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Barb cities in OCC
So I read this thread - subject occing or occers or ockey or some such. Surely nothing for the honest trader here, I thought and nearly passed on.
But hold. OCC, One City Challenge. I bethought me of current trading partners in Rotterdam, Hong Kong and the City just over the river, not to mention dealings long ago with like minded fellows from Carthage and the pleasantly devious folk of Venice. Perhaps this is something for an honest street trader to try after all.
Weeel the session last night ending in the very small hours (yaawwwn) with the challenge tantalisingly poised - middle game coming to an end and difficult end game in sight.
Of course all was not plain sailing - in fact no sailing at all whether pearl or plain as the starting site proferred in the game I randomly picked had two gold mines, a river, iron and a good looking spot for a little prospecting - but was INLAND! Enough to dishearten all but the most commitedly trade minded. But then Marco's correspondence was always full of the pleasures, and profit, of the overland journey and I recall that the merchants of Samarkand were not too inhibited by their dry and dusty location.
Problems beset my single city in its early days when merciless (sorry Ming, better make that "hard hearted") barbarians slew our hard working settlers in the course of their toil in the fields (they were doing no harm to a living soul, guv, honest - that barbarian who said his pocket was picked is nothing but a lying toe rag)!
Luckily the mines prudently built before the incursion of the fleet footed barbs continued to provide us with the wherewithall for our trading and, after a century or two, we persuaded some wandering nomads to come from the far off land of Non to take the place of the dear departed (I keep telling the Nons that the day of their enfranchising into the city cannot be far off - but I fear the time when this was a real prospect may, in truth, have receded for ever).
Superhighways have been built. The industrial age dawns. I can hardly wait for the day's distractions to cease so as to be able to return to my labours and to learn the end of the tale.
And so to my question. I squeezed out the time to speculate a diplo at some point (do other people do that?) and sent her out to see what she might come across (pace Marco, a boat is such a boon to an honest trader) - but up til now she has been in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time (but there's women for you - woops, sorry Empress).
But what has happened now is that the careless English, in unBriton like fashion, have let the hard hearted barbarian hordes through the gates of one of their cities. It is placed comfortably distant from me and in a normal game my diplo would spend a lengthy period on secondment to the barbarian court softening the hard of heart and employing filthy lucre to recruit them to more civilised ways. Now should she do likewise in an OCC challenge? Seemingly not as the filthy lucre is needed for other things. But what does a converted barb fetch when brought back to the city after civilising? Already I have found the flexibility of the "disband" command to be most useful at key moments. Has anyone any experience of this in OCC?
Let it not be thought that an honest street trader will allow to be forgotten a friendly tip or two on such a subject from the august and learned denizens of this board. It is not, perhaps, to be expected that one whose study of the pleasures of trade has been, til now, pursued in solitude and obscurity should have aught to contribute to the wit and wisdom so royally displayed in these threads. But if, as sometimes happens, the trading partners with whom the East Street Trader corresponds should happen to mention some matter worthy of a wider consideration I will hasten to post it here by way of recompense.
But hold. OCC, One City Challenge. I bethought me of current trading partners in Rotterdam, Hong Kong and the City just over the river, not to mention dealings long ago with like minded fellows from Carthage and the pleasantly devious folk of Venice. Perhaps this is something for an honest street trader to try after all.
Weeel the session last night ending in the very small hours (yaawwwn) with the challenge tantalisingly poised - middle game coming to an end and difficult end game in sight.
Of course all was not plain sailing - in fact no sailing at all whether pearl or plain as the starting site proferred in the game I randomly picked had two gold mines, a river, iron and a good looking spot for a little prospecting - but was INLAND! Enough to dishearten all but the most commitedly trade minded. But then Marco's correspondence was always full of the pleasures, and profit, of the overland journey and I recall that the merchants of Samarkand were not too inhibited by their dry and dusty location.
Problems beset my single city in its early days when merciless (sorry Ming, better make that "hard hearted") barbarians slew our hard working settlers in the course of their toil in the fields (they were doing no harm to a living soul, guv, honest - that barbarian who said his pocket was picked is nothing but a lying toe rag)!
Luckily the mines prudently built before the incursion of the fleet footed barbs continued to provide us with the wherewithall for our trading and, after a century or two, we persuaded some wandering nomads to come from the far off land of Non to take the place of the dear departed (I keep telling the Nons that the day of their enfranchising into the city cannot be far off - but I fear the time when this was a real prospect may, in truth, have receded for ever).
Superhighways have been built. The industrial age dawns. I can hardly wait for the day's distractions to cease so as to be able to return to my labours and to learn the end of the tale.
And so to my question. I squeezed out the time to speculate a diplo at some point (do other people do that?) and sent her out to see what she might come across (pace Marco, a boat is such a boon to an honest trader) - but up til now she has been in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time (but there's women for you - woops, sorry Empress).
But what has happened now is that the careless English, in unBriton like fashion, have let the hard hearted barbarian hordes through the gates of one of their cities. It is placed comfortably distant from me and in a normal game my diplo would spend a lengthy period on secondment to the barbarian court softening the hard of heart and employing filthy lucre to recruit them to more civilised ways. Now should she do likewise in an OCC challenge? Seemingly not as the filthy lucre is needed for other things. But what does a converted barb fetch when brought back to the city after civilising? Already I have found the flexibility of the "disband" command to be most useful at key moments. Has anyone any experience of this in OCC?
Let it not be thought that an honest street trader will allow to be forgotten a friendly tip or two on such a subject from the august and learned denizens of this board. It is not, perhaps, to be expected that one whose study of the pleasures of trade has been, til now, pursued in solitude and obscurity should have aught to contribute to the wit and wisdom so royally displayed in these threads. But if, as sometimes happens, the trading partners with whom the East Street Trader corresponds should happen to mention some matter worthy of a wider consideration I will hasten to post it here by way of recompense.
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