[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[pindicator]

Thanks for the chariot Lewwyn! I wonder which one it ended up being...

I want to say it was the one that died attacking CC (and did no damage)
It definitely was in the 2nd wave, though, because it was camped in White Castle during our first wave.

[pindicator]

Played the new turn, and it was all domestic affairs.

But we have a bit of international news:



Here is the city that Brick took off of Serdoa. As scooter mentioned earlier, Serdoa has also just started a golden age. And he got the research event from having city ruins in his culture. I hope these guys keep fighting; that will give us time to develop. Heck, we may even be thinking of invading slowcheetah in 50 turns. If both of us live that long.



Commodore has been a busy body. He's certainly in the pole position now, and hopefully we see a better organized attempt to attack him than what developed out of Krill in pb5. We will need to re-evaluate our open borders deal with him after we get Metal Casting and after we can get some additional contacts of our own. (Although I can't imagine he's getting much from us, what with the peace bonus being so small right now.)

Domestically, I shuffled troops at FG (renamed now to Starbucks).



Edit: I forgot to mention that I shuffled the worker onto the western-most galley. It can unload directly into TGIF next turn, or we can drop it on top of the jungle hill.

An impi/axe pair remain. I've sent an empty galley north to get contacts, and the other units west to drop off on our mainland. We really don't have much of an army left at all. A stiff breeze could blow us over, really. But there's nothing to be done about that; we need to get built up and risk the economy focus right now. It's really our only play.

At Taco Bell I moved the two workers to chop both plains forests. Thanks to spending t143 in anarchy (when we revolt to Hereditary Rule & Organized Religion) the timing of the chops will complete the granary with TB at size 2 with 12/24 food -- pretty much perfect timing. We need to steal one of the flood plains from TGIF when it grows to size 2.

After the granary is chopped the southern worker can improve the riverside grass til to the south, and the north worker can start chopping away on that jungled hill for TGIF.

I am starting to wonder about where we get more workers. It was enough that I was tempted to chop/whip the granary in Taco Bell and then chop/whip a worker when it hit size 2 again. I think the double chop to a granary is a stronger play, but then it made me rethink the situation at Boston Market:



What if we chop that forest into a worker and the whip it out the next turn? We need the work force, and I fear Boston will be growing onto unimproved tiles if we don't. However, with a lighthouse those unimproved tiles will be 2f3c coast, so it isn't the end of the world.

I whipped the granary at Sid's Sushi this turn and queued up a temple.



It should continue to work the corn & fish until size 3, then it picks up the grass mine.

Demos are creeping upward a little more...

[scooter]

I've sent an empty galley north to get contacts, and the other units west to drop off on our mainland.

FYI - there is no coastal passage up there, so you can't go that way . This is what I meant in yesterday's report about the westernmost galley being used to make contacts - the only way to get north is to go west first and use that stretch of coast. However, I do want that northern galley to sentry up by Xenu, so there's no problem with its movements. It also would be nice to get a Commodore sentry on the west side by plopping a scout/warrior or something on one of those 1 tile islands.

What if we chop that forest into a worker and the whip it out the next turn? We need the work force, and I fear Boston will be growing onto unimproved tiles if we don't. However, with a lighthouse those unimproved tiles will be 2f3c coast, so it isn't the end of the world.

Yeah I don't consider FIN Lighthouse coast to be "unimproved" at all. One of the perks of FIN isn't just the coast bonus, but the ability to skimp on worker turns by using the coast to your advantage. I don't think we're lacking in workers currently to be honest, and the FIN + Lighthouse thing (plus all the pre-existing tile improvements we have yet to grow onto) is a big reason why. I'm much more interested in Boston Market getting a Lighthouse and continuing to grow than I am whipping down to get a worker out of it and delaying the lighthouse. I think we can stall building more workers (and grow) by just using our worker turns + whip smartly.

[pindicator]

Ah, shoot. For some reason I was thinking we could go on xenu's culture but of course we can't.
As for a sentry to warn of xenu coming, is it better to put a unit on the island or leave a galley up there?

With the westward galley having a worker on it, how about we drop that worker on the jungled hill and chop that out - that will let the west galley move 2NW after the worker disembarks

[pindicator]

Played the turn late, but it was all domestic again.
We've met plako and had a proposal for open borders. I agreed, but I should have tied something to it. Instead I asked for a world map trade. Maybe we can get something of the east.

Starbucks came out of revolt. We're up to 150bpt at 100%. 90bpt at break even.

Xenu has landed a pair of units on the silk island by Starbucks. I think we should let him have that island, for now. We'll take it from him when we're ready. Or maybe we divert hte settler from Culvers over to the silk island instead? Don't know if we want a war right now, so perhaps it's best to let him have it.

Nice quick turn; hopefully it rolls tonight and you'll have a new one tomorrow

[NobleHelium]

I don't think we can compete with xenu for the island right now. He probably has a remnant army and it's probably bigger than ours.

[pindicator]

Took a peek at things but don't have time to play the turn this morning. If you can't get to it today I'll be able to play it before the timer expires tonight.

I did dial down our research so we can still get Monarch at 20% science. Revolt next turn. Something to think about is where we'll be making missionaries. I can't claim to have a good answer for that one yet...

Plako took our world map trade. And wow, does he have a lot of nice jungle to expand into. If there's a counter-balance to Commodore, it may end up being plako

[scooter]

Hey, checking back in. I should definitely be able to play tonight. Either way, slowcheetah did say he'd be running the timer long today, so we should be good. Stray comments.

1) Sounds good about Plako/OB/Maps/etc. I'd like to log in and take a look around at that when I get some time.
2) Agreed that we shouldn't be messing with Xenu until we know we can contain him. If he claims silk, whatever, we'll take it later. But we definitely can't afford to squabble with him. We've done nothing to antagonize him thus far, and we should definitely aim to keep it that way.
3) Dominos seems like an ideal place to double-whip missionaries since it has enough of a food surplus to make double-whipping not suck too bad. Sid's and Culver's would obviously be nice too, but I think we'd rather grow those than whip them given the abundance of awesome tiles in the region.
4) Really happy about our rapidly exploding tech rate . GLH is such a ridiculous wonder when you're on an isolated island, nerf or no nerf. Even better in an 11 (well, 10 now) player game.
5) Have we figured out if it was Plako or slowcheetah that circumnavigated? I'm not sure how you met Plako, but if it was by his galley, I'm not sure if you got a look at its movement points or anything..?

[pindicator]

Oh, it was plako. His galley had 3 move.
Don't feel like you have to wait for me to play - i can give input here too

[scooter]

Ok, turn played. Domestics first. Couple whippings occurred across the empire:



Whipped off that flat grassland of course. Now we can just grow onto yummy FIN coast. I did start a cottage on that grassland tile since it can be shared between BM and Five Guys, but other than that we can go light on tile improvements here for now. Lighthouse gives us a passable 5F surplus, so we should be in decent shape here. Dominos whipped the WB as planned:



Also, I queued up a warrior next in Culvers.



Such a ridiculous city, honestly. I figure we want a few more warriors for their cheapness since we're about to jump into HR and hook iron, so let's do it now. Settler is in transit to the iron spot:



It will settle that city on T145. This does make me think we may have whipped the work boat 1T prematurely. Here's Sid's as it continues on its quest to give us a shot at a shrine:



As far as I know - the plan has not screwed up yet! Give it time, though, it'll happen . I made an odd decision at TGIF, though there's time to change it. Or rather, I stuck with an odd decision. Here it is:



When I opened it, TGIF was working the grassland cottage over the farm. This seemed slightly weedy to me, but I also noticed the grassland hamlet is just 2T away from upgrading to a tasty village. Also, working the farm does not speed us up in getting to sz4. We're making an immediate 2F for 4C trade over the next 2T, then the longer term commerce/food return is a little hazier (we'll get 2C for an earlier village, and at some point I'm sure at some point later we'll grow 1T late as a result?). On second thought, I'm quickly talking myself out of this decision, and I'm seriously considering jumping back in and swapping to the farm. Thoughts? Was there any rationale for working the cottage?



1) Worker pair sunk 2T of a chop into that jungle which surely we'll want gone eventually. Next turn they start hooking the wines.
2) Galleys have this area pretty good. The northernmost one has spotted Commodore's 4 move galley (just barely in the picture), and will continue with the goal of meeting Brick, Merovech, and hopefully slowcheetah after that. The galley by the silk island should probably hang in that region and keep an eye on Xenu so we don't have to stuff Starbucks with defenders.
3) I'm thinking the galley by TGIF should sentry our western Commodore flank, and hopefully get a unit onto one of those 1 tile islands.

That's it for the domestic stuff. I'll post a few more bigger picture stuff after this.