[PB25 Spoiler] General Flauros leads the Creole Calabim

[Tsargon]

[GermanJoey]

T41.

Here's my land:




My worker from the mines roaded the pig T35-36, then moved to the forest that currently has the sign that says "1tr; chop t41" on T37. On T38-T39, he roaded. Meanwhile, the settler popped T38, moved to the same forest with the worker (accelerated 1 tile by the road), and onto the plant site on T39. He planted on T40, and the thus the worker was able to use the new road created by the city tile to start pasturing the pigs on the same turn the city settled. It's a nice bit of micro because building any additional roads would not have sped up the settling time of the city, because of the hill, and I still get the worker to the site on time to start pasturing instantly without having him putz around doing nothing. I was the first to three cities; retep was actually 1T slower than I was, which is surprising since his early micro is generally pretty tight and I'd have expected Imp+Exp to be faster than just plain Imp. I also wasted time with an Impi... hmmm, perhaps neighbor trouble?

Pottery is due in three turns, and I've got two workers ready to chop into granaries... maybe. I'm seriously considering putting a chop into a pair of warriors out of Wild Apache. Trouble Nation and Wild Magnolias will need garrisons, and right now my only options are extremely expensive axemen and impis. However, by forgoing a trade connection for a few turns, I can get a pair of cheap 15h warriors. I think that's... worth it? Gotta be worth it, the granary wouldn't be done too quickly anyways and I don't think I'll be growing it higher than size 3 for a bit.

Trouble Nation hits size 3 next turn, and then starts on a settler, working the sheep, pigs, and grassland mine (5 raw hammers, giving me +3 bonus hammers), while Wild Magnolias finishes a workboat next turn, and grows to size 3 in two turns, so it can take the crab immediately. The plan there is to grow to size 4 while building an axeman, take a chop for its granary, and then whip it to completion at size 4, before finally growing back to size 4 then 5 while finishing the axeman.

In scouting news, I found Donovan and Adrien's second city; its got PH gems and a wet green wheat (which sounds gross as hell if you stop to think about it ). The site is excellent... I'm guessing its an analogue to my ph silver site, except a lot better, I guess? It probably overlaps with their capital BFC somehow if its already at size 3 despite them presumably dedicating some fast-worker labor to chopping out the henge. Anyways, they're doing alright, two cities and stonehenge. Elkad still hasn't put down his first settler yet!

[GermanJoey]

T43.

Some real nice land over here...




Commodore and HAK are the next to reach 3 cities.

[GermanJoey]

T51-T52.

Interesting turns lately. We recently met Gavagai and Borsche. Borsche is right under us; I first spied his culture on T45, across the channel:




My planned 4th city was here, and I was very surprised to find out that it was not safe backlines so early. So, I very quickly chopped in an Ikhanda in order to win the 2nd ring borders fight:




Success!

no barracks here: (probably working on a workboat, I'd guess)



but we have an Ikhanda here:




so we'll pop borders first, and hopefully permanently control that fish, as long as they don't pop a religion or something. This city will be an ideal location to start on a scientist specialist for our first GA, so I'll whip in a library here as soon as we have writing.

Interestingly, the reason we can actually see that city is because we met Gavagai last turn, who proposed a map trade as soon as he found us. He had already met Borsche and gotten his map, so we can see quite a bit of the world map now. Here's a look around what we know so far:

Gavagai's to the SW of Donovan/Adrien, and he's got some very nice land, including two golds and an ivory. I think he got early granaries up in both of these cities as he settled his first city rather late.




Industrious India also has a gold, as well as two bare gems and furs, geez. Elkad's got a silver and gold. Both of them have expanded in my direction... is the map really so tight?




Meanwhile, I only have a silver and ivory. Where's my gold? Ivory is very nice, but the lack of a some big early commerce tiles while everyone else has them will really hurt.

I saved over my screenshot of Borsche's land, but he has furs, ivory, gems, and something like... a billion? sugars. Perfect for his naming scheme...

The mainland between the five of us is already hotly contested. I guess the idea is that we'll first need to fight for mainland, then have to fight for backfill across the water? Anyways, I'll be thrilled if I can get these three additional cities in, as that will also give me room for two good fillers. That'll make 9 cities on the mainland in total, which sounds pretty lousy. Here's my tentative dotmap:




AH finished last turn, and we start saving gold on Sailing next. Getting a galley ASAP out will be very important, both for ICTR and for claiming a foothold on the non-so-safe overseas backfill. Archery is also an idea, something I'll probably need sooner than later.

Domestically, we're doing pretty good (#1 in food, just short of #1 mfg too) but we'll need to put some serious focus on cottaging due to everyone else having golds and gems and such while we just have our single shitty silver. I've got workers in WM and TN queued up next, while Apache Hunters (formerly named Wild Apache but I decided to save that one for later; don't want two cities with Wild in the name yet. Half of the Mardi Gras Indian tribes have like Wild or Black or Hunters in their names! And the other half don't fit in a civ4 city name box ) will get a settler to settle at the C1 site in 4 or 5 turns, depending on when I decide to whip. We have three cities with complete granaries next turn, by the way.

[GermanJoey]

T53.

Oh Fortuna! A barb city appeared! It's not quite on my dotmap, but I'm never one to spit in a gift horse's mouth.




I only noticed this after I moved my Impi, unfortunately, so I decided to eat one turn of unrest in AH in order to move my axeman over. Donovan has an axeman on the prowl; he might not have seen it yet, but if he has I'll need to scare him away. This city has a grass cow first ring, so it will grow in 8 turns - I can take it T61. I'll be sending over another Impi as well, popping out at TN in 2 turns. Wish me luck!

[Elum]

Good luck! Nice to see the impis being put to use

[GermanJoey]

Thanks! Unfortunately, I can't do a whole lot with them because Elkad and Donovan are spamming axemen like crazy. My power neighborhood is very very high:







56k soldiers at this point is ridiculous, especially considering the Stonehenge build. They are both going to fall behind very hard in expansion. My CY is a bit low at the moment, by the way, because I've just done a round of whips and am finally working my silver mine. City 5 is gonna go down in a few turns...

Donovan seems like he wants to contest me for the barb city and I am rolling my eyes so goddamn hard. It's twice as close to me as him and I have an axeman and two impis staring at his single axe; I'm sure he's waiting for reinforcements so I'll need to whip more axes too.

[Tsargon]

Geeze Louise, this is quite the early game! Good luck in the brawl, Joey!

[GermanJoey]

Thanks Tsargon. You should post more, it would encourage me to post more as well!

T58-60.

I had planned to settle a new city at the marble site on T59, but Donovan had another nearby axeman. So, I waited a turn for an axeman reinforcement to arrive and settled it on T60 instead:







This is a very aggressive reach plant for sure, but it is in response to their aggressive reach plant in the first place. I'm not going to be intimidated out of all the special resources at the center of our 3 civ zone just because they planted a pink dot here first! I really want that marble; I don't have high hopes for the MoM, considering that I'll likely be behind in tech for a long time, but there's other wonders, national or otherwise, that I'll need it for. I am immediately chopping an Ikhanda here for the border pop before improving the sheep.

I was also able to snag the barb city on T60!




Both combats were flawless, meaning that I've already used up all combat karma that I'll be allowed this game. This makes me the first to 6 cities, and from what I can tell from the tracker that only Borsche has at least 5. Donovan, Elkad, and Gavagai are all still stuck at 3. This city will also want an Ikhanda immediately so that it can pop borders onto those two awesome 6 yield foods as soon as possible. A border pop will also make it more reasonable to try to setttle one last city to the northwest, on the dyes, although I'm guessing that Donovan will get his ass in gear and settle that area before it becomes feasible for me to do so. Realistically, I have room for just one more city on the main continent (the seafood filler near WM); everything else will need to be overseas. =/

Domestically, I need to start developing cottages but foodhammers are still a priority. Workers are badly needed, as I only have 4 right now. I'm finishing one in TN, currently planned to be used near the barb city, but I'll need another one immediately afterwards for my planned 7th city, which will be planted for ICTR. My capital, WM, is double-whipping a settler T61 into a galley; I hope to have ICTR by T65 or so. So really, that leaves me with 6 workers for 7 cities, which is just fucking terrible. I can currently work all improved tiles but I'll need to whip away any additional growth for a bit. The fact that I need to build so much militaryfurther stresses matters; Donovan and Elkad continue to build axemen instead of workers and settlers for some reason, and thus I need to keep up with them to a certain extent given how congested our continent is. My city across the water will need its own dedicated garrison as well. Speaking of that, I'm not exactly sure which land mass I want to target first. The stone site seems really nice and would let me get started on a Moai ASAP, but I don't want to antagonize Borsche, as I'm sure I already have bad relations with Elkad and Donovan already. It's not so easy to attack your front if you need to be paranoid towards your back as well...

Tech-wise, the plan is to begin my slow crawl towards Currency. If I can meet some overseas neighbors soon, I'll go with Alphabet first, otherwise I'll target math for the better chops and chance at the HG.

[GermanJoey]

T62.

Heh, I beat Borsche to the fish by only 1 turn. Writing in 4... I better get a library up here pronto. For now, though, I finish the Granary working the silver instead of the newly-boated fish so that my food box doesn't go over half full. That way, I can work all three of my improved tiles here sooner.




I decided not to settle the island for city 7, by the way... I'd hate to have a settler standing around doing nothing. Instead, I'll settle my coast-filler above my capital and use the overflow hammers to 1-turn a workboat for its crabs. Then, I slow-build a galley while growing back up to size 6 while TN builds the settler in parallel.

By the way, cross-posting from my PB22 thread, I finally realized that the power numbers I was using were freaking wrong:

https://fastmoves.wordpress.com/2009/11/...ographics/

Axemen are worth 6k, not 3k! This page has the correct numbers:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy...aphics.php

I'd been using the numbers from that fastmoves page for years...