[SPOILERS] The Reverend Suryavarman II of Babylon

[The Reverend Doctor]

Two turns have passed, hmm what have I been up to.



My scout that was popped from a hut died almost as soon as he was born. He did scope out Athlete's city... which is defended by warriors still. (The demos indicate Jowy and I are tied in power substantially ahead of the rest.)

Someone founded Judaism, I'm not really sure who yet. You can also see my research at 100% in the shot, overflow from masonry meant priesthood will finish in one turn. (Some others are probably salivating at the thought of having marble and chopping out the Oracle, they can fight over it.... I'm just on the way to Monarchy)


The most recent turn.

In my preliminary thoughts of how the BC years would go, I definitely did not picture myself in the power lead. A big part of me is yelling to take advantage of this in some way! (It helps that the barbs are still fielding warriors... they haven't been a problem for me at all yet.)

I don't think I could take Athlete's holy city. He can surely whip an axe or two and already has culture defenses. I do, however, think I could take the barb city if I want it. It's closer to Athlete than to me but he can't really back up any complaints he has right now.

Dare I take a city that will put me right in the teeth of holy city culture and aggressive berserkers down the line!?

I think I might. It's on a hill and I'm creative for some defense. It should even start with a pretty good population (the barbs grew it all the way to size 6). It even sort of fits into my dotmap from a few turns ago and it would make my borders with Athlete less spread out so I could concentrate defenses.

Hopefully the barbs stay warriors for a few more turns!

Now to figure out how to handle the reaction from Athlete, I guess the diplomacy will soon begin in earnest.

Be sure to discuss the folly or merit of this idea in the lurker thread so I can find out what everyone thought later!

[The Reverend Doctor]

Some new exploration reveals a couple of barb warriors! I dare them to attack my bowman.


(Mini-map included so you can tell about where I am relative to my starting island)

I'm sending that bowman southeasterly to try and meet Seven.
Speaking of Seven... he adopted Judaism. Why? I have no clue he had already adopted hinduism. I mean, I guess there's no reason not to since he's spiritual, except that it tells me who founded it.

Maybe he got a free spread of Judaism.

The barb city raiding party coming together:


The bowman is at 2.7 out of 3.0 health... but I'm hoping I don't need to use him anyway with two fresh axes against warriors.

In other news: some diplo is afoot!

Just checking in to say hi. Anything going on over there? I'm beating back the barbs (still!). I'm wondering if you want to continue our friendly start more in game and share your thoughts about the whole metagame at the moment? Jowy and Nakor both at 4 cities already and Seven landing the great lighthouse in the early 50's! Should make for some interesting development don't you think?

Athlete
Shaka Of The Vikings

I was pretty candid in my reply.... don't know if that's in my best interest but it's easy to conduct diplomacy when I'm just myself!

[COLOR="Khaki"]Ah, so I guess it's that stage of the game where the diplomacy begins in earnest.

The barbs still haven't really bothered me.... they just like picking on you I guess. At least they're still just warriors right?

I'm sort of wondering how you worded this email to the others (if you sent one). I don't have four cities or a wonder... nothing to illicit fear about me. Haha "The Reverend has multiple bowmen!"

My thoughts on the game at the moment are about as simple as: Alright! Jowy has(or will have) aggressive praetorians and I'm about as far away from him as can be.... I think to win he has to bash someone's skull, and I think he'd pick those two with higher scores who are also closer to him. Maybe you've thought the same thing?

Of course I would be happy getting my cheap libraries/granaries down for the foreseeable future and figuring out a way to ride that to victory. I'm sure someone will try to interrupt that though.[/COLOR]

Let's see if he counts taking that barb city on his borders as continuing friendly relations.

When/if he reacts I don't know if I'll try to spin it like I thought it was pretty in the middle and we have more expansion space to the south or if I'll just tell him it's mine now get over it. (Well, not in those words at least.)

[The Reverend Doctor]

The situation at the start of the turn. 2 axemen and a wounded bowman vs. 3 barb warriors. Only 1 with any fortify bonus.



The axes attack, both with 97%+ odds and, predictably, win.

2.7/3.0 bowman attacks at ~82% and wins! The city is mine.


Got a fat 150 gold from taking it too!

Hmmmm.... there's a road headed south from the city, but I never saw a barb worker. Either Athlete got a lucky worker steal or that barb worker is running away now to another barb city.

Sent the save to athlete right after playing, let's see if he says anything about the city. I mean, the option to liberate the city and return it to the viking did come up when I beat the last defender!

Interesting fact learned in diplo- Seven hasn't met Nakor, Athlete or myself! I guess he has forsaken any exploring units... or someone is lying about having (not) met him.

Building a 3 turn worker in the capital. Micro'ed it so that the worker would complete in the same time but Maths will actually be done in 5 turns. Whipped a galley in Humility (it's still working 2 scientists) that can ferry over an extra bowman to the horse/crab island to my west to fogbust. Although.... maybe a barb city showing up defended by warriors would actually help.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Forgot to mention.

Opened borders with Jowy... and the trade screen indicates he has 5 cities! (Named after music festivals? I saw Woodstock and Rock im park among them). That's a bit surprising.... figured he'd be in the get iron and start pumping praetorians mode very soon.

[novice]

Speaking of Seven... he adopted Judaism. Why? I have no clue he had already adopted hinduism. I mean, I guess there's no reason not to since he's spiritual, except that it tells me who founded it.

My guess would be to pop the borders of his holy city.

When/if he reacts I don't know if I'll try to spin it like I thought it was pretty in the middle and we have more expansion space to the south or if I'll just tell him it's mine now get over it. (Well, not in those words at least.)

I like the "get over it" approach.

[The Reverend Doctor]

There wasn't a lot happening this turn. Got a spread of Buddhism to the still in revolt barb city near Athlete. So now both my mainland cities have gotten a free spread.

Popped two huts this turn:


First one yielded 35 gold. I'll certainly take four more turns of 100% research.


Second one popped was hostile villagers.... but all that came out was a single barb warrior. Lunch for my bowman if he tries anything.

Mathematics due in three turns. Works well I should have my full complement of workers (3) improving/chopping around the newer cities on the mainland and now those chops will yield more hammers. Next settler should be whipped in two more turns and will probably head for the mainland as well to start filling out my dotmap. The horse island is being defogged and will probably wait to get a city until I'm a little closer to HBR.

[The Reverend Doctor]

I've met everybody in game!

Well, apparently I met SevenSpirits... the save hasn't gotten back to me to confirm this. Anyway, although I suspect he'll post the same thing, here's some emails exchanged today.

Hello, Reverend!

My guy scouting in the jungle has just encountered your guy, so I figured I'd drop a note. How has your game been so far? Back when I was tracking demographics I noticed that you went for an early archery to take out those barbs - very clever move as the Babylonians. I trust things have gone well since then?

Jowy has told me we are not adjacent, so I feel a NAP would be completely unnecessary, but I'll still offer you the following: an agreement that we will not declare war on one another without giving two turn's notice. That's just to rule out any violent opportunism like razing an unguarded city. Not that I expect either of us would do that, but it's worth a small amount of peace of mind. What do you think?

SevenSpirits

Basic greeting I suppose. As usual, I was very forthcoming in my reply.

[COLOR="Khaki"]Good to finally meet you (and that makes everybody now.... I feel like everyone but Jowy was waiting to meet you!) after a few months of playing a game with you.

Your reading of the demographics was spot on! I was actually a little disappointed to find the copper next to the capital, I was hoping my bowmen gave me the singular advantage of taking down the barb city early. Either way, I'd say I got more use out of them than most games with Babylon would.

I don't envy your position between aggressive praetorians and beserkers.... any luck getting Jowy to take his armies a different direction? He should be getting to the point where he starts producing praetorians if he even loosely beelined IW, assuming he finds some iron. I'm banking on just being too far away to be the target of his aggression.

If I'm interpreting your proposed agreement correctly, I tell you on turn 100 that I'm canceling said deal and then can move in and declare as soon as turn 102, I can accept such a deal. It definitely should be a while before we have any border conflict.[/COLOR]

Yeah, it seems that my mistake of building the great lighthouse instead of a scouting workboat, galley and two settlers (I'm still kicking myself for that, what a terrible waste of production) was compounded by everyone else scouting away from me first. Ah well, I'll know better next time.

I found it kind of amusing that I'm between two aggressive players, but I'm not too worried. I'm building a bunch of axes to fight the barbs and garrison cities anyway. And, attacking other players at this point in the game would not be profitable. The defender has too much of an advantage, and the attacker has too much to gain by just conquering barbarian cities instead. Anyway, I hope my preparations turn out to be unnecessary, as I'm really just looking to play a friendly game and it's hard to be friends with someone who is at war with you on purpose.

Your interpretation of the deal is correct. Consider it signed then. May it be completely pointless!

If you played Starfall and didn't get wiped out, you may be underestimating how impressive that is. I think the only real difference between not being wiped out and winning in that scenario was choice of strategy, namely deciding to go conquer their stuff.

Btw do you know who got Buddhism? I want to thank them for not picking the same religion as me, as I expect they would have beaten me to Hinduism by turn order.

Not that I would've tried, but it surprises me he didn't figure out who founded Buddhism given his propensity for demographics following.

He also doesn't sound too concerned about being next to Jowy. Maybe they have something worked out?

I was nice and told him Athlete got Buddhism.

[COLOR="Khaki"]Well well, now we're getting into some privileged information!

Well not really, but as he (I think, but haven't confirmed, that we are all male) hasn't adopted it perhaps it's meant to be a secret.

Seeing as you're just going to thank him anyway I don't mind telling you Athlete got Buddhism. Founded it on the center,large island in fact.[/COLOR]

Not that I've expressed it so bluntly, but I think Seven and I could be natural allies this game. Neither of us have a UU that begs for being aggressive and we shouldn't encounter any border disputes. This thought may have been in the back of my mind as I was being so open with him.

Too much text in this post? I generally can live with a few emails copied in threads. If I ever get to chatting with the others I'll spare you all that and just summarize.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Greeted by a trade screen when I opened up the save.



I saw no reason not to accept the health resource trade. Seems like there's no real gain for Jowy, just a nice gesture? I won't argue with that.

Most importantly though, Jowy has iron connected! (Was my highlighting of that too subtle?)

His powers still just barely above mine, so I guess praetorians aren't rolling off the presses yet.

In domestic news... whipped a settler in the capital. Galley dropped off two workers to the center continent who immediately put down a tile of road between my two cities over there. One will keep roading to the border city with Athlete while one stays to cottage.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Dropped a quick line to Jowy and his short response was telling and kind of amusing.

[COLOR="Khaki"]Thanks for the extra health!

Think everybody is sweating a bit seeing you have iron connected?

I'm more impressed by the 6 cities. A commendable job expanding.[/COLOR]

Hey Rev,

YW Thanks for accepting!
And yeah, people are already scrambling! Can't blame them though, it's not a big secret that I'm going to put those aggressive praets to use.
Thx for the compliment. You're not doing bad yourself!

Looks like instead of building defenses everyone is going with trying to avoid the praetorians through diplomacy. I wonder what kind of offers Jowy is getting to take his armies elsewhere...

My plan (if you can call it that, I still think I'm too far away to be the target) is to settle the city by stone next, so that I'll be able whip walls if he comes calling. I also am thinking about heading to construction next, unlocking catapults and my UB.

[The Reverend Doctor]

My GSci is finally here! And someone built the oracle... hopefully someone else was trying for it and failed.

No one has visibility on the city so I think that means they won't know the GSci was mine, even if they can figure it out well enough. It doesn't bother me either way, they can know about it for all I care.

Although I don't think the capital will be my best commerce city long term, none of the others are even close to it now so an academy there is the order of the day. The beakers now are more important, and of course I hope to add another academy someday anyway.

Hey, what do we have here....


So the worker is still alive!

It would be amazing if he just kept roading and didn't run away from my axe.

Since I don't think I've show the area with my cities, here's a pretty big picture of my center continent holdings.



Diligence (the former barb city) has come out of resistance and is building a library, mostly for the culture battle with Athlete's holy city. That city has tons of grass and food (and forests to chop) and should be awesome when I get it rolling.

It also has no "we yearn to join the motherland" unhappiness. I thought barb cities got that, so maybe that means no other barb cities exist right now? Or maybe just that my culture is dominant since there was none of theirs.

Settling plans: The easternmost galley NW of the incense has a settler and bowman aboard who will get dropped off on the purple dot next turn to found a city the turn after that.

Yellow dot was put there because I'd absolutely love to put a city there, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. I still think I'll put one 1 W of it that grabs the rice, one gems, and spices. I sure do have a lot of calendar resources in the area.

You can see in that screen that I had a bit of a change of heart and am researching Monarchy next. Construction will have to wait until I get some HR happiness to let my cities grow, grow, grow!

That's the plan anyway.