Turn 93 - 550BC
Nothing new revealed this turn, but many decisions still to be made.
Not all that much over in CFC territory defogged by our scout this turn. They told us we had to go north around those mountains to make contact so we'll keep working on that. Then it's further north to find UniversCiv, who is apparently also in the general area. If we could meet both of those teams with this scout, I'd consider that to be a big success.
I attacked the barb warrior that appeared with our Woodsman axe, and we did win, although we once again took high damage in the process. Sian dropped down to about 2 health despite 99.7% odds to win - what is it with this axe? Seems to have trouble winning extremely high odds battles. The only good news is that we once again received 2 XP and now sit at 4 XP overall, one battle away from Woodsman II promotion. We found a sheep resource just outside German borders, for what that's worth. This unit will have to heal up again.
The other axe was waiting outside CivPlayers borders while we were talking to them in the hopes of giving us a little extra leverage in NAP discussions. I would have moved the unit at the end of last turn, only all of the other teams finished their turn 8 hours before the deadline for the first time in the last 60 days. Needless to say, I was not expecting that to happen and the unit sat unmoved for one turn. With our Woodsman axe having to heal for the immediate future, we now need to clear out the fogged region below the line of peaks and see about a land connection to Brick By Brick. I moved north this turn, to be followed by northeast moves the next couple of turns. We'll have to move another unit into CivPlayers territory if/when they sign Open Borders with us.
Our two axes in the southwest are both at about 4.5 health, and are resting this turn to heal up to full.
We have incoming barb units in the southeast, a warrior and an axe. We really need a war chariot over here to help clear this region out. I'm hesitant to move our only axe in the region too far outside our borders, since we have nothing for back up beyond a warrior (which would die horribly against the barb axe).
The worker micro plan calls for the new worker, Worker O, to move to the tile NW of the corn this turn in preparation for roading towards the oasis. Unfortunately we don't have a unit in place to defend that worker - I didn't read far enough ahead in the micro plan to have a defending unit in place. (Sorry about that, unfortunately I do miss things sometimes.) Our axe and warrior inside Focal Point were both there at the start of the turn. We could move Worker O blindly into the fog if we feel like taking a chance, but it will die if there's a barb unit on the corn tile. That feels like a foolish risk to me. I'm of a mind to put a turn into the grassland cottage north of Focal Point this turn, then just move BOTH workers in this area onto the forest NW of corn next turn. Yes, it's wasting a worker turn, but that way our roading plans won't be disrupted. How does that sound? Worker O is still unmoved on this current turn.
Overview and tile micro:
Relatively few changes here from last turn. Gourmet Menu grew to size 8 (the current happy cap there with no religion) and took the iron from Horse Feathers, which works two coastal tiles this turn to accelerate growth. Tree Huggers was the other city that grew, now up to size 6 working three non-river grassland cottages. Forbidden Fruit is preserving very sizable whip overflow into something else, either a war chariot or another worker, depending on what the team decides. It's working the new floodplains cottage so that it will regrow to size 4 faster.
The other story is that both Tree Huggers and Gourmet Menu have swapped to settlers, with the intention of triple whipping both next turn. Adventure One will also grow to size 10 next turn (where it's unhappy) and then double-whip a worker sitting in its queue. We know that one settler is going to the pink oasis spot on the CFC border. The other settler's location is still up in the air, and we really need to decide where it's going on this turn to continue planning moving forward. We probably need a revised micro plan, since the one I've been working with still has us single-revolting to Organized Religion in three more turns, when I think we've agreed that we want to wait for Monarchy and Hereditary Rule.
I would still prefer that we settle something to the area west of Seven Tribes, but if we don't, then we need to select another spot. The location NW-NW of the silks is probably out until our next phase of expansion because we need Tree Huggers to pop borders (still 9t) before that city can work the rice and be useful. The spot northeast of Forbidden Fruit could be an option, although I'd like to have another half-dozen turns to improve the two cities we already have there. Where else would we potentially settle? One of the southern locations? The wheat spot east of Seven Tribes that overlaps with that last unused floodplains? Whatever we decide, we need to have a clear plan in mind that answers:
1) Whether we are going to settle something west of Seven Tribes
2) If not, where is this settler in Gourmet Menu going?
A new plan that ties all this together would help a lot. I'll be happy to help work on that as needed.
Our GNP in the Demos category is rather silly this turn thanks to the addition of Currency trade routes in every city and the 40% bonus from Masonry pre-requisites. We even get another tiny boost from "known civ" bonus, since one of the other teams we've met already has Masonry tech, almost certainly CFC because of their Monotheism/Judaism. At 100% rate, we were at something like 250 GNP or whatnot. Silliness.
We also still have a diplomatic message from WPC that we need to respond to, so lots of work to be done. Let's see what we can come up with.