jarred!
King
Yes, I was using "Home" to refer to our start location/Homeland. Too much shorthand to keep straight!
jar01: spain, emporer
- Thread starter jarred!
- Start date
I also like the idea of using an MGL to rush-build the HE — but rather not on a trash-island that we're already thinking about de-colonising later.
Would an exploit count as 'brilliant'?
If so, then there's no need to ship the MGL/Army anywhere: leave him in Farsund (or any other crappy town we don't want), gift that town away to someone harmless, and the MGL/Army will instantly teleport back to Madrid (works for filled/unshippable Armies, too) — all ready to 1-turn the HE, or run up to Sumeria. But if no-one else on the team wants to do that, then yeah, ship it as an empty Army.
I count this as a brilliant idea. I'm good with teleporting him. Any objections?
I've got 2 votes for HE (tjs282 and Judminder) and 2 for an army (Elephantium and jarred!). I'll play in about 10 hours, so if anyone has more to say, do it by then.
jarred!
King
I don't think the concept was added to allow the player to teleport any unit they want to back to their capital, rather if you trade away a town (eg. in a peace deal), it protects you from losing all units garrisoned there. OTOH, if a town culture flips, that would be to say the population killed the 'enemy' garrison, allowing them to defect. Which is why the player loses the units in that case. Using this in conjunction with palace jumping (abandoning the capital for a free palace elsewhere) would allow the player to teleport troops from any city to any city they wanted, with a little planning.
In our game the implications are minor, and our (potential) use isn't very exploitative, but in a conquest game, or 20k for that matter, the tactic seems unsportsmanlike. Is it outlawed in hof, gotm, or rbc rulesets?
Anyway, if no one objects, I say do it.
In our game the implications are minor, and our (potential) use isn't very exploitative, but in a conquest game, or 20k for that matter, the tactic seems unsportsmanlike. Is it outlawed in hof, gotm, or rbc rulesets?
Anyway, if no one objects, I say do it.
Elephantium
Malcolm was a very good cat.
I'd rather not use the teleport trick. Seems dodgy to me.
Fair enough. For me, the penalty (losing a town to a rival) is in line with the gain, which is why GOTM doesn't ban it, but we can certainly ship it home in a couple of turns. That will be my plan. I hope to get back to the game in a couple of hours and finish up tonight, but it may take until tomorrow.
Edit:
I'm not going to finish tonight, but just a short update:
Sumeria is down to 2 towns.
We got another leader, and I used it for Heroic Epic, since we were pretty evenly divided about what to do with the first one.
We learned chivalry.
Edit:
I'm not going to finish tonight, but just a short update:
Sumeria is down to 2 towns.
We got another leader, and I used it for Heroic Epic, since we were pretty evenly divided about what to do with the first one.
We learned chivalry.
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Short version:
The empty army is home, Sumeria is down to one town, which we can take next turn. Happiness is an issue right now, but we should be able to drop the lux slider as soon as we take Der. We are currently researching invention with a lone scientist, due to our finances. I have not declared on Rome, but we are basically ready to. They still don't have iron. We have units in northern Egypt ready to transport to the Babylonian/Arabian/Mongolian island. I've built some culture (now at 254 cpt) - we need to build towns as the opportunity presents itself.
We should decide on a first target on the BAM island and get ourselves ready to attack them. Taking this island will bring us pretty close to the domination limit.
The empty army is home, Sumeria is down to one town, which we can take next turn. Happiness is an issue right now, but we should be able to drop the lux slider as soon as we take Der. We are currently researching invention with a lone scientist, due to our finances. I have not declared on Rome, but we are basically ready to. They still don't have iron. We have units in northern Egypt ready to transport to the Babylonian/Arabian/Mongolian island. I've built some culture (now at 254 cpt) - we need to build towns as the opportunity presents itself.
We should decide on a first target on the BAM island and get ourselves ready to attack them. Taking this island will bring us pretty close to the domination limit.
Spoiler Turn Log :
Elephantium
Malcolm was a very good cat.
BTW, thoughts on abandoning Bad-Tibira and rebuilding on one of the hills currently next to it? That would allow irrigation on the city's current site and the isolated grass there...
jarred!
King
Good going CKS! We should be able to extinguish the Sumerians next turn, which will eliminate the gross WW.
Re declaring on the Romans:
Should we attempt to send some slaves into their territory? As always we should declare before we invade.
Re our other victims:
I think it would be in our favor to start a proxy war on the other large island. Maybe tempting the Babs with some workers as well (what is our standing with him? Him trying to extort us makes me think it's rather poor.)? The Mongols would be an earlier target as well, to get the town on the spit by Egypt, but with most of our army, and currently, production, on our home island that position is worth less to us now.
I like Elephantium's idea about B-T, settler disbanding would be a good idea.
Re declaring on the Romans:
Should we attempt to send some slaves into their territory? As always we should declare before we invade.
Re our other victims:
I think it would be in our favor to start a proxy war on the other large island. Maybe tempting the Babs with some workers as well (what is our standing with him? Him trying to extort us makes me think it's rather poor.)? The Mongols would be an earlier target as well, to get the town on the spit by Egypt, but with most of our army, and currently, production, on our home island that position is worth less to us now.
I like Elephantium's idea about B-T, settler disbanding would be a good idea.
Fabulous progress made. One thing I'm noticing is that rushing the enemy seems to work. I tend to delay until I think I can overpower them easily, but the way in which the Sumerians have been quashed is truly impressive!
re: Bad-tibira - isn't it going to be a mildly productive town eventually in its own right, without the need for rushing everything there? I don't mind either way, but moving it one tile inwards will surely mean another city needs to be one tile further away (?) If you think it makes sense then I have no objections.
Would it be worth attempting to get Mongols and Arabia on side (ROP?) and go straight for Babylon (to stop their rapid science progress) via soon-to-be ex-Rome AND North Egypt simultaneously? We can always come back for the others later....
re: Bad-tibira - isn't it going to be a mildly productive town eventually in its own right, without the need for rushing everything there? I don't mind either way, but moving it one tile inwards will surely mean another city needs to be one tile further away (?) If you think it makes sense then I have no objections.
Would it be worth attempting to get Mongols and Arabia on side (ROP?) and go straight for Babylon (to stop their rapid science progress) via soon-to-be ex-Rome AND North Egypt simultaneously? We can always come back for the others later....
jarred!
King
@Judminder:
Fighting as aggressively as possible is generally best practice. Ruining the enemy's production is key.
If we're going to ICS the whole island, productivity doesn't really matter.
We're probably taking about different hills. It would be moved to the SE one, keeping CxC spacing.
Fighting as aggressively as possible is generally best practice. Ruining the enemy's production is key.
If we're going to ICS the whole island, productivity doesn't really matter.
We're probably taking about different hills. It would be moved to the SE one, keeping CxC spacing.
Elephantium
Malcolm was a very good cat.
Actually, Judminder brings up a good point. Take a look at the screenie from https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/jar01-spain-emporer.639580/page-12#post-15357266
As of now, CxC can put a town on the forest 2S of Umma and another town 1N of the mountain. Moving Bad-Tibira loses the latter spot at the gain of three irrigated tiles.
In that light, I'd say my suggestion to move Bad-tibira was misguided
As of now, CxC can put a town on the forest 2S of Umma and another town 1N of the mountain. Moving Bad-Tibira loses the latter spot at the gain of three irrigated tiles.
In that light, I'd say my suggestion to move Bad-tibira was misguided
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
OK I gottit.
Finally, the Babs have Invention and so are likely researching Gunpowder. If they have Saltpeter within their borders, we will need Armies to bust their Muskets -- especially since they have GWall -- so it would be far preferable if someone else attacked them before we started. (In an ideal world they would have neither Iron nor Salt, and have learned Metallurgy already before we started attacking their Free-Walled towns, but this is not an ideal world, and I don't think we should wait that long!).
An additional consideration is that the Arabs and Mongols both have Horses hooked -- as does Babylon -- and both will build Knight-equivalent UUs. But unlike Hammi, neither Abu nor Khan know Chiv yet (they don't even know Monotheism, although they may be researching it), so may not have had their GA. So the best/weakest initial target would be one of them, and I favour going after the Mongols. Because Abu has no Iron, so even if he gets Chiv, he won't ever be able to build Ansars without assistance. Conversely, although Khan does have Iron, he doesn't need it to build Keshiks, so is potentially more dangerous than Abu if he is allowed to get Chiv. So before that happens, KHAN MUST DIE!
As for how we're going to manage that, well, given our current troop disposition, the shortest sea-route to Mongolia is via Dalandzagad, which -- if we raze Pompeii, and rebuild 1 tile NE -- our Galleys could then reach town-to-town in 1 turn. I will likely spend most of my turnset concentrating on Rome, so I would hold off on DoWing Khan until just before I capture Pompeii -- assuming I can get that far.
But that should be feasible: Once Der is ours, current WW should disappear -- and with 3 Luxes already hooked, I should then be able to drop the LUX%-slider to near-zero for most/all of my set (the lone-geek can carry on researching Invention...).
Jules has Iron and Horses, but he also has Feud, so will be building A=4 Maces rather than any (more) A=3 Legions (has he had his GA yet?). But he hasn't got Mono/Chiv yet either, so his best fast-units will still be Horses. So using the Knights, Pikes, Trebs and Maces that we already have on or near the Roman border, it should therefore be safe to DoW Jules almost immediately after Der falls. While the first wave are making headway into Roman lands, I can use the increased TAX%-income to upgrade our remaining Cats, v- and e*Horses (and any e*Swords that I can find), to follow behind/reinforce the initial invasion.
Ravenna and Pisae should fall within the first 2-3 turns of my set, and while I would prefer to have more than 1 combat-Settler available
the one already near Sumer can found a town in the Jungle just north of Kish, to get me within striking-distance of Veii and Rome. So Pompeii Viraconium and Neapolis should become reachable during the last couple of turns of my set.
In the very unlikely event that I can actually take all the Roman towns on our landmass in my turnset, I will make peace with Jules for whatever he can offer, because Brundisium is a loooong way from the rest of Rome...
For captured towns, I will sell off any unneeded/unhelpful improvements immediately, garrison injured units to quell resistance, switch on the governator, and set the build to a Cathedral (to add to the Free-Temple). If resistance is quelled on the IBT, and I have the pop-points to spare, I'll whip the Cath next turn. Even if resistance is still an issue, all units will then move out, a few foot-units will be stationed outside in case of flips, and the rest of the stack will move on to the next town.
If I get any more MGLs, I will turn them into additional Armies. These shouldn't be needed for the Roman conquest, so will be loaded with only 1 Knight (vet or elite*, depending on who generated the MGL), so that they can still be shipped by our Galleys, if wished: we can finish filling them once they reach Mongolia (though it might also be useful to keep a couple back for homeland/Egyptian defence).
For former Egypt and Sumeria, I'll prioritise Settling the watered inland sites first, irrigating for fast growth, and building and (short)whipping Temples/ Caths/ Libs/ Cols as I have the shields/pop to do so. In food-bonus towns that can regrow fast, I may chop and/or whip additional Workers, Settlers for ICS-ing, and/or Maces (to act as stack-defenders for any threatened towns); coastal-towns may also get Walls if unwatered, and/or Harbours where there are Fish (to allow increased pop.-points for whipping).
I won't make peace with Ragnar unless we're in serious danger of losing something essential -- such as Madrid.
Given that the Babs are (soon to be) one of the 2 most advanced/powerful AI-Civs still on the board, getting a secure foothold on their territory without RoP-violation/backstabbing (I don't like backstabs, and I know Tusker doesn't either) will likely be difficult to impossible — but if we DoW'd before we invaded, then any stack we landed in their territory would be attacked immediately and mercilessly, before it could be reinforced. Also, we don't want to capture the GLib before we absolutely have to have it — and the Pyramids don't really do us any 'good' either until we've quelled resistance, whipped down the survivors, and are ready for our conquests to grow fast so we can whip the rest of the Culture-buildings we need to win.
Finally, the Babs have Invention and so are likely researching Gunpowder. If they have Saltpeter within their borders, we will need Armies to bust their Muskets -- especially since they have GWall -- so it would be far preferable if someone else attacked them before we started. (In an ideal world they would have neither Iron nor Salt, and have learned Metallurgy already before we started attacking their Free-Walled towns, but this is not an ideal world, and I don't think we should wait that long!).
An additional consideration is that the Arabs and Mongols both have Horses hooked -- as does Babylon -- and both will build Knight-equivalent UUs. But unlike Hammi, neither Abu nor Khan know Chiv yet (they don't even know Monotheism, although they may be researching it), so may not have had their GA. So the best/weakest initial target would be one of them, and I favour going after the Mongols. Because Abu has no Iron, so even if he gets Chiv, he won't ever be able to build Ansars without assistance. Conversely, although Khan does have Iron, he doesn't need it to build Keshiks, so is potentially more dangerous than Abu if he is allowed to get Chiv. So before that happens, KHAN MUST DIE!
As for how we're going to manage that, well, given our current troop disposition, the shortest sea-route to Mongolia is via Dalandzagad, which -- if we raze Pompeii, and rebuild 1 tile NE -- our Galleys could then reach town-to-town in 1 turn. I will likely spend most of my turnset concentrating on Rome, so I would hold off on DoWing Khan until just before I capture Pompeii -- assuming I can get that far.
But that should be feasible: Once Der is ours, current WW should disappear -- and with 3 Luxes already hooked, I should then be able to drop the LUX%-slider to near-zero for most/all of my set (the lone-geek can carry on researching Invention...).
Jules has Iron and Horses, but he also has Feud, so will be building A=4 Maces rather than any (more) A=3 Legions (has he had his GA yet?). But he hasn't got Mono/Chiv yet either, so his best fast-units will still be Horses. So using the Knights, Pikes, Trebs and Maces that we already have on or near the Roman border, it should therefore be safe to DoW Jules almost immediately after Der falls. While the first wave are making headway into Roman lands, I can use the increased TAX%-income to upgrade our remaining Cats, v- and e*Horses (and any e*Swords that I can find), to follow behind/reinforce the initial invasion.
Ravenna and Pisae should fall within the first 2-3 turns of my set, and while I would prefer to have more than 1 combat-Settler available
the one already near Sumer can found a town in the Jungle just north of Kish, to get me within striking-distance of Veii and Rome. So Pompeii Viraconium and Neapolis should become reachable during the last couple of turns of my set.In the very unlikely event that I can actually take all the Roman towns on our landmass in my turnset, I will make peace with Jules for whatever he can offer, because Brundisium is a loooong way from the rest of Rome...
For captured towns, I will sell off any unneeded/unhelpful improvements immediately, garrison injured units to quell resistance, switch on the governator, and set the build to a Cathedral (to add to the Free-Temple). If resistance is quelled on the IBT, and I have the pop-points to spare, I'll whip the Cath next turn. Even if resistance is still an issue, all units will then move out, a few foot-units will be stationed outside in case of flips, and the rest of the stack will move on to the next town.
If I get any more MGLs, I will turn them into additional Armies. These shouldn't be needed for the Roman conquest, so will be loaded with only 1 Knight (vet or elite*, depending on who generated the MGL), so that they can still be shipped by our Galleys, if wished: we can finish filling them once they reach Mongolia (though it might also be useful to keep a couple back for homeland/Egyptian defence).
For former Egypt and Sumeria, I'll prioritise Settling the watered inland sites first, irrigating for fast growth, and building and (short)whipping Temples/ Caths/ Libs/ Cols as I have the shields/pop to do so. In food-bonus towns that can regrow fast, I may chop and/or whip additional Workers, Settlers for ICS-ing, and/or Maces (to act as stack-defenders for any threatened towns); coastal-towns may also get Walls if unwatered, and/or Harbours where there are Fish (to allow increased pop.-points for whipping).
I won't make peace with Ragnar unless we're in serious danger of losing something essential -- such as Madrid.
Spoiler Longer-term strategising... :
We have a pretty good collection of MI, swords, and cats in northern Egypt, and there are free landing spots in southern BAM island. Think about declaring on Arabia and coming up from the south to take them out. They are pretty weak - they only have 8 towns. We could fight Arabia and Rome at the same time, then ship our Roman troops over to take out the Mongols (also quite weak, but not as weak as Arabia).
Rome has only had iron for 2 turns - in 720 they were still asking for iron. They won't have many iron units yet - maybe one per town if we declare right away - and they have no cash to upgrade. The conquest should go pretty quickly - I'm hopeful that they built some roads.
Coastal towns without irrigation should get harbors even if they don't have fish. Harbors are cheap, and 2 fpt gets us libraries and cathedrals pretty quickly.
Rome has only had iron for 2 turns - in 720 they were still asking for iron. They won't have many iron units yet - maybe one per town if we declare right away - and they have no cash to upgrade. The conquest should go pretty quickly - I'm hopeful that they built some roads.
Coastal towns without irrigation should get harbors even if they don't have fish. Harbors are cheap, and 2 fpt gets us libraries and cathedrals pretty quickly.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
I was thinking to go for the Arabs last precisely because they are weak, and thus little threat.
Leaving Arabia intact (for now) would also keep the (ex-Mongolian) border with Babylon that much shorter/easier to defend, which I think is preferable because we will be able to reinforce from (former) Rome --> (former) Mongolia much faster/more strongly than we will be able to do from former-Egypt --> southern Arabia. Conversely, if we go after the Arabs first, and then the Mongols, our front for the Babylonian war will end up extending almost the entire length of that continent, bottom to top.
But I will likely only play about half my set today, and the rest tomorrow, so we don't have to decide yet. Forwards... to Rome!
EDIT:
Midset update:
Although I took some vHorse losses against the Enks defending Der (3 dead, only 1 retreated; should have led with the Knights, but I was hoping to save those for the Romans), the Summies are now dead, and we are at war with Rome. Pisae and Ravenna have fallen, and Veii -- where I discovered the first and only Legion that I've seen so far (but there shouldn't be many more of those, since the Romans were getting their Iron through our waters) -- is besieged by a large stack of units (including a 2-Knight Army and all our Trebs).
I am also accumulating Knights and Maces on the Hills north of Pisae, but have not advanced on Rome yet because I want to take Veii first, to allow me to then swing the Army + Trebs over from there. So I've suffered a few Horse/Archer-attacks on the last couple of interturns, but the Romans have lost at least 4-5 units for each one of ours they managed to kill so far, and seem to be pretty much gassed already.
We are also now at war with the Mongols after all. When I saw all those Maces in northern Egypt, I couldn't resist shipping them over to land on the unclaimed Jungle outside Choybalsan -- but then Bukhara's borders popped. I didn't want to be forced to declare on Abu with units already in his territory, so I immediately DoW'd Temmy and invaded Outer Mongolia, to avoid having Abu boot us back to Egypt. Choybalsan fell relatively easily, though, so I've left a skeleton garrison in place, and started sailing the dozen or so excess units up the coast towards Mandalgovi/ Dalandzagad -- but if Abu DoWs us mid-journey, I'll look for a convenient spot to drop them off.
I am a bit confused about whipping though: I had no problem whipping Temples to completion with 10 shields in the box and 2 pop-points in the town, but the game wouldn't let me whip a Cathedral with 20 shields in the box and 4 pop-points. Even though I would 'only' need another 60 shields (3 citizens whipped), the Domestic Advisor told me that rushing would cost too many -- but why?
I did already find a workaround -- short-whip to a Gran (2 citizens, +40 shields), then whip the third citz for the last 20 shields, leaving 1 citizen in the town -- but I would be interested to know why I couldn't go all the way to the Cath in a single whip? Does the game prevent more than 2 citizens from being whipped at a time?
EDIT II, Son of EDIT:
NVM: I just searched the Civ3 forum for 'whip', and discovered (from multiple threads) that it is not possible to whip more than half the pop-points per whip.
So short-whipping is the way to go...
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tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
And... I'm done.
I didn't finish off Jules yet, but the good news is that Rome itself has already fallen: I've set it to build an Archer in the hope that the 2 resistors will be quelled on the IBT, allowing an Archer -> Mace -> Cathedral whip next turn. The bad news is that apart from Pisae (attacked on the turn I DoW'd) and Ravenna (not hooked to anyone's trade-net -- yet!), Jules has (had) at least 1 Pike in every additional town I attacked -- Veii had 2 of them, and Rome had another 4, and Lutetia's top defender is an rPike as well. I'm guessing these were/are mostly upgrades, since he didn't have time to build them. So it appears that he's acquired a stack of cash from somewhere (maybe the cash we saved him by cutting off his Iron-import...?), and we should evict him from 'our' land ASAP.
The Mongol war has gone pretty well, though I've only taken 2 towns so far! Choybalsan can whip its Temple as soon as it hits Pop2, Mandal has already been whipped once (to an Archer), so a vMace-disband would finish the job. Once their borders have popped, we probably don't need to worry about them flipping. Mandal will act as a Horse-magnet for Khan, which should mean that the next player will be able to land near Dalandzagad relatively unmolested. But we will need an Embassy with Abu if we want him to help us -- it's also possible that he has an RoP with Khan.
On the Scandinavian front, it's a little more dicey. Palma is safe, but Plains-island is getting worryingly vulnerable. I rushed a couple of Spears and Walls over there, but suffered one unit-loss: our e*Sword (fell defending Farsund from a Viking Mace), so our defences are still stretched very thin. Although I sank one incoming Galley, there is another still floating about which (CAII says is carrying an ACav + Horse. By shifting units from one side of the island to the other, I have been able to sucker Ragnar into sailing that Galley backwards and forwards for much of my set, but it's probably only a matter of time before he drops something off somewhere we won't be able to fight it.
There is a half-assed ship-chain partly set up past Food-Island, but we'd need 2 more Galleys at the Sumerian end to be able to ship anything over there in 1 turn. So I would suggest asking for peace soon, and maybe see if we can get at least 1 of those 2 towns into the bargain (he probably won't give up Risor + its Iron, but maybe the southern one...?)
A lot of my game-time was spent marshalling Workers in former Egypt and former Sumeria. If you've already opened the Spoiler, you'll (be happy to) see that I didn't bother recording any specific details in the log, but I concentrated first on roading and irrigating flat tiles near already-planted towns (both continents), minimising Worker transit-times between jobs. Any Hills/Mountains that weren't already improved, I simply ignored (roads+mines on highland tiles are pointless in the totally corrupt areas).
That said, in both Sumeria and Egypt, I left mines in place where I think we should plant (future) ICS towns: this seemed like a simpler idea than dotmapping! From those I left, it should be reasonably clear how to continue that pattern into Jungle, etc., assuming that you (collectively) plant on Hills/Desert where it fits neatly into the pattern, and doesn't exclude ICS sites. Both Gold-Hills in soon-to-be-former-Rome need towns!
(I deliberately placed Santander2 Cx[J]xCx[J]xC between Rome and Ravenna, so we have 2 more potential ICS-spots in the intervening Jungle [J] tiles. A stack of 6 Slaves are on one of them to hook up Ravenna, because the Settlers currently building out of the high-food Sumerian towns weren't whippable for most of my set; though they may be now.)
The 'Worker-front' in Sumeria has now reached the Jungle/Marsh areas. A few of the more strategically important tiles have already been -- or are being -- roaded/cleared. I've set a few lone Slaves to road Jungle-tiles which are adjacent to towns , and there's some potentially high-food Game-Marshland near Veii that could do with draining: I would suggest 1 native Worker to road each Marsh tile (6T each), then stack them up to clear them (16T for 1 Worker, or 4T for 4).
Similarly, the inhabited parts of Egypt are pretty much fully roaded+irrigated now, and I've started foresting in the south: a lot of the remaining Tundra is still choppable, so I would suggest Foresting everything that hasn't already been used, and then chopping it back (clearing the ICS-spots first!) as we need it. I have moved several Slaves to unused (Tundra) in the SE section, for them to road (6T each) and then stack up to Forest (3 Slaves = 6T).
Much of the eastern side has chop-able tiles as well, but the Workers are mostly over to the west at present.
EDIT/Caveat for the next player:
Over the past couple of months, my wireless-mice (mouses?) seem to have begun the process of shuffling off their mortal coils. And while I did my best to avoid it, it's possible that I mis-clicked some of the units in Egypt into auto-moves. They shouldn't be more than 1 tile off their intended destination(s), though.
Also, forgot to mention: the Workers north of Pithom are clearing that marsh tile for a Harbour-town, to allow quicker loading/shippage of units over to Choybalsan/southern Babylon. There is an active Settler in the vicinity of New Valencia(?) who can probably make it up there about the same time the tile is cleared.
Spoiler Turnlog -- not quite so detailed this time, just the points of interest :
Spoiler Session 2 :
The Mongol war has gone pretty well, though I've only taken 2 towns so far! Choybalsan can whip its Temple as soon as it hits Pop2, Mandal has already been whipped once (to an Archer), so a vMace-disband would finish the job. Once their borders have popped, we probably don't need to worry about them flipping. Mandal will act as a Horse-magnet for Khan, which should mean that the next player will be able to land near Dalandzagad relatively unmolested. But we will need an Embassy with Abu if we want him to help us -- it's also possible that he has an RoP with Khan.
On the Scandinavian front, it's a little more dicey. Palma is safe, but Plains-island is getting worryingly vulnerable. I rushed a couple of Spears and Walls over there, but suffered one unit-loss: our e*Sword (fell defending Farsund from a Viking Mace), so our defences are still stretched very thin. Although I sank one incoming Galley, there is another still floating about which (CAII says is carrying an ACav + Horse. By shifting units from one side of the island to the other, I have been able to sucker Ragnar into sailing that Galley backwards and forwards for much of my set, but it's probably only a matter of time before he drops something off somewhere we won't be able to fight it.
There is a half-assed ship-chain partly set up past Food-Island, but we'd need 2 more Galleys at the Sumerian end to be able to ship anything over there in 1 turn. So I would suggest asking for peace soon, and maybe see if we can get at least 1 of those 2 towns into the bargain (he probably won't give up Risor + its Iron, but maybe the southern one...?)
A lot of my game-time was spent marshalling Workers in former Egypt and former Sumeria. If you've already opened the Spoiler, you'll (be happy to) see that I didn't bother recording any specific details in the log, but I concentrated first on roading and irrigating flat tiles near already-planted towns (both continents), minimising Worker transit-times between jobs. Any Hills/Mountains that weren't already improved, I simply ignored (roads+mines on highland tiles are pointless in the totally corrupt areas).
That said, in both Sumeria and Egypt, I left mines in place where I think we should plant (future) ICS towns: this seemed like a simpler idea than dotmapping! From those I left, it should be reasonably clear how to continue that pattern into Jungle, etc., assuming that you (collectively) plant on Hills/Desert where it fits neatly into the pattern, and doesn't exclude ICS sites. Both Gold-Hills in soon-to-be-former-Rome need towns!
(I deliberately placed Santander2 Cx[J]xCx[J]xC between Rome and Ravenna, so we have 2 more potential ICS-spots in the intervening Jungle [J] tiles. A stack of 6 Slaves are on one of them to hook up Ravenna, because the Settlers currently building out of the high-food Sumerian towns weren't whippable for most of my set; though they may be now.)
The 'Worker-front' in Sumeria has now reached the Jungle/Marsh areas. A few of the more strategically important tiles have already been -- or are being -- roaded/cleared. I've set a few lone Slaves to road Jungle-tiles which are adjacent to towns , and there's some potentially high-food Game-Marshland near Veii that could do with draining: I would suggest 1 native Worker to road each Marsh tile (6T each), then stack them up to clear them (16T for 1 Worker, or 4T for 4).
Similarly, the inhabited parts of Egypt are pretty much fully roaded+irrigated now, and I've started foresting in the south: a lot of the remaining Tundra is still choppable, so I would suggest Foresting everything that hasn't already been used, and then chopping it back (clearing the ICS-spots first!) as we need it. I have moved several Slaves to unused (Tundra) in the SE section, for them to road (6T each) and then stack up to Forest (3 Slaves = 6T).
Much of the eastern side has chop-able tiles as well, but the Workers are mostly over to the west at present.
EDIT/Caveat for the next player:
Over the past couple of months, my wireless-mice (mouses?) seem to have begun the process of shuffling off their mortal coils. And while I did my best to avoid it, it's possible that I mis-clicked some of the units in Egypt into auto-moves. They shouldn't be more than 1 tile off their intended destination(s), though.
Also, forgot to mention: the Workers north of Pithom are clearing that marsh tile for a Harbour-town, to allow quicker loading/shippage of units over to Choybalsan/southern Babylon. There is an active Settler in the vicinity of New Valencia(?) who can probably make it up there about the same time the tile is cleared.
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tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
We haven't got one in Egypt anymore...
OTOH, we do still have quite a decent rapid-response force there. And western Egypt is also far enough away from the action that it should be safe from Galley-borne invasions by non-SEA Civs (the Vikings would have to island-hop all the way past North Holland, and back south via the Babylonian coast to do it!). Things will get trickier once someone learns Astro, but only the Babs and Dutch are anywhere close to doing that (would be a good moment to take the GLib).
The Mace-Army in Mongolia should not be regarded as invulnerable, either. (Bitter experience has taught me that) an AI with A≥4 units does not appear to be intimidated by an Army composed of D≤2 units, even when that Army is still relatively healthy (green to yellow HP-bar). Khan hasn't learned Mono/Chiv yet (and probably won't learn the latter before we kill him), but he does know Feud, and has Iron -- so we should be careful to prevent his Maces from getting within striking-distance of our Mace-Army if possible.
@Nathiri:
Even though we're planning to kill them eventually, it might still be worth building an embassy in Arabia, so we can get Abu onside vs. Khan if needed (last I checked, the cost was only around 50g, IIRC -- but I didn't go for it at the time; I was still upgrading Horses/Cats). Embassies with the Dutch (our main/only trading partner right now) and Indians (and maybe also the Hittites) may also be diplomatically useful: we certainly have the cash for it.
We also have lots of excess Luxes to sell (or gift away for kudos) -- if/when a sea-route opens. The Vikings have Ivory, and the Indians have colonised JungleWine-Island, but (even if we were at peace with Ragnar), we still can't buy Luxes from either of them, because we/they can't trade over Sea/Ocean-tiles yet. The Dutch can, because they own the GLight -- but they do not appear to control any (excess) Lux-tiles (so it would be helpful for us if they conquered the Indians -- or vice versa -- but WarEllies vs. SMercs is about even...). There are Silks and Dyes on Arabylongolia as well, but similarly, until we (or the Babs) get Astro, we will not be able to spread that Lux-happiness around the rest of our holdings.
Might also want to raise SCI% to see if we can now get Invention any faster than 38(-ish?) turns...?
