[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[Maestro]

Alex died to a bear.

Dang bears! :mad:

[yuris125]

Here is the lost post, slightly modified

T21
Selected Meditation for research. I will look at C&D in more details after work, but at the first glance, things look good for Buddhism
Chop in, Settler finished at the end of turn. This is another good peace of news, maybe we won't need to delay the religion
Worse news - Alex ended the turn next to a bear, who won a 25% battle. So we're down to 1 Warrior (but another one due in 2 turns)

Here are proposed Settler movements (orange - Settler, white - Till). If there is not barb activity, estimate for the second city is T25, with Buddhism expected at the end of the same turn



T22 - Settler on the sheep, Till on the dyes
T23 - Both on the forest NW of the dyes
T24 - Till moves onto the hill 2NW of the dyes. From there he can see if any threat is possible to the tile NW of the copper. If he gives the Settler an all-clear, he moves to that tile
T25 - The Settler moves to the magenta dot and founds the city, Till goes exploring NW if there's no immediate barb threat

Demos for future studying

[yuris125]

Questions to think about

1. 3rd city. I see two options:
a. White dot. Yes, I know I said it's a filler. But it can be immediately productive, picking up the sheep, and growing more or less at the same time as the first cottage comes online
b. Blue dot. Obvious reasons: Picking up capital's cows and having pigs and cows of its own, it's a powerful location which can become productive quickly
White dot is a safer option. With our military consisting of one Warrior (ok, ok, two Warriors in two turns), I slightly prefer it. Blue dot makes our empire too spread out; we can probably defend against barbs, but if one of the opponents shows up with more than a token force (e.g., 3 Warriors ), we will be meat. Currently it doesn't look like any of the opponents is nearby, so I think the Blue dot is safe to be founded as the 4th city

2. Slavery. Do we want it now? With the 2nd city not overlapping with the capital, it has 3 good tiles to work, + a grassland hill mine in 3 turns. I don't think we want to whip pop off those tiles, so maybe we should delay Slavery until after Oracle

Thoughts?

[Maestro]

Regarding City #3, I'd be inclined to take the more profitable blue dot. We should have copper hooked up by then, so we can think about an axe for garrison, and it has so much food that whipping emergency defenses would become an option quickly. But there's plenty of time to think about it before settler #2 actually pops out.

I'm good with waiting on Slavery 'til after Oracle. We won't be using the whip before then anyway. We'll want to revolt before our 3rd city, though.

I was thinking about the movement plans for Til and Settler. What do you think of this:

T23: Both Settler and Till are NW of dyes
T24: Move Till NW to hill. If the coast is clear (he should be able to see), Settler moves W-W, ending SW of Till on hill
T25: Move Till SW onto settler. Settler moves W. If coast is clear, settles. If not, moves back to Till.

This idea saves a turn on the assumption that Till will be able to see all 9 tiles around the settler's potential position for Turn 24. Based on my understanding of the vision rules, which are surprisingly complicated, he should. Technically a 2-mover (panther/wolf) might still be in the fog on Turn 24, when the Settler is unprotected. Are animals slowed by jungle/hills? I feel like they are. Regardless, this is something to consider. We should wait to set Meditation to 0% until we have to, as this plan might make that tactic unnecessary.

[yuris125]

Isn't your Settler movement the same as mine? And yes, I know there's a risk of a 2-mover coming out of the fog, but I think it's an acceptable risk

The 3rd city is not that far away, the plan is to get the 3rd Settler out on the same turn as we discover Priesthood (end of T29), I believe we found it possible in the test games. I will run new worldbuilder tests tomorrow, to understand how soon we can get the copper connected, and also optimal Worker movements for the Oracle build

[Maestro]

Isn't your Settler movement the same as mine?

Oh... So it is. I must have misread it the first time. Sorry about that! But hey, great minds think alike, right? Needless to say, I like your plan

I'd still vote for blue dot for city #3, unless we see a concerning spike in soldier count from a rival between now and then. We'll build axes from Magenta for garrisons and that should be fine. With Blue + Magenta + capital, we'll fogbust nearly all of our "island," and will seal off both landbridges we've discovered so far. Blue's food+production is just so far superior to white's. It's hard for me to pass that up.

[yuris125]

Good! Our plan it is then

Moved the Settler and Till as we planned. Philipp finished pasturing the cows, and I'm strongly inclined to join him with the Settler and send to the Magenta dot. The other Worker, who is now named Vakhtang Makharadze, is mining the riverside hill

We're working the sheep this turn, but should switch to the cows next turn, then we will grow and finish the Warrior the turn after

GES discovered a tech. He's been researching it 5 turns, no power increase. Pottery?

I don't think anyone has Fishing yet, we might want to try for TGLH in Magenta dot. The capital is quite productive and could be on Settler/Worker/unit duty after Oracle, letting Magenta to go wonderspamming (maybe try TGLH, definitely build Colossus there)

Demos

[Maestro]

I like the idea of Phillip roading sheep-wines-wines-copper. It'll get us close to connecting our cities, and he'll be 1 move away from chopping a forest for oracle. That's 8 turns worth of roading, though (10 to actually connect city 2), and I think he'll need to be available for a chop before then, but I like him roading in that direction.

We can definitely think about fishing-sailing after priesthood. Fishing should happen quickly for sure. With copper, if we get Oracle, Colossus is absolutely ours thanks to the nice 150% hammer bonus. We could even consider the cheeseball tactic of building it in 2 places for the inflated failgold.

[yuris125]

I don't want to start roading right away. We need to improve the pigs and the copper at the Magenta dot, and build mines around it as well. Magenta can build its own Worker, of course, but it will take 10 turns if we don't pasture the pigs quickly, and I think that's too long. So I really want to take one of the Workers from Ultra to improve the new city

Ultra is scheduled to build another Worker after growth, and we don't need to build the Oracle faster than in 4 turns, so two Workers at Ultra should be enough for chopping - I will test it in wb today though

[Maestro]

That's a good point. I was still in the "need to build Oracle in one turn!!!1!11" mindset. I'm all about improving magenta dot as quickly as possible. If we can spare a worker without affecting the Oracle completion date, then I'm all for it.