Ministry of Silly Walks 2: Walk Sillier/Harder

[Shoot the Moon]

I guess what I'm trying to say is:

I don't know why your prioritizing chopping over cottages. Our biggest problem is our lack of GNP, our FIN leader building cottages while growing enough pop to work the gems seems the best way to solve it. Then get the 3rd city out at size 4 working the resources, give the wheat to it for growth there and work the cottages in the capital. Saving the forests for later is by no means terrible.

Chopping right now doesn't do anything good but speed the 3rd city up which, while it does have uses such as securing copper, is by no means a complete positive since we add costs to our terrible economy, while delaying pop growth for gems/cottages. No-one but Joao is really planting cities that quickly due to Immortal, everyone else is focusing on vertical expansion and I recommend we do too.

While I agree, the plan with chopping is essentially to be able to do vertical growth while also expanding--that is the settler basically gets built in only two turns of no growth: this turn with the whip overflow and the turn the chop comes in. In essence, I'm trying to get a settler out while also doing vertical growth.

In regards to cottages, I am planning to pursue those quite soon, but the ting is with four resources in my capital I'm not going to work those until at least size five. Considering I'm at size 2, and that my capital has no where near the food surplus that yours does, that gives me a bit of time to work with worker wise before those need to be complete.

Also, in regards to our terrible economy, keep in mind we're getting the mids. That was the entire point of our Oracle to mids gambit, no? That we can expand aggressively knowing we have that economy coming on line in the medium term.

[WarriorKnight]

While I agree, the plan with chopping is essentially to be able to do vertical growth while also expanding--that is the settler basically gets built in only two turns of no growth: this turn with the whip overflow and the turn the chop comes in. In essence, I'm trying to get a settler out while also doing vertical growth.

Fair enough. I think from a strategic view growing to size 4 first would be better, although I would also probably use the whip overflow on a settler and since that's half of the settler done already I also would probably just eat the turns and finish the thing ASAP.

In regards to cottages, I am planning to pursue those quite soon, but the ting is with four resources in my capital I'm not going to work those until at least size five. Considering I'm at size 2, and that my capital has no where near the food surplus that yours does, that gives me a bit of time to work with worker wise before those need to be complete.

That's true too, although keep in mind that you will probably give the wheat to your NW city and tbh once you reach the happy cap you'd probably want to work a river cottage over your weaker food resources if you have the food to do so. A slow growing cap doesn't help our economic situation, but at least we have a granary there though.

Also, in regards to our terrible economy, keep in mind we're getting the mids. That was the entire point of our Oracle to mids gambit, no? That we can expand aggressively knowing we have that economy coming on line in the medium term.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't thinking that far ahead when I suggested the idea. I was thinking 'hey, this seems like a fun idea, let's try it'.

More relevant at this time though, that play might make sense if you were Darius or another FIN leader that's in this game, but that's not the case. Since we're IND, we need to at least consider building the best wonders, but we can't do that unless we have a reasonable tech pace that can keep up with our competitors. Mids will definitely help, but at the rate our economy is going, we'll be playing catch up in tech instead of racing for wonders. I certainly want to consider building MoM, but at our tech rate it'll be built long before we get to Calendar, and the same applies to other wonders (although none come to mind, we already/will soon have the techs for TGLighthouse/Colossus, what else could we want midterm? TGLibrary/HG?).

Also, though I hate to say it, don't assume we'll land Mids. Our t51 eta will certainly be tough to beat, but there are downsides to building Mids with a GE:

a) there's no way to speed up our eta
b) everyone paying attention (which is probably everyone in this game) should know our eta and also that we can't speed it up

So, if someone finds a way to beat our Mids eta and goes for it, there's nothing we can do about it short of attacking (yes I'm paranoid, blame bad 25v memories). So assuming we'll land Mids is probably safe but not safe enough to henge our entire economy, and therefore game, on it.

[WarriorKnight]

Since I remembered to do it this time, Seven's lands:



Yuck! 10 pop with 2 tightly spaced cities. He's probably worked river cottages ever since they got Pottery on t11, evidenced by the fact he still isn't in slavery, so he could very well have villages by now. That 2nd city should spit out a GS any turn now.



I'm curious about:

That 71! GNP number (99% sure its 7)
That 47! food number (Joao I hope, if it's mackoti we're really in trouble)
That 15 GNP number (it isn't Shoot I don't think, probably Joao as well)

Funnily enough, if I go on 26 food I'm 3rd, so there are 2 clear leaders and then there's a bunch of averages.

We'll get Smack's graph in a turn or 2, so some questions should be answered then. In the meantime though 4H and us have suboptimal graphs due to our respective wonder runs. Ours will continue to suck until we get Mids probably, not sure if/when 4H's will improve.

[Shoot the Moon]

By the way, I leave again Saturday for a bit over a week. Dave, you good to take over again?

[oledavy]

By the way, I leave again Saturday for a bit over a week. Dave, you good to take over again?

Yep, ready and waiting.

[WarriorKnight]

Smack's graph's:





Strangely enough, it seems neither of them are 1st in food or 1st/last in GNP, or at least I don't think such to a degree that the demographics are showing. Does that mean that LAM claim all 3 extreme categories I saw last turn? I guess it would make more sense considering the Darius/Joao combo, even though PHI is a better economic trait then ORG right now. Interesting...

[Shoot the Moon]

Over to you Dave. Basic plan: finish the chops into the settler. Have the workers road the tile marked, then have one go improve the deer then the copper at the new city and the other cottage the capital. In the second city, two pop whip the worker; it obviously goes and improves the horses. Then likely chop for either another worker or a settler for that awesome commerce site that's the fourth city. I'll be back and able to play again not this Monday but the next.

[WarriorKnight]

Well, I was wrong that the eastern sea would connect with mackoti. Instead it seems to be a major obstacle in settling the east, which seems to contain lots of resources including the only 2 stone sources we know of so far. I should aim to get a galley out at some point, so I can settle city 5 maybe on the other side of the lake. I'd like to know if there's a good spot near the wheat, could you send the scout in that direction dave?

I wonder how many other teams know about this area yet? Hopefully they all are blocked off somewhat.

[WarriorKnight]

Time for some self-deception:



Yep, HC is 1st in GNP. Never mind the fact that we're researching a tech with 3 pre-req's that everyone else probably has already and 14 of that GNP is due to holy city + oracle culture. We're also 3rd in food, ignoring the fact that it's still below average.

Reality check, Seven finally got a GS so expect a GNP jump next turn. I think the 70ish GNP I saw earlier was someone else (LAM?) working on writing, since top GNP is back down to 54. Nonetheless, they are playing a solid game right now. 4H don't seem to be doing that well, they seem to be doing a little worse then us right now. Have to play it by ear, but I suspect they will be the easiest target of future aggression. LAM seem to be doing well, they had a ton of score changes last turn, some of them is from settling/gifting a city but they must have more cities then anyone else right now. Since Smack are the pregame favorite and everyone else has built a wonder they are certainly flying under the radar. I'm focusing EP's on them to get a better idea of where they stand right now.

[WarriorKnight]

With Shoot out of town and dave unable to play the turns, I've been playing both for some time now. I don't mind it at all, but I would appreciate some feedback. Therefore, dave if you or any other ded-lurkers are around, could you give me a second opinion?



Gandhi's land. Unfortunately, Gandhi is competing with Vicky of 4H for title of last place. This is undoubtedly due to the early forge build and the results of my whipping spree. Nonetheless, I'm founding my 3rd city next turn and hope to get my 4th sometime within the next 10t. I have 4 workers with no real plans for more anytime soon. The 3rd city is cramped with Shoot's 2nd city, but I don't really need any of those tiles to the NW.

Operation Mids is on schedule, even though I could really use the spare pop elsewhere. I could use some help deciding the 4th city location though:



The 2 seafood + banana seems the obvious spot to settle, although there are some good resources in the jungle to settle to the west if we need them (if we get Mids, I doubt they need to be settled immediately). There is also the spot across the lake if we want a headstart on settling the eastern landmass.

HC:



Looking better, HC has 3 cities and 6 workers. The 4th settler is under production, it'll most likely go in the north with the crab + fur or in the south to settle the river valley. Cap is finally working some river cottages, even though we can't have a huge number of them overall.

GNP isn't as much of a problem now as it was some 5t ago, since both players are working a metal + cottages. Aside from a slight food lead from Smack, there aren't many problems aside from this:



That's an early academy at work right there. If we weren't going for Mids, we might have to seriously consider how to deal with this, but Seven still has Preats and is probably researching IW right now. Have to wonder how LAM will deal with it though.

Also what do I tech next? I'm teching Masonry but tbh we don't need that until t51. Maths is the obvious choice, although IW is a maybe if Gandhi wants to expand into the jungle. We don't really need anything else right now assuming we get Mids, so speeding along currency may be the best thing for us right now.

Comments etc.?