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[SPOILERS - El Grillo & Charriu PB51] One step at a time
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T74:
Northern WC sees some 1-tile lakes in the fog, but presumably the outer coast is ~5-10 tiles further north.  Southern WC still hasn't found another player. This land presumably was supposed to go to Ramk, but where the heck did he take a city from the Zulu? He kept, not razed that city so I was expecting it to be on their border. Not entirely sure I understand the sequence of events there.  Demos: Demos are looking good with the recent pop growth, and we can barely 3-turn Mathematics in this configuration, though that will change as we 2-pop whip a Worker from Humboldt Forest soon to help chop infrastructure when Math is in. Just goes to show how much overflow we'll have into Priesthood, almost an entire turn worth of research. It makes no difference to finish Math a turn earlier and tech Priesthood for two turns, there are no chops scheduled to finish in that one turn. Graphs: Abroad, Lazteuq founded a city on T73, bringing the French to 6 with one barbarian capture still in resistance. I'm also expecting a Great Scientist from that team any turn now, if they wanted to prioritize an early Academy. Ditto for Mjmd's FIN/PHI civ. We're getting GKC's graphs next turn, and I expect to be impressed.
Also hold the phone on Oracle, I got the cost wrong at 120h instead of 150h. Going to rework the plan and see if it's still doable in 1t, please don't laugh at me
 EDIT: It's doable, and the tradeoff is that it requires delaying Priest turns to work more foodhammers to build up more overflow from the Worker. Let me hammer out the details and I'll post them here for us to discuss. On the face of it I think it's still worth it. EDIT 2: Actually, we're one foodhammer short using a 2-pop whip since we can only make 17fh with 4 pop, and 13h the subsequent turn. Oof. Let me try a variation with a delayed 1-pop whip instead. Revised 1-pop overflow production plan:   The pivotal turn is T78, where we need to whip but still have enough population leftover to both maximize overflow on that turn, and work sufficient production on the next turn. In the 2-pop attempt, we'd be short one foodhammer on T78 or one hammer short on T79. I'm sure this dynamic is obvious to anyone who has done this kind of thing before, but it's been quite instructive for me. Again, hopefully the next one will go more smoothly (in part because I'll actually plan things out earlier. In this I have to thank Charriu for raising the question, or I would have just blundered into my original plan and then felt like a complete idiot on T79). The tradeoff from the 2-pop Worker plan is that we build one fewer Worker, which is available later. We also spend a couple of turns converting 4h to 4c by working the wine tile to manage overflow. In return we have one more pop point at Springer Mtn, and 1 turn of production into a Library that will be the city's next project. Having the Oracle 1t earlier is worth 6 commerce immediately from trade routes and a bit more from the earlier Prophet + Shrine, on top of finishing the wonder a turn earlier in case someone else is trying to build it.
So four people just posted in rapid succession in what's been a pretty quiet lurker thread. It could just be a coincidence, but my guess is that either superdeath is gearing up to go on his Praetorian window and it's all popcorn and hammers, or I made another dumb math error in my Oracle plan and they're all laughing at me. I think I'm going to sandbox out the production schedule before I play the turn, just in case...
 EDIT: The math checks out in the sandbox. Onward!
T75:
Our anti-barbarian C2 Shock WC took 6 hits attacking an Axe at 97% odds and barely survived, but it did survive. Our two scouting WCs found two new players, and then when I toggled on the culture lens I think I found a third. Vanrober's Zulu is indeed to Ramk's southwest, though farther than I had thought.  Look at just how much unclaimed land there is here! And it's high-quality land too, with another floodplains river valley that can support two more very strong commerce cities. Perhaps we could use that line of lakes to set up a more defensible border with flatland choke points, but it's going to be a broad front, especially once Ramk starts settling to his south.  The bigger surprise was finding another player almost immediately to the west of GKC, giraflorens's Persians:  That means my estimate of the map layout is wrong, and it looks like GKC had a start like ours with 3 neighbors each a dozen tiles away, but he wasn't able to eliminate one of them early on. Curious to see how this part of the world develops, if I were GKC I'd be tempted to leave the Germans to squabble and plan to conquer the slow-to-expand giraflorens to pick up Stonehenge for his CHM Indians. Moving along, when I had the culture lens on to take the zoomed-out screenshots, I noticed that the area around the barb city across the sea was now showing Lazteuq's French culture:  The area hadn't updated in the main game view, but due to Lazteuq's CRE trait, we get to pin another player to that part of the world. Then by process of elimination Mjmd would be south of superdeath and west of vanrober, across the sea from Amicalola's start. That doesn't fit with a rotational-symmetric map, so maybe I was overthinking that and this is more of a natural landmass with uneven player-neighbor distribution. Based on the coastal forest/jungle issue, I imagine what happened is that there used to be solid land connections across the sea linking Plemo-Lazteuq, me-superdeath, and Amicalola-Mjmd, but these were manually removed to create a donut-esque landmass. More scouting will reveal all in due time. Aren't War Chariots just great? Demos: Domestically, we're continuing along the Oracle plan, now that we've done our due diligence. The demos continue to improve as we grow our 6 cities onto more improved tiles, while other players are now catching up to our city count. Abroad, Plemo founded city #7 and it increasingly looks like the war with Ramk was just an opportunistic double Worker snipe. That's bad news, but I don't think the Dutch will have that many more good sites compared to us. GKC founded city #6. Speaking of GKC, we got his graphs this turn (he apparently has better EP targets and put a whopping 0 on us). The results aren't too surprising, GKC is on track with us and Plemo in overall development, trading off some food for MFG. Like I said earlier I think his natural expansion prospect is giraflorens to his west, which seems like it should be easy pickings for a veteran warfighter. Meanwhile, we have expansion opportunities in the unclaimed land to our west, along with coastal fillers and our border cities to the north and west. Plemo on the other hand, unless the map has more surprises in store, should not have as obvious a path forward. That means it will be most important to keep tabs on him and his Power rating. Graphs: Keeping my fingers crossed that we don't hear about Oracle being built in a distant land, and while we're praying, could we please get some more passive Buddhism spreads too?
I also looked at your updated Oracle plan and it looks good.
Mods: RtR CtH
Pitboss: PB39, PB40, PB52, PB59 Useful Collections: Pickmethods, Mapmaking, Curious Civplayer Buy me a coffee
T76:
Contact with giraflorens and vanrober!   I offered both of them Open Borders, and used the trick with vanrober where I moved one tile to establish contact, then moved a tile back before offering OB so he wouldn't see the C2 Shock WC and be more tempted to accept. I couldn't do the same with giraflorens since his city appears to have just popped borders from the Stonehenge Monument. These two players have both faced setbacks and are behind at 4 cities each, but I'm still going to put enough EP into vanrober for graphs just so I don't get completely blindsided by a Power spike. This is AGG Zulu remember, and I don't care how far apart our cities are currently, we still need to keep an eye for incoming Impi. Not an ideal time for our Chariot covering the southwest to be reduced to 0.1/5, but this is why we have fogbusters for advance notice. The Axe we built has plenty of time to reposition from Las Trampas.  Demos: The Oracle plan continues on schedule. Next steps depend on if we land it, of course, but even if we don't get Currency, I think I'd like to grab Sailing first before pushing on to Masonry->Construction. It would be worth the commerce from Ramk's Open Borders immediately, and I'd like to get that island scouted and settled soon for ICTR. For some of the recent cities that are starting to hit size 4, I'm thinking of 2-pop whipping Workers from them and using them to chop in the Granary and improve some local tiles before being assigned elsewhere, instead of directly whipping in the Granary. There are tradeoffs (Granary immediately gets us regrown to size 4 sooner for more whips) but I think the net outcome is enough in favor of Workers first, since the cities have multiple forests to chop into good investments, and we will be short of tiles to work if we don't improve more soon. Graphs:
T77:
Giraflorens accepted my Open Borders request.  Vanrober did not. I offered it again, this time with my WC visible, and we'll see if he's more amenable. If not, that's fine. I'll just bring it back to finish de-fogging the area while the injured WC heals (and explores the island, perhaps?)  Demos: The Oracle plan continues on schedule. I made a small effort at trying to see if anyone has finished a tech recently, but I don't think I can make any solid conclusions from that. In theory, Plemo, GKC, and superdeath could have teched Priesthood on T76, and Lazteuq and Gira could have teched it on T77. However, none of them should have Mathematics as well, so it comes down to if they managed to hook Marble earlier. I was considering ticking the slider down so that we'd invest a minimal amount into Priesthood in case someone builds The Oracle this turn, but I ended up deciding not to just in case I screwed it up somehow and came up a few beakers short. I thought more about whipping at Point Reyes and Las Trampas, and while whipping the coastal city off of its lake and unimproved grass forest seems perfectly reasonable, whipping Las Trampas off of floodplains cottages that can't be picked up by another city feels significantly worse, especially without a Granary in place yet. So I've sent the Worker whipped from Humboldt Forest last turn to finish chopping in Las Trampas' Granary, and I'm considering not whipping it at all to just stagnate on a Worker while working all of its cottages. I'd feel much better whipping off weaker tiles like grassland cottages or mines. Graphs: Plemo and Ramk made peace, though not before Plemo built another round of units. Superdeath has continued whipping away, 8 pop over the last 4 turns. The timing is right for Praetorians, so good luck to his presumptive neighbors Lazteuq and Mjmd. One of them also generated a Great Scientist on T77, and Mjmd whipped 3 times in the last 2 turns. I'm of course rooting for superdeath's target to hold out valiantly and slow down superdeath sufficiently that his next neighbor can tech to Catapults in time.  (June 13th, 2020, 13:27)El Grillo Wrote: I made a small effort at trying to see if anyone has finished a tech recently, but I don't think I can make any solid conclusions from that. In theory, Plemo, GKC, and superdeath could have teched Priesthood on T76, and Lazteuq and Gira could have teched it on T77.You know this probably, but just in case:
Thank you for the mechanics explanation Suite, I had read about that technique before but not thought to try applying it here. Using this method, I saw that no one that I've met has researched Priesthood. That doesn't rule out the Hinduism founder Mjmd who I haven't met in-game, who last finished a tech on t72 or t70, but it does make me feel a bit more confident about my chances.
T78: Our northern scouting WC found giraflorens' capital and the Settler for his 5th city:  Mmm, at least 11 food surplus at the capital with double lake clams. So this is the kind of start the mapmaker gave the newcomers (and Plemo), while GKC and I (and presumably Ramk and superdeath) got 2-food resource starts instead. In giraflorens' case, it emphasizes how much slower his opening has been: fewer cities, and neither Persepolis nor Lurkerpolis have a finished Granary yet. Springer Mtn has finished setting up the planned overflow for the Oracle build next turn. Buddhism teaches us that life brings uncertainty and suffering, and while that certainly applies to me at the moment, clearly the Egyptian people aren't impressed and remain staunchly pagan. We'll see if they change their tune once we have a shrine and missionaries.  I've been thinking a bit more about next steps from here, independent of the Oracle. While I still value Sailing for foreign trade routes, I don't think I can justify the plan to settle the island to the east for ICTRs. That plan looked something like: 1. Use the Workers around Springer Mtn to chop out a Settler for the coastal wheat+copper spot. 2. Produce another Settler somehow while chopping out a Galley from the new coastal city. 3. Settle one island city working the visible crab, hooked by the Workboat coming down from Point Reyes. 4. ??? The lack of scouting info around the island makes me hesitant to invest so much production into this plan with only a modest commerce payoff a fair number of turns into the future. I'm estimating that it would take about 15t to get the first set of ICTR going and then maybe 5t more to get the second, but the quality of those cities would be entirely unknown ahead of time, and we have what I think would be a much stronger, better developed alternative: 1. We have Open Borders with Ramk, GKC, and giraflorens, all adjacent along the upper half of the landmass sharing the common inner coast. We could fill our routes with 2c foreign routes from them instead, in the same 15-20t timeframe, with a scouting plan change like this:  Each of those arrows represents roughly 15 turns of movement, and once we reveal all the coast tiles along the inner sea, we'll get routes via Sailing thanks to our OB with Ramk. Now of course this depends on them being willing to maintain OB, but I can offer them some gpt or resources and look to settle the island later once I've had a chance to scout it properly. I could also meet the civs over the water with my Workboat and offer OB with them (maybe not superdeath) We also lose the opportunity to defog the rest of the vanrober border and keep tabs on him, for now. The injured WC will take up that task instead after it heals. Now this would free up our Settler production and Worker labor to emphasize sites like these:   Let's focus on Red and Blue dots first. I ended up 2-pop whipping the Axe instead of a Worker or Granary out of Las Trampas to avoid hammer decay, to continue matching Plemo's power, and because Blacksand Beach ended up being able to take one cottage since Springer Mtn needed the floodplains farm. The overflow will almost be enough to finish Las Trampas' Granary, and that will allow the two chops to contribute to a Settler from Tuolumne Meadow. So the new Axe secures the gold hill site, the fogbusting Warriors move further west to maintain a vision buffer, the Settler gets chopped out and finishes in 6t, and the two Workers road toward it and begin building cottages. I also want my second Missionary out of Humboldt Forest to convert Red Dot (the first will head down to Springer Mtn to raise the happy cap). The border pop here is especially useful for unlocking two shared tiles for Las Trampas and two shared tiles for the future Ramk border hill city. For Blue dot, the plan is for the four Workers in the area to split into two groups of two each. One group will chop two forests into Blacksand Beach's Granary and improve the remaining Springer Mtn floodplains cottages and pasture the horse. The other will chop two of Springer Mtn's forests into a Settler (this will come before the Library and yeah now I wish I had put that turn of production there instead), then move to support Blue dot (including chopping the silk forest into its Granary). Green dot secures the rest of the floodplains and I definitely want culture on that peak for visibility, but I'm not yet sure when and where that Settler will come from. Orange dot, signed as "wonder chopper" isn't a priority but I wanted to highlight it as a potential Mausoleum rush site in the future, with 8 forests immediately available. This plan emphasizes food and commerce and getting the floodplains cottages up and worked as soon as possible, and the tradeoff is that it's only securing one new luxury and further delaying the border cities to the north. However, at this stage of the game, I think it's worth it. Demos: Abroad, Lazteuq settled city #7 and superdeath settled city #7 on T77. This is another reason why I want to emphasize the closer cities that we can improve more quickly and that will scale up better than the coastal hammer city and then the unknown island cities. Our opponents continue to play well, expand, and execute their strategies, and we can't afford to lapse into complacency and stop growing and planning. Graphs: |
