[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

Turn 66
To celebrate MaxPower's delurking and to make up for failing to report several turns now, you get the rare treat of a multi-picture report!

North

Settler ready for colonization next turn, the city will be working the oasis until the pig is hooked up. Worker will chop next turn, putting those hammers into a granary.

South

My warrior made it down here safely and uncovered a coastal route to Jowy's lands and the elephant city. I won't be getting trade routes with him right away (unless he settles somewhere that invalidates my elephant city), but I don't really need them either.

Dishes

Just double whipped this axe to overflow into the settler, needed the axe done first as I was playing with fire on a barbarian map. That'll be my third axe so far, along with 3 warriors. Chariots could cause me some harm right now, but I think Nakor is the peaceful sort and Jowy will want to play with Impis instead for harassment. An axe is returning next turn to garrison Dishes, it has plenty happiness for the foreseeable future. Settler finishes at the end of next turn, after that I'll complete the monastery I started on earlier and produce a missionary for elephant city. It's a little expensive, but it helps a lot with culture defense and lets me start working a useful tile over there (clams).

Vacuuming

Vacuuming is a very nice first expansion, I'll be pumping out several settlers from here. After this axe I'll start working on a settler for the elephant city. I'll need an axe for that one too though, given its proximity to Jowy. Sad whip faces disappear in two turns when it grows, so I can sit on size 5 just fine. A worker is busy making another mine for it, this is definitely a hammer city. Growing to size 6 on a second axe and triple whipping a settler seems like the right thing to do here.

Groceries

Anyone want to play spot the bad micro? That unused cottage by Dishes sticks out like a sore thumb, should have built two down here instead. I'm going to whip a worker when it grows to size 4 in a little bit, then finish the granary. The lake usage is in order to get Sailing in 2t rather than 3t.

Demos

What an ugly sight. I'm not worried, as this is right after a double whip with two cities being planted and two cities growing in the next two turns. Still, I'm definitely not ahead.

[MaxPower]

Loaded the test files:

http://maxpower.host-ed.me/temp/spread_test.rar

[MaxPower]

To celebrate MaxPower's delurking and to make up for failing to report several turns now, you get the rare treat of a multi-picture report!

Thank you Catwalk. I really appreciate I am welcome.

South

My warrior made it down here safely and uncovered a coastal route to Jowy's lands and the elephant city. I won't be getting trade routes with him right away (unless he settles somewhere that invalidates my elephant city), but I don't really need them either.

It seems you could move your planned city on top of the copper tile, to make advantage of extra food.

Anyone want to play spot the bad micro? That unused cottage by Dishes sticks out like a sore thumb, should have built two down here instead. I'm going to whip a worker when it grows to size 4 in a little bit, then finish the granary. The lake usage is in order to get Sailing in 2t rather than 3t.

Shared cottages are more valuable, this is a good example. Just put the other one as soon as you can.

Demos

What an ugly sight. I'm not worried, as this is right after a double whip with two cities being planted and two cities growing in the next two turns. Still, I'm definitely not ahead.

Don't worry about that big GNP reading. Creative civs get a +2 bonus on every city that can easily explain that high amount. Also those who landed wonders also enjoy a big cultural GNP boost. You are average in GNP, and production. Food is a bit more of concern, but it should increase after planting the city.

[MaxPower]

From the pics, I see only 2 workers for soon to be 4 cities. And you are getting a settler on dishes for fifth city in 1-2 turns. The only project for an additional worker is at groceries when grows at size 4. I think you should get at least another worker, maybe at vacuuming, before spawning more settlers.

[Catwalk]

Thank you Catwalk. I really appreciate I am welcome.

I'm a very chatty person about most things, especially games. I had to beg for a dedlurker earlier until haphazard1 took pity on me And I'm always keen on a good discussion, so criticize away when you see something you disagree with. Just don't have too high hopes on any plans changing

It seems you could move your planned city on top of the copper tile, to make advantage of extra food.

That was my original location, I moved it W after seeing the copper. I'm still inclined to stick with that after seeing the crabs, as that also means I get the fish without a border pop. It's a terrible location without a border pop, especially if I don't settle the wine city first. The wine city by itself is really not very good, and if I have to give up its crabs in order to give fish city something to work then it really has nothing. I'll be giving up a clam until I settle that island down there, but crabs are not an amazing tile anyway. Lastly, a 1/4/0 tile is quite useful in a low production city and the tundra tile I'm settling on would have zero value otherwise.

Shared cottages are more valuable, this is a good example. Just put the other one as soon as you can.

Sharing is good and that should have been basic instinct, but the bigger problem is that I completely neglected to do even a tiny bit of forecasting about the growth of my new city. I'm intentionally putting little thought into micro in this game so as not to get too stressed out, but this one was a bad mistake that there was no need to make. I might put up turn signs indicating when I plan on having cities grow.

Don't worry about that big GNP reading. Creative civs get a +2 bonus on every city that can easily explain that high amount. Also those who landed wonders also enjoy a big cultural GNP boost. You are average in GNP, and production. Food is a bit more of concern, but it should increase after planting the city.

And I get +6 culture from being a buddhist Those numbers really are bad, but I expect them to look quite decent in about 5 turns.

From the pics, I see only 2 workers for soon to be 4 cities. And you are getting a settler on dishes for fifth city in 1-2 turns. The only project for an additional worker is at groceries when grows at size 4. I think you should get at least another worker, maybe at vacuuming, before spawning more settlers.

I'm low on workers indeed, but I do have 3. One is chopping a forest by Dishes, one is building a mine by Vacuuming and one is chopping a forest by the new oasis city. Groceries will double whip a worker in a few turns. I do have a bad habit of running low on workers, but I think this will suffice. I'll try to time it so I get another worker or two in time for Mathematical chops coming in.

[MaxPower]

I missed that 3rd worker. I usually run low on workers too, so I can't blame you. I just realize your start is deep in the southern hemisphere so there might be some, already unknown, competition on the northern border for those yummy calendar resources. I could be wise to check that out.

[Catwalk]

Since I'm uploading pictures I may as well try do it properly. Here are the lands over by Jowy:

A yellow equi-distant line has been added, indicating the tiles that are equally close to me and Jowy. Needless to say, my plans here are bold. I think I can pull them off, though. Jowy gets one elephant easily (lucky bastard!), I don't think he'll want to antagonize me by stealing the second one. The location of his copper strongly suggests that bottom yellow circle I've noted, and the middle one is also a fairly obvious early plant. The top circle is a good filler city that lets him share corn with his capital and work a bunch of cottages. If he's going to make a play for the jungle, I think it'll have to be all-in like mine. Delaying this city until #10 is risky, and I might push it up some. It doesn't pay off to settle it earlier, but the long-term gains are sizable. I'll need to station some axes in the area by the time I settle city 6 and 7. Part of the reason for moving city 6 west (instead of settling by the pigs first ring) is that he won't notice its borders quite as easily. Seeing both the elephant city and another forward city in his direction could alert him. I need missionaries for all 3 forward cities, cultural defense will be critical.

And the lands by Nakor:

The right blue dot is his expansion, the left one is his undiscovered capital based on borders. His expansion is coastal, I strongly hope the tiles I've revealed are sufficient to give me a trade connection. If not, I'll need to rush out a work boat to defog the rest of it. Nakor is further away from me (16x2 compared with 13x2), and I'm not quite as ambitious with my expansion in this direction. That might be a mistake, but I feel that securing lands over by Jowy is higher priority. The gold is securely in Nakor's territory (also a lucky bastard!), and there's not much else on his side of the line that I can poach. I would like to settle the calendar city faster, but I can't realistically get Calendar soon enough for that.

You can see a small peninsula to the north, there's water west of it. There could be a player lurking up there, but I'm guessing not. I think those calendar resources are quite secure, and they're also quite close to me. As a side note, Monarchy gives me +1 happiness from wine in addition to Hereditary Rule.

Updated tech plan:
Sailing (done next turn)
Mathematics (385)
Calendar (539)
Iron Working (308)
Currency (616)
Priesthood (92)
Monarchy (462)
Metal Casting (693)
Code of Laws (539)
Civil Service (1232)

That's a little late on Metal Casting, but I think it'll be soon enough to give me a good shot at getting Colossus if I set up good micro for it. I'm also pondering whether to keep Iron Working above Currency. I suppose I could settle the jungle city without being ready to chop the jungle, but that would be quite expensive.

[Catwalk]

Turn 67
And another turn rolls! Very nice pace today, and very nice pace throughout the game so far. Since I'm still feeling charitable, here are some more screenshots.

North

A closer look at the area up north, including my lovely new town. Stone is up there, so I highly doubt Azza used stone to build the Pyramids. The stone tile is also a very nice city tile, I'll want that eventually. I'm going to venture a guess that there are two players north of this island formation which me and Jowy will be competing with for control of that area. Similarly, me and Nakor will have an island formation south of us to compete for.

South

I decided to send my scouting warrior up to Groceries, and letting the warrior there garrison Dishes. That frees up my axe near Dishes to go check out Jowy, and lets me build another settler for elephant city right away.

Graphs & demos

I don't see anything too worrisome here. Nakor is doing decently, but he's Expansive and should be able to get a fast start. Jowy is a little bit behind IMO, low on food for a while now and his GNP looks bad. Part of that is his lack of culture, but by no means all. The power graph is the most important one. We're all keeping pace nicely, building a few units leisurely mostly for protection versus barbarians. Elsewhere in the world, someone seems to be engaged in an arms race with a neighbour. 67000 soldiers is several units ahead of me, even if he decided to research Archery. I can't imagine anyone went for HBR or IW yet.

[haphazard1]

Catwalk, thanks for the fuller picture of the current state of your civilization. It is very helpful to us lurkers to occasionally get more info like this.

I will repeat what I said earlier: that tundra copper is terribly inconveniently located. If it was on a different tundra tile you could get all the food and the copper mine. But as it is, settling on the copper provides no benefit. (Well, a second resource to trade maybe. But that is not worth much in practice.) I might still be tempted to settle the copper and take the extra food, but it would leave the city relying pretty much entirely on whipping for production. It also leaves the city needing a border pop to get a strong tile. So I understand your reasoning on placing west of the copper.

The demos are a bit worrisome. Not horribly so, but it would be nice to see a higher rank on food. And more commerce never hurts, although as already noted this figure gets distorted by culture.

What is your current total commerce? From the city screenshots I can see -4 gpt at 100% science. How much gold do you make at 0%? The new cities are going to add to your costs and slow your research, at least for a while. More cottages will help of course, but this requires more worker turns. I agree with MaxPower that at least one more worker and maybe two more quite soon-ish would be very helpful.

Edit: And you posted with more pictures while I was typing. Additional thoughts:

I agree on the stone and marble likely being placed so players will contest them. The naval aspect should make things interesting.

Jowy is certainly pushing hammers at the expense of food and commerce. And he is not building units, unless he is doing some creative queue juggling to hide them until several are ready to finish. Could he be trying to grab a wonder? Or maybe just an expensive building?

[Catwalk]

I'm at 22 gpt with no science, and costs are going up slowly with new cities. Sailing will give me +4 gpt next turn, and I have a lot of potential for additional cottages by the capital. I'm not too concerned about upkeep, I think I'll be able to rex pretty good as long as I can provide the hammers. And yeah, I'm pretty sure Jowy is going for a wonder. Has to be either Oracle or The Great Lighthouse. I wouldn't mind him getting the Lighthouse, will make him very likely to be peacefully inclined.

What's your thinking on my proposed tech path?