UNGY-04 Who do they think they are?

Snowly: thanks for the input. It just seemed a little early for settling like that. I think closed borders is a non starter here--depending on where he settles we'll also get the close borders hit.

I'm inclined to hurry a settler and grab the spice land. If we end up in a Shaka lovefest I don't want to lose those resources--we'll need them for trade post astro.

I would assume there's a settler on that galley.

Closing our borders is something we can't do this game. It would kill our GLH commerce (which is really driving our economy here) in addition to losing positive relations for having them open up until now.

also from wb checks, after someone managing to settle 1 spot and me closing borders, I counted 2 more settlers in his lands(did it once however, so... it's not exactly a statistic). On the other hand, ai doesn't keep "spare settlers" like us so it was obviously for my turf. Another clue was how he kept bugging me about open borders(though you could say as well he wanted his galley back)

the main advantage, given is normal speed, is that your settler really runs at 4 moves/turn while I've noticed in general they move till there in galley at that 2 moves snail pace(even if they could debark and use your road network). That probably since the ai doesn't settle till the escorting troop is there nor do they rush the settler ahead and usually they escort it with an archer/lbow. And since a settler takes... don't know 7-8 turns no chops/whips on normal, probably you could simply "outrun" the galley.

also, saw them exploring with galleys too; but that was only after I saw them building a settler in their city across the channel(was playing a wse and 1st 2 pops. were gspies, so had enough ep for visibility), closed borders and probably... later on, when I obed again, it didn't know what to do with the galley once it noticed land was taken and used it for exploration... shrug(had the land filled, checked in wb and the galley was empty - I could actually see the settler in the city across and apparently it didn't build another). But also, only once saw them exploring with galleys, so again, not exactly a statistic either.

p.s. 1 - looking at the pics(not opening the save) his island is tiny, so probably you get 6 routes or so from him. On the other hand, looking at the gnp, you'd probably lose around 15-20% of it by closing, which is quite something.
p.s. 2 - my main issue with borrowing the land, beside war check which doesn't apply here, is the dumb way the ai is settling. You can't count on capturing a good site on the "borrowed land" simply because most of the times they do their best to settle in the wrong place(it certainly looks like they coded it to love settling 1 tile from coast or from a fresh water source )

I don't have any facts or stuff from code but I'm pretty sure the AI keeps some settlers around and as soon as it runs out of sites it looks for more and settles if it finds some. I don't think he'll settle inland if we have every coastal tile covered in culture tough. I also always settle coastal cities first in such situations. I agree with ungy that building settlers and move them to every coastal spot we want and wait until a galley arrives sounds good, I'd do the same. Let's just hope we get enought settlers out in time. I really don't like to "clean" our conti or have shaka with a city here.

RE lib/astro: Maybe we want to tech more or less directly towards optics and send off some caravels to find out how much advanced/backwards the AIs are. Lib won't be realistic by then probabely but we might manage to trade (and broker) our way up to edu in which case we could try to be first to lib.
Also we'll need to go to NSR once we find the other AI to get more intercontinental trade routes - butter up shaka properly first and hope he picks some overseas civ as worst enemy.
Next tech target might be free market (delete the GM ) for free market. We could trade that around and let the GNP skyrocket. But that's probabely too far away now

There probably won't be any need to go into NSR. We're not the founder and we don't need to be pleased with people for open borders. I'd much rather stay friendly with Shaka and be cautious with <insert normal leaders> across the sea than to be pleased with all of them. Obviously this changes if Shaka attacks us.

I agree that keeping Shaka friendly is likely to be more important than having everyone cautious or pleased though that will depend on what happens when we discover the rest of the world (or vica versa).
What´s stopping us settling and growing? Even with internal trade routes coastal cities will generate some income from trade routes (harbours would help by bumping a 2gpt route to a 3gpt route).

pigswill said:

What´s stopping us settling and growing?

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well we haven't had ball courts that long. As the sites remaining were not ideal it made sense to grow over building settlers. With Shaka coming for our lands I'll get a few out.

OK- here goes IT all is well

IBT Colosseus BIDL

50 AD I decide to start 2 settlers. I just don't want to lose the western sites to Shaka here. If he settles the wheat he'll take it.

75 AD monarchy in--peace ends with Shaka.
he has 10 units at the nearest city but no galleys so I don't beg.
research IW.

100 AD Lakamba axe-axe. Not really sure what else to build.

125 Uxmal lighthouse-axe.

150..

175 IW in and we have iron by Mayapan. Set research to compass.
whip settler in Chichen--we're starting to hit happy cap so I'll take HR next turn.

200 Uxmai axe-walls.
Chichen settler-axe.

225 take monarchy--Zulu build Chichen Itza.

250...

275 I may have blown the Zulu block.

IBT Zulu land on our spice site. We should be good now.

300 AD we found the spice city.
Shaka send a single galley towards his SOD city.

325 AD Zulu either load up settler or disband it but do not load sword.
barb galley to the s.
hmm I cancel the pig deal as it looks like I can get 2gpt more but instead I get nothing on offer.

Over to the next fearless leader!


In summary--we don't lose any territory but growth is slower as I build a couple of settlers. We found one, and are set up to found another next turn if we want. I think we should. Might as well get it going--it'll be a little slow to develop.

Unfortunately we don't get religion
But the upside is nothing aggressive from Shaka. We're still at +8 relations.
Compass in 1.

save is here:

I think Silverbullet is up.

I will look at the save tonight and play it unless there are things I am not sure about.

ungy said:

275 I may have blown the Zulu block.

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What do you mean by that?

mystyfly said:

What do you mean by that?

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I miscounted the turns and had the AI not gone for the near site it could have scooped the far site. Just a little weed on my part.
should have deleted that as it's just confusing.
Anyway we're OK and we've got the 2 E sites secure.

We are not too far from flipping the barb city.
I would keep it--it won't be great but we don't need much to breakeven with 3 trade routes. With the wheat and a couple of cottages it'll be reasonable.

Some tech questions:
Shaka will trade alphabet, do we want it now? It seems pretty useless for the time being and we are getting close to optics, on the other hand we don't lose much by giving compass away and may even bring Shaka to friendly this way (we only have +3 for fair trade relations, so maybe the extra +1 is all we need to friendly).
Alternatively we could wait and hope he requests the tech as a gift. This could lead to +1 you gave us help plus fair trade.

Second question: Should we go Code of laws->CS next or straight to optics?
We need 35 turns to get optics at current research rate, will probably end up being more like 25 turns because our cities will grow and have harbours.
CS will be ready in 22 turns in current research rate.
I think it's better to go for CS now because of the instant benefit (compared to optics, which requires scouting, and even then we are not guaranteed to be able to trade anything) and chain irrigation.


Should we settle the horses site soon?

silverbullet said:

Some tech questions:
Shaka will trade alphabet, do we want it now? It seems pretty useless for the time being and we are getting close to optics, on the other hand we don't lose much by giving compass away and may even bring Shaka to friendly this way (we only have +3 for fair trade relations, so maybe the extra +1 is all we need to friendly).
Alternatively we could wait and hope he requests the tech as a gift. This could lead to +1 you gave us help plus fair trade.

Second question: Should we go Code of laws->CS next or straight to optics?
We need 35 turns to get optics at current research rate, will probably end up being more like 25 turns because our cities will grow and have harbours.
CS will be ready in 22 turns in current research rate.
I think it's better to go for CS now because of the instant benefit (compared to optics, which requires scouting, and even then we are not guaranteed to be able to trade anything) and chain irrigation.


Should we settle the horses site soon?

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I'd hold off on the alpha trade and hope we get religion-friendly and try and get something better.

I'd be for the optics beeline but not strongly. Partly because I pretty much never do it but also I think we've got lots of trading to do. The capital is decent but not overwhelming and it will never have an academy. We're also pretty likely to snag the circumnav which might be pretty useful on this map.

As for the horse city--I think we should settle it but not urgent unless Shaka goes for it.

Agree with ungy. Bureaucracy is nerfed without an academy and there's the fun novelty factor of going for optics right away.

Also, be aware that techs beyond what you've researched already won't have the discount listed/calculated--it will take less than 35 turns at the rate we're going now as well.

If we´re going for optics and circumnav it might be worth building a couple of triremes and pre-positioning them each side of our island ready to upgrade to caravels and head around the world - it can save several turns compared to waiting for optics then building caravels.

pigswill said:

If we´re going for optics and circumnav it might be worth building a couple of triremes and pre-positioning them each side of our island ready to upgrade to caravels and head around the world - it can save several turns compared to waiting for optics then building caravels.

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I don't think we'll need that as we'll most likely be first to it by quite a margain anyway. We'll be falling behind techwise as the game goes on but should be more or less fine now.

silverbullet, what about your turns?

Not a very eventful turn set. No pictures because there was nothing interesting to show.

375 AD we finally get religion. Even at +9 Shaka is still pleased, so I decide to trade Alphabet and 25 gold for compass.

520AD sell fur for 4 gold per turn to Shaka.

600 AD Shangian is ours.

640 AD I request 70 gold from Shaka and he agrees. He is still pleased.

660AD Machinery is in.
Shaka is only pleased at +11
He also made some wonders , shwegadon, Chichen Itza and Zeus.
Optics in 7 turns.

Tech rate on this game doesn't seem high. I bet we won't meet Mansa or Darius here.

I don't really follow the cottaged hill in Mutal. Riverside windmills are really good with financial leaders (we'll get 2F/1H/3C) so I'd make a windmill instead and work coast meanwhile. The city doesn't have that much food either, so I'd rate a windmill (even before replaceable parts/electricity) as the best improvement.

You're right Rusten, I didn't think of the windmill option.

It is strange that the glance screen shows +7 when in fact we have +11.
Which one is correct?