[SPOILERS] Ceiliazul is Player One: Louis of Egypt

[Nakor]

Take your time, Ceil! Nothing that interesting is happening.
And you've got more important things to take care of now!

[Nakor]

Things are looking a lot better in game.
MP done in all cities and we're getting enough workers to start 2 settlers for city 5 and 6. Now we need to get in the habit of fast expansion, but that's do-able.
We really need Iron, Copper or Horses, though... 3T untill IW.

Everything OK over there?

[Ceiliazul]

Nakor, I love what you've done with the place! Middletown as a size6 city looks really nice, and you look poised for explosive growth! I would have whipped harder, especially in Thebes... no whip anger there at all?

I see you've done a good job with MPs, and that can further increase our ability to crack that whip.



I see the worker roading toward Plako's start, looks really good. The clams are already improved, but are 2nd ring so growth will be slow at first. Good news is the worker doing the roading can chop those forests into a ton of workers very quickly. Perhaps chop a granary while growing, then whip 4->3 over and over while working the clam, cow, ivory? Chops into workers and settlers are always good, otherwise perhaps we could sneak in a Hanging Gardens?



In the south, It looks like we traded maps with Azza? That could be dangerous, if Azza sells to Krill it will inform Krill that we have no metals. I hope that doesn't happen!

I favor the bold block city (maybe even 1W to get riverside and one more banana. Remember Krill is also a pink-dot fan, not an early aggression fan. If Iron poppps up down there we'll really have no choice... lets not commit the upcoming settler until we see iron.



In the north, that barb city blocking our horse is on flatland. I would be surprised to see archers in the city... I'm expecting only 2-3 warriors guarding the city. Can the Thebes archer at least scout it out? The hill SE of marble should give visibility to the city.

If it's only warrior, lets get n+2 archers up there post-haste. There is a coastal route for Krill's galleys to reach that city, which would obviously be a harbinger of doom if he took it. Again, if you sold maps to Azza then Krill may know of our strategic resources conundrum. Again, Eeek!

[Nakor]

Thanks, Ceil! We're indeed ready for growth again.

Whipping isn't nearly as good as in the original game, imo. 1-pop whipping is good, but bigger whips might not be worth it of you can work a 3h mine as well. Therefore I decided to let our cities grow and let whip anger wear off. Having MP helps with the hapiness as well.

Thebes does have 1 whip anger, though...
We should whip it next turn. We can finish the Granary and overflow into a complete archer.
Moved the archer 1N but there is a barb warrior coming down.

The Plako site does give us interesting Wonder options and it's time to put Ind to work. HG is as good a wonder as any, so we could go for it but need an Aquaduct as well. Let's look at other options as well.

The Settler from OASIS should go south while the settler from Middletown goes to the Plako site. Unless Iron gives us other ideas. I'd really like to fill the gap before expanding further east though.

[Ceiliazul]

Moved the archer 1N but there is a barb warrior coming down.
...
The Plako site does give us interesting Wonder options and it's time to put Ind to work.

The Settler from OASIS should go south

All sounds good, pending the location of iron. Here's hoping it's already in range of somewhere. those bare plains tiles south do look pretty glaring for a map script... I hope "our" iron isn't so precarious.

I like settler south in any case. If we dn't settle "block" soon, Krill will. can the middletown archer guard the city until better garrison can be achieved? There's a forest there we can leave unchopped for emergency production if needed.

Time to put IND to work... yes! Honestly not sure on what though... The Great Lighthouse is strongly nerfed, but still available if we want it. It isn't so terribly expensive on t90 as it would have been on t50. Has the Oracle been built yet? Maybe we can steal Colossus for our many coastal tiles. (Although Astronomy is obviously vital!)

I'm pondering hard a Literature -> G.Library line. we could get the epics up and running too. A National epic in Thebes, especially would be nice.

Also, for defense, I just now remembered that war elephants are not banned! That would provide a great stop-gap if iron is not readily available.

[Nakor]

Do we have Iron?









So we can keep to our settling plan!

Techwise, I think going for Monarchy is a good option. We have wines and the HR happiness can let our cities grow even bigger.
So I put us on that path for now, but feel free to change it.

[Ceiliazul]

Do we have Iron?

Wa Hooo!

[Nakor]

Things are moving along smoothly!
We might have 3 more cities in the next three turns.
Our archer should be able to take the barb city up north.
We lost 1 archer to take down 3 warriors if things go correctly. I suggest we keep the city. It's sub-optimal but it saves a settler.
The OASIS settler is going towards the southern spot to settle and the Middletown settler will finish next turn and move towards Plako site.

[Ceiliazul]

Stoked to hear about the progress against the barb city! IIRC, the barb city loses horse, which is kind of crucial... do we really want to wait for 3rd ring borders? (that's 25 turns with CRE, maybe a monument would help?)

Now, in the south, I really really want to claim bock city. Krill WILL claim it if we don't. If we can get even 1 archer to the city upon settling, with 2 or 3 more soon after, it would be a big humongous win. It would be our cornerstone for a stable border with Krill, which we desperately need. Long term, he has all the leverage: sea access to our long concave shoreline of core cities. 2 settlers after 'block' backfill the jungle and rice locations.

[Nakor]

We can try to push a settler towards the Block site after we've settled the the other southern city. That's a good defensive site as well.
If we only have 3 archers and krill comes with Jag's, we're screwed...

Taking the barb city is a 56.7% gamble... I'll take it and we... loose...

Time to send over a Sword once we have Iron connected...