THREE games feast, will do this Cordoba game, Franks, then Byzantines (tomorrow).
The year tis 915AD and Juan Carlos de Charis y Borbon takes the reigns of
power. We're in settling mode, and pre-Sword production, so it's a building turn.
The build queues look good, although I wonder about the temple in valencia.
It's to pull in the wool lux. Hmm... would there be any problem using an extra
city instead? Less shields, more unit support, more income. It will take 12 turns
to grow enough to do that, so I swap but next leader can veto and go back. Actually,
Lisbon DID get a temple and will pull in wool, so temple at Valenica now makes no sense.
It changes its mind again and starts a rax. Toledo swaps temple to rax too.
[0] 915 - A smidgeon-rush at Cadiz, swap Archer-rush-swap back to save 3 shields at a
cost of 12g to grow the city one quicker.
[1] 918 - Cordoba warr->sword placeholder. Odd, both blockades only have two units
and so can't stop anything. We keep slowing them, but won't be able to stop
either. It seems ok though, as we'll capture whatever is built so close to capital.
A fateful worker action, we go to hookup our iron, due in 3.
Exploration... who are we missing? Norwegians, Swedes, Rus, Abbasid, Turks, Poland,
and England. The norther Curragh will hit three of those. Our Ansar presses east.
[2] 921 - Cadiz settler->settler. Granada is founded on the east coast.
Curragh meets the Abbasids.
[3] 924 - Malaga founded on SW coast. Ansar who swung a tad north sees Poland. His
next stops are Rus and Turks. Valencia the city of the wishy-washy sees it needs
more improvements and roads, and detours from rax to worker briefly.
[4] 927 - Castille settler IS going for that very last backrow spot. French settler
is going for what seems to be spot due SE of Cordoba, a nice spot to capture someday.
Iron is connected, first made sword due in Cordoba next turn. We have 148g+21gpt
and can afford and will do two upgrades, plus one more next turn. Swords for pointy
stick are better than cash over the next 10-20 turns.
IBT - We hear of a massive barb uprising near Cadiz? Not a chance. It must be over
in Morocco. Too bad for the Fatamids
[5] 930 - We meet the English and Rus. Just Fatamids and 3 northern vikings left.
IBT - Madrid founded behind us. A Danish *zerk* shows up in neutral land right next
to Valencia? EEP! Is he coming for us?! I doubt it, but will keep an eye.
[6] 933 - Lisbon rax->Sword, pulling 5spt. Two swords head northernly, in general
direction of the lost Dane. Our ships and Keshik keep on movin...
IBT - France starts HRE!!
[7] 936 - France must be in the new age. Holy Roman Empire is a super wonder,
and will catapult whoever gets it into the Knight era. A sad day indeed.
Cadiz Settler->Settler. Yes, 'prime' spots are gone, but for upkeep and economy,
why not let this settler farm keep working? Sevile rax->Sword, also now 5spt
Oh, the French settler turned around when Madrid was founded.
Where to send the settler? I look over old notes, and one choice is the red dot just
SE of Cordoba. Hmm, I rather like the idea of settling in the Hills towards
Salamanca, both to give us a forward base of operations there, and more important,
to prevent them from founding another 'hill' city. It's 1 step up and 1 step NW from
the horse, which is 3 steps from both Lisbon and Salamanca.
IBT - Germans and Burgundy all start HRE. At 500 shields, we have about 35 turns.
[8] 939 - Minor note on preferences. Please turn **OFF** "Cancel orders for Friendly
Combat unit" and "Cancel orders for Enemy combat" unit. We just lost 2 worker turns
for that when the French spear walked by a worker. Our ship beats our Ansar in
finding Sweden (or a Swedish ship anyway), so the rider heads to Turkey.
IBT - Poles and English join in the HRE parade.
[9] 942 - I consider stopping short on the settler to let him build on the
river, but that would crowd the capital too much, and besides it doesn't have
food to support >size 6 anyway, so 1 further north is better spot. He moves.
[10] 945 - Cordoba expands. You get an extra half-turn to play with. I woke up
all swords so you can start to move them where you want. Alas two are pinned down
as the only defender of a city, but most others are free to go. Also, the
settler is right in place where I want to but him, but will allow a veto there.
Notes to next leader:
- Cadiz is a no-MM-needed one settler per 5 turns setup, although
our need for that is declining. Still, why not use settlers to shift two pop from
high food Cadiz to slower growing front line cities?!
(Actually, the mining of the hill just threw off the exact cadence.
- Cordoba needs a hill or plains mined to hit 10spt. Two workers just moved onto a hill.
I just gave Cadiz tile to Cordoba and it's 13spt. Mine the hill and it will be 15!
- It's time for war very soon. We have all vet warriors upgraded, for a total now of
8 swordsman! It's time to rock on Castille. The only question, and it's a good one to
discuss, is the tactical plan. Our roads to the front are poor. Castille only has five
fair cities, plus hopeless Madrid stuck behind us (still size 1, btw)
I would be prone myself to hit Salamanca first, then head straight to Leon. Hmm,
wait a minute... as a non-playable they only have two kings. If they are in those two
cities, we'll lose the chance to capture and keep ALL the rest. Now for some reason
I can NOT lookup the location of kings for non-playable civs in my editor. Does someone
know where Castilles are, or even better, what I'm doing wrong not to see them in editor?
In that case, we may well want to leave the capital Leon for *last*. E.g. start at
two nice cities, Salamanca and Navarre. Then from Salamanca to Santiago, and other
backfill units hit Olieda and if Madrid is size 2, hit it as well. Only then
make pointy stick peace, either for horses or more likely buy horses and extort
Castle Building. Then in 20 turns finish them by sacking Leon.
- The remaining contacts are turks (SE of Ansar), Norwegians (NE of curragh), and Fatmids (W of curragh)
- I drew up more dots to settle once we take over Castille, and there's PLENTY more
for Cabriz to crank out.
Our look at the terrain...
RBC13B Cordoba 945AD
Arathorn <-- on deck
Justus
Charis
Corrado <-- UP
Good luck!
Charis
Somehow that part got lost in translation. 
