[SPOILERS] Bismarck of Mali (NobleHelium and Lewwyn)

[NobleHelium]

You know you were the one telling me to build stuff to attack only like 5 turns ago. We can't build stuff that quickly you know. It's normal speed even. You were just saying "let's raze their capital." :neenernee

Anyway, I don't see a point in overtly aggressive actions and declaring war just to slow them down a bit. We slow ourselves down too. But yeah, we'll just focus on building a few skirmishers for defense for now. I think EMC teched Iron Working to clear their gems (yes gems is a lot better than our dyes which are less accessible even ). Their power definitely went up by > 10k a turn; it could also be HBR. We still have a NAP for a little under 30 turns though. Turn reports in a bit. Highlight: another natural spread in Carbon!

[Lewwyn]

Indeed! But that was before archers. Also Swords are not chariots. And galley-ing axes down to raze his cap would have been awesome but we should have started it a few turns back if we wanted to and in the end Jkioan's just not worth the cost. Let them build cities for us...

A note on the gems. Map balance is pretty out of wack. They have a 2nd gold next to their copper and gems. Both are better than Dyes. Plus EMC got that double corn,horse city down there which in fact is closer to the middle meridian between our nations than our city. Which means they're going to get additional tiles. We should have let them declare war and planted in the original NE of the stone. That spot was unobtrusive and if they had wanted to declare at that point they would have wasted their time against our skirmishers and we would have had no problem holding them off with minimal effort. The choke would have hurt them more than us in the long run.

I'll quit bitching now... Free religion spread! Yay!

[NobleHelium]

Okay let's see. Not much happened on turn 91. EMC hooked up the stone, finished executing their whip overflow micro plan to build Moai Statues in 1 turn, and then passed the stone to us. EMC is still getting culture into the stone tile despite not generating any culture in their city, which is totally confounding me and not in agreement with anything I've read about tile culture. I would guess that they are getting 1 cpt into the tile right now, and we are getting 2 cpt as expected (from monument and religion). So we'll take the tile over in a few turns, but it's really odd. I kept tech off for this turn because we finished Hydrogen's library at EOT.

Turn 91 demographics:



Okay, let's do an overview of our current situation on turn 92 and recent developments.



As I said, we found gems in EMC's area. And it's very far north of the equator, unlike our jungle luxuries which are on the equator or south of it. And note that I have special license to whine about the map because Krill made it. So what do we have in our jungle? Dyes as discovered before, and apparently two ivory. Why do we need more crappy ivory that isn't even forested?



Also note that there is apparently jungle on those mountains, which we cannot ever clear. So I really hope there isn't going to be a group of 4+ jungled mountain tiles which would add up to a permanent 1 unhealth for no reason at all. Also, Ellimist told me there is a fish 2W of that inner coast forest with the city sign on it, which is why we're planting that city there. It can't go 1S or those tiles east of the copper would be unused. Sucks to plant on the only forest in the area though, same with the city southeast of the cows...I am still hoping to find a banana or even a sugar in those remaining fogged tiles that will let me move that spot. It could also go 1SW onto the marble sign I guess, with the northern cow city moved off the hill 1E. That might be better; the current locations are considerably better strategically defensewise though. There is no food south of the dyes until Jkioan's monster 3 clam + corn city (Johnny English).

Some interesting developments in our cities now. Let's see.



Although the sign has a question mark in it, we definitely want to whip the lighthouse next turn. One more turn of production would drop it to a 1-pop whip (it currently has 9h, 16h would be above the 15h threshold), and we want to overflow into Moai Statues. We'll want to give the hamlet to Beryllium for a turn until Hydrogen regrows to 5. Once we grow back to 6 (probably will take 2-3t) we'll whip a settler and overflow into Moai again. We do that for two settlers and Moai should complete. Then we'll probably not whip Hydrogen again for the forseeable future.

Where is this new settler going you ask? It'll be going on the inner coast location.



That spot west of Oxygen. We ruminated over whether to place it there or place it northwest of it, and decided on that spot. Reasons being that we'll probably want to plant a filler city north of it anyway to grab two tiles that we cannot catch in any way, so we might as well shift it down to make room for that city (it will have five tiles to itself including the city tile now). That unfortunately moves all resources out of the first ring, but we can cottage the flood plains and dump a missionary into the city for a fast border expansion. We'll probably farm that tile northwest of the wheat in order to irrigate it when we get CS, and it'll provide some additional food that the filler city can use.

We could plant further south instead of the inner coast, but I really want to see what's on the center island and settle at least one city on it as soon as reasonably possible. Plus we're not really prepared to push that far south yet, need a skirmisher or two plus some roads and workers in the area. You can see that worker southeast of Oxygen is roading and not cottaging as I previously said he'd probably be doing. Oxygen's borders expand in 4 turns, at which point I believe we can chop that city tile's forest at only a small penalty (should be 20h after Mathematics). So the plan is to use that worker to chop it; next turn it finishes the road. Then it moves to the tile west of Oxygen, puts a turn into a cottage, then goes to chop the forest. Then it can cottage the flood plains in preparation.

You can also see the Fluorine area here. Two workers are roading those hills, they finish next turn. The galley will be 2S of its current location laden with the settler and missionary. On turn 94 we'll finish roading the horse with one worker, while the other worker moves onto the forest. Turn 95 Fluorine is founded, one worker pastures while the other chops. That may be slightly less efficient than roading the forest and then pasturing with both workers before returning to chop the forest, but I did some mental calculations and I don't think it'll make much of a difference. Remember, the sooner the granary completes the more food you get after growing, unless it completes before you get to half full on the food box, in which case you don't get anything. If we had roaded the forest instead of roading the horse tile, then we'd be one worker turn short and would not be able to immediately start pasturing with both workers. Only one worker would be able to pasture on turn 95 (other worker would have spent its turn finishing the road on the hill to let the first worker on). Pastures take 4 worker turns, so we'd have needed 3 turns to finish the pasture anyway. So we'd only have finished the pasture one turn sooner. Overall that would be slightly superior, but as I had already dumped a turn into the road on the horse tile before I did these calculations, it was already too late. I hope that wall of text was comprehensible.



We found wines in Jkioan's area. I'm confident that Krill made sure that everyone has one now. Apparently there was some sort of bug and EMC and Kuro both got a "do you want to revolt to Hereditary Rule" popup the turn after we revolted, and it allowed them to revolt if they had clicked yes. I don't think it would really have worked, since my experience with FFH says that civics qualifications are checked every turn so they would've been kicked back to Despotism on the following turn anyway. And of course the game needs that in the case you only qualify for a civic due to the Pyramids or Shwedagon Paya and then lose it.

Jkioan still has not planted their sixth city, so I really have no idea where that settler went. I hope they're not trekking into the jungle to settle north of the dyes or something. Kuro planted his ninth city a couple turns ago. EMC has a settler done which they used to abuse whip overflow into Moai Statues, so they will be planting their seventh soon. They may not get any more settlers out for the next few turns, because they are in Caste System.

I was able to complete two workers in Boron in successive turns just from that one 2-pop whip, very happy about that. We're now at 10 workers, 11 next turn; soon to be at 9 cities. The island is almost fully improved, so that will soon free up 2-3 workers (Beryllium will probably whip one after growing to 4, or maybe we'll whip a galley instead).



Here's a look at Carbon. It's shaping up to be a very nice city, probably helped by the fact that we've only whipped it once. As I said before, we got a religion spread in here at EOT. After the barracks is done we'll want to build at least one skirmisher, then maybe we'll build a library. It'll be working at least three heavy commerce tiles most of the time even if the city is primarily designed for military production. We haven't worked that copper once yet, since I think the food is better. I wish our copper was on grass like Jkioan's. That other grass mine will finally be finished next turn by the newly completed Boron worker, which dumped a turn into a cottage on the way this turn. We'll likely be working that and the copper soon here, since Oxygen is going to get to size 3 and will need to steal the southern cottage. The worker that just finished the winery will float south and cottage the other flood plains, helped by the other worker once the mine finishes.

As you can see from the screenshots, the Mathematics ETA dropped and we will be able to complete it next turn. I was hoping the Hydrogen library would put us over, hurray for that. Speaking of Mathematics, it's relevant to look at Helium:



Started on the Pyramids as you can see. I think after next turn we will switch to an aqueduct and then go for the Hanging Gardens. I had a boring and largely annoying diplomatic exchange with Kuro, where he tried to convince us that we should give him stone and let him build one of the wonders. In exchange he would agree not to shoot himself in the foot by putting his development on hold for like eight turns in order to chop out the HG. Yeah, no thanks. I doubt he's actually going to do that, so we're going to swap off and go for the HG first. We're not going to switch to Representation right now, and it's not like we have any specialists at all, so the only reason to finish Pyramids early is extra GE points. Which are definitely nice, but I like our chances on the HG. Failure will mean a useless aqueduct which will be annoying, but I don't think it'll happen. Or maybe our warrior will find that city of his and scatter his workers if he's actually doing that. We can build the HG in ~9 turns, it's actually the same exact cost as the Pyramids because we get fewer bonuses on the aqueduct.

[Lewwyn]

Why so many bugs? Oh and yeah, that jungled Peak is super annoying. C'mon now...

[NobleHelium]

The GNP is rather inflated since everyone has Currency except us now. We're doing okay on the tech front, not great but not really behind.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 93. Quite a few things happened.

We finished Mathematics and Currency is showing 4 turns at max tech. We have enough gold for one turn of tech. So Currency will take ~7 turns.



Hydrogen is growing back to 6 a lot faster than expected. This presents a bit of a problem in that we are not really prepared to put out another missionary right now for Neon. I think what we will do is whip it in Lithium. Next turn Lithium needs to dump its worker overflow into the library, then it will start the missionary and do a 2-pop whip for it the turn after that, overflowing back into the library. This will complete the missionary on the same turn as the settler, and they can both get into the galley the turn after that, when the galley is SE of Hydrogen. Galley then moves 2W, and then into Carbon, letting both units get off and immediately travel south along the roads. I think we will have Neon founded on turn 100, assuming I calculated the worker micro correctly in that area. This feels pretty slow for some reason, even though we're building a settler like once every four turns. Hrmph.

The best news of the turn is that we found rice in the jungle! Hurray.



I've tentatively changed the dotmap. I am still not sure if this arrangement is a good idea, although getting the rice in the first ring is nice. The issue is the defensibility of the front city - it has not one but two hills right in front of it. That might be a major problem down the line. What do you think, Lewwyn? If we can get a large amount of culture in the city to provide a buffer it will be less of a problem.



We've finally found Kuro's borders. Unfortunately they are very far east. I estimate that that city to the south is on the center meridian. Jkioan still has not planted their sixth city. What are they doing? Kuro could potentially even take their copper at this rate. Please don't plant your sixth city north. I sent them a note telling them that Kuro's borders are only 5-6 tiles away. I hope it wasn't too obvious of a suggestive prod.

I am really interested in seeing what city of Kuro's we've found. If a bunch of workers are chopping forests and there's an aqueduct in the city...well...he can't see our warrior right now.



We are still exploring in the west. EMC's missionary reappeared this turn. I realized that we could just follow it to find Kuro's cities in the area, so that's what we're going to do now. The missionary is going to the SE, so we'll head to the SE too.

The stone tile is now at 50/50 culture at EOT. We will take it over next turn. Let's road the tile NE of it next turn just in case there's some fiddly issue with the trade route going through EMC's borders. Also, EMC chopped out a galley in their inner coast city as I figured they might. We need to keep up in that race.



Kuro's score went up a lot this turn, and his CY as well. I actually thought that he built the HG, but no. A GS was born that was probably him though. I think he got several pop growths, maybe with a tech. Hopefully it'll alarm EMC as well.

[NobleHelium]

Ellimist just told me they're going to run an artist in Arcturus this turn to keep the stone for production. That's fine, as long as they don't mess around with the borders and keep juggling the tile which would seriously fuck us up.

[Lewwyn]

I'm not sure about that dotmap yet. We definitely want to make sure we get that rice though. Usually I'd say plant on the plain 1E but that sort of wastes two ocean tiles. Really its going to depend on whats south of those peaks.

[NobleHelium]

All right so I've played turns 94 and 95.

Ellimist decided not to run the artist after all, probably a good idea. They'd have to run the artist every other turn to keep the tile, which is very expensive. So we have ownership of the stone tile now. I'm annoyed that they apparently get 1 cpt into the tile despite not generating any culture in the city, but that seems to be the game mechanics. I think after the mint we should chop out a library there...maybe a missionary first for Carbon.

Fluorine was founded, working the crappy 2/1 hill pig until the pasture goes up. Chopping out the granary next to it. Setting up workers in the Neon area, I think we can found on turn 99 if the micro is correct and we don't make any mistakes. We need to make sure to whip the mint in Oxygen before the chop completes. Not sure what we want to use the chop for, maybe another worker. We don't really need another one right now, but it doesn't hurt to build one now while we don't have religion in Oxygen. The Boron chop should probably go into a settler, which we could then 2-pop whip if we want, so we could use more workers to road in the south anyway. We're probably going to blow past the 11-city anarchy threshold before we get to CS at this rate...not much to be done about that.



We found one of Kuro's cities. Size 4 and working a corn, can't see any of the other tiles it's working. It's on the center meridian - apparently he has a bit of a settling agreement with Jkioan. Jkaen wasn't too fussed by the fact that his city is that close because of that. It seems that Kuro can't plant further east according to the agreement though. And apparently everyone has Archery now. Why tech Archery rather than just build some axes...?



Area south of the rice looks very barren so far. There is hope for some food in the west still, but it doesn't look too good. Kuro's warrior is there. I moved south this turn in case he decided to get frisky, but in retrospect the river is there anyway so he wouldn't have odds. But no big deal, I also wanted to see if I'd see any Jkioan borders here and there isn't any. They finally planted their sixth city though, maybe they trekked to the inner coast for it?

Anyway, we need to decide a bit on the dotmap here if we're cranking out another settler from Boron, unless we opt to settle the other border city to EMC. That's reasonable, since it's right there but I'd rather claim these spots if possible. And it wouldn't take very long to get down here while moving 4 tiles a turn.

[NobleHelium]

Hey, let me play the next turn if it comes in. I want to make sure the Neon-related micro is correct.