It's Clobberin' Time! Raging Barbs Highlands Tokugawa on Monarch

[haphazard1]

OK, that gives me an idea of where to start looking at the situation, at least. I will take a look at the save and post some thoughts, hopefully later this evening. Aim to play perhaps tomorrow evening, so plenty of time for comments and discussion.

[Zalson]

Any screenshots?

[haphazard1]

Some random thoughts, not in any particular order:

- We are out to ten cities, and have 18 workers. Not too bad, especially since we are not stuck dealing with jungle.
- We do not have any chariots yet. More units is not going to be a focus of this turnset, given our cost situation, but one or two chariots would be helpful to deal with barb axes...of which we have three threatening our territory. I may slip a couple into our build queues if I can find an opportunity.
- Mansa is sending us a Hindu missionary, very kind of him. Not sure what we want to do with religion, since our neighbors are split between Buddhism and Hinduism. But some free culture never hurts.
- Economy will be the main focus, unless someone declares on us or we get a huge wave of barbs. City maintenance is starting to creep up but is only getting large enough to justify a courthouse in our biggest cities so far. Markets are more likely to produce value given our high gold slider, and they will offer merchant slots and some happiness from silks (once we have Calendar and hook them up). Markets are expensive, though, so they will take a while to build. Emphasizing working cottages will stretch that out even more, so I am not sure how many I will finish. But hopefully a good start can be made.

[Zalson]

I took a look at the save. While we do need those silks, I don’t think I would have recommended founding that city without Civil Service or Machinery —or calendar. We can’t work the silk and the city can’t grow.

We getting trade routes with Mansa yet?

Some of my fog busters are out of position, you may want to move around.

And golly that’s a decent number of barbarians in the north.

[haphazard1]

Taking control of our empire in 800 AD, I scan the world to find out just how our video game loving people are faring.

- Our economy...could use some work. We are barely positive (+8) on cash flow at 0% research. Even a single tick of the research slider puts us in negative territory (-3), so we have very little room to add expenses. With the treasury nearly empty (9 gold), this must be the primary focus of the turnset. (Beyond surviving, of course.)
- Speaking of surviving, we have three barb axes menacing Cholo and Landstalker. There is also a barb warrior further east of Cholo, and a sword north of Streets of Rage. We have a horse archer available to deal with the warrior, and two axes (one wounded however) at Streets of Rage. So the main worry is the trio threatening Cholo and Landstalker. We have five axes of our own present in the area, plus two archers, so we should be able to defeat the current threat. But we may take losses doing it, given the odds of axe-against-axe battles.
- I also note that Landstalker's deer has been pillaged (what is it with deer tiles getting pillaged by the barbs in this game?!?) and that Cholo's sheep have either been pillaged or were never hooked up. Well, we will take care of that once the immediate barb threat is cleared out.
- I note a curiosity: the barb warrior northeast of Cholo is standing on some city ruins. Not having gotten a full report from prior Stage Boss RFS-81 I am not sure just what happened there; hopefully it was not a city of ours! Perhaps it was a barb city? or one of Mansa's? A quick check of the logs reveals that yes, it was Malinese: the barbs captured and razed Awdaghost! I believe that is one of Mali's first three or four cities...a painful blow to Mansa Musa. One would think that with his skirmishers and the AI's bonus against barbs that he would not have suffered such a setback, but the smoldering ruins are right there. Well, it lessens the cultural pressure on Cholo. And every barb fighting Mansa is one less for us to deal with...unless it wins and promotes, of course.
- Research has been set to Civil Service. A worthy goal longer term, but an expensive research project that would take time to yield benefits. I reset research to Sailing and drop the slider to zero to build some cash. We can always change this later as our economic outlook improves. But with Streets of Rage founded near the silks, pushing towards Calendar via Sailing seems likelier to pay off faster than Civil Service.
- I go through our cities and tweak some tile assignments and pop, including assigning a few specialists. Afterwards, our cash flow is a bit better: +14 at zero slider, with a tiny trickle of beakers from scientists. It isn't much, but it is a start.
- I spot a Hindu missionary heading our way from Mansa Musa, very kind of him. We currently have Buddhism in the capital and Football Manager, while Sonic the Hog has Hinduism. Any spreads we can get will be helpful, even if we do not decide to adopt any religion just yet.

After checking our workers and units and cancelling a couple goto orders (best not to set these before handing over an SG save, if possible), it is time to see what happens next....

[shallow_thought]

While we do need those silks, I don’t think I would have recommended founding that city without Civil Service or Machinery —or calendar. We can’t work the silk and the city can’t grow.

Ah, I probably shouldn't have left that sign there without flagging it up for discussion - or possibly I should have tried phrasing it as a question. Sorry if it misled you, RFS-81!

[haphazard1]

T151

Mansa's missionary spreads Hinduism in Cholo -- thanks! We can use the culture to resist your borders!

Cholo also finishes an axe, and I start it on a chariot for anti-axe duty. More unit expenses is not a good thing right now, but we need a better answer to barb axes. I also note that Cholo is not connected to the rest of our empire, so it is the only city with horses currently. It also has no happy or health resources and is losing food to unhealthiness. We need to fix this as soon as possible.

The barb axes all advance on our cities and tiles, and two more barbs (only warriors, thankfully) emerge from the northern fog.

Northeast of Cholo our horse archer kills the barb warrior at the ruins of Awdaghost, revealing a Malinese skirmisher who is a bit too late to help the fallen city.

Near Landstalker, our shock axe kills a barb axe on the deer tile, getting red-lined in the process. The other barb axe here is in a forest, so I will wait for it to emerge onto open ground before trying to deal with it.

North of Streets of Rage, Corn Saver the Axeman crushes the barb sword which had moved out into the open to threaten the city.

Our workers improve where they can; until Calendar and then later Civil Service there is not much we can do for Streets of Rage yet. It probably would have been better to plant this city later, once we had the tech, but we will make do. For now I will cottage some grass tiles for badly needed commerce, even if we later decide to farm over them for food.

While shuffling workers and units, I realize that Golden Axe does not have a garrison -- only workers. And there is not a unit near by. For a city on the frontier, this is risking barb disaster. But all our near by units are fully committed for MP duty or fighting barbs. I will have to find or build a defender and get it here ASAP.

[Zalson]

Don't forget to build more archers so we can pump up the sizes of Sonic, SuperMario, and Football Manager (and landstalker)!

[haphazard1]

Costs are a problem -- we are barely making any money. So more units is a problem. If we can add tiles with commerce then growing our cities is worth doing, but that depends on the city.

Hmmm, Gilgamesh was the one who built the Great Wall. I had not realized that. Probably explains why he is doing so well -- he does not have to fight any barbs.

[RFS-81]

We getting trade routes with Mansa yet?

No, he settled a city very closely, that would have been convenient to connect. But then barbs razed it a moment after it was founded.

Some of my fog busters are out of position, you may want to move around.

Oops, so they did have a purpose. I just saw some units standing around and thought they might as well go exploring. Now that you mention it, I can see that fog-busting is important, especially with raging barbs!

While we do need those silks, I don’t think I would have recommended founding that city without Civil Service or Machinery —or calendar. We can’t work the silk and the city can’t grow.

Ah, I probably shouldn't have left that sign there without flagging it up for discussion - or possibly I should have tried phrasing it as a question. Sorry if it misled you, RFS-81!

The sign did sound very urgent. And I didn't remember that we can't improve silk yet.

Ok, on to my report!

Turn 141:

Currency finishes. Zalson kindly left me with a settler and a note where to send it, so I do that. Barb swords are threatening our workers at the horse pasture near Cholo, so I move them back towards the city and place an axe on the hill.

   

Turn 142:

I accept Gilgamesh's deal of IW + gold for Alphabet. Iron is revealed on the hill SE of Contra. JungleStrike chops out its granary and I start chopping workers there (and at Football Manager too).

Turn 143:

The sword near Cholo pillages the pasture rather than attacking my fortified axe. Barbs also walk around the axeman in the woods north of Landstalker. Those barbarians just aren't very cooperative.

   

In happier news, I found Streets of Rage at Zalson's "3" spot.

   

I switch Flimbo's Quest from building research to pumping some more units. I also panic-whip an axe at Landstalker. Not a good move! SuperMarioBros is at the happy cap, so I whip a settler for 3 pop and overflow into the monastery.

Turn 144:

Barbs are approaching Landstalker! I send our woodsman-axe to pick off a straggling warrior and hope that the stronger barbs will suicide-attack into our city defenses. At JungleStrike, our axe easily dispatches a barb sword that's threatening our farm.

Turn 145:

I agree to Open Borders with Mansa Musa. And I notice that we're losing money at 0% research!

Turn 146:

Mansa comes begging for / demands Currency. Since he's below us in the ranking, and having good relations with him would be good for us for now, I accept. Might have been the wrong call though, he's the worst enemy of the Buddhist block, so they might force us to choose a side. Here's a situation that I thought about for a while. Do I fight that sword now, or still hope that he attacks into a defensive position? He's bound to pillage the camp. If he moves on to a village, I'll have to attack him, and in that case, I might as well have saved the camp now. In the end, I remained cautious, the barb pillaged the camp and then kindly suicide-attacked my city, so I was lucky.

   

Turn 147:

SuperMarioBros finishes the monastery and I start building a market. We're totally bankrupt, so I start building Wealth at Flimbo's Quest.

Turn 148:

Huayna wants to trade Polytheism + 100 gold for HBR. I accept, mostly for the gold, which allows me to fund research again and finish CoL this turnset. I also found the city Golden Axe near the silk. I didn't remember that we don't even have the required tech yet Not a good location, though.

Turn 149:

CoL is done! Court houses should help with our money problems!