PH S21E02: There is a Title

[PiR]

Taking advantage of our current leader to build workers is good, it's twice faster! Just be mindful they have a maintenance cost of 1 food.
But it's worth it in my pov.
We could make lots of quarries to get lots of wonders with them.

Spymaster it is. No idea if this is right or not but seems better from a role playing point of view...

Commander you mean?
Schemer could have been nice to get more orders if necessary, but Commander will be good if we have idle troops they will upgrade quickly.

Q: What's the difference between barbarians and vandals
A: Not a joke, I have no idea

Vandals are a tribe so you're not always at war with them, you can even be allied with 1 tribe.

 

[pholkhero]

Forgot to mention, the second city is building a militia

ok, so in OW, you have three resources which can produce three types of things for your city: 1) growth for civilian units, incl. militia (separate from teh actual food to feed your people); 2) shields for military (separate from metal or wood needed for units, and interesting on its own merits as military's require some sort of training of troops and not just resource production that civ doesn't model), and 3) civics for, well, civic improvements for your city, small boni to them. Some call it complicated; i call it rich

militia are civilian units, good for somewhere that doesn't have the shield prod or a stopgap measure, but they can't be promoted, or given a general; have worse stats, etc.

as our new city family has the bonus to shield production, it should be buildign warriors and other units that require the shields, and we can specialize later with barracks, archery ranges, etc, as well as w the rural specialists we hire.

edit to add: i'd like to thank you for selecting Militia on purpose just so that I could take the time to highlight some of the differences in OW compared to other 4x games. not , a teaching moment

 

[jguy100]

I have the save and opened it successfully!

 

[jguy100]

I switched Meroe from a Militia to a Slinger. We already have a Warrior, and variety is the spice of life, so I landed on Slinger. I did not cancel the Militia (which would throw away the resources), which means it will attempt to auto build it once we finish the Slinger.

Waset finished producing a worker, so I set it to make a Settler next. Which leads to two questions:
1) Where to place next city? My vote goes for SW City Site, if only for access to the arid tile for those sweet, sweet pyramids.
2) Which family to choose? I like both Clerics and Sages, it's a hard choice. Clerics lets us found a religion, giving us some more control over early happiness of our subjects. Sages gives us more science, and I'm definitely a science junky.

Turn 9 starts off with a marriage proposal for little Neffie. How quickly she's grown! I'm not very happy with either candidate (one is old, one doesn't have a high opinion of us). But choosing neither results in a family opinion penalty. So I chose the 40 year old for our 20 year old. Sorry Neffie, hopefully your second marriage (after he dies of old age) is happier.

The Rammesides family is on the border of falling below 100 opinion of us, so I spend some coin to start an influence mission.

Hot shot Scythians want a piece of the action. With only one warrior to our name, I give in and pay the price for peace. One day, they will pay us back with interest...

An important tidbit: when you can, have your scouts end turn on a forest. This causes them to be hidden, so nearby frenemies can't hurt them.

Turn ten starts with an unhappy popup. I didn't mind Thut's insanity until it started to personally affect us. He better get his crap together! Or we're going to need to get a spymaster to permanently end him.

Stopping point for now - hoping to get a few more turns in later before I hand off the save.

 

[pholkhero]

i think that SW site, too. blocking in the Carthaginians a bit will help. are gems the only resource nearby there? it looks like taht from the screenshots though, and my vote is still sages.

 

[jguy100]

blocking in the Carthaginians a bit will help

I’m glad you’re doing the strategic thinking. My mind is hyper focused on “Egypt = Pyramids. Egypt = Pyramids. Egypt = Pyramids.”

 

[Ozbenno]

and I'm definitely a science junky.

Me too

SW city is just fine (he says knowingly)....

 

[jguy100]

Continuing turn 10. Popped a goody hut that gave a choice between 2 more scouts and nearly 6 turns of science. We barely have enough orders for the scouts we have, so I opted for the science.

We also met the Danes! They wanted us to declare war on the Scythians. Apparently it's a dog eat dog world out there. Can't we just give peace a chance??? The Scythians are much stronger than us, whereas the Danes are only stronger than us. So I opted to appease the Scythians.

We got a new title, "The Explorer". This came with an event to choose a new ambition. One was to control 5 developing cities, which we are very far away from. The other was to send 2 luxuries to tribes, which seems like a waste of perfectly good bribes. So I opted to select none.

I started moving our warrior toward the barbarian tribe. I considered camping him on the city site so Carthage can't snipe it. But I opted for the greedy route.

We also finished researching Polis. Busy turn! Lots of good choices in this draw of techs. I can't turn away free stone, especially since we'll need plenty of it to build the Pyramids....errr I mean the Hanging Gardens. I also did a little harvesting with the scouts, wrapping the turn up.

And now we're onto turn 11. Our worker finished building the camp, which will speed up our production of the Settler. Yippee! I considered having him start the Hanging Gardens, but he's right next to the marble already. And we need that precious stone for even more wonders and slingers....so I built a quarry instead. I figure the other worker can start the wonder next turn, if that's what we choose.

We have some extra money, so I started an influence mission on our husband. He's at +40, so there's a chance we'll get a lucky event that pushes his opinion to 100.

Apparently the Babylonians were busy mocking bald people, because they suffered a nasty bear attack. I have a soft spot for Nebbie, he makes my heart melt. So I offered him the max assistance possible. Thankfully we had just enough orders left!

And that takes us to the top of turn 12. We have:
1) a worker needing a job (build Hanging Gardens?)
2) a new tech to select (Husbandry to improve the horses?)
3) a warrior on the move (move closer to attacking barbs?)
4) a new BFF to appease (can we please be friends with Nebbie )

That's it for my set. Save uploaded!

 

[Ozbenno]

Ha! Nice turns Nebbie lover!!!

I'm all in favour of wonder spamming, whether it is Hanging Gardens, Pyramids (WE ARE EGYPT!!!) or Hoover Dam.

Tech for improving our resources always a good idea (and we have plenty of workers).

Roster:
pholkhero >> on deck
Ozbenno >>
jguy100 >> Found a BFF
PiR >> UP NOW
OPEN? >> just waiting the right moment to join

 

[PiR]

The south scout is exploring and getting a bit of Legitimacy. He found water and is now wondering if he should turn back.

The northen scout feels very unsafe with those nasty tribal humanoids and hides in trees, eager to leave this part of the world soon:

Back in the capital, architects devised plans for the Hanging Gardens and secured the necessary materials. They're wondering where to put it now.
There is one option that would allow to annex more territory, but the worker feels tempted to harvest the resources in those tiles. Hmmmm that is so tempting, and would be following the advice of Pharaoh's personal advisor, Dale.



The Ramesside family puts a lot of pressure to dominate animals and use them to our advantage in fighting our enemies, current and future. They believe this could enhance our capacity to deliver more orders to our troops as well. We will now research Husbandry!

General Isis the Extravagant grows tired of sitting idle on the border. In a rash move, she decided to go after the barbarian camp behind the mountain.

 

[PiR]

Turn 13

He's definitely foolish but brave.

Talking about foolish! The whole Royal Family and Advisors from the capital gather. What shall be the fate of our foolish husband?

(forgiving him will move his opinion to +80, not enough for any bonus improvement)


At the same time, taking advantage of their new illegally acquired tech, the Carthaginians press us into war... with a people we haven't met?

 

[jguy100]

@PiR I think we have met the Vandals, I see them in an earlier screenshot.

Talk about bad luck....we have a terrible stepson, a terrible husband, terrible neighbors. One day we will rid the world of all these terrible problems!

 

[pholkhero]

yeah, i met the vandals in my set. my screenshot is the tutorial window where you can't actually see the vandal camp. they are to our east.

i wonder if we imprison Ahmose, can we remarry? his son's crazy, and goes attacking barbarians just because he lived in the woods for a few years and thinks he's a were-jaguar, and he's selling state secrets to Samson the Sadducee Strangler! i l feel like maybe we fulfill our ambition with city 3 and 4, with 3 being Sages and 4 being Military, and we beef things up a bit with more units. Maybe settle SW and NE at the barb site on the coast there.

but we should get a bit of an army; I'm feeling very vulnerable.

great turns all! chuffed at how well the game's going

 

[PiR]

All agree that our husband misconducted and we cannot tolerate such BEHAVIOR NO MORE!!!!! TRAITOR! RUN, TRAITOR, RUN!!!

Because of his stupidity, we now have to appease our neighbors who got our military tech, and be at war with the Vandals! Well, sooner or later...

Meanwhile, our scouts continue their journeys. In the south, we found a white powder that tastes like nothing else, and decide to call it salt!
And, oh my, is there a hot meal waiting for us between these columns?

Well, no. There were actually hungry people.

A new tech!!! I cannot resist, sorry.


While in the north, we found more hills, mountains, and clouds.

Our worker continues to harvest instead of focusing on wonders as we ordered. He may have to be exiled with our husband.

 

[PiR]

Year 14

In the mountain passes, our warrior, led by Isis, fought ferocely the barbarians that were coming to our lands! Praise Isis and her ingenuity to address this threat!

She may be the mother of a stupid child, but as a general she may have some merit. Let's try to enhance her opinion of Our Majesty.

Turn 15

And while one scout has managed to find Nebbie's capital

the other is wondering if it wise from Carthage to build so many cities so close to a volcano, as tempting as taking the sites from Vandals can be.

Please note that our crazy harvester worker has been delested of the Honoring Task of building a Wonder. The most obeying one has been asked to perform this Holy Duty instead.

Speaking of Holy... A new city has brought us new thoughts...

Clearly the gods are... ahem, the One God is on our side.

as all Egyptians should.


While one scout found its way out of Nebbie's territory, the one was not so lucky. God always favored the southern one anyway.

While she has a poor husband, she is still head of her family. Now is time for her to lead the Slinger and go fight the Vandals. We cannot tolerate a threat so close.

Did I mention the disobeying worker has been brought back into our lands and tasked to join our new city with the capital?

 

[PiR]

Did I mention the disobeying worker has been brought back into our lands and tasked to join our new city with the capital?



Oh, my. Time flies. Meroe even has its own worker, building a pasture to get more orders, and thinking about quarries for more stone. Let's chat a bit with the head of Judaism about of quickly life goes on. Maybe then we'll try to capture our husband, wherever he might be.

 

[PiR]

Guess it's back to you, @pholkhero

 

[Ozbenno]

Meanwhile, our scouts continue their journeys. In the south, we found a white powder that tastes like nothing else, and decide to call it salt!

Sure, salt

Nice work all. Been a fun start....

 

[pholkhero]

alrightey, i've got it. will probably play tomorrow, but is there a hanging gardens built? if not, will make that priority 1. also, after the stonecutter, probably queue up another settler, and maybe more workers.

feel free to leave your ideas and suggestions in the meantime

 

[Dale]

Nice start. I have a couple of suggestions moving forwards.

- Pyramids after Gardens. We ARE Egypt!
- Some disciples to spread religion to Chad. If Babs convert, keeping our religion happy keeps them happy.
- Rider city build units. 2:1 ranged to melee.