[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

[Miguelito]

Turn 61 sees us finally getting the first returns from our financial trait:


So far we've lost around 45 coins from not getting the bonus on the fishes. I also think it's possible we would've worked unlighthoused Fin coast over plains forests at Marinheiro occasionally. The lighthouse at Marinheiro is due relatively soon, the one at the cap a bit later, but it's the current growth project as well.

The turn after we get the second Fin tile online, after serious delays due to barbs:


We have 2 more cottages built which will take 5/9 turns to grow yet. With the 4 cities that we packed tightly on the river I hope to grow a good number of cottages soon enough. Right now we are running low on workers again, with two new cities expected in the next 5 turns and no immediate option to build a lot more. There are a lot of very attractive spots, but we may have to limit ourselves a bit with regard to settlers in order to get the tiles improved.
I see the Cap and city 6, who both have 3 5f+ resources (shared) available, as near constant settler pumps (for 3 pop whips), while the other cities can 2 pop whip workers.

We got a connection with Elkad (I'll show where next turn):


No precious metal connected (our gold comes next turn). We happen to have all our food resources connected (city 5's pig is still being pastured while the granary gets built)

The first size 8 cities appear:


With that much food and limited happiness Cha surely pays for itself in this early game.

[Miguelito]

New turn's about to roll, but let's catch up a bit, and pick up discussion.

Barbs continue to be a pain:


Sadly we're a few turns away still from connecting the horses. The first  axe was defeated defending the forest tile over the river (3% odds), for the next one it looks dicier:


We'll find out once TBS plays. You see we have a backup axe, and the wounded one can also cover the city in the worst case, with a promo heal available. Of course I just hope for the most likely solution and no losses (pre-post edit: the turn rolled, our axe won with 32 HP remaining, and has a promo next turn). I had to work a mine instead of food at Paraná for a new axe, but no whip this time.



Content with this size 1 granary. The city was founded t 62 and the pasture finished t 65. Maybe I'm still getting something wrong about granaries though, at Igreja do Bonfim (former Manteiga, I didn't like the name although it's a classical song*) the granary was at 9/26 after growing to size 3, although I thought I had done everything right

* does anybody but myself care for the theme? I would link the songs but I fear it's so exotic nobody would click anyways


t 66 we found city 6, Lá vai Viola, so a good time for an overview:


Pretty much whipped down, considering others are sporting size 8 cities. Unsure whether that is good or bad. City 7 is due t 68 picking up the fur, which I think is a good occasion (together with the still recent gold) to grow some. We had 3 semi early cottages but have not progressed on that front since.
There are some very good sites yet up for settling, but maybe there is not that much of a hurry.
Viola will get a size 1 granary technically, but sadly on the very turn it grows (6f into a 20/22 box, so I don't think avoid growth makes sense?). Slight misplay here which I realized quickly afterwards: It would have been better to send thfirst worker (available t66) chopping and start on the farm only the turn after with the other worker. The city will still grow very explosively.



I've whined a lot about demos already, so have some more. Again, I don't feel like we played a bad start here. The barbs set us back some, but not substantially.
Part of it may be the low pop cities, maybe that's a misplay, or the bad numbers is just a consequence of whip hammers not showing up in demos.
Part may be the granaries, but I would expect to see payback from these by now.
Also we have 3 very good players with Imp in this game (TBS, mack, Frozen). Whom you would expect to produce an impressive rival best CY/MfG. What's puzzling/worrying me is that we're also pretty far behind the average in these metrics.



2 dotmap variants for the north.
Red has the first ring pig going for it, which could be our next plant. The problem with it is that it borders a jungled hill, which seems like worst case for defense.
Blue also borders a jungled hill but at least it's on a hill itself (the western one, the eastern is a later filler). It also blocks any plant of Elkad's, which importantly means he'llnot get a port on that bay.
Elkad will most likely get the peak for a long time (until 3rd ring borders), but with his 3rd ring at the eastern city he'd also be able to observe red. With blue we would need a way to pop borders rather soon.

Fresh from turn 67:


I hope to find a port of his soon (coast suffices, right?), to get the chance for spreads
Fun thing: The scoreboard shows that we have TR with Ramk and Donovan, although we have no contact. Must be through Mjmd. I'd still consider it a bug, but how do I report that with Charriu playing?

With the new city the demos look at least average (nothing but food matters, right ?)



First dotmap attempt for the west. Both dots could also be moved 1S, but I think I like this better



An overview over the explored island world.


You see the patterns repeating: horse/clam/jungle, clam/fur, and the northern jungle/corn island also has copper. It's also a significant amount of islands, which I suppose is good for us, and a further motivation for the colossus.

Which brings me to the final point that I want to discuss. As of t66 we had about 15 turns to go for metal casting. I've been pondering on how to get it built after that.
I think it pretty clearly has to be the cap. Boundary conditions:

• 3 forests left
  
• 120h needed for the forge, then 143 (+2-3 due to rounding) base hammers for the golden boy. 
  

I think the forge pretty clearly has to be a 4 pop whip, which takes 2 turns. Discounting the chops, we still need 83h .
After the whip the capital will be at size 4 or 5. At size 4 it can work 3 mines and the plains wheat for 13 hammers. At size 5 we can take the ivory for another 2. The 3rd mine only comes after a chop though (meaning we need the worker on the hill 7 turns in advance).
So

• Going into the forge with overflow we can bring it to 29/120 on the prebuilding turn. Whip for 29+14  = 43h OF, which get debonified to 34 base hammers.
  
• 49 hammers left to go, which get covered easily by another whip overflow and the then unavoidable 3 turns of natural production. In fact the second PH mine will likely be unnecessary (more worker flexibility)
  
• We can't cascade from the forge directly into the next whip project, because our most expensive build is the lighthouse which can overflow only 48 base hammers.
  

Total duration:

1. prebuild forge
   
2. whip
   
3. OF hammers into colossus
   
4. whip another project (lighthouse/galley) for more OF
   
5. finish the build.
   

Do you see any room for improvement?

Now, we still have not determined if going for it is even a good idea. So...
guaranteed gains:

• forges - hammer bonus, +1 directly, +1 after IW. They are expensive early in the game so might be a trap. Otoh the earlier we build them the faster they pay back. Do we expect to get settled up on in the next 20 turns?
  
• triremes, when few others will have them. The map has clearly lots of options to project naval force, and delaying this could be fatal. I would rate it unlikely that they'll be needed that early though
  
• Option for an engineer around t115, but do we need one?
  

big prize:

• Well Colossus. Best available wonder for us this side of Taj surely. We don't know what was taken with Oracle. I'm unsure if on turn 50 it was possible to have both pottery and priesthood, but it is conceivable. There are others who will also feel enticed. Frozen's Victoria is my greatest worry in that regard.
  

opportunity cost:

• ~265 base hammers in the cap, including the 12 worker turns needed to mobilize them from the forests. 2 settlers, 1 worker. Or close to 1 settler, 3 workers.
  
• Teching MC now means holding off on writing and follow ups. It also motivates us to research IW right afterwards (for the gems), further delaying the upper line. That means:
  
• Can't offer OB - but that will likely get covered by enough contacts who will research writing
  
• No libraries - don't really care for the researc, but we'd like the culture in order to hold against Elkad (rule of thumb: if you build libraries for culture then something's wrong)
  
• Delayed mathematics, chop forges without maths
  
• Delayed Currency/Calendar/Construction (less so if we do land the wonder)
  
• Or do we actually want to beeline Monarchy, to be able to grow on all that food? Seems unlikely that that's the best path but I wanted to mention it.
  

For reference, tech costs are (before accounting for prereq): 
MC: 540
IW: 360
Writing: 216
Maths: 450
Currency: 720
Calendar/Constru: 630
Masonry: 144
Myst/Priesthood: 108
Poly: 180
Mono: 216
Monarchy: 540

[Miguelito]

TL;DR for Rusten:

• Do we want to go for MC / Colossus? Do you think it's worth it even if we miss the wonder? Rough eta is t81 for the tech and eot 85 for the wonder. We have to turn up research in 3-4 turns (I hope, this is before settling the new city, which however will hopefully not be that much of a hit as it gives 2c routes)
  
• If we do, do you see any clear improvement for the building plan I posted?
  
• Your opinion on red dots vs blue dots?
  

[Rusten]

There are things I like about forges on this map that doesn't exist on other maps, so it sounds like an interesting and worthwhile plan.
With so many cities that are completely green and have ~1.5 food resources they should be easy to set up everywhere. Settling an unclaimed spot has higher priority, but surely we should be close to having settled our region by T81. At least having the settlers completed.

I think I like red dots more, but I don't feel very strongly about it.

Colossus in capital sounds good to me.

Do we have the necessary worker force to cottage our river grassland in time for city growths? I'll try to log in later tonight or tomorrow so I'll probably find out then. Agree that things like libraries are of second concern right now. Settlers, workers, river cottages and enough units so that we don't die a horrible death but no more.

[Miguelito]

There are things I like about forges on this map that doesn't exist on other maps, so it sounds like an interesting and worthwhile plan.
With so many cities that are completely green and have ~1.5 food resources they should be easy to set up everywhere. Settling an unclaimed spot has higher priority, but surely we should be close to having settled our region by T81. At least having the settlers completed.

I set up a spreadsheet sim. If we get MC no earlier than t79 (I think 80 is more likely), we can still whip another settler t71 and build the big boy within 5 turns after researching (end up at size 3 and with up to 40 turns whip unhappy, but )
The question is a bit, do we actually want that quick settler? Surely yes, expansion has to continue but this question of yours:

Do we have the necessary worker force to cottage our river grassland in time for city growths?

Touches on a weak spot. We are at 6 workers for 7 cities (from next turn on), with none coming up immediately. So far that has been enough to hardly ever work unimproved tiles (occasionally right before a whip after growth), and in fact we have been leaving cottages at the cap unworked rather often in favour of food (the new city Lavandeira should solve it now that it's growing).
The workers are mostly busy connecting resources though, so we currently have just one cottage under construction in addition to the 3 existing ones (on an FP by Bonfim).

I plan to do an update discussing the short/mid term plans and general direction for each city one of these days. I think we need to discuss how we're going to specialize these cities.

[Miguelito]

Showerthoughts made me find an error in the spreadsheet (forgot to apply the forge bonus to the lighthouse whip, which prevents us from 2pop whipping it at 28/60). Required some adjustments, but overall we come out way better of course. With MC eot 80 we can comfortably build it in 5 turns and still come out of it with 5 pop. If we research earlier (I'm bad at predicting that), the 5 turn build is still easy to achieve.

I'd love to get the build time down to 4 turns, but I fear there are some constraints making that just impossible. With the lighthouse/ barracks as our most expensive available builds and having to build the forge in the first place a cascade just doesn't seem feasible, and I have no other idea on how to speed it up.

[Miguelito]

t68 was a nice turn. First, our GNP actually goes up upon founding a city:




Significantly so, in fact.

As predicted, Mjmd researched writing. I'm offering him, and in fact he should have seen our culture with his WB... or did he just miss it, because he went away before we founded this turn?


If he does not see our culture he doesn't get TRs right? Honestly I was a bit surprised that he hadn't offered already.
Also an impressive list of resources, although we have one more food resource connected in fact (but we have none unconnected and he well may). As I said, I hope his gems were jungled same as ours and he settled on top.

We also got the connection to Charriu (funnily, when I moved the WB along his border in the afternoon there was no connection yet, but when I logged in in the evening it appeared, probably because somebody founded a city?)


If connected food is an indicator (it isn't), he's lagging a bit, which would not come as a terrible surprise give that he's Ramesses and researched Mysticism and Poly. 
plz send Hindu spreads.

On that note, I am a bit confused, because for quite a while F6 has shown that 2 of our 3 contacts have Mysticism. But only one of them is not Cre! Checking old F6 shots it has to be Elkad. Maybe he tried for Hinduism when it wouldn't fall until t54?


City tour!


The short term objective here is the Colossus, as has been discussed. Yesterday I wrote that we could easily whip another settler before growing to size 8, but this turn I checked and MC may come earlier than I thought. (I said I am bad at this) Now I have to rerun the sim to see how that works out.
Long term I'm a bit torn on what the future of this city will be, but I think it still has enough river and greenland to be a good commerce hub, although not our greatest. Other thoughts went towards NE, but there are a number of drawbacks.



Paranauê is the archetypical helper second city. No unshared tile, whipped mercilessly already (including an unplanned axe to get rid of barbs). Right now it recovers a bit from the anger while other cities need the food, but I think we'll go for the next worker whip sooner rather than later (actually I'll put a turn into a worker now, no food lost anyways).



Marinheiro is a bit isolated from the rest, but has been contributing its share, whipping I think 2 workers and the galley. It always had to work those nasty 1/2/0 tiles for a few turns while on high pop, but with the lighthouse it will now grow on lovely Fin coast. Also finally building that mine, although that's rather intended for the capital's wonder project for now.



Igreja do Bonfim here is probably the craziest commerce city I've ever owned in any game of civ 4. Still in its cusp of course, but it's gaining traction. I'll likely whip a worker at size 5, or maybe at 6, or a settler? Whatever, the city should never go below 3. Only weakness for now is that all the great tiles besides the corn are unshared. First FP is getting cottaged in 2 more turns (will have to work bare for one)



This is the first city which I see as a potentially strong production site long term, maybe even HE worthy. Or do we want that coastal on this map? I'm entertaining the idea of putting lumbermills on these forests, in order to save them for Taj. In this mod version we get them at MC, and they only cost 5 worker turns. They also give river commerce and gain 1 commerce at machinery, plus late tech boni. I'm building a barracks because I expect we'll build a lot of units here, but we don't need an axe right now. Horse is being pastured. Worker whip at size 4 in all likelihood.



Food monster, although of course it's shared. The granary will annoyingly finish with the near full foodbox, but I could not find a better way. Short/midterm I want to whip settlers here.
Then the question is GP farm with NE and some grass farms, or production with mines/farms/workshops (lumbermills? don't think so). Or make it the Globe Theatre recruiting haven?



Recent addition Worker starts on the camp next turn and will chop afterwards. The yields will not be great until we finish the granary/lighthouse pair. After that it will be ok. Nothing spectacular, but steady contribution and occasionally a boat whipped. The motivation for the city was the fur. 
The granary will finish with the chop somewhere at size 2, after which we have to get the lighthouse so far that we can whip it for 1pop, as growing to 4 will take forever (3 will be painful enough). The plains forest on the mainland can help. I don't think it's a very good moai spot, and I think Rusten will agree.

Where does the next settler go?




Options:

• western red: it has bacon and it's close.
  
• western blue: Seals the border, but otoh it's quite exposed. Also needs a border pop that I don't know where to take from.
  
• brown: Can help Bonfim with the FP cottages. The trouble is that it would love a lot of workers around when funded: You sort of want 3 chops within the first 2-3 turns for the WB and granary. Ideally a 4th even on the city square itself, before founding.
  
• Yellow: Risk-less. Good to get started here, as I think it has nice potential. oh Viola atm can use the food on its own.
  
• Orange: Not that awesome, although Lewwyn may have hidden iron there. It is the stepping stone for the jungled corn/copper island in the east, which I kind of want, but it may also be just not worth it, moreover as it's contested with Mjmd.
  

current tendency is western red or brown, depending on how many workers we can find for the task.

[Rusten]

Read through and agree with most of it, city planning and all. Brown first if we have the worker turns indeed.

Food monster, although of course it's shared. The granary will annoyingly finish with the near full foodbox, but I could not find a better way.

On general principle I would give the food to the northern filler (city #2) to speed up growth to 4 and work a forest instead if we don't get the granary growth. But I haven't looked into the granary specifics. Marinheiro can take the capital wheat to speed up growth to 4, capital can take the ivory (or plains hill mine) and city #2 can take the other wheat. I'm aware that this probably messes up your capital plan though.

[Miguelito]

Sparse reporting for a few days for private reasons.
Somebody built the Good Lighthouse t70, which I would guess was Amica with Roosevelt, but or could be anybody else of course as well.
And we met Donovan Zoi (Sitting Bull /Spain) over the landbridge to the south, which is no bad news at all. Maybe he even founded Buddhism and we'll get spreads?

[Miguelito]

Charriu wants our horse; I would like to give it to him as I think he can be a good friend, and is generally inoffensive; pity that we already have 2 chariots queued. One is finishing this turn though. If next turn we gave it to him, what would happen to the 17 hammers sunk in the other one already? If it somehow becomes failgold that would be a more than acceptable result.