BoBtheBUILDER
Bonded and Certified
Preturn:
This has been a fairly crazy sequence. I didn't realize we moved the scout off the mountain... we'll probably be seeing a Roman city in the south. I think they're our weakest neighbors of the three. We must not have had culturally-linked starting positions because for the English to be with the Romans, Persians and Zulus is an odd start!
I'm going to hold off on Padma's suggestions until I get a full lay of the land here in 1790 BC.
Not a whole lot of new information from our domestic advisor. I see we're at 10% science right now. I also see that it doesn't matter how we adjust the slider, we'll be at 31 turns till Map Making anyway. Good call there lads!
I cycle through the cities (here's where I'll take Padma's suggestions).
First on the hit parade is London, which is promptly switched to Granary. I note that the culture border is going to expand right after my turn is up. That'll let us start to put pressure on Hlobane. Right now we're working the best tile there is so I'll leave that be. I'll have to remember to check next turn when our population goes up.
Now we're at York. I really would have put a temple here first to pull in that bonus grassland sooner. C'est la vie. There isn't a whole lot to do here. I check to see what our friendly neighborhood worker is working on and it says he'll have a mine?!?!?! done in three turns. We're getting plenty of production out of our forests, what we need is growth in York. I decide that wasting those turns is worth more to us to get population growth so I stop the worker from building a mine and start him on irrigation.
I visit the Sheriff in Notingham next and tell him to use his citizens more effeciently. He sends his serf into the wheatfields and out of the grassland. His city will grow in five turns now and his warrior will be trained in the same amount of time he would have before. I toyed with the possibility of changing it to a spearman but bailed on that idea when I saw it'd take 17 turns.
Our trade status stinks. We have no natural resources. We need to get that iron. I just watched Lord of the Rings again and I want that iron tile worse than Sauron wants the One Ring. Okay, too geeky? Whatever, I don't care. I folded on the coastal city issue earlier... this one is a gimmie. I think it was my site #4, so I'll get to use my dotmap plan (sort of) except that I won't be the one sending the settler.
Since there is a barb camp near York I decide to send our extra?!?! warrior to investigate. Just out of curiosity, why do we have an "extra" warrior in London? He should have gone with the settler to Nottingham, then they wouldn't have to be training a warrior and could have started with a temple.
Diplomacy/Military Check
* Persians - We have a weaker military, are polite towards us, are impressed with our culture and are despotic. They have Masonry, The Wheel and Ceremonial Burial (no wonder we have no temples). They lack Writing and contact with the Romans. They have one source of furs connected and may or may not have access to incense. They have three cities, which I think we can see all of the borders. Pasargadae and Persepolis must be that long cultural border SW of Suza.
* Zulus - We have a weaker military, are polite towards us, are impressed with our culture and are despotic. They have Masonry, The Wheel and Ceremonial Burial (no wonder we have no temples). They lack Writing and contact with the Romans. We can "see" all of their cities (Zimbabwe, Bapedi, Ulundi and Hlobane. I'm guessing Ulundi is that city SSE of Zimbabwe)
* Romans - We have an average military, are polite towards us, are impressed with our culture and are despotic. They lack Pottery and Writing and contact with both the Zulus and the Romans. They have one source of furs connected and may or may not have access to incense. The Romans have another city (Veii) that we can't see.
I toy with the idea of trading contact with the Romans. Persians are willing to offer 10 gold and Masonry. The Zulus only will offer 9 gold and Masonry. They're willing to offer a great deal more for Writing. Trading Writing with both will give us tech parity and some gold to establish embasies. I go ahead and see what I can get...
I go ahead and make this deal (Shaka wouldn't give up all his techs), then I turn around and sell Writing to Shaka for all his gold too!
I think I did a good job with that. Maybe not the best move to give our enemies writing, but now we've got enough gold to get embassies! Well I'm an idiot... I forgot we had embassies in the other two countries. I go ahead and set one up in Persia as well. These are some wacked out city sites that Sullla gave the other civs! Persepolis has two rivers bisecting it, an Iron tile, a game tile, a cattle tile and an INLAND fish tile?!?! Let's hear it for the AI, they're at size one, growing in five turns, and have a settler on schedule in 8 turns?? They don't have any cultural improvements other than a palace in Persepolis. They are linked to Iron but that's it. Oh, and more good news. That site that the Zulus beat us to for Hlobane? It has horses. The only other source of horses near us are by Suza and by Rome.
Well I think that's about all I can get out of this preturn. Shall I move on?
(1) 1750 BC:
Nothing seemed to happen on the AI's part during the interturn.
I move our warrior to the tile E of York.
I move ?Drake? NW then W to the hills to get a better idea of the lay of the land around Suza. Hey! There's a goody hut up there, and more diamonds. I don't think that the Persians are going to be a market for us when we get to those diamonds to our south.
Damn Num Lock was off so I waste Wally's turn when I try to adjust the map position! :-(
Diplomacy check reveals nothing new. Shaka's gold is at 1 gp and Xeres' gold is still at 0 gp.
London grew... the new citizen is working the tile directly W of town. The granary will be done in 6 turns and next growth will happen in five turns.
(2) 1725 BC:
York completes it's granary! I start it on a temple (done in fifteen turns). It may suit as a prebuild for a settler. Once that tile is irrigated I'm going to switch and see how long before we'll grow and if it would be compatible with a settler.
I move our warrior the the mountains S. He doesn't observe any camps.
I move Wally back to where he was before my goof.
I move Drake to the goody hut N and the Celts teach us Mysticism.
The Diplo check is hilarious. Xeres doesn't want Mysticism and Shaka's wiling to part with his 1gp for it. I shouldn't have expected anything more, it was just funny. Otherwise there's no change from last turn.
I can't figure out how research works in this game sometimes. The only way to gain ANY ground on our research project is to switch to 100% science, which would result in us losing 2gpt and only gaining Map Making one measily turn early. Like I said, I just don't get it sometimes.
The demographics are all over the place. We're leading in Manufactured Goods and Family Size and Life Expectancy. London is the top city right now, but that seems to be only by virtue of it's size (2). Everyone else is size one.
I hate hitting enter... I always feel like there's something I'm forgetting to do.
(3) 1700 BC:
Only AI moves interturn were a Zulu warrior coming down from the south and a barb showed up near Bapedi.
Wally moves north and discovers what appears to be a coastline... this continent does have an end!!
Drake moves W then NW to the mountains.
Our warrior moves SE... still no barb camps to be found.
No changes on the diplo checks either. *yawns*
I decide now that our civ would probably be better served with another worker. I switch York off of building a temple and start it on a worker (done in two turns).
(4) 1675 BC:
Only AI moves interturn were the Zulu warrior and the barb warrior moving toward Bapedi.
Wally moves N, then NW onto another mountain and disovers that there is, in fact, a northern coastline!
Drake moves NW then W and stumbles one tile away from a barb camp! The warrior is fortified so hopefully he'll stay put. The York worker finally finishes his irrigation. The new worker will be done in one turn even after switching tiles so I leave our second citizen on the newly irrigated tile and send our worker back toward Nottingham.
I move our warrior SE and find the barb camp! Two tiles due S of his current position.
No changes on the diplomatic front. Sid says that we're technologically advanced!
(5) 1650 BC:
No exciting moves interturn other than the Barbs didn't attack Wally!
York finishes it's worker. A temple will be ready in 30 turns with growth in 10 if we work the irrigated tile. Growth would take twice as long on a forest tile. Barracks will only take 20 turns but would give us a marginal benefit. A spearman would be ready in ten turns so I go with that. I move the worker E to begin working that tile.
I move our warrior S toward the Bulgar camp.
I move our other worker E out of London to begin road to Nottingham.
Wally moves SW along the coast.
Drake gets away from that barb camp and moves E then NE.
I'm starting to think that holding that choke may be more important than getting the iron right off the bat. A well-fortified presence there would keep the Romans at bay and let us nab that land as we see fit. Just a thought. Still five more turns to play.
Oh, Nottingham grew too... let's check that out! Okay, here's an interesting call. The BG gives us additional food but no additional production due to corruption. The Forest gives us slightly more food (growth in 10 turns instead of seven) but we gain one shield (still losing one to corruption). Since growth seems to be the name of the game I put our new citizen to work on the BG.
Nothing much changed on the diplomatic front, though Persepolis and Tenochtitlan are size 2 again.
(6) 1625 BC:
Nottingham completes its warrior and starts on a settler (complete in 30 turns). It will grow in six turns however. Would this be a situation where a whip could come in handy? Aha! If I switch off the BG to the forest the Settler is done in 15 and growth comes in 9! Maybe that's the better course for Notty.
Interturn nothing exciting... just more Zulu vs Barb manuvers.
I fortify our new warrior in Nottingham
Our worker begins a road E of London.
Our other worker begins irrigating E of York.
Our warrior moves S and disperses the Bulgar encampment.
Wally moves SW then S to some hills. He finds out the Zulus have some incense in their neighborhood as well.
Draek moves E then SE to a mountain. He finds nothing terribly interesting except for a jutting point that could link to another continent.
Our military advisor reports that there are Cuman tribes near Nottingham.
We're still technologically advanced.
Still no changes on the diplomatic front.
(7) 1600 BC:
London finishes its granary and starts a settler. Settler will be done in six, London grows to size three in 4 turns.
Whoo hoo! Our first palace expansion!
Since our warrior is in the neighborhood anyway I move him S towards the choke to hold it.
I move Wally W twice to the hills. I think he's found the NW corner of the continent.
I move Drake NE then SE (he'd lose all his movement in one turn if we just went E and I thought I might see more this way. A barb camp has popped up near him so movement is going to be hampered. I think that jutting piece of land is NOT a land bridge.
Nothing new diplomatically except that Shaka has 25 more gold than he used to have. Seems he dispersed that barbarian encampment. This is interesting. Rome has a worker available for trade. There's nothing in the rules that Sullla handed down about worker trading. I later discover that Padma posted that we can't get workers from other civs until we have an embassy with them. We've got an embassy in Rome so I'm in the clear. Caesar is willing to part with the worker for 25 gold and I take him up on it. We can just recoup it in a trade for tech later on.
Since our new worker is halfway efficient as our regular workers (since he's a foreigner) I go ahead and send him E from London to help with the road to Nottingham.
(8) 1575 BC:
Interturn nothing major happened, but there is a barb that's coming after Drake! Big bummer there!
Drake moves E and discovers that there is no land bridge.
Wally moves S and finds another source of Iron.
On the Diplo fron both Persia and the Zulus have new cities. Arbela is an expansion toward London, just north of the jungle. Isandhlwana is a lake town that will pull in one of those cattle tiles.
(9) 1550 BC:
Our warrior moves S to hold the choke (just in time! There's a roman warrior sitting right there!)
Drake moves SW twice in hopes of avoiding Barb incursions.
Wally moves SW
No diplomatic changes to report.
(10) 1525 BC:
Interturn a roman warrior settler pair try to move closer to the choke. I just beat them! The barbs are still after Drake, he eludes them by moving S then W.
Worker outside York finishes Irrigation, begins road.
Warrior fortifies chokepoint.
Wally moves S, fleshes out coastline.
Conclusion:
Our tech decisions worked out well for us I think. Map Making will be a solid pick for us too. I don't care what anyone says, I really really really think we need to hold that choke. Rome is weak as it is and they will stay that way if we can keep them bottled up, at least till we have a chance to expand down that way.
Otherwise I didn't find out much this turn I guess. Keep an eye on what we're doing as far as tile improvements! We don't have a great position so we're going to make our gains on the other civs by making smart decisions.
Here's where we are at the end of my gig:
Southern part of continent:
Northern part of continent:
Here's the save:
Elizabeth of the English, 1525, B.C.
This has been a fairly crazy sequence. I didn't realize we moved the scout off the mountain... we'll probably be seeing a Roman city in the south. I think they're our weakest neighbors of the three. We must not have had culturally-linked starting positions because for the English to be with the Romans, Persians and Zulus is an odd start!
I'm going to hold off on Padma's suggestions until I get a full lay of the land here in 1790 BC.
Not a whole lot of new information from our domestic advisor. I see we're at 10% science right now. I also see that it doesn't matter how we adjust the slider, we'll be at 31 turns till Map Making anyway. Good call there lads!
I cycle through the cities (here's where I'll take Padma's suggestions).
First on the hit parade is London, which is promptly switched to Granary. I note that the culture border is going to expand right after my turn is up. That'll let us start to put pressure on Hlobane. Right now we're working the best tile there is so I'll leave that be. I'll have to remember to check next turn when our population goes up.
Now we're at York. I really would have put a temple here first to pull in that bonus grassland sooner. C'est la vie. There isn't a whole lot to do here. I check to see what our friendly neighborhood worker is working on and it says he'll have a mine?!?!?! done in three turns. We're getting plenty of production out of our forests, what we need is growth in York. I decide that wasting those turns is worth more to us to get population growth so I stop the worker from building a mine and start him on irrigation.
I visit the Sheriff in Notingham next and tell him to use his citizens more effeciently. He sends his serf into the wheatfields and out of the grassland. His city will grow in five turns now and his warrior will be trained in the same amount of time he would have before. I toyed with the possibility of changing it to a spearman but bailed on that idea when I saw it'd take 17 turns.
Our trade status stinks. We have no natural resources. We need to get that iron. I just watched Lord of the Rings again and I want that iron tile worse than Sauron wants the One Ring. Okay, too geeky? Whatever, I don't care. I folded on the coastal city issue earlier... this one is a gimmie. I think it was my site #4, so I'll get to use my dotmap plan (sort of) except that I won't be the one sending the settler.
Since there is a barb camp near York I decide to send our extra?!?! warrior to investigate. Just out of curiosity, why do we have an "extra" warrior in London? He should have gone with the settler to Nottingham, then they wouldn't have to be training a warrior and could have started with a temple.
Diplomacy/Military Check
* Persians - We have a weaker military, are polite towards us, are impressed with our culture and are despotic. They have Masonry, The Wheel and Ceremonial Burial (no wonder we have no temples). They lack Writing and contact with the Romans. They have one source of furs connected and may or may not have access to incense. They have three cities, which I think we can see all of the borders. Pasargadae and Persepolis must be that long cultural border SW of Suza.
* Zulus - We have a weaker military, are polite towards us, are impressed with our culture and are despotic. They have Masonry, The Wheel and Ceremonial Burial (no wonder we have no temples). They lack Writing and contact with the Romans. We can "see" all of their cities (Zimbabwe, Bapedi, Ulundi and Hlobane. I'm guessing Ulundi is that city SSE of Zimbabwe)
* Romans - We have an average military, are polite towards us, are impressed with our culture and are despotic. They lack Pottery and Writing and contact with both the Zulus and the Romans. They have one source of furs connected and may or may not have access to incense. The Romans have another city (Veii) that we can't see.
I toy with the idea of trading contact with the Romans. Persians are willing to offer 10 gold and Masonry. The Zulus only will offer 9 gold and Masonry. They're willing to offer a great deal more for Writing. Trading Writing with both will give us tech parity and some gold to establish embasies. I go ahead and see what I can get...
I go ahead and make this deal (Shaka wouldn't give up all his techs), then I turn around and sell Writing to Shaka for all his gold too!
I think I did a good job with that. Maybe not the best move to give our enemies writing, but now we've got enough gold to get embassies! Well I'm an idiot... I forgot we had embassies in the other two countries. I go ahead and set one up in Persia as well. These are some wacked out city sites that Sullla gave the other civs! Persepolis has two rivers bisecting it, an Iron tile, a game tile, a cattle tile and an INLAND fish tile?!?! Let's hear it for the AI, they're at size one, growing in five turns, and have a settler on schedule in 8 turns?? They don't have any cultural improvements other than a palace in Persepolis. They are linked to Iron but that's it. Oh, and more good news. That site that the Zulus beat us to for Hlobane? It has horses. The only other source of horses near us are by Suza and by Rome.Well I think that's about all I can get out of this preturn. Shall I move on?
(1) 1750 BC:
Nothing seemed to happen on the AI's part during the interturn.
I move our warrior to the tile E of York.
I move ?Drake? NW then W to the hills to get a better idea of the lay of the land around Suza. Hey! There's a goody hut up there, and more diamonds. I don't think that the Persians are going to be a market for us when we get to those diamonds to our south.
Damn Num Lock was off so I waste Wally's turn when I try to adjust the map position! :-(
Diplomacy check reveals nothing new. Shaka's gold is at 1 gp and Xeres' gold is still at 0 gp.
London grew... the new citizen is working the tile directly W of town. The granary will be done in 6 turns and next growth will happen in five turns.
(2) 1725 BC:
York completes it's granary! I start it on a temple (done in fifteen turns). It may suit as a prebuild for a settler. Once that tile is irrigated I'm going to switch and see how long before we'll grow and if it would be compatible with a settler.
I move our warrior the the mountains S. He doesn't observe any camps.
I move Wally back to where he was before my goof.
I move Drake to the goody hut N and the Celts teach us Mysticism.
The Diplo check is hilarious. Xeres doesn't want Mysticism and Shaka's wiling to part with his 1gp for it. I shouldn't have expected anything more, it was just funny. Otherwise there's no change from last turn.
I can't figure out how research works in this game sometimes. The only way to gain ANY ground on our research project is to switch to 100% science, which would result in us losing 2gpt and only gaining Map Making one measily turn early. Like I said, I just don't get it sometimes.
The demographics are all over the place. We're leading in Manufactured Goods and Family Size and Life Expectancy. London is the top city right now, but that seems to be only by virtue of it's size (2). Everyone else is size one.
I hate hitting enter... I always feel like there's something I'm forgetting to do.
(3) 1700 BC:
Only AI moves interturn were a Zulu warrior coming down from the south and a barb showed up near Bapedi.
Wally moves north and discovers what appears to be a coastline... this continent does have an end!!
Drake moves W then NW to the mountains.
Our warrior moves SE... still no barb camps to be found.
No changes on the diplo checks either. *yawns*
I decide now that our civ would probably be better served with another worker. I switch York off of building a temple and start it on a worker (done in two turns).
(4) 1675 BC:
Only AI moves interturn were the Zulu warrior and the barb warrior moving toward Bapedi.
Wally moves N, then NW onto another mountain and disovers that there is, in fact, a northern coastline!
Drake moves NW then W and stumbles one tile away from a barb camp!
The warrior is fortified so hopefully he'll stay put. The York worker finally finishes his irrigation. The new worker will be done in one turn even after switching tiles so I leave our second citizen on the newly irrigated tile and send our worker back toward Nottingham.I move our warrior SE and find the barb camp! Two tiles due S of his current position.
No changes on the diplomatic front. Sid says that we're technologically advanced!
(5) 1650 BC:
No exciting moves interturn other than the Barbs didn't attack Wally!
York finishes it's worker. A temple will be ready in 30 turns with growth in 10 if we work the irrigated tile. Growth would take twice as long on a forest tile. Barracks will only take 20 turns but would give us a marginal benefit. A spearman would be ready in ten turns so I go with that. I move the worker E to begin working that tile.
I move our warrior S toward the Bulgar camp.
I move our other worker E out of London to begin road to Nottingham.
Wally moves SW along the coast.
Drake gets away from that barb camp and moves E then NE.
I'm starting to think that holding that choke may be more important than getting the iron right off the bat. A well-fortified presence there would keep the Romans at bay and let us nab that land as we see fit. Just a thought. Still five more turns to play.
Oh, Nottingham grew too... let's check that out! Okay, here's an interesting call. The BG gives us additional food but no additional production due to corruption. The Forest gives us slightly more food (growth in 10 turns instead of seven) but we gain one shield (still losing one to corruption). Since growth seems to be the name of the game I put our new citizen to work on the BG.
Nothing much changed on the diplomatic front, though Persepolis and Tenochtitlan are size 2 again.
(6) 1625 BC:
Nottingham completes its warrior and starts on a settler (complete in 30 turns). It will grow in six turns however. Would this be a situation where a whip could come in handy? Aha! If I switch off the BG to the forest the Settler is done in 15 and growth comes in 9! Maybe that's the better course for Notty.
Interturn nothing exciting... just more Zulu vs Barb manuvers.
I fortify our new warrior in Nottingham
Our worker begins a road E of London.
Our other worker begins irrigating E of York.
Our warrior moves S and disperses the Bulgar encampment.
Wally moves SW then S to some hills. He finds out the Zulus have some incense in their neighborhood as well.
Draek moves E then SE to a mountain. He finds nothing terribly interesting except for a jutting point that could link to another continent.
Our military advisor reports that there are Cuman tribes near Nottingham.
We're still technologically advanced.
Still no changes on the diplomatic front.
(7) 1600 BC:
London finishes its granary and starts a settler. Settler will be done in six, London grows to size three in 4 turns.
Whoo hoo! Our first palace expansion!
Since our warrior is in the neighborhood anyway I move him S towards the choke to hold it.
I move Wally W twice to the hills. I think he's found the NW corner of the continent.
I move Drake NE then SE (he'd lose all his movement in one turn if we just went E and I thought I might see more this way. A barb camp has popped up near him so movement is going to be hampered. I think that jutting piece of land is NOT a land bridge.
Nothing new diplomatically except that Shaka has 25 more gold than he used to have. Seems he dispersed that barbarian encampment. This is interesting. Rome has a worker available for trade. There's nothing in the rules that Sullla handed down about worker trading. I later discover that Padma posted that we can't get workers from other civs until we have an embassy with them. We've got an embassy in Rome so I'm in the clear. Caesar is willing to part with the worker for 25 gold and I take him up on it. We can just recoup it in a trade for tech later on.
Since our new worker is halfway efficient as our regular workers (since he's a foreigner) I go ahead and send him E from London to help with the road to Nottingham.
(8) 1575 BC:
Interturn nothing major happened, but there is a barb that's coming after Drake!
Big bummer there!Drake moves E and discovers that there is no land bridge.
Wally moves S and finds another source of Iron.
On the Diplo fron both Persia and the Zulus have new cities. Arbela is an expansion toward London, just north of the jungle. Isandhlwana is a lake town that will pull in one of those cattle tiles.
(9) 1550 BC:
Our warrior moves S to hold the choke (just in time! There's a roman warrior sitting right there!)
Drake moves SW twice in hopes of avoiding Barb incursions.
Wally moves SW
No diplomatic changes to report.
(10) 1525 BC:
Interturn a roman warrior settler pair try to move closer to the choke. I just beat them! The barbs are still after Drake, he eludes them by moving S then W.
Worker outside York finishes Irrigation, begins road.
Warrior fortifies chokepoint.
Wally moves S, fleshes out coastline.
Conclusion:
Our tech decisions worked out well for us I think. Map Making will be a solid pick for us too. I don't care what anyone says, I really really really think we need to hold that choke. Rome is weak as it is and they will stay that way if we can keep them bottled up, at least till we have a chance to expand down that way.
Otherwise I didn't find out much this turn I guess. Keep an eye on what we're doing as far as tile improvements! We don't have a great position so we're going to make our gains on the other civs by making smart decisions.
Here's where we are at the end of my gig:
Southern part of continent:
Northern part of continent:
Here's the save:
Elizabeth of the English, 1525, B.C.
) The question is, do we need/want the dyes badly enough to extend ourselves to them at this point? If yes, then go for it! If not, then go somewhere else with the Settler! (Maybe hold him to settle a replacement for Hlobane?)
- but I wonder if it can be done in 10 turns - either way we will be on the move 
