RR8 - God in Suburbia

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Well, we can take peace as soon as we take the shrine, but before our victim switches religion because his remaining cities have another one... The shrine rule does give an interesting twist to this! (oh, more rule questions, by "shrine" do we literally mean shrine or just the holy city? I hope the latter, that gives enough of a twist as it is.... Otherwise we'll have to spam some GPriests before going to war...)

I'd say shrine not "only" the holy city! This woud definitely force us to some unusual gameplay as we may need some more priests than scientists!
Something about the praets: We still don't know where the bud founder is located. In case he's on the other side of the sea we cannot just rush him! And yes we could try for hindu but wouldn't it be more useful to querry the stone bit earlier??

 

[r_rolo1]

In case he's on the other side of the sea we cannot just rush him!

I have two words for you, just two words: Inland sea

 

[Silu]

I agree with Thy about the shrine/holycity thingy, forcing shrines would definitely spice things up - the concept of "War Prophets" is also fun Incidentally it would make Oracle more lucrative again Not really sure which way to go. I'd still perhaps prefer Masonry and ~early 'Mids. Or maybe Oracle -> 'Mids. Hard choice

Inland sea doesn't really make it that much more lucrative to rush the guy on the opposite shore Though possible, of course.

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Ok, as most players are not that keen on funding our own religion, I'll go for masonry first to pick up the stone. I'm pretty sure we won't get any chance for hindu even if we'll head straight for it.
Will play until Masonry is in to discuss further steps!

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Ok here my first 10 turns:

IT:
Changed tech towards masonry.

3080:
Warrior in Rom finished. Started on another one.

2920:
Once again a warrior finished and once again I went for another one as I wanted to wait 'til size 3 before starting the settler.

2880:
We beat a lion and met this guy:

Spoiler :

He came from the east..

2840:
Our woodyII beat a lion too, and this man too came from the east:

Spoiler :

2800:
Masonry in. We found 40 gold within a hut and finally I started on the settler.

Here's the map of our eastern land:

Spoiler :

So still no Hindu!!! And we still didn't find any borders, did we? So the questions to be answered: How will we go on from here? Will we get the settler out and start on the mids in rom? Where do we want to settle our second city? Techwise BW could be an option for one or two chops.. Or do we want to delay the settler til size 4 and slavery while getting out some more warriors for scouting? Or maybe we really want to go for mono as neither anybody founded a rel nor is there a religious freak around. So the chance to get at least one to our rel seems to be quite high in case we get to OR fast enough!

 

[Silu]

Holy CRAP the surrounding land is...well, crap. We definitely want to expand slow, so wonderhogging early sounds great. I'm not opposed to GW either, with the Stone and slow expansion giving more ground for barbs to spawn. That's more pollution and anti-GPr action, but still...

A very probable shot at 'Mids could take care of our science needs, so maybe we'd be free to chase after the Judaist/Oracle path right now after all? Mysti->Poly->PH->Mono? The "boring" alternative is just to get Pottery and Writing and expand faster.

 

[nocho]

I'd go for the settler now and then pyramids next, or whenever the stone is hooked up. Although it looks awful, I might settle 3W3S on the hill north of the horses. Basically to hook up horses for a decent enough unit against barbs (chariots). Especially if we delay BW for a religious path we'll need those horses. The religious path looks intriguing, although going down that line before both BW and Agri feels so noobish!

 

[Silu]

Yeah, fast Horses or GW before 'Mids sounds warranted. As for which, I don't have a strong opinion. If we really skip Agri then settling Horsie spot might be more lucrative than the better riverside spots 3E and 3W, though fitting Agri somewhere would probably be a good idea... Dno. I seem to not have many opinions these days...

 

[Jerrymander]

Sorry guys, it's finals week next week so I've been busy. :/

If both Bismark and Hannibal came from the East, maybe we should expand that way as well. The sheep site will be a pretty good cottage site. Oh, but we don't have Pottery, eh?

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

GW really seems to be a good idea! As we need to spam quite some missionaries and therefore we won't find the time to crank out enough military early on. And with stone and some forests around rom I think the mids afterwards won't be in danger at all!
Just to ensure: Do we agree to try on mono while settling the horses?

 

[nocho]

GW really seems to be a good idea! As we need to spam quite some missionaries and therefore we won't find the time to crank out enough military early on. And with stone and some forests around rom I think the mids afterwards won't be in danger at all!
Just to ensure: Do we agree to try on mono while settling the horses?

I'm not sure if we'll have to crank out missionaries early on... I'm also unsure as yet whether we should go for GW, mids AND Oracle, or the feasibility thereof... I would also definitely like to hear what a certain guy from Lisbon has to say about all this, before playing the set!

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

^^ Yes we could wait for random spreads.. But as long as I don't know who founded bud I'd rather spread rel on the "safe" way! And therefore we need missionaries. Otherwise we really should skip the rel part!!

 

[r_rolo1]

A certain guy from Lisbon.... nocho, are really waiting for the Portuguese AI leader to give you advice on this ?

About the missionary spread... well, it is the usual jazz: they are not as cheap as that , we have other things to do , and blah blah ... let's keep it to the absolutely necessary level atleast until we can crank them in usable dosage

On GW... I don't see why not. It is a very good wonder and is almost cheaper than a settler with stone, so why not give it a try? Even if we don't get it , we will still get something we need a lot for this variant ... $$$$ Same for any stone boosted wonder, btw ...

I think we surely need Agriculture in the next 2 or 3 sets, but where to fit it in between our oracle + mono plans, adding to the sure need of BW ( especially if we don't get GW ) ... to be honest, i would prefer BW and Agri before any other thing, regardless of what it is ( yes , even of the boring Pottery + Writing path ) ... it looks like the AI is game don't want to get even close of the religious path , so atleast the mono religion is virtually assured even if we get BW + Agri before even start trailing there.

So , in resume , IMHO:
-tech BW now, and then agri
-start GW and maybe whip the settler later ( not sure of this one , have to do the math )

This should do for now

 

[Silu]

My main mental argument against GW was the non-GPr GP points. Not that an early GSpy'd be bad but the GW will delay GPrs. Dunno if it's noticeable though as the first GP will probably be a non-.GPr anyway because of the 'mIdS.

 

[nocho]

A certain guy from Lisbon.... nocho, are really waiting for the Portuguese AI leader to give you advice on this ?

Well, I certainly wasn't talking about that other illuminary from Lisbon:

Spoiler :

Ok, BW+AG sounds fair enough. What about settler first though and then GW? IIRC it takes some turns still to hook up the stone, if starting now it's basically throwing away hammers.

And if settler first, where to settle? With GW horse is less of a priority.

Maybe I can play later tonight, otherwise it'll be Thursday the soonest probably.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Spoiler :

I think you'll find Madeira is a long way from Portugal.
Keep up the good work with the game.

 

[nocho]

I think you'll find Madeira is a long way from Portugal.

Well, Madeira IS Portugal, right? But I know what you mean, at least the guy played for Sporting Lisbon so probably rolo adores him. I could have posted a Barroso picture instead, but I guess that would ring less of a bell with the crowd. And surely that would be slightly more boring.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Well, Madeira IS Portugal, right? But I know what you mean, at least the guy played for Sporting Lisbon so probably rolo adores him. I could have posted a Barroso picture instead, but I guess that would ring less of a bell with the crowd. And surely that would be slightly more boring.

Well, my motto is "why put one foot in your mouth, when you can fit two?". Veloso or Moutinho would be better IMO. I also thought they didn't like "Sporting Lisbon".

 

[r_rolo1]

May i come in to this so on topic discussion ?

Madeira is a long way from Lisbon indeed and I never had great simpaties for the guy in the photo ( IMHO he has too much of star complex ... ). And the name of the club is Sporting Clube de Portugal .... the only reason it is put outside of Portugal as Sporting of Lisbon or Sporting Lisbon is because of the UEFA rules that disallow clubs of using a name that contains the name of their country in european competitions... Atleast you didn't used Barroso as example ...

On topic ... as we have some turns until hooking stone, we could definitely spend them making a settler ( not that we can do much more ATM ). On setting spots ... the only options that look minimally palatable are near the horses ( catches wheat in 2nd ring ) and 3 W and 3E of the cap. Not sure of what location is better, though...

 

[Silu]

If we go GW; then deffo 3E and 3W before the Horsies. If we still don't have Agri then 3E first I suppose.

How does something near the Horses catch a 2ndring Wheat btw? If we have to align cities vertically, that is.