LP1: That's the wrong end of the gun

Just for administrative purposes...

Roster:
Nictel -- founder. AWOL
ChuckDizzle -- AWOL
dalamb -- up
vranasm -- abandoned the ship
Norvin_Green -- just returned from shore leave.
Admiral Kutzov -- just finished

Shall we troll for 1 or 2 replacements?
 
I don't think we should replace Nictel yet, since the OP deserves a bit more slack than the rest of us IMHO, but perhaps advertising for 2 (replacing ChuckDizzle and vranasm) might be good. Can one of you take care of that?

As to the PPP: I gather I'm to plan for 10 turns.

We do need to continue the REX but we have some problems in the short term:
  1. Our power is low; we're eventually in danger of being attacked. So some city needs to start churning out some defensive archers, at least.
  2. We have no trade routes to Spain and don't even know where the Ottomans are, so the +1 trade routes from Currency aren't going to do us as much good as they could. We need to finish exploring the continent.
  3. We have too few workers -- 3 for 4 cities, with a 4th on the way. Standard rule of thumb says we should have 1.5x4 (soon 5, for our about-to-appear settler).
  4. We have no libraries. One tactic I've used recently is to set the slider to 0 :science: after writing to gather cash while building libraries. The reason is that :commerce: after libraries will get the multiplier and thus be more effective, and saving up some cash allows a higher science rate later (and some cash to pay for avoiding unhappy events).
So I think the settler needs to make our production city, which will build monument (to reach the corn), barracks, and archers (maybe granary before barracks). While growing back to the happy cap, Nidaros should build a library while running 0 :science: (after finishing Currency, of course). The warrior in the "good spot to earn promos" will explore Spain, hoping to establish a trade route, and then perhaps go back to his promo spot. On the next player's turn I'd strongly recommend trading post + galley and explore the coast, hoping to find a trade route to the Ottomans.

Uppsala will just finish its worker on my turn -- without whipping, for the same reasons as we didn't originally whip in Nidaros: don't stop working good commerce tiles. However, since it's to be our main commerce city it needs to switch to commerce buildings: library and market, in some order -- but that's an issue for the next player. The worker, who just finished the cottage, needs to mine the desert hill for better production.

Haithabu will finish granary and growth in 3t; if both happen on the same turn, does the granary happen before the growth (so that it's half full instead of empty)? In any case it'll still grow in 3 if I work the forested plains instead of the forested grassland, which means granary finishes in 2. I imagine it's going to be a 2nd commerce city so will need a library; with low production I think basic infrastructure is all it can manage right now, so I'll just continue building the library there.

After finishing its workboat Birka needs to work the fish and get out another worker; we have so few that stagnating a city seems necessary, especially since it has so little production to build anything else. If religion doesn't spread to it by the time the worker is done maybe the next player needs to build a monument so it can expand onto the trees in the 2nd ring.

Let me know what you think. I expect Monday evening (about 30 hrs from now) is the earliest I could play this out, which easily encompasses the 24 hrs needed for comment.
 
PPP sounds ok. We aren't in danger yet of being attacked. It won't take long before Isabella is our best pal for switching into Buddhism. For now, we should be friendly towards Spain and Germany, acquiescing to their demands to keep them friendly. Our power will be fine once we pick up IW in trade. I like the idea of dropping science to 0% for a few turns until we get at least a library in Nidaros. It might pay to tech Med & PH for the extra :) from the temples we should build in good food cities. We can whip the granary in Haithabu and let the overflow go into a monument which will pop our borders faster to give it access to the cows and some :hammers:. I still like the position of our next city (production) 1S of the sheep. No need for monument then so it can go granary>barracks>moai>units. I wouldn't worry about the trade route situation yet as it will take care of itself. Please don't build archers if you must build warriors as they can at least be upgraded to axes. We are not in danger of being attacked. Normally at epic speed we play 15 turns.
 
Unfortunately my sleep was seriously interrupted last night and most of my day taken up with other mentally-tiring things, so I'm not in shape to concentrate on anything at the moment. I'll be playing this out tomorrow morning instead of this evening.

A couple of comments on your comments:
  1. I'm not use to whipping for 1 pop, but that will indeed get the monument done fairly quickly in Haithabu.
  2. WRT archers -- I'm used to making archers for city defence, and we still have a couple more cities to go before we finish REXing. I won't be done with the barracks before the end of my turn, so we can resolve that on a later turn. I also don't expect to upgrade unpromoted units -- I was under the impression it's too costly otherwise. But, that doesn't affect this turn.
  3. I may have been overly concerned about being attacked, but my usual problem in my own games is postponing a military buildup too long and getting attacked. I suppose it depends on the opponents.
 
Bede is busy. I'm working on Whomp. No luck on finding replacements yet. :sad:

If any of the lurkers want to play, speak up. ;)

IMO, we've expanded outward enough and need to backfill. I need to go back and look at the save. Think we should plant some cities and then figure out how to slam out some zerks and cats/trebs.

I'm much more comfortable with this game once we're out of slavery. :crazyeye:
 
Agree that we can start backfilling our territory. Trading for IW is a priority so then we can build useful military.
@dalamb - the reason I asked about BUG is that between the AI strength indicator and "red fist" indicator we are still ok. I think we are at .7 and .8 with Bis and Izzy.
Good luck on your set today!
 
We seem to have lost a few players in LP1: That's the wrong end of the gun and are looking for another player or two to fill in.

Is there still room?

I've only recently started playing BTS (won at prince, now trying on monarch).
 
I want to propose a significant change of plan, so I'm after a mere one turn and will continue after slightly more debate. Here's what I did:

End of turn 130: Whip granary in Haithabu, switching its queue to produce a monument before a library.

Turn 131: Settler finishes in Nidaros and heads for the production center; we begin a library. Currency finishes; we select Code of Laws but turn :science: to 0. An archer arrives in Uppsala, where we already had a warrior; since nobody is building military units at the moment, we send the warrior to the production city site. Uppsala's worker, having just finished a flood plain cottage, moves SE to the desert hill, ready to mine it. BUG announces that we are now the worst enemy of Sulieman -- not a surprise, given the religious differences.

Unfortunately invasions from the AIs are not our only problem: a barbarian archer appears from the fog.
725BCBarbarcher.jpg

I curse the lack of either horses or copper and promote the nearby warrior to Cover and fortify him, hoping he'll survive if attacked.

We've been proceeding on the assumption we don't need more than warriors because no one will attack us. Haithabu is fairly safe if I move the fortified warrior to the city, but our improvements aren't. Plus, where there's one barbarian, there will soon be more. We need good barb busters -- chariots or axes. I see two possible solutions:
  • Turn research back on, tech IW immediately, and hope there's iron in the current cultural border of at least one city. At the fastest tech rate we can achieve this will take 8 turns and reduce our treasury to 0 (unless maintenance goes up, in which case 9 turns). This will let Nidaros start churning out axes.
  • Move the production city 1S, mine the grassland hill to its west, and build a monument ASAP so horses are within its BFC. This lets Nidaros churn out chariots. This will take longer, though I can't calculate how long.
I think the odds are good that both could work before too many barbarians show up. Since both are significant changes to the original plan, and my basic proposal for how long to play was "N turns or until a signficant event" I figure I ought to ask for comments before playing out the 15 turns.
 
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