TheArchduke tries his best not to be overrun again as Pericles

[TheArchduke]

Early settler, less military, early trader, stuff to plunder.

Really tempted here. Will sleep on it.

I will analyze who makes the better target, Oledavy or Singaboy tomorrow. We will go to war, that much is certain.

   

[Bacchus]

Interesting stuff.

Most pressingly, I say these oledavy tiles far from his cap are worth pillaging. It would have been really nice if that campus was complete, as a pillaged district is a really, really big kick in the nuts.

On other fronts, I would have gone into Ilkum as soon as its available -- pantheons don't really give us much, and no-one is picking goddess of the festivals anyway. Given that we are going for early production, we need to crank out some builders -- when you turn builders into chops you effectively turn the bonus both on Ilkum and Agoge into unit bonuses, and they compound for very nice effect.

As for the first target, it should be Buenos Aires -- crank out the hopliteswith gold/chops and take it. Hoplites will get promos this way, and should be done by the time Sun Tzu arrives to bolster an attack against a player.

Hoe many more cities do you plan to settle before attacking?

[TheArchduke]

Excellent questions, first of all, time to strategize a bit.

We would be in a lot better position if I had not SIP and if I had scouted north into the jungle instead of the readily avaiable south like the mapmaker intended me to.

Both Singaboy and Oledavy have settled towards me, Oledavy aggressively so, Singaboy as well. An early pillage of the trade route might be worth it, but it could also entice him to build military. Singaboy is cranking out units, Oledavy is not. I will swing south with my scout to quickly uncover the eastern part of the mountains.

I managed to entice 2 horseman towards Oledavy by running and screaming like a little schoolgirl and he softened one up for me to kill him. Thanks!  

   

Unless you think I am crazy, I will quickly snatch an encampment to further boost or GG buildup, enable us to build horseman if we want to and boost a civic as well. A settler would take 9 turns and we could aim for a coast settle for the industrial envoy and another decent city protected by Mykenes.

   

Our GG gamble will pay off, unless something seriously stupid happens, we will have that GG first and we will use him to either smack Singaboy or Oledavy.

   

We are somewhat keeping with the pack, although I seem to be 1-2 turns late to the 2nd city party.

   

Singaboy has a Mil Strength of 95! which means he has some serious troops running around, could be to smack Barbarians, could be he wants to strike at me. The Geography does not allow a Oledavy-Singaboy war too easily.

Plan for now is to either clear the southern encampment or to let one warrior explore. The slinger north comes back for capital patrol duty.

In 3 turns I will go for Urban Planning or maybe Ilkum (Urban Planning is better though, more flexibility) but I do not want to be last to a pantheon and it is nicely timed with foreign trade for a switch. I would like to keep my gold for archer upgrades and/or emergencies.

So either settler 3 goes SW before/after encampment or he accompanies an anti-german expedition. Are you sure conquering the CS is worth it, I do like to keep industrial CS around.

Also we will research horseman to be able to counter Singaboys´ or build them ourselves.

[Bacchus]

I guess we could pick a pantheon to deny Singaboy one, that could work nicely.

As for CS capture, keeping it around benefits us pretty much to the same extent as it benefits everyone else, which is to say not at all. If it was a more secluded CS, which we could use exclusively for a while, then yeah, keeping it could be good, but this is smack bang in the middle of the map. Also, conquering it unblocks a major expansion route -- we currently have sea to the west, tundra to the south, Singa to southeast, oledavy to northeast, which pretty much forces our hand unless we want to be blocked in.

I'm guessing singa did some Archer upgrades driving his power up, how is his gold?

[TheArchduke]

Pretty low, unless I am mistaken, he bought that Iron as well.

[TheArchduke]

Some important stuff. Urban Planning > Ilkum. Ilkum means +1 production in Ithake, Urban Planning as well.

I thought a lot about actually taking God of War, but decided on God of Open Sky, it is +1 culture, soon +2 culture as we will improve the cows with the worker out of Ithake. Also we should be able to get a bit more cash from the barbarians and both slingers are near one promotion.

Right now my plan would be one more worker out of Mykenes, and then quickly chopping/building 2 more slingers, upgrading all 4 and getting 2-3 hoplites and then wrecks someone´s day with them. Preferably Singaboys.


   

[Bacchus]

You absolutely cannot attack Singa with your core exposed to Sparta like that, too easy for oledavy to launch a precision counterstrike and nullify your gains, provided you make any.

Also, going back to the scout -- trade route pillage is 60 gold, that's an absolute tonne of gold at this stage. You don't need to worry about alerting oledavy to building units, because you are already running strategos, it's as much of a red flag as anyone needs. I think pillaging is absolutely key to making an early scout build pay off, especially if you aim for an aggro game anyway.

[Bacchus]

Plus, I would strongly consider settling western jungle in the nearest future as well, it is a very strong spot and it lays an important claim on that border. Without it, I'm afraid that our economy will simply fall behind regardless of military victories.

[TheArchduke]

You absolutely cannot attack Singa with your core exposed to Sparta like that, too easy for oledavy to launch a precision counterstrike and nullify your gains, provided you make any.

Also, going back to the scout -- trade route pillage is 60 gold, that's an absolute tonne of gold at this stage. You don't need to worry about alerting oledavy to building units, because you are already running strategos, it's as much of a red flag as anyone needs. I think pillaging is absolutely key to making an early scout build pay off, especially if you aim for an aggro game anyway.

I disagree on the exposed core, this is a matter of having a city wall and being quick about it with singaboy. Encampment and Jungle and some archers and this not a real issue imo.

[TheArchduke]

Oledavy jumped to 134 Mil Strength to our 58. Definetly something coming.

He has 4! envoys with Seoul, probably a trade route quest. What a nice position to get.:D

I am not feeling too hot about my current position in the game right about now, feels like Oledavy is in the much, much better position by now.


Which means I am in the position to change my position through warfare, not much else I can do.