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I hope you are enjoying your visit. 
Sounds like good things are happening. Improved power situation is definitely good news; maybe shallow_thought will send those troops against someone else? And the workers keeping busy improving things is also good news.
So two workers around Rocky Paths and three moving/roading towards the new city? Having enough workers to keep up with demand is important, and it sounds like this is also going well.
Positive news all over the place. Maybe I should be worried trouble is coming? 
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Well, I'm still on the bottom of the scoreboard, if that doesn't change the question is only when trouble comes :/
New city should be settled in two turns. Next turn, I'll start another settler in Golden Void. Now that I've almost caught up with shallow_thought, I'm thinking about building a library there. It would be worth ~2 beakers right now. But maybe I have a better shot at catching up if I just keep pumping units there, and hope that Charriu doesn't keep up in power.
I've got a second scout out, for exploring to the north of Rocky Paths. I've moved my first scout off too far to the west to turn around.
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What is your total beakers/turn rate now? How much of a bump would the library's 2 bpt provide? The library would provide other benefits as well of course (culture, specialist slots), but is the gain worth the hammer and time investment?
What is the plan for the next settler from Golden Void? Luxuries, or somewhere else?
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About the library: I'm making 14 bpt, but I'll be forced to drop my science spending next turn. Which will mean even less payoff from the library. Probably better to build units. Granary would be another option but with so many food sources, it's not really important either.
Two more turns: I've planted my new city Space Love near the wheat. Look at that ridiculous road. When archeologists find it, they won't know WTF the Mongols were thinking!
There's a settler of Coeur's nearby. I've offered to agree to a reload if he wants since I double-moved, but it doesn't seem to me like the settler could have claimed a legal spot in that area within one turn. There's also a barb city. Two axemen from Rocky Paths are checking it out. I'm wary of moving my units away from Space Love, because attacking it must be really tempting to Coeur right now. I've got an axeman and a warrior in the city itself and another axeman guarding the workers. I also still don't have power graphs for Coeur, but I set him as spying priority a few turns ago.
The road between Rocky Paths and Golden Void is done. I sent one worker to Lighthouse for some chopping, and plan to send the other to road towards Luxury City. I'm really worried that Coeur will now settle a spot in that area, which would leave me without any luxuries at all until Calendar or Monarchy! The settler at Golden Void can be whipped next turn.
Lighthouse grows next turn, and I plan to get some more workers. I'll help the first one along with a forest chop. I don't yet know if I want to whip the second one, or use another chop and then whip another settler. There isn't really any impressive location, but settling the borderland between me and shallow_thought seems like a good idea.
Screenshot of the southern part of my land:
Power graphs:
Finally, the promised unit overview:
5 workers
2 scouts
2 warriors
7 axemen
1 spearman
1 archer
1 archer next turn at Rocky Paths, another archer in production at Lighthouse, but it will be paused for building some more workers.
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The barb city looks pretty heavily jungled, and the placement is not a great fit with your cities. But if it is weakly defended it might still be worth grabbing. It would have one sugar of its own, and another shared with Space Love; might be something useful in the fog to the northwest as well. It could also provide some XP and cash for conquering, even if you decided to raze it. And preventing a rival from claiming it is also a consideration, although since it is new it will auto-raze if it is conquered right now.
Power graph is looking pretty tightly grouped, so hopefully no one will try anything too aggressive for a while.
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Coeur doesn't want a reload, but asked to move before me on turn 48, to which I agreed. (Would probably have happened anyway, given my schedule.) I guess he's going for the pigs and copper. That leaves my future luxury city without a food resource.
I don't want to raze the barb city without a settler in the area, and I don't want to delay getting the ivory any further. But I'd swoop in and take the gold if someone else moves up to it.
August 21st, 2018, 12:27
(This post was last modified: August 21st, 2018, 12:32 by RFS-81.)
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I opened up the game to see an Open Borders offer from Coeur. I wanted to see the map first, so I closed the trade window, which the game interpreted as rejection. I offered it again to keep my road to Space Love functional. Also, foreign trade might help me get ahead a bit more, though the current front runner probably isn't the best trading partner. Worst case, he's far ahead of me in military and scouts me out for an invasion. It's not like I was going to win anyway.
Here's his new city location:
This blocks off my planned Luxury City location. The good news is that I can still grab all the luxuries. The bad news is that it won't have a food resource. I've added markers for two potential sites. I think the southern one is the better option, because it can use the farmed sugar from the capital. If I remember correctly, that city will gain access to silk once I have calendar. Is that right? Oh, also, the settler couldn't be whipped yet, I must have miscalculated. It's at 45/100 hammers.
There's some scary looking unit build-up near my border, but they're 3 workers, and a warrior, archer, spearman and axeman. I moved an additional axeman out of Space Love to the workers.
I have 3 workers farming at Space Love, one chopping at Lighthouse and another building a road from Rocky Paths to Space Love.
Iron Working is three turns off (maybe a bit more), so it's time to think about further plans. I haven't checked how long the various options will take, though. - Calendar beeline: More luxuries, will take pretty long.
- Monotheism beeline: Coeur already has Buddhism, if I want a religion too, I need to be quick. Takes not quite as long as Calendar. More happy is always good, and Space Love needs culture in order to not be swamped by Coeur's. Downside is of course the cost of missionaries. I don't think I want to build monasteries, so I need Organized Religion first.
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Not having the pigs is definitely a set back for the luxury site. 
If you settle on the silks, then you would have them as a resource once you get the tech for plantations. (Settling on any resource works the same way: if you have the appropriate tech to improve that resource, then the city counts as improving it/connecting it.)
Good thinking to have a settler available before going after the barb city, if it is still at size one and would auto-raze. If it reaches size two you could capture it (assuming you have enough military available, of course) if it fits your dot map. Someone else could try to grab it, if it is not well defended.
For tech, Calendar resources will be a big boost to your happiness cap with sugar for certain, plus silks and dye if you manage to grab that site. The dye is also a pretty nice commerce tile once it can be improved. The religious path also offers some benefits with happiness and culture, but as you noted it takes some investment to spread the faith and get the needed civics in place. Some free spread is likely, if you can wait for a while, but missionaries are the more certain route and will almost certainly be needed in at least some cases.
Hopefully there is some iron somewhere reachable, or maybe even already in your borders. It makes a nice hammer tile in addition to the resource itself; always nice to get a boost at an existing city when that happens.
August 22nd, 2018, 14:54
(This post was last modified: August 22nd, 2018, 15:41 by RFS-81.)
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I've got open borders with Coeur now.
I made a mistake with the worker at Lighthouse. I thought: Why not chop the forest on the silk, before my next city eats it? After moving my worker, I found out that it's worth only 8 hammers and takes one turn longer than usual. Not sure if I should build a road now that he's there so that the settler can found one turn earlier, or just move back. EDIT: Or build a road to the elephants, I want them ASAP!
Shallow_thought has grabbed another city spot that I wanted:
Also note the galley: I need to make sure that my coastal cities have enough defenders.
Here's a picture of the barb city:
It's size one and defended by 3 barb warriors. I could send up another axeman later and be ready to clear it out in 1 turn if I want to. Would I want to conquer it when it grows? Well, the food situation isn't great pre-Calendar, because those sugar tiles aren't irrigated. But the only alternative in that area with a food resource would be the wheat-stealing city marker. I don't know if it's a good idea to try to troll shallow_thought like that. But if the wheat is a ring-one tile, it could be doable to take it over.
In other news, settler is whipped, farm is done at Space Love, I'm going to chop some forests now.
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Hmmm, barb city is defended by only warriors. Easy target for axes.  It is not well positioned, unless there is something useful in the fog to the northwest, but after Calendar it would be decent with the sugars providing food. But can it wait that long? Someone else might conquer it.
One option would be to just destroy it, getting some easy XP for your axes and a little gold for razing it, removing any risk of a rival doing the same. Another option would be to wait in the area, ready to attack if a rival shows up with troops; this would require shuffling positions so you can see any possible approach by a rival. Taking the time to check the fog just in case the city is better than it looks could be worth doing either way.
Chopping the silks forest -- forests outside your borders give significantly reduced hammers. This prevents abuses like chopping your neighbors' forests down, or getting lots of hammers without actually claiming territory. Usually if your borders do not reach the tile, it is not worth the worker turns to chop. Building a road can be worthwhile to speed up a settler, or to prepare for hooking up other resources. You can cut down jungle ahead of time, also, preparing to improve the elephants. If your workers have turns available, of course, not sure just how soon your settler will arrive.
Gallleys. Yeah, something to watch carefully. The Civ4 AI is terrible at naval actions, but humans can be a much more dangerous threat to sneak some troops along the coast. Hopefully shallow_thought is just exploring or clearing fog to open potential trade routes, but with the big power build up it is a concern to keep a watchful eye on.
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