DaveV talks like a pirate, me hearties!

[DaveV]

I was in a hurry last turn and didn't check the log, but jalepeno spawned the first in his coming parade of Great Engineers.



Next turn, I'll plop down my seventh city, 4S of the capital.

[Old Harry]

Why a parade? Which civ is he?

[DaveV]

He's Luchuirp. Their world spell gives you a Golden Hammer in each city. The Hammers can be given to a unit as a promotion, giving +1 combat strength (which the AI always does), or settled in a city for a free engineer specialist. If you give the Hammers from the non-capital cities to units, then delete those units in the capital, you can pile all the engineer specialists into that city and produce a bunch of GE points and a non trivial production boost.

[DaveV]

Here's a puzzle for this turn: what interesting development is just barely visible on the screen? I'm not talking about the increased commerce on Shoulder Parrot's water tiles from the Sea Haven.

Answer: barb city borders at bottom center.

[Brian Shanahan]

Barb city border S-SE of the Elephant at the bottom of the screen?

[DaveV]

We have a winner! Good eyes, Brian, I thought that didn't show up very well in the jpg file. I'm hoping it turns out to be a cheap city for me, although the barbs come up with some pretty sub-optimal city placements.

New turn:



Two new barb warriors incoming; I'll have bronze weapons to deal with the one in the west, and I still have my shock warrior for the southern guy.

[DaveV]

One more thing:

In the screenshot above, I'm hovering the mouse over the pirate cove north of Brace of Pistol. I've been working the land resource tiles, but the upgrade counter is apparently ticking on the cove. I'd assumed that coves function like cottages and need to be worked to upgrade; I'll find out next turn whether that's not the case.

[Brian Shanahan]

We have a winner! Good eyes, Brian, I thought that didn't show up very well in the jpg file.

It didn't. But I had two things going for me, 1) I'm good at fog gazing and 2) the way you pulled the question lead me to think somebody's borders were showing.

Regarding the PC (as I always label the spots I want coves on), I'm not sure what's going on. As far as I know, they're supposed to work like cottages and I believe they do in SP. So growth without working the tile is strange.

[Mardoc]

Hey, sorry to have disappeared like that on you.  Life's just been hectic here.  On the bright side, I did see it coming early enough to *not* sign up as a player...

Regarding the PC (as I always label the spots I want coves on), I'm not sure what's going on. As far as I know, they're supposed to work like cottages and I believe they do in SP. So growth without working the tile is strange.

Agreed with Brian, that's how I always understood coves to work as well.  I could believe that you might have accidentally worked it once, but five turns in a row seems unlikely. Maybe you've found a bug.
Edit: That said, I believe the 'turns to upgrade' text is there whether you're working the tile or not, it just doesn't count down unless you work the tile

Is that an island south of Dead Man's Chest?  If it is - Sailing in your near term research plans?  Sailing would be handy for logistics soon anyway, but ICTR are a nice bonus .

With Bronze and the worker techs nearly done, you've got the necessities straightened out.  So, what are your mid-term research plans?  Seems to me that you need some form of culture, and to pick some form of military.  On top, as Lanun in this era you can think seriously about snagging some of the first-to bonuses.  Drama Bard, Bone Palace, Titan - any of those seem achievable?  Plus there's always Foreign Trade as a nice civic to shoot for.

A related thought: Bronze warriors are a lot more survivable in the wild than earlier scout options. Can I get you to find the hammers for 2-3 warrior scouts once BW is in? It would be very good to know approximately how much more growing you can expect before conflict becomes necessary, and some tripwires in case anyone's thinking of a rush would be good to have as well. Plus it would be good to be able to extend the dotmap. Eventually you'll want Hawks or Floating Eyes but I don't think you want to wait that long to know what the world looks like.

I was leaning toward OO as a religion, but I'm less enthusiastic now; I'd hate to speed Mardoc Q [Edit: even my ded lurker is conspiring against me!  crazyeye  Yarr ] toward a religious victory. I can use boarding parties to combat water walkers; a quick worldbuilder test indicates they can attack any unit that's standing on a water tile (including ocean), then they're teleported back to land if they're left standing on water.

I've a thought here.  You're up to double Q's size, almost certainly ahead in tech, and still growing faster than him. You may not have found him yet, but he can't be too far away given when his scout showed up.  Just because he currently owns the Holy City is no reason to believe he will continue to hold it... .

[DaveV]

Is that an island south of Dead Man's Chest?  If it is - Sailing in your near term research plans?  Sailing would be handy for logistics soon anyway, but ICTR are a nice bonus .

Next on the list. Great Lighthouse would be incredibly good for me, and that island also has marble on it for a possible Heron Throne and/or Bone Palace.

With Bronze and the worker techs nearly done, you've got the necessities straightened out.  So, what are your mid-term research plans?  Seems to me that you need some form of culture, and to pick some form of military.  On top, as Lanun in this era you can think seriously about snagging some of the first-to bonuses.  Drama Bard, Bone Palace, Titan - any of those seem achievable?  Plus there's always Foreign Trade as a nice civic to shoot for.

The drama bard would be great, but I don't even have currency. Titan is always good, and would be particularly good for me as a Charismatic civ, but I'm a long way from having the XP to qualify. I'm probably already behind on the Bone Palace race, with both Aurorarcher and Q having OO. Here are my thoughts:

I want a Sea Haven and Lighthouse in every coastal city, which I believe will give me +100% on trade routes. So, 2 commerce domestic routes and 3 commerce foreign routes. But I need 90 hammers for those two buildings. Since I'll be able to feed most of my cities easily with water tiles and bonus land food tiles, I'm thinking of workshopping every land tile. That means Construction next, then Smelting would be very appealing for +1 workshop hammer. After Smelting, it's hard to resist Iron Working for Boarding Parties and Shipyards.

A related thought: Bronze warriors are a lot more survivable in the wild than earlier scout options.  Can I get you to find the hammers for 2-3 warrior scouts once BW is in?  It would be very good to know approximately how much more growing you can expect before conflict becomes necessary, and some tripwires in case anyone's thinking of a rush would be good to have as well.  Plus it would be good to be able to extend the dotmap.  Eventually you'll want Hawks or Floating Eyes but I don't think you want to wait that long to know what the world looks like.

Yes, scouting is a priority. After I put a galley or two into the water, they should be able to scout out the reachable bodies of water. Combat I Bronze warriors do make pretty durable scouts, and I can even give them a head start by dropping them off with galleys.

I was leaning toward OO as a religion, but I'm less enthusiastic now; I'd hate to speed Mardoc Q [Edit: even my ded lurker is conspiring against me!  crazyeye  Yarr ] toward a religious victory. I can use boarding parties to combat water walkers; a quick worldbuilder test indicates they can attack any unit that's standing on a water tile (including ocean), then they're teleported back to land if they're left standing on water.

I've a thought here.  You're up to double Q's size, almost certainly ahead in tech, and still growing faster than him.  You may not have found him yet, but he can't be too far away given when his scout showed up.  Just because he currently owns the Holy City is no reason to believe he will continue to hold it... .

That's a really good point. I'd been thinking that the holy city is an attractive target, but hadn't made the connection to that making OO attractive. It's only one (discounted) tech to pick up the religion, and it would help a lot with my culture problem. I'm also not generating any great person points, and a few OO temples would let me do that.

A similar argument can be made for FotT: if someone else builds it, I can capture it and gain its benefits. I'm thinking that boarding parties on fast galleys would be pretty hard to resist. Speaking of fast galleys, I'd love to grab circumnavigation, but I'd expect the other players to do their best to keep me from gaining +2 speed on my boats.