[PB78] Dreylin boldly goes

[coldrain]

It will be great when you manage to fog bust your "homeland" between the different bodies of water. Should make it easier to handle raging barbs. Speaking of which, have there been any stronger barbarian invaders, or just warriors/archers?

Not much to add in terms of empire developement or tech path. Normally I would be interested in going for War elephants when ivory is already hooked, but those are less poweful in this mod.

[Dreylin]

Iron Working is fairly high on my list, because if I'm continuing to lend out my Copper then I need a back-up for myself and I don't think I've spotted an extra Copper in the wild.

I kind-of feel like the barb city defenders were selected to make it hard / extremely costly to take militarily with even Classical era tech; but then many of them (not all) were positioned in such a way that cultural flipping is an easy option. I wonder if this was intended, or an oversight during mapmaking - although given PB76, I find the latter unlikely.

[Dreylin]

T80 -

Last couple of turns have seen Sulu and then Chekov founded:



Both are immediately profitable, but neither has much production capacity so will be heavily reliant on the whip. I have one Missionary in production at Scott which will head to Chekov as that is more in need of the border pop. I will try to fit the second Workboat into the build queue at McCoy, but the first two HAs are more urgent to start clearing out the Barbs.



With none of my Jewish cities needing a border pop right now, I've switched back to Hinduism and am slipping the Barracks into Kirk before finishing their first HA. Spock's will head NE towards Apache, while Kirk & McCoy feed West to take out Sulu's Mace and then the Oromo before hooking back up with the NE force.

Lots of growth over the next few turns, mostly onto improved tiles. I feel very short of Workers, but the pre-placed improvements are allowing that. I do need to start thinking of building a few more soon. I have one more city planned out at Orange Dot to fill the gap between Scott and Chekov, but other than that and Apache I may be pausing further expansion until Currency is in.

Any questions / anything aonyone wants to see?

[Tarkeel]

Any questions / anything aonyone wants to see?

Is it worth running two religions or would you have been better off with only the one?

[Dreylin]

Any questions / anything aonyone wants to see?

Is it worth running two religions or would you have been better off with only the one?

Uh-oh, you asked the question. 

My big frustration this game has been with religion - specifically the entire absence of any natural spreads within my borders (I can't speak as to whether either has spread abroad). My goal at the start was to get a Holy City in the capital and then get it shrined in Bureaucracy for some fat stacks of cash income. I had expected that I would start to get natural spreads and that would (mostly) handle my need to pop borders.

That didn't happen. 

So then Monotheism was needed so I could take advantage of OrgRel and build Missionaries to get the borders popped. Of course the Holy City was supposed to spawn in Spock which a.) needed the border pop and b.) would have helped secure the neighbourhood.

That didn't happen either. 

Since then it's been mostly a question of when I can spare a city to build Missionaries - and spreading Hinduism requires Kirk to first build a Missionary and then the recipient city to be able to generate more. So far I haven't found a suitable time to have Kirk push out a Missionary - this being a combo of it being a food-heavy city, and also my main source of Settlers. OTOH McCoy is a hammer-heavy city and was able to slot in the Jewish Missionary to spread to Scott. Now Scott has nothing better to do so will be putting its couple of hammers per turn into more Jewish Missionaries.

To some degree I've also been holding out for a natural spread of Hinduism to one of my other cities, which could then start spreading it. ... I think there might be space for Kirk to generate one soon as it is starting to grow and getting out of Settler whip cycle, but we'll see. It would go to Uhura, which will have the production capacity to put them out far faster than Scott can.

So to answer the question, I would much rather be just running the one religion, but I haven't felt able to prioritise Hinduism in the absence of a natural spread. I do however think I would be considerably more frustrated if I wasn't SPI and therefore unable to take advantage of switching between the 2 to maximise the OrgRel bonus.

I will probably need to be running both for the foreseeable future, as this next stretch has to be devoted to the military build-up in preparation for the Barb release button being triggered.

[Mjmd]

Can we please get an overview shot of your empire and surrounding lands.

[coldrain]

Yes, overview screenshot would be nice.

Remind me, how long until the held barbarians are able to move?

[Cyneheard]

Yes, overview screenshot would be nice.

Remind me, how long until the held barbarians are able to move?

T120 for the held barbarians.

[Dreylin]

Can we please get an overview shot of your empire and surrounding lands.

Sure thing!

Here's the North:


McCoy currently has only 4 improved tiles to work, so has just whipped 1-pop into the first Horse Archer and will regrow next turn. I might put the overflow into the second Workboat for Sulu rather than straight into a second HA. I know quite a bit about the land to the NE - which I should have been contesting with thrawn - and enough about the West, but directly North is a bit of a mystery. I'll send the first HA up there for at least a loop around the Peaks to find out more.

The South:


Little Lamplight revolted last turn.

Spock's Settler is planned for Orange, with Fuchsia currently low in the priority list, but needed eventually as another port on Lamplight Lake. The Gems at Scott come online next turn and I actually think we'll be able to start Maths on t83 and finish it in 3t.

I also forgot to look this turn for the Settler that Gavagai finished in Dehli last turn; it may be heading to claim the Wheat, so I need to remember to look for it next turn.

Let me know if there's an area you want to see in more detail, or a border area I didn't display enough of.

[Dreylin]

T82 -

Minor change of plans. I ran some test attacks with Horse Archers; I'm definitely going to lose some making first strikes on the Oromo & Macemen, but I should get good odds on the Archers at Apache. So I'm sending the first one from McCoy in that direction to join Spock's, and will get a third there to take the city and then bring them back to the West in a bigger stack to clear out the held Barbs.