Turn 138, 190AD

[nbarclay]

In MP, trades seem to expire after 20 turns whether you want them to or not. It's not impossible that the GoW/ND trade just expired naturally. In any case, my bet is that they're getting ready for Leo's, which could spell huge trouble since it would make their gold worth twice as much as ours in terms of upgrades.

Keep in mind that the tradeoff of gold for shields is just as good (or bad) upgrading WCs to knights as upgrading horsemen. We may also want to consider some warrior->MedInf upgrades, depending on how vital speed is to us.

EotS can trade a food for a shield to get up to 14 shields per turn. That would be perfect for building a knight before possibly switching to other units for upgrade, and we can focus on units for upgrade elsewhere.

[nbarclay]

Can a WC survive pillaging a mountain road? It looks like that was what you were planning on pillaging with.

[notyoueither]

Yes, I believe so. I was worried about that, due to CtP memories.

[notyoueither]

With EotS, if we go down to 12 sh to grow in 2, we get 12 then 13 shields. We could cash rush from 12 to 20 to rush a horse. Or, we can go 12 to 13 to do a spear, then at 15spt (after sorting) go to 2t horse.

[nbarclay]

Cash rushing is only half as cost-efficient as upgrading, so we're better off sticking to pure upgrades if we're cutting our iron anyhow (unless there's a very serious emergency). Regarding EotS getting more shields if it grows, where would the shields come from? The only way I see for EotS to gain shields by growing is to take the shields away from somewhere else, which is only a gain if it takes over an irrigated tile and has the tile switched to mining. Five-turn knights at 14 net shields per turn looks to me like about as efficient a use of the city as we'll get (and I would guess we'll be reconnecting iron often enough for upgrades to make that work).

[notyoueither]

EotS and Hurr can both get to 2 turn horse.

[notyoueither]

Hurr can give up a fur to get 14/16 (coast/mountain) 2 turn horse.

With that fur, EotS gets to 15 or 16spt itself to also get 2 turn horse.

[nbarclay]

By the way, we have 11 turns left on a peace treaty with RP. We can't declare war on them without attacking until that's over. If we might want to cut a trade route, we might want RP to stop roading Pamplona 6-9-9, since their having a road there would complicate cutting off trade. Alternatively, we could cut off our iron at WoC 3 and keep two workers on standby to reroad there the moment we need to. (Disconnecting and reconnecting on a grassland is easier than it is on a mountain, after all.)

[notyoueither]

We can pillage any tile, anywhere in Spain to cause the war.

Or, we can pillage 1 1 of Sirocco to cut trade.

Good catch on the peace length. I forgot about that

[notyoueither]

WoC 3 requires 5 worker turns to repair. Road and mine. Trying to avoid that, or we could cut iron this turn.

[nbarclay]

I added my economic recommendations to the first message.

Cutting Sirocco 1-1 would probably be the smoothest solution for turning our trade with Spain on and off. For the moment, no one's using the tile, so replacing its irrigation would be unnecessary.

[notyoueither]

Looking at recommendations. Are 2 horse better than 1 knight from Arashi?

[notyoueither]

And EotS. We can do a 2 turn spear, then 2 turn horse. Would that not fit the plan better?

[notyoueither]

We can have a pike in Typhoon in 2, and a spear in Sufa in 2.

Is that not good?

[notyoueither]

Also, moving Monsoon off the hills and onto the grass/mountain is a net loss of commerce.

I have to get this done.

I hope you like what I do, Nathan.