Great! You can often learn by asking questions. Sometimes, by asking questions, you can draw out answers that others were not aware of or were not expecting. So whenever you have questions, feel free to ask away!
BTW, what special resources do we still need?
Fur. The first message in this thread talks about how the Barbarians are "heavily guarding the only source of Fur in the world."
1) I see we have a conquest party on the barbarian continent near the Byzantine empire. I guess you think that there is one of the special resources there.
We don't know for sure if the Fur Resource is there. HOWEVER, a few things make us think that there could be something special about that Barb-controlled area:
1. The northern Barb City has Culture in it that has expanded the City's borders and this situation was the case when we first found that City. This fact would lead us to believe that the City was "placed" on the map at the beginning of the game, as generally, Barb Cities' Cultural levels won't expand for Barb Cities that spawn partway through the game.
AND
2. It's an island that is reachable before Astronomy. We've pretty much explored (or traded World Maps for) all of the land that can be reached pre-Astronomy, so this location is the only area that is "Barb controlled" i.e. not shared with an AI that can be reached. For a Cultural game, you generally will not research Astronomy, so having the Barb City (we can see that there are at least 2 Barb Cities there, actually) reachable pre-Astronomy is "fair" for those playing for a Cultural game.
AND
3. The land area really looks engineered. From what is visible, it is almost all flat Grassland with a row of Peaks. Totally World-buildered.
Anyway, we are not really sure that the needed-resource is really there. There could be another barbarian empire out there...
Absolutely. So, we've built a Caravel (although it seems to have detoured to send a Missionary to Isabella before it goes exploring).
We'll also soon start building Galleons in Sugar Daddy. We're the only player that knows Astronomy, but many AIs have Optics and thus are only 1 tech behind us in that regard.
2) Why are we running caste system when we don't use more than 2 specialists?
A great question and that's one reason why earlier in the game, we switched back into Slavery, since only one City was running 3 Scientists.
At present, we are running Scientists in Cities without Libraries and are running 3, 4, 5, or 6 Scientists in many other Cities. Well, in the real game, anyway. I'm not sure about in the test saved game as I haven't had a chance to look at that yet (I'd closed the game by the time that Irgy uploaded the save).
So, at least as of T250 in the real game, we are fully leveraging Caste System and are combining it with Confucianism (which is in all of our Cities), Pacifism, and Representation.
I can make time to play a *very* *very* detailed PPP that someone else writes
I'm low on time these days, but I could probably take a stab at doing one for part of a turnset (not 20 turns' worth, though). However, getting a relatively-accurate test saved game would be a pre-condition, and we're one turnset behind in updating the test saved game (BLubz just finished playing 20 turns that come after the latest test saved game). So, if BLubz isn't able to work some magic in updating our test saved game to have relative accuracy to the real game, then at best I can provide are a few pages' worth of higher-level suggestions.
Unfortunately, that solution is probably not going to work for you if you are pressed for time, but it's the best that I can offer without a relatively-precise test saved game to work from.
Why should our troops be on the tip-of-the-continent?
It was the safest spot to unload them, as the Galley would never need to end its turn outside of an AI City and thus could never get ambushed by a Barb Galley.
The reason for "gathering" the military units was for the exact reason that BLubz encountered--he sent 2 units off by their lonesome and suffered two attacks. We got lucky by winning those 2 fights, but had we lost one, the Barbs probably would have kept throwing units at our second unit until both were wiped out.
Since we have a very minimalistic army there as it is (8 units total), losing 2 of those units would have been devastating.
Luck saved the day this time, although BLubz will try to convince us that it was a Drill Promotion that saved us.
If they are already there, shouldn't they be, say, attacking something?
BLubz already started them on their way. They've moved for the last 2 turns towards the closest Barb City.
Presumably, the stack will keep moving until it is next to the City, possibly standing on a Hills square if there is one, while we Bombard the City's defences down to 0%.
