[PB16 SPOILERS] SevenSpirits goes off the deep end and finds Krill

[Krill]

Well, Kuro and wetbandit to the north is probably a continent that we have to take over, but the north has plenty of good ports so I'd say go with your southern dot map. TBH the only thing I don't "like" about it is that single city between the banana and corn because it isn't on the coast, but it really is the best city location in that area.

Other than that, I think the only thing to really say is that if we land Philosophy first, then the Polytheism/Masonry/Mono section depends on breakeven bpt, but as I don't see those techs taking more than 6 turns at that point I suppose it's reasonable.

[SevenSpirits]

The continent to the north is the continent to the south.

Amusingly, I wanted that amazing cottage city to not be on the coast on purpose for safety reasons. It's not really important if we take over the other continent though. Then again, not much of anything is important in that case.

[Krill]

Hehe. But if they have few cities in their north then we need fewer cities to match them production wise over that period, especially if they split the coastline. An invasion from our north to their south though is probably a reasonable entry path to that continent.

I'm fine with that city being a cottage city TBH. The only other option IMO is to use it as the HE city and I don't like that option nearly as much because of tech and civic constraints.

[SevenSpirits]

Sorry, been not getting enough sleep. Here is at least a pictureless foreign policy update so the lurkers can have something to grouse about.

Wetbandit (who has 5 cities) declined OB. I countered OB for 6 gold. He accepted. So now for the price of 6 gold we are making 7cpt extra.

After quite a bit of exploring along the coast, we managed to also meet Kuro, who has 6 cities. I offered straight OB and he accepted. That is worth 9cpt. By the way, unrelated fact but Kuro and wetbandit were at war. wetbandit logged in and accepted a peace offer from Kuro just minutes after I met Kuro.

Next turn we'll have CoL, we're swapping to caste and I'll do an update. Three settlers are on their way to found new artist colonies.

[SevenSpirits]

t95!

Eastern empire. As you can see, we're getting a few more workers out. I had been thinking I'd whip the capital worker, but decided against it. Note that MaA was just whipped for a settler three turns ago. I then grew back to size 5 building wealth for a turn, and then went for the worker. Eric is at 22/22f right now; I avoided growth last turn because the granary was a bit late.



Western empire. ToT and HF were, with slight regret, whipped for settlers. By the way, sharing both corn and clam has been amazing for growing the cities. NW got an outside-culture forest chop so it could whip its granary before the caste switch.



New city founded this turn: Moving Pictures. It's working a caste artist for three turns, and the sheep will be ready after that.



Second new city, Pyramids, is due soon. It's also starting off with an artist.



Third new city: Small Gods. I chose these three cities because they are pretty much the three best cities that require a border pop. Small Gods is less amazing in terms of immediate resources, but it has a TON of strong tiles to work (lighthouse lakes and river grass), so we need to get it up soon.



Found Kuro's culture!



Dropped off an Impi to scout Hashoosh and hopefully meet his neighbor. I also thought there's a possibility we will gift him the impi. I think he is the neighbor of ours who has teched HBR, and his power is going up above our own. Maybe something will happen! By the way, I offered him 1g, and I think I didn't accept it. I don't understand why anyone wouldn't. If he had accepted it and then offered it back I would have stayed outside his borders with the impi.



Making a philosopher.



Demos. With the whipping of 12 pop over the last four turns and now the hiring of 6 specialists, we have lost the food lead. Hey, check out that exports - imports! I think that means that someone is getting 3cpt from us, otherwise it would be 48. But maybe I miscounted something else somewhere.



Recent events. A total of 3 scientists and 1 engineer have been born in distant lands. I'm guessing 3 academies and pyramids coming up for Gaspar.



Our units.



And our kills. Losses are a scout and an impi.

[SevenSpirits]

I did a bit of deduction about which teams are paired together on continents.

We already know:
retep + Seven
wetbandit + Kuro (aka Ayashamaadhfasdfas)

And due to an earlier incident which I reported, I think another incredibly likely pair is:
Gaspar/Noble + Gavagai

Now we have some additional religious cues -
2metraninja + AD HOC

And Mikehendi is probably paired with either Bantams or Hashoosh, who apparently just got a judaism spread because he revolted to the religion this turn. Bantams is marginally more likely as he's had judaism visibly since t91 or earlier (unfortunately I didn't pay much attention, so I'm just referring to screenshots). But I don't think it's Mike elsewhere, and Bantams + Hashoosh on the same continent. So either:

Mikehendi + Hashoosh, and Bantams + Goreripper
OR
Mikehendi + Bantams, and Hashoosh + Goreripper

[SevenSpirits]

Gaspar indeed built the pyramids. Might want to rethink naming our own city that.

Hashoosh asked for his 1g this turn, and I provided. Here's my interpretation: Hashoosh has a policy of not accepting deals without checking out the situation and/or consulting with Dhalphir. He probably talked with Dhalphir who gave him the go-ahead. Similar thing happened when I offered him OB earlier, and I suspected it was happening again here. So I need to be aware that when he rejects a deal, it's not a real rejection.

I consider the 1g request to be explicit permission to move through his land with my impi.

Speaking of Hashoosh, I see a bridge in his land. I think he got construction this turn! Serious stuff happening there - we can hope. Given that I believe he's either facing Mikehendi or Goreripper, I wish him as much success as possible.

[SevenSpirits]

So much diplo news in the last two turns.

1) Met Goreripper with our impi in Hashoosh lands. Looks like there is some tension between the two. I offered him OB.
2) Met Gaspar on the continent to our west. He was logged in. I tried to dial him up several times but he never let me open the diplo screen. I did however check out his civics. He is in POLICE STATE. It's a fellow deep-ender! I honestly think we favor him to do well in his war against Gavagai. Gavagai seems to be doing better right now and has a sweet pair of lategame traits from Darius, so I would much prefer Gaspar to make gains here. Plus, oracle into mids into police state is just stylish as hell.
3) Later after Gaspar logged out, I went back in and offered him straight OB.

Next turn...

4) Both have declined my offer. Goreripper counters with OB for our silver. Yeah right, decline. OK, now he also counters with OB for 6gpt. Also yeah right. His routes are worth 10cpt to us, there is no way we are giving him more than half of the profit, especially since he is not the only potential supplier of routes. Decline that too. No further offers.
5) Gaspar is already logged in (and has been for a while) and I try to contact him again. Again he blocks me out. At this point I'm getting kind of irritated. I try a few more times while I play through the turn. I also notice that the new gold city isn't connected to my trade network because we were missing a couple defogged coast tiles and our sentry chariot heading to defog them was delayed a turn by a barb axe. Argh. Trade routes are recalculated when you sign new OB agreements though so if I managed to get one of them off it would be worth an additional turn of trade in that city, in addition to the routes. (So +3 one time, and +10/turn thereafter assuming at least 7 routes.) Hence, again, my wish to contact Gaspar. Anyway, I played the whole turn without any sign of life from Gaspar so I offered OB to Goreripper for 2gpt (didn't think he'd accept given his offers, but I think it's reasonable - an 8/2 split of the revenue is fair when the 8 goes to the party with all the leverage, and the other party has significant upside potential). Unfortunately he had already played so that was unlikely to take effect that turn already.
6) Long after Gaspar logged out, I decided to log in again just to check if he'd sent anything. And lo! He was offering: a fish for a fish. You know what man, I'm not sure what that means, but I'm in. (But I decline it because I think it makes sense to just counteroffer the same trade instead as an "accept" and not have it go through publicly unless Gaspar wants it to.) And then: he offers OB for 3gpt. YES. Thank you. I'm sorry I was annoyed at your previous silence. That is a fine trade and one I am quite happy to make with him in particular because I wish him success against Gavagai. Goreripper by comparison is a scary beast with 10 cities who may well conquer our friend Hashoosh. (Gaspar has 7 cities.) So I accepted the OB deal and counteroffered fish for fish, whatever that means. I am taking it as general cooperation until further notice, and I guess a lack of conflict in the sea between us (where there are a few fishes) in particular. Neither of us has seen a boat of the other so it's not that.
7) So now that we have Gaspar's routes, which perfectly fill all our slots up for the time being, I am hoping that Goreripper declines the trade.
8) If Goreripper does decline the trade, I think I might offer Gaspar another 1gpt next turn. I really appreciated his diplo and I want him to know that.

[Ichabod]

I didn't know you need the other logged in player to accept for the diplo screen to open. Where does this request appear on the screen? I may have been refusing to trade with people, just because I didn't know about this.

[Krill]

Just logged in again.

More cities please...and wow that's a bit on lucky on barb combat. But 15 more settlers, hmmmm...