[54 Spoilers] Nothing to see here! Miguelito and Rusten's max score game

[Commodore]

Yeah, there was only ever one good one:

Okay, there were more, but the Belisarius Series should be read by everyone always.

[Miguelito]

Don't know about the books, but Belisar is actually the one Byzantine soldier whom I knew without Google. But I'll save him for a cataphract and hopefully greater glories than a warrior and lion.

[Rusten]

Not aggravating your opponents with chariots is the right decision IMO. I absolutely hate it when people poke around my territory with military units, especially 2-movers. 

I don't agree with your long term plan for Akritai, no. We can build around and do what you feel like, but for me it's our clear military center and HE city. We can 1-turn cataphracts there later and it's a good city to settle our GGs. I'm OK with cottaging all of the capital though (just not the farmed FP for green dot). Frumentarii can also be cottaged without me objecting.

I think settling 2 cities that require less work right now is better than making huge preparations for the southern ones. Sooner is usually better in civ. I'd aim to quickly settle Copperdeer and Stonefish first. Even if you're unable to get a size 1 granary in Stonefish getting the city earlier should be worthwhile. But I will defer to your decision here as you have a better picture of the worker micro and what's possible. Neither option is bad. You make a good point about the city benefiting greatly from missionary spread. Do what you feel like here, just don't forget that you're IMP and that these settlers are mighty cheap.

Working mine over FP in capital is a little dubious when we're so far off our happy cap and the build is something non-essential like that spearman, but not a big deal overall.

[Miguelito]

I don't agree with your long term plan for Akritai, no. We can build around and do what you feel like, but for me it's our clear military center and HE city. We can 1-turn cataphracts there later and it's a good city to settle our GGs. I'm OK with cottaging all of the capital though (just not the farmed FP for green dot). Frumentarii can also be cottaged without me objecting.

When I was writing it I was already noticing the flaws. I was rejecting the cap as a cottage center because of the short river, but that's actually a reason to go for cottages, because no farms/watermills. But here's a thing - Akritai has 2 FPs that no other city can work, what do we do with that? i can see a farm on one of them when green dot takes one of the shared ones, not sure about both though - wait for watermill? A cottage, as an exception?
While you have me convinced that it's the plausible HE spot, I'd like to ask how we 1turn cataphracts there? With HE and forge that needs 40 base hammers per turn. I easily see 20-25, but not sure where the rest would come from. Workshops? but we were talking serfdom before. Now if the city gets to size ~15 and we are in serfdom, watermills would get there...

Working mine over FP in capital is a little dubious when we're so far off our happy cap and the build is something non-essential like that spearman, but not a big deal overall.

Total on my part. In a previous sim I noticed that the cap was getting unhappy at size 4 because I had no MP available, and was thinking that I'd need to slow growth (yeah also not very smart, better to pull a chariot back), but then I shuffled the warrior over, but forgot that I could reenable growth, so there's that. Bright side: the spear now gets finished just the turn the cap grows to size 5 and starts the settler.

I think settling 2 cities that require less work right now is better than making huge preparations for the southern ones. Sooner is usually better in civ. I'd aim to quickly settle Copperdeer and Stonefish first. Even if you're unable to get a size 1 granary in Stonefish getting the city earlier should be worthwhile. But I will defer to your decision here as you have a better picture of the worker micro and what's possible. Neither option is bad. You make a good point about the city benefiting greatly from missionary spread. Do what you feel like here, just don't forget that you're IMP and that these settlers are mighty cheap.

I went with the southern dots, bear with me please. Sure we could have gotten settlers out faster, but it would be without worker support, nor military coverage for copperdeer, and the cities are slow already as I laid out in the last post.
I spent most of the evening simming this (good thing my sports got cancelled) and ended up with a plan that has both cities founding on t65, 2 workers having each prechopped for a turn already, cities connected, one workboat in place. The annoying detail is that the second workboat only improves the crab 3 turns after founding, but to improve on that (by 2 turns only), a settler has to come from Akritai instead of Agentes, and that means whipping it down to size 2 again --> def not worth it.
This means that we will most likely lose the lead in city count for a while, but then we'll be back roaring in the second half of the sixties with at least 3 new cities.

As a corollary of simming, I found that we will most likely get just through with our gold until Monotheism, so it was right to turn up research the turn we did. It's also showing that we don't get sailing before t70 or so . I hope naufragar has other islands.

short t55&56 report:

• the Great Lighthouse got built, we don't know by whom. Intelligence lightly points towards El Grillo, who logged in few minutes after I rolled the turn, presumably to see whether he got it. Seems quite early, and I'd rather not invest the hammers at this moment, but what do I know
  
• my paranoia about Cairo is fading. On the one hand, his power has stayed flat, and then Elkad founded his third city and that is some sweet border tension between our neighbours:
  
  
  I'm really curious why Cairo did not settle the wheat first ring. I also hope Elkad has copper, but either this city claims it or he could well have gotten it with his early 3rd ring border pop.
  
• when I logged back in to take shots, gira was playing and had just founded his 4th city. We are not seeing new borders (yet, maybe in 5 turns?). That might also mean that he has horses now, if he settled the backlines. I'll mouse over it.
  

[Miguelito]

t57
world news turn!
El Grillo found us:


He has what most likely is a war of passage with naufragar. I've set EP on him full steam (Have to take care though not to lose gira/Cairo, who seem to have run out of targets as well and are above 55 each now. So far I've been following but now I'd like to find out something new). F9 also confirms my suspicion that the GLH is his.

Our scout is making new discoveries as well, again. But first, he got visit from an old friend:


Also confirming that AGG Cairo indeed went for archery, and also that he's built a barracks already... hopefully he prefers to bash heads with Elkad. Scout walks north:


So, my mouseover into the fog was correct all the time, and in fact he has not connected his copper. But why, oh why?
The way I see this

• he leaves the copper unconnected, presumably to build warriors for MP
  
• for that he pays the hefty price of not building melee units with the free AGG C1
  
• instead he researches archery, but doesn't he want to build warriors for MP? Also he has no hill cities and opposed to melee doesn't get a bonus promo on them.
  
• he also has horse connected by now, so we've probably seen a chariot and not a spear on the power graph
  

Speaking of the power graph, when I first saw that someone researched archery it didn't occur to me to determine who from the power . Turns out the 6k of Cairo's that I took for an axe actually was the tech.
Well this play fro mCairo can be anything but aggressive, right? Or big chariot rush incoming?

This turn we also see a second contact with archery on F6. It can be either El Grillo, or one of the neighbours, which will get revealed next turn on the power graph.

Finally, Mr. Cairo researched writing, and I straight up offered OB. If he accepts I want to do two things:

1. build a scout in Akritai and send him to look into Cairo's 3rd city and cap. If he wants to send an ambassador as well he's welcome, we want to build trust.
   
2. build a road for the trade connection, which might actually help to secure the Mono research or even speed it up a turn (big ?). Here's the layout:
   
   (also seen Mag growing 2 pop in 2 turns )
   

Of course I don't want him to feel threatened, although if the above is correct we surely could send 2 chariots and the axe to cover the worker. The question then is where to build it - we could
a) send one of the workers (who this turn finished the ivory camp) 2N1E, building it on a tile that will stay neutral for the while being (while I hope to claim the three forests in the second ring of Akritai with that monument, and subsequent religion). This requires the chariot to move 2N next turn first, to check for barbs.
b) build it N or NE of the copper mine, which comes a turn later, but doesn't risk the chariot. We also expect to culturally control that tile.

-> both options expose us to the threat of Cairo snatching the worker, but with the option to retaliate

Curious what you think of that final part.

[Rusten]

Had a very busy 2 days so I only skimmed your posts for now, I'll have a closer look later.

As for your final question I think we're getting to that stage where a single worker is not worth making an enemy, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. You definitely shouldn't send 2 chariots and an axe together with it at least. I'd worry more about losing it to a barbarian in the fog, so I'd keep a unit with it for that reason (but we have the Akritai axe it seems).

I don't think it matters much to us where the road is, because we have the NW covered by a hill anyway so chariots can't sneak up on Akritai from the fog. I'd just save as many worker turns as possible.

[Miguelito]

Thanks for finding the time
I'd cover against barbs with the chariot on the ivory, that way I dont have to move a military unit on Cairo's border. This loses the chariot in case there is another barb axe/spear north of the jungle, but we have just moved or scout through there, so I don't think that's likely. Since I assume Cairo has a chariot, I would not feel comfortable moving an axe/ worker pair onto his border.
Both variants don't lose worker turns (farm FP while moving), but NW of copper has the road and hence TRs a turn earlier, which seems good for the monorush.
It all depends on whether he accepts OB fwiw, notably he hadn't offered on his own initiative.

[Miguelito]

turns 58&59


We got OB from Cairo, and I sent the worker straight in to lay down the road. Also the scout went to visit him, but first witnessed this scene:



This must be a warrior built with a barracks

The turn after, that spear that had us so in panic 10 turns ago was gone, with the warrior at 0.2/2  

I also sent a chariot to kill a barb warrior in the desert. He didn't attack in the interturn, so I had to send him in:


Will take a few turns to heal, and he's pretty out of position, but as I said I'm not terribly concerned about an incoming Cairo attack, and having seen three warriors and two archers of his this turn that got validated.

With the scout I went to look into Cairo's cap, and then further north. The border city can be checked in 3 turns with a chariot, without him noticing, assuming he doesn't send his own chariot over.



His game position looks pretty awful already, and actually he probably hates us the least (we took a plains cow that he could have contested but that's it). naufragar has settled up on him very much, planting his 4th city t58 on that 2 tile island, 3 tiles from his cap, rivaling our PB49 capital boating fest.
Note that for mysterious reasons he still has no monument in his 2nd city, leaving the wheat unclaimed, and now Elkad settled to contest it (I assume that since this is his 3rd CtH game he didn't expect the barracks to give culture like in RtR?).
Finally, if there isn't something on the tile NE of the copper, this capital BFC seems rather subpar? I probably would have felt motivated to pick ORG Vikings with that. Cairo does not have sailing yet, so no lighthouse incoming too soon.
So, if he doesn't manage to pull off something early against Elkad or naufragar rather soon (we're immune, of course), he seems to be pretty squeezed already. It doesn't seem that he's planning to do that, with his copperless strategy. I can see naufragar trying to play some piracy somewhere during the next 50 turns. We should have some vultures ready.

In other foreign news, El Grillo, who came on a WB from the east, knows all our contacts already. That must have happened in the west, and probably means a shared continent. He's getting circumnavigation on top of his GLH.
Someone we know has priesthood. It has to be Elkad, not nauf, since nobody else had meditation or polytheism on t57. If he builds the Oracle I won't complain (way better than naufragar locking down the sea with triremes).
Naufragar can get a galley to our island, and he doesn't seem to be hesitant about settling overseas already, so we might lose that, have to wait and see. I think we can get it down early 70s.
Then someone has 63 gnp to our 36 (at 100%), and that difference cant just be explained away with culture. If they are not researching monotheism right now it doesn't matter. So I hope it's El Grillo, but it could be scooter (who also gets some culture). Rest of the demos seems ok, but it's still 6 more turns until we get the next pair of cities down (still growing a bit, meanwhile).




edit for mechanics question: If naufragar gets writing, and we don't have sailing yet (but he does), can we get TR towards him with OB, or would he just get ours?

[Miguelito]

Also I've found that I can't do much for Frumentarii to become holy (I know, it's always chance more or less). I can't get it to size 4, and Agentes and Akritai are at 4 (inevitable) and 4 (can whip 1 pop -regrown immediately -, rather not 2).
On the upside, in the sandbox Judaism still was founded there both times

[Rusten]

edit for mechanics question: If naufragar gets writing, and we don't have sailing yet (but he does), can we get TR towards him with OB, or would he just get ours?

He would just get ours.