[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[The Black Sword]

Triple whipped the settler in Jetboy, should grow to size 4 anyway, always fun to do that.

dtay doesn't seem to be showing up with any units and we can 1t the archer with overflow any time now, so I felt it was safe enough to get the settler first


Avoid growth in Dr Tachyon to get the last 4 food into the granary, got to remember to turn this off next turn.

Waiting for two things atm, dtay to settle his next city and the location of the horses. If dtay doesn't resettle The Turtle next, then we race settle the northern copper. If he does, it's quite possible to 1t that city with chariots. If he settles there then we don't have any really good defensive settlements in the north east. We'd need to decide whether an attack is worth it, or probably just settle southerly.

Dtay does seem to be normal researching Maths now, the next Scientist bulb is the fairly bad Alphabet, so I'm back to hoping he researched Masonry for a wonder. The Philo civ going for the Mids would be a reasonable move. If so, might allow us to catch up a bit short term.

[Jowy]

If he's refusing peace offers, that means he is just healing and/or letting newer units catch up.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, I was sort of hoping he would have had his workers preparing his latest site while The Turtle action was still going option on then maybe he'd settle there first. Given that he still hasn't settled another though, seems likely he will resettle. His power graph isn't really showing much new units though:


His culture graph also changed a bit, but I can't tell whether it's a library or barracks, that might account for one of the increases.

Any attack would pretty much be hoping he doesn't have spears handy, but we can easily call it off if we see he has them, and assuming we want one chariot anyway, the cost is only 1 more.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure he'll settle a new city before we have to make a decision.

Also: I only offered him the one peace treaty at the start, I figured he'd offer us if he changed his mind since. Do you think it's worth to try again?

[The Black Sword]

Our latest city is founded, forgot to rename it .



2 turns working the cow before the pasture is done gets us exactly to 22/22 food in another 4t. We need to decide whether we want to whip +chop or double chop the granary then. In the meantime it can build it's own workboat, perfect since it will be making multiples of 3 hammers. The second workboat needs to come from Dr Tachyon I think to be in time for the border pop.

We also need to decide what to do with Jetboy's overflow next turn:


I'm thinking just into another settler?

Still no movement on anything from dtay, still 4 cities, no change in any of the graphs.

EDIT: Also need to check tech after AH. Sailing -> Writing -> Maths? Delaying Sailing until afterwards might be an idea, since an island city is more expensive in hammers but better in tech, which is the opposite of what we need right now. Lighthouses are handy though. Need to check how long Maths will take. Could also try Horseback Riding, but I think we're better playing the long game and trying to catchup with Fin vs Phi than fighting vs aggressive.

[The Black Sword]

Wouldn't want to make this too easy?

We can get a 5t settler in Jetboy with the overflow. Still nothing knew, cities or power, from dtay. Without chariots though, northern copper, that we might not even be able to keep online, seems too risky to me. Are you happy to settle on the southern copper with 2 axes and 2 archers Jowy?

Dr Tachyon will grow to size 4 in two turns and the whip unhappy will run out. I was going to whip a chariot, not sure now.

17t for Writing/Maths sounded too long, so research set to sailing.

[Jowy]

Send another 10T peace offer if you haven't. 2 axes 2 archers are enough for the south copper, but can we still defend the capital if he attacks it? I'm a bit worried he'll walk a stack of axes to our capital, using the road we built. But I suppose holding off on the copper spot won't do us any favors, we need something to defend ourselves with. Longbows and iron are too far away, and we might not even have any iron (since we didn't have copper or horses, it is a fair assumption that strategic resources were not balanced and we could be missing all three). On builds, just need to get a lot of archers up since that's all we've got atm. Unless we get peace, in which case we can breathe easy for a bit.

[The Black Sword]

I sent another peace offer.

His power graph only shows 4 units and our borders are about to expand again next turn, giving us plenty of notice on an attack and time to whip out defences. It's new cities where units can come out of the fog that are the problem.

[The Black Sword]

Well, he didn't take peace and I guess he still wants to bother us:


Not too scary but it could certainly mess with our settler getting to the copper. Dr Tachyon will finish it's archer this turn and we can set up to whip another. Power graph:



and he is still on 4 cities.

The border pop revealed some interesting stuff south, including our horses:


Could settle for these instead, but the rice would require a border pop. We need to get a WB out to circle the southern island and check the mainland coast for food.

[The Black Sword]

Predictably enough his axe moved to the forest:


Need to check who defends here and what the various odds are, guess I'll try out Sareln's combat calculator. My gut says to let him attack and we should be able to clean up one for one. Should we move the other axe onto the forest to block his advance though? But it would also be nice to hide the second copper unit to keep him guessing if we have a spear.

He also settled a new city this turn and I don't see any new culture on the map:


We'd see something if he had a city there right? I like the north copper again now, settled on the desert hill. We already have (most) of that road built whereas he could make the southern difficult. I doubt he has more than 1 unit up there when he's got 5 other cities to hold. Could put that chop into another archer from Jetboy, whip another from Dr Tachyon and overflow into a third. He still has no power graph change.

I probably won't play until I get back from college to give some time to think about it. Any suggestions Jowy?

[The Black Sword]

Our next sites need to be copper, horses and the island.

I think settling for the horses next, and hoping for another food source in the fog is best. The axe is pretty difficult to remove without chariots and he can see if our settler goes to the north or south, allowing dtay to plan another surprise for us. It just takes too many units to deal with the axe and defend any copper plant properly.

If we don't find another food source, then we'll just have to settle with rice second ring.