I played my turn, then I figured we shouldn't keep the other teams waiting, so I played for sunrise as well. Sorry sunrise! But it's not like there was that much going on right now...
![[Image: RBPB6-7s.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19563179/PB6/Sullla/RBPB6-7s.jpg)
Project Great Artist is well and fully underway now. We chopped the work boat to get the fish connected ASAP, then grew sunrise's capital to size 4 at max speed possible. Thanks to the free Medieval lighthouse, we have enough food at size 4 to run triple Artists!
Eight food from the center tile and fish, just enough to support a size 4 city. Of course there's no growth taking place, but that's a minor price to pay for such a fast Great Artist. Due as planned in 4t on T94.
I think the most hilarious part of all this is how sunrise also gets 14 culture/turn as a side effect of running those Artists. Fast border pops, anyone?
Seriously though, the extra vision from those borders will help in early warning of incoming enemy units. 40% defense doesn't hurt either, if it comes to fighting.
We should be safe to land this Great Artist before anyone else, and therefore claim the free Artist at Music as our prize. I say that because no one else has a city above size 2, and therefore can't exactly be running triple Artists. In the time it takes our competitors to grow to size 3 or size 4, we'll have the Artist in hand. We also already have enough beakers to lightbulb Music; I swapped all of us over to Civil Service research this turn to avoid wasting beakers on overflow. (We have about 10 excess beakers, just wanted to be sure!) So while I don't want to take anything for granted, I feel pretty safe about this one. Music was our first early game objective, and we are in good position to claim it.
![[Image: RBPB6-8s.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19563179/PB6/Sullla/RBPB6-8s.jpg)
I moved our scout over here one tile SE and then stopped. This allows us to continue blocking that chokepoint if we desire. If WarriorKnight moves N-NW onto the forested hill, then we can move NW and block the scout in the same position as last turn. We also have the option to ignore the Roman scout and move further into the wilderness. Let's see what he decides to do.
I think Team 3 has already met another team based on espionage point spending (we have more EP on them than vice versa, which is what would happen if they were diverting points between two teams). Not entirely sure though, need another turn to see how the EP changes after Team 3 plays.
A word on economy stuff... So sunrise is sitting there topping the board with a score of 302 and cities of size 4 and size 3. That's cool and all, since he gets to work more tiles and run specialists for us - it was the right play for his starting position. However, it comes with a price to pay. Speaker and I have been sitting on minimum score (289) with size 1 cities so far this game. That's because we've been building workers, and as of this turn we now both have 3 workers. sunrise still only has 1 worker. We'll be improving tiles at triple the speed that sunrise will be doing so, and so Speaker and I will soon speed up and accelerate past sunrise's start.
Now as I said, that doesn't mean this was poor play on sunrise's part; his starting position had all the food in the water, so growing and whipping work boats was the ideal play. Not to mention claiming a Great Artist for the team! I just find it fascinating how the different openings play out in this game, and how building workers first winds up such a strong option in the long run. This game can always still find ways to amuse me.
Hope we can find the other teams and find out whether the starts were mirrored eventually.
