TBS does a thread

[Zed-F]

Really not liking my leader options. I think Phi/Spi/Ind are probably the top tier traits in this set up ... and in my 9 different leader options I hit precisely none of those.   I'll post my pick tonight/tomorrow morning, need a bit more time to mull over the options.

Do you still feel Ind/Phi/Spi would have been better for you given your start position? Has your exploration of the map so far changed your opinion of trait valuation for this map in particular?

[The Black Sword]

Ind and Phi are the two traits that give similar sort of benefits regardless of the size of your empire, so they should be better on small maps. I had Spi lumped in the same category in my head, but I guess that's not necessarily as true. I also expected the map to be slightly smaller than it was, I thought I'd be capping out at 6-7 cities rather than 10-11.

Still, I think I would have been pretty happy to swap Pro for Ind or Phi at start of the game. 

I'm still not that enamoured by Pro. Traits like Exp/Cre/Imp roughly generate 30h worth of value whenever you found a city. Pro generates 1gpt when you found a city, which I think is about half as valuable, maybe even less. In the early game things payback a lot faster than 30t and 1h is better than 1g also. You get that 1gpt again when you found Currency but that is into the mid-game, it definitely doesn't even things up. Not that many games go to Corporation and even then you only get another minor bump compared to the size of your economy at that time.

Pro is putting in a lot of work for me right now, keeping my economy from flatlining so I can focus on hammering out units to catch up in expansion. But I think I would have played things differently with other traits and come out a bit ahead.

[The Black Sword]

Economy successfully crashed, almost got to breakeven:



I'm actually somehow the city leader again with 10 vs scooter's 8.

Need to get the defences sorted for 7t from now when peace with Cornflakes goes up.

Sabratha has a crab first ring but given how hostile Cornflakes has been I don't think he'd leave the nets alone. So the city is fairly weak and maybe I shouldn't have settled it, but I wanted to get the border set since it was the last potentially contested city.

I decided to let Carthage keep its corn, so Tacape could be settled for first ring clam. With the happiness coming in from Thapsus I can deal with the stacked whips. I'll 3-whip a Library and run some scientists to use up the food surplus. Currently thinking the timing might work for a golden age.

Units on the defence galley tile can unload in either Thapsus or Sicca so they can pull double duty. For the moment they are sitting in Sicca looking suitably responsible at Cairo while the Khmer peace treaty lasts.



Traded an axe for chariot with Cornflakes before peace and two axes to take Ligurian, so I'm back in the pack in Soldiers.

[Charriu]

How do you plan to get your economy up to speed again?

[The Black Sword]

Working some commerce tiles will be a good start.

I have 4 commerce resources in Thapsus and Ligurian still to work, 2 scientists in the capital, and quite a number of riverside tiles to cottage. 

Since we have unnerfed slavery and workshops are back to being weak, I expect to cottage most of flatland tiles. So most pop growth will go towards improving my GNP than my hammers from here.

[The Black Sword]

Sorry, I forgot the T50 milestone. Turns just fly by in this game. This is T53:








6 workers I think.



Scooter oracled Currency. Or if he teched Currency and oracled something else that's even worse. I've been trying to communicate to Cornflakes already that we need to co-operate in that direction rather than just kill each other. But he's been unresponsive. He did ask for my silver once and I tried to say I'd give him my next happy resource but I don't think he got the message. This will cause some painful unhappiness until the next one is hooked, but I guess if we stay in this cycle I'm doomed regardless. I have too many units tied up in defence that I could use to slow scooter down instead.

I tried to get Cairo and Commodore in on the act too, though I can't bribe them with spare happy for a few turns yet.

Also, it is real hard to offer a player free resources after he attacks you twice without even any clear benefit to himself. Clicking that button hurt.

[The Black Sword]

Hmm, looks like I didn't report the war declaration vs scooter. So Cornflakes accepted my offer while Commodore also returned a war for war offer. Scooter then left a worker beside by warrior so I had to pop it. That warrior saw he had too much defenses in his front city to get through, but I decided to push up my units anyway. It makes him whip, has the potential to burn some tiles and pulls units away from defense vs the other 2. This turn we entered his borders.



I poked with an axe first and felt safe enough to move forward. Unless there's a host of horse archers in the fog we should be safe. But I'm most likely going to turn around next turn. I can't do anything further, moving onto flatland would make me way too vulneruble. And every turn I stick around makes it more likely he has the HAs ready.

And with regards pulling defenses away from elsewhere, I'm feeling a bit hung out to dry by my 'allies'. I'm really seeing no signs of Commodore helping, either on the power graph or with my warrior in his territory. I also got his graphs and he's quite close to scooter, probably not getting the runaway feeling the rest us might have. Cornflakes at least demilitarised our border and didn't hit my empty cities. His power graph also shows some signs of life. But he's not even bothered to pillage some nets while he has the trireme advantage. I'm hoping he just doesn't want to show his hand until he can assemble the land forces. If he doesn't do anything next turn though I think I've stuck my neck out as far as I'm willing to go. I'll probably turn around and try turtle for a bit.

[The Black Sword]

You used to be able to see ongoing deals in this screen right? For example my fish for silver deal with Cornflakes. Am I imagining that or why was it removed? And is there anyway to see what trades other players are making with each other now?

Also, seems like Cairo is happy to leave scooter alone but poke at my cities when I try to pressure the leader. I thought we were friends ...

[superdeath]

Maybe its been moved to the "active" tab? /phones Charriu

[sunrise089]

Has always been on the Active tab for me in BtS lol