[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[scooter]

I took a look at speeding the settler, and I don't think it's worth it at this stage. I can get it 2 turns quicker, but it'll slow down the next city after that. Sullla, let me know if you disagree, and I can hold off on playing another turn until tomorrow night.

[Sullla]

I also think we stick to the original plan. We need those workers, and by.growing the capital we're progressing.towards our next settler (triple whipped at size 6) that much faster. Can explain in more detail tomorrow when not posting on my phone.

[Epoxy]

THE DAILY ROLL

TURN 190–191: THE DUTCH SUCCUMB

'Finally' is the word of the day as the Netherlands becomes the last national sovereign to instate slavery upon its population, yet this news is not met with sorrow but with bemusement from leaders: 'Time will tell how severely they've hurt themselves'. The only legacy of the Netherlands' stay of execution will be how far their future chances at maintaining parity will be curtailed. This failed abstention is succeeded by the arrival of faith, the Aztecs laying claim to the domain of Christianity as the city of Pocket Beetle becomes their holy centre. But bonus religious happiness can only go so far without more population to leverage. To this end two city sites have been flagged for the third and fourth settlers, north and south, each situated within generous jungles and grasslands, to become the fastest whipping posts yet.

[antisocialmunky]

Hammers are make out of PEOPLE!

[Brian Shanahan]

Here's a very rough idea of what I think are the best sites in the north given our knowledge at the moment of the area.

It's got plenty of dead land and some mistakes, I should have put in the city by the northern iron south of the river not north as I have done, and some of the sites are based off 3-4 tiles revealed. But here goes:

[scooter]

I should note first that the sandbox I posted is slightly off. It's missing the horse and iron at the capital, but the rest of it should be pretty good. Just a heads-up that you'll have to add it yourself.

Turn 192



Walking along the coast down here. I didn't really uncover anything else with the other units other than a single tile up north. I'll get a shot of that next turn.



Pair of chops incoming next turn for a 1T worker in the capital and 90% of another worker in Pocketbeetle.



The spiritual civs all took their religion as expected. RMoG chose not to revolt into their religion, but they may be waiting until they get a settler out to take their 3rd revolt turn.

[Sullla]

More quick scouting thoughts... I agree with the decision to send the southern explorer off to the west. Let's find out how far away our opponents are first, and then we can see what's in the center of the map by those gold tiles. Based on the map dimensions, I expect someone else isn't that far off beyond the jungle rice at the edge of our vision.

Southern explorer: SW-NW next turn, right? Seems like the most tiles defogged that way.
Northern explorer: east then ??? depending on what we see on the first move.

The Demographics are a little bit better than what I was expecting to see right now. I was worried that a lot of other teams would be growing faster than us, since we're non-Spiritual and are pausing growth to push out more workers. While that is happening, it's not as bad as I feared, with only Alhazard and Nicolae getting pop growths thus far. Our Demos are going to be at their absolute nadir on T194, with a pair of size 1 cities. But we'll have 6 workers out by the end of that turn, then we grow 5 pop points in the next four turns, all of it onto improved tiles, and chop out a completed settler at the end of turn 199. Hopefully we're first to three cities and we can maintain an edge from there.

One other note from the Demographics: someone else built an explorer this turn (Rival Best Power = 105k). Given the amount of empty space we're seeing on this map, I'm hoping that the early explorer turns out to be a good choice.

OK, so to explain the point that scooter and I were briefly discussing last night in more detail. We can get the first settler out slightly faster if we pause growth to spend turns on the actual settler build, or by channeling another forest chop into the settler. (We have 5 forests at the capital, and we are splitting them into 2 workers and the other 3 into the settler.) However, the problem is that getting the settler out faster doesn't end up helping us all that much. Funneling another chop into the settler just means we have one fewer workers - and we are already desperately short of worker labor even with the current plan. All we're doing by speeding up the settler is creating a situation where we're working even more unimproved tiles. Years of our MP games have hammered home the iron law of Civilization: strength comes from working improved tiles. Having a whole bunch of population on unimproved tiles doesn't really do much other than suck up maintenance costs.

The other reason why this is counterproductive is that we're essentially already building the second settler in the capital alongside the first. The plan is to triple whip the second settler once we reach size 6. Slowing down growth to build the first settler faster only winds up delaying the second settler. And while that might be worthwhile in a tightly packed map like Pitboss 34, we have tons of land here and no need to win an immediate settling race. The first settler is essentially "free" for us, produced from 3 forest chops with the capital only pausing growth for a single turn. That's an incredible advantage, only possible with Imperialistic and our forest-heavy start, and we should take full advantage of it. We're going to need to leverage that against those Spiritual teams which have now swapped into Serfdom after their initial worker whips and are gaining advantages on us each turn in worker labor.

Future cities: that southern spot definitely looks like the third city location. I need to play around in the sandbox to get the exact numbers, but I can already see it's going to be off and running fast. It also fulfills a major need by having 2 food resources of its own in the double deer: we can use this city for Great Person generation. The longterm plan is to use the first Great Person (an Engineer) to pop a Golden Age, then we use that Golden Age to push out a Great Merchant, and some combination of Great Engineers/Scientists. The Merchant lightbulbs 2/3 of Constitution and allows us to revolt to Representation before the Golden Age ends. The Great Scientists lightbulb Education/Printing Press en route to Democracy. If we get an Engineer, we save it for a Statue of Liberty rush. However, we need cities with lots of food to run specialists in Caste System/Pacifism during that Golden Age. And we're not going to have a lot of time to grow them that large, since we plan to trigger that Golden Age pretty quickly. That pretty much means it has to be our first three cities, which means they all need enough food to reach size 6-7 in the next 20-25 turns. We need strong city sites to pull off this plan, and that spot fortunately qualifies.

Aside from the Great People stuff, it's a whole bunch of workers and settlers and enough units to defend them, plus super cheap Sacrificial Altar to rein in maintenance costs and open up more whipping. That's all we really need for a long, long time.

[Sullla]

Alright, played out a few more turns in the sandbox, up to T205. Here's a picture of what I ended up with:



* Capital grows to size 6 and then triple whips its settler. Our workers are farming the rice (and bringing irrigation with another grassland farm) to power the capital's growth. We actually hit +11 food from the pigs, deer, and rice once it's been irrigated. Longer term: we regrow to size 6 and triple whip a settler again. I'm having the capital overflow into a market for Great Merchant generation - will have to write a post about the Great Person plan later to explain in more detail.

* The second city grows to size 5, swaps to a worker, double whips it, and has enough overflow to complete another worker on the following turn. I wasn't planning this at all and it lined up really nicely. Gets us out to 8 workers total. Longer term: we regrow to size 5, double whip a longbow, and the overflow completes another longbow. We can substitute other units in here if desired, I like the longbows because they're good early defenders and very cheap.

* The third city develops incredibly fast with those double deer resources. We're even able to borrow the deer from the capital for a pair of turns when the capital is doing its settler whip. I found that it's better to Build Culture there first to get the deer and iron in the second ring in play, rather than trying to do an immediate worker whip. Longer term plan: whip the Sacrificial Altar for 1 pop (on T206), then double whip a worker at size 4, then grow to size 6 and triple whip a settler (with a chop of the city's forest).

* I have the workers set up to put the fourth city up by the bananas. We can easily change this, and I expect that we probably will depending on what we find out there in the fog. The last two turns of worker micro will almost certainly get re-written based on where we decide to settle.

Anyway, this will get changed eventually as we get closer to T205, but I'm happy with it for now.

[scooter]

Turn 193

Let's do some scouting!





So that's Mackoti of Cataphracts right nearby.



I think we ought to offer a map trade. Any reason why not? I just like being able to see more stuff.

He's currently in Serfdom, but that's not surprising since he's Spiritual and already did his early whips. The main surprise is that he's saving gold. I wonder if he's attempting an early-ish Academy of some sort, and he wants to run the gold through that? He is in Pacifism too, after all. I think that's a much more viable option than it was in 33.



Either NW-NW or SW-SW next turn.



Thinking about going 1NW just to confirm whether or not it's a dead end.



More workers incoming. Nicolae has a size 3 city already.



So... map trade objections?

[Epoxy]

THE DAILY ROLL

T192–193: IT'S MACK

The Aztecs have just drawn the short straw, as explorers report the first contact with a foreign nation, that nation being ... Byzantium, Mackoti of Byzantium. Surrender preparations are being made, the money is being burnt in a big bonfire, and the whips are being coated in toxins to wring a few more drops of slave labour before cataphracts charge over the horizon and put paid to the Aztecs' agrarian ambitions. Tentatively, Scooter offers a map trade. With the third city presently on the cards it's uncertain to what extent the Aztecs will be able to anticipate the Byzantines' moves. Will Mackoti turn over a new leaf and permit the fledgling Aztec nation to grow and prosper without being choked? Who knows.