Khan decided to stick with lurking, so I played a set of 15-
I started off by challenging the AI to games of Sominum; unfortunately EitB crashed after the third. Considering I had tied in one and lost the other two, I took it as a sign from the Gods that my scheme was folly and I shouldn't bother replaying them :P The option is still out there though for anyone bored enough and/or interested in trying to get us some +1 / +2 diplo modifiers.
Anyway, I reloaded the game, and my first real decision was to take another city:
It's expensive, but it's close enough to our amazing Ygg city that they can reinforce each other, and it controls some excellent terrain and resources. First build was a Warrior due to the proximity to Rhoanna.
... And then immediately afterwards she decides to hand us another city- this one I razed, since it was swamped by her capital culture and almost certain to lead to an immediate war-dec.
Valledia finally expanded again (the Settler founded in place); we could probably maneuver Loki down in time to capture it, but considering that the city will be useless before BW, I don't see the point.
Another really nice Barbarian city cropped up, roughly between our current possessions. We should aim to capture it after we get City States, I think. Even working two wines I'm not certain it will pay for itself with our current default civics.
For the record, Loki does not permanently suppress AI settling. I had Loki spend most of my set in Rhoanna's capital, earning us 5 gpt by Entertaining it, and for several of those turns she had a Settler camping there. For whatever reason she finally resettled her razed city, so we've got until she completes the monument to figure out what we want to do about it. I don't think we can realistically keep it, but even razing it will make her furious with us... but it also might force her to build another Settler, as opposed to taking our northern possessions with Warcry Warriors.
We def. need more troops in the north. I have a Goblin on a Goblin Fort in the area, but we're already burning through our gold stockpile at a rapid rate. I figured we should tech to Mining, and then to Cartography, so we're working on Crafting now, but if someone wants to switch to Exploration immediately I won't object. I think we'll be in a fairly strong position if we can retain our northern holdings (and eventually wipe out Rhoanna with them). Jonas is set to become a runaway AI, but there isn't much we can do about that, plus he's currently busy with the Khazad.
The Save:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1036...dSwordSave
. I'll play now.
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