Sensibly Aslan ran away instead of attacking at 3.5%. Our brave warrior gives chase to scare him further away, or at least force a fight when the warrior isn't covering a worker or settler...
In the east we discover Raa Raa the noisy lion. we could head N-NE next turn, but that gives a coinflip fight if the lion moves NE, so I'd suggest E-NE, to avoid the fight and uncover some coast. I'd guess William is at least another five tiles north of here. It doesn't look like the scout is going to be able to help with settling the sheep city, but she still may get back in time to assist with stone.
Our warrior takes three hits while killing the Lion so will have to heal a little. Luckily our other warrior is on his way to help out. The capital will put two chops into a settler next turn then whip it the turn after.
Our scout runs away from the other lion, revealing that William is the same distance from "his" marble that we are from "ours". I guess his sheep is the equivalent of our rice, so perhaps he'll have a pig as well? I'd like to go N-NW next turn, but I bet the lion will move to the desert hill and try to pick Lara off, so perhaps just 1N? If the Lion moves NE to the grass hill then do we head south east or back to where Lara came from?
This is how tight the map is. We'll have one ring of cities, then it's a race to settle them. William's first city went towards us and he just 2-whipped so I'd expect another soon. Hopefully not for the stone. OT4E's first city was also towards us, but we're fairly confident he'll have stronger sites to settle than marble/deer/sheep. Aren't we? I moved the highlighted warrior to keep an eye on OT4E, he can move 1SE but no further in case of barbs appearing to the NW of Baldur's Gate.
Fintourist spotted a size six capital. I *believe* it belongs to BGN, who's Boudica (AGG/CHA) of Khmer and hasn't settled a second city yet. I'm confused. Did the mapmakers put him on a 21-tile island as revenge for his setup-thread threats?
Demos. We're due to whip next turn, so they look pretty good right now. Although this is with the capital working a 1/2/0 tile as it gets the hammer bonus for the settler colony pod!
(March 20th, 2018, 16:26)Old Harry Wrote: Fintourist spotted a size six capital. I *believe* it belongs to BGN, who's Boudica (AGG/CHA) of Khmer and hasn't settled a second city yet. I'm confused. Did the mapmakers put him on a 21-tile island as revenge for his setup-thread threats?
(March 20th, 2018, 16:26)Old Harry Wrote: Fintourist spotted a size six capital. I *believe* it belongs to BGN, who's Boudica (AGG/CHA) of Khmer and hasn't settled a second city yet. I'm confused. Did the mapmakers put him on a 21-tile island as revenge for his setup-thread threats?
1 tile island with 5 fish resources.
But it's hidden from the demo screen? Ingenious!
More seriously we've got room for ten to thirteen cities here, depending on how quickly our neighbours expand. In pb18 we had 22 cities when we attacked Azza. Yet there were 4700 land tiles in 18 and they are 5700 here, with nine fewer players. So there's a lot of land that's unaccounted for, which could be:
- some large empty islands over the ocean like in PB27
- Some players got more land than others like in PB18
- lots of hidden forested mountains or ice to reduce the impact of global warming
The second seems unlikely as it wasn't a popular feature in PB18. The third seems unlikely as well, as that's a *lot* of dead tiles. So it seems like we should be thinking about getting astronomy as early as possible and then IMPing the hell out of another continent.
Of course, we'll want to eat a neighbour or two as well, but I don't think early conquests will be as decisive as in pb18.
Ok, we have our first puzzle here, OT4E showed up with a warrior:
Here are my thoughts for our moves:
Option A: Our warrior at gems city moves back into the city
Option B: Our warrior at gems city stays put
The closer warrior at the capital moves SW
We continue with the micro plan meaning that one of our workers moves outside our borders E of the rice. Our wounded 1.5 str warrior covers him just in case of a random 2-mover
Regardless of Option A/B, OT4E will get a 4.0-4.4 % chance of razing our city if he wants to. Either against fortified warrior on the forest or the attacking across the river to a warrior with city defense bonus. Our warrior from north will be back in time that we can attack the warrior with 2 units if he moves onto the wheat tile on turn 41.
This unfortunately complicates our settling of the sheep city a bit. I think we need to manage with 1 wounded warrior over there for now and hope we don't get unlucky.
It'd be nice to restart my relationship with OT4E on a new, friendly basis. So to that end I logged in to declare war and offer ten turns of peace. Only to find that William killed our scout.
Giving him the peace treaty he wants allows him to settle for the stone city without harassment (if that's his plan.) But it's kinda handy for us with OT's warrior snooping around, so I accepted. We need to remember that William is AGG. He had pretty good odds on Lara.
I declared and offered OT4E peace. Although I may have accidentally sent an empty diplo message first (it's been a while, okay) which I'm worried will show up as a cease fire. Five or six turns until we get his graphs.
To add to the topic: I have to say I'm quite confused re why William decided to kill our scout. As Hitru pointed out in our chat, we let his scout to heal in peace instead of harrassing him away etc. Anyways, whatever the reasons, let's hope that our acceptance of peace means to him that we understand his whatever-reasons that led to killing our Lara. In reality I feel like there definitely won't be any kind of peaceful border with William and no real attempt of peaceful relations. Let's just try to find the best possible moment to hit him so that it hurts as much as possible..
Disclaimer: Fresh news make for stronger reactions and I could see us not missing that scout too much..
OT4E's first city was also towards us, but we're fairly confident he'll have stronger sites to settle than marble/deer/sheep. 
Aren't we? 
I moved the highlighted warrior to keep an eye on OT4E, he can move 1SE but no further in case of barbs appearing to the NW of Baldur's Gate.
Although this is with the capital working a 1/2/0 tile as it gets the hammer bonus for the 
