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

[NobleHelium]

We should still finish the courthouse in Domino's and like the grocer and stuff. Also not sure if we need Vassalage, 5xp and 7xp knights are about the same. I think we keep the cottages in the cap and Bureau.

[pindicator]

We should still finish the courthouse in Domino's and like the grocer and stuff. Also not sure if we need Vassalage, 5xp and 7xp knights are about the same. I think we keep the cottages in the cap and Bureau.

Commerce only helps us if we think this attack will succeed.

[pindicator]

Also, i was thinking getting knights to 4xp because not all cities have an ikhanda. But if most do then i agree about staying in Bureau.

Noble, thank you for getting me thinking about commerce!  I have found a use for it after all, but it involves giving up on all teching after either Theology or Gunpowder.

Horsemen -> Knight upgrades cost 140g each and save 40h. We could pillage our iron and build HAs. I think if we were to tech through Gunpowder that would take 4 turns, leaving us 15 turns to save gold for upgrades.  If we make 450gpt in the golden age and 300gpt out of it, that would put us at about 5500g, or enough to upgrade 37 horse archers to knights, and saving us 1,480 hammers, or about 16 extra knights than what we would normally produce.  (Assuming a 20-turn window for building up forces.)

This is definitely an "all in" move; it will make our initial attack all the stronger.  But it means we will have no aspirations of getting to Chemistry.

We could balance it out - and tech chemistry then turn off research and save gold.  If we go that route, I think we could get enough gold to upgrade 10 HA.

[NobleHelium]

I was assuming we would keep trying to tech Chem, yes.

[pindicator]

Ok, I'll leave it for scooter to choose if we're teching to chem or going all in with the current tech level. I need to pack up shop here and pick up my brother from the airport.

Scooter, I'm leaving it to you to play. If you think we are going to want Chemistry then take Noble's suggestions of finishing the Grocer in Culvers & Courthouse in Dominos.
I would also [strike]fire all specialists[/strike] work all the good tiles in Sid's, firing a number of specialists. We don't need another Great Person - unless you think a merchant is worth shooting for. (Napkin math: 1500g = ~11 HA -> Knight upgrades = 440h) So that actually may be worth aiming for.
Also, I think we want to stay in Bureaucracy regardless. We'll want the hammers, and getting knights that are 4 & 7xp isn't worth that much more than 2 & 5xp. Or maybe I'm just being pessimistic about their survival chances
The Globe isn't worth it, just kick off the 2nd golden age as soon as this first one ends.

Military everywhere unless you see a clear reason to finish the current build.

[scooter]

I think we definitely need Chemistry for reasons I've explained. If we start a war, he will choke us to death with Frigates and render our navy useless. Anyway, played the turn, started a ton of Knights. Did let a couple builds finished, though I delayed the Grocer in Culvers. Basically I tried to sink a turn into Knights almost anywhere I could so that even if we want to finish stuff (like the Grocer in Culvers), once we're in Slavery we'll have the option to whip the partial-completed Knights.

Also, those workshops aren't gonna be so hot once we're out of Caste. We're almost better off farming and whipping.

Random screenshot time.



Caravel keeps floating around, not seeing much of anything. Making me feel better. This is really his only route to hit us (more on that later), so I'm guessing he just loaded up the 6 mover to be opportunistic. Oh, when I logged in I was greeted with this by Slowcheetah:



For those who didn't get it last time, I was trying to communciate to him that if he would invade Commodore (asking for his two cities nearest Commodore and strat resources would indicate military), we would give him Rheims back. So I'm not sure how to react to him now. Does the Cow mean anything? Probably not. But this does seem to suggest he's OK with peace even after the 10T as long as he gets Rheims back. Really, if he gives us peace + Whale gift (Rheims nets 2 whales) in exchange for Rheims, that would be wonderful. No way to communicate that though. Rejected for now, not sure what our best course of action is with him. Turn rolled, and this catapult was freshly produced from North's Corner:



Yeah it's brutally obvious Commodore is prepping for war. Lovely. I kept poking around with the Caravel and found these two guys:



It was at this point that I realized I kinda sort of double-moved Commodore here (I was last to play). Yes we're at peace and there's obviously no guarantee of war which is why I thought nothing of it, but I can't help but feel it's slightly unfair I spotted these Galleons? Anyways, at that point I logged out and figured I'll give him a courtesy window to play before me just in case I'm gaining an unfair advantage. That Caravel should scout out the 1 tile island city next IMO, and we can use a couple of these Galleons to set up a bit of a net. This south part is really the only vulnerable part. We have a ton of visibility up north. I keep watching the central part for Forts, but that hasn't happened:



Yes, he has a Galleon poking around up there. The 6 mover is somewhere up here in the fog too, so I reinforced Dominos and Jamba Juice further. We also had a Knight + Longbow complete EoT in northerly cities, so there are reinforcements ready. I think we're fine for now. I don't think he has enough Galleons to do any more than snipe a lightly defended city, and we don't have those on the west coast anymore now that we're aware of his Galleons floating around.

That's it for now. Thought I took a few other pictures, but I don't see them in the folder. Sorry about that.

[NobleHelium]

We won't see new forts being built in the fog.

[pindicator]

Thanks for grabbing the turn last night.
Scooter, i think it's still worthwhile to workshop. We're going to have 10 turns of golden age with 1f5h and 6h workshops. After the GA ends and we swap to slavery those are still 1f3h and 4h tiles, and at that time we whip off our population.

I'll try to get some details out to see what we can get out in the next 15-20 turns later.

Okay, I think this clamming party is about to head out

[scooter]

Commodore declared war on us and tried to boat Dominos. He failed. Then he offered peace. I rejected peace because screw that. Here's a nice picture of his massive failure so you can all point and laugh:



GOOD THING YOU TRASHED YOUR ONLY FOREIGN IC TRADE ROUTES FOR A FAILED BOATING ATTEMPT ON THE THIRD BEST CITY OF THE SIXTH BEST TEAM.

Seriously though, one burning question. What happened to that Catapult?? Did he misclick? Super confused on what happened there. Whatever. So obviously he has two units still left on those boats, so I cleaned up and reinforced.



By the way, here was his peace offer that I saw upon logging in:



Yeah no. You will not be getting peace for the remainder of the game if I get my way. He can actually probably take Qdoba if he really wants, but there's not much that can be done. The city is not really important anyways.

ALSO. Even bigger news. He brought up an invasion force of 6 Galleons from... Antarctica or something?!?! Super weird. See for yourself:



I... I don't know how they got down there. I guess he somehow slipped past our Caravel perfectly? Not that it matters. OK. So I'm assuming he has 18 units ready to hurt us? Yipee. From that spot, if our Galleon is not in the way, he can move 4 tiles and unload next to Culvers. If he does that next turn (T212, which is now THIS turn), we probably lose the city. However, I only need to buy us 1 turn really, so I moved that Galleon stack near Culvers (5 full health Galleons) onto that coastal tile. He is now 5 tiles away from that hill, so he cannot drop this turn. Best part is he can't run away either really, so we'll get a chance to sink some of those boats with units on them . Here's the reason we only really needed to buy 1 turn:



Those guys plus the units we've already piled into Culvers/Sids should be enough. Yes they could have made it into either city, but I'd like the flexibility to be able to cat their stack and hit it if it's advantageous to us. Curious to see what he does in response.

[scooter]

FWIW, he actually offered peace twice. The first offer was for Qdoba, the second was for our world map. I didn't even bother offering straight peace back after seeing that south Galleon group that now has nowhere to run.