Nobody expects the Chinese Inquisition: Isabella of China

[Gaspar]

Way to not bite, anyone.

Anyway, neither FFH7 nor PBEM14 made their way around today, so let's spend an extra minute or two here. I called this file spitballing, and its an excellent way to describe what I'm going for here. There's a lot of "stuff" in our corner of the world, but this is not an especially easy area to dotmap.



The first decision, which has been made a couple of times and rescinded is the corn city on the lake. The colored in Red Dot is the currently planned location. The Red Circle was zakalwe's suggestion, which allows for Purple Circle. Purple Circle doesn't add a ton in terms of real tiles, but it can steal Deer from the Capital and Corn from Red City. It also would mean the likely NW city is the desert hill location (Yellow) rather than the "settle on the wines" location (Light Blue.) I'm pretty torn here. I think Red Circle is a stronger site in the long term - on a hill on what could be a front (depends on who's the eastern neighbor) and can secure the fish to trade with a potential White Circle island city. Red Dot is stronger in the short term, with a closer supply line to the capital and the ability to borrow the copper mine. I'm leaning towards Circle but its up in the air.

Light Yellow Circle in the north is just a city to use that fish we see up there. We'll need better map knowledge to really assess.

The 3 sites in the south are all pretty worthless right now. Green Circle can also borrow fish and gets Bananas in the distant future when Iron Working and Calendar have been researched. It also could be a strategic chokepoint depending on what's on that land bridge. Black Circle and its cousin, "I was too lazy to change the color again for a city way off in the future also Black" Circle are resource-laden sites for said post IW world. Eastern Black is probably a bat spot - too much really - getting Banana, Sugar, Rice and Gold. Probably better to split that more evenly. Western black grabs Sheep, Rice and Incense.

Next Settler is out on T29, so there are 4T for me to make up my mind on which Red is City #4.

[novice]

Do you have an easy way to expand red circle's borders?

[Gaspar]

Do you have an easy way to expand red circle's borders?

Nope, sure don't. Really debating quite a bit whether its better to go AH or Mysticism next. On one hand, with barbs on it will be quite handy to see where Horses are to make sure we settle it with either City 4 or 5 if we haven't settled it already. On the other hand, I've done the "not prioritizing popping borders" bit once before and it leads to some settling decisions once you get the first few settlers down and overall just makes for annoying play. That said, I don't expect to build more than a couple of monuments either since once Caste is in we can do the hire an Artist bit and as a Spiritual civ will want a Religion sooner than later. I also can grab writing and build the entirely more useful Libraries, but pre-math they're not especially productive to chop into a city.

Ultimately, I decided to go AH first but the overflow was minimal so if one of the team wants to argue vehemently for Mysticism I can be talked into it at low cost.

For what its worth, Buddhism founded in a distant land. I'd suppose there's an Oracle run in someone's future. Not mine, however. It was founded this turn, so should have been either mackoti (unlikely) or TT, the two Civs before me in turn order. Let's put TT down for Buddhism - Oracle run is his style. BTW - would it kill him to start a thread? Part of the fun of playing games here is reading to see what everyone else did at the end of the game. Some lurker go nag him, will ya?

Other news, exploration discovered little. Worker (zakalwe) completed at Croqueta China, off to camp the furs while Lewwyn slides over to chop the other first ring forest into a granary. Mardoc does the same at Agria Dulce, where the work boat will finish in 2T and we'll apply the chop to a Granary there as well. Looking forward to getting some cheap Granaries down to start really oppressing the populace.

[Kyan]

Nice update. Sorry for being a crap ded lurker, i've actually had to drop out of one game due to time constraints. However, i would settle the red circle (the one with the fish included).

Also, that light blue circle is a bit unnecessary. You might have to bite the bullet for iron working fairly early to get those southern sites. Possession is everything.

[Jkaen]

With regards green circle is 1SE not better?

You already have 2 cities sharing the fish so a 3rd seems like a stretch, also that way any attacking army is on flat land not a hill. Plus its then a plains hill plant not a desert hill.

[Gaspar]

Nice update. Sorry for being a crap ded lurker, i've actually had to drop out of one game due to time constraints. However, i would settle the red circle (the one with the fish included).

Also, that light blue circle is a bit unnecessary. You might have to bite the bullet for iron working fairly early to get those southern sites. Possession is everything.

No worries, anything you have time to drop by with is appreciated. Regarding light blue, that's more of a compromise option since the desert hill plant doesn't get most of a 2nd ring because its the edge of the map. Still will probably go ahead and settle there anyway.

With regards green circle is 1SE not better?

You already have 2 cities sharing the fish so a 3rd seems like a stretch, also that way any attacking army is on flat land not a hill. Plus its then a plains hill plant not a desert hill.

Yeah - good catch. Not only that but the plains hill can serve as a Canal between the two lakes.

[pling]

The Red Circle was zakalwe's suggestion, which allows for Purple Circle.

Hmph

Tho Zakalwe said it more definitely & with actual reasons

[Gaspar]

Hmph

Tho Zakalwe said it more definitely & with actual reasons

Erm...

Red Circle was pling's suggestion, seconded by zakalwe!

[Gaspar]

Not a lot to say. The exploring warriors haven't discovered a whole lot. Given that we'll start seeing barbs soon, I'm going to bring the northern warrior back home to help garrison the new city next turn. There still looks to be something interesting in the south, so I think I'll let the southern warrior keep exploring. Probably the most useful piece of information is that the northern lake is small and pretty clearly only contains that 1-tile island. Its a plains hill and I'd bet my bottom dollar there's a useful resource on it - Iron/Marble/Stone is my guess, probably in that order. If its stone, certainly increases the possibility of landing the mids.



Back home, settler completed at end of this turn and will plant shortly. I think I'm leaning towards the western plant at the moment, but that seems to change everytime I open the save. Chops will be coming in for those granaries shortly. Next round of builds will be 2 more workers and a settler. I think Kyan's right - need to start pushing towards the jungle down there - its highly likely that it contains the "border" between the two civs. Pretty telling that its t29 and there's been no contact, however. Probably means we each have a ton of room to expand into. Well, either that or Bob set up a Barb Nuclear Missile Silo in between civs.

Here's demos for someone so inclined:

[zakalwe]

For me, the main attraction of the red circle is that it also allows the purple circle. But you could push purple 1N and settle the red dot instead. Probably the best short-term play, which is really all that matters. You can still share the fish between two other cities, after all (edit: unless you prefer the canal site).