[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Jowy]

No doubt that's what he's up to. I guess we have to concede that area unless retep scares him off next turn.

[The Black Sword]

Ok, here's a full update so you can do some turnplaying if you want Jowy.



Settler for the islands, location still dependent on what the chariot finds. Then another whip anger will have worn off, grow on fish and 2 mines, with 8h overflow, enough for an archer(could do WB instead). Then another (probably 7t) settler.


There's a worker currently farming that river grassland. He finishes, moves 1N finishes the road, moves 1N again mines the ph hill for Sleeper, moves 1W and finishes the road on the hill, 1W again and chops the forest into the Colossus.

New Tachyon grows in 2, picks up the farm to grow in 2 again, picks up the mine to grow in 3, that's 25h, so I was thinking another archer. Then 2 whip something(HA/missionary/LH/worker?) and regrow on the clams as border pops.


Finish the settler, looks like he's going to cows/Ivory.

Then take 3 turns to grow to size 6 for 54/120h into forge and immediately triple whip it and overflow into the Colossus. Immediately regrow to size 4 on max food. 2t till size 5 with the Ivory. 1t with ph added, 1t with gh added to size 6. 3 turns till size 7, on the final turn, the chop comes in to complete the Colossus. Ready for another whip then, I was thinking 2t into settler then triple whip.


The rice farm will be finished next turn, so 3t till growth. Can finish the WB the turn after growing by picking up the mine. Then 3 more turns to size 4 on the cottage before doublewhipping missionary I think. Excess hammers probably into an axe.

The 3 workers will finish the rice farm next turn, I had orders worked out to road to the rice site but that's out now, probably need to finish the cottage here then get roading toward the cows/ivory and improve the cows.



I was thinking of picking up a plains forest for 2t on growth and then whip in the granary, might be able to chop it instead now and keep growing depends on the worker turns.


Island site still needs to be decided. I've been assuming fish first ring, probably plant another sheep city later to grow onto more coast. We could also settle Nakor's island first and build a second missionary instead of a WB.

I haven't moved the southern chariot btw, I think he should retreat, since he's pretty much being kept alive on the whim of our neighbours down there, but we can continue scouting if you want.

[The Black Sword]

I saw the settler in his city last turn when the chariot retreated. I guess that's it in the south, pushing for the flood plains doesn't seem like a great idea.

Good news on the island though:


Its a lot bigger than I thought. I'm thinking 1E of the fish for the first city.

More good news(depending on your POV I suppose):


10 overflow from the settler in Sleeper. Don't know how I miscalculated that before. Anyway, that will be too much overflow, and can't triple whip the forge, instead we do 1 turn like this, 1 turn take the mine back to grow in 2 and triple whip. I need to doublecheck the rest of the figures.

The settler is on it's way to the cows/ivory. We can take two of the workers finishing the rice farm to road over there and start cows, the final worker can probably finish the cottage then be sent over to the island.

[Jowy]

I was thinking we should have the island city share the two already-improved fish with the capital. But okay, since we're now gonna try to claim all the islands, perhaps it is better to just go for maximum land coverage first.

Let's scout it out. That 1E of the fish spot looks alright now, but we don't really know where the other cities will go yet :P

[The Black Sword]

You have a point. I've been sort of assuming that we share those fish since the start of the game, I guess I started thinking about other places after I shared out the pig too. But that spot is still better probably, founded earlier, less maintenance, quicker startup, worth the drop in the capital's production.

How about we put the first settler on that plains forest, use that whip in New Tachyon to get another settler out? That's super light on military but , eh, where did that Austin Powers quote go?

I thought some more about Sleeper btw, and I think the old plan was configured better for max output. So, lets just stick to that and put next turns production(9h) into a Horse archer to even out the extra 10h overflow. Having some hammers in a unit for an emergency whip is probably a good idea anyway.

[The Black Sword]

I declined to have a think about it, I'm not entirely sure why he'd offer when we've already traded. My best guess is he wants to gauge our immediate settling priorities to decide when he should settle the northern island. I think we might as well re-offer, we're giving him dtay's map and some extra info on the southern island, he'll have some extra info on the northern island and a small chance that some of some other useful info.

Looks like things are going badly for suttree.


dtay's power is increasing again:



We can take out the barb next turn when we have a spare move to escape barbs from the hut.

Both settlers are on the move, I put Sleeper's hammers into a HA this turn and Jetboy is building the archer.

I'm thinking a bit about Fortunato:

Whether to fit the lighthouse in or not. I think it's a good idea if we land the Colossus. Similar cost to a worker who would spend 20 turns cottaging 5 tiles.

[The Black Sword]

Settled our 2 new cities this turn:


Thinking grow to size 2, 1 pop whip+chop the granary, similar for Lighthouse. As expected, the city was a great boost to our finances as well, making 60bt at max tax now.


Need to decide what to do with all the forests here. Settlers and Workers seems like a good idea unless we feel we need military. The Hindu missionary will be here in 6t, which is pretty bad, due to me messing up needing the WB for the island instead. Cows online next turn, so 5t working the cows 35h +5h from mine + 2 chops is a settler. Then we can chop/build a Granary after that, maybe chop out a worker too?


Capital is up to size 5, seemed a good place to build a worker now, 4t when we retake the plains hill mine.

We still have 1 nice filler spot in the North:


Along with the island:


I think we should delay meeting Nakor until we settle the East of this island. We got Commodore's map again btw, showing no extra resources on that snaky island to our north. And that he has a lot of resource rich land to his East.

[The Black Sword]

Got some great news:

80h for free, and next turn we build our shrine. It also just happened to be the turn that Popinjay's Granary gets whipped.

Still, I liked that math for the settler from Bagabond, so I'm going to stick with it. It should be out T107, on the galley T108 and


I'm looking at this as the next spot over there, hopefully before Nakor:

We can get the Settler out of New Tachyon in time, and slow build finish the Missionary in Fortunato for immediate border pop. Need to ferry some military over here before these trips though. At the least I can send an archer, and use the now free whip in Fortunato for either an axe or a HA. I'm thinking axe?

More exploration looks good:


Keeping an eye on dtay:


And apparently we are No. 14:

[Jowy]

Wow, everything is coming along nicely. That island can be our savior in this game. It's not awesome terrain, but it's good to have all this extra land now that we're forced back by both neighbors. I would whip a HA over an axe right now for more mobility, but it's your call. Island dot map looks as good as it'll get. Dtay is teching another non-military tech so that bodes well for us short-term. Just gotta keep enough military that he can't make another low-cost invasion and succeed.

[The Black Sword]

I'll go with HA then, it also obsoletes later.

Part of the reason for Literature is probably the Heroic Epic, so it is a military tech of sorts, but at least it's effects won't be felt immediately. He must have saved that GG to unlock the HE rather than settle it, which is certainly a good idea.

Still, he must be going for some of the wonders as well, he's got marble and he's Phi, Parthenon and TGL are both great for him.