RBC12H - Fall of Rome, Anglo-Saxons (Demigod)

[Sir Bugsy]

Pre-flight – We are behind most of the world in science. Let’s see what we can do. Remember that gold and silver are resources in this game that can be traded.

I decide to wait until Pillaging comes in next turn to trade. Writing will be expensive otherwise. Both Visigoths and Ostrogoths want 101G, 5GPT & Contact with the Celts for it. Plus I won’t get as much resale for it. Pillaging is the key.

Stop the worker chopping the forest near Bremen since the chop is due on the same turn the barracks will complete. Move the worker to Repton and merge him in. We’re getting 6 spt and we need to improve some tiles.

Not sure why we have two curraghs scouting the coast. I’ll send the second as far as the west coast of Africa and turn him around.


IBT – Pillaging comes in. Select Barbarian Leadership
Kiel: Migrant=> Migrant
Lubeck: Barracks=> Raider
Bremen: Barracks=> Raider
Hohwacht: Migrant=> Worker
Cirencester: Barracks=>Raider

1. 364 AD – Time for some trading:

Ostrogoths have met the Celts.
Visigoths haven’t, oh and they have a worker.

Trade Pillaging to Visigoths for Writing and a worker.
Sell Writing to Celts for HBR & 2G.

We have horses on either side of Kiel.

Trade Ostrogoths Math for Pillaging.

Change Bremen and Cirencester over to a catapult.

We are down five techs to X-man, one to the Hun. Even with the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, and ahead of the rest of the barbarian tribes.

Adjust the science slider to 70%. Get Barbarian Leadership (Scourge of God) in 16 turns at +1 gpt.

IBT - The Franks grabbed the prime spot on the river south of Timmendorf. We can still cram one in.

2. 366 AD – Check on cost of SoG. It is 200 shields. We presently have about 44 shields in the box. At 6 spt, that puts it about 26 turns out. I’ll need to get a lot more production going there.

IBT – The Franks have another settler pair headed towards the river south of Timmendorf. I’ll try a block.
Lindsey: Worker=> worker

3. 368 AD – Start workers improving the area around Repton.

Drop science to 60%, Barb Leadership still due in 14. Look into some trades with X-man, but it would cripple our economy.

Hire a scientist in Kiel for a turn.

IBT – Kiel: migrant=> migrant
Hohwacht: Worker=> raider
Exeter: Worker=> Barracks
4. 370 AD – Found Hampshire to the east. Start Barracks.
IBT – Frankish settler pair doesn’t settle.
Eisleben: Worker=> Barracks
The Byzantines are building Justinian’s Leadership.

5. 372 AD – Found Nottingham south of Timmendorf on the west side of the river. Start Barracks.

Vandals have a worker for sale. Have we bought a Vandal yet? Check F3… no. Sell Math to the Vandals for a worker & 1G.

Realize that Lubeck is under some serious cultural pressure. Switch the raider to a temple. This might be and can be vetoed.

IBT – Bremen: Cat=> Cat
Ashdown: worker=> barracks
The Romans are building Justinian’s Leadership. The Byzantines switch cities they are building it in.


6. 374 AD – Join two workers to Repton. That puts it at 9 spt. Need to bump the lux up to 30% though. With about 70 shields in the box., we’ll have 200 shields in 15 turns. Barb leadership is due in 10 turns. I hope adding those two workers in wasn’t

IBT – Kiel: migrant=> migrant

7. 376 AD -

IBT – Hohwacht: Raider=> Barracks
Lindsey: worker=> Barracks
Timmendorf: Barracks=> Pillager

8. 378 AD – Found Wittenberg on east side. Start Barracks.

IBT – Byzantines swap cities on their Justinian build again.

9. 380 AD -

IBT – Kiel: Migrant=>Pillager (I think we’re almost out of room. Obviously vetoable)
Bremen: Cat=> Cat
Chippenham: Pillager=> Pillager
Cirencester: Cat=> Pillager
Byzantines move it again.

10. 382 AD -

After Action Report: We have 14 raiders, mostly on MP duty. Three cats, and a pillager. We still have a lot of tile improvement to go. It looks like we’ll be one of the first to get Barb Leadership. I think we’ve got a great chance for the SoG. I think we’re just about at the end of expansion and we should start building our military. I have barracks being built where ever possible.

One thought I had over the night is that I shouldn’t have cats being built in barracks cities. Maybe we should switch over one or two of the cities building barracks to cats.

There is a settler ready to settle SE of Timmendorf. We have another settler, maybe he can be squeezed in somewhere to the east, or used as a combat settler to replace a razed Roman town.

Screen shot to follow.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC12H,_382_AD.zip

 

[Sir Bugsy]

 

[T_McC]

The Great Kabuki is now up!

Took a gander at the save, and have a few thoughts:

If we would give Repton (SoW pre-build city) another MP and a cow tile, we can get another couple of spt. Would shave 2 turns off the Scourge build. Then we could just spit a couple of workers back out (10 spt) if we wanted to reduce the lux tax. Also be sure to get a (20-shield) Barracks there before the 1st Warlord is generated! I think that will be Elvis' concern.

The reason those Curraghs were wandering around was to increase the value of our WM. We could get some money from the Byz for it now, Caesar is busted. I agree that at least a couple of them should come back to port, as we may need to "assist" the Celts with eliminating the (hopefully) 8th city of the Western Romans in England. The boat in the Mediterranean is a good candidate to return.

The Franks lack Pillaging, and the Vandals have no Iron. Now, where are the Vandals? Our Eastern neighbor. This hints at a game plan: Us, the Franks, the Celts, and the Vandals against Western Rome to begin with. We will likely have the strongest units so the Romans should target the other two, then we whack the weakened Franks and the Vandals to score some elimination points. Not something that has to happen on the next 10 turns, but we are starting to gear up the war machine.

Oh, even though the Vandals lack Iron, we don't want to be waving empty border cities at them. If a city is not on our road network it can build a 10-shield MP Raider. Regular or vet, with a defense of 1 it's toast against any real unit.

What do we research after Barbarian Leadership? I vote Map Making before Sacking, as we will have a hard enough time building 40-shield attackers, much less 70-shield units.

With forest chops taking 10 turns in this scenario, I think they are a waste of time. We may get better mileage out of irrigating most grassland to allow for more forests to be worked.

I might move the southern Migrant 1 SW, to the river. May not be a big deal, as I don't think many of our cities will be larger than size 6 anyway. The northern migrant might head for the tile 1 S of the fish, NE of Hampshire.

If there are any wars going on, no one has lost a city yet.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I think we'll have some very good trading opportunities with Barb Leadership. If we get there first, we can get most known techs. Hopefully that includes map making. If we don't get MM, then by all means research it next. Perhaps we should start building some more curraghs for upgrading.

A lot of stuff to build. Maybe we should think about expanding into Frank territory sooner rather than later. We could probably snag eight cities pretty quickly. The extra production would help our war machine.

I like the war plan. Although we will want to have several galleys to get units to England.

Hopefully we will get some cash from trading and be able to upgrade our raiders and curraghs.

Also good plan for increasing Repton's production. It should be a serious production machine for us. If we get it to 10 spt, that city will crank them out. I didn't want to mess around with forest chops or anything there.

 

[Kabuki]

Got it, I'll get to it in a bit.

Comments: We might just want to eliminate the Franks first. If we are using Pillagers and Warlords it first of all gives us the opportunity for some armies, and secondly more units... It's also conveniently on the way. It also expands our production base.

Regarding production - For Warlords we need to have 10+ spt for it to be useful - so I think irrigating gasslands and using forests is much more efficient here. I'll check the details once I start up. W.r.t. defence - we may want some spears and/or building heavier units for MP as the Raiders are not particularily useful in this respect.

I'll probably spend most of my turn setting up an appropriate strike force for our first target. After we plow through that on our way to Rome we should have the resources to take on Rome at whcih point we definately want to think about alliances, but we do need to clean up our back yard first.

Comments? Suggestions? I'll play in an hour or two so comment to your hearts content before that.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I just read in the Visigoth thread that there aren't any culture flips. We need to switch the temple build I have going on the coast.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of eliminating the Franks. Sounds like an attack force is a great idea.

 

[Arathorn]

I just read in the Visigoth thread that there aren't any culture flips.

That seems to be an error by Arathorn. According to Charis in the Celts thread, there are flips, and a number of people have mentioned how flips count towards the 8 city eliminatin criteria. Sorry for the misinformation.

Arathorn

 

[Sir Bugsy]

*roseanne roseannadanna voice* Never mind.

 

[T_McC]

I agree on setting up to attack the Franks. The only drawback to hitting them hard is that we create a longer front with the Romans, and remove "softer targets" for them to attack. But eliminating the Franks would also give us more time and training to attack the Romans, and if we can lead the Roman assault with a couple of Warlord armies, it will be well worth it.

Culture flips are ON. There is some discrepancy in a few threads, but I firmly believe they are on. If we are going to attack the Franks, we may want to veto the Temple anyway, as the Frankish capital will be the first city to go, removing the cultural pressure. A vet Pillager or two could be worth more than the Temple.

Not a consideration yet, but ... If this scenario plays like the regular game, Warlord (or Pillager) armies will be able to enslave.

We will probably need 20 turns to actually get an attack force built, so Kabuki and Elvis don't have to feel as though they must start to attack.

 

[Kabuki]

It was tribal council leader Kabuki's turn to run the Anglo-Saxon tribe. There were no expectations of upcoming conflicts, no real expected problems and in the end not much happened during his reign.

His self assumed mandate upon seeing the map was to create some steel from the existing paper (thin defence).

Wow! My jaw dropped when I saw the lack of defence. The Frank attack force just to our south would have been able to cause crippling damage if they timed it right. It took me a while to get over the shock, so I ended up playing some of it this morning.

IHT (382)
- Things look pretty good, but I decide to sell Math around and get a good chunk of cash for it (about 50 total). This was by no means full value, but it keeps cash out of the hands of our opponents and it was out there anyways (the Huns have always been ahead of us).

- Set Barbarian Leadership to 4 turns @ -8gpt

- MM Repton for max growth (1) so that production can be upped faster.

IBT - Byzantium starts Justinian's Leadership

1 (384)
- Settled Winchester -> Barracks
- Timmendorf from Pillager (@17) to spear for MP.

2 (386)
- Hohwacht - Barracks -> Spearman

3 (388)

4 (390)
- Barbarian Leadership is in -> Sacking in 13
- Huns start the Scourge
- Repton to Scourge in 6

Trade:
BL to Visigoths TM, MM, 2g
BL to Ostrogoths COL, TM, 2g
WM to the rest for about 15-20g total.
Huns already have BL which meant we couldn't get Construction or Currency Hopefully we can get to sacking first.

- Found Edington in the south by the two cows.

5 (392)
- Kiel - Pillager -> Pillager (MM Kiel to produce Pill in 5), needs one more shield to get to 4 turns (7 for WL).
- Bremen - Catapult -> Worker
- Eisleben - Barracks -> Spearmen

Visigoths are building SOG

IBT - Theodora wants our TM and 24g and I cave.

6 (394)
- Exeter - barracks -> Spear
- Hampshire goes into unrest (my mistake as it went to four w/o MP) though no one else follows suit.
- I sell our map around to maintain deficit research - and I do this every turn. If I get 12 gold in 2-3 turns it buys us one more round of research... and after the extortion everything counts if we want sacking first to get the rest of the techs from the Huns.

Ostrogoths are building SOG

7 (396)
- Bremen - Worker -> Spear
- Hohwacht - Spear -> pillager
- Wittenberg - Barracks -> Spear

8 (398)
- Timmendorf - Spear -> Courthouse

Vandals start SOG

9 (400)
The Scourge Of God :devil2: is Built!!!

- Repton -> Barracks (2)
- Lindsey - Barracks -> Spear
- Hampshire - Barracks -> Spear

10 (402)
- Kiel - Pillager -> Pillager

I've sold maps for this turn.

Byzantium starts St. Peter's and the Hagia Sophia

State of the tribe:

Ok, defenses aren't paper thin anymore... they are more like cardboard cut-outs... I wish someone had build Marauders before. Gaa! We have none of the most cost-efficient unit around (4-2-1 for 20) - They cost the same as a spear for 4 times the attack... anyways, enough whining. I think current unit production should continue at leat until each city has two spears. Anything excss should be poured into pillagers/Warlords.

With respect to general production - we want as many 10spt towns as possible. 10 spt is a WL every 7 turns, that is generally good as long as we are producing a steady stream of them. The second tier mark is 7spt for spearmen/catapults/migrants in 3.

We are up 3 techs on the Franks, and various on all but the Huns, Sassanids, and the two Roman factions. We are down two to the Hun and at least 3 to the rest. If we don't mind being completely dastardly we should be able to get most of the needed techs off the Romans before decalring war...

Overall analysis - I think we are doing ok. My build sugestion of tight clustering is both good and bad. If we can manage to get the tiles right we should have more cities doing ok (10spt) rather than a couple doing very well (15+spt). I think alllowing Repton and Kiel to max out as much as possible is good as they are already doing quite well.

And finally here is the save

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Elvis is up.

The reason I didn't go for spearmen, is that with only 2 defense and 1 offense, they aren't as good as a pillager with 4 offense and 2 defense. Although I suppose there is something to be said about quantity over quality. Just two different ways of looking at it I suppose.

If Elvis can put together three SoDs, T_McC and start out on the warpath, make short work of the Franks, and start our GA. We might need some migrants to fill in Frankland.

 

[Kabuki]

As MP Pillagers are way to expensive, Pillagers are 6(9B)/2/1 (40), you were thinking about Marauders (our tier two unit) which is 4(6B)/2/1 20 cost, but that auto-upgrades when the new tech came in, which is what created the problem where you now suddenly have 40 shield units being produced for MP rather than the anticipated 20.

Spears are our only available 20 or less cost unit for defense. Interestingly the only unit with greater than 2 defense that we get is the Warlord with 3 (8(12B)/3/1 70).

In this regard, in final analysis, the spears are excellent for MP, basic defense and VP snatching, mainly because they cost almost 1/4 of our basic attack unit. The other option is horsemen for their two movement, which make it easy to bring them up as VP snatching reinforcements.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I stand corrected. At 20 shields, spearmen do make a lot of sense. And yes, our defensive position stinks to high heaven. Defense 3 against legions @ attack 4 and Heavy cavs @ attack 5 will wilt under that type of offense. I guess we will need to hit them first as often as possible.

 

[T_McC]

I'm looking at the save, and have a few thoughts:

I don't think we should be researching hard towards Sacking. We have enough problems building 40-shield units, we don't want to turn them into 70-shield builds until we have an existing offensive force. Science to 20% nets us Sacking in 17, which sounds about right. This strategy also gives us some cash to upgrade units with. Even regular Pillagers might be worth the cash to upgrade from Raiders.

We also need cash to form embassies. Not for any Frankish conflict, but when we attack Rome we want a full-out dogpile.

Repton and Kiel can easily make 10 spt. It might be worthwhile to cede one of the cows at Repton back to Bremen, as we really can't sustain Repton much larger than size 7.

We are currently running the lux tax at 30% just for Repton. If we drop to 20% and create a taxman in Repton, we can boost income by 11 gpt.

Not sure what Kabuki meant by "dastardly", but if we buy from either Rome on gpt, I fully expect us to honor the deal. Buying from them if they are going to attack us is OK, let them break the deal. Also, no buying from Rome and declaring on the Byzantines to break the gpt committment. We don't need to do that to win.

The Franks are dead with a Capital D. Their only route to Iron goes through our territory, and they don't have horses. They will only have Spears and Raiders when we attack. I suspect we can do this about the middle of my turns. We still need a few turns to build up an attack force, even against a weak foe.

So, do we capture, or raze-and-replace? Dispargum, Soissons, ... oops, accidentally hit next turn ... looks like the Visigoths and Ostrogoths are throwing down ... Marseilles is in an OK spot, but could be moved, maybe a couple of Cities to replace Tongres and grab the wines. I think we could end up with 3 irons, so maybe we'll have something good to trade. Anyway, looks like mostly razes and then a scramble for the rest of the land when the Franks go *poof*.

Do we want to consider postponing our GA? May not need Warlords against the Franks, but I can't see a real benefit to waiting. We'll get more Pillagers to upgrade, and cash to upgrade them with. So, my first guess at a war strategy is to not discover Sacking until at least partway through our GA. Accumulate a pile of cash and Pillagers, then turn research back on and upgrade. If we can keep this a 1-on-1 war, we should be in a very strong position to attack Western Rome.

Elvis1985, you are UP!

 

[Bede]

Quoth T_McC
I don't think we should be researching hard towards Sacking. We have enough problems building 40-shield units, we don't want to turn them into 70-shield builds until we have an existing offensive force. Science to 20% nets us Sacking in 17, which sounds about right. This strategy also gives us some cash to upgrade units with. Even regular Pillagers might be worth the cash to upgrade from Raiders.

We also need cash to form embassies. Not for any Frankish conflict, but when we attack Rome we want a full-out dogpile.

Repton and Kiel can easily make 10 spt. It might be worthwhile to cede one of the cows at Repton back to Bremen, as we really can't sustain Repton much larger than size 7.

We are currently running the lux tax at 30% just for Repton. If we drop to 20% and create a taxman in Repton, we can boost income by 11 gpt. ....End Quoth

As usual, you've put your finger on the core issues. This is a shield/luxury/gold poor scenario. Maintaining a research budget, keeping pop6 and above cities content and productive, and producing shield heavy military units requires a truly delicate balance.

Our greatest potential trading partner will always be the Sassinids. They will have money when the other tribes and the two Romes won't. Also trading with the Romes, as you pointed out will involve very careful management.

From all this I conclude that refocusing research on the "Civilized" tree will be more to our advantage than researching Sacking. With the other techs we will have greater diplomatic and trading opportunities, as maps and contacts and alliances have high values in this scenario. So acquiring Writing and Map Making should have higher priority than the last first age barbarian tech. Also that tech will increase our offensive unit shield cost dramatically and the upgrade cost to Warlords will make you gasp.

Building pillagers and or marauders to support the SoG Warlords makes good sense. As combined forces they should do a good job of hammering the Franks into the sea. Putting a couple of outlying cities to the task of producing raiders then shipping them home for eventual upgrade also makes sense so long as we can run them through the stepped upgrade path

Have fun Elvis

 

[T_McC]

Just to keep this from becoming confusing:

We have already acquired Writing and Map Making. Our research choices are Sacking (Barbarian tree), Polytheism (com-freaking-pletely useless), Currency, Construction, or Imperialism (the gov't we don't want to be in). None of the Barbarian tribes has a tech we don't, except for the Huns. The Sassinids and both Romes have all techs we (and they) can research.

So we can't trade techs to the Romes or Sassanids. Most of the Barbarian tribes have to catch up to us, and currently have nothing to trade for any tech we discover (They are also pretty much broke). The Huns are an interesting case: They already have Poly and Currency, thus are almost inevitably researching either Construction or Sacking. We could probably trade Sacking for Construction, but not vice versa.

Our research choice really boils down to either Sacking or Construction. The best thing about Construction is that it allows research on Fortification, which is the tech that allows river crossings. I believe research should stay on Sacking, and turned way down. We should try to discover Sacking about the time we are eliminating the Franks. We can very likely trade Sacking for any non-Barbarian tech the other tribes research. We all also know how to advantageously broker techs between AI civs. If we research anything else, we are less likely to get much value out of it.

I don't think we should push hard for Sacking because we don't need Warlords to eliminate the Franks. We can do it with freshly built vet Pillagers and Raiders upgraded to regular Pillagers. Keeping research low allows us to upgrade more Raiders, and to go to war with the Franks sooner. The sooner the Franks are eliminated, and our regular troops are promoted, and the sooner we can attack Western Rome. More cash also allows us to buy embassies so we can start a dogpile when we do attack Rome.

We can no longer build Marauders. Turn 40, and we've discovered 10 techs. We are also the #1 Barbarian tribe in VP's. Only 10,000 behind the Romes.

I will PM Elvis, as he probably forgot he was in this game.

 

[T_McC]

Since we are heading for 96 hours since a turn was played, Elvis has until 6 PM EST (GMT -5) Monday to play and post. Otherwise he is skipped, and I will pick the game up.

 

[T_McC]

Hate to do this, but Elvis is skipped.

I have the game, and will play and post tonight.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Here's something that was posted in the the Sassanids thread by Caesar Augustus that I thought would be good data for the team

Originally posted by Caesar_Augustus
A little map to help with our planning:

 

[T_McC]

RBC12-H - Anticipation

402 AD (0)
Not having seen an opposing viewpoint since I posted my thoughts ("strategery"), I'll go ahead and implement them. Sci to 20%, Pillaging in 17. Repton cedes the river-Cow to Bremen, runs a taxman for break-even food and 10 spt. We may be able to revist this later, but for now there is no functional difference between 10 spt and 12 spt. Lux to 20%, income to +31 gpt. (Was -12 gpt).

I felt it was less important to get Sacking 1st, and more important to give ourselves a chance to build up an attacking force. We can still trade Sacking for other techs, even if we are not the first to discover it. Besides, we get a few Warlords for free.

Kiel is on an ugly 9 spt. Will be fixed with a little labor. Have it work the Horses tile, get a couple of bucks. Still like the Temple in Lubeck, can probably get to 5 spt with it. MM needed here next turn. Chippenham switched to Courthouse, 6 spt is much better than 4 spt. Timmendorf requires MM. Winchester to Walls. Howacht to Spearman. Could Edington be more of a cultural push?

Preliminary guess: No war on these turns. We need a lot of troops built, and likely won't make it by the end of these turns.

Spend next turns income on an Embassy with the Vandals:

No iron, garrison of 7. Building a worthless Library. Working all the wrong tiles.

<Return>

IT - Apparently the Celts have a very valuable WM?

404 AD (1)
Repton: Barracks --> Spear. Get the MP out of the way early in this city. I'll build a couple, maybe three spears.
Howecht: Spear --> Spear
Eiselbein: Spear --> Spear
Winchester: Walls --> Catapult

Someone discovered Sacking, (Ostrogoths) ETA is now 14 turns. Bunch of units on GoTo.

Diplo check.
Make some pennies trading WM around. Trade Brennus Map Making for his WM (~100 gold value) + 2 gold. This included the TM's of the Eastern civs. The Visigoths apparently have the Roman WM, as there is another 250 gold value there. Don't need it. Sell him ours for 3 gold.

406 AD (2)
Sacking just became common knowledge, as our ETA goes to 4 turns. Research OFF. We make +50 gpt. We would have gotten it last anyway. Have no idea how a couple of these guys got the tech with no money and nothing to trade, but oh well. No units complete this turn.

Diplo:
Anytime we want, we could buy Sacking for 90 gold. That can wait. Make about 5 gold selling WM. We're now behind everyone in tech, except the Franks.

Sped this turns money on upgrading two vet Raiders to Pillagers. (Keeps extortion threat down.)

Whip the Temple in Lubeck. Run taxman in Exeter to prevent rioting. Edington switched to Walls.

408 AD (3)
Retpon: Spear --> Spear.
Bremen: Spear --> Spear.

Make 4 gold trading WM.

410 AD (4)
Chippenham: Court --> Spear
Repton spawns Warlord!
Wittenberg: Spear --> Spear
Edington: Walls --> Catapult

Get 4 gold selling our map, and upgrade two more vet Raiders to Pillagers. Also hatch a truly evil plan, switching Repton to a Horseman.

412 AD (5)
Kiel: Pillager --> Spear
Hohwacht: Spear --> Spear
Exeter: Spear --> Spear

Misclick and pillage a road tile in neutral territory.

414 AD (6)
Repton: Horseman --> Pillager
Hampshire: Spear --> Spear

Pawn WM around, use the last couple of turns proceeds to establish Embassies with the Celts (no Horses, garrison of 6 spears)

and Visigoths (no Horses, have Iron and Gold, garrison of 6 spears).

416 AD (7)
My plan to keep cash low hits a snag, as Caesar jacks us up for 19 gold.
Kiel: Spear --> Pillager
Bremen: Spear --> Spear
Cirencester: Spear --> Spear

Upgrade final(?) vet Raider to Pillager.

418 AD (8)
Chippenham: Spear --> Spear
Hohwacht: Spear --> Spear

420 AD (9)
Repton spawns another Warlord
Lindsey: Cat --> Migrant (by the time this finishes, it might come in handy.)

Fumble-finger and pillage three tiles, one of which was in our territory. Stupid interface, do all the workers in a row, then the military units!

Have some spare change burning a hole in my pocket, so upgrade a couple of regular Raiders to Pillagers.

422 AD (10)
Repton: Pillager --> Pillager
Ashdown: Spear --> Spear
Wittenberg: Spear --> Spear

Nothing much else exciting.

I use my last bit of cash to establish an Embassy with the Franks, and get this peek:

Size 1, running a clown. Garrison of 10! units.

That Pillager they are building, well, it should be the last one they build, as the next player will find a Horseman of ours off south of Marseilles. If he pillages the square he is standing on, the route to the Frankish capital is cut. In fact, their Iron city will not be connected to any other city in their empire.

I told you I had an evil plan. :devil2:

Final notes:
We have a growing offensive stack south of Repton. The next player likely gets to launch the attack, so they can move troops where they want them. We have just about built enough Spears, I don't believe there are any Pillagers pulling MP duty, except in places we expect to attack from. Next player may want to shift those cities to Cats. It appears as though no one is fighting.

Our Military Stats:

Raiders: 7 (-7)
Spears: 19 (+17)
Horsemen: 1 (+1)
Cats: 4 (0)
Warlords: 2 (+2)
Pillagers: 13 (+10)

Average compared to the Franks.

Take it away, Bede!

Anglo-Saxual Healing