SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

ControlFreak said:

Olive should use a grassland, giving horse to HotB
HotB, by working the Eastern forests, gives Adelphia a forest and plains <snip>

If we let the workers finish HotB's Horse Mine, it makes 8spt this IBT, leaving 66s on the FP. That means we can shave one turn off of the FP by working at a food deficit for two turn, making 9spt.

Click to expand...

That should be Western Forests, probably?
I don't see the 8-th shield. It's currently at 7, and the only way to gain a shield seems to be by losing a food.
HotB is at 116 shields, so needs another 84. That's 12 turns * 7 shields, or 4 turns * 7 shields + 7 turns * 8 shields, losing 8 food in total...
EDIT: it could switch from forest to horsetile though, for extra gold and food, only losing a wasted shield.

I don't see the 8th spt either, mining the horses still only gives 1 spt (HotB is not working the horses currently). The current last shield is wasted in HotB, so switching to horses will be a good idea. We could even switch one plains and one forest to horses and olives, that would net +2 gpt and no loss in spt. Though working plains instead of Olives means +1 fpt...

If Methos hasn't shown up by tomorrow, the ball moves on. CommandoBob, ready on deck?

Niklas said:

If Methos hasn't shown up by tomorrow, the ball moves on. CommandoBob, ready on deck?

Click to expand...

I'm here, but the latest discussions have my head spinning.

Whether it is me or Methos, what are the plans for the next turnset?

Niklas said:

EDIT: Methos, where are you??

Click to expand...

Sorry guys, we had a really bad windstorm on Monday and it took out our internet. Even brought the phone line down so low it was even with my chest. I haven’t had a way to get online since Monday morning so wasn’t able to inform you all. Sorry.

Odd thing is, the cable line looked fine yet the internet didn’t work. The phone line hung way down yet the phone still worked. Weird.

You know, you never realize just how much you are online until you have no access.

I'm a day and a half behind on whats going on so go ahead and take it CommandoBob. It'll be a while before I can catch up.

Again my apologies guys, nothing I could do on this end. The cable company just doesn't understand that I have my turns to play.

Good to hear that you are alright at least.

Alright CB, ready to roll?

Hey Methos, no need to apologize. Things like that just happen.

CB:
I think the main issues are:
- upgrade vet/elite warriors and send them towards Mongolia. You should be able to get to the border in your turnset, aim for the capital. There's a map with the jump-off point (red square) a few pages back. EDIT: and it's also in the map below now.
You can upgrade 3 warriors this turn (wake an arbitrary warrior with movement, and hit CTRL-U (or SHIFT-U?) - upgrade all.) EDIT: And upgrade remaining vet/elite warriors asap.
- Send some archers to the Northwest Choke, to try to fend off any Carthaginian attacks. If Hannibal wants to make a fair peace early in your turnset, then do so.
- There's a worker plan for roading the dyes on the previous page. After that, keep roading through the jungle. Make sure to go around Tabriz, take into account that it will expand.
- There are several dotmaps for settlement floating around. I think we could use some settlers to the west, and some north. I'll put a new map at the end of this post. We never really decided settlements near the FP, so this is just my suggestion. You can send remaining settlers to follow the army, to settle in its wake
- Micromanagement: there are tips for management of the capital area and the FP city scattered throughout the last few pages.
- Use your wits!

Did I forget any?

I've been looking at the map and trying to figure out good places to leave our neighbors. The far north looks like a good place for a little trailer park... we could crush the ottomans and leave them with Uskudar at the northernmost point, and gift Bursa to the Ottomans, leaving them right next to each other. Carthage is a bit sketchier, but if we could get a town just south of Theveste on the little jungle peninsula and gift it to them, that would be about the best spot I can see. Any thoughts?

zyxy said:

That should be Western Forests, probably?
I don't see the 8-th shield. It's currently at 7, and the only way to gain a shield seems to be by losing a food.
HotB is at 116 shields, so needs another 84. That's 12 turns * 7 shields, or 4 turns * 7 shields + 7 turns * 8 shields, losing 8 food in total...
EDIT: it could switch from forest to horsetile though, for extra gold and food, only losing a wasted shield.

Click to expand...

I'm just full of misinformation. Thank you for keeping tabs on me. I definitely meant the Western forests and goofed on the 8spt thing.

I think when I was tile swapping, I got back to 10spt/7spt net. Then assumed the horse mine will get to 8spt but it's actually lost to corruption. My point really was that we could shave 1 turn off of the FP by working at a food deficit for X turns. Thanks zyxy for correctly determining the way to do that.

CommandoBob@ This thread gets really complicated if no turn set is played for 3 pages!
After my previous posting mistakes, I'm probably not the best person to be summarizing for you but:

The worker plan to road the dyes is important to get the swords up north one turn earlier.

zyxy said:

Turn 0 (i.e, preflight): nothing
Turn 1: 1 worker from horsetile, 2 from bg at olive (or 2 from horse, 1 from olive) and 1 from forest move to dyes tile north of Kalmurkz. All these workers are idle at the start of turn 1, the one from the forest arrives on the dyes tile this turn.
Turn 2: one worker starts roading. The other 3 arrive
Turn 3: the other 3 also start roading.
Turn 4: at the end of this turn there are 1*3 + 3*2 = 9 worker turns invested -> road finishes, can be used on turn 5.

Click to expand...

There is a lot of micromanagement to do on the preflight. With our cities so close together, the idea is to make sure we're not wasting shields on the build turn and food on the growth turn if another city could be putting the shields or food to good use. The other dominate rule is we need to get HotB as many shields a possible to finish the FP.

Some micromanagement suggests were:

• Olive loses horse tile (roaded grass or forest instead?)
• HotB gets horsetile and set to 9spt (6spt net). It will get the 7th shield as the mine completes on the horse.
• Adelphia can use coast, lake and three plains tiles for growth in 1 and 4spt. The extra sheild comes from the growth tile.
• Smurkheim can use the lake instead of one of the BGs because it will have surplus shields for the 3 turns remaining in the settler cycle.

Don't forget we have a fortified scout in Ol' Smurk River. He could help with early reconnasance especially of the iron hill near Karakorum. He could also help pillage although the Mongols must have lost an early worker. They have basically no improvements.

Some build suggestions were to change the barracks and catapult to settlers in the Flood Plains area. I don't think I agree with this. I'd rather let those cities grow so they can start making some good SPT when the FP is complete.

Adelphia is only building a settler because we need a lot, it should go back to horses next turn.

You should have three settlers to play with during your turn set. I think the first should head to the western end of the floodplain and settle the desert 3SW of food. EDIT: Blue Dot is shown in zyxy's screenshots. The rest of the settlers are all going to follow the jungle road to Mongolia. That would mean the first pushes forward to found "Ring10" and the second resettles CanalCity.

Except for the first settler, I would prioritize the Northern settlement over the Western. We need to setup the FPJ as soon as possible. If India gets MapMaking and starts settling the western land, that doesn't bother me too much.

I'm sure I missed stuff (and even said stuff wrong ) so everyone feel free to correct me.

@CF: Don't see any obvious errors.

Regarding what WarDance said, I agree we should start thinking about imprisonment. IMO putting our prisoners in the same cell will be dangerous, what if one decides to do away with the other? Mongols can stay at Tabriz for the time being, and I agree Ottomans could stay in the far north. The lands where Carthage currently resides is not of any greater use to us, except of course the silks, but other than that we could put them almost anywhere. The only use we can have of that land is science farming, which means we want to keep the food rich tiles. The peninsula indeed seems ideal, but we won't get them there in the first attempt. No big deal, we probably want to move everyone around a bit later. I guess for now we should leave them Theveste, it's the town of least use for us.

Niklas said:

Regarding what WarDance said, I agree we should start thinking about imprisonment. IMO putting our prisoners in the same cell will be dangerous, what if one decides to do away with the other?

Click to expand...

True, true. They may decide to set fire to each others' shanty towns. More separation might be in order.

Niklas said:

The lands where Carthage currently resides is not of any greater use to us, except of course the silks, but other than that we could put them almost anywhere. The only use we can have of that land is science farming, which means we want to keep the food rich tiles. The peninsula indeed seems ideal, but we won't get them there in the first attempt. No big deal, we probably want to move everyone around a bit later. I guess for now we should leave them Theveste, it's the town of least use for us.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that their land isn't any use. Carthage itself is RCP10. If we keep strict RCP of 5 and 10, I think we could get corruption to be managable as far as Carthage.

I downloaded Alexman's corruption calculator but I'm not sure I'm using it right. Do the cities in the FP rings added to the number of "closer" cities than the Palace's second ring? I didn't think so. With a courthouse in Republic, RCP 10 cities are less than 50% corrupt with 12 or fewer closer cities. It goes over 90% with 23 closer cities.

Ottomans can be kept to Uskadar in the tundra.

Another alternative, if no one minds having them take up RCP5 tiles, are the deserts W and SE of the new capitol. If we can keep culture pressure on them, there would be very few workable tiles for them. These prisons have the advantage that the AI won't be sending settlers off in boats to try to escape.



Otherwise,
Mongols can be moved to the pennisula on the inner sea or west of the dyes.

Carthage can be moved either to the end of Theveste pennisula, or on the other inland sea pennisula opposite the Dyes.



We'll have to protect them both from India when Ghandi takes over the southern lands. Plus the sites aren't that bad once the jungle gets cleared. Carthage at least is industrious.

EDIT to add picture of inland sea and adjust some comments.

End of Previous Turnset Stats:

Science: Republic, 31 turns
Treasury: 203 gold, +21 gpt, 8.0.2
Trades:
Cities:

• Smurkheim (4) settler in 3, grows in 2, culture expansion in 433
• Smurkzadelphia (5) settler in 1, grows in 2, culture 0
• Smurkzgrad (4) horseman in 4, grows in 2, culture 0
• Oy Deer! (3) worker in 2, grows in 2, culture 0
• Nansmurkzet (3) horseman in 5, grows in 2, culture 0
• House of the Beard (6) Forbidden Palace in 12, grows in 2, culture 0
• Smurkzfood (1) catapult in 20, grows in 2, culture 0
• Olive or Die (2) galley in 20, grows in 2, culture 0
• Ol' Smurkz River (1) barracks in 16, grows in 2, culture 0
• Kalmurkz (1) catapult in 18, no growth, culture 0

Military:

• 01 settlers, 01 in production
• 11 worker, 01 in production
• 02 scouts, 00 in production
• 02 eqWorkers, 00 in production
• 12 warriors, 00 in production
• 05 archers, 00 in production
• 10 swordsman, 00 in production
• 00 horseman, 02 in production
• 00 catapults, 02 in production
• 00 galleys, 01 in production

Allowed units: 40
Current units: 43
Unit support: +3 gpt

Barracks current:
Smurkzadelphia
Smurkzgrad
Nansmurkzet

Barracks being built:
Ol' Smurkz River

[IBT 1000 BC]
MM:
Olive Or Die - work a roaded grassland instead of horse tile, commerce decreases from 4 to 3 per turn.
House of the Beard - has net 7spt already. Putting people to work on horse tile increases FP from 12 to 14 turns. Will MM after horse is mined.
Smurkgrad - work irrigated plain to the northwest instead of the northeast, opens up tile for HotB.
HotB - move citizen from unroaded forest to irrigated and roaded plain. Due to corruption, net shields stay at +7 spt, but HotB grows in 9 turns.
Smurkheim - lose 2 spt when working lake instead of BG. City now grows in 3, not 2 (+4 food), settler in 4, not 3. Undo changes.
Olive Or Die - rework the horse tile, commerce increases from 3 to 4.

Finally, hit the Enter button.

Smurkzadelphia Settler -> Horseman, 6 turns.
Oy Deer! Worker -> Horseman, 8 turns.

001 975 BC [IBT]

002 950 BC [IBT]
Smurkheim Settler -> Settler, 5 turns.

003 925 BC [IBT]
Smurkzgrad Horseman -> Sword, 6 turns.
Nansmurkzet Horseman -> Horseman, 6 turns.
Ottoman Warrior appears next to Scout3 near Tabriz.

004 900 BC [IBT]
Scout3 adjacent to Ottoman Warrior/Settler pair in the middle of the Mongolian Jungle.
Barb warrior wanders from camp.

005 875 BC [IBT]
Ottoman Warrior/Settler pair move south, adjacent to many things wearing Purple.
Mongol Archer/Settler pair due west by Scout3.
Ol' Smurkz Barracks -> Sword, 30 turns.

006 850 BC [IBT]
Smurkheim Settler -> Settler, 5 turns.
Smurkzadelphia Horseman -> Horseman, 6 turns.
Ottoman Warrior/Settler moved southwest, along coast and not due south, towards the open city ruins, as I expected.

007 825 BC [IBT]
Ottoman Warrior/Settler move northeast.
Second Ottoman Warrior/Settler pair spotted southeast of Karakorum's iron ore.
Carthaginian Archer due east of Ta-tu.

008 800 BC [IBT]
Oy Deer! Horseman -> Worker, 2 turns.
Ottoman Pair heads south, must be trying to get dyes. Will block them off.

009 775 BC [IBT]
Smurkzgrad Sword -> Sword, 6 turns.
Nansmurkzet Horseman -> Horseman, 6 turns.
Olive Or Die Galley -> Galley, 15 turns.
Ottoman Pair move north.
Mongol Archer/Settler pair exit eastwards toward Tabriz.

010 750 BC [IBT]

Current Turnset Stats:
Science: Republic, 21 turns
Treasury: 143 gold, +34 gpt, 9.0.1
Trades:
Cities:

• Smurkheim (4) settler in 2, grows in 2, culture expansion in 423
• Smurkzadelphia (4) horseman in 3, grows in 1, culture 0
• Smurkzgrad (5) swordsman in 6, grows in 13, culture 0
• Oy Deer! (5) worker in 1, grows in 4, culture 0
• House of the Beard (7) Forbidden Palace in 2, grows in 39, culture 0
• Nansmurkzet (4) horseman in 6, grows in 3, culture 0
• Smurkzfood (2) catapult in 10, grows in 1, culture 0
• Ol' Smurkz River (2) swordsman in 26, grows in 6, culture 0
• Olive or Die (3) galley in 15, grows in 10, culture 0
• Kalmurkz (1) catapult in 8, no growth, culture 0
• Albusmurkze (1) worker in 4, grows in 4, culture 0
• Canal City (1) galley in 27, grows in 17, culture 0
• SmurkzAtroid (1) barracks in 18, grows in 18, culture 0

Military:

• 01 settlers, 01 in production
• 12 worker, 02 in production
• 02 scouts, 00 in production
• 02 eqWorkers, 00 in production
• 04 warriors, 00 in production
• 05 archers, 00 in production
• 19 swordsman, 02 in production
• 05 horseman, 02 in production
• 00 catapults, 02 in production
• 01 galleys, 02 in production

Allowed units 52
Current units 51
Unit Support 0 gpt

And the save is here.

Reading my turn log takes as long as it took me to play these turns!
I think I added 6 hours to the game time.

Pretty Pictures

Below is the CivAssist map of the chokepoints at 1000 BC:


And these same chokepoints at 750 BC, in game screen shot:


We grew from 10 to 13 cities. Eight warriors were upgraded.

But some things were left undone.

Three of the four remaining warriors are regulars, not veterans. These were not upgraded. The other warrior is a veteran, but it is at the northwest chokepoint.

There is a settler, NextSettler, camped out in Ol’ Smurkz River. I was not sure that this settler needed to go all the way north, so I stopped him here, with an escort, about mid-Empire. Stopped him here on the last turn.

The jungle road is just about completed. It runs due north from Canal City. One worker is on the last jungle tile. Directly south of him are four more workers that should complete their jungle road this turn. Due north of the last jungle tile are hills and deserts.

Most of are military might is in the north. Cities that had a warrior for protection have had the warriors exchanged for swords, except Smurkheim, which is still guarded by a warrior. I never got that one changed.

Hannibal has been an enemy, but not a pest or a major problem. The units at the northwest chokepoint have been left alone this entire set of turns. I only saw two Carthaginian units, a warrior and an archer, both alone and both in the last few turns.

Hannibal was willing to talk peace, but only if we paid him 40 gold. We did not. Later, he was willing to be our friend for 20 gold, but we did not pay. He is still willing to be our friend for 20 gold. He has a war he started, but seems unwilling to continue, so perhaps the price will continue to fall.

Hannibal has also just learned Currency, and his cash stayed the same, at 70 gold.

Could have built embassies with the Mongols and the Ottomans, but I do recall this being discussed, so I did not.

Lookin good, Commandobob

Edit: Looking at Smurkzgrad, I'm not too worried about a flip right now, but what is of concern is possibly losing the incense there to Indian culture. We might want a temple there after all.

And edit again: With 143 gold and 34gpt doing min research, disconnecting the iron and building some more warriors might not be a bad idea. Then reconnect in a few turns and upgrade en masse. It could mean another 15 or so swords by the time we finish Republic

Hmm. Somewhere, something went wrong. Perhaps we're talking to much strategy here so that what we say is drowned in the general flood of information? I want to say that this was a good turnset, and overall you did play well, but there's something missing.

What I'm saying is that you've followed some of the details that we set up, but it seems you've lost track of the bigger picture. Most importantly, where is our army of swords ready to strike Mongolia? More than half of our swords are still south of the choke, playing MPs! We could easily move them all out, keep those regular warriors for the larger towns, even lower the lux to 0%, they still wouldn't riot. Those swords are useless as MPs, and they should be up near the Mongol border.
We were planning a two-pronged attack on Mongolia starting on the first turn of the next turnset, but there's not a single sword in place. That was the whole point of getting that road in the first place, that we should be able to save a turn - a single turn - on the sword march north. The road itself is of course useful, but without anyone marching on it all that MMing of worker turns wasn't really worth much. We've now lost perhaps 5 turns on the original plan, we need to hurry up there even more.

The overall strategy, re-stated here somewhat late, is to establish a second core as fast as we possibly can, hopefully so that we have it up and running when we enter Republic. That means that the invasion of Mongolia takes prescedence over anything else, with the sole exception of the FP build in HotB.
Regarding the FP build, here you also seem to have missed the discussion on how to make sure we get that FP one turn faster. Or perhaps, the way we discussed it, it may have seemed like thoughts on what we could do, when in fact the discussion was about how to gain that one turn. If we should do it or not was never a question, getting that FP one turn faster means one extra turn when a lot of towns are highly productive instead of totally corrupt.

I don't mean or want to point any fingers here, what bothers me is not the fact that we don't have swords near Mongolia, or that we'll get the FP one turn later. What bothers me is how you (CB) could miss that we considered those the most important things. And I don't think it's your fault, rather what bothers me is what I said in the beginning -- I fear we're actually discussing too much without stating a conclusion.
It's really easy for me, zyxy and ControlFreak to get carried away in our discussions, and it's very easy to forget that the rest of you may not follow the discussion as closely as we do. Thus any finer points, and even the overall strategy in this case, drowns in the general noise. Maybe. I don't know, am I right here?

I certainly don't want to cut down on our discussions, and I'd like the rest of you to join in as well. But it seems we need to remember to summarize now and again, so that we don't lose parts of the discussion along the way.

So, all in all you played well. We just didn't live up to our role as teachers this time around...

If it were not true it would not sting so bad.

I knew the attack on Mongolia was coming up. But it never even crossed my mind to upgrade warriors and leave our cities defenseless. I've never played a CivIII game and chosen not to have any defenders in a city. That's a shocker.

HotB is a bit different. In Post #308

ControlFreak said:

• Olive loses horse tile (roaded grass or forest instead?)
• HotB gets horsetile and set to 9spt (6spt net). It will get the 7th shield as the mine completes on the horse.

Click to expand...

HotB was already at 7spt net without the horsetile, but it was not growing. It needed 84 shields to finish the FP. I did MM to keep 7spt and 1fpt. I expected that when HotB grew, it could then make use of the horsetile to finish the FP. But when that time came, the net stayed at 7spt.

What I missed was what he said earlier in that same post:

My point really was that we could shave 1 turn off of the FP by working at a food deficit for X turns.

Click to expand...

I mishandled getting the FP sooner.

I misjudged about garrisoning cities.

And if you (Niklas) do not point that out then you are not doing your job as team leader.

I'm glad you're seeing it that way.
But I'd like to stress, again, that I don't really put you at fault here. You played much as I would expect from a Monarch-level player, much as I myself was not too long ago, and you're doing good at it.

I don't care that we're losing a few turns on our invasion (well, not that much at least). Hey, it's a game, we're in it to have fun and to learn, and I really think you've learned something from this.
But what is frustrating in this is the feeling that lots of time that was spent on making strategies is more or less thrown out the window. If our strategizing doesn't have any effect on the game we're playing, then what's the point?

So, we should learn from this problem and become stronger. My immediate suggestion is that before every turnset, someone should post a strategy summary. This summary should contain, clearly separated:

• Our long-term strategy, with key goals and approximate timings of these. Even if nothing has really changed from the previous turnset, then we should still write it down to be sure that everyone is agreed on what we're about to do. In our current situation this would include the conquering of our neighbors, the palace jump, the min research on republic, the new government.
• Important short-term goals for the upcoming turnset, with timing. For this turnset this would have included the sword march, and the building of the FP.
• Tips and tricks for MMing, worker moves, etc. The main point is to separate this category from the previous, so that it is clear what is strategy and what is simply helpful bonus advice.

The only issue is, who should be responsible for posting this list? It would be nice to have a rolling schedule to get everyone involved. Perhaps the player who's up should get the honor? Input here please.

Neverfear, we shall prevail
I both agree with Niklas and sympathize with CB.

I, like Niklas, and to some extent zyxy, have been gungho to throw all of the little Micromanagement Tidbits in detail as a training exercise. What I failed to do in my summary was highlight our Key Strategies. If I had said:

ControlFreak (Or Rather Should Have Been) said:

THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ARE:

1. Get Swords to Mongolia ASAP
2. Get FP built ASAP
3. (Quoting zyxy) - Use your wits!

Click to expand...

that may have helped prevent loosing the forest through the trees.

CommandoBob said:

If it were not true it would not sting so bad.

Click to expand...

Never fear CB, we are not a team that dwells on the past (afterall, no barbs killed our granary prebuild in this game ) so we will march on and catch up. Let us not make the mistake however to attack with the swords two and three at a time. We've lost our five turns, let's wait it out and get the sword stacks together before the invasion begins.

For the future, I will make a concerted effort to include "The Most Important Things To Do" in pre-turn summaries, with the "how-to" minutia being secondary.

For What Its Worth, I thought the writeup was fabulous. The extreme detail may have added to the edge of Niklas' response. If you put your every move on paper, we will analyze every move on it's own. With that said, I appreciate being able to follow what you were doing. I hope the little that I write (due to time) will be enough for the rest of you.

Iron Disconnection
Although we could definitely afford to do this, I don't think we want to go that route. Yes we will be making units faster, but they have to wait around until enough are built before upgrading enmass. Then they still walk much slower than the horses so in the long run, they won't get to the front in time to be useful. Lets save the cash to rush things in our new core, or if need be, upgrade the horses. I even think archers being upgraded to berserks for the overseas attack may be more efficient than more swords.

CommandoBob said:

it never even crossed my mind to upgrade warriors and leave our cities defenseless. I've never played a CivIII game and chosen not to have any defenders in a city. That's a shocker.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I tend to run with almost no defenders. (Spear, what's a spear?) We're relying on our newly built units to defend the homelands. If someone is getting near, the new units stay home a little longer to fend off the usually pathetic "stack-of-doom (SOD)" the AI sends. That's another reason why I'm against the iron upgrade strategy. When India gets mapmaking, I don't want a bunch of warriors trying to kill their swordsmen before we get a chance to upgrade. Horses would be ready to attack right after they're built and have a better range to cover the surprise landings.

Niklas said:

My immediate suggestion is that before every turnset, someone should post a strategy summary. This summary should contain, clearly separated:

1. Our long-term strategy, with key goals and approximate timings of these. Even if nothing has really changed from the previous turnset, then we should still write it down to be sure that everyone is agreed on what we're about to do. In our current situation this would include the conquering of our neighbors, the palace jump, the min research on republic, the new government.
2. Important short-term goals for the upcoming turnset, with timing. For this turnset this would have included the sword march, and the building of the FP.
3. Tips and tricks for MMing, worker moves, etc. The main point is to separate this category from the previous, so that it is clear what is strategy and what is simply helpful bonus advice.

The only issue is, who should be responsible for posting this list? It would be nice to have a rolling schedule to get everyone involved. Perhaps the player who's up should get the honor? Input here please.

Click to expand...

I sort of cross posted. I think Niklas states what I was trying to say ... much more clearly. (Maybe I should try to learn your native language. )

I think it would be a good exercise for items 1 and 2 after the "Got It" and before playing. Then wait for at least one other team member to respond before playing. Item 3 would obviously be up to whomever to post. But items 1 and 2 should have Long Term Strategy or Short Term Strategy in their header.

Ok, let's get moving on.
Roster:

• WarDance
• CommandoBob - Just Played
• Methos - UP!
• zyxy - On Deck!
• ControlFreak
• Niklas

I've been looking at the graphs of the other teams, can't stay away from the meta-game .
We got off to a slightly wobbly start, but we're picking up speed fast. Considering the razing of Vasmurkzas, we've probably settled as many towns or more as the rest of the teams by now. And what's more, none of the other teams show any dramatic increase in the near turns ahead, so I don't think any of them have gone conquering just yet. Possibly Xteam starting 550 BC, but by then we should have quite a large portion of the northern lands. We're doing good!