[PB56] Amicalola and Tarkeel are Feeling Spicy

[Amicalola]

It's Turn 39 and we finally researched our mandatory techs, praying for some horses in that river valley...




Nope, no horses there! They are indeed at the red spot, which really didn't need another boost, but atleast it was a city we were always going to build. But where are the other horses? AT, Noble and Ruff all have their horses at the copper spot, while Vanrober and us need two separate cities to claim ours (I'm assuming that Vanrober has horses on the other side, and no copper there). It's not a big deal as our capital will claim it on T50, but we still need some more presence to secure them.

This being the first time in this game we actually have a choice of what to research, we had a small discussion earlier:

• Sailing would be needed to settle the silver city, which we're ready for in about 20 turns time. Not a priority.
  
• Masonry would let us quarry the marble for red city, but we have no immediate use for the resource and the city won't be founded for a while. Not a priority.
  
• Mysticism would let us get some monument culture in. But wait, only Buddhism has fallen of the early religions, might we have a shot at founding one? It's a crazy gamble as it would take about 15 turns to Polytheism, but let's try... It's not like we have much to lose?
  

If we pull off a post-T50 axe rush, and a post-T50 Polytheism, does that count as spicy?

[Amicalola]

Turns 38-40 (2480-2400 BC)

So here is the overview:



Main thing of note is that AT has a worker on that forest. It's unprotected, so I moved the warrior up to contest it, but what would AT be chopping? Could it be an early stonehenge? That would be bad, but also kinda hilarious.

Vanrober and Gira are at 3 cities, and so is Lazteuq, which is especially impressive as a non-IMP leader! Of course, we have a granary instead, so it's not as bad as it looks.

Meanwhile, we have our 'rush' planned to hit AT on T55 as mentioned, and our 'early' religion planned to be founded on about T53. If both of those are successful, I will eat my hat.

Of course, I'm not sure any of these plans matter, because Noble is going to win this game. Not only are his two northern neighbours going to be fighting each other, and not only does he have a bunch of uncontested fertile (like properly fertile, not 1 corn resource) river valleys to the east, and not only is he (probably) the best player in this game anyway; he also has a second capital city.



Yikes. What a monster.

[superdeath]

Yikes. What a monster.

Dont worry, he will still complain about his start.

[Amicalola]

Turns 41-42 (2360-2320 BC)

We did 0% research for a turn to ensure that we can 100% to Polytheism if it somehow doesn't fall before about T53. 

AT moved up his quechua to defend the worker, so I have moved our own warrior back into Anise.

Globally, Lazteuq declared war on Gira. Meanwhile, Ruff is at 1 city still... I wonder if Vanrober sniped a settler of Ruff's, and that's how their war started? This sure is one angry map.

Lastly, the Info Post has been updated with techs, workers, cities, and more importantly the new micro. Oops.


Edit: As far as our plans for after if we take AT's city, we are overall going to try to maximise our IMP and FIN traits. We will be trying to REX whatever remaining land there is, since our growth curve will be severely hit by this rush. We have a very low happy cap, and will for a long time; as such, each city will be placed very close together. Imagine a civ 3 dotmap, basically. Overall, each city will aim to have 1 food resources and a few cottages (our happy cap is 5, or 4 if you include 1 whip unhappy), and whip either a settler or a worker at size 4 repeatedly. 

The two exception cities to this rule would be the capital, which needs a galley and lighthouse, as well as potentially being strong enough to just slow-build workers, and Red Dot, which will produce most of our military after a granary. 

With the amount of land we seem to have, I will be satisfied at about 8 cities, and happy with 10+.

[Tarkeel]

Interesting... I still don't think we could have gotten away with stealing that stone-spot between Ruff and Vanrober.

On another note, we need to focus to win the eyeball-war with Vanrober! They've been spamming like mad lately, but then I guess they've had an exciting war to talk about.

[Amicalola]

Turns 43-44 (2280-2240 BC)

35 views in it and counting! My God we need to up our spiciness content and fast. 

Unfortunately, we have little-to-no spice domestically for about 10 turns. 

Luckily, Gira and Lazteuq decided to give me something to report on. We've found both of them, and they're each south of Noble in some direction. They've both whipped, and there are minor skirmishes going on. 



Vanrober and Ruff are still at war in the north too. That means of the 7 players we know (including us), everyone is fighting, or about to fight, some form of serious war by T60 except one. Seriously bloody map. Maybe someone's going to rush us before we rush them!

[Tarkeel]

Rush or be rushed. There is no peace.
--Yoda

[Amicalola]

Turn 45 (2200 BC)

Another turn in which nothing happens domestically, but our neighbours continue to give us an excuse to report and get more eyeballs.  Don't look at me, we're behind by 50 views now!

First off, Lazteuq has moved a spear/axe combo towards Gira's 3rd city (Turfan), which was settled aggresively close to Lazteuq's capital. About the same distance as our Pink dot from AT, but Gira is creative so much more obnoxious. Not surprised Lazteuq is attacking. In any case, it appears that their war is hot.



Speaking of hot wars, we got graphs on Vanrober this turn, and his power is as high as Ruff's! So I'm hopeful that their war is also going hot right now, and at worst they've spent a bunch of early hammers on units that we spent on a granary. 

AT settled a third city, presumably at his copper/horse location.


Finally, I haven't even gotten to the best part of the turn yet:

Of the 7 players we know (including us), everyone is fighting, or about to fight, some form of serious war by T60 except one. Seriously bloody map. Maybe someone's going to rush us before we rush them! 

Make that 7/7 players.

[superdeath]

[Tarkeel]

From what little we know of it's territory, Turfan looks like a very good city so I can understand Gira wanting to snipe that spot. Also, very nice to have visibility on both those cities, it seems like Constantinople has a granary?

I'm guessing the Noble/AT war is related to that last settlement. It could actually be be bad new for us if it makes AT build more defense than he would otherwise. The worst that could happen with Ruff/Vanrober is that they settle into a stalemate and enforced peace, and need somewhere for their units to go... Yes, I have been called a pessimist.