[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Jowy]

Any input will probably have to wait until Thursday when I'm done with my exams :[

[The Black Sword]

Cool, good luck with the exams.

[The Black Sword]

In the last 2 turns, Nakor has totally collapsed in the face of the Vikings, I'd love to know how they captured his capital of Rhuidean so quickly.


So, I seem to have written a ranking of sorts.

Pindicooter were in a good position but this will probably puts them into joint favourites to mackoti. They're Fin/Org Darius (with the Mids!) as well, they have a lot of advantages going into this period of the game. On the third continent we have Ichabod in the north who is the closes to mackoti in city count and a city spot with almost as many flood-plains as plainfood. He's also a strong contender, and should finish off Mongolia soon, though it's hard to judge his tech rate. Finally Plako in the south seems to have bullied Dhalphir into extra land as well, though maybe not as successfully as the other 3. Again, it's hard to judge without having met him, but that should be rectified soon.

Dtay didn't get enough land off us yet to keep up with them I think, his city count is too small at the moment. He's probably picking up some good first-to bonuses soon but I really think he's going to need to pick up some more land, so we should be careful. Old Harry are in a similar, though probably somewhat weaker position, suttree should collapse relatively soon though if they really push him. So, they have some good expansion prospects still, but they need to be careful mack doesn't take it also.

Commodore seems to have played this one peacefully, contrary to his image. Without taking any land of others, he has picked up a fair number of cities, but I guess he's in a similar quandary to dtay right now. He also built the Apostolic palace IIRC, though he's not spiritual, so I think he'll need to pick up the UoS before temples really become a good deal.

I'm not really going into the people below us, but both Lewwyn and Azza probably have some opportunities to snipe some Nakor cities now.

Azza finally found us btw, was greeted with an OB offer when I logged in. That gave a really nice boost to our GNP, here's the new domestic advisor:


Here's the situation around Envoy:


What's the chances of those barbs going to bother mack? I don't really want to spare the galley to help deal with them. Azza's boat there is a bit worrying, he must have got some culture into ocean to access that island. Getting our own settler there ASAP is more important now.

Finally:


And we'll have ~1000g reserves to start blowing through next turn.

I could really use sorting out the worker plan too, lots of conflicting priorities, the old plan has run out and it's beginning to show.

[Ceiliazul]

heck, that barn galley looks like free XP for your trireme, no?

you can get a lot done with 1000 gold... what's the plan?

[The Black Sword]

Straight forward Guilds -> Banking for the moment I think. We've a lot of options after that, main ones being

-backfill: Construction, Calendar, Lit
-Astro
-PP ->RP -> Rifling

Paper is a required for the last two and the extra pre-req bonus should help on the backfill, so I guess that's probably next. We can firm up on the timing once our GA finishes next turn. I'm very hesitant to go for any first-to bonuses, with so many competitors and us already behind. Perhaps the econ merchant might be winnable, we'll have a better idea after Paper though.

Looks like you're right about the xp:


87% odds IIRC.

Went with Serfdom in the end:


Less than impressive end of GA demos:


Also forced out the Library in Peregrine this turn since we've got this extended run of 100% research ahead of us.

[The Black Sword]

That boat is supposed to have a worker on it .
I've already delayed that settler a turn longer than necessary, now this will set it back another two turns. The *bright* side is that you can see the barb galley chasing the WB for that island spot away. So, maybe it wouldn't be economical anyway. I'm not worried about mack's Trireme, our OBs are probably worth a fair bit to him, given his number of cities, I doubt he'd throw them away just to pillage a few nets.

I'm more worried over here:


I upgraded the archer to the crossbow, still debating about whether the axe should be upgraded too. The boats are technically in range of Chrysalis as well, but I don't think they know that exists, and it's only size 1. Pindicooter probably have enough to deal with finishing Nakor for the moment, provided we don't make things too easy for them that they could do this loss free. Definitely need to bulk up the defenses over here though, we've been running too light and the mainland looks safe enough for the moment.

I offered Nakor 5g for his map:


Partly to see the extent of the Viking conquest, partly for an update on those islands. We'd need Astro to take them though, and the Vikings are hard to deal with at sea. I was really hoping we'd have more ports in this sea to have a chance but that's gone now.

We also got mack's graphs, he really is blowing away even dtay in the demos. Picking up Pindicooters now, that will be an interesting comparison.

I had to work extra coast tiles in a couple of cities to scrape out the beakers for Guilds. We have a HA in the Sleeper queue that will be upgraded to a Knight, will gain an extra workshop hammer and can start the Grocer earlier in the capital.

I was looking again at the economic techs like PP and RP ... and they're just not that economic. It takes forever for their bonuses to pay back that massive beaker cost in an empire our size. Maybe we should pick a military tech to bee-line instead. Still, we have until Banking to think about it. And of course I was wrong before about astro needing paper.

[The Black Sword]

Decided not to cut corners about the safety in Hiram, upgraded the axe to a mace. I never realised how terrifying the Vikings were before.

[Ceiliazul]

Saw a cool discovery channel thing about the unique swords the vikings had. They were able to create a supply of high purity carbon steel. In ~500ad. And it turns out they got the technique from India thru trade down the Volga river to the spice road.

So there ya go: ancient vikings couldn't have been so terrifying without relying on the Indians.

Surely that'll stop Scooter and Pin from invading, right??

[spacetyrantxenu]

If they already have the manufacturing process what further need have they of their Indian trade partners?

[The Black Sword]

If they have Steel, then they have Chemistry, then they have Frigates ...

I thought you were trying to convince me they were less scary .