Things are okay on my side but I have a few weeks of unexpected busy at my mother's now so I can't play for more than 30 minutes until things are stable
Glad to hear things aren't too bad, even if they're not entirely stable.
Sure, I'll take the next turnset.
This screenshot is very encouraging.
Mansa might have a 2nd bronze to trade pretty soon.
Possible trade items would be wheat(in 8 turns), fur, corn?, and cow?.
Yep. 3 resources might even be enough.
We won't need to trade for it for some time, though, since (in terms of the war effort) we can concentrate on Barracks and Catapults before then.
One of the difficult issue to determine next is when shall we settle the south Fish/Whale site. This site becomes more important with GLH since foreign trade routes are going to run out soon with more cities settled or capture in the mainland. We only have 1 galley, unless we want to produce a new one soon, otherwise we should send a settler to settle the Fish/Whale site as soon as possible and get it back. Argos will become a major production site for Settlers and need the galley constantly.
If the Galley makes the trip now, it should need ~10 turns to reach the Whale site, and ~11 turns to make the return trip to Argos. Sparta is probably a better candidate for a Settler, if Athens produces the Settler for the Corn.
If the timing really doesn't work out, we could also settle one of the Fish islands to the south of Thebes. These are considerably closer to Argos, although they won't contribute much outside of trade routes.
Btw, isn't there a trick that if under 3 cities the AI would accept any city? This seems true at the moment, he'd take anything from us right now. In that case, we could really profit from Will going down by gifting him some city deep in our territory.
Less than 4, in fact.
If he goes down to one city, the steal
mission becomes very good, IIRC, so we can get most of our cash back, if he hasn't spent it by then.
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Regarding the Deer, I am strongly in favor of settling the location I marked. There are several advantages compared to the hill site, namely, in the short-term, it gains +2 coastal trade routes; in the medium-term, it can work the Gems; in the long-term, it means that we need one less Settler.
Settling on a hill would be good for defense, but Shaka will be tied up fighting Willem before we attack, especially if we gift a city that he can't reach, so I don't mind settling on flatland. Suicide hill cities are great for wiping out stacks if you are under pressure and need to defend, but we will have Catapults soon which makes offensive wars more
effective.
The hill city would have more Forests, but we won't have enough Worker turns to chop all 10(!) before declaring.
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BTW, which cities are going to receive Barracks?
Athens + Sparta for sure. And Corinth? Either of the islands?
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@shakabrade