[PB22 Spoiler] Joey and Borsche puke on the funny pages

[GermanJoey]

T57 & 58.

neat micro trick here in ZP, that I didn't know about until a few months ago, when I encountered it by accident in PB18:




Do you see what's weird here? A size 4 city consumes 8 food, and we're producing 15 food from these 3 tiles, as we still have one unhappy citizen from the whip. So, you'd expect us to get 15-8=7 food as production for the settler, right? But, we actually get 9! It turns out unhappy citizens don't consume food when you're producing a worker or settler. This convenient bug lets us 1-pop whip this city as soon as we can, without having to juggle production for a turn. not the biggest game-breaker in the world, but its nice.

also, finally gave us a name:

[GermanJoey]

by the way, borsche, if you could give your honest, unfiltered reaction to this screenshot of mackoti's land...

[Borsche]

I'm not gonna say our land is bad at all, but, I mean he gets 19 commerce early game from three tiles...

[GermanJoey]

T60, it looks like Gawdzak landed an extremely early GLH, based on score increases. I think everyone (included myself) expected that to go to Org/Ind Plako, who's built the GLH in several previous games (most recently PB18), but it does make sense that Gawdzak, as Org/Imp, would be the one other player who might have the spare hammers to challenge for it. Gawdzak also built the GLH in PB20.

As far as our empire is concerned, we've got horses pastured this turn in MoJ and the clams hooked in 3CD. We're now working 12 improved resource tiles and remain #1 and #1 in CY and MFG! Our granaries complete next turn in 3CD and GoatKCD, bringing us to a total of 3. A worker at GKCD will complete a chop to finish an exploring work boat next turn - should we send it northwest or south? South would reveal more territory, I think, also the island to the NE looks pretty settle-able already. My plan after that is to 1-pop whip a LH with the help of the city's last remaining forest, and then get some more workers out. MoJ can 1-pop whip its Granary in 4 turns, with the help of a forest chop, and then get started on a galley, to complete in time for city #6.

REMAI still do not have copper or horses hooked, and our axe+warrior will be adjacent to their borders next turn... they're last to play this turn, and it will be very bad for them if they end up double-turning...

[GermanJoey]

What are your thoughts on these two spots labeled C5? Both grab the whales second-ring; the lower spot is on a 2H tile and shares 3CD's dry wheat AND clams, while the upper spot grabs three floodplains first-ring,and a big prize of a wet wheat in the second ring. I'm really not sure which is preferable here... I'll try microing it out but I'd like to hear what you think too, as you often notice stuff that I don't.




REMAI spotted our advance with our scout last turn; I presume that's why they logged in multiple times before finishing the turn. They finished a tech this turn; we'll know next turn whether it was archery or not, according to the power graphs. If it is, we back off, if its not, we dive in, I think. Still no copper or horses, still no 4th city!

HAK is still at 2 cities, but has had lvl 8 city for a couple turns.

Every player we've met so far is trying to get research visibility on us, which is a real pain the ass for getting graphs.

[GermanJoey]

We declared on REMAI last turn, taking revenge on their stupid scout for his earlier impertinence on our pigs. This turn, we moved adjacent to their Hindu Holy City, which has a garrison of three warriors with weird names. They, unbelievably, STILL do not have copper or horses hooked, and did not have an archery bump on the power graph. They settled a fourth city last turn though, PRESUMABLY for copper, and just got a new tech this turn, very quickly after their last. That's probably archery, which is a very cheap tech in RtR mod. Still though, they can't dry whip the archer with only only 3 pop in the city, so I'll eat at least one of their warriors next turn before sending a peace treaty. And who knows, maybe they won't whip? Stranger things have happened.

We double-whipped a LH in GoatXCD this turn, and single-whipped the settler (for overflow into another settler) in ZP. We're still #1 in CY despite being down three pop! Next turn, we'll whip the granary in MoJ, getting started on a Galley, and a chariot in 3CD, to deal with a barb warrior that slipped past our sentry in the north through the fog. Writing is due next turn; I'll try trading maps with Furungy, as we still have not a clue where he's at. Our scouting WB in the south didn't find anything worthwhile, which means that NE rice is probably our best bet for an offshore city, at the moment.

[GermanJoey]

T65. I logged in to see this:




You can see he has an archer there, so, alas, fun's over. I took the treaty.

We also aced that barb warrior. BTW, we need to decide by next turn where we want the city!




The overflow from last turn's emergency whip in 3CD was not wasted:




I offered this trade to Mackoti. It'd be great to get some extra happiness, even if it will be just for a few turns, and we don't need horses right now.




GoatKCD's also making things happen.




Our exploring workboat continues to head south, although there's not much to see yet. That fish/whales spot looks pretty good though.

[Borsche]

9:27 PM - German Jojo: they had to whip it out too
9:28 PM - Borsche: Hmm... C5 on the plains hill is great for worker turns - can just go straight to cottaging those five riverside tiles
9:28 PM - German Jojo: yeah
9:29 PM - Borsche: sharing both the clams and the wheat. i didnt see that when i first looked at it, i thought itw as just the wheat
9:29 PM - Borsche: since the floodplains make it fairly food heavy anyway and able to support all its tiles, the key is just to accelerate growth and then coast on what teh two FPs can support i suppose
9:30 PM - Borsche: c5 on the grassland hill means that the next city by this area would be c? thats 1NE of the gold instead of the c? 1E of the wheat
9:30 PM - Borsche: which i think is probably a stronger city. good production from the 2Gh, 1PH
9:31 PM - Borsche: ph c5 is probably the best move

[GermanJoey]

Agreed. I moved the settler to the PH this turn.

Mack didn't accept the resource trade, alas.

[GermanJoey]

Overview of our civ, T69 and T70




Furungy accepted our map trade, he's got some pretty good land and easy access to happy resources. Irritatingly, there's one square of fog still blocking our trade connection.




Helpfully, we can now see the land to our south. It looks like there's a few decent city spots down here, although we'll need to get a couple axes down first to clear out the barbs.




Speaking of barbs, here's two annoying warriors coming down to threaten Paulo's Playhouse.




Our planned next spot has become complicated as we've revealed a few more tiles. The fresh water is very nice, as it'll be 3f with a lighthouse and makes the rice a 5f tile, but I'm now very worried about isolating seafood now that we can see this island's shape better. I want to move the galley first so that we can be sure that we're not missing anything - note that we can potentially get two cities on this island by settling at its NW corner. Any more ideas for the name, by the way? "Erica Moen's Pet Dragons" doesn't fit.




Tech set to Alphabet, as we discussed. Hopefully Furungy will be game for some early ICTR, since he'll have a defogged route too.