[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[haphazard1]

That tundra copper is annoying, as founding on it would provide no benefit. But moving west prevents sharing the crabs with C6. Although I guess C6 would need them pretty much all the time anyway. Oh well, it just would have been so much more useful if the copper was east or west one tile.

The other plans sound good. Any sign of barbs recently? Now that you have an axe they should hopefully not be a serious problem.

[Catwalk]

The new location is actually not bad at all. Getting first ring fish means it will develop way faster, it's easy to provide a work boat from Groceries. That means I won't have to bother with culture there for quite some time. And the copper will definitely be useful, 1/4 is really not bad.

With the Calendar plan, the sugar city will likely be given a higher priority. And with silk, sugar and spices online before too long, maybe I can delay the elephant city. It's an inconvenient location and the city itself will be an unimpressive investment. It does mean that I'll be stuck with no happiness for a while longer, but I'm not sure if an elephant grab is the right course of action.

On that note, I'm not convinced that whipping and granaries is the way to go here. The granaries are already built, but I think they were a poor decision. Whipping is very costly in terms of lost production from the added unhappiness, it just doesn't seem worthwhile. I will try to triple whip a settler from Dishes later on, though.

[Catwalk]

Turn 59
Azza completed the Pyramids this turn, that's quite early. I'm guessing he found stone, even though he's IND. It may be worthwhile on a map this starved for happiness, but I think it's a really big investment this early. My third worker finished this turn, and I foolishly misclicked it away on the sheep hill It's settling decision time soon, so here's an updated dotmap:

The astute lurker may notice that I've gone 180 on the elephant plan a mere hour after posting it

Here are my thoughts about each location:

3a/5a: The 3/5 denotes that I'm not sure which of these should be 3rd and which should be 5th. I'm also not completely decided about a vs b. It shouldn't make much difference, though. a is slightly lower upkeep, b grabs slightly more territory and makes it slightly harder to plant a filler city further west. I'm leaning towards making this one 5.

4: Elephant city! With Sailing after Writing, I can hook it up with no roads required. After mulling it over some more, I need happiness desperately. I can send my one axe there to reinforce it. I might push it down to #5, since I need to supply it with a missionary and a work boat before it'll get anywhere. Alternately, I can suck it up and build a monument. Suggestions?

3/5: PH city tile, oasis available right away and grabs first ring 5/1 pigs. Not a great long-term location, but highly productive short-term. I'm leaning towards settling this one over the cows and the horses.

6: I get first ring fish and tundra copper here. Groceries can supply a work boat for it and it needs no roads.

7: First ring crabs and plains wine. Not really terribly interesting, and I'm thinking about postponing this one further. It's very close to Dishes, though.

8: Grabs first ring cows and pigs, and lets the elephant city work lake tiles. Very close to Jowy and a bit difficult to defend.

9: Sugar city finally. I looked at research numbers some more, and it'll be quite some time before I land Calendar. Sailing => Mathematics => Calendar will take me at least 30 turns, probably closer to 35. I will settle this one sooner if Calendar allows it.

10: Food city. 2 grass bananas and 1 grass pig gives it an amazing +14 food at size 3. The gems will likely be worked by the filler city instead, as this will be my GP farm if it turns out right.

If Jowy decides to settle on the filler spot, I have an alternative plan for my eastern border:
a. The north filler goes SE, grabbing first ring gems.
b. The food city goes S, grabbing all 3 food resources first ring
c. The elephant city and the cow city are merged into one city between the elephants and the cows
d. The filler city NE of silk moves 1 or 2 tiles S

I'm not sure if this is any better, and I would need to make such a decision soon as I need to grab the elephants fast. And if I go with that location, I'll grab the elephants at least 6 turns later due to the need to build a road and a camp. I suspect it'd be a little more defensible, with just one forward city rather than two.

Another option is convert to Buddhism shortly. I will get happiness in the two cities that need it the most, both have good food tiles available to them. I'm about halfway done with a monastery and I want the missionaries for culture anyway. What do you think haphazard1?

[haphazard1]

If you need the happiness now, then converting to Buddhism sounds good to me. A turn of anarchy is a pain, but waiting for a golden age while your cities are unable to work good tiles is losing value every turn. How far are you from a GP you would use for a golden age? I am guessing it is quite a ways off yet? If you do convert, the usual "while settler is travelling" seems like a good time.

On cities I like the horse/cow site. It is closer to the capital and will be less expensive and easier to defend. It opens up horse units (which means chariots for now) which gives you a counter to axes and a fast unit for exploration and zone defense. It will also have some hammers from the horse and cow tiles, which will be useful. Finally it has all those green tiles to start some cottages growing.

The oasis/pigs PH site has more food, but is farther away and has fewer good tiles to work down the road. Can it work the oasis without a border pop? (Wait, Vacuuming is the holy city so maybe the borders are already popped a second time?) Still a very strong site and the food could make it a nice worker/settler pump.

It might be tempting to grab both of these before going for the elephant site. But it depends on just how starved for happiness you are. Boosting your happy cap and growing your cities larger is always powerful, so making the grab for the elephant site would be a high priority for me. It is farther away so more expensive and harder to defend. But I think the results would be worth it. Getting a missionary to it would be nice if you can do it quickly, otherwise just go ahead and build a monument. Of course you will get a free spread about 3/4 through building the monument. At least that always seems to happen to me...but if I don't start the monument I never get free spread.

Interesting news on Azza getting the Pyramids. He must have made a hard push for them, even with IND helping. It is a powerful wonder for happiness and presumably a specialist economy, but it also makes you a target since others start thinking about how they could just "borrow" those big pointy stone things.

Hmmm, Jowy appears to have a Star Wars Imperial military leader naming scheme? Wonder what else he might name his cities? So many of them died uselessly.... "Apology accepted, Admiral Needa."

[Catwalk]

Turn 60
More laziness to report. Vacuuming and Dishes both grow next turn and I'll convert to Buddhism, will upload a demos screenshot after that's all taken care of Jowy is not putting EP on me, so I now have research visibility on him. He finished Masonry this turn.

[Catwalk]

If you need the happiness now, then converting to Buddhism sounds good to me. A turn of anarchy is a pain, but waiting for a golden age while your cities are unable to work good tiles is losing value every turn. How far are you from a GP you would use for a golden age? I am guessing it is quite a ways off yet? If you do convert, the usual "while settler is travelling" seems like a good time.

Yeah, I agree with conversion. I'll do it next turn as Vacuuming grows into unhappiness at size 4. It has a grass hill mine to work, I think that's worthwhile.

On cities I like the horse/cow site. It is closer to the capital and will be less expensive and easier to defend. It opens up horse units (which means chariots for now) which gives you a counter to axes and a fast unit for exploration and zone defense. It will also have some hammers from the horse and cow tiles, which will be useful. Finally it has all those green tiles to start some cottages growing.

I like the pigs and oasis better, but I've decided to go for both of them and the elephants next. I'll get a missionary for it after the settler.

The oasis/pigs PH site has more food, but is farther away and has fewer good tiles to work down the road. Can it work the oasis without a border pop? (Wait, Vacuuming is the holy city so maybe the borders are already popped a second time?) Still a very strong site and the food could make it a nice worker/settler pump.

Yeah, it can indeed work the oasis right away due to the next border pop at Vacuuming. I'll build a grass mine for its third tile.

It might be tempting to grab both of these before going for the elephant site. But it depends on just how starved for happiness you are. Boosting your happy cap and growing your cities larger is always powerful, so making the grab for the elephant site would be a high priority for me. It is farther away so more expensive and harder to defend. But I think the results would be worth it. Getting a missionary to it would be nice if you can do it quickly, otherwise just go ahead and build a monument. Of course you will get a free spread about 3/4 through building the monument. At least that always seems to happen to me...but if I don't start the monument I never get free spread.

I think distance also factors in, so it has a smaller chance of free conversion. And yeah, I'm grabbing both of them then elephants as #5.

Interesting news on Azza getting the Pyramids. He must have made a hard push for them, even with IND helping. It is a powerful wonder for happiness and presumably a specialist economy, but it also makes you a target since others start thinking about how they could just "borrow" those big pointy stone things.

At t59, he almost has to have had stone available for them. If not, I think he's set himself behind a bit. I think Jowy wants the Great Lighthouse. If he gets it, I'll be pushing hard for my advance cities against him as he'll probably be very keen on preserving the peace. War commerce penalty should be down to zero before too long.

[Catwalk]

Turn 61
Converted to Buddhism, demos should look decent next turn. My micro is still lazy, and I'm regretting my early granaries. Unless you grab a luxury with your first or second city, I think early granaries are really difficult to capitalize on. I could have had another settler by now, had I not gone for them.

[Catwalk]

Turn 62
Nakor accepted OB, and BaII showed up with a scout on my eastern border. He won't be able to do much scouting with it as I've sealed it off by now. Jowy is back to putting full EP on me, we're at 72/140 with 132 needed for research visibility. I'll offer him OB in a few turns, he's researching Writing now. My warrior going south ran into a barb warrior, I'm sitting on a forest so I should beat it no problem. Demo shot:

They look pretty nice. I don't take this as a sign that I'm doing well, but I do take it as a sign that I haven't fallen behind. Given that I have a decent long-term combo, I think this still looks okay.

[Catwalk]

Turn 63
Offered Jowy OB, he's halfway into Writing now. One settler finishes in 2 turns, another in 3-4 turns depending on when I whip it. My micro is still sloppy... Barb warrior didn't attack, I'm sending my axe after it.

[MaxPower]

Hi catwalk, nice reading. So far your civ is the only one I've been lurking in this pitboss, so I'm some sort of a dedlurker. What happened with your plans for the colossus? I don't see Metal Casting in your latest tech path posted. IMO, for a PHI leader MC is a very useful tech, as forges allow you to spawn a Great Engineer in only 17 turns. You could use it to pick any wonder not built yet or lightbulb machinery for early crossbows. At the very least you will gain a lot in terms of security from enemy rushes, and you can even think about someone. Crossbows are excellent offensive units while your opponents are stick with classical era units.

My point is, you should put some priority in Metal Casting, even if you don't want the wonder anymore.

[Edit] Of course, you can forget about MC and run a priest in a temple for the same 17 turns to get your shrine up and running. That might work better in terms of economic growth.