to unlock the secret of the Code of Laws, then we will not stop you from doing so. While the Celts are proud of their religious diversity, we don't necessarily feel that we need to claim to have founded every single religion ourselves. It is always possible that further religions might develop amongst our people, but the efforts of our researchers are currently focused elsewhere.

-SleepingMoogle

I didn't really ask for concessions for my blessing in this message, however I am planning to try and leverage it when the issue of land distribution comes up again. A few turns ago, I made some possible dotmaps and mentioned in the comments that I figured that the land still in between our Civs could be divided by scooter building a city at the far right of the map, and that I could build a city west of there. I will probably make this proposal to him and see if he will agree to this.

Additionally, it might be interesting to let Sandover know that scooter is looking to found Confucianism. Sandover seemed pretty frustrated with not having a religion of his own yet, and since he did construct the Hanging Gardens (I did confirm this when I played the turn earlier), he might very well have a good starting point to research Code of Laws first. It is possible that scooter will have contacted Sandover about this himself, but I still might be able to score some diplomacy credit by sharing this little tidbit. Remember, I will have to expand into Germany or Etheopia eventually, and right now Sandover looks to be easier to form a military alliance with than Timmy.

Food for thought.

[Tatan]

Congrats on Christianity.

It seems that you are already planning a war with Twinkletoes... Any approximate plans for when Brennus may burn down the German Scum?

...we don't necessarily feel that we need to claim to have founded every single religion ourselves.

Awww, c'mon!

[SleepingMoogle]

War is something to consider when we run out of land to expand into. Right now barbs are making enough trouble at home to keep me occupied. This is the kind of situation I opened up the save to a few times now:



Note that this screenshot was taken after I ended the turn. The amount of barbs that threaten Vienne is slightly disconcerting, despite Timmy's scout taking one out with 0.8/1 health remaining (lucky for him!), and I may end up having to whip another Archer there just to make sure nothing overtly disastrous happens.

Anyway, the barbs in order:

1: It's tough to say what Barb 1 will do. The stack to his south consists of a healthy Warrior and healing Archer (~2/3 health). Ideally he'd attack that stack and get taken out, but more often than not they will try to advance past my defenders instead. If he moves SE towards Bibracte, I'll take him out next turn. If he moves SW, he'll directly threaten Vienne and I'll have a problem.

2: Will probably move to 1's current position and provide me with the same dilemma next turn, only I may have two defenders that aren't at full strength by that time. This is the barb that may end up causing me to whip out another Archer.

3: This barb will have no choice but to engage the Archer that is currently positioned north of the furs. I don't foresee him causing too much trouble, unless barbs 1 or 2 (or both) also move towards my capital.

4: I assume this barb will move SE next turn, at which point I'll need to block his passage. Whether or not I can do that depends a lot on what the other barbs do.

5: A bit of a question mark there. I deliberately left Tolosa unguarded to try and entice this barb from not moving on Vienne. Hopefully he will either attack the Archer to his SE, or move east to advance on the city. In both cases I can take him out, but if he moves NE instead Vienne will be under serious pressure.

6: Not actually on the map, but there is a sixth barb to the far south. I have two Archers in the area to pick him up, although it's too early to say whether he'll move on Tolosa or Bibracte.

Anyway, as long as my cities get pressured like this, all military units get press-ganged into defending my borders. Iron Working is in soon, and hopefully it reveals a source somewhere close. I'll want to hook up at least the Copper resource south of Tolosa after its borders pop, but it's an exposed position so hopefully there will be an iron resource somewhere around Bibracte instead. That should be a lot easier to defend against pillaging. A few Gallic Warriors should help a lot against these barbs.

Vienne finished its Monastery after the turn ended. Depending on what the barbs do, I might end up queueing an Archer instead of a Buddhist Missionary. Bibracte finished an Archer which will move to assist Vienne. Next turn another forest chop will come in, so I'll probably start a temple and let the OR-boosted hammers go into my half-cost building. This should let it finish in one turn, or very near it. After that, I'll probably let the city grow to size 7 and start another Settler, which will be whipped to completion.

[SleepingMoogle]

Hmm..

Dear Advisor,

I figured your leader wanted Theology for himself, seeing as you avoided that particular question. Having awaited the birth of your Prophet, I see now that I was correct in my assumption. It is a shame you couldn't simply tell me your intentions, seeing as the outcome wouldn't have changed either way, but I guess I must respect our diplomatic differences. Congratulate your priests on my behalf.

I'm not particularily interested in a religion from so far away as the Celtic Empire. Should I decide to convert my people into a foreign religion I am likely to chose next-door Hinduism, that assumably can be acquired by relative ease from the Romans. Unless you have a way of making a Celtic religion the more attractive option, somehow?

Regards,

Pharaoh Sandover of Egypt

Really Sandover? If the conclusion was foregone as you admitted yourself, then why try to guilt-trip me over it?

I'm not quite sure what the intent behind the message was.. given the second paragraph, maybe he's looking for some kind of concession? I don't really feel that I owe him anything, and this is probably another indication as to why diplomatic relations between Egypt and Germany seem to have hit a snag. In any case, maybe this was a gaffe on my end but it did show me the calibre of leader that Egypt has. When it comes to allies, the ones that require a manual and gentle handling to avoid breaking them really are not what you should pin your hopes on.

Anyway, let's try and spin this as best we can.

Pharaoh Sandover,

On behalf of my leader, Brennus the Great, I would like to extend our gratitude for your congratulations on the founding of Christianity in Celtic lands. That said, we were rather confused about the contents of your last message. At this time our lands are under quite a bit of pressure from barbarian tribes seeking to steal our hard-earned resources, and our leadership is quite occupied with our defenses to keep our citizens safe. Under this strain, it is quite possible that a detail or two may be missed, but that does not mean we are reluctant to discuss matters with you. While it is unfortunate that my last message did not make mention of the Prophet, a number of other important matters that were brought up were answered appropriately and Brennus is hopeful that this oversight does not aversely affect our diplomatic relations.

It would be hard at this point to escort our missionaries to other lands, but perhaps it is something we can discuss once the current unrest is over. If you decide to adopt Hinduism as your religion, then it is not a decision we will oppose, although we would hope that you would consider allowing other religions to spread amongst your citizenry as well. Even under strain from barbarian incursion as they are, Celtic citizens pride themselves on their religious diversity and this generous outlook helps a lot in daily life.

Should you decide to try and discover a religion of your own, we would like to send a note of caution. We recently received word from scooter of Ethiopia that he is considering a similar goal, so it is not a decision that is wise to delay. At this moment, we are focussing our resources in other discoveries ourselves and do not seek to intervene in this matter.

-SleepingMoogle

This is probably a bit dishonest from my side, but that's part of the game right? By hinting in the message that I simply forgot to mention the Prophet, I might guilt-trip right back at Sandover, and smooth over the issue without too much fuss. The tidbit about scooter going after Code of Laws might be considered a concession, but it is something I was considering sharing with him regardless. Let's wait and see what his response will be.

Given the current barb activity, I'll hold of proposing land distribution for another day. Right now my thoughts are too preoccupied running combat scenarios to do much else. Hopefully when I open the save tomorrow, the situation will have improved somewhat.

[SleepingMoogle]

Okay, perhaps I felt that the above message needed some further building on. Here's a recent message from Twinkletoes congratulating me on the Prophet, and my response:

Exalted Brennus,

Congratulations on the founding of your third religion then! Your civilisation is truly the epitome of multiculturalism and diversity. Perhaps some of your merchants may bring such enlightenment to my citizens at some point in the future?

Until we have more to discuss,

Chancellor Twinkletoes

Greetings Chancellor Twinkletoes,

We would like to thank you for your kind words. These are troubling times, with many a barbarian warband advancing on our lands, doubtlessly seeking to plunder the hard-earned riches of Celtica. The founding of a new religion will likely lift the spirit of our citizenry, and assist our brave defenders in fighting off this threat. These barbarian incursions would make travel of our priests to spread the faith require an escort, which is something we find difficult to spare at this time. We would happily discuss this matter when the opportunity arises though.

Our diplomatic efforts with Pharaoh Sandover seem to have hit a bit of an obstacle recently, although from what we understand from our communications, German-Egypt relations have similarly seen some issues. While we do not mean to pry into matters that you may consider confidential, we wonder if this impression has been correct. While we are working to overcome said obstacle, it is worrying that the source of the matter has been due to a simple, and minor, misunderstanding, and we feel that perhaps the Pharaoh may be rather quick to jump to conclusions. Is this something which you have recognized in your communications as well?

Again, if you prefer not to answer this, then we won't hold it against you and won't bring up the matter again.

On behalf of Brennus the Great
-SleepingMoogle

This message was intended primarily to further build on the claim that the omission of the Prophet in the message to Sandover was a simple error on my part, and to use the issue to ask about the (presumed stalled) relations between Egypt and Germany. If Twinkletoes mentions this message to Sandover, he might take it as further proof that my message was in fact truthful. If not, then it might still provide a glimpse into what happened between the two. I didn't really sacrifice anything to share this info, so if nothing comes from it, no harm done.

Additionally, I mentioned the barb activity to hopefully get TT to respond on his current Barb situation. The possible sending of missionaries is always an option in the future, but I could actually use this topic to broach possible settling of land later on.

The one thing that I'm asking myself right now is if I'm turning into a sneaky backstabber trying to set up Egypt and Germany against each other. You know what they say about the power behind the throne eh?

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 61 opened up to a pleasant image. The barbarian units actually did what I wanted them to do this turn. The Barb Warrior marked as 1 in the previous turn's screenshot attacked my Warrior and was killed pretty handily (the Warrior was left with 1.7/2 health and a new promotion remaining), and Barb 5 attacked the archer next to him and was also killed. The remaining warriors all moved as expected, leading to this setup:



In the north, the western and eastern barbs are blocked and hopefully attack the archers in between turns. The middle barb has some more options available, but I'm hoping that he'll follow the previous barb's example and go down in glorious battle attacking the units south of his current position. The southern barb is also blocked and has to either attack or advance onto open ground, exposing himself to Archer fire.

As Tolosa is pretty safe for the moment, I moved the Archer on a hill to its west to get some more visibility on the potential city site.



The above is about as best as I could make out, although the tundra hill might also be a Plains hill. Anyway, this is looking like a pretty decent location for a production city that may come to house the Heroic Epic. It has a goodly amount of hills, all of which can be worked:



I'll want to defog the remaining tiles before making the final decision. The city may move 1 tile to the west depending on what's hiding in the fog, although it would lose out on a plains hill that way. I'm hoping there is another food resource hiding in the fog, that would make the site a done deal.



A great scientist was also born this turn. My best guess is that Timmy is the one that worked some scientists after building an early library. He went for Pottery and Granaries pretty early, so it would not be a stretch to assume he went for early Writing as well. At this point, it's fairly likely he'll use the scientist for an Academy. The Scientist would probably prefer to bulb Alphabet, and in a no tech-trading game it's not a very helpful tech.

Other than that, the turn mostly went ahead as planned. One of my Workers is busy placing the final link of road that will connect Tolosa with the other cities, and will then move to connect the Copper. Another Worker is moving towards Vienne, placing road as he goes to make it easier to travel between the city and Bibracte. And the third Worker chopped down a forest to assist in the construction of a Buddhist Temple:



That's another one-turn building courtesy of various benefits. I'll let the overflow go into a Settler that will be whipped to completion. After that I'll assign a Priest to speed up the generation of the next Prophet. Vienne has switched to a Buddhist Monastery as it is no longer in immediate danger. The plan is to 2-pop whip it to completion and overflow into a Worker, or perhaps a missionary for Tolosa.

Finally, at the end of the turn I found that Vienne has become more than just a Gold-grab.