[spoilers]The Courts of Chaos: Thoth disrupts the Pattern

[Tarkeel]

This should work.

[Qgqqqqq]

It does, thanks! Sorry for the spam (but we have to reach 10k somehow...).

[Thoth]

I can't see that image, even with the private browsing trick.

Something funky was going on with Imgur I think.  I couldn't see any of the images I've posted.

Now everything is back to "normal".  

Damnfino what happened.  

[Thoth]

Lost sight of Pindicator's workboat, which suggests it's heading south and that he came from somewhere to the east. The hut at the end of the island/peninsula is still unpopped as of t34 so I don't think he's close.


Pindicator drew Qin (Pro/Exp) which in RtR means cheap granaries, Drill 1 and III on archery and gunpowder units, cheap walls, aqueducts, markets, grocers and harbours.

Capable of some explosive early growth but Pin is still at 4 cities (i settle #6 next turn) and has teched IW and HBR. Someone has an 82 000 plus military rating on F9 and his neighbour has similar power. Espionage spending (and common sense) show that I'm not Pindicator's first contact. Pin is either top or 2nd power I'm guessing. I'm hoping that there is some conflict going on over there and it's stalemated.


In the meantime, someone went and built the Mids.

[Thoth]

From the looks of PBspy Pindicator got a 3rd tech last turn (if so, it was Mathematics).


I'm thinking he had a precious metal in one of his two starting cities and may have paid for a Library at game start. He could have done that plus a workboat or a tile improvement (like a gold mine) on t0. Which would explain the high Rival Best GNP being so high all game. It wasn't Krill going after Monarchy, it was Pindicator teching hard with boosted commerce. Hmmmm.....pure speculation at this point and I'm sure I've got some details wrong but Pin did get off to a slow start and has teched fast so far so I'm fairly certain that he started with extra commerce somewhere at least and has been working it at the expense of food/hammers.

[Thoth]

T35.... no foreign news and no further sign of Pindicator's workboat.  I'm assuming he's heading south in the direction my scout appeared to be coming from. 


Settled my 6th city of Morgenstern (Yeah, I know it's not a place but it seemed appropriate for my Horse claiming city. 






Courts just finished up my 6th worker and is building a second galley to ferry a settler and some workers/missionaries over to the north island.   Which I should name at some point for ease of reference. 


I'll have Currency a few turns before I can settle a second island city to fully take advantage of the extra trade routes and I'm very tight for worker turns so I'd like to get another pair on the board asap.   I also want to settle for the Ivory asap so I can grow Kolvir a bit more.   See previous comment about being tight for worker turns.   


Once Currency is in I want Iron Working, HBR, and Metal Casting in some order.   I'm thinking IW first as I want to know where the Iron (if any) is located before I settle too many more cities.    Thanks to Expansive and OR, Marketplaces are dirt cheap to build and so I'll want to build them before Forges in Kolvir, Courts of Chaos, and Avalon.   My other cities want Forges first but have plenty of other things (like granaries and a few more military units, maybe a missionary or two) that they can usefully build before Forge so MC can wait.   HBR can (hopefully) wait.   Unless it turns out that Pindicator is in fact south of the bottleneck on my continent and is getting a bunch of Keshiks whipped out to head my way.   But I don't think that's the case.  AFAIK he still doesn't know where I'm located and has a closer neighbour so I don't think it's likely he's planning on Keshik rushing me.   At least not yet.    

Once I get horses hooked up I'll get a couple of chariots heading south to scout out what lies beyond the chokepoint.  Both my scouts are still alive but one is exploring north island and the other is getting on my galley to go and pop the hut on the eastern island.   Barb animals are still spawning but I expect to see real barbs soon so another scout would be a lot squishier than I'd like for a scouting unit.

[Thoth]

Post end of turn demos:





rival top power is 89 000.   If I assume that is Pindicator, then he's got 69 000 after subtracting out 10k for HBR and 10k for IW.

If I've misread PBspy and he doesn't have Mathematics then my 62 000 goes down to 56 000.   Keshiks and Swordsmen are 6k each.

I've got 5 archers and more pop than Pindicator so he could have 5 Keshiks on the board if he's got 4 warriors defending his 4 cities.

Looks like I'm not in immanent danger 

[Tarkeel]

Settled my 6th city of Morgenstern (Yeah, I know it's not a place but it seemed appropriate for my Horse claiming city. 

Well, Morgenstern also means "the morning star" which is a nickname for Venus, so you could say it's a place.

[DaveV]

Morgenstern and Arden seem kind of duplicative. Waiting for Cabra to build its lighthouse.

[Thoth]

Settled my 6th city of Morgenstern (Yeah, I know it's not a place but it seemed appropriate for my Horse claiming city. 

Well, Morgenstern also means "the morning star" which is a nickname for Venus, so you could say it's a place.

I could say it's a place but in the books Morgenstern is an uber horse.