[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[pindicator]

I finished the turn. Looked over the cities and moved a few tiles around but nothing major.

Mackoti did have a map exchange request when i logged in, and our southwest looks like this:



I've changed my mind about Pac South - we need to get that settled ASAP, with how fast everything is filling up.

We can't gain a worker from black sword's settler unless we double turn black sword -- well, unless he decides to move to the desert hill. But let's not double turn anybody

What's our strategy out west? I don't see the point in raiding those guys and making them easier marks for dtay and mackoti later on. But if we want to wait and then take those cities when we're ready then I'm good with that too. But this is infrastructure time.

That said, if anything lands on Pac-South we kill it.

[scooter]

What's our strategy out west? I don't see the point in raiding those guys and making them easier marks for dtay and mackoti later on. But if we want to wait and then take those cities when we're ready then I'm good with that too. But this is infrastructure time.

I kinda just wanted to prod mackoti's defenses with those 2 Zerks. See if an opportunity presents itself. Don't really care about messing with Black Sword or suttree. The thing is, in order to do that we'd have to declare to pass through Black Sword's Envoy city.

Agreed on PAC South on all counts.

[scooter]

Or... different idea. Let's park both galleys on the coast tile 1SW of the Wheat. Then let's declare war on Black Sword. Sit on that tile until we've landed on PAC South. I think he's our primary competition for that island (suttree is not a threat, mackoti doesn't really have direct access because of Black Sword), and that will keep him from gaining access to it until he settles 1S of the sheep and pops borders (so that's 10T away). That should be enough time for us. I agree that these islands are filling up fast, and us failing to claim PAC South would be a large mistake.

[pindicator]

I don't think two zerks are going to do anything against mackoti. Maybe four could grab a city by surprise, but I expect two defenders in each border city from him.

Let's have our next two settlers head to PAC South. They can have those longbows in production as defenders and we can shuttle a pair of workers by Orioles to the island. That plus the zerkers already in the area should be all we need to get started.

[scooter]

I don't think two zerks are going to do anything against mackoti. Maybe four could grab a city by surprise, but I expect two defenders in each border city from him.

Would just like to remind you we sailed by two empty mackoti cities earlier in the game . I do agree that at this stage, we very likely couldn't snipe anything with 2 Zerks, but I have seen stranger things happen.

But as I said in my last post, I think I'd rather use those galleys to claim the island via the coastal choke point until we have it settled.

Agreed on settlers and units.

[pindicator]

I was thinking of the same situation, believe it or not. If I remember right, instead of putting our early axes on a boat I was talked into using those axes in an early opportunist strike against Nakor, much like what is being proposed here...

[Zed-F]

To be fair, you guys *did* have ~90% odds on that battle, so it could easily have been said to be a good gamble.

On a different topic, what does your diplo situation look like with respect to resource trades, OBs, etc.?

[pindicator]

Turn 153

Let's start with foreign affairs:



Note that mackoti canceled open borders with us. I didn't see any notification of him swapping to mercantile, so this is purely a move to deny us commerce. Right now, I'm not sure foreign commerce isn't doing all that much for us - we have a handful of cities with 4c trades routes, but most everybody is getting 3c. If we could do a free swap to Mercantilism right now I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Also, when I was in game Ichabod started his own golden age and revolted to Buddhism.


Tech Report
Lots of new techs in the last 2 turns (or ones I missed on my original t151 report)

Azza has gained Guilds
WilliamLP has gained Guilds
Black Sword has gained Optics
Commodore has gained Compass
Ichabod teched Theology
Mackoti now has Education
Dhalphir finally got Feudalism

We knew mack was going to have Education soon -- we're only 4t away from it, so we're not terribly far behind -- but the one that concerns me is Black Sword and Commodore. Obviously we're not attacking Black Sword now; he'd have naval superiority over us. And if Commodore is headed for Carracks then we need to shore up our defenses fast. I was hoping he was headed for Economics.


I had a funny request from Azza when I started the turn



It's funny because Azza already has many sources of copper. I checked - he isn't trading any of them away.



A bunch of new cities have recently come out of resistance. Let's take a look at them:







(Somehow we managed to forget to give Nordiques any production last turn. Oops!)

And way out east, take a look at how Seahawks is coming along




Staying out east, a little micro note:



I sent Valiants' settler on our galley, headed for PAC South. And I have another settler in queue. The one worker started a workshop for Valiants -- we don't need the second worker to help with it next turn if we'd rather workshop the last tile for Boilermakers. That workshop will finish in time to shorten Valiant's next settler to a 6t build.


And then let's go up north, where we have some culture issues that need shoring up:



Need to get some libraries in those border cities, unless we want to permanently run artists.


Finally, demos are looking very nice. How about that Crop Yield? We have our last city coming out of revolt next turn, and I suspect we'll be #1 then:

[Krill]

Dat GNP...

[pindicator]

Dat GNP...

Yeah, that is dtay in his golden age, I'm sure. I suppose it could be Ichabod in his, but nah

Edit:
I just realized Azza was offering to gift us copper. Um, maybe it was a trade that we lost the resource for?