aCK-3 The Cat with the Hat

[IamJohn]

Hi General Whosit (yes, just finished reading aCK-2 )

Glad to see lurker comments. We can use all the help that's out there.

Definitely agree, all of us playing are learning to play this level, so more comments are always appreciated!

None of the marble sites had any food and we didn't have very many good sites to put cities. But now that the Zulu war is wrapping up we probably do want to take over one of the marbles.

The lack of food doesn't concern me as much, but it just seems to me that we don't really need the marble- what wonders are we going to be building? Right now the only stuff I see in our immediate future is HE, maybe a medieval/Renascence wonder. We need to focus on rebuilding our economy, building wonders won't help a huge amount, correct?

I'm going to take a look at our capital.

At minimum I think we need to do the following:

Farm the square one east of the corn to bring it irrigation. Farm over the cottage one east of the city because.. we just need more food . Obviously put plantations down where indicated when we get Calendar.

Agree.

Not so obvious are the other cottages. We should probably keep that nice town on the dye. But all the other immature cottages could be replaced by farms to allow the city to grow to the happy cap. (This is optional, but might bring in more money sooner than waiting for those cottages to mature. I'm not sure about this). More money would be brought in by specialists and by working the sea. I am currently building a Trireme to help protect the clam spot where I have a work boat heading toward (right now for just the health benefit). We should probably build an aqueduct and lighthouse as soon as we can.

Looks good to me. We do need to consider how useful the dyes will be as trade bait. How many other civs have it? If we can't sell it and have a better improvement money/food wise then it may be better not to put a plantation on it.

The big question is, do we want to move our capital. I am thinking Ulundi will be more centrally located in the future, and it will develop into a better production powerhouse to take advantage of bureaucracy. The forbidden palace in Berlin? or wait for a better location?

I like Uludi as a capital, and if we can get moving on this we'll have a faster increasing economy, as opposed to a slower moving economy that gets slightly better once we finally get going.

Speaking of Ulundi

I agree with Whosit here, we need to farm all the grass so we can work all the mines. Take over the wheat from Iron Will. Give Iron Will the grass two north of the city, farm it, and the grass north of that so Iron Will has (barely) enough food.

I agree, and move pop onto the farms once we can run specialists in Berlin.

Shaka still has three techs we don't have. If we are careful and get the -50% cost in all three attempts I think we have enough spy points to get all three from him. It will however take a bit of time, time we won't have if we finish him off. (I think I said before to steal Engineering from Sury, but I didn't realize Shaka had it). Also we would greatly benefit from peace in that his blockades of our cities would be lifted and we could work the clams near Ulundi. So while I think its ok to raze one more city for the money while we wait for Toku to talk to us, I think we should make peace after that. The fight for the city will kill more of our units, which we have too many of, and if we stop then, we won't have to build any more. (we need to modernize though to get our power up).

Remeber that we don't have to be at war to steal techs from him. Would peace lift the blockades though? Or do we need open borders for that? In any case though let's kill off the troops we don't really need (though please don't kill off everything! I would not be surprised to see someone declare on us at some point (or the other way around), and have a good base to upgrade from would help quite a bit imo.

 

[pholtz]

I don't know if it happens to you, but it does to me. I have a plan for a city, but then turns later, when a settler comes up for orders, I'm busy thinking of the war or something else, I don't think too much about what I'm doing with the settler and sometimes make mistakes.

I think in my personal games I'm going to start labeling plans for cities, like in the following photos. What I'm presenting here is a straw man to be discussed and changed, but it's at least a plan. When you first build a city you have an idea of what needs to be built. But when Civil Service is discovered, that may change, and the plans need to be revised. The same thing happens when you discover Biology. Anyway, here are some post CS ideas for our cities.

Berlin is pretty simple, just do as Whosit suggested. Build a farm on every grass square. Not sure what to do with the plains yet.


Thessa is going to be one of our production centers, especially for units.

The idea here is to build farms and workshops to maximize production. I would build the southern farms first, then reevaluate before we plow over any cottage.

Antioch is a mixed bag

The idea here is to bring some irrigation from the west so the population can grow. Not sure if we want to keep the cottages or not. We need to build a lighthouse here soon.

Adria is also a bit mixed up, but is a secondary production source of units.

We need to bring up the irrigation along the coast, and extend it to the northwest for Nicaea. A workshop is added to increase production

Nicaea should probably be a source of a bit of income.

We need a few farms to allow the city to grow, and a workshop to allow quicker building of support structures or as an option to control city growth. Once we get all the coast worked we may be able to re-cottage some squares.

I think after the Shaka war we will be in a period of development and filling in the holes. Some of Shaka's new territory will help on income once the cities develop. But we need to make a few more. Here are two options:

The blue dot. Up by the furs to get them for happiness and trade, and to get the marble. It should be by the river as riverside tundra squares can be farmed.

The red dot. This is actually not a bad port. It has two sources of hammers, the iron mine and a hill. One of the hills can be borrowed from Const if it is working other squares. All the jungle can be cleared for farms or workshops, and of course the clams will help with food. It will pay for itself and help with naval units.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Hi Whosit, as has already been said, glad to have your advice.

I agree with moving the capital to Ulundi and will start building it asap. The changes to the city tiles to focus our cities look good to me. Will give our workers plenty to do.

Forbidden palace Berlin or Thessa? Thessa is a more centrally located. Not sure if it would save us more money than Berlin though.

Shaka – I intend to go after Kassite next. Do we want to keep or raze? I vote for keeping it. With all those riverside tiles I think it will be good city. If razed, it will just give HC and Sury more room to expand.

The other two Shaka cities can be razed though hopefully Toku will be willing to talk before then. Will we need to kill a few of Toku’s units before he’ll come to the table?

GG to Thessa? Once Thessa completes the HE (only 11 turns) it can build units for the rest of the game.

 

[pholtz]

Forbidden Palace in Thessa makes sense from the city location, but shouldn't Red Cross or West Point pair up with HE?

 

[IamJohn]

Remember we may want to build Iron works when it's available.

Toku will be willing to talk before then. Will we need to kill a few of Toku’s units before he’ll come to the table?

It's not him being willing to come to the table, it's whether or not we'll need to pay for it that I'm bothered about.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Longer term, should we be thinking of sending taoist missionaries to Sury's cities and encouraging him to convert to break up buddhist diplo with HC + Toku?

He is the religion's founder. What are the chances that he would convert?

 

[pholtz]

ooo, that would be mean. we spread Taoism AND Buddhism though all our cities. Convert to Taoism and get Sury to convert. Then convert back to Buddhism just before we attack him .

 

[pholtz]

Thought about a slight improvement on the farming for Antioch. I had the irrigation chain coming from Berlin, though a forest, but Thessa's southern farm chain also provides water. So no need to cut down the forest.

 

[The Simple Mind]

ooo, that would be mean. we spread Taoism AND Buddhism though all our cities. Convert to Taoism and get Sury to convert. Then convert back to Buddhism just before we attack him .

I didn't think we would have convert to Taoism to encourage Sury to convert though it probably would help. As we're spiritual, a 5 turn conversion to Taoism shouldn't be a problem.

We only need to produce 2 or 3 missionaries as Sury already has Taoism spread to most of his cities. As we are in OR, Adrianople can produce taoist missionaries whenever we want. No need to spread it through out our empire unless he builds the AP in Taoism.

If we think there is a possibility of Sury converting to Taoism we should do everything we can to facilitate this. Then as Pholtz says, we backstab him and hopefully get Toku + HC on our side.

I have started my set but only played a few turns as there were plenty of set up changes re resurrecting the economy & tile usage that took a bit of time. I intend to play tonight and hopefully report by midnight (GMT) or first thing tomorrow morning.

If you guys have any other thoughts / actions there is still time for them to be incorporated into the majority of my set.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Hi Guys, sorry for the delay. When I tried to post my report yesterday there was some sort of data problem with the site and today I've forgotten the memory stick with report & pics. I'll update tonight when I get home from work.

 

[IamJohn]

Hi Guys, sorry for the delay. When I tried to post my report yesterday there was some sort of data problem with the site and today I've forgotten the memory stick with report & pics. I'll update tonight when I get home from work.

It's not a problem, I wouldn't have been able to play anyway.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Wow, a lot of changes

Builds
Ulundi changed from market to palace.
Berlin from wealth to aqueduct. Now losing a bucket load of money so I hire another couple of merchants. Now only losing 10 gold / turn!!
Adian slots in a settler (6) before market.
All other builds look fine so stay the same.

Tiles
I splatter the map with signs per Pholtz’s Labelling Plan (PLP). Will remove as and when tiles changes are completed. I will have the workers as two man teams (though not grouped) to help get tile improvements up and running sooner.

Trade
Call up Sury and HC and ask them for all their money.

They kindly accept. What good friends we have. I’m sure they’ll be disappointed when we them haha.

Whosit mentioned about trading silver or gems to Sury. I check our cities (I trust you but you’ve always got to make sure when it’s your own neck on the block) and none of them have happiness issues. I call up Sury and he offers:

I accept and are now only losing 4 gold / turn at 30% slider. I check 40% and we would be losing 18gold / turn to research paper 1 turn sooner. I stick with 30% for the time being. I also ask for:

Again the deal is accepted for the empire wide health boost. As we have traded away to luxury resources I hire an artist in gem city so that it will pop its borders in 4 turns to claim another source of gems.

Units
GG in Berlin is woken from his slumbers and sendt on his way to Thessa to become a military instructor.
Lionus (2N of Thessa) send him to garrison Antioch.
HA + chariot (2N of Thessa) sent to front to fight in the Zulu wars.

I’m sure there was something else I was meant to do but can’t remember, so hit enter.

1100AD (1)

Nobamba’s borders pop so we get sugar in bfc. Unfortunately, Toku sends his first unit, a 4 promo archer on to it. I send a HA to have a chat and it is successful at 99%.

HC has 2 missionaries in our territory, cheers mate. This gets me thinking about how we can break up the Buddhist lovefest. I’m wondering if we should send Taoist missionaries to Sury’s cities and encourage him to change. Considering he did found the religion he might be willing to change. Something to think about.

I’m concerned we only have two spies. If one or both get caught our tech stealing will be hampered. I slot a 4 turn spy in Adrianople before the settler.

Re-negotiate the wine deal with HC. The gold per turn is upped from 5 to 6.

1110AD (2)

HC kindly spreads Buddhism to Berlin and Thessa. Thanks for the production boost.

Scipio settled in Thessa as a military instructor.

1120AD (3)

We’re getting bigger and bigger:

Just got to laugh, Toku’s HA crosses the river and stops next to Gem City where I’m amassing our forces for the attack on Kassite. I assume he is trying to pillage our gems. Looks like he jumped too soon. I attack with a spear that has odds of 89% and Toku has one less pony.

Shaka has a HA in neutral territory. Our HA attacks with 80% odds and wins.

Toku now willing to talk but look what he wants:

I don’t think so.

1130AD (4)

We get a bad event:

Looks like HC has built the buddhist AP:

I vote for HC.

Gem city’s borders pop and now have gems again. All our happy caps get a bump. I relocate Gem city’s artist to work the cows. Our army needs the burgers to keep it going.

Our HA defeats one of Shaka’s catapult in neutral territory.

1140AD (5)

HC wins the AP:

I think this is probably the best outcome from us.

Const builds a trireme and start an aqueduct.
Our HA is attacked by a Zulu catapult that withdraws. Then double teamed by a HA and dies. He will be avenged! Our HA attacks the Zulu HA with 68% odds and wins. A chariot kills the injured Zulu catapult and wins without any damage. Vengence is ours.

1150AD (6)

Units moved into place to capture Kassite next turn.

1160AD (7)

Activate the spy:

And we now have:

And the siege of Kassite begins. We lose one catapult then successfully destroy three longbows and a sword. Kassite is ours along with 116 gold.

Contact Toku and now he wants 135 gold for peace. He’s so funny.

1170AD (8)

Research completes:

Normally, I would push to go down the Edu line but I select:

to allow our UB. Guilds is a possibility but Sury will complete it in 3 turns. A prime tech to be stolen.

Sury doesn’t have engineering. He will offer:

Theo + calendar + world map + 60g; or
Philo + 60g; or
Music + world map + 60g

I don’t like trading military techs and considering we have plenty of spy points against Shaka and Sury we should be able to steal all of these. I don’t do a deal.

Shaka is still Toku’s lapdog.

We steal another Zulu worker. He’ll help with the tile alterations at Ulundi.

1180AD (9)

Thessa completes HE -> Pikeman

Toku send his SoD:

That doesn’t look good. If we consolidate our units, we would probably have enough to resist this stack but does he have another SoD? I give Toku a call:

He still wants 135 gold for peace. I hum and haw. We are ok for gold at the moment at 30% research. I make the deal to allow out economy to stabilise. Now finally able to send the workboat over to Nobamba’s clams. It is on a go to.

We are now only losing 1 gold at 30% (194 gold in the treasury). Upping research to 40% only results in a 1 turn improvement but costs us 19 gold per turn. I keep it at 30%.

1190AD (10)

HC completes the Great Library.
Our army is split up and garrisoned in Nobambe, Gem City and Kassite in case Toku decides to renew hostilities after nine turns.

1200AD (11)

Const completes aqueduct -> worker. We only have 9 workers and there are a lot of tiles to be altered.
Berlin completes aqueduct -> forbidden palace.

1210AD (12)

A bad move on my part. I had sent two workers begin road to blue dot fur / marble site. They get attacked by a barb HA aaarrrgghh!!! Sorry guys. Pholtz highlighted the barb HA but as there hasn’t been any barb activity and having the great wall made me complacent. I have sent a pikemen to hunt the HA down.

We definitely need more workers now.

Damn! Shaka discovers one of our spies in Nodwengu. Fortunately, there is another one in place. Hopefully he will survive until the 50% discount.

Sury come to us with this deal.

I decline.

In an alarming turn of events HC demands this:

Reviewing the diplo and sit rep screens

Only Sury is our friend. The others are cautious at best and likely to backstab us when they can. Head bowed, I agree to the demand.

IBT there is a message that HC adopts free religion. Initially I thought how on earth did he suddenly get liberalism!! Calming down and think about it I realised:

Whew, he’d built the Shwedagon Paya.

1220AD (13)

In a Herculean engineering achievement the citizens of Ulundi have transferred the palace from Const to Ulundi. Unfortunately, we are now losing 13 gold per turn. I drop research to 0%. We get 46 gold per turn and Drama will still be discovered in one turn. Ulundi starts building a second replacement worker.

Time to go begging again except this time we don’t get anything. Toku is willing to give us 55 gold for our map. I have not taken this deal.

1230AD (14)

And we have researched:

I select printing press as the placeholder tech.

Thessa completes pikeman -> maceman (2)
Antioch completes courthouse -> lighthouse (11)
Iron Will completes granary -> forge (36)

Two workers moved to below the horses at Nicaea. I think they should head towards Constantinople to build some plantations (once we steal calendar).

A short set but I think this is an appropriate point to stop to discuss how we proceed from here.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Overview and comments

Cities:

Constantinople – worker due next turn. Select courthouse next?
Thessalonica – has HE + 2 military advisors. Should keep building up to date units.
Berlin – great person due in 2 turns. Fire merchant(s) to speed up the FP?
Adrianople – can build Taoist missionaries if we want to try and convert Sury.
Nicaea – a decent commerce city when market built.
Antioch – will grow next turn.
Iron Will – not a city that can do much.
Ulundi – when worker completed, should build a market (11) for 5 extra gold.
Nicomedia - courthouse -> granary
Nobamba – there is a workboat on go to orders to the clams.
Gem City – due to grow next turn and can then work the gems SE of city.
Kassite – borders due to pop next turn. We should fire the artist and work the cows.

We have a settler to 1N2W of Berlin for marble/fur city. Needless to say I have made sure he is in our territory .

Diplo:

Sury is our best pal. Should we go after him next or HC? Our relationship with HC has suffered due to us moving out of HR into Rep’n.

If we sell our world map to Toku will that extend the peace treaty?

Tech:

If we decide not to go after Sury we could trade engineering and get a tech plus cash. There is a spy in Zulu land at 30% so should be able to calendar in two turns. The two other spies can go to Sury to steal some techs.

I have selected printing press as the next tech. No other civ has this so could be good trade bait.

Religion:

Buddhism has been kindly spread by HC and look at it’s influence! Another reason to go after HC.

Graphs:

We are leading in production but could probably do with boosting our military strength. I never deleted any units and split our Shaka attack force between the three border cities with HC. Thessa can produce a maceman every two turns. We should keep building these and send to the front.

We have two pikemen out to hunt down the barb HA.

Wonders:

HC has a lot of juicy wonders. Especially the Buddhist shrine. HC will probably start putting culture pressure on our three border cities. HC’s land:

Per the trading screen, HC has 8 cities so there is an unknown city out there. Only two of HC’s cities are on hills. He is the smallest civ with some good land. I think he should be our next and easiest target.

 

[The Simple Mind]

It's all quiet on the western front, well unless until Toku makes a move. I know I made a couple of moves but I didn't realise I would stun everyone into silence .

What are your thoughts on how to proceed from here?

We should get a great merchant in 2 turns in Berlin but there is always the possibility of another great spy. Do we want to bulb or have a trade mission? I'm not sure what the GM would bulb.

As I said in my report, I think HC would be a good next target. His land plus wonders would pay for themselves. Some thoughts about attacking HC:

• With the well spread religions he has, his cultural defenses will be high. Will need a lot of seige (catapults/trebs) or more advanced seige (cannons).
• We don't want to have a two front war, so we would need to make deals with Toku and Sury the turn before or the turn we declare. If we gift them 10 each would that enforce a 10 turn peace?
• HC is the AP president. Do we time our attack to start just after a vote?
• The AP is in Cuzco. We need to capture this city so that HC wont be eligible at the president vote. It should be a vote between us and Toku. Sury likes us more than Toku so hopefully that would swing it in our favour.

The other option is to attack Sury. We could try and convert him to Taoism and backstab him but I don't think his cities are as good as HC's and not as close together.

Whoever we decide to go for it will need to be some time in the distant future as we need to build up and modernise our army, hopefully with a military tech advantage (either cannon or riflemen). Or do you think a large quantity of trebs and macemen would be sufficient?

 

[IamJohn]

It's all quiet on the western front, well unless until Toku makes a move. I know I made a couple of moves but I didn't realise I would stun everyone into silence .

Sorry, it's not your fault. Having a three person team means that I'm not as able to stay on top of things.

We should get a great merchant in 2 turns in Berlin but there is always the possibility of another great spy. Do we want to bulb or have a trade mission? I'm not sure what the GM would bulb.

I'm not sure what he would bulb, but unless it's something amazing, I think we should do a trade mission- being able to run at 100% science would do great things for our science department, as well as potentially giving us trade bait if it works out.

As I said in my report, I think HC would be a good next target. His land plus wonders would pay for themselves. Some thoughts about attacking HC:

• With the well spread religions he has, his cultural defenses will be high. Will need a lot of seige (catapults/trebs) or more advanced seige (cannons).

• Yep, but we'll want a bunch anyway.

  [*]We don't want to have a two front war, so we would need to make deals with Toku and Sury the turn before or the turn we declare. If we gift them 10 each would that enforce a 10 turn peace?

  I'm not positive, but I don't think that would work, I think that it would have to be a demand by them to get that.

  [*]HC is the AP president. Do we time our attack to start just after a vote?

  I don't think that's a huge deal, one thing I am concerned about though is whether or not we could get a "everyone declare on the loser who declared on me" type of proposal. If that happens we could be in trouble.

  [*]The AP is in Cuzco. We need to capture this city so that HC wont be eligible at the president vote. It should be a vote between us and Toku. Sury likes us more than Toku so hopefully that would swing it in our favour.

  Sounds like a plan, but I am concerned about the diplomatic cost of declaring on HC with Sury.

The other option is to attack Sury. We could try and convert him to Taoism and backstab him but I don't think his cities are as good as HC's and not as close together.

I don't think that attacking Sury would be a wise strategic move, having an ally would be a very good thing imo.

Whoever we decide to go for it will need to be some time in the distant future as we need to build up and modernise our army, hopefully with a military tech advantage (either cannon or riflemen). Or do you think a large quantity of trebs and macemen would be sufficient?

So do we want to start building them now, or wait until we reach cannon/rifleman?

 

[Whosit]

Hello again. I'm here with some more comments. I was just waiting to see what discussion points you all would bring up, but since that's a little slow, now seems as good a time as any.

First Point: I do not believe that you guys are in any position to even be considering your next war. Your foremost concern should be rebuilding your economy. You have the slider at 30% and are still losing money. You are paying for your units. Continuing to build up military and capturing new cities will most likely be disastrous for you. So let's talk (Civ) economics.

Your civics are still set in such a way as to promote running many specialists. You do have a few more than you did last set, but I think it might help to go further.

Berlin: Set-up is good for now, because getting the Forbidden Palace finished quickly is probably for the best. After that, however, I would set both mines to the river-side grassland Farms. Grow into one more Farm, then start adding Merchants with each new Citizen.

Ulundi: After the Worker finishes, switch the grassland mine to a grassland farm, and then start hiring Scientists while building either a Hippodrome or Temple to increase the Happy Cap.

Other cities should be geared for economics in one way or the other. Cities with small food surpluses should get cottages, while those with more food should look to hire specialists.

You should stop building units! Build Markets, and then Libraries. Also put Courthouses anywhere that doesn't have one (like Constantinople). Remember: Markets are more effective when the slider is low, and Libraries are more effective with a high slider.

Tech: There's not much point in teching Printing Press. You don't really have any villages or towns to speak of. I think you should go Guilds < Banking for Banks and Grocers. These buildings will really help your income. Banks are usually more cost-effective to build because they provide a 50% gold bonus. However, Markets are valuable for the Happy boost, and Grocers are good for a health boost (if needed). Right now, your Markets won't do much for the way of happiness. If you can get that fur-site settled, that will help (furs are boosted by Markets). Getting Calendar, probably in trade if possible, will be good because Silks are also Market-boosted.

Grocers are probably the least valuable right now, as the only resource that would be affected is Wine. Still, since they come first, build some as you wait for Banking.

Actually, here's a trade that you can make: Give Sury Engineering, and get Calendar, his World Map, and 90 gold. Unfortunately, he won't give up Guilds, but half the AI already know Engineering, so this might be a good play. The trade does favor Sury, but you can make use of your Calendar resources for the happy points and commerce boost.

Second reason to go for Banking: Mercantilism. Good for running Representation but also VITAL because it is Tokugawa's favorite civic. As I said, it would probably be counter-productive to continue prepping for war. However, you do want guard against an attack. If you build any more units, it should be only enough to protect your front lines from a sudden attack, I think. Keep Tokugawa happy. The shared religion is great! If you get Mercantilism, he'll surely move up to Pleased, and then you can trade with him and Open Borders (for the Diplo Bonus, not the trade in Merc.). If you are so lucky as to get both Sury and Toku Friendly, you're in a good position.

OH! And Tokugawa is 1 turn from Engineering. AFTER the Sury trade, sell Toku Engineering for (hopefully) his 70 gold. Otherwise, take what he'll give you.

One last thing. Since IamJohn mentioned the three-man issue, I thought I would offer to play a set, if you so wish. Normally, S.ilver would be playing rounds and helping to keep things on track, but unfortunately he's still down and out. This is only an offer, so I'll leave it up to you three to vote on it. I know that can't offer as much help as S.ilver, but I guess I am still a relatively veteran player.

 

[pholtz]

I agree with Whosit. While I think we have to war to win this game, not is not the time to do it. But I do think we need to create a few more catapults now since we have nothing to help wipe out a SoD in the open field. The few cats we have now are CR's and Bombarders. We can balance out the units we make by disbanding the chariots we have. We also probably want to keep making defensive units, move them to the cities then disband what we replace, just to keep our power from getting to low. But we can't afford more military at the moment.

We aren't making big use of caste system yet. No city needs the infinite specialists and we don't have workshops. So feel free to go to slavery for 5 turns if we can whip some basic buildings in the newly conquered area. We probably don't want to whip back in our core area. I think once the forbidden palace is done, and Munich starts using more specialists things will improve. We could really use a Great Merchant for a trade mission.

I like the idea of making that trade, Engineering for Calendar and money with Sury. We might get another point of friendship out of it and we need one solid ally. Also selling Engineering to Toku since he'll discover it on his own next turn anyway is a good thing to do. Our spy in Zululand can steal Theology. We can probably only steal one more tech from Shaka anyway, our spy points with him well be about used up.

After the courthouses we need to get granaries whipped in the new cities. That could happen in a future 5 turn Slavery run.

We need to be a bit smarter with our workers. I know I do stupid things with them when busy with a war. For example, our worker near Ulundi is farming a square that we won't need for a while. We aren't working all the other farms yet. So get him down to the new cities. Get the ivory on line, build a farm or two or clear the jungle there. We also probably want to get a workshop built in our cities with low hammers.

I know we have a farm sign on Const's east side, but that cottage is starting to mature. Lets farm over on the west side and get irrigation to the corn for now. Similarly we can probably pass over the farm 2E1S of Nicaea for now, but get the other farms done.

I would move a worker from a mine in Ulundi to the lake until the worker is done. Still two turns and a bit more money. And if we change the specialists in Ulundi to Merchants, in conjunction with working the lake, we actually start to pull a profit.

Even though, after we steal one more tech from Shaka we won't be able to steal more, we can still steal money from him, over 100 if we did so now. So still put another spy on his city.

Can't think of much else. Just get 3 cats made so we can chop a SoD to bits if someone declares war on us.. but please don't start a war the moment. And again, don't let the size of our army increase.. so disband for every unit you make. Get the settler moving to the blue dot stacked with the Pike.

 

[The Simple Mind]

I agree we're not in a position to start another war, just highlighting that I think HC is now a more suitable target than Sury.

I believe Thessa should make units for the foreseeable future to help modernise our army and delete old untis when a new one is built. One concern I do have is that we are only 0.5 of Toku's strength. Hopefully, we'll be able to boost this by building maces, pikes, catas & cataphracts (if we steal guilds from Sury).

Give Sury Engineering, and get Calendar, his World Map, and 90 gold. Unfortunately, he won't give up Guilds

We have a spy in a Shaka city at 30%. We could either steal calendar now or wait two turns to get the full discount, then trade eng to Sury for music + world map + 90 gold or philo + 90 gold.

Do we want to steal theology? I don't see what benefit we would get from this tech.

We have two spies on their way to Sury land plus 3771 spy points. This should allow us to steal guilds then banking if we wait the maximum turns. Assuming (big assumption) that the two spies we have were successful, we would be able to get these techs in 8 and 10 turns respectively. Also, as the palace is now Ulundi, the spies would be able to return to Sury land a lot quicker than before.

Whosit, good spot re eng for gold trade and glad to have you on board.

 

[pholtz]

I agree that HC is the next target. As stealing theology, probably not the best move. I agree with you, steal calendar then trade for music. John, are you ready for your move?

 

[IamJohn]

Yeah, I should post my turn by lateish tomorrow (Sunday) night.