[SPOILERS] Serdoa, Ichabod and Ex-Girlfriends - co-starring NH,Bigger and Lewwyn

[Serdoa]

I whipped it. Lost a 2/0/1 cottage that no one can work now. That (together with a coast tile I believe) made our research show 4 turns for Guilds. I changed it therefore by 10% to make sure it will finish in 3. We most likely can push it down 10% next turn again.

[NobleHelium]

Not sure why we're working the coast over the two cottages at Heidi? I thought we agreed to work cottages over coast. We'll have more than enough commerce to complete Guilds on time either way.

[Serdoa]

Thats the 2/0/1 cottages right? IIRC I didn't think about that yesterday at all. Feel free to change it as long as it doesn't change anything in either food-surplus or hammers produced.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, they're new cottages. One will upgrade in 3t though. I generally prefer working cottages over coast especially in big games because as the game progresses you're more likely to be dogpiled.

So have we decided what exactly we'll do about settling towards yurimack? Only one settler for two locations right now, and also only one galley. The further island is definitely unsettled as of right now because it still has forests all over it.

Gavagai turning his work boat around upon seeing us is curious. He could be wary that we'd sink his work boat.

Side note on English by the way - the word setup is a noun. A city is set up for knights, not setup for knights. Set is in its past tense there, as its past tense form is the same as present tense.

[Serdoa]

Thanks for the correction.

Gavagai might think that we have settled up there already upon seeing our galley/vulture. I certainly hope so, would give us more time to settle there.

As for settling toward yurimack: We can only settle one location right now, else I have to cut the Knights. I think we will want to set the northern cities to settlers and workers as they will have been hit by the whip hard enough that they won't want to regrow to their original pop right away. Estimates would be that we get 2 more settlers (and a galley from somewhere...) by T150 (remember those cities stop with Knights already EOT143/144). So we should be able to settle towards them at around T154. Earlier if necessary but that would need even more whips.

What we really need though is a navy. Our few boats really don't cut it anymore. Unfortunately galleys are not what we really want but the better ships all need Astronomy and that would obsolete the Colossus. Not sure if that would cost us as much - I remember in PB8 when I checked I realized that it actually wasn't as bad as I thought even though I had basically only coastal cities and nearly no cottages. Probably have to check that. Anyhow. We probably need to get a few more galleys (from Steffi/Pamela maybe? - Iris should produce Knights because of Barracks/Stable) or a ton more if we don't get Astro soonish.

Tech-path suggestion: Guilds -> Construction (set as we need the Bridges for movement) -> Alphabet -> Paper -> bulb Edu, bulb PP -> (Astro?)

[NobleHelium]

Yes, only one location, but which one?

I don't think we need that many galleys because defenses are strong right now with longbows. So our reaction time does not need to be that fast. In terms of when to go for Astro, I'd prefer to unlock a few more civics and get another Golden Age going to swap into them (like from the Taj) before obsoleting the wonder. That may be wishful thinking, but we just need to keep an eye on our neighbors and if any of them go for Astro we'll have to follow suit. But I don't think we'll need it before that.

As for tech I say:
Guilds -> Construction -> Paper -> Education -> Alphabet -> Printing Press

Then either go for Economics, Liberalism, or Nationalism.

[NobleHelium]

Logged in to check things after WK played and saw that he accepted peace as expected. I just noticed your trireme sign, didn't see it before. Do you want to ask for OB again now, or move the galley away a turn and then ask, or not at all? If he accepts then he won't be able to cancel it via war declaration due to the treaty.

Also, I checked out people's trades with each other. Sian is giving Gavagai stone for free. Gavagai is also at war with BaII for some reason, could be to stop him from trading with Nakor.

I offered sugar for furs with slowcheetah, hopefully he'll accept and give us two happiness in Iris. That might mess up your micro though? Worst case we can just work a spy or something.

Speaking of that, BaII is dangerously close to research visibility on us so I set all our EP on him for now. We can relax things after we've teched Guilds.

[Serdoa]

Didn't ask WK for OB now, but we can certainly do so. I'd still move the galley back, we probably can us it better back home and the vulture is hopefully going to achieve us the circumnav anyhow. On that note, slow has a unit next to our vulture (on the hill with the impi). I didn't realize that before, though it was two units of yurimack. He also knows about our workboat, so he should know that we are close to circumnav I think.

Well, or not, if he isn't aware from where we are coming.

Re:Iris: I think we could find a way around that definitely. But I think he didn't accept, at least it is still unhappy. Anyhow, if you want, feel free to look for other good deals. I somehow forget that everytime I'm logged in :/

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, looks like slowcheetah declined, oh well. No need to offer OB to WK again if we aren't going to go south with the galley. Interestingly, slowcheetah just declared on WK for the same thing and that trireme was built to sink our galley, so...

I realized that we should actually tech Alphabet before Education and not after (but still after Paper so that we can hopefully buy Nakor's map ASAP, and maybe start Sankore). Education doesn't do anything for us because we're not going to be building universities yet, and we want to delay the bulb a bit so that we can regrow more pop from the knight whips to get more bulb beakers. We can run a couple turns of gold after Alphabet before bulbing, whatever is necessary to have enough gold to immediately finish PP after Education, since that's the real immediate benefit from using the bulbs.

So which island city location are we planting with the settler, the far or near island? If we are planting on the further island, we should drop off the longbow at the near island to thoroughly explore it, and then have both the LB and vulture on the far side of the island ready to be picked up. If we are planting on the near island, then we can keep the longbow loaded and just go back to pick up the settler while the vulture explores the island.

[Serdoa]

No preference. Near is less aggressive and probably easier to hold for now while we concentrate on another front. Far obviously is better in terms of claiming land (but not by much) and definitely the better scouting post. What would you prefer?