Third time lucky

I also would've preferred no hammers in the rax but I guess those were put in there when horses were disconnected.

This. Those two hammers in the chariot were put because we were one turn short on growth. I didn't intend to finish a warrior before going settler so went with it. Decaying the hammers in the rax are nonsense imo. It is set for maximum overflow and we have 50 turns ( a bit less actually now) to use it.

As for the chariots, well the amount of barbs right from the first turn of the set didn't allow for more spreading. (constantly healing or escorting/protecting units).

worker roading: thought we wanted the commerce fast. That's another ten turns for a border pop in city 2 and I am not even sure we will get the TR since there will be tiles of the river out of our culture borders (need sailing then).

I really don't like that blue dot. no food, only worth some no riverside cottages (ie not much). Yellow + Blue + Edirne means we end up with a bunch of not so usefull cities while there is room available. I would try to do the blocking with only one (coastal locations can be settle as city 4 in more decent places?), SE of cows most prolly (seems like a consensus). IIRC desert will pass irigation but hills won't.

edit: tech path: writing -> masonry -> maths -> currency ? We want to exchange monarchy fast with Izzy asap too (so med -> PH somewhere, but prolly after we get a trade bait).
 
Next city should probably grab both cows+rice as shy proposed. There's a large risk Izzy will settle beyond if you wait for city #4 to block that.

Risk getting the extra forest imo, settle 1SE of the cows.

I'm not convinced about worker next in Erdine without running the numbers. It seems to me that in 9 turns you can work the Oasis for +1 food and +2 commerce which is better than +1 food in 16 turns.

Worker making road should cancel, move to corn and then road from there. But if you're going by the 2-city approach (1 city SE of the rice) then you don't need roads period, the river will be inside your cultural borders.

If you don't mind to be a bit short on improvements, another settler next and chop with current worker, send other to Erdine or new city. Should be about 4 turns total. Add workers later :)
 
Can you chain-irrigate via city if it's on desert? I would assume not, but not sure.

Yes, settling on a desert tile will allow chain irrigation to areas otherwise not connected to water. I'm fine with Shuye's suggest though. That area is a bit awkward with the deserts and peaks. But the blue port city just renders that whole area rather useless for a long time.

Just note that 1SE of cow will mean the grassland to the north cannot be irrigated. 1E of the cows we can irrigate and the city will block without a border pop once the Edirne pops borders. It is too bad we did not settle Edirne 1W of the current spot. Didn't seem we really got consensus on that spot and the border push with Izzy was nonsensical IMO.
 
Worker making road should cancel, move to corn and then road from there.

Btw there is one turn of roading done on that corn tile. not sure I put that sign before or after saving :lol:

edit:

It is too bad we did not settle Edirne 1W of the current spot. Didn't seem we really got consensus on that spot and the border push with Izzy was nonsensical IMO.

Well I proposed it in the PPP and only you seemed to back me so I went with Mysty's dot when playing.
 
T0 - Moved a chariot up to the next city site to wait for the settler; no barbs in sight. Switched Edirne to worker. It doesn't need anything else urgently and we'll soon have 3 cities with plenty of FP to improve; that justifies 3 workers imo.

T1 - Settler finished, moves to SE of cow. A barb showed up in the forest between cow and rice, he should either move onto open terrain or suicide against our chariot soon. Sending a second chariot along with the settler just in case. Istanbul starts on a chariot for MP; those 4t line up nicely with the 4t for growth. We can always build more warriors later.

T2 - Another warrior shows up in the same place, the first one moves south on a hill. Both chariots provide cover for settler and worker.

T3 - Kill one warrior on a hill (@99%) as it was moving towards Istanbul. Ankara founded, worker roads the rice to provide trade route; he will only lose 1t to get to the cow thanks to faster movement. Start granary in Ankara.

8s0k8.jpg


We're now at -8gpt, so probably will take a turn or two longer until Writing.
Istanbul's worker starts mining the PH. We have plenty of food and no other decent 5th tile to work after growth.
Edirne and Istanbul are now connected through the river. Apparently it's enough to own one tile adjacent to a river in order to use it for trade.

T4 - We meet JC! He sent a work boat around the north coast and was spotted from Ankara. He already knows Izzy but doesn't have writing yet, so there's nothing we can do with him so far. The WB was coming from the west, maybe our landmass actually extends further to the north than we can see?
Isabella founded Santiago, her 6th, somewhere in the east. JC has 7 cities.

T5 - Istanbul grows to 5 and finishes its chariot. Start on a granary, it will be finished just in time for growth to 6, setting up a 3-pop whip of the library and quick regrowth after. Since our next city will likely be further away and not time-critical as a blocker, I'd rather get the library in Istanbul before the next settler.

T6 - Oracle BIFAL. A chariot scouts the sea north of Ankara, no fish there. Pure no-man's-land.

T7 - :sleep:

T8 - Writing comes in. Sign OB with JC and Izzy, they like each other, so no friction there. Incidentally, the very same turn, Izzy's chariot discovers the river connection to us, and since she apparently has Sailing, we now have a trade route to her!
We trade our sheep for her fur immediately to raise Istanbul's happy cap and to start working on better relations through trade.
Research switched to Masonry and dialled down to 0%.

T9 - JC converts to Judaism. He and Izzy are still cautious with each other, but we may want to cancel OB with JC when we can (in 9t).
There's a whale down south in the eastern tundra, but nothing else.
Worker->granary at Edirne.

T10 - Granary->library at Istanbul, growth to size 6.

QiYiT.jpg


Would it be possible for barbs to spawn N of Ankara? Currently, the chariot to the W is just close enough to race back in case anyone shows up, but we could move him further out if it is safe.

T11 - Whip Istanbul's library for 3 pop. Izzy has a Buddhist missionary coming our way.

T12 - Library->Settler (for overflow) @ Istanbul. Izzy is sending 2 chariots and an archer through our lands. ToA was BIFAL. Same city as the GWall, someone's capital, but we don't know who. Not Izzy or JC.

T13 - Slotting in a warrior @ Istanbul for re-growth to 4. Research is dialled back up to 100% on Masonry. Izzy has another missionary on the way to us.

T14 - Izzy founds Salamanca NE of Edirne. Maybe she has fish there, otherwise it's crap.

T15 - Istanbul and Edirne become buddhified. Edirne whips granary.

T16 - Ankara whips granary. Istanbul finished warrior for MP and freed up a chariot - do we want to send him to Ankara for MP or go scouting?
I queued another warrior to grow Istanbul to 5 in 1t. We will lose 6h overflow (including the 50%) on the settler that way but gain 3hpt 1c from the extra tile. Change it back if you prefer to get the settler before growth.

wIAcA.jpg


Both Edirne and Ankara deserve a library and 2 scientists imo. They both have a lot of food and we're PHI after all. I wouldn't hire any scientists in Istanbul though, it's a good city to fuel our expansion hammer-wise.
There's a barb city up north, from the looks of the border probably E of cow, although I don't quite understand why we only see it's NE border tile. Since it's not coastal, I don't think it's worth the effort to capture it. We might put a chariot or two nearby just in case Izzy goes for it though.

There's no need to switch to Buddhism for now, but if happiness becomes an issue and/or Izzy asks for it, I think we should do it. Izzy and JC are still cautious to each other, so we can keep our borders open to JC for now.

After Math, do we want to try for HG in Istanbul? We have plenty of forests there, we have stone (though not hooked up yet), and it's only 300h. Not a major wonder by any means, but it's cheap and we have a good shot at it I think.
 

Attachments

Looks good, nice play.

It's kinda funny, I checked espionage spendings after ras' set and we had 4 EPs more on her IIRC but I don't really understand that thing so I thought that was just usual discrepancy or so, but I guess she met JC 2 turns ago.

Scouting WB just jumped another step on my priority list. Equally high is sending an expedition chariot up north. However, it looks like the barb city is blocking the path, 1S of the sign... too bad. Good thing is, JC won't settle past it anytime soon. We must make sure however that we capture it. Might be problematic w/o copper.

I think a barb could spawn 4N of ankara.

I'd say move the C2-chariot SW and then up north along the cost. The marked chariot may take its place. We need to get the full view of the map there as we're looking for a good spot for the settler due in 4t.

I wouldn't say no to a shot at HG though rather "because we can" than we actually need it. Given that we'll want a hammam thingy in the capital anyway and we have stone it's not too bad I guess. And it makes for a nice change :D However, by meeting JC and eventually more AIs, the value of aesth/abc increased significantly. I'm fine with going maths now anyway. If we do so, we should get another worker as one will go to the next city and we'll want plenty of chopping. I would like to see Ankara and Edirne set on growth to pump out workers/settlers until our land is backfilled. The sooner we get our cities up and running, the better.

After math, we should definitely backfill sailing.


One more thing, I forgot to do that during my set: We should focus EPs on izzy. Back then it didn't make a difference, now it does.



Bbp is up, lymond on deck!
 
I'm confused as to why Ankara has a granary but no monument. We needed the border pop ASAP to block off Izzy. Istanbul should also be working some scientists while at 0% slider so that we can pop out a GS quickly. I also don't like masonry since that stone tile is pretty useless to us, but what's done is done I guess. Once we hook up the stone, we should start building the pyramids somewhere for fail gold.

And yes, barbs can spawn north of Ankara without the border pop as the spawnbusting rule doesn't apply to culture borders.
 
I think masonry was the only tech mentionned as filler after writing.

I agree we should pop borders at ankara but I'd rather do it with the library. While barbs could spawn, izzy won't slip by. IMO we should grow until we get a decent whip at the granary, regrow while building the library, then go into settler/worker mode.

Concerning GSs, I'm not so sure running them in istanbul is a great idea. Right now we're desperate for hammers and it doesn't exactly kicks the roof with its food surplus. I'd rather just run specs in ankara and later in the GPFarm should we find anything suitable.

Fail cash is a good idea, but where? Again, we need hammers... I'd say if we do this we should devote edirne to that but not until after the library.
 
Situation looks nice :)

Though I dislike the HG idea: the profits will be slim if we ever get it (already kinda late), and with three cities and no settler, we might want to stress on REX leveraging our imp trait (boosted forest chops boosted building settler is cool). I would hire scientists in the satellite cities while Istanbull focuses on the REX business.

I would have gone monument first in Ankara too but now another whip seems harsh (would keep it for the lib). And we might want to keep the two forests for an additional health point. So are we taking the risk Izzy bypass it or no (ie going lib directly)?

tech path is tricky. I am still for early currency, via math sounds the best. Sailing first to please the host though (and wbs, potential TRs etc) :D

Also I think we should scout that northern barb city (west of the mountain), though we need one more unit if we want to do that while unfogging the south west area.

edit:

Fail cash is a good idea, but where? Again, we need hammers...

+1
 
If our next city becomes coastal, Fishing after Math would be nice to get a WB out. I'm not convinced about Sailing though. Izzy has enough cities for us to trade with and we shouldn't trade resources with JC anyway as he should soon become Izzy's WE.
Math soon will be good both for the hammam and improved chops. We have so much wood around Istanbul and to the west, with Math and being IMP we'll get settlers out in no time. Considering that, Currency soon should be useful to stay afloat financially.
Masonry is required for hammams, that's why we're getting it now.

Ankara should definitely get a library next and hire two scientists. What else would you want to build there? With its high food and granary we can whip the library very quickly and since it produces more culture than a monument we'll probably get the borders popped towards the end of the next set. We're not done scouting Izzy yet, but it looks like she has two more sites available, her SE and SW. I expect her to settle that first before trying to head west past us.

HG really is a "because we can" thing. However, I understand that Istanbul is our main production city and it may not be worth the delay for a measly 1 :health: everywhere. We should whip out a hammam after Math (in the aftermath?) though.
 
Sailing means auto-connected coastal cities. Also means we'll most likely get insta-trade-routes to JC as soon as the barb city falls if he really is up there (very likely). There is a possibility he (and others) are actually on another landmass, which means intercontinental TRs. The instant bonus provided by sailing together with its cheapness makes me prefer sailing before maths. We can hold back on the chopping a little while and finish the current builds together with a few more chariots, then build another worker so we have some choppers. By that time we should be done with maths.

Ankara should definitely get a library next and hire two scientists. What else would you want to build there? With its high food and granary we can whip the library very quickly and since it produces more culture than a monument we'll probably get the borders popped towards the end of the next set. We're not done scouting Izzy yet, but it looks like she has two more sites available, her SE and SW. I expect her to settle that first before trying to head west past us.
Agreed. I would have put it before the granary but ok. Let's use the whip there to speed things up. About scouting izzy, I'm not so sure I would've done it, I probably would've kept an eye on the barb city or finishi mapping the available land so we can discuss sites properly.

HG really is a "because we can" thing. However, I understand that Istanbul is our main production city and it may not be worth the delay for a measly 1 everywhere. We should whip out a hammam after Math (in the aftermath?) though.
Well I kinda switched my thoughts from "indifferent" to "don't like" in that regard. Of course we could do it most likely, but I (generally) feel we're not focusing on anything, but trying to do everything at the same time, the suggestion to run specs in istanbul is a good example for that. The early game is all about rex and that's what we should be doing now since we successfully sealed off a proper junk of land. If we had high food surplus we could run specs in cap but we don't have that here so we can't do the usual drill. We have a city with high food, specs are run in food cities, period. Maybe we'll find another (seafood) site so we have another GP site. Istanbul should only focus on getting cities up (settlers), improving (workers) and protecting (chariots) them.

About that barb city, we can't see what's north of it so we don't know in advance when JC launches a major attack on it. We're left with checking defenders each turn until we get a WB up there. We should get some chariots to patrol up there and attack should the opportunity arise. If we manage to capture that city, we're fine, but if not we might be in danger of losing all those sites.
 
Sailing means auto-connected coastal cities. Also means we'll most likely get insta-trade-routes to JC as soon as the barb city falls if he really is up there (very likely). There is a possibility he (and others) are actually on another landmass, which means intercontinental TRs.

Sailing only means insta-TR between cities that have a route to each other. If we found something in the west it will not connect because there are plenty of unexplored tiles between. Anyway we'll want a road to the west as we will have to send plenty of settlers and workers that way over the next couple of turnsets.
I'd rather get Fishing and a WB out, scout around the coast through the unexplored tiles first, then get Sailing after Math.
The barb city, being non-coastal and not having its borders popped, should not get in the way of a TR with JC once we get Sailing.

Well I kinda switched my thoughts from "indifferent" to "don't like" in that regard. Of course we could do it most likely, but I (generally) feel we're not focusing on anything, but trying to do everything at the same time, the suggestion to run specs in istanbul is a good example for that.

I agree. HG was just a thought, but thinking about it some more, I don't like it much either. As mysty said, it's just not working towards any clear goal.
I agree on no scientists in Istanbul for the same reason. 2 cities with 2 scientists each is plenty and there is no bonus for having them in the capital.

About that barb city, we can't see what's north of it so we don't know in advance when JC launches a major attack on it. We're left with checking defenders each turn until we get a WB up there. We should get some chariots to patrol up there and attack should the opportunity arise. If we manage to capture that city, we're fine, but if not we might be in danger of losing all those sites.

I don't like the location of the barb city. It seems to be E of cow, off the coast. NE of cow would be a much better location imo, using largely the same tiles and coastal. If we can sneak a chariot attack in after someone weakens the defenders I'd rather raze than keep it provided we can resettle in an acceptable timeframe.
Note that we don't actually know for sure JC is up north. His WB came from there, making it likely, but that's all we know.


Scouting the north past the barb city should be a major objective of the next TS. We need to know if JC is on our landmass or not. Using the NW chariot for that as mysty said earlier sounds good, he can get moving right away (before ending the turn), then be replaced by the marked chariot guarding Ankara and fogbusting at the current location. Just make sure there's always a chariot within 2t of Ankara in case a barb spawns in the north.
 
Sailing only means insta-TR between cities that have a route to each other. If we found something in the west it will not connect because there are plenty of unexplored tiles between. Anyway we'll want a road to the west as we will have to send plenty of settlers and workers that way over the next couple of turnsets.
I'd rather get Fishing and a WB out, scout around the coast through the unexplored tiles first, then get Sailing after Math.
The barb city, being non-coastal and not having its borders popped, should not get in the way of a TR with JC once we get Sailing.
Add this to the list of advantages of finally scouting our west ;)

Either my memory is playing tricks on me or I mistook the single tile we see in black... The barb city is west of the mountain, no? Pretty coastal in my books.

I agree. HG was just a thought, but thinking about it some more, I don't like it much either. As mysty said, it's just not working towards any clear goal.
I agree on no scientists in Istanbul for the same reason. 2 cities with 2 scientists each is plenty and there is no bonus for having them in the capital.
:)
 
Either my memory is playing tricks on me or I mistook the single tile we see in black... The barb city is west of the mountain, no? Pretty coastal in my books.

The shape of the border tile we can see makes it look like it's the city's NE border, meaning the city would be E of cow (or SW of that border tile). The tile's NE corner is rounded off while the others are angular.
I was wondering why we see that tile but not the others south of it, but thought it might be due to the coast up there and some scouting LOS issue I don't quite understand. Or am I misinterpreting the border shape?
 
Those corners don't mean anything :D

We see that tile because the chariot has visibility on an adjacient tile. That makes this corner the SE corner of the barb city's inner ring. That puts the city tile NNE of cows.
 
:blush:
Well, in that case, the barb city is a keeper obviously. Fresh water, and forming a nice channel to bypass the northern peninsula (if that's what it is). A bit low on food, but I guess we can't have everything.
If we put a chariot on the WSW grassland, we can see the city as well as the tile to its north across the water and react in case JC tries to make a move. If we keep two fogbusting chariots within reach (up to 4sq away) that might be enough to poach the city after he weakens the defense.

The western chariot could give up its fogbusting position for now and scout towards the west, e.g. move him onto the forest N of lake before ending the turn, then possibly onto the incense tile and onwards from there. Or we send him slightly more to the north and scout for seafood around the wheat and spices.

Settling S of spices isn't too bad imo, but it has no food in its first ring and will need a monument. If our chariot finds seafood somewhere around the incense that would be the best site for city #4 though, ideally N or NW of incense to get the wheat as well.
 
Iz is about to plant a whale city just south of the spice

I guess we could go for the fish city next or maybe plant a marginal city on the coastal PH SE - not great but enough to get out a wb and still keep our little empire somewhat compact at present. Most of the stuff in the west requires a bit of distance.

I would like to bust that coastal fog just SW though. Maybe more seafood.
 
I agree that we should scout the southern coast to open up trade routes with JC, whereever he is. If we have visible tiles to the fogged tip in the NW, we'll share trade routes with him because he came from over there to us. Or did he come from the east?
 
JC is most likely to the north, with the barb city blocking any trade routes to him.
 
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