Kyan + Refsteel = Peter + India. Clearly. [SPOILERS]

[RefSteel]

Thanks very much for the update, Kyan! I have a much better sense of what's going on now. I'll contribute some overview shots (also from the beginning of the same turn Kyan posted) as well, to give our lurkers a broad sense for the empire:

First: Beware our fearsome Cottage Spam!!!

That there is the image I wasn't going to bother capping and posting when I thought I was talking to myself. I haven't counted the cottages/hamlets/villages/towns, but you can see they're pretty well everywhere.

I turned off resource view for that screenie of course (and didn't include the whole empire) so our cottages would be more visible. So here's an empire overview:

I suspect we won't do much with Taoism for a while (Kyan notes above that it was founded in Dover at EoT) though it's probably good for denial; I'd guess that Byz is pursuing a Cultural victory, which is very achievable at Quick speed - we haven't actually teched Music yet. I think it would have been wiser to tech Paper - Education first, since Universities and Oxford would help our tech rate once they're built, and if someone founded Taoism that would at least tell us a bit about where they are in the Liberalism race, but this path is at least okay - I guess we could spread Taoism to The Globe and other tech centers, and build Monasteries for the extra +10% to research too. (And eventually perhaps make another shrine, though the opportunity cost of a Great Person plus lots of hammers' worth of missionaries makes it rather questionable.)

Oh, also notice that we've taken back first place in score. On the one hand: Don't be fooled by the scoreboard, especially as we may be facing Tall Poppy Syndrome. But on the other hand: The top three players on the scoreboard are the only ones still meaningfully in the game. The only hope for the others would be if the three of us get involved in a series of wars with each other. (If just two of us fight, unless one side wins decisively, the third one probably wins - although I guess if two of the also-rans go after that third civ together, the last "also-ran" can become a real player again.)

[RefSteel]

Right, so I now understand why Kyan thought our main problems would come from the east: The civs to our north/south and west (mostly have NAPs with us and) just don't have enough cities to produce an army rapidly - and it's doubtful that any of them have teched anywhere close to Maces. So we're probably okay for now, especially since nobody's Power is actually blowing ours away, in spite of this kind of military:


(Note: Map is wider than shown in this screen-shot; cropped for ease of reading)

It gets better too: The most experienced units there are a trio of chariots, two injured, and one promoted Sentry, with all of 5xp apiece!

And speaking of teching (toward maces, lib, or whatever else you may desire) ... here's where we're at in the tech tree:

We have everything to the left of this except for Archery, HBR, and IW. We have nothing (yet) to the right of this screen.

Also, just for fun, here's a look at all the world wonders:

That's all but two of 'em, one way or the other: You can see that USankore is the latest culture-generator in Gimel, plus England's possession of the Mausolleum and Maya's of the Gardens. The final two are of course the 'Mids and Zeuss, both in Bosworth Field. (Kyan has a screenie of the city a little ways upthread.)

I think that's the works for the moment. Again though, as always, if you're confused or curious about anything, just post here and let us know! It might take a day or two, but we're delighted to provide some further information.

[RefSteel]

Thoughts for Kyan:

"Military" strategy: Building military units right now would be more or less pointless, because we have nothing worth building. (Axes and spears are just cannon fodder against maces and 'Phracts, and they cost upkeep.) If we do tech Construction, it'll be good to have some Cats on hand (and they don't really go obsolete until Steel) but in general, if we actually expect to need defenses, we need to tech our way to some that aren't completely lame. I'd much prefer peaceful techs (at least until Liberalism) as long as (that is to say, IF) we can still get as far as Engineering before our NAPs run out of steam.

City management: Bohemia has been running a Great Spy for two or three turns. I know you didn't set this, but the Civ city governors are monomaniacally obsessed with running these idiots, so it's unfortunately virtually necessary to do a pass through all the cities every turn just to make sure they aren't running spies.
(I had a few thoughts on unhappy or nearly-unhappy cities, but sugar will fix most of those for now.)

I'll come up with names for the three new cities (and our newer units) later this weekend - maybe even later this afternoon.

[Kyan]

I'm thinking music, paper, education then we need to start prepping militarily.

*IF* Tredje and Nakor/Gaspar do climb into bed together, which is a very real possibility, how do we fend them off? Both have been stalling on NAP extensions but both also have very strong UU's soon. My only thought is to beat them to the punch.

I don't mean attack first, but we are teching faster than Nakor/Gaspar. We will be at rifles before they are, so perhaps we can go for the lib shot into nationalism then beeline rifling? Draft an army of rifles. With fortification on top, they should be alright.

Dealing with 'phracts? Well, we can't easily. I'll speak with Tredje some more and make it crystal clear that we won't go down easy. I'll possibly bluff a bit regarding our techs thus far. If his power starts rising sharply, we have to ditch our tech plan and get right onto unlocking pikes.

The ideal scenario i suppose would be to not get attacked at all, either via diplo or by presenting such an un-attractive prickly target. I guess this means i have more work to do. On it. Like a tramp on chips.

[T-hawk]

City management: Bohemia has been running a Great Spy for two or three turns. I know you didn't set this, but the Civ city governors are monomaniacally obsessed with running these idiots, so it's unfortunately virtually necessary to do a pass through all the cities every turn just to make sure they aren't running spies.

The best answer to this is to click the all of the emphasize food/hammers/commerce buttons on every city (which will discourage specialists in general, and hire engineers over spies) and click emphasize-beakers (which will at least hire scientists over spies). Once you've done that, the only remaining conflict is merchants vs spies, and only after the engineer and scientist slots are filled.

To quickly find cities that are running unwanted specialists, use the F1 screen and sort by GPP production and by EP.

[RefSteel]

T-hawk: Thanks for the tips! I find spy specialists incredibly annoying, not least because the clickable area on the "minus" sign to remove them seems to be smaller or less responsive than for any other specialist type. (Grrrrr.)

I'm thinking music, paper, education then we need to start prepping militarily.

Seems a bit odd to go that distance without teching Lib - unless you plan/expect to have research visibility on the civ(s) that might beat us there?

*IF* Tredje and Nakor/Gaspar do climb into bed together, which is a very real possibility, how do we fend them off? Both have been stalling on NAP extensions

Did England (N/G) offer to extend our NAP to T120, at least? (I thought I saw an e-mail to that effect...)

but both also have very strong UU's soon.

Well, redcoats/rifles aren't very soon. If they were, I wouldn't be very worried about 'phracts.

My only thought is to beat them to the punch.

I don't mean attack first, but we are teching faster than Nakor/Gaspar. We will be at rifles before they are, so perhaps we can go for the lib shot into nationalism then beeline rifling? Draft an army of rifles. With fortification on top, they should be alright.

Hmmm ... wellll ... remember how we were working out all the consequences of playing on a Duel-sized map around the beginning of the game? Well, we left one out:

You can draft one (1) unit per turn. That's one. Empire-wide.

So, while drafting rifles is still the most efficient food-to-production conversion out there, and yes, we should make some food-filled wonderland our Globe city and draft it every turn eventually, drafting rifles isn't a reasonable answer to Redcoats on this map. The key to handling Redcoats is likely to be Steel for cannons - but Cavs are great too. Yes, Rifles/RCs have +25% against them, but they can get to pinch with just a stable to more-or-less cancel that out, and they have maneuverability in their favor. And if we have them in reasonable numbers, we can promote them F2 instead, allowing us to flank away any siege they brought while whittling down their RCs to the point where our rifles can squish them. The nice thing about facing redcoats is that they're still 1-movers. Unlike...

Dealing with 'phracts? Well, we can't easily. I'll speak with Tredje some more and make it crystal clear that we won't go down easy. I'll possibly bluff a bit regarding our techs thus far. If his power starts rising sharply, we have to ditch our tech plan and get right onto unlocking pikes.

Yeah. Paper isn't exactly on a Guilds beeline, so he's not pursuing them at top speed, but if he's really planning (and able) to 'phract us soon, then: a) England should probably win the game, and b) we'll want Engineering STP. (Akin to ASAP, that's Sooner Than Possible.)

The ideal scenario i suppose would be to not get attacked at all, either via diplo or by presenting such an un-attractive prickly target. I guess this means i have more work to do. On it. Like a tramp on chips.

Sweet! (And I love the simile!)

One other thing: You're probably doing this anyway, but let's avoid chopping forests except for purposes of improving the tile underneath. One exception: At the front cities, chop forests between us and the potential "enemy" ASAP. In general though, it would be good to have forests ready to chop into then-modern units when we actually need them.

[RefSteel]

Cities:

"Delhi": Garter Inn (or, if you prefer, Windsor)
"Bombay": Navarre
Cow/Pig/Sheep city: Another site right by an ice tile? Gloucester. It's at a hovel on the heath in Gloucester's land where Edgar, in his guise as a madman in King Lear, famously cries, "Tom's a-cold" - in the same scene in which Lear himself, more famously still, says:

Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

Banana/Cow/Dye/Game city: Ely House. Here John of Gaunt dies in Richard II, and Richard says of him, "The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; / Our time is spent, our pilgrimage must be."
Cow/Rice/Sheep/Wheat city: Neighboring Bohemia, with a snow (wheat forest) tile in its BFC, and at least next to a "water" (oasis) tile, I'm tempted to name this Sicilia. No, Sicily is not noted for its snow or ice - but it is noted for its place in The Winter's Tale (brrrrr, winter) along with Bohemia.

Unnamed Fworkers:
Flute
Prologue
Pyramus
Thisby
Wall
Moonshine
Lion
Ariel
Pro's Iris
Ceres
Juno
Nymph
Reaper
Hecate

Unnamed Chariots:
Sentry: Cleo's Iris
Alexas
Charmian
Mardian
Seleucus
Diomedes

Unnamed Axes:
Marcellus
Barnardo

Spearmen: Well, are they shaking their spears or aren't they?! That only gives us two though, so we'll go with Henry IV for the others, since many mentions were made of his spear in Richard II.
Will
William
Hereford
Derby

[Lewwyn]

Nice good to hear whats going on.

I find it rather amusing that your borders are pretty set east and west but north and south looks like you could really do some aggressive squeezing. I assume that Malakai. Do you forsee being able to settle more of "his" land?

[RefSteel]

Nice good to hear whats going on.

I find it rather amusing that your borders are pretty set east and west but north and south looks like you could really do some aggressive squeezing. I assume that Malakai.

Yup. This image should convey everything you need to know about Korea - it's from the latest turn (84).



The three score and game leaders, including us, have 11 cities apiece. Maya and Inca each have 7. Korea, in spite of never fighting a war, and building (or at least completing) zero world wonders, has ... five.

Do you forsee being able to settle more of "his" land?

That's a question for Kyan, who's in charge of actual strategy - and diplomacy. It may be that our NAP with Korea includes some kind of settlement clause, for instance. It should be interesting to see what happens to all the land Korea isn't using though, whichever way it eventually goes....

[Kyan]

Ref- i apologise that there is still some items unnamed. My last playing window was fairly small so i was prioritising micro. We've gained two cities in the last two turns. Already both are working an improved food tile, have a granary and have a religion. Forges are next (chopped).

I'll be prioritising a few cultural buildings in the Tredje border city for obvious reasons.

Diplowise:

A joint attack on us may well be inevitable but i've bought us time at least. It's *looking* like England will sign an NAP until t120. We've signed one with Tredje until t135(!!). I negotiated Tredje for a longer NAP as this should sufficiently cover the period of usefulness of his 'phracts.

I expect someone else to be in trouble though and i can't see those two attacking each other. Inca, Korea and Maya are all non-factors now so i'm trying to decide how best to deal with this. I think i will try to encourage a working relationship with Gingereagle. I've found him pleasant and easy to deal with so far. I'm aware that one of these three may be doomed now i've tied my hands with Tredje but that's not a huge problem. Peaceful expansion should prove far more fruitful. I hope to try and get at least 1 or 2 out of the three onto 'our side'.

Gingereagle- maybe through helping him spread our religion? He has already had one missionary but we can offer to help him spread it faster? Or even a few fast workers? Should help us with some serious good will.

Malakai- same options as above but also the land issue. He's clearly been a bit slower on the landgrab phase. I can offer *not* to absorb it all and leave him with no chance in the game, in exchange for his loyalty?

Whosit- We're quite far from Whosit but i am friends with him due to pitboss3. I'll try to leverage this and catch up with him in chat.