[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

[Rusten]

Perhaps we should adopt confucianism next turn when the northern city reaches 10 culture. DZ might misread it as peaceful intentions, and even start sending missionaries.

edit: Changed Canoa. Kept Madeira on library as it's kinda pointless to change it until 1 turn before we're back in slavery.

[Miguelito]

while you're in, can you change the barracks in Canoa to a trireme? civac is lurking with his WB and I think it's better not to take chances... and maybe one in Madeira as well? That library isn't going to finish until forever and I feel security in our rearside is more urgent.

[Miguelito]

Perhaps we should adopt confucianism next turn when the northern city reaches 10 culture. DZ might misread it as peaceful intentions, and even start sending missionaries.

However much I'd welcome that, we'd have to give him OB first, and I don't think it's the best time for that .
With northern city you mean Dinheiro with Hindu?
Sure, we can convert, why not. Just to be sure, converting doesn't mess in any way with our civic revolt counter, right?

[Rusten]

Adopting a religion is separate from civics.
Dinheiro, yes.

[Miguelito]

Elkad has got silver!


I don't think that was there before. Good for him on popping just the one resource that nobody else has. Btw, is regular silver on this map on some sort of astroland?



I hope this sight warms Charriu's heart, when he sees it in a couple months' time.

[Miguelito]

Elkad has got silver!


I don't think that was there before. Good for him on popping just the one resource that nobody else has. Btw, is regular silver on this map on some sort of astroland?

btw we can count it as higher justice; note how he can not found a gold/gems multiriver super commerce city, while we have gold /gems first ring together with the floodplains, iron, and cow/corn.


civac wants OB. I'm unsure. I think it benefits him more; he has that WB in the inland see another one knocking on the door at Maré, and a scout at Elkad's that can move straight to exploring our lands. With his awful lot of cities he might have trouble filling his routes, although on this map it's pretty unlikely.
We also have entertained the idea of attacking with a tech edge if the conquest of Donovan goes smooth enough.
Otoh, he has 40% more power than us, and while this should be vultures mostly, a few galleys with those could make our life pretty uncomfortable. He also finished off AT this turn, so no distractions.
We could send the chariot that  is currently tasked with keeping an eye on Elkad towards him.
What do you think, reoffer?

Speaking of Donovan, he's building walls and filling his border city with Pro archers (4 last turn, didn't count this turn). Those would not be a problem, but I fear by the time we are ready they might be longbows already. Dono also fired a GA and converted to Confu, with no further revolts yet. He has also been pretty active in his thread after not posting anything during the first 100+ turns.
Meanwhike we are testing what we can get away with:


I made an error here - I thought the 3 remaining GA turns would be sufficient for a border pop with an artist, but I forgot again that on the last turn we are out of caste already - oh Justinian, why was I ever unfaithful! (speaking seriously, Pacal is being quite fun to play)
I guess we rather get 6 food than 8 culture, for a faster border pop once the city becomes Confucian by sheer luck

[Rusten]

Yes, rather 6 food.

Hopefully DZ is posting about his fancy new (to be) shrine. I also saw his archers when logging in and was very happy about it.

You can reoffer OB if you want to scout his area with a chariot, but I don't know if it's worth. He'll do the same and we know more of his territory than he knows of ours. I'm leaning no.

[Miguelito]

Turn 117, bulb:


Taoism was founded in Marinheiro, were it will do nothing. Use the missionary as a scout at Elkad's?
I am afraid that our Edu bulb plan is somehow off. We'll leave the GA with 64 GPP in Paraná. Despite Pacifism that's still 28 turns for the 400 points GP, if we work only the 2 scientists from the library. 
I would expect for us to get to Nat quicker on direct research (not to mention that we could start Lib only after that). But maybeI am spoiled from the GA, and I have not even thought of factoring in upcoming military whips.
We can of course research Nat, build the Taj, and then the GP is trivial. The question then is, do we value the bulb in itself enough even if Lib is gone by then?

Also we got graphs on TBS (will try to remember to post them next turn), also informing us that he is at 17 cities, so Commodore is successful at at least containing him.

Regarding that corner of the world, I don't know yet how to explain this:


This is equivalent to the civac/Elkad border area on our continent. But where does a third party come from? Maybe this is a coppercorn island that Amica grabbed coming from the north/northeast?

In preparation for the Philo bulb we also researched alphabet, which warrants a bit of analysis:


I'll just comment on those that I find relevant, butplease tell if I overlooked something

• first result: we're doing pretty well technologically
  
• It was Donovan with machinery a few turns ago (I had hoped it was TBS with Cho Ko Nu's). That means he's beelining engineering, which he surely will have by the time we are ready to attack (he's just started his GA, and has a nice GNP spike, although no comparison to ours ). More on how to deal with that below.
  
• Elkad has construction, but is lacking the prereqs for monarchy still, or machinery, for a serious knight defense.
  
• civac seems to be on his waytowards monarchy->guilds, but we are pretty far ahead. He does not have priesthood yet for his UB. He does have construction, which was likely needed to finish off AT.
  
• Cornflakes apparently just grabbed the music GA this turn. Notably he went over Drama instead of Literature, despite Pericles loving himself a Great Library (which could go to Amica). CF also went for a CS beeline over stuff like monarchy, MC, or construction. a) that sounds like serious Taj competition; b) it is a cheeky farmer's gambit and I would hope somebody on his continent will call him on it. Edit: In fact if he just straight beelines Nat we'd have to call off Guilds to be able to contest Taj I think.
  
• Commodore admirably still without Mysticism
  

So, what does Dono's Engineering mean for us and how do we go about it?
We are on a knights beeline, and he's going for the obvious counter unit. He also gets his UB castle, which gives him extra XP on siege units and ships, and he can build it with the Pro bonus. Bombing down castle defenses with catapults, city by city, sounds like a recipe for disaster. One positive aspect is that the Pro longbows will not show up too soon, and he will not end the GA in vassalage. Also, musketeers love pikes behind castle walls. So, what is there to do?

1. proceed as planned, hoping that he will not have enough time to build up the numbers needed to defend. Sounds dicey.
   
2. Proceed as planned, with a limited attack, trying to catch weak spots. Keep researching until we draft musketeers.
   
3. Don't attack at all and just power tech towards Nat/Gunpowder. We might even want to stay in Caste in that scneario?
   
4. Research CS instead of guilds after machinery, smash those pikes with maces. Doesn't solve the castles issue.
   
5. Research engineering ourselves and get trebuchets. Sounds slow.
   
6. Switch directions towards Elkad. We are friends with him, have an excellent border, scouts in each other's land, and his dotmap is awful (at least for our purposes) so I'm not too keen on conquering his land. But if he is defenseless and Dono isn't that sounds like a clear decision. Elkad is very paranoid about getting caught off guard with knights, so I'd expect a reaction to us moving towards guilds. Probably the same machinery->engineering, but he's slower than Dono.
   
7. Invade overseas
   

Last GA demos with 100% research. I switched Maré from scientists back to coast, as it is guaranteed the 3rd GP anyways, and it seemed better to work the GA tiles. Could have done that sooner.

[Rusten]

I'll be away until sunday evening I think. Only had tine to glance at your post, but I will quickly add that we can draft macemen before gunpowder.

I'll read it more carefully on sunday.

[Miguelito]

It's alright, for now the only possible deviation from the plan would be to put the feudalism OF into CS instead of machinery, if we wanted to rush Taj at all costs to secure it from Cornflakes. But I don't think this is something to consider seriously.