LK168, Greece, Sid Attempt

[Elephantium]

I've got it. Here are my pre-turn notes:

Pre-turn: Move 1 Cataphract onto the Enslaver in the north
I'm a little anxious about the unprotected Worker gangs, particularly near Delphi. I'm going to build a handful of Pikes for guard duty.

Sliders are at 8.0.2, but the max is 70% for any one slider. I move lux to 30% to compensate. We're now at 41gpt.

I cancel our Gems deal with Brazil and dial up Austria-Hungary. They give us 172 gold for it, straight up.

We get Gems and Elephants back in 4 turns, so we should have some more possible trades then.

Also, which tech allows map trading?

 

[LKendter]

Also, which tech allows map trading?

Printing press

 

[Elephantium]

Britain wants 10gpt to swap WMs.
Alternatively, they'll give us Hardwood, Spices, TM, and some gold for our WM

Arabia will give us their TM + 400 gold for our WM.

Arabia has lots of gold, but Britain has resources. I'm thinking of making the deal with Britain, then seeing if Arabia will sweeten the pot. Thoughts?

 

[LKendter]

Ugg - the other side already has printing press. We are further behind than I realized.
We don't need hardwood. We can live without spices. I'd rather get as much cash as possible. That might let us buy a tech sooner. We badly need 2+ for one deals to catch up. We are slowly moving forward on territory. The next challenge is tech, and money helps with that.

 

[Elephantium]

I'll see what I can get. Britain doesn't have much gold, though, and I don't think WM trades give us enough fodder to buy a tech.

 

[Jersey Joe]

You could make map trades with both of them. What do you get if you just offer our territory map?

Can we trade away Hardwood on the same turn we get it in trade? Will we risk having the deal broken in 20 turns when our trade for hardwood might be cancelled be for our obligation to provide Hardwood expires?

While you are adding Rangoon to our empire, if the roading crew has nothing to do they could build road to a tile next to the gems in the dessert so we could colonize the Gems.

Also, the is Iron north of Rangoon at Bien Hoa which is always good trade bait. From a practical point of view, we should try to favor trading iron to nations like Arabia and Austria-Hungary which are on a land mass separate from ours.

 

[Elephantium]

Here was the trade result:

Britain gives us their TM, 16gpt, and 19 gold for our WM.
Arabia gives us TM + 446 gold for our WM.

JJ, I think you misread. We traded away our native supply of Hardwood, so Britain was offering to trade their excess back to us.

I was thinking of heading to Phnom Penh after Rangoon, but the iron at Bien Hoa makes it a better target.

 

[Jersey Joe]

JJ, I think you misread. We traded away our native supply of Hardwood, so Britain was offering to trade their excess back to us.

I knew we were going to get their Hardwood in trade. I was wondering if we could act as a "middle man" get Hardwood from Britain in trade, and on the same turn trade that Hardwood to say Japan?

The, if Britian cancels the Hardwood trade with us, but we do not formally cancel the Hardwood trade with Japan, do we take a reputation hit because we cannot provide them with Hardwood?

Or am I seeing a problem where none exists?

 

[Elephantium]

Ah, looks like I was the one who misread you

I don't know how the game tracks it, but yeah, I think we'd risk losing our rep with a deal like that.

 

[LKendter]

I like both of the proposed trades. Hardwood isn't worth much, so I'm not willing to risk rep to get it from UK and trade away.

 

[Elephantium]

We just got another Settler. Any thoughts on where to send him?

Edit: We have potential deals for Theology!

Arabia: WM, Iron, Elephants, Gems, 68gpt, 608 gold
Britain: WM, Iron, Gems, 59gpt, 606 gold

However, our max gpt is 45 @ 70% tax. This might be a deal to make in another 1-2 turns, once we own Bien Hoa.

On another note - I got a popup about Galileo's University. Thus the AIs have researched as far as Physics, Free Artistry, and Mercantilism, probably more.

 

[LKendter]

Any room between us and Indo-China for another city?

 

[Elephantium]

Yes, there's a spot optimally placed on the coast between Argos and Rangoon. It's not a very good site other than position, though.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Yes, there's a spot optimally placed on the coast between Argos and Rangoon. It's not a very good site other than position, though.

I agree, it would not be a good production city. The best spot I see there is the Grassland tile next to the road (it gets the most sea tiles) on the coast with 1 tile overlap with Ragoon and 1 tile with Argos. However, it could support a population >size 20 and provide a decent amount of science and commerce (given one of our traits is Seafaring we should be building more coastal cities).
Fortunately, it looks like we will capture some decent production cities.

Edit: We have potential deals for Theology!

We should not trade away our only remaining sources of Iron or Horses (we need them to build troops).

 

[Elephantium]

I was thinking of the BG next to the coast. It's on the road, no overlap with Rangoon and Argos, but ... all it does is fill in space.

A better spot might be somewhere in the SW. There are Horses, Hardwood, and maybe more Gems we could claim...

I put together a couple of dotmaps with some options: Red is where LK described, orange is where I described. Yellow and green spots focus on better placement w/Argos, exploiting the river, and (green only) exploiting the sheep. That area would need a lot of Worker turns, though.

White dots (and one black dot, oops) are placed to exploit sugar, get us another source of Horses, and avoid overlap with Delphi.
Gray dot helps us get Gems and Horses, but it requires a lot of Worker turns to get up and running.
Black dots help us get Horses and give us another coastal city.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Of all the spots on both maps, I would choose the Red dot since it gets the most sea tiles to work. Overlap with Argos is not a big problem, working 19 tiles Argos can grow > size 20.
I would give Ragoon prefernce to keep its tile, because it will most likely need the food to work mountains.

It takes the same amount of turns to build a city on either the orange dot or red dot.

As you mentioned, the biggest problem with the 3 forest spots is the amount of landscaping they need. Of the three, I like the yellow dot. It allows us at some time in the future to build a city on the hill next to the mountain and get Iron and Sheep.

With respect to the dots west of Delphi, they are getting us closer to the borders of Spain and the Moguls (?). I would move the white dot on the hill to the hill one west and get Horses, 2 Sugars and Hardwood in the fat cross.

West of Pharsalos, I like the black dot that gets Horses and Cotton.

 

[LKendter]

Red dot will be a decent shield city. As the grasslands are irrigated the plains can be mined. The water tiles can provide growth once we get buildings in place.
My vote is red dot. I like having a city that keeps us in control of a pathway to Indo-China.

 

[Elephantium]

Okay, here's another trade possibility:

Spain, Poland, Southern Africa, Italy/Rome, Arabia, and Britain can all trade maps. I'm thinking of giving Spain 210 gold + WM for their WM, then trading it to the others for whatever cash it will drum up. Depending on the results, we might be able to buy Clockworks from Japan or Austria-Hungary.

Thoughts?

 

[Jersey Joe]

Great Progress Both in capturing cities and especially in Trading.

Go for Clockworks. I would guess that it will be cheaper to get Clockworks from Austria- Hungary because you can reduce the cost by trading them Incense, Elephants, and Hardwood (it looks like we got 1 or ours back and we do not need it for at least the next 20 turns).

Can't wait to read your report

 

[LKendter]

Don't forget if we get TM / WM from some people, we may be able to go back for another round of trading if enough new info becomes known.