Pindrus
Warlord
Preplay:
Well, as stated above not a very complicated plan for this set. Will swap research to BW and will have every citizen across the entire Byzantine nation help prepare a worker. Other than that it's just hoping that we steer clear of bears and barbs and that bren builds in the bwest of bibracte.
Turns out that the lack of happenings throughout most of the set were off-set by some excitement at the end!
Turn-by-Turn
IT (37 - 3075 BC)
Above plan is executed. 15 turns to a worker and 19 to BW.
I also note that the warrior fogbusting to the NE isn't placed optimally. The hill is nice, but it's only a 25% bonus, and the tiles 'busted' by Mr. Warrior overlap a lot with those already covered by our cultural borders. So I send him further afield.
And we're off!
IT (40 - 3000 BC)
Warrior meets some bears, luckily on his first of two romps through the woods, so he does the honorable thing and doesn't get between the momma and the cubs.
Our intrepid scout also finds Zulu borders not far to the SE.
IT (41 - 2975 BC)
And just in time a forest grows on the hill to shelter our most veteran army.
IT (52 - 2725 BC)
Well, not much has happened since we last wrote. Mostly dodging wildlife and getting a look at the outskirts of the Zulu and Celtic empires, more city-states at this point really. On this turn though the worker is ready and sent off to the pigs-hill for a mine.
IT (53 - 2675 BC)
We are greeted by a very nice surprise... 
Yup, you saw that correctly. 4 archers on what appears to be a beeline to Constantinople! I check the log to see if I've missed an uprising, but it seems devoid of any such event... If my understanding of the uprising event is correct, we would also have needed to have archery to generate the event ourselves. Perhaps someone else who we haven't met yet (or hadn't at the time) had the event, and for some reason the barbarians had haunted dreams that told them of some far-off city called Constantinople where they should seek their destiny.
I can't really think of anything to do. Our fogbusting troops are all too far away and BW will come in the turn after they attack, which would at least give us 2 warriors vs. 4 archers...
Perhaps they are on their way to Washington or Ulundi and will just pass through?
IT (54 - 2650 BC)
Archers move closer to the lovely Byzantine homes...
IT (55 - 2625 BC)
Erm, hello archers... care for a cup of tea, or some scones to get you to Washington? heh? heh...
In other news we meet Elizabeth of the English to the SW of Celtia.
I save the game here too.
IT (56 - 2600 BC)
...
Umm...
...
There is no turn 56. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to the Hall of Shame.
At least we killed one of the archers.
Well that was fun all. How about another? In fact, I have gone ahead and rolled a start. Then I played some turns. Check out what I have explored and who I have met so far:
In fact, it seems very similar to our last game. It even seems to be turn 56 again. Only our uncouth visitors have dispersed themselves.
Though turn 56 is eventful in its own right as we discover how to smelt down the very earth itself and shape it into tools for construction and war. And the closest copper iiiiiissssssssss...
Yes, that would be south of Brennus. Reserach is now set to Monotheism for a shot at founding a 2nd religion. I think working the 3 best tiles and chopping/whipping out some settlers & workers is the way to go for now, so we shouldn't an immediate need for more worker techs. We can regrow building enough warriors to fogbust the area. There are a good number of AI scouts and archers around too, so I think we will be OK without archery, though it is something of a gamble. Though apparently so is not beelining archery first thing and building 2 archers to sit in the capitol by 3000 BC.
I also switch to slavery and whip out the rest of the workboat. A warrior is queued next to grow back to size 3 so we can work our 3 higher-yield tiles (soon-to-be-mined-hill-pigs + 2 clams). 3 more turns for the mine, then our worker should start chopping.
And that with that the reign of Pindrus came to a somewhat more glorious end than in our "last game." I seem to be having all the SG luck this week...
Closing Thoughts
I don't know how others feel, but it seems terribly buggy to me to have someone else spawn the barb event but then have them target us. If the team would rather get a fresh re-roll that's fine by me, but I'd just as soon keep playing on here with the brief visit to world-builder. I zoomed in and covered the minimap and all, so I don't have any knowledge beyond what we have rightly discovered.
I don't have my heart set on Mono and could see a swap to Ag -> Pottery -> AH or Ag -> AH -> Pottery to set up some sort of early economy beyond working seafood, though that should us all right until we get out 4 cities.
Also, here are my proposed blocking cities for Bren & Shaka. Washington I think we shouldn't worry about as the land around him is crap. #1 and #2 by Bren could both be pretty quickly functional. #1 has 5 hills and enough food to work them all even pre-calendar (pigs + 4 grass hills + city center = 12
to work 6 tiles) and would be a great early unit pump city, conveniently located near Bren! 1N 2E of the pigs would waste some nice green riverside tiles between that and the capitol. With a military city we could backfill with a nice commerce city there. Bren Blocker #2 gets rice and clams, for some specialists to help us recover from expansion. Bren has some great land to his SW, so hopefully he will go that direction firest and we can get these two up. Hopefully the first one on the next set and the 2nd on the following one if we stick to these relatively short early-game turn lengths. Scout is back near the capitol to help fogbust a path towards Bren.
Hopefully we can get the 2nd city founded before Mono comes in to fight Celtic culture and pop our borders without a monument.
Also remember that if we aren't going to whip for 5 turns we should pop out of slavery and take advantage of our spiritual trait. Right now there are 5 turns before we can switch though.
The Shaka blockers aren't as good and I wouldn't really want to get that close to him without metals. So he will probably expand before we can block. I would peg him as our first convert and consider bribing him against Bren (I fear that Washington would be too weak).
Roster
Sirlion
Grandad1982
cripp7 - Skipped
Pindrus - Just Played
White Dragon - Up for some turns!
narri - On Deck
And the save:
Well, as stated above not a very complicated plan for this set. Will swap research to BW and will have every citizen across the entire Byzantine nation help prepare a worker. Other than that it's just hoping that we steer clear of bears and barbs and that bren builds in the bwest of bibracte.
Turns out that the lack of happenings throughout most of the set were off-set by some excitement at the end!
Turn-by-Turn
IT (37 - 3075 BC)
Above plan is executed. 15 turns to a worker and 19 to BW.
I also note that the warrior fogbusting to the NE isn't placed optimally. The hill is nice, but it's only a 25% bonus, and the tiles 'busted' by Mr. Warrior overlap a lot with those already covered by our cultural borders. So I send him further afield.
And we're off!
IT (40 - 3000 BC)
Warrior meets some bears, luckily on his first of two romps through the woods, so he does the honorable thing and doesn't get between the momma and the cubs.
Our intrepid scout also finds Zulu borders not far to the SE.
IT (41 - 2975 BC)
And just in time a forest grows on the hill to shelter our most veteran army.
IT (52 - 2725 BC)
Well, not much has happened since we last wrote. Mostly dodging wildlife and getting a look at the outskirts of the Zulu and Celtic empires, more city-states at this point really. On this turn though the worker is ready and sent off to the pigs-hill for a mine.
IT (53 - 2675 BC)
We are greeted by a very nice surprise... Yup, you saw that correctly. 4 archers on what appears to be a beeline to Constantinople! I check the log to see if I've missed an uprising, but it seems devoid of any such event... If my understanding of the uprising event is correct, we would also have needed to have archery to generate the event ourselves. Perhaps someone else who we haven't met yet (or hadn't at the time) had the event, and for some reason the barbarians had haunted dreams that told them of some far-off city called Constantinople where they should seek their destiny.
I can't really think of anything to do. Our fogbusting troops are all too far away and BW will come in the turn after they attack, which would at least give us 2 warriors vs. 4 archers...
Perhaps they are on their way to Washington or Ulundi and will just pass through?
IT (54 - 2650 BC)
Archers move closer to the lovely Byzantine homes...
IT (55 - 2625 BC)
Erm, hello archers... care for a cup of tea, or some scones to get you to Washington? heh? heh...
In other news we meet Elizabeth of the English to the SW of Celtia.
I save the game here too.
IT (56 - 2600 BC)
...
Umm...
...
There is no turn 56. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to the Hall of Shame.
At least we killed one of the archers.
Well that was fun all. How about another? In fact, I have gone ahead and rolled a start. Then I played some turns. Check out what I have explored and who I have met so far:
Spoiler :
In fact, it seems very similar to our last game. It even seems to be turn 56 again. Only our uncouth visitors have dispersed themselves.
Though turn 56 is eventful in its own right as we discover how to smelt down the very earth itself and shape it into tools for construction and war. And the closest copper iiiiiissssssssss...
Yes, that would be south of Brennus. Reserach is now set to Monotheism for a shot at founding a 2nd religion. I think working the 3 best tiles and chopping/whipping out some settlers & workers is the way to go for now, so we shouldn't an immediate need for more worker techs. We can regrow building enough warriors to fogbust the area. There are a good number of AI scouts and archers around too, so I think we will be OK without archery, though it is something of a gamble. Though apparently so is not beelining archery first thing and building 2 archers to sit in the capitol by 3000 BC.
I also switch to slavery and whip out the rest of the workboat. A warrior is queued next to grow back to size 3 so we can work our 3 higher-yield tiles (soon-to-be-mined-hill-pigs + 2 clams). 3 more turns for the mine, then our worker should start chopping.
And that with that the reign of Pindrus came to a somewhat more glorious end than in our "last game." I seem to be having all the SG luck this week...
Closing Thoughts
I don't know how others feel, but it seems terribly buggy to me to have someone else spawn the barb event but then have them target us. If the team would rather get a fresh re-roll that's fine by me, but I'd just as soon keep playing on here with the brief visit to world-builder. I zoomed in and covered the minimap and all, so I don't have any knowledge beyond what we have rightly discovered.
I don't have my heart set on Mono and could see a swap to Ag -> Pottery -> AH or Ag -> AH -> Pottery to set up some sort of early economy beyond working seafood, though that should us all right until we get out 4 cities.
Also, here are my proposed blocking cities for Bren & Shaka. Washington I think we shouldn't worry about as the land around him is crap. #1 and #2 by Bren could both be pretty quickly functional. #1 has 5 hills and enough food to work them all even pre-calendar (pigs + 4 grass hills + city center = 12
to work 6 tiles) and would be a great early unit pump city, conveniently located near Bren! 1N 2E of the pigs would waste some nice green riverside tiles between that and the capitol. With a military city we could backfill with a nice commerce city there. Bren Blocker #2 gets rice and clams, for some specialists to help us recover from expansion. Bren has some great land to his SW, so hopefully he will go that direction firest and we can get these two up. Hopefully the first one on the next set and the 2nd on the following one if we stick to these relatively short early-game turn lengths. Scout is back near the capitol to help fogbust a path towards Bren.Hopefully we can get the 2nd city founded before Mono comes in to fight Celtic culture and pop our borders without a monument.
Also remember that if we aren't going to whip for 5 turns we should pop out of slavery and take advantage of our spiritual trait. Right now there are 5 turns before we can switch though.
The Shaka blockers aren't as good and I wouldn't really want to get that close to him without metals. So he will probably expand before we can block. I would peg him as our first convert and consider bribing him against Bren (I fear that Washington would be too weak).
Spoiler :
Roster
Sirlion
Grandad1982
cripp7 - Skipped
Pindrus - Just Played
White Dragon - Up for some turns!
narri - On Deck
And the save:
? Nope, he clones himself.
![[pimp]](/images/smilies/pimp.gif "Pimp [pimp]")
's heart out. We tell him to screw off then start beating him like a 
.
I figure we can use it to explore on its way down to the clams for Bren Block 2. Plus I think we can use it as a spawnbuster.
, then 
, and tell them to prepare for the sting of our 
.
overflow. I haven't done this yet. I figure one can pasture the cows while the other heads to Thess for some work.
around. I figure if we whip the worker the overflow can 1 turn build the warrior.
