I'm back for one game at least

M60A3TTS · Mar 24, 2020

When we get that next galley out, let's also get a settler pair to the GH on Iceland if it's still there. I doubt Monty would object too much. I see him as our first war target because Texcoco (Spain) is sitting on horses. We could and I think probably should go for it even before MT. We would need astro for caravels and their 4MP first. For that reason we should get an embassy up with him at some point so we know if/when Hiawatha moves against him. Although Monty has 18 cities, he is really spread out and ergo vulnerable. Spain would also be an excellent jumping off spot for future wars.

M60A3TTS · Mar 24, 2020

Thousands March on Washington to Protest Religious Subjugation

“We want our own temples!” Religious Activist Brigham Young demands Sanctuary Territory

Republican Senate Leader Thaddeus J. Stevens Remains Reticent. “Not On My Watch!”

The President Remains Noncommittal in Spite of Protests

Associated Parchment (AP) News Release

Washington, D.C.

Accompanied by protesters counted in the thousands, religious activist Brigham Young from outside the capitol building today demanded an end to what he calls “organized resistance by the Republican government to the creation of religious institutions”. Young also has called upon the Republican government to designate a territory that would include governors sympathetic to the idea of religious buildings as a means “to strengthen American unity, happiness and cultural vitality.”

Brigham Young

A separate group met with Republican Senate leader T.J. Stevens to state their grievances against what they term “a government conspiracy hell-bent on denying citizens a means of expressing their religious freedoms.”

Senator Stevens provided no details regarding the meeting, but several hours after its conclusion released this prepared statement:

The Republican government has been steadfast in its support of religious expression. We also remain equally opposed to the notion that all expenses related to said expression should be borne by the government. I was elected by my constituents to protect the public purse. I will not see the treasury turned into a public trough by any special interest group, let alone one comprised of radical religious zealots. Further, this ill-advised demand for public lands to be turned over for the benefit of any religious institution would be a clear violation of the long-established laws of separating church and state. I cannot see the president giving his assent, and I will continue to strongly discourage him from doing so.

Senator Stevens

President Lincoln meanwhile remains dogged by criticism that his current vacillation over the matter is exacerbating the situation. Defenders of the president insist that he is both understanding of the protester’s motives while at the same time responsible for managing a delicate budget. They repeat a recent remark by Lincoln that “If America is to remain on an equal footing with our European counterparts, fiscal responsibility is of paramount importance. I sympathize with those elements of American society that seek some form of physical proof of their faith. It is my fervent hope that these two views can be reconciled over time and that public discourse may continue in a positive and peaceful manner.”

Time will tell whether the “positive and peaceful manner” which the president yearns for will remain in force. Young’s protesters are by no means placated by Lincoln’s supposed sympathies and the strong opposition by Senator Stevens may cause Brigham Young’s movement to become ever more headstrong in the decades that lie ahead.

tjs282 · Mar 25, 2020

M60A3TTS said:
Accompanied by protesters counted in the thousands, religious activist Brigham Young from outside the capitol building today demanded an end to what he calls “organized resistance by the Republican government to the creation of religious institutions”. Young also has called upon the Republican government to designate a territory that would include governors sympathetic to the idea of religious buildings as a means “to strengthen American unity, happiness and cultural vitality.”

But but but, we already gave them Salt Lake City...?

I played 5T yesterday. Nothing much has happened yet, apart from founding a bunch more cities with the Setttlers you left me, and building a bunch more Settlers myself (for now, all the new towns are slow-building Settlers as well).

One of the towns I settled was Guantanamo, at the south end of Cuba. So we can (soon) move Settlers from Dyetona to Havana (2T, regardless of whether we do it town-to-town, or embarking Settlers from the southern tip of Florida, which uses their move for the turn), 1T overland to Guantan, 1T by ship to Santo Domingo, ([1T by ship to Mayaguez — once we've built it!] 1T overland to San Juan,) and from there to points south/east (??? T). Once we have more ships stationed off S.America (I started dotmapping possible CxxxC sites in CAII, looks like this will work out nicely), we can ship-chain along the coast.

A Galley, with a Pike+Settler aboard, will also set sail from Washington next turn, bound for Greenland, and I should be able to provide you with a small stack of vMaces (mostly former vSwords that seemed to have nothing to do) to follow it. (Washington can easily do 2T-Pikes/Galleys for a while, and can also safely grow to Pop8 without needing Specialists to stay happy). I've also despatched the eSwords from Merida/Panama back to Dyetona (gotta make sure those Galley-captains are earning their keep both ways, right?), from where they can also make their way to Washington, for shipping out later.

We've learned Invention, since we could afford to do it quickly by deficit-spending. However, no-one we know knew Gunpowder at that point, so it was still quite expensive (8T at SCI%=50%: the highest I could go without bankrupting us), so I chose Mono next, because it was cheaper (5T at SCI%=60%). Again, I'm deficit-spending, but we should get back all of that cash and more, by minimising SCI% on the last turn. (I made about 25 g 'profit' by doing that on Invention, and we should make more on Mono, because we have more towns down now, and I ran max. sustainable SCI% from the first turn).

I figured, since Invention has been known for a while, at least 1 AI-Civ is likely researching Gunpowder right now, and once it's been learned (and possibly traded around), it should be cheaper for us to research/buy ourselves. Once we do, with any luck we'll still be able to trade it (preferably to the AI-Civs who can't benefit from it directly, obviously!) for techs on the other branch. And if we keep going hard on SCI%, we should also be able to grab a (near-)monopoly on Chem to use as further trade-bait, while we go on to Metallurgy/ MilTrad.

Once we can see our native Saltpeter(?), we may also want to consider pillaging any already-roaded Salt-tiles so we can keep building Pikes (half the price of Muskets, and substantially more cost-efficient at 10 vs. 15 shields per D-point).

If we can get to parity with the tech-leaders, and start sucking cash from the laggards via brokerage, substantially prior to going Industrial, and thus are able to slack somewhat on self-research, we might also want to consider discon/recon for Horse —> Cav upgrades (150g per capita)...

M60A3TTS · Mar 25, 2020

I'm sure you're managing the tech ladder just fine. When and where to start Magellan's pre-build?

Not a fan of horses>cav @150 a pop. Rather trade for chiv and build knights for upgrade. But we really need neither to flex our military muscle in the first campaign.

As soon as we get Reykjavik founded in Iceland we can start marshaling troops for our first war target, that being the Aztecs. The Aztec city of Chalco that is already on Iceland should have little in terms of defense. We can do it with half a dozen maces and a few trebs. Texcoco is the real prize with her horses. In terms of the earliest practical time we could go, we are going to need the following:

A town in Iceland with a harbor.
A RoP with the Zulu to get our ships through from Iceland.
Astronomy so that we can upgrade 9 galleys to caravels that will carry the invasion force of 27 units.
A mixed invasion force of roughly 8 maces, 9 pikes and 10 trebs.
Intel to verify that the landing area for the invasion is clear. If not, look at alternative landing site.

Ideally, we get Astronomy, upgrade the 9 galleys sitting in Iceland to caravels immediately. The code-words "Climb Mount Rainier" can then be given to launch the following turn.

tjs282 · Mar 25, 2020

Spoiler TLDRLog :

I was rather startled to get notification that Lizzy, Monty, and Hiawatha have all decided that they want to build CopsObs -- which means they have Edu + Astro already, and may have already started on Navi. So I've started a MagVoy prebuild in Boston: we currently need around 24T to amass the 400 shields needed (might go down a little as Boston grows, so long as we're careful to prevent it from rioting!).

They all (now) know Gunpowder as well, so I started researching that at max. sustainable SCI%=70%. Don't forget to turn it down to minimum on the last turn! (We won >200g on the last turn of Mono, by dropping SCI% to 10%). Might want to consider zero-ing SCI% after that, and buying the rest of the known techs using GPT-deals (not from Monty though, obviously!).

The Greenland Expedition is making its way north, with the lead boat (Settler-pair) just passing Newfoundland. I noticed that Monty has Settled a second Craptown on Greenland, but I don't know if he popped the GH on the way past. Even if it's still there, though, I'd Settle on the Hill just NW of it, to save the Grassland for food production later.

Because our western seaboard is a long way from our (known) opponents, I've sent most of my crop of Settlers to Dyetona for shipping south/east. One Settler has just been dropped off at its intended site in South America; I was thinking to sail that Galley a bit further along, and drop the next on the coastal Dyes. After that, continue founding at CxxxC along the coast.

We now have at least the beginnings of a ship-chain in place through the Caribbean, but I now see that I screwed up Santo Domingo's placement: it can't feed itself at Pop2 without riots (until a Harbour is built, or the Dyes are roaded). So I think the best thing to do at this stage would be to put the Geek back to work and then either buy the Settler it was building (40g: ouch), or switch the build to a Worker (10 shields wasted: also ouch). The town will riot, but then complete the build: if you go for a Settler, it will also disband the town, which can be re-founded (and named Port-au-Prince instead?) on the Hill 1SW, where the citizen can go immediately go Fishing.

There is also currently a Settler heading west near Oklahoma, which I was thinking to use for Yuma. Helena's current Lib-build could also be converted to a Settler, if you're mad-keen for Reno to go up soon.

No matter what arrangement I tried at Pop6 in Norfolk, I could only get 9 SPT (needing one Clown), which is horribly, painfully, wastefully useless* for building 30-shield units like Galleys and Settlers. So it's now on the last turn of building a Duct, in the hope that at Pop7 it will be able to harvest 10 uncorrupted SPT.

Little Rock may/will need micromanagement every 2T, to ensure it harvests 5FPT and 7-8SPT, popping a Settler in 4T, just as it hits Pop7*.

Yes, our western Workers are spread out again

but most (all?) natives should finish their current jobs in the next 1-2T (apart from those which have just arrived to chop Forest tiles, which will need 3T). Slaves will need a little longer, but are generally doing lower-priority jobs.

There is a Settler in Bath, waiting for the Galley to finish (that job can be sped up, by setting the town to 0FPT and 8SPT, with 1 Geek). Apart from that, I'm pretty sure that I didn't leave any other 'active' units fortified or on a GoTo this time...

Save is below.

M60A3TTS said:
Yes, there's my Civ4 showing through again

*Meant to mention this after my last set: one other thing about CivIII which a seasoned CivIV player maybe might've forgotten, is that over-runs on food, shields, and beakers don't roll over to the next growth-cycle/ build/ research-project, they simply go to waste. So although tedious, it can really pay to do some basic micromanagement of growth/production (at least in the core-towns) and the budget.

Unfortunately, CAII can only predict over-runs with 1T lead-time. So what I prefer to do, whenever I'm starting a new build and/or after every growth, is to try and set a town's worked tiles for useful food/shield numbers (= minimal wastage, taking any expected growth — and later, possible Pollution — into account), which then allows me to ignore that town until something there changes. Doesn't always work out of course, e.g. if I overlook a potential riot, but one endeavours to do one's best, don'chew know?

M60A3TTS · Mar 25, 2020

To answer your earlier question on my forum time, I am retired and sitting at my PC more while this Coronavirus thing works itself out. Also, just because I'm on doesn't mean I'm necessarily "on". I could be AFK for hours.

tjs282 said:
I was rather startled to get notification that Lizzy, Monty, and Hiawatha have all decided that they want to build CopsObs -- which means they have Edu + Astro already, and may have already started on Navi. So I've started a MagVoy prebuild in Boston: we currently need around 24T to amass the 400 shields needed (might go down a little as Boston grows, so long as we're careful to prevent it from rioting!).

They all (now) know Gunpowder as well, so I started researching that at max. sustainable SCI%=70%. Don't forget to turn it down to minimum on the last turn! (We won >200g on the last turn of Mono, by dropping SCI% to 10%). Might want to consider zero-ing SCI% after that, and buying the rest of the known techs using GPT-deals (not from Monty though, obviously!).

Our current trading situation is a pretty poor one. We have no good tech trading partners as most civs already have GP and are well along the top of the tree. Those that do not, such as Spain and Zulu are too backwards to be any use to us. So there are no opportunity for any two-fers at this stage. There are 4 diplo contacts we can buy for anywhere from 67-69g for Maya up to 115-119 for the Celts. I'm considering buying up some of these to potentially get our tech costs down after GP. The min run after GP makes sense, for the short-term anyways in hopes of picking up a better partner at the least. Interesting that half the civs we know aren't aware of the other four civs either. Guess they have no interest or coin for doing it.

tjs282 said:
The Greenland Expedition is making its way north, with the lead boat (Settler-pair) just passing Newfoundland. I noticed that Monty has Settled a second Craptown on Greenland, but I don't know if he popped the GH on the way past. Even if it's still there, though, I'd Settle on the Hill just NW of it, to save the Grassland for food production later.

Will do.

tjs282 said:
No matter what arrangement I tried at Pop6 in Norfolk, I could only get 9 SPT (needing one Clown), which is horribly, painfully, wastefully useless* for building 30-shield units like Galleys and Settlers. So it's now on the last turn of building a Duct, in the hope that at Pop7 it will be able to harvest 10 uncorrupted SPT.

Norfolk's at pop6 and 10 un-corrupted SPT now.

tjs282 said:
Yes, our western Workers are spread out again but most (all?) natives should finish their current jobs in the next 1-2T (apart from those which have just arrived to chop Forest tiles, which will need 3T). Slaves will need a little longer, but are generally doing lower-priority jobs.

I said we would find a happy medium and we will do that starting now. I'll continue to keep them spread out except in one spot. I will consolidate the workers again in the south to continue building the road for the new towns en-route to the gems in SA. Please follow my lead there. If you want more workers to improve land down there, by all means send more down or build them from the local towns.

tjs282 said:
*Meant to mention this after my last set: one other thing about CivIII which a seasoned CivIV player maybe might've forgotten, is that over-runs on food, shields, and beakers don't roll over to the next growth-cycle/ build/ research-project, they simply go to waste. So although tedious, it can really pay to do some basic micromanagement of growth/production (at least in the core-towns) and the budget.

Unfortunately, CAII can only predict over-runs with 1T lead-time. So what I prefer to do, whenever I'm starting a new build and/or after every growth, is to try and set a town's worked tiles for useful food/shield numbers (= minimal wastage, taking any expected growth — and later, possible Pollution — into account), which then allows me to ignore that town until something there changes. Doesn't always work out of course, e.g. if I overlook a potential riot, but one endeavours to do one's best, don'chew know?

Not forgotten at all, I just suck at MM. :undecide:

I can and should be better at it and will work on it.

All-in-all we have a good thing going where we are at Position #1-3 in the critical 4 domestic numbers:

GNP 1
Mfg. Goods 1
Land Area 2
Population 3

My biggest concern is getting better positioned for trading. For that we need more contacts and it was too bad the curragh got lost. I also wish we had pushed that galley through the Panama Canal and sent it north as mentioned at the end of my last set so I would be in a position to make contact with Asia during the coming turn set. Instead the galley is in the Caribbean and we have no boats at all on the west coast of NA.

M60A3TTS · Mar 26, 2020

We need to come to an agreement as to whether or not to make this deal. It is the best one we can get for Theology without adding gpt to the deal and risking our rep. Note even with this expense we still can pull in Chemistry in 6 and then possibly do a deal for Astro within a turn or two most likely. My vote would be to pull the trigger. The AI has already started work on Magellan's so I'm now doubting we'll get there. Your thoughts?

vmxa · Mar 26, 2020

Lurker:
Smoke seems closer to happy, rather than annoyed. He is almost smiling. Maybe thinking of the cash coming is way.

tjs282 · Mar 26, 2020

M60A3TTS said:
Norfolk's at pop6 and 10 un-corrupted SPT now.

Well that's strange. I can only imagine that at some point I completed a road nearby (or gave it a different tile arrangement after Philly shrank) that gave it just enough extra LUX% to have all 6 citizens working happily...?

M60A3TTS said:
There are 4 diplo contacts we can buy for anywhere from 67-69g for Maya up to 115-119 for the Celts.

Yeah, I'd do that. If contact-trading is available, that means Printing Press is known as well. With respect to tech-costs, contact with as many Civs as possible is definitely preferable.

M60A3TTS said:
It is the best one we can get for Theology without adding gpt to the deal and risking our rep.

Adding GPT to a tech-purchase deal will only break our rep if we break the deal (by DoWing our partner) before the 20T are up. Conversely, if our partner DoWs us while we still owe them money, that's on them, so our trade-rep is preserved.

The main problem with giving GPT to the AI, is that they tend to use it as additional research-funding.

Adding resources to a tech-deal, though... that can be rep-risky, e.g. if the trade-route can be cut by our or someone else's war (or by the AI's ineptitude at managing its economy, resulting in a vital Harbour being sold). But since we can't trade for resources before we have Navi anyway, that's not an issue here.

M60A3TTS said:
Note even with this expense we still can pull in Chemistry in 6 and then possibly do a deal for Astro within a turn or two most likely. My vote would be to pull the trigger.

Seconded. Now I can see how far behind we are, I agree we'll have to buy our way up the tree, if necessary by paying GPT (see above).

But we will also need Edu before we can buy Astro.

M60A3TTS said:
Note even with this expense we still can pull in Chemistry in 6 and then possibly do a deal for Astro within a turn or two most likely. My vote would be to pull the trigger. The AI has already started work on Magellan's so I'm now doubting we'll get there.

That does kinda blow, and you're right to be concerned: Mags and Cops are both worth 320 shields to an Emp-AI, so any coastal town with a CopsObs-build in progress could easily cascade to Mags, if someone else finishes Cops (if that isn't what already happened?). However, we may not need to panic yet.

At a rough estimate, we've put ~160/400 shields into the prebuild already (4T of my set, 5T of yours according to the screenie, at ~18 SPT), of which ~70 shields went in during my set. So unless the AI-Civ(s) began Mags on the very first turn of your set, we'd already exceeded their 80-shield discount even before they started. Even if they did start on your first turn, given the AI's general ineptitude at terrain-improvement, their major coastal towns may still be shield-poorer than Boston (i.e. we'll likely be pulling further ahead of them, they won't be catching us up). So I have some questions:

— If CopsObs is still being built, how many of those builds are coastal?
(I realise we can't know that for sure without knowing the map, but anyone who can build Mags can also trade maps — and some map-trading might be worth doing anyway, to improve our general knowledge of the world, and possibly earn us some cash into the bargain, since no-one has explored the Americas apart from us. We could also assume, conservatively, that all Seafaring Civs have coastal capitals)
— Of the AI-Civs building Cops in a coastal town (if any?), which of them also know Navi — or are likely to learn it soon (i.e. which ones can cascade to Mags?)
— Of those AI-Civs which know Navi and are building Cops, which are already building Mags?
(AFAIK, the AI does not switch from one Wonder to another unless 'forced' to do so by losing a Wonder-race, and it cycles through its towns only once per turn. So if an AI has 2 Wonders in progress simultaneously, and loses the race on the first of them, that town can't cascade its accumulated shields over to the second Wonder)
— (And what other Medieval Wonders are available to date: Bachs, Smiths, Shakespeares?)

If no-one has a coastal CopsObs (or other GWonder)-build in progress, then our prebuild is safe, because no cascade can happen.

Even if someone is building Cops in a coastal town, if they are also building Mags, they must have started it from scratch during your set, so we're almost certainly still good.

If there's only one happy coincidence for any of the Civs building Cops (coastal, Navi known, no Mags-build already running), then our prebuild's dicier, but we might be OK.

Conversely, if there's more than 1 possible coastal cascade-candidate (and especially if Cops —> Mags is the only possible cascade), then our prebuild is almost certainly toast. In that case, it might just be better to dump the current shields into a Market (or Uni, if we can get Edu soon), and then just set Boston to building ships for the invasion.

M60A3TTS said:
I also wish we had pushed that galley through the Panama Canal and sent it north as mentioned at the end of my last set

I must have overlooked that request, sorry. Would Galveston or NewOrleans maybe be able to kick out another Galley, before our Curragh gets to Panama...?

BTW, where did you meet Smoke? I also saw from CAII (after posting, naturally) that Ragnar had turned up in our list of contacts as well (there's a pale purple border in Algeria-ish, which might be him?). What's his status?

M60A3TTS · Mar 26, 2020

vmxa said:
Lurker:
Smoke seems closer to happy, rather than annoyed. He is almost smiling. Maybe thinking of the cash coming is way.

As fate would have it, Smoke didn't see a dime. You see, there was someone else. We only recently met, and it kind of clicked between us, you know how that is.

M60A3TTS · Mar 27, 2020

Pre-flight Pay 67g to England for contact with Maya. They do not know GP yet but do know Theo so maybe we have a trade opportunity coming.

Chicago is going to riot. Taxman to clown. Green Bay needs a taxman along with Cancun and Baranquilla. Havana clown to taxman. Very confused now. With several towns about to riot was something else supposed to be done? Lux is at 20, I know that we don’t want 30. Santo Domingo gets a worker while eating the shield loss and will have to take a riot, not spending gold on a settler.

460AD (1) Worker moves. Get the worker from SD who starts roading the dyes to deal with the happy issue at pop 2. Science 70>60 GP still in 2 w/67g and -10gpt. Helena gets a scientist. Tropical Mist drops off two settlers now designated for interior settlement so galley can get headed for the Northern Pacific. IBT the Ottomans show up. That is 70g we aren’t paying someone for a contact. He wants our map in exchange for his own. Think I’ll pass for the moment. As expected, he is ahead in tech with Theo, Chiv and GP showing. IBT- England wants 67g for contact with Sumeria. Let me get back to you Liz when I have some time. Really bad news, England Aztecs and Iros are now building Magellans. Others building Bachs. Quite possible our own Magellan pre-build will fail in the wonder cascade that is almost certainly coming. Science down to 50, GP still in 1 and Smokey still doesn’t have GP. Question is how close is he for a straight up trade for theo? We’ll see. Georgetown founded.

470AD (2) IBT GP>Chem in 9. Smokey wants GP, 63g and 11gpt for Theo. Over to the Mongols to see what they want for Sumerian contact. They want 58g, I’ll take it. Sumeria is on par tech-wise with Maya. They don’t know GP either. He won’t take a deal for what we have left, 17g and 18gpt. I get the feeling he may be a turn or two ahead of Maya. Bottom line, we’ve got to get to astronomy asap. Run single scientist and turn science off. 260gpt and 50 to chemistry. We have multiple salt sources but none connected yet.

Worker and settler moves.

480AD (3) IBT Here comes the first caravel to SA. England drops off a settler pair next to one of the dyes. But we got a settler in first, 2 tiles from the same dye and also includes a gem and fish in the BFC. We found and get maps from an adjacent GH as an added bonus. But now the clock is running on South America.

Drop off a settler to prevent the English settler from moving 3 distant and settling in another turn so we in effect beat him to the spot. I water-transfer another settler in between galleys. It’s also good I emptied the two settlers from Tropical Mist or the central gem cluster would go to Liz. As it is we’ll both likely get a piece of it. IBT Aztec finish Copernicus in Teno. Yuma founded.

490AD (4) Belem founded. English settler pair starts heading for the gems. No surprise there.

500AD This turn changed things around for us. Territory Map to the Mongols for contact with Celts and 59g. We dial up Brennus. Hey there, have I got a deal for you. How about your knowledge of Theology plus 8 gold for our gunpowder. What’s that, you’ll take it? Great, can I put you on hold for a moment? Yes, I’ll be right back. Thanks. Hello? Hello Liz, can we make a deal for your knowledge of Chemistry? OK, I am running a special for today only. World Map, 373 gold and 59gpt for Chemistry. What’s that? Well, you know Liz, prices have been falling recently on the tech exchanges. No, my people aren’t sure why, but they may be falling again in the years ahead, so what do you say? You will? That’s marvelous. Listen Liz, I have to fill out some of the details here right now, can you please hold the line for a moment. Really appreciate it, Liz and I’ll be right back.

Hello? Hello Brennus? Oh thanks for holding and sorry for the wait but another deal has come up. I can offer you Chemistry if you could see your way clear to trading us Education. That’s right, straight up and no strings attached. Yes, that will be fine, you won’t regret it.

And it’s just a little after noon. Hmmm, now we need banking and astro. Osman can help us there. Greetings Friend. How is the weather in beautiful Istanbul. LOL. OK, you got me. No, I’ve never been there, and can’t say I even know where it is. But that was one of the reasons I was calling. Maybe you can help me there. I have Chemistry that is just burning a hole in my pocket and right away I thought of you. How ‘bout you give us Astronomy, your territory map and 11 gold? You do that, and I can offer you the best deal you’re ever gonna get. I’m talking our much sought-after World map, and Chemistry. You won’t regret it Osman, it’s a downright steal.

Ok, with Astronomy the sea lanes are now open to commodities trading. Hello Rose, I understand you’re now open for business. Tell me, who are currently offering trades for horses and such? The English??? Crap, I forgot that I left Liz on hold. Sorry Rose, gotta run. And thanks!

Damn, damn, damn. Hello Liz, you still there? Hello? Bet she hung up. Oh yes, thanks so much for holding. Yes, and I am so very sorry but something came up and I’m sure you’re going to want to know about it. Since we can now trade commodities, I’m prepared to offer you for a limited time access to our fur and iron reserves. And all that we’re asking for is a dead end tech, Navigation to be precise. And because it is a dead end tech, I’d ask if you could sweeten the deal with another 177 in gold. Oh come on Liz, we just gave you 373 gold for Chemistry, it won’t bring down your economy. That’s wonderful. We really are going to need to sit down one of these days for that jolly cup of tea you keep mentioning. Right, thanks Liz and Cheers!

413 gold and 208 gpt.

Get me the State Department. Yes, I’ll wait. Hello Benny. Listen, I’m sending over 121 gold to you right now. We need an embassy in Istanbul right away. I need to know what’s going on there. No Benny, not tomorrow, more like yesterday. Ok, call me back when it’s in.

121 gold later…

Hey there Benny, what’s the word out of Istanbul. I was afraid of that. Just 13 left? Wait, you say almost certainly 12? Well that’s bad. I got more work to do, thanks Benny.

Carl, get me a meeting with the President as soon as possible. Maybe, just maybe we still have time…

Science to 40% Physics that nobody knows in 12. IBT Hammy trades territory maps and we get an extra 4g.

Paramaribo founded.

To be continued...

M60A3TTS · Mar 27, 2020

510AD (6) Spain still needs Republic. We’re here to help, for her world map of course. Oh and a gold. Mustn’t forget the gold while she still has one left. Can’t see Maya, Sumeria or the Celt lands but it’s a start.

Tech status, to review, against the tech leaders England, Aztecs, Scandanavia, Iroquois, Mongols, Ottomans we’re down: Monarchy, Chivalry, Printing Press, Music Theory, Banking. Physics still nobody knows, due in 11.

Swap Territory Maps with Maya. Swap same with Celts plus we’ll accept a donation of 15g. Same for Sumeria and 10g for the American Expansion Trust.

Salina Cruz and Medellín founded. English settler pair now headed for the central gem cluster.

Trade Iro map for ours plus 79 gold added to our coffers.

520AD (7) The President has declared an emergency in Boston. Merge settler from Bath into Boston and lux to 30%. Boston from 18 to 20spt. Workers are converging on Boston for a plant-fest. Need more trees! No, I am not a loon, all will be revealed shortly. Magellan’s in 11. Yakima, Portland, Missoula and San Francisco founded. Barb roaming about in SA near next settlement site. Had to evacuate settler until military help arrives that is currently in transit.

530AD (8) Plant forests. Boston now at 23spt.

540AD (9) Magellan’s now in 7 at Boston. IBT Ottoman settler pair lands southeast of Paramaribo. Iquitos founded near gem cluster. Los Angeles founded.

550AD (10) Aztecs establish Coyotepec, east of Montreal around Newfoundland. I tried a forest chop near Boston but I guess it doesn’t work for great wonders. I went ahead and immediately re-planted the forest. Magellan’s in 6. We should have it just ahead of Osman. Bogota founded.

San Diego and Reno can be founded next turn, closing out the California-Nevada-Wyoming Territory. The Greater Montana Research Territory is also formally completed. The Pacific Northwest Territory needs Spokane and Seattle to established. Both settlers are now in Yakima and can get to their destination in 4 turns.

The unwelcome yet not unexpected arrival of settlers from the other civs has clearly started. It will take time to confirm but besides South America and Newfoundland, I would not be surprised if they were also now in Alaska. I have started dialing back our own settler production in order to start strengthening the core cities in anticipation of more luxes rolling in. We are now at the point of being vulnerable to an invasion by sea, though certainly I wouldn’t expect one any time soon. Our South American expansion came to a sudden halt along the coast as we had no military units at all in the southeastern portion of our expansion. In fact, it is important to note a barb warrior lurking outside a defenseless Belem. You can move the vet sword off the Paradise Found galley into Belem just before the barb gets there.

We have 20 settlers and 4 of those will complete our holdings on the west coast that were planned for. The other 16 are free to go wherever with 6 of them in boats off Paramaribo waiting on some more military help. We still have another 24 settlers queued but I have turned off the settler pumps thinking we should be able to get all the settlers we need from all these small fully corrupt towns.

We’re going to have to decide where, if anywhere we want to just stop expanding and focus on building up what we have. No strong feelings either way. We’ve seen no demands from anyone as we are at the top of the power graph and the intimidation factor that goes with top dog honors.

There are a number of galleys waiting off South Americas coast waiting to go in. They still have movement this turn if you want to do something with them. But once again, we have virtually no combat units for them.

Physics in 7 with 175 gold and -26gpt so we are still good there. No other civ as of yet has Physics.

We have the one outstanding trade with Liz in effect for another 15 turns. Furs, iron and 59gpt.

The plan for attacking the Aztecs at Texcoco is postponed indefinitely. It didn’t take long to realize the transit time over all the sea tiles with galleys is just far too long. Our medieval infantry might well be attacking a bunch of muskets and that just will not work. So I only have one settler pair still headed for Iceland and another boat way up north that I planned on sailing along the western passage that eventually leads to Alaska.

We now have 3 caravels and 11 galleys. I already send a couple galleys to the breakers so new caravels could be sped up. We should just replace the galleys on a 1-1 basis and later upgrade the caravels to galleons.

With regards to workers, I kept them largely spread out except to get the Boston forest project up and the roadbuilding needed in South America. You can do what you like with the workers, except for the South American road builders between Bogota and Iquitos. Please keep them building roads only so any settlers we send there can move quickly.

Now onto Magellan’s. I looked at F7 and realized that Osman had been building Bach’s in Istanbul, which he then switched to Magellan’s at the start of my set. He started Bach’s elsewhere. The other civs that were building it did not roll any of their wonder builds to another city so had to start from scratch. They were:

Iroquois Kawauka, their 22nd ranked city. Didn’t see any danger there and sure enough this last turn is pop 4. So they’re out.

England Warwick Pop 6. Two mines and a mined cow. Really no threat here.

Aztec Tlateloco. A legit danger at pop 10. I surveyed the WM and looked at the land. It appears to be able to deliver at max around 20 SPT similar to Istanbul, but again they were going to have to build from scratch and probably need 16 turns minimum. Our run at the start of my calculations was only 14.

Once I managed to trade for Navigation, it made sense to open the embassy with Ottomans so I could see what Istanbul looked like in 500AD. It was 20spt, ready to grow the next turn and probably generate another couple SPT. I flipped Boston over to Magellan’s and saw us needing 14 turns and Ottomans 13. He only had what I believe to be 60 shields invested so he must have only started Bach’s there around 430AD maybe.

But he only needed 320 to finish vs our 400. I opened Excel and calculated where Istanbul would be at the end of each turn, allowing for a pop expansion to 8 and later 9, each expansion adding 2spt.

I then calculated where Boston would be and saw that we had to have every available land tile in Boston’s BFC working on Magellan’s. So I settler merged in Boston to work a couple more tiles and changed any city build queue close to Boston to a worker where I wasn’t really burning a lot of shields. These workers were quickly vectored to the workable Boston tiles to plant forests where the tiles only did 1 SPT. Bottom line here is that as long as it’s a tie at the end of the race, we win. As it is with the forests, now we should actually come in a turn ahead of Istanbul. Cross fingers.

Interesting how the thing that turned our science situation totally around was the Mongols. Given our territory size, our map was worth something, and that was the contact with Brennus who was exactly the trading partner we had been waiting for. He gave us the trade we were otherwise going to have to spend 400 gold on. With that gold saved, it allowed us to start passing maps around and getting just what we needed with techs, passing a number of civs to get right back into the game. Then that allowed us to figure out Magellan’s which we can leverage for our GA later, and so on. After our discussion, I did decide to put our rep on the line after all. If there was a time we needed to leverage GPT it was now before we fell further behind in the tech race and risked losing out on Magellan’s that we really need.

One oddity at this point. We have 13 active civs and 2 dead ones. Where is #16? Well it’s Japan geographically but he’s sitting next to Brennus, yet he has no contacts to sell because he doesn’t have PP. Those civs that do have PP apparently don’t know #16 either. Whoever it is, they must be backward, similar to Shaka. So we will just have to wait and see.

Regarding keeping salt disonnected, I think we are better off with muskets over pikes. The upgrade cost to rifles will be much lower and at this point we're better off spending gold to maintain a fewer number of better units.

All builds can be changed (exclu Magellan's of course), but again it would be best for us to let our core grow to the happy cap, especially with gems that will come online soon.

And the save.

vmxa · Mar 27, 2020

Lurker:

Ah Civ4 raises its head again, on chops for wonders.

M60A3TTS · Mar 28, 2020

One important note, in 540AD four civs went to Anarchy. They must be switching to Democracy.

Iroquois, Aztecs, England and the Ottomans. That should mean that Magellan's is a lock for Boston. Question is after Boston is done, do we want to start like a 1-turn pre-build again in Boston and go for Newton's? We should be able to build it 23 turns from now (6+17). We could probably do it in Omaha a little earlier if we start the pre-build right now and get the nearby hills improved. But Boston does have a slightly better income stream when it works max commerce tiles, so it would generate a few extra beakers.

Once Magellan's is off the board, that leaves Bach's, Shakespeare's and Smiths for the AI to cascade to. The last two are not being built yet by anyone. If we go ToG to build Newton's, the only scientific civ of the 4 now in revolt, who presumably are our real competition in tech, are the Ottomans. They would be the one likely following us to Physics and ToG.

In a nutshell, the question is whether the three wonders now in play will be complete and break the chain before one of them, likely Ottomans, learns ToG. If the three are completed first and the cascade cannot take place, we get Newton's. If not, we may not.

Food for thought.

tjs282 · Mar 29, 2020

M60A3TTS said:
Tech status, to review, against the tech leaders England, Aztecs, Scandanavia, Iroquois, Mongols, Ottomans we’re down: Monarchy, Chivalry, Printing Press, Music Theory, Banking. Physics still nobody knows, due in 11.

Well done on that awesome trading-round! Especially without CAII to help you.

By my count, that means we are nearly up to par, tech-wise (not fussed about lacking optionals, since we don't need them to advance to the Industrial). Also extremely good to know that Osman doesn't have Metallurgy yet, since that means he isn't close to getting MilTrad either: so he can't build Sipahi, give himself an inconvenient GA, and steal Mags from us, despite his upcoming Anarchy (which will only last a couple of turns, IIRC: the AI doesn't roll the same RNG-dice as we do on gov-switches).

(Assuming he hasn't had a GA already? Something for the to-do list: check what other Wonders he's built already, if any?)

So (as long as Ozzie doesn't get a GA anytime in the next 14T) also good work on saving the Mags prebuild: re-Foresting Boston was a genius move. I also like the idea of building Newtons in Boston afterwards (I'm assuming we're now doing Physics -- rather than Metallurgy -- to get to ToG ASAP?): it's not like that town's going to be short of food to support the shield-harvests. Hell, even if we lose out on Mags, we should still be able to switch back to the Palace, and then grab Newtons as a consolation-prize (even though we will have put way more than 400 shields into it by that point).

M60A3TTS said:
The unwelcome yet not unexpected arrival of settlers from the other civs has clearly started. It will take time to confirm but besides South America and Newfoundland, I would not be surprised if they were also now in Alaska. I have started dialing back our own settler production in order to start strengthening the core cities in anticipation of more luxes rolling in. We are now at the point of being vulnerable to an invasion by sea, though certainly I wouldn’t expect one any time soon. Our South American expansion came to a sudden halt along the coast as we had no military units at all in the southeastern portion of our expansion. In fact, it is important to note a barb warrior lurking outside a defenseless Belem. You can move the vet sword off the Paradise Found galley into Belem just before the barb gets there.

We have 20 settlers and 4 of those will complete our holdings on the west coast that were planned for. The other 16 are free to go wherever with 6 of them in boats off Paramaribo waiting on some more military help. We still have another 24 settlers queued but I have turned off the settler pumps thinking we should be able to get all the settlers we need from all these small fully corrupt towns.

We’re going to have to decide where, if anywhere we want to just stop expanding and focus on building up what we have. No strong feelings either way. We’ve seen no demands from anyone as we are at the top of the power graph and the intimidation factor that goes with top dog honors.

If we're already seeing AI-landings in SA, then I agree that we can (and should!) now stop building Settlers/Workers from our core.

Like I said before, I'm not really worried about the AI-civs building/landing Settlers on those areas of our continent which would otherwise be totally corrupt/ unproductive for us (e.g. northern Tundra and SA). It's much better for us if they spend their shields+pop on Settlers for those areas -- which means they'll be building fewer military units as well (at least until we collectively hit the 512 city-limit) -- while we put ours into going tall instead.

Because unless any of them are forced to Palace-jump, all the CrapTowns that they've planted on our side of the oceans will by a long way from their respective capitals, and hence will never do them any real good, either -- plus (once we have Cavs and/or rails), if someone DoWs us before we're ready to invade them properly, we should be able to force a PT at our convenience, by mowing down half a dozen of those CrapTowns in quickish succession.

Also, with the AI-Civs already so advanced, we're also likely going to have to go to at least MotorTrans/Tanks if we want to be able to demolish (the last of) them properly. Since we're also getting towards the front in terms of obligatory techs as well, that means that to get ahead (and stay there!), we'll need to do self-research (buying techs means always being behind the curve).

So as well as sending our high-commerce (core + FP) cities to their happy-caps, we'll also need to boost their beaker-output. My general building priorities (for our core out to the ~50-70%-corrupt zones) would be:

(1) Courthouse to take better advantage of our SCI%+LUX%-spending, and to speed all subsequent builds, rush (using cash/unit-disbands) where necessary
(2a) Lib to pop borders/ boost beaker-outputs during subsequent growth (if this can be built before the town will need a Duct/Market, otherwise later)
(2b) Duct if no freshwater, rush where necessary
(3) Market to boost Lux-Happiness (our soon-to-be-hooked Gems, plus any additional Luxes we can import in exchange for our excess resources)
(4) Harbour if coastal, Barracks (maybe!) if not
(5) Uni to add to the Lib

For the beaker-farms (90% corrupt), I would build much less. If no freshwater (i.e. the farm would max. out below Pop6):

(1a) Nothing!*
(1b) Harbour if a Fish is available directly adjacent to the town

If freshwater:

(1) Courthouse
(2) Market
(3) Harbour if a Fish is available

*Building a Lib in a dry beaker-farm is generally a waste of shields/GPT!

M60A3TTS said:
Regarding keeping salt disconnected, I think we are better off with muskets over pikes. The upgrade cost to rifles will be much lower and at this point we're better off spending gold to maintain a fewer number of better units.

With the AI so advanced, I agree that Muskets are a better garrison-option than Pikes (in border/coastal towns, especially in SA), but if we can back up those Muskets with Cannons and Cavs (we'd go for Metallurgy --> MilTrad after ToG, yes?), then -- unless you're going to tell me that there's no Rubber anywhere in SA(?) -- (I think) we don't need Rifles, at least not for home-defence.

Nationalism's an (expensive) optional tech, leading to also-optional branches which aren't really useful (we're not going to go Commie, are we?), and which the AI almost invariably gets hung up on. Rather than doing the same thing, we should take advantage of that useful/ essential breathing-space, to research something else.

So if we want decent Industrial foot-troops, I would rather beeline Steam --> Electricity --> RepParts for Infantry (+Arty), than waste beakers on Nationalism. We'll want Steam for our Transcontinental/Pan-American railroads anyway (assuming we have Coal...?), and RP will also speed up our Workers (and more to the point, our Slaves, by a large margin) for the Forest- and Jungle-chops we'll need to do later on, to beaker-farm the hinterlands of Alaska and SA.

And then after RP, we can do Industrialization (if we seem to be ahead), or go straight to Medicine --> SciMethod for ToE+Hoovers.

M60A3TTS said:
With regards to workers, I kept them largely spread out except to get the Boston forest project up and the roadbuilding needed in South America. You can do what you like with the workers, except for the South American road builders between Bogota and Iquitos. Please keep them building roads only so any settlers we send there can move quickly.

Roads in SA -- check. Not gonna waste turns chopping Jungle at this point, plenty of time for that later...

M60A3TTS · Mar 29, 2020

tjs282 said:
Well done on that awesome trading-round! Especially without CAII to help you.

By my count, that means we are nearly up to par, tech-wise (not fussed about lacking optionals, since we don't need them to advance to the Industrial). Also extremely good to know that Osman doesn't have Metallurgy yet, since that means he isn't close to getting MilTrad either: so he can't build Sipahi, give himself an inconvenient GA, and steal Mags from us, despite his upcoming Anarchy (which will only last a couple of turns, IIRC: the AI doesn't roll the same RNG-dice as we do on gov-switches).

(Assuming he hasn't had a GA already? Something for the to-do list: check what other Wonders he's built already, if any?)

Just checked. He had GLib for scientific but no industrious wonder. So no GA for him yet.

tjs282 said:
So (as long as Ozzie doesn't get a GA anytime in the next 14T) also good work on saving the Mags prebuild: re-Foresting Boston was a genius move. I also like the idea of building Newtons in Boston afterwards (I'm assuming we're now doing Physics -- rather than Metallurgy -- to get to ToG ASAP?): it's not like that town's going to be short of food to support the shield-harvests. Hell, even if we lose out on Mags, we should still be able to switch back to the Palace, and then grab Newtons as a consolation-prize (even though we will have put way more than 400 shields into it by that point).
If we're already seeing AI-landings in SA, then I agree that we can (and should!) now stop building Settlers/Workers from our core.

Well you get full credit for Boston. You had the vision that I did not. It's ability to switch casually between production and commerce is no small thing. I think Boston would also be on my short list for ToE. Omaha is the clear favorite for Hoover's since it can still do a palace pre-build even with the FP.

tjs282 said:
Like I said before, I'm not really worried about the AI-civs building/landing Settlers on those areas of our continent which would otherwise be totally corrupt/ unproductive for us (e.g. northern Tundra and SA). It's much better for us if they spend their shields+pop on Settlers for those areas -- which means they'll be building fewer military units as well (at least until we collectively hit the 512 city-limit) -- while we put ours into going tall instead.

Because unless any of them are forced to Palace-jump, all the CrapTowns that they've planted on our side of the oceans will by a long way from their respective capitals, and hence will never do them any real good, either -- plus (once we have Cavs and/or rails), if someone DoWs us before we're ready to invade them properly, we should be able to force a PT at our convenience, by mowing down half a dozen of those CrapTowns in quickish succession.

I'm totally open on this. Agree these overseas possessions of the AI are little threat to us, and if we stopped building settlers now, I would be fine with that. If we keep cranking out a lot to fill out more tundra towns and jungle outposts, I'm fine with that too.

tjs282 said:
So as well as sending our high-commerce (core + FP) cities to their happy-caps, we'll also need to boost their beaker-output. My general building priorities (for our core out to the ~50-70%-corrupt zones) would be:

(1) Courthouse to take better advantage of our SCI%+LUX%-spending, and to speed all subsequent builds, rush (using cash/unit-disbands) where necessary
(2a) Lib to pop borders/ boost beaker-outputs during subsequent growth (if this can be built before the town will need a Duct/Market, otherwise later)
(2b) Duct if no freshwater, rush where necessary
(3) Market to boost Lux-Happiness (our soon-to-be-hooked Gems, plus any additional Luxes we can import in exchange for our excess resources)
(4) Harbour if coastal, Barracks (maybe!) if not
(5) Uni to add to the Lib

For the beaker-farms (90% corrupt), I would build much less. If no freshwater (i.e. the farm would max. out below Pop6):

(1a) Nothing!*
(1b) Harbour if a Fish is available directly adjacent to the town

If freshwater:

(1) Courthouse
(2) Market
(3) Harbour if a Fish is available

*Building a Lib in a dry beaker-farm is generally a waste of shields/GPT!

You may have noticed I already started putting a couple towns on wealth. Agree with no lib needed in beaker farms since the lib doesn't give the 50% bonus to geeks.

tjs282 said:
With the AI so advanced, I agree that Muskets are a better garrison-option than Pikes (in border/coastal towns, especially in SA), but if we can back up those Muskets with Cannons and Cavs (we'd go for Metallurgy --> MilTrad after ToG, yes?), then -- unless you're going to tell me that there's no Rubber anywhere in SA(?) -- (I think) we don't need Rifles, at least not for home-defence.

Nationalism's an (expensive) optional tech, leading to also-optional branches which aren't really useful (we're not going to go Commie, are we?), and which the AI almost invariably gets hung up on. Rather than doing the same thing, we should take advantage of that useful/ essential breathing-space, to research something else.

So if we want decent Industrial foot-troops, I would rather beeline Steam --> Electricity --> RepParts for Infantry (+Arty), than waste beakers on Nationalism. We'll want Steam for our Transcontinental/Pan-American railroads anyway (assuming we have Coal...?), and RP will also speed up our Workers (and more to the point, our Slaves, by a large margin) for the Forest- and Jungle-chops we'll need to do later on, to beaker-farm the hinterlands of Alaska and SA.

And then after RP, we can do Industrialization (if we seem to be ahead), or go straight to Medicine --> SciMethod for ToE+Hoovers.Roads in SA -- check. Not gonna waste turns chopping Jungle at this point, plenty of time for that later...

Yes, I should have said rifles or infantry although upgrades from muskets at that point really only make sense where you have Leo's. That wonder happens to be in Babylon for future reference. :ar15:

Are we going Commie? Well I know what one person thinks about Communism. Yes, vmxa, I'm talking to you. :lol:

Honest answer, I don't know and am not in a particular rush to decide. I really have little experience in trying to conquer a huge map with Republic. You can certainly have a shot at showing how it's done until you can't, and then we will-re-evaluate our options.

Do we have coal? Well I decided not to tell you if we had salt in order to keep things a little more interesting. As you may have noticed on the map, virtually all the salt was sitting in Korean lands, hence my desire to see them stamped out sooner rather than later. Anyways, this IS America so you can imagine it is almost a given we do have coal. Rubber? We'll keep that as an open question for now.

On tech, Physics>ToG>Magnetism>Metallurgy>MT. I'm thinking we can extort banking near the end of the run from someone way down on the power graph. Liz would be an option.

My Industrial Era tech choices are a little different. Plenty of time for discussion. Steam> Electricity yes! At that point I'd look at trade for Medicine if it is out there with our pre-builds already in place. Then Sci Method. ToE completes, grab the next two techs to Hoovers. It completes and the it's GA our way to RP and Industrialization. At that point we be rockin! :thumbsup:

vmxa · Mar 29, 2020

Lurker:
Lol, though to be fair Commie is functional on a really large map. But, I only do Monarchy now a days as war is what I like. That is why I beeline for RP. Infantry are so useful. The AI will not attack an inf guarding workers or sitting on a key resource. At least till it can bomb them. The faster worker is great and of course arty.

M60A3TTS · Mar 31, 2020

Here is a quick rundown on one of our leading opponents.

Iroquois (Hiawatha) Govts Republic->Anarchy->headed for Democracy

Up in techs including Banking

Spawned in Egypt

Largest and most powerful African civ.

Spain is her largest neighbor in the south.

Aztecs, English and Vikings have territorial positions on the African continent.

Resources:

Horses in Grand River (2) Tonawanda (1) Chondote (1)

Saltpeter in Akwesasne (1) Tonawanda (1) Mauch Chunk (1) Gewauga (1)

Luxuries:

Wine in Akwesasne (1) Unclaimed on Crete (no settlements) (1)

Incense in Grand River (1)

Gems in Oiogouen (2) Kiohero (2)

Ivory in Onnontare (1) Kente (1)

The Iroquois have no serious opposition in Africa where a weak Spain holds the next largest piece. Other civs with minor African holdings are England, Scandanavia, Aztecs. Unlike other civs, the Iroquois have chosen to stay close to home and have not visibly expanded beyond their homeland in contrast to Spain. It seems likely that if and when the Iroquois fight in upcoming wars, they will be able to expand their African holdings at the expense of others.

M60A3TTS · Mar 31, 2020

Celts (Brennus) Republic

Up Monarchy and Chivalry, down Astronomy and Navigation

Spawn in China

Largest and most powerful civ in the east. Silk capital of the world. Ranked #2 in the world behind the Iroquois.

The Mongols to the south and southwest are the most immediate threat to the Celts.

Resources:

Horses in Lugdunum (1) Camulodunum (1) Unknown (1)

Salt in Augustodurum (1)

Iron in Alesia (1)

Luxuries:

Silks:

Entremont (1) Alesia (1) Richborough (2) Burdigala (1) Augustodurum (2) Currently trading 3.

With only one lux commodity, the Celts are making the most of their silk trade. Any wars could endanger that, so it might just keep them quiet for a while. The Mongols are up in tech over Brennus but don’t appear to have horses, so without Keshiks there may not be fighting anytime soon in this region.

tjs282 · Mar 31, 2020

M60A3TTS said:
Here is a quick rundown on one of our leading opponents.

Iroquois (Hiawatha) Govts Republic->Anarchy->headed for Democracy

Up in techs including Banking

Yeah, I saw that. At some point, we're probably going to have to instigate a dogpile on them.

I played 4 turns last night, and on the last IBT Hiawatha came demanding tribute (Dyes). I called his bluff and he folded, but it's telling that he's already feeling froggy. We can still sell him Dyes though, for about 18 GPT...

How do you feel about dealmaking generally, at this point? I'd like to cut our LUX% and buy some Luxes before we put up (too) many more Markets (which will raise the price), but I don't want to tie us into any deal that might be broken before 20T are up, by a war, and/or a lost Harbour.

Civ no. 16 is Germany. I can get Contact via Hiawatha. Do it?

Oh, and Lizz snagged one of our Gems, 1T before our Settler got there. I'm going to Settle aggressively to grab the other 2 Gems, and the Deer, and we already have at least 2 Swords to throw at Leeds when the Furs/Iron deal is done...

I'm back for one game at least

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