RBC13B - Crazy Cordovans

Roster:

Cordova - Demigod (So far out in left field, can they do it?)
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Arathorn
Charis
Corrado
Justus II

Let's get the initial discussion underway.

We start pretty tiny -- a size 2 capital, and 3 size 1 neighboring cities. We have essentially no bonus food in range, but the town due south of our capital (forgive me on names, I looked at this about a week ago, just to get an initial feel of our location) has a fish, a couple flood plains, and a quarry on a hill (for shields), so it should easily be a worker factory and might get enough shields (it'll be close/interesting) to be a settler factory. I'm thinking a granary here is required ASAP.

The other cities, well...they're not as interesting/easy. We do start with a reasonable number of workers, thank goodness, so we don't need those IMMEDIATELY, so we'll need to do something else.... Barracks, units, and go for early conquest? We're going to need to whack our way through much of Europe quickly to get this done. As I recall my geography and history, the Spanish (whatever they're called in this scenario) should be due north of us and close...and the Franks not too far away either. The Spanish will need to go early.

We have one ansar (regular) to start the game with. He can trigger a GA. But he moves 3 and would probably make a good scout. Do we do that? Kings for initial scouting of our immediate area, of course, but then I'm thinking use them for MP. Warriors can do the long, slow scouting, if necessary.

Initial tech is a biggie, too. We have two options, as I see it.

Option 1: Beeline through the second age (only two techs -- like horseback riding and castle building) as quickly as possible to get to the arab third age and get the tech for ansars ASAP. Build horsies for upgrade and plan to sweep with ansars for as long as possible. Go with the 50 small cities producing 1/20 of an ansar/turn. Possibly come back for the viking techs at that point.

Option 2: Go for the Viking tree immediately. Yes, it'll cost 40 turns, but our initial ability to research is very poor, anyway. We can may/hopefully buy the required techs anyway. The blacksmith (factory) building will be very nice and is almsot a necessity. Getting them going early will really help our ability to crank ansars.

Can you tell that I think ansars will be our key to capturing the world? A 5/2/3 for only 60 shields, especially when the best defender is a SPEAR, is scary. We'll want lots of them.

Other than research and deciding on risking our only ansar exploring, I think the early turns will be straight-forward -- try to get a couple more cities up and going and prepare for war with the evil Spanish hemming us in in the north.

Thoughts on research? Exploring with the ansar? Am I missing something critical?

Also, I'd like the team to check in, please.

Arathorn

Checking in
I vote for the Norse tree, our first tech will take 40 turns regardless, and the "standard" techs can easily be bought/traded for if we get enough early contacts. I would use the Ansar for quick contacts on the continent, and probably try to slip a quick Curragh out for more contacts, especially in the Med. Another advantage of the Norse tree is the Norse Saga, Magellan +2 and Heroic Epic, both good things. I think we will have better luck sailing east to the Holy Land than fighting our way across, even with the Ansars. At least it gives us another option.

Castile (Spain) could probably be taken with swords, if we want to expand to a quick core, they only have 2 kings, so take the 2 main cities and they fall. I've briefly looked at the save, I'll try to give some more comments after I've looked around some more.

Unlike others, we have no difficulty getting OUR whole map onto the screen.

I'm thinking Cadiz starts with a granary to turn into a worker/settler pump, probably needing a temple (and lots of worker help, but that's true everywhere). Valenica can build a curragh for exploring/contact-making through the Mediterranean. Cordoba? Well, it's conveniently placed off the river (like nearly all our starting cities. BAH HUMBUG!), so I don't know what to do with it exactly. We're already over our unit count. Granary or settler are my initial thoughts. Lisbon to barracks as our military provider, short-term?

We're so tiny. We need to build up lots of different ways. I do think Castille should be an early target, but I don't know if our production is up to taking them out THIS early -- we might need to wait 20 turns.

I'll probably play tomorrow night.

Arathorn

My thoughts:

*We should definitely go for Norse Traditions first. Horseback riding can be wrested from the Spanish after our first war with them, or we can trade for it cheaply given that *everyone* will be researching it. Getting Norse Traditions will allow us to trade later for Smithing, which means Blacksmiths, which means much better production. In addition, later we'll get Viking Sagas, which will give our boats a boost *and* be like a Heroic Epic.

* We should rush to lay out cities ASAP. The computer tends to settle like wildfire in this game, and it'd be best to claim as much territory as we can early, and put good cities in good spots before the Spanish claim them.

* An immediate war with the Spanish would be foolish. They have swords, and while we have an Ansar, it is just *an* Ansar, and production-for-production the Spanish easily outdo us. We'd be fools for an early war for three reasons- first, we'd be risking everything on very good luck in our Ansar surviving long enough to do lots of damage. Second, we'd get our Golden Age with practically no cities to make use of it. Thirdly, we'd get very few VP because we'd be taking/destroying very small Spanish cities.

My suggestion- put min research into Norse Traditions, and work for Settler pumping. Once we get close to Norse Traditions and have a good city base- 35-40 turns- we can Spain until they're willing to give up Horseback Riding. If we don't think we can start the war then, maybe we trade for HBR and min research Smithing while setting up to extort Castle Building from Spain.

Either way, we will have a serious advantage come the second age: Spain will have to research Western Church, Monasticsm, and Feudalsim to get their Knights; we get Arab Learning for free and only need research one tech to have Ansars.

A quick settler from Cordova (if we can irrigate some plains and grow the population) is probably a good idea, as it will take a while for Cadiz to get up and running. Remember, the Franks and Burgundy can expand our direction as well. I think a war with Castile will be possible in 30-40 turns, certainly not immediate, but I wouldn't wait for Ansars either. Our starting Ansar ought to ride deep into Europe to get contacts, we can also use the kings to scout/bust fog close to home, they have a move of 2. HBR should be easy to buy, and IIRC comes available in 30 turns or less. I don't know how tech advanced Castille will be as an AI, but if we are agressive in getting contacts, we can broker tech easily enough for the standard techs. We definitely want to get that curragh going, all the way to Jerusalem/Alexandria, as the Abbasids are usually the ones with the money (and the Byz).

Corrado! I'm disgusted to find you in this game. Traitor!

At least, you can tell them all about Castile, and the Iberian peninsula...and El Cid worked for both sides as well

Guess I don't have to tell you to rush a Settler ASAP and get that certain city spot?

Checkin' in!

As you guys note, we "don't got much" in terms of cities and the placement is horrid (with respect to rivers). At least we have iron available without expansion. Rax/Market/Temple in Cordoba, no granary and low food, so not a great choice for settlers/workers. Yet, looking at other cities and knowing how our foes will expand, perhaps one, but I would surely do granary first - which will take only 10 turns or less and be a good investment.

Agreed with Arathorn that Cadiz is our population pump, slipping in a temple to let it work more flood plains and grow a bit and to expand. I also like Curragh from Valencia - contacts will be *HUGE* in this scenario. So yes, Lisbon to rax.

Research? I'm with Corrado - Norse first, heading to smiths. We can easily buy or pointy stick horseback, and we have zero chance of getting it first. I'm not quite AS keen as Corrado to get settlers everywhere. There's much to be said for letting others do the dirty work if they are in THAT big of a rush, and we'll just take them over. For this game we need BIG VPs by fighting, so we'll want to get an aggressive mindset from the get go. Given the chance settle optimal spots, don't don't worry if we're out-REXed.

With just one of them an not another for a while, I prefer letting the very fast Ansar ride the wind to make contacts with the whole wolrd War with Spain/Castille? It's a given really, but unlike the Sid game, the need to do so within first 10-20 turns is not there at all. I would tend to favor workers, getting the most out of existing cities, than to have a slightly larger number of unimproved size 1 cities.

I also agree that the second age belongs to us, and we should at that time be *very* aggressive, between when we get Ansars and our goes get knights. Until then, I prefer mostly buildup.

Kings? Absolutely use them to fog-bust early on.

Bring it on!
Charis

PS I've not read spoilers or played this before. Based solely what I see and my experience, granary THEN settler is by far the best way to go in Cordoba. If it's being suggested (and I can't tell if there's a spoiler-strategic tip here or joking about someone's hometown ) that we rush a settler first to grab some awesome city site I can't see right now because someone else will grab it first, I don't with to play this game or others wholly based on inside knowlede like that. Having said that, I'm probably misreading the settler comments )

Abd Ah-Rathorn was a simple man with simple tastes. All he wanted was to build his empire into something that would one day capture the hearts of the entire world. His empire was small, one of the smallest in the world, but he knew that his people could overcome the difficulties of the speed by which his opponents would multiply and would one day rule the world.

His first actions were simple -- directing the wiseman to study Norse Tradition, to emulate the Vikings of the north, which were still only a rumor to most people. Very few funds were devoted to this -- most went to taxation, in order to hopefully expedite buildings and units in the near future. Two cities began work on granaries -- to speed the growth of the tiny Cordovan Empire. A curragh was begun, as was a barracks.

The lone ansar warrior was sent on a mission to Russia. He left amid a huge ceremony, promising to send back word of all the peoples he met on his journey. The kings began exploring the immediate area of Cordova, and workers started on projects that were long overdue -- primarily roads and irrigation.

King al-mundhir sees a blue line in the ground -- surely the mark of the evil and soon-to-be-extinct Castile civilization. The ansar notes a good city site, with iron, wines, forests, and on a river not far from Cordoba. A settler will be dispatched there as quickly as may be arranged.

(1) 846 - Isabel, the leader of the Castile people, shows her face this year. We can see Salamanca, like an ugly thumb so near our lands. Isabel has 4 cities, like our great nation, but her income is 6 gpt, as she has 106 gold so early. We still only have a mere 103, but that number will be going down as we rush buildings. She has iron and we have horses, but we have no trade route. We have iron, just not connected yet.

It appears we can claim, if we move quickly, 2 wine, 2 iron, 2 horses, and a quarry. We have extremely limited expansion possibilities, however. Big cities cranking out units and capturing is going to have to be our route to fame and victory.

(2) 849 - Abd Ah-Rathorn rests from his mighty labors, letting the kingdom do as it sees fit.

(3) 852 - Cordoba lends the quarry hill to Cadiz for a turn, because Cordoba will have an irrigated square to work this turn and Cadiz's is still a turn away. Anything for a tiny bit of a break.

(I) Abd relaxes, as wines reach Cordoba. The people are happy, the caliph is happy, work continues.

(4) 855 - Our brave ansar warrior, still not far from home, sends back a report of people in pink, calling themsleves the French, and reporting to a Joan D'Arc. Abd Ah-Rathorn consults the holy books and sees that women in power must be dethroned, so a second nation is added to the "Must-be-destroyed" list. The French are, of course, huge compared to us.

Some MM is done to speed tasks to completion as well as can be contrived, given our limited citizen force. Cash funds are being readied for the best possible time and place for use.

(5) 858 - 60 gold is dispensed to Valencia to speed the production of a curragh. Meeting as many neighbors as we can as fast as we can is important. I hope this will pay itself back in due course.

Other than that, exploration continues. Workers work.

(6) 861 - The governor of Valencia is undecided as to the best course of action. The citizens temporarily begin work on a settler, expecting that to possibly/probably change at their leader's whim. A second curragh to go west around Europe to meet the Vikings might be necessary, but, for now, spreading the nation of the Cordovans is foremost in Abd's thoughts.

Else, little happens.

(7) 864 - Abd sleeps.

(8) 867 - Lothair, so-called leader of the Burgundians, appears this turn. He has two workers in his capital -- such luxury displays. 3 gpt and 61 gold would pry one away from him. But our income is 5 gpt and we have 66 gold. Not worth it, I don't think. No deal made.

(9) 870 - Abd takes another nap.

(10) 873 - Curragh contacts Germany. Otto is a Polite fellow, but we have no real chance to trade. We smile at him and move on. Continuing the contact patrol is our ansar, who introduces himself to Sven Forkbeard, the leader of the Danes. No trades are possible or desired, so we move on. ... Right next a green warrior, who reports to Malcolm of the Celts. Once again, we can do nothing but make introductions and wait. We now know 6 of the nations with whom we will be vying for dominion of Europe.

Two kings are trying to get into position to slow/stop a settler pair from Castile headed toward some valuable real estate that should fall under the control of the Cordovan Empire.

Some suggest Abd retire at this point, but there's been so little going on, he pushes on.

Gold is spent in Cadiz, but the granary is not completed. Some suggest a partial rushbuy via a barracks may have been used. Growth is temporarily halted, to give the granary time to complete.

(I) Cordoba completes granary and begins settler. Abd mutters under his breath about the painfulness of building settlers in towns with no bonus food, but what needs be done will be done.

(11) 876 - Abd wonders if he really should have extended his rule, as there is nothing to do.

(12) 879 - Ansar tries to make it through France to the east. Barricade forming but the Castileans have a pretty good site where their settler is. We're not gonna get a whole lot more good cities out of this hunk of land.

(13) 882 - Cadiz, having completed a granary, begins work on a very vetoable temple (to get the fish into play, to make a better settler factory -- I see the two floodplains, the fish, and the two bonus hills (quarry and iron) as being the integral parts to this factory). A worker (although we're paying upkeep costs now) or a settler to grab land ASAP are also reasonable options.

(14) 885 - Not much to say/do.

Abd's advisors advise him that this is a good time to retire. The year ends in 5, which is nice, they claim. The turns are at 14, leaving 190 in the game (in theory).

Never one to listen to his advisors, Abd tries to stay in power, but is assassinated and can no longer rule the Cordovan people.

Arathorn

Our known world:



My proposed dot-map:



Blue dot is HIGH priority. Purple dots are pretty important cities to define our land, if we can get them. Red dots are filler cities to avoid wasted tiles and to complete our initial empire.

ORDER:
Arathorn -- JUST PLAYED
Justus_II -- UP NOW
Charis -- ON DECK
Corrado -- waiting not-so-patiently

I get the impression Corrado is the most familiar with this scenario, so he goes last, to avoid some spoiler knowledge. Plus, I like this order and there's gotta be some perks for being put in charge of one of these things...

Justus, you can find the game at
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc13b-885ad.zip

Good luck!

To discuss:
- Dotmap -- good/bad/indifferent?
- How soon do we start a military build-up?
- Another curragh required?
- Ansar keep going or return home fairly soon? He might get trapped a long ways away if we don't try to bring him home semi-soon. BUT there are still a LOT of contacts to get.
- Try to explore Africa and found across the Med?

Highly recommended actions:
- Keep the blockade going -- maybe even send another troop or two to the area to help out until we can rush a settler in Valencia to claim the northern purple dot
- Keep some cash on hand for rushing stuff
- Use the settler from Cordoba for blue dot and then let Cordoba grow to size 6

Arathorn

Got it, but I won't play until tomorrow night, so we will have some more time for discussion. One thing I noticed from the Civilopedia, Wool is a luxury in this conquest, but to get it in our borders would take a temple in either Valencia or Lisbon.

Looking at the save, I am leaning toward swapping Valencia to a temple to get the wool, use Cordova's settler to get the purple dot (could reach that tile the same turn Valencia's rushed one could), and rush the settler from Cadiz instead to grab the blue dot. Using the roads, both could be reached in 6 turns. Cadiz doesn't have a 3rd improved tile to work yet anyway, and with the granary and FP will get the pop back quick, whereas Valencia could be quite productive if it has a chance to grow and work the hills. Could also depend on Castile, of course, if they settle where they are now, the purple dot will have to be moved. Comments?

Other thoughts, I see no reason to pull the Ansar back, it is a nice unit, but by itself isn't decisive. Continuing on, though, should net us 3-6 more contacts at least, (Poland, Magyar, Rus, Bulgar?, Turks?, Sweden?) that we won't get through the Med curragh. Having those contacts by the time HBR comes out should definitely pay off in brokering opportunities. The only thing we would miss is being able to trigger an earlier GA, which might or might not be desirable. If we get desparate, there are usually enough settler pairs roaming the far East that we could always pick one off to start a phony war for a GA.

I sure would like another curragh to make contacts in the north and generally get intel up there. Probably have Lisbon slip one in after the barracks completes, then we need it to start training some warriors for future upgrade. I see Blue Dot as being another barracks>military city.

As for Africa, I know there are advantages to having a beachhead there for any future invasion, but there are also risks. I know there are tons of barb Keshiks over there, so any city we build could turn into a money pit unless we can defend it well, and for now I don't know that it is worthwhile.

A couple of these questions get me thinking about our long-term goals. We know going in that our biggest challenge (after survival ) is somehow accumulating enough VPs before one of the eastern powers (Byz/Abbasids) runs away with it. We will have a limited ability to influence events over there, but I think we do need to keep an eye on what's going on (another reason for the Ansar to continue, IMHO). But meanwhile, how do we intend to accumulate more than our fair share of VPs? My guess is our best shot is planning some major conquests, probably the Franks and Burgundy (after Castile, of course), using our Ansars to try and overrun them before they get their knights. (Assuming we get to the 2nd era around the same time, we need one new tech, they need 2). That probably won't be enough, but it'll be a big chunk, then we will have to decide if we have time to race to Jerusalem with their relics, or push on to more targets.

I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but just wanted to open the long-term discussion now, as it could help in making the right decisions early. Specifically, I don't know whether the effort to get forces to Africa to fight the Fatmids, opening ourselves to a 2-front war, is worth the VPs, unless we plan on using that as an approach to the Middle East.

A few thoughts:

* On the dotmap- I'd move the southwestern red dot one space northwest (the space where the worker is irrigating)- that puts it on a river and able to grow without our eventual hospitals. There's also room for one more city 1 NE 2 N of Lisbon, assuming Spain doesn't place something there to poach it.

* On switching Valencia to a Temple- I'm not sure we really need the wool yet. We get 1 free content citizen for Emperor, we should have the wines next to the blue dot hooked up shortly for a happy citizen, and can use 3 units for MP, so with a few cheap spearmen and/or a temple, we can easily keep 6 citizens content without hooking up a second resource. The wool would be nice, but I'd rather grab as much land as we can early.

* Speaking of which- Charis, I'm keen to get a land rush in right now because Castille loves to settle on hills, and hills make for a much tougher fight. If we hem Castile in right now, we won't get as many VP in conquering them... but a short and sweet war against them will leave us a lot more units and time to go a-whackin' France. And wouldn't you rather be attacking France? I know I would. No, really, it's mostly a matter of timing- IMO, we have a short window where Ansars rule all, and the less time we spend on tough yet piddling targets like Castille, the more time we can spend on easier and more lucrative targets.

* Settling the NA coast has its advantages, but you're right that we'll need to put some strong effort into it, effort we may not be able to put forth now. Besides, until we get Seamanship (3rd age tech), we can't build the harbors necessary to bring goods back and forth, so even if NA has great stuff, it does our empire no good. I think we're best off letting the Fatamids and Vikings settle those lands and conquering when the time comes.

* I believe Cordoba has our only marketplace, so letting it grow to 6 will help our paltry economy greatly.

* I say, keep the Ansar out exploring and focus on our infrastructure. A Sword vs. Sword war against Castille isn't likely to go in our favor, especially given how many Castille cities start in hills. Once we get Ansars pumping, then Castille's nice, plump cities will fall for many VP.

* On long-term diplomacy: if we want to conquer the Franks and maybe the Burgundians, we need to make sure that neither of them gets the HRE. The HRE gives 2 free techs, which usually guarantees that the civ can start producing Knights and sometimes even means they start the Knights Templar. Needless to say, the Franks suddenly having Knights will dampen our ability to bring enlightenment across the Pyrennes. We may want to consider gifting Castle Building to Germany *and* Poland once we have it- a strong Germany can be a very good ally against France and Burgundy.

Oof. That's what I get for strateregizing when I should be sleeping.

Corrections:
On happiness: we are at Demigod, not Emperor, so no free happiness. Still, we'll have time to build a Settler, then a Temple, before the main road gets all the way up to Valencia, and the Wines will do what Wool would.

On Castille: I feel we have two valid choices. First, we could do an early rush on them in order to pointy-stick HBR and cripple them for later. If we want to do that, Settlers are a low priority, and Catapults and Swordsmen are high priority. Or, we can simply try to settle them in until Ansars show up, in which case Settlers are a high priority along with Spearmen to defend our borders and keep the towns quiet.

I'm up for either option, but we should try to make a decision and stick to it.

First long post swallowed whole and spit out by trusty Internet Explorer, here's the recap 8-\

I like your 'corrections' post Corrado, it states nicely that we do have two good choices and that it would be a good idea to discuss that and go for it:
i) very quick mil buildup, cripple Castille NOW, pre-Ansar, and capture cities they build for us, both now and later.
ii) grab while the grabbing is good! Take as much land as we can peacefully, work on military production base and city improvement, then hit them hard the moment we get Ansars.

I have a slight leaning toward #1 (as one might expect as an advocate of the 'ultrablitz' in the Sid game ), since as Arathorn says "We're not gonna get a whole lot more good cities out of this hunk of land" -- but am ok with either. There's not a huge short term difference between the two, as I do like continuing on with one settler currently in the queue, to grab blue dot (I'm a little more prone to use Valencia for settler and put Cordoba on military if we're looking to strike soon though)

It depends on how long we'll take to get the Ansars. If we're talking 40-50 turns, I would strongly prefer seeing Castille dead by then, not waiting for Ansars. If just 25-30 turns, settlers-first approach seems better. I'm definitely not big on dividing effort into Africa, and I agree that Ansar must keep riding for more contacts. When he meets the last civ, come on home.

Charis

Several points...

1. We already have wine hooked up. If you look really carefully by Lisbon, you might be able to detect a road on those wines. So, we have one luxury hooked up already.

2. DG (and deity and even Sid) are just like Emperor in terms on happiness -- one citizen is born happy and later ones are the ones who are unhappy. We have one MP happiness in all cities, so we can support size 3 very easily -- size 4 in our capital because of its temple. More MP are possibly/probably available, if needed. The wool is not a huge priority, although we will want it before TOO long.

3. We can't build swords right now -- we have no iron hooked up. It's in the plans, but our workers have had other tasks requiring their attention.

4. I wouldn't rush the settler in Cadiz until it reaches size 4, myself. It's got two flood plains, so it grows faster at size 2 than it does at size 1. If we need it earlier, though, do what must be done.

5. Agreed on moving the SW red dot one NE to where the worker is trying to drag a line of irrigation to Lisbon. But that one can wait a bit.

6. For long-term strategy, I think building a few cities to help with unit costs and until we get the tech to build horsies and/or get our iron hooked up and then go primarily military. I'd like to see horses/swords and maybe our first ansars go into killing Castile, while the main ansar war is against France and probably even Germany. I see us building the currently queued settlers and maybe a few more from Cadiz while everybody else changes focus to military. I'd like to see a lot of horses, for upgrade purposes, even though they're not so great in the Pyrenees.

7. Agreed on ignoring NA for now.

Arathorn

I think we need to think in terms of a Sword war vs. Castile. We are working on our Norse tech for 40 turns, by which time (hopefully) other civs have gotten HBR AND Castle building, no sure thing. Once we get both of those techs, we 'reveal' our free Arab Learning tech, and can start on Jihad for Ansars. By then we should have some kind of infrastructure set up, so we can research at a decent speed, but it will probably still take 15-20 turns. So I don't think we can expect Ansars before turn 55 at the earliest, or about 40 turns from now.

I would think we settle 2-3 priority spots (depending on the Castile settler), let Cadiz do our backfill settlers, and get Lisbon, Cordova, and our Blue Dot cities cranking warriors for upgrade. Once we have about 10-12 vet warriors, start upgrading (at 60g each, we may not be able to afford many more than that for a while), and go on the offensive.

Don't neglect to build a few horses. And if we can build catapults (for some reason, I'm thinking we can't), a few of those (from Valencia, probably) would be very useful.

We'll also need/want a few more workers, but I'd assign those to Cadiz as well. Not a whole lot of infrastructure really needed -- those few more cities and then growth.

Justus's plan seems to agree pretty closely with what I had in mind.

Arathorn

Justus' plan sounds solid to me. I'm a little hesitant to spend a lot of money on upgrading warriors, though- again, our economy is going to suck for a long time given low unit support and that we can't build marketplaces. We'll need money to trade around for the techs we want.

Warriors would be useful as MP, though; there's no good defensive unit until the 3rd age, so having a 1 defender in our main southern cities won't matter much except in keeping people happy.

Following the unfortunate demise of Abd Ah-Rathorn, the people were fearful, wondering who would lead their small, struggling lands. However, Al-Justus quickly stepped forward (after wiping and hiding his dagger) and promised to lead the people according to the visions of the sages. Seeing that our early cities were productive, he decreed that we would build more of them, claiming this Iberian Peninsula as our destiny! When reminded that the Castillians already had half the peninsula under their control, Al-Justus quoted something about plowshares into swords. But first, groups of hardy people would be equipped to go out and settle new towns, following the vision left by Ah-Rathorn.

Al-Justus was also happy with the reports of strange lands, and stranger people, from our roaming Ansar and our intrepid Curragh crew. In fact, he was so impressed, he wanted another to sail north in search of other new peoples. Lisbon was the logical place to build it, yet had much work remaining on a barracks for training troops, which would be wasted on a small boat. After much thought, and seeing that Lisbon could be much more productive with hills, wool, and more forests under it’s control, he decreed that the Barracks be converted into a Temple, so construction could then begin on the Curragh. Meanwhile, the temple planned for Cadiz would wait, as we would need more settlers and soon. Thus began the reign of Al-Justus!

880 (0) Swap Lisbon and Cadiz as mentioned.
IBT: Castille settler moves E to our purple dot. Germans ask our Ansar to leave.
Lisbon-Temple>Curragh.

888 (1) Move Ansar east, deeper into Germany. Blockade, led by our kings, moves E as well.
IBT: Don’t settle, don’t settle, . . Settler moves back to the W? Frank warrior shows up.
Cordoba-Settler>Warrior.

891 (2) Ansar now moves South. Blockade moves W again. Settler heads to Blue Dot.
IBT: Settler now moves SW. A Castillian sword is also in view. Germans kick our Ansar out.

894 (3) Ansar meets the Bulgars, who have 22g and 8 cities. Good news and bad news. Franks have Horseback Riding, bad news is so do the Germans, Burgundy, Denmark, Castile, and BTW we can’t afford it, everything we have is still doubtful. Bulgars and Celts lack it, but have 53g between them, so brokering opportunities would be limited anway. We need more contacts to drop the price.
IBT: Settler pair moves S, I think they are trying for the Iron, but too late! Curragh sees a dark red border, but can’t make contact yet.

897 (4) Seville is founded at the Blue Dot. HBR is now in reach, but for 90g+15gpt, and everyone we know has it, so we couldn’t recoup any of that. I wait, no rush to build horses yet. It is also time to rush the settler at Valencia, as otherwise they will have unhappiness next turn anyway.
IBT: Castille settler now moves South, are they trying to settle on the other side of our territory?
Cordoba-Warrior>warrior, Valencia-Settler>Temple.

900 (5) Our Ansar meets the Magyars, they have 0g, 5 cities, and already know HBR.
IBT: Nothing, settler still trying to get around.

903 (6) Our Curragh finally meets Byzantium, they have 15! Cities :eep:, but only 10g and no HBR, but we can’t really afford it now anyway. Settler from Valencia heads to purple dot.
IBT: A Frank settler pair appears, as well as a second Castillian settler pair.
Cordoba-Warrior>Warrior, Lisbon-Curragh>Barracks, Cadiz-Settler>Settler.

906 (7) Toledo founded on purple dot near wines, starts a temple with the borders adjacent. I don’t have enough kings or warriors to block all of the settlers, but our Cadiz settler is enroute to a coastal site which should squeeze enough terrain to make them turn around.
IBT: Settler now moves SW, probably trying for the coast to our SE.

909 (8) Shuffle kings and warriors for our 1.5 blockades, at this point it’s not really a blockade, just running interference so our settler keeps the lead.
IBT: Castile, Bulgars each ask us to leave.
Cordoba-Warrior>Warrior.

912 (9) Nothing much happens, just continuing to run interference, push for contacts.
IBT: The settlers keep pushing South.

915 (10) Several worker actions complete. Our settler is now only one tile away from the goal, we have them beat. As I understand, the AI won’t settle within 2 tiles of our cities, so once this city is founded, I think they are blocked from that region, but check the map, I could be wrong. We have another settler that will finish soon in Cadiz, and could grab the dot in the plains. I’m actually starting to think they are also aiming for the blue dot at the southern tip of our peninsula, it’s the only other site 2 away from our borders. I don’t know whether we should send someone to occupy the tile, or let them settle and plan to take it later?



Anyway, everything is moved, but I have not done any diplo dealings yet. I did check prices, we can get HBR for 100+11gpt out of our current 16gpt, I don’t think it’s worth it. Our curraghs should be able to contact England and the Abbasids soon, which will drop the price some more. We also need to contact the Fatimids, directly to our south, but we are out of curraghs! (A unit blocking that southern tile might see them in passing?)

Priorities for the next ruler:
*Settle city sites listed, keep delaying AI settlers a few more turns.
*Lots of worker actions, especially mining some hills for production. I have 2 workers set to mine the iron hill, but I wasn’t going to connect it yet, until we have some more warriors ready to upgrade.
*Speaking of, we have 4 vet warriors. Cordoba builds one every other turn. Lisbon and Seville are still working on barracks, but once completed we should be able to get them cranking also. We might want to go ahead and connect the iron, actually. At 60g per upgrade, it will take us 10 more turns to save the money to upgrade the 4 we have. Cordoba can get up to 7-8 spt already, kind of overkill on warriors, but good enough to build swords outright.

Contain Castile!

EDIT: Roster
Arathorn
Justus_II -- JUST PLAYED
Charis -- UP NOW
Corrado -- ON DECK

Great job so far!

Re: The French settler- let them settle. We may just culturally take them, or we can snag them when we open up the Ansar war. Either way, they're not going to build a city that will cause us much trouble.

Re: The Iron- I think hooking it up ASAP is a good idea; we need our money for tech trades, not for upgrades.

Speaking of tech- I wouldn't bother trading at all for HBR until we start getting notices that people are building the HRE. We can pointy-stick HBR from Castille, and the only reason not to would be if Castile has Castle Building and we'd prefer to pointy-stick that.

Definitely connect the iron -- swords will be good for the Castile war (or the first Castile war). We don't have the cash to really upgrade, so we probably should connect and just build swords outright. I think we're doing OK on cheap MP and we will have a second luxury before TOO long, with a third (dyes) coming with Castile's demise.

Very nice job on the partial blockades. We'll get the most important purple dots and the rest aren't so important in position or speed, so we should be able to either never get them or capture them later. No worries.

One devious plan is to block the spot that they want but only inconsistently, so they come and go and come and go, until we're ready to whack them for some nice slave labor! Or is that an exploit? Anyway...

As for HBR, as much as I like having a few fast units on hand, Corrado might be right. We may need to just delay and pointy-stick HBR or purchase it shortly before the end of the Castile war, so we can maybe get Castle Building from them.

I do think it's time to let our tiny towns grow and see if they can turn into something. We're going to need military pretty soon, if we're going to have a shot at winning before the Byzantines or Abassids.

Arathorn