250 AD (0)
Well, we have the Great Library. That's good.
But the bad is that there are acres of craptacular land to our south. What I / we might try to do is close off the semi-choke in our west, and back fill the crap at our leisure. I don't think the active settler can go in our west as of yet.
We only have the one settler active, and 8 native workers. We also have 8 slaves. The active settler will claim the Gems for us.
I think the important thing here is to get our cities over size 6. We have a lot of river sites and should take advantage of that. And we can always use more workers. So I think this round will see few settlers built, a nice bit of infrastructure, and we can get caught up on troops for the front lines. I don't care if other people settler horribly corrupt cities in the southern wasteland.
Actually, on second look there is no choke in the west. No idea what I thought I saw.
London to Marketplace. York to Aqueduct. We are really tightly built in our core. Hastings to Marketplace. I don't fear the enemy yet. Canterbury to Pike. Hurry the Walls in Norwich. MM to gain 5 gpt.
IT - 8 dead Barb Horses.
260 AD (1)
Kill a Mongol Spear and shuffle a few troops. Looks like the Arabs will be contributing a couple slaves to the pile.
IT - Who selected Raging Barbs? Another 8 Horses appear.
270 AD (2)
Claim two slaves. Spot Incense by a Bab city that we may be able to toast. We need incense.
IT - Seriously. There are 16 more Barb horses in our South.
280 AD (3)
The Barbs are getting in the way of our settling the south.
Whack a Bab spear. Find Horses, in our West next to a Korean city.
Bump lux to 20% to keep all citizens working in (size 7) London. Short-rush away almost all of our money and vacate a city in front of the 16 Barb horses. We don't have time for this nonsense.
IT - We lose 12 gold, but 20 Barb Horses are gone. Lose a fortified Pike on a Mountain to a Korean MDI, when a multitude of Korean troops had casually passed it by. Hmm ... does the AI get a peek at the pRNG?
290 AD (4)
An anemic bombardment round is made up for in Spades as we pop a leader off of the Elite Archer in the North. At this point I've got to figure a Pike Army for the West.
Promote an MDI to Elite on the backs of a Mongol Spear. Have settler in place to claim the Gems, and the Pike army will be properly deployed by the end of next turn, prior to any possible Korean attacks.
You know, the Mongols have out-lived their usefulness. I'll try to see them off this round.
IT - Nothing special.
300 AD (5)
Build Leeds and claim the Gems. Form the Pike army and place it in a neutral spot until the Koreans choose a target. Start some workers fixing up the area North of York.
Drop lux to 10% and scan the cities.
IT - Babs found a city all up in the Barbarians area, so this Barb Warrior red-lines the Bab Spear. We have an Elite Spear just hangin' on the next tile ...
310 AD (6)
Our Elite Spear toasts the new Bab city.
But no leader.
Koreans line up to attack the Pike army fortified behind Walls. I suspiciously do not fire our Artillery, as I wouldn't want those MDI to get scared away. :devil2:
Short-rush 7 turns off of York's Aqueduct. Knock down the Forest that was in front of it.
Just a note: We make +64 gpt.
IT - Three dead Koreans, one tile pillaged. Now they'll chase the empty city in the back lines. Hey, we got Invention.
320 AD (7)
Two Markets complete and a city grows to size 7. We now make +83 gpt.
Lose an MDI on a Korean Spear. Then kill Spear with Pike. Shuffle troops to cover all bases over there, although we may have our road connection pillaged.
Task force is two turns from sending the Mongols off into that good night.
IT - The Koreans are being rather annoying. They won't choose a target and stick to it.
330 AD (8)
Trim a Spear off of the Mongol Capital.
IT - We're going to meet Spain soon. They aren't on F4, but they did put a city on our South.
340 AD (9)
Whack Bab Spear that had wandered up. Gong a Korean MDI twice and kill with Vet Archer.
Lose MDI vs. Arab MDI. Tried to be too cute and use the Artillery to make the 2nd guy retreat.
Elite MDI kills Spear at Hovd, no leader. But we did just lose a friend.
Weird stuff in the West with the Koreans. We need some more roads to facilitate troop movements. If we can get through the next few turns our two major cities are both at 10 spt so we can bump up the troop count fairly quickly.
IT - The plethora of empty cities has the AI confused.
We do have a freshly Elite MDI, though.
350 AD (10)
Elite MDI shoots, but doesn't score.
Final Notes:
We now make 83 gpt, and I leave the next player with 256 gold. We will have 3 strong troop producers after the 1st IT when Hastings' Barracks completes, so other cities can start some infrastructure.
We are a bit behind on troops, and that will slow down our settlements. Just about every city we found for the forseeable future will be on the front lines, so we need to beef up our military before grabbing new cities. That and the land we have available isn't particularly good. We should also work on ridding ourselves of empty cities as I'm not a big fan of using that as a tactic.
London is running a taxman for one turn because I moved all the other troops and then realized I left the Catapult by itself. It'll cost us 1 gold on the IT.
The Archer Army is in Leeds and can move to the Korean front next turn. A few other units are straggling back from Hovd, and should be sufficient to hold down that front for a few turns.The Babs do not appear to have any resources, but worth a "spy" mission to check.
There is a Spear fortified on a Mountain in the very South of the Map. He'll be healed on the IT and can go back to poking around the Babs territory.
Tread lightly on vetoing the Temple builds. We're a little too ICS for our own good, especially on a map with so many mountains. We need a border expansion in the east to get those cities off of the tiles our core cities should be using. Warwick need a border expansion to get some shields and to spot enemy troops from farther away.
I'll re-iterate: I think Hastings will eventually be our Capital, so I would not build/rush the FP there.
