T170. I pretty much follow Brian's signs. We can start thinking about moving workers to irrigate towards Golden Axe, and I'm going to try my idea of using a Spy to scout the north. If barbs can kill spies I'm going to feel very silly, but I'm pretty sure they're invulnerable in neutral lands.
We're going to struggle to hold Inca Gold culturally. I look at moving some of our core MP troops out that way, and to cover the new settler at site 'A'. I'm not fond of it, but I don't want to reach for anything too far from the cap.
We've got a lot of quite heavyweight infrastructure - libraries at new cities and markets at older ones - on the go. Quite a few have hammers in units stacked behind them. It's all useful, but means that I don't have a lot of flexibility in my choices right now, and can't do much about getting out any spies or HAs.
T171. FM has just been whipped; once it grows (4t) I shall stagnate it running some specialists. I'd love to get a spy out to scout but Buddhist missionaries are more important on this side of the empire.
Interestingly, Cuzco only has archers in it. I'm keeping my eyes open for any Incan metal units, but I wonder what we could do with a mess of horse archers here...
Julius is left with one badly wounded Praetorian outside the walls of Gao. Mansa seems to be doing fine right now - and has picked up a GG for his trouble.
There's a note to whip Contra for a market, and another saying t171. That's a 4-pop whip. I think that this doesn't make sense and then realise this is BTS not RtR and redo the calculation. It's a big whip but nice overflow, so hit the button. I've started moving workers ready to get chops into MoM as well, so we'll see.
T172. I move my scouting chariot into the forest that still surrounds Cuzco. To my surprise, there is a barb 2 tiles from the Inca capaital. It's only a warrior, so we should be OK, but I still feel like an idiot
.
Goldeneye makes another appearance as a city name in an ongoing game (OH named a city after the game in PB38). Nicely, there's a roaded forest available in our culture in it's second ring which needs only one more chop - that's half a granary straight away, nicely prepared by Brian. We also get incense this turn, so I wander around checking happy caps.
T173. Chariot survives. We also enter the Medieval Era. I pick Construction, but not many beakers will be going into it any time soon. Annoyingly, I think we're about to lose our silks at Golden Axe. The only unit there was our woody II axe, and while it has 68% odds against the incoming barb, it's too well-promoted to risk (it can get Woody III!) I've moved an archer up to ensure we don't lose the city, but I suspect we're going to lose the plantation.
The scouting Chariot takes another move into the woods, onto a hill this time. This is luckier - while there is a barb spear, it is two tiles away. We also get to meet Willem of the Dutch, founder of Judaism and in the middle of the pack. He accepts OB.
I fiddle with our EP. We can't see Willem's graphs (duh), or those of Julius or Gilgamesh. We have no hope of ever seeing Gilgamesh graphs as far as I can tell. For a few turns I'm going to run 50% Willem, 50% Julius to try and get graphs on Willem while not falling too far behind the Romans.
I also whip a spy out of Streets of Rage, to try to get visibility on the north. A second builds naturally out of SMB.
T174. Because I am careless, I forgot all about the axe we had healing in the far SE. It gets double-teamed by an axe and a sword, but survives. More healing to do.
As expected, we lose the silks. Sigh. Oh, and a barb archer has turned up as well. We have an axe reinforcements on the way and I whip the archer I lined up at Golden Axe last turn. Only Sonic and FM are directly affected, an I've plenty of workers lined up to fix it, but it's annoying. I can move some of the troops I was trying to work over to the west back into Sonic for the moment.
There is a barbarian Horse Archer over by Mansa's new city of Tadmeka. I'm glad the lakes and peaks make access to Cholo difficult, but I put a turn of hammers into a spear anyway.
T175. I keep forgetting to mouse over barbs to check what's actually in the stack. We're getting swarmed at Golden Axe. The first axe dies, but the archer was actually an archer-warrior pair, and there's another axe incoming. Glad I concentrated force here. Rather than delay getting the silks fixed I hit the archer with a cover axe at 94%, then support that unit with a fresh archer and our woody II axe; they're on a mined hill, so odds will be in our favour. I'm going to be upset if I lose our very first, very special axe though. Four workers start replacing the plantation.
Mansa killed the HA - there's a wounded sword there - so I switch Cholo back to the market.
T176. DAMMIT
. Our axe dies at 21% odds. No Woody III healing for us. Still, silks back on line. A couple of 95%+ battles finish off the barb axe and warrior, and I'm still able to cover our exposed, wounded axe with an archer in woodland, in case there is something else out there in the fog.
T177. Mansa makes peace with Jules. Mansa would also like us to stop trading with the Romans, but I say no. We're going to have to keep an eye on the Roman border. Construction will be up before the end of the turnset.
I follow Brian's last direction to whip Jungle Strike (for a Buddhist missionary, for culture in Goldeneye). It's double-whipped, but there's no great need to be working too many tiles there, so keeping it at size 6 makes sense.
T178. Ah. Julius wants 190 gold. While he's powerful, we're not committed elsewhere. I say no. He sulks. I then get a chance to look at the power graph. Maybe I should have said yes. We need to line up military on our southern border.
Our scouting axe manages to fight off another sword thanks to a recent promotion, but I decide to take advantage of our OB with Gilgamesh and go heal somewhere quieter. There's another sword already on the way.
T179. More barbs near GA. I kill and kill but they keep coming. I try to set up a nice double-whip into MoM at Contra for next turn, but we'll see...
T180. Julius demands we cancel our deals with the Mali. This time I say yes. 10t of peace with Rome is very much worthwhile, and Mansa is much less likely to attack (he's still more powerful than us though).
Construction is in. I pick MC, but that can be changed.
Notes for next player:
- As stated earlier, I was putting espionage into the Romans and Dutch to get graphs. It probably needs changing.
- We have two settlers on the map. I was going to claim land to the SW and grab the plains sheep to the N, but neither site is so attractive that I would complain if we went somewhere else.
- I thought we'd see fewer barbs than earlier. Oh no. They really dragged down my set, killing our very first axe and eating my attention and worker turns. The "out-of-place" axes have each made a kill in the last turn: one made a kill the previous turns as well. They are not well placed to help cover the silks now, unfortunately.
- I've tried to set up a highish-overflow whip into the MoM that needs checking this turn. Probably want to check my tile assignments there as they may have been unorthodox last turn to get the right production.
- I've been pushing Buddhism for border pops as it's the score leader's religion and I hope we can capture the holy city.
- As noted, looks like the Inca have no metal (but have HBR and horses). The terrain is not great for a pure HA rush, so I was pushing for Construction first.
Also, I was thinking it was RFS-81 next, so may have gone overboard trying to be helpful with signs.
Roster:
haphazard1
Brian Shanahan
shallow_thought (Just played)
Zalson (UP NEXT!)
RFS-81 (On deck)
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore