Hashoosh gets into bed and Dhalphir sometimes watches from the closet (SPOILERS)

[Atlarge]

Were you thinking of adding a city north of the Capital if only for defensive purposes?

[Hashoosh]

From all indications, I think it's just us and Goreripper on this landmass. Coast to our north, south and west probably means it's everywhere else. I don't think we should settle a city up there for a while, we need to concentrate our resources on getting a favourable distribution of land with GR and making sure toroid doesn't punish us too severely.

[Dhalphir]

I agree, I think we need to settle as aggressively as we dare. Copper at the BFC (which I assume everyone has) means a relatively passive ancient age, so as long as we keep tabs on Goreripper's power, he shouldn't be able to surprise us.

[Hashoosh]

I've settled Undercity at the cows spot, and I've queued up a settler at TDP which will start next turn (after the chariot completes).

Plains hill above the lake? I've sent in an axe to scout out the fog around there.

We should also be pretty wary of border plants, he's creative and once he gets construction we'll have to deal with cheap odeons

[Hashoosh]

We've contacted 2mnj. Offer OB?

Also, next city is headed to the gold/corn in the south for some sweet, sweet gdp. We really have to stretch into the south ASAP, due to our lackings of food in our immediate vicinity.

How about we settle this island equitably, to prevent warfare between us and gr. The way it looks is a bunch of duel set ups, maybe 6 islands of 2, so we'd want to avoid conflict with our neighbours with anything short of total conquest (what I fear has happened on the isle of Retep).

I'm not sure if there are empty islands, but that's where we should focus if there are, instead of a protracted struggle for our own island. At least until goreripper starts pulling ahead or we get to jannissaries super early.

[Dhalphir]

Do we have a trade connection with 2mnj? If so, OB is a good idea - if not, I wouldn't bother yet, unless it gives us scouting ability through his lands with boats.

We shouldn't be too chummy with goreripper. Sooner or later, we kill him or he kills us - the bigger we can make ourselves, the better chance we have when it comes down to the inevitable conflict.

[Hashoosh]

Well we've been discovered by the krill/seven team, who have eliminated their partner Retep (assuming a symmetrical set-up with the duel islands).

They want our horses for their ivory, which either means they're going to rush someone with HAs (bit late for chariots) and the set-up is NOT what we thought, or they`re having trouble with barbs on their presumably large plot of land. Latter seems a lot more likely, especially given the detour of archery-hbr wouldn't be particularly appealing for a team that has no one to challenge them for now.

What do you think? Another happy would be awesome, and horses are near useless for us (stupid greece...) unless we go for HAs ourselves. We can discover a trade route with sailing pretty easily, but as it stands they'd benefit from our link-up while we'd get no extra commerce (IIRC) since we don't know where they are.

I'm inclined to accept, we've 8hours left on the turn clock, but oh crap, i just remembered you're on australian time.

I think they're waiting for us to make a decision before they end their turn, so once gaspar goes (unless they're in a time split with krill/seven ) it'll be us holding up the turn (as it always seems to be, I need some sort of mayor quimby emoticon for this).

[Hashoosh]

I'm gonna go ahead and sign it.

If you see this tomorrow Dhal, I hope you'll approve. If not we can always just cancel the deal, horses aren't too big in demand for our empire right now.

[Dhalphir]

I agree with sending horses to their ivory.

We get happy, and if we aren't building HAs or chariots right now, no big deal.

I'm really sorry for how absent I've been Hashoosh. I underestimated the demands on my time from my work in the last few months, and PB16 has been too much on top of PB13, PBEM53 and PBEM55 which I am flying solo in. I've been leaning on you really hard to fly solo in this game, and I massively appreciate it.

PB13 spoilers

The good news is that I'm pretty much near elimination in PB13 - I have only a handful of cities manned by a few dozen longbows. It will be probably a dozen turns and I'll be done there, so I'll be itching to have another big game to sink my teeth into alongside my PBEMs - look for me to be renewed in vigor then.

[Hashoosh]

Well we're gunning for Confu right now, I think it'll be tight but we may just grab it.

Currency in 1t means we can grab wealth builds and continue research at such a high rate. I think our growth curve has been slow compared to other teams, so I'm gonna try to get us up to 8 or 9 cities before t100.