While other WCs are healing, one chap checked out the barb city. They have a worker, nice! Then it spots a Russian settler party. I didn't attack here, to hopefully not spook those archers back to his currently only city.
The AI sure doesn't waste time here. Saladin brings a settler party too, for the razed jungle city. He ends up settling it where I would have, on the jungle tile north of rice. Amazing that rice hasn't been jungled yet, with three jungles around it. Sometimes the RNG is kind.
The archers started moving back and the settler presumably went north alone (this can happen when threatened, oddly enough). A worker ended up on that tile with a bad message, which my WC snagged. Next turn a spear sadly killed him and the worker, but I didn't know he had any metal units left
The WC was damaged after farming a barb archer, so the spear had a very easy 99.9% fight.
But the good thing is that the spear is out of the city, and can't get back in time. I'm sending in the units, although all aren't fully healed yet. The WC SE of Moscow was part of the stack, but went back and around (avoid river attack) to farm an archer that got tempted by the empty Moscow.
Still two archers in the city, and the spear plus two more archers are coming back -- but not in time! Sadly I can't get to the free worker, but what are you gonna do. There is another one inside the city (or maybe it was the previously stranded settler, I don't recall).
Very fortunate in this attack, as the first two war chariots win their fights at 35%. We take the city. Turns out it has no food, so it's razed to the ground. Then all improvements are busted over the coming few turns, while other units heal before the barb city. Also turns out the city had a settled GG, that I previously thought was born elsewhere in the world. But this hadn't dawned on me yet...
The barb city isn't taken until now in T85, but oh boy that's a nice one! Had a worker inside too. It will cost a bomb, but it's simply too good and too big to raze. The city brings in 98
, which combined with a 20% slider last turn, is enough to get us to CoL in one turn by a hair. Sadly Wang founded Confucianism this turn, but it's still a good target.
In the meantime I've met Gilgamesh over in the west, and the long-awaited Mansa Musa finally showed up. Seems like he has been scouting in Arabia, so probably bad luck we haven't met him yet. Don't know where he is located, though, and it's actually possible it's south of Saladin. Doesn't look like there is room west of Gilgamesh, though it's possible he is south of him somewhere. Wang also circumnavigated the world, so it's all connected for scouts and/or workboats.
This is the overview map in T85.
There is also a barb city south/east of Saladin (not room for that picture, as I hit the 10 threshold), and surprisingly enough I've found some floodplains. The coast has turned out to be a very large "lake". Saladin and possibly others will have access to the land that would normally have been settled by Stalin, so unfortunately it isn't entirely safe for later backfilling.
Thebes currently look like this:
That's an oddly high happy count, you may notice. What can I say... I love my Wang. Or something!
Tech view and relations.
So then... some big decisions. Isabella currently hates me, and there is lots of worst enemy statuses going around. I was thinking about swapping to Buddhism. Worst enemy with Isabella should then disappear by next turn, and I'll be able to trade with her. Hopefully I can get Alpha for CoL with Mansa (do I need a part-turn into Alpha?), but I'd like to do more trades that turn, or else Mansa may share CoL to anybody with a pulse.
Relations here are tricky. Mansa and Gilgamesh have double worst enemy status. One trade may be okay, at least a bit more long term, but I'd like to avoid too many negative hits. Currently there is definitely risk of somebody randomly starting to plot on me, which would suck. Isabella isn't the WE of anybody, so it makes some sense to change religion to hers. Saladin may hate me then, but it's hard to please two zealots like that.
Perhaps this is a bad idea, but I'm also thinking about getting out a settler (or two) for the northern seafood cities. Since they are close to the capital, hopefully the economic hit won't be too terrible. It seems kinda bad to not get those up and running. With Alpha hopefully in next turn, I should be able to build research at least. The GS is out in 4 turns, and with Math+Alpha trade it will be possible to bulb Philo. Probably ought to keep that for a while?
Think this is quite unusual; Wang has been wonderwhoring hard. He's also working on Artemis (denies Poly trade, doesn't have Aesthetics). Haven't located him yet, but shouldn't be too far away I should think. Good target for the GM later, if I go down that path. That is probably the best idea I guess, now when we can soon go Caste? The economy is still in tatters, roughly break even at 0%.
