[SPOILERS!] Pericles of Babylon. Kyan, Twinkletoes, Whosit.

[Kyan]

Leviticus. My favourite city. Currently working a couple of scientists to keep us flying in tech. If we include G Library and our scientists we're spitting out- Babylon are by far the most impressive techers in this game currently. Carthage and Ottomans beat us for raw beakers, but overall we will come out ahead.

I have a worker en-route to finish that grass mine.



Numbers. The home of the Greatest Library in the world! This city needs massive work but i have two workers assigned to farming a couple of those grasslands. we can go from there.



Joshua. Our new city, yes i know it's horribly under-developed. All it's workers were stolen away to chop out the library. 3 are en ruote to fix it up with cottages and roads. Dye is nearly complete.


Expansion:

We need to get some more cities down and they need to hit the ground running so i've marked out 3 potential city sites for near term:



Filler city: this one fits with our other cities perfectly, uses the rice which we can irrigate now and grabs another floodplains. Near capital so cheap to maintain.



This site is beautiful. Too beautiful really. It will need a LOT of attention if we go for it as that desert is infested with barbs and it's not far from Rome. Not to mention workers cottaging it to kingdom come. It's still something i think we should grab though.



This site is rubbish BUT it hooks up horses (at last!) and a sugar resource. Now we can chain irrigate, we can stop this city being totally useless but it will never be particularly important.

[Kyan]

World Situation:

PAT:

England
Carthage
Babylon
Mali
Egypt
Maya

= 6 Civs

CUDDLE:

India
Aztec
HRE
Ottomans
Byzantine
Rome
Inca
Portugal

= 8 Civs.

===========

Our perception of the other nations:

Greatest Friends: Maya and Mali

These two i trust implicitly and would never turn on us. Both are decent players and i expect our friendship to last the distance.

Good Friends: Byz and England

Both of these are friends of Babylon. Byz choosing Cuddle over PAT has really hurt though and if they're not careful, they could easily get dogpiled. The threat of cataphracts is very real. The annoying thing is PAT could get them guilds considerably faster and make them considerably safer. I think Byz are relying too much on their friendship with us and Maya to try and leverage a super strong position.

My only problem there is that they will take out one of my allies. Pat can not afford to lose anyone. I have a NAP with them that breaks if they attack one of my allies. If they choose this route, i may regrettably have to attack and i expect Maya would do the same from the opposite flank in a pincer movement leaving Byz no hope.

England are a good friend for now and would not turn on us. Cyneheard is a fantastic player and i admire his skill with numbers. Both of us have agreed we're in it til the end. I wouldn't be surprised, once the number of civs has thinned considerably, if an opportunistic attack befell me so i'll have to be wary. For now though, it's all good.

Friends: Carthage, Egypt, Rome and Portugal

Carthage we owe bigtime and i will be loyal to them totally. Krill is Krill. I actually get on rather well with him but im aware he'll do what it takes to win. Whatever that may be. Carthage are loyal to Krill mainly according to England so i'll be wary of that union later on in the game.

Rome and Portugal i both have friendly relations with. However, i don't trust Portugal in the slightest. I'll try and sweet talk Rome into a NAP so i can secure our southern flank from him.

Neutral: Ottomans, Aztec and HRE

Barely spoken to either of them as we only met recently. Potential for friendship as opening messages with Ottomans were friendly enough and i like Ruff as a person although he's never spoken to babylon before.

Wary: India, Inca

Inca i didn't give tech to as i didn't feel they deserved it. They choose, as Joao or Inca, to rush the Aztecs and failed and wanted tech. Not happening.

India don't like us. Doubt they ever will. No great loss but be wary of attacks by them.

[Whosit]

Thanks for the updates, Kyan, [strike]but your last three pictures are all the same. [/strike] Edit: Nevermind. I hope to log in tonight to take a personal look at things.

Oh, glad we landed the G. Library.

Exodus: Well, my personal town, eh? Let's see. Well, finishing the improvements I've laid out will give us a base of 18 hammers. I would actualyl like to see the flood plains given a watermill for an extra hammer. Sad to tear up a village, but as we get more cities online, I think we can afford to do that. This would probably be a good place for the Heroic Epic, indeed.

18 base hammers +25% (4), +100% military (18) = 40 hammers for military builds. If we can somehow scoot the base hammers up to 20, that's +5, +20 for 45. Should be able to supply us with most of our military needs.

NOTE: If we do this, the city should build nothing but military, otherwise we waste the H.E. Of course, we may want to add some basic infrastruction like a Courthouse eventually, but we must be very selective with what we build.

Numbers: Not sure what's best to do here. We can farm all three Grasslands around the lake in order to run 2 more Scientists, but we'll need a Forge or Garden to raise the Happy cap (requires 7 pop).

Question: Are the Pyramids already gone? If not, can we get stone from someone? Exodus, once it is fully improved, can build the Pyramids in 13 turns. Chopping those hill forests would provide 134 hammers (modified with stone). Getting Rep would really help out a specialist economy, which we can probably do.

Rubbish town: Sugar will provide city with +4 food surplus (note: usually better to chop jungles then build improvements). We can cottage up the grassland tiles (3), then run a couple of scientists (7 pop). Doesn't seem worth the effort to do anything else pre-biology. It should still contribute to our economy, though.

That's all my thoughts at the moment.

[Whosit]

OK, now I see your diplomatic update.

Hmm, I think that I am essentially the Domestic Adviser here. Nothing wrong with that.

One thing that we desperately need to include in our defenses are some spearmen. Not only because we have Byzantium next door, but because fast-movers are dangerous in general. Oh, do we have Machinery yet? If not, what time-frame are we looking for? I still want those windmills for Genesis. Anyway.

The best way to avoid a war is to be prepared. We are currently not prepared. In fact, we are a very juicy target! We'll ultimately want at least a pair of Spearmen/Pikemen (if we get Engineering) in Leviticus at minimum.

Some Axemen/Bowmen need to be deployed as fog-busters near the city locations we want. I'll post some signs for good spots when I log in tonight. Maximize coverage with minimal expense.

You handle diplomacy, of course. Hope we get a NAP with Rome. Hope you can convince the Spectre Council that they are better off in our camp than not.

[Whosit]

OK, still on T100 and no Machinery. Sad.

Make sure you get that second Bowman to Joshua. Looks like he can make it in time.

I think that our Woody II Warrior should continue to explore!

I may have added a couple of signs . . . oh, yeah, our Chariot up north will probably die. They don't get their bonus vs. Axemen on the defense.

[Kyan]

Here you go mate:

Carthage: Paper (T105?) --> Guilds
Maya: Machinery ETA T103 --> Engineering? Pikes, 3-move roads, Castles, Trebuchets.
Babylon: Feud's ETA is T105, I believe. Then on to Music? Well done on the Great Library, by the way.
Mali: Drama, finishing it before Music even starts. After Drama's done, I think we might need you to save gold for a few turns.
Mali, I've sent you 50g.

Yeah the chariot was again unlucky, i moved him into a position whereby he could kill an axeman on an unprotected tile as it moved towards Numbers- and moved right into the path of another approaching un-seen axeman.

[Strike700]

Do you have any plans to scout further or you just waiting on maps to be traded around?

[Kyan]

Will wait largely, JM/Cuddle accidently sent their maps to Mali who will be sending them to us. Combined with Pat's map, we should have the whole world near enough

[Strike700]

You guys are already to paper? Holy cow!

[Twinkletoes89]

You guys are already to paper? Holy cow!

That's what happens when tech trading gets going!