[SPOILERS] Four Score & Seven Dynasties Ago: Pindicator plays Lincoln of China

[pindicator]

Turns 115 & 116

So I had a bit of an 'Aha!' moment when I went to hire specialists at Goomba and then realized I could hire scientists and didn't have to hire Merchants. After all, I need to use a Great Scientist on Engineering before I can use a Great Merchant on Civil Service, so I might as well get one first, right? So I hired two scientists, and the last chop came in to perfectly finish off the forge. Next turn we quit the hills and send everyone into cottages and the grassland farm and hire the engineer specialist.



Well, now that I'm thinking about it more .... not so fast on the scientists. Yes, I need to have a scientist for engineering. But it may help my economy more overall if I can run merchants over scientists in Goomba. And then, would I prefer to have the possibility of 2 GS or 1 GS & 1 GM. I think I would go with the 1 GS & 1 GM. Because what would I do with 2 GS? I would have to sit on one and wait for Education. With 1 GS & 1 GM I could bulb Engineering & Civil Service.

Now watch me get a low odds GM out of Piranha Plant and leave me with 2 GM. Well, if that happened I would just bulb Civil Service & Guilds! So yes, we absolutely want to swap those scientist to merchants.

On t114, when I was making my retreat from Moogle's lands, I noticed a barb spear in the southlands. No problem, I'll just move at axe from Bob-Omb to take care of him.

On t115 I noticed that I had forgotten to move the axe
So on 115 I moved the axe 1 tile SW and this turn I moved the axe into Spiny. If my road coverage was a little better I could have killed that spear. Note to self: need more workers.



Also note the barb axe in the bottom of the screen. Don't worry, my chariots will get back in time to deal with him.

On t115 I also noticed a barb axe coming out of the fog and heading towards Piranha Plant. But I figured I had that covered; just start a CKN and whip him to completion on t116. And then this turn when I whipped the CKN I realized this was another move.



I figured that the barb axe will move NW and then my newly whipped CKN will kill him. Then I realized "what if the barb axe goes W instead of NW?" I'd be screwed. I don't have money for an upgrade (or even money to spare for one), and my CKN would not be able to reach the axe. So I moved the axe that was garrisoning Birdo 2SW. If the barb axe attacks my axe that would be the best thing that could happen. Even if I lose my axe, the CKN has been whipped and would be able to clean up. Instead, if the barb axe goes W then I'll put my axe into Piranha and move the CKN 2SW. But this cost me a lot of unhappiness in Piranha. I need to keep troops down for a barb garrison. This is twice a barb has come towards Piranha and I've had to scramble to cover it.

I've also moved my spear out of Spiny and towards Birdo. Next turn it will be able to either move into Birdo to serve as an MP or move back to Spiny, depending on what happens.

I'd show demos but that was when the server disconnected. Suffice to say, I'm 2nd in food, 1st in Prod, and about 10th in GNP. I did tech Polytheism just off of overflow last turn. And Priesthood this turn, but now I'm out of overflow. Monarchy is going to take 12 turns unless I Build Wealth. That's why I shouldn't build all those units: Building Wealth is what's keeping me going. That and Great People.

[pindicator]

Server is back up, so I changed the scientists to merchants, shuffled a few tiles in Birdo (I realized I needed to work both grass hills if I was going to get all the CKNs I had planned) and decided to run Wealth in Thwomp. That city is going to get farms on the grassland, mines in the hills, and just build wealth and whip troops.

Demos. Crop Yield is a bit awful because of all the unhappiness in Birdo, Spiny, & Piranha Plant. That will all be fixed soon.

[pindicator]

Forgot about Paper. So in the unlikely event of 2 GMs we will bulb Civil Service & Paper and set-up a run towards Liberalism.

[pindicator]

Turn 117

How's this for lucky?



Both barbs attack and lose. So I don't have any tiles pillaged and don't have to worry about them for another 5 turns

I whipped the market in Piranha, and it took back it's sheep from Birdo. Trying to figure out what to do with Birdo - I think I need to farm over those villages... but they're villages! But if I leave them then I can't work the mined hills. Still, it may be better to just farm over them and then work Wealth to support my real commerce cities. Or I could build windmills...



Keeping lots of notes to make sure I get the micro right in my producing cities. You can see Monarchy is in 7 and I have a few cities building Wealth: my capital, Thwomp, and Cheep-Cheep. Maybe I should abort this attack and just get Monarchy in.

[novice]

I whipped the market in Piranha, and it took back it's sheep from Birdo. Trying to figure out what to do with Birdo - I think I need to farm over those villages... but they're villages! But if I leave them then I can't work the mined hills. Still, it may be better to just farm over them and then work Wealth to support my real commerce cities. Or I could build windmills...

Are you asking for advice?

[pindicator]

Are you asking for advice?

I wasn't intentionally asking for it -- just doing my usual thinking out loud bit -- but it's pretty obvious that I don't know what to do with it. I'll try to puzzle it out tonight (or while at work today ). I mean, I'm pretty sure one of my issues with tech right now is that I don't have that many cottages down: all of Spiny, a couple at Piranha, a couple at Goomba (that don't even get used every turn). Bullet Bill will help greatly with this. I'll probably try to cottage up Thwomp a bit as well. This makes me loathe to pave over ones I have.

But long term I think I need farms there to be able to grow onto all the surrounding mines now that Piranha is going to be taking back the Sheep. And I need farms to get irrigation to some of the grassland tiles around Hammer Bros as well but that shouldn't be an issue til much later.

Like I said, I'll puzzle on it. If you don't think it's outside the boundaries of the game then I'd love to hear your advice because I really respect your civ playing. But there's a good chance I'll do what you recommend. If you don't want to influence my decision making then how about you post it in the lurker thread and I'll look for it when my part in this game is over?

[novice]

I thought that screenshot of Piranha was Birdo, and you were contemplating farming over villages there to mine those tundra hills. That obviously seemed like major .

The situation at the real Birdo is more interesting, and I don't really have authorative advice. Depends on your empire needs, tech path, worker force, etc. Keep in mind though that if you're not whipping you only need food neutrality - grow to happy cap on borrowed food and then stagnate (maybe build a worker/settler since you're not growing anyway) while the other city grows.

[Injera]

Something to also consider along- I'm not saying it's the optimal thing or anything- would be to windmill instead of mine the hills. I can't really tell from the screenshot but is Birdo on a hill or could you chain the irrigation through the city?

[pindicator]

Oh yeah! I didn't make that easy to follow by changing topics from one city to the next. We'll devote some time to the special case of Birdo tonight when I get home and play t118. It hasn't been an issue before because I have always been able to borrow either the sheep from Piranha or the grass farms from Goonba & Hammer Bros. But if I have to give it all away the I ideally want to be at a max-happy, not whipping, food-neutral situation.

I've been mulling it over and feel I know what the answer is going to be.... but it's not what i prefer so I'm going to dwell on it a bit longer.

[pindicator]

Here is Birdo and the surrounding areas. I've highlighted the city radius in dark blue.



Birdo has 4 riverside grassland and a sheep, but the problem is that Birdo can't use any of them as farms right now!

• The sheep in purple goes to Piranha while that city takes advantage of it's increased happy cap.
  
• The yellow farm goes to Goomba, which needs it just to be able to grow while running all its specialists
  
• The light blue farm goes to Hammer Bros. Now, right now Hammer Bros is not using the light blue farm but under my plan to whip up an army quick it will need to use it in order to back to size 7.
  
• The remaining 2 tiles are cottages.

Up until now I've been able to use the sheep and one or two farms to grow Birdo. Once Piranha Plant hit it's happy cap it hired a pair of scientists and cruised. Hammer Bros has been sitting at size 7 forever, working 20hpt in mines. And Goomba hasn't needed the farm while it's been working cottages.

When I thought up the plan to whip up an army to assault Moogle with in 10 turns, I was figuring on whipping Birdo twice and Hammer Bros once. But that's the problem with tile sharing; you cannot regrow every city at once. There has to be some alternation.

So my solution to the Birdo problem is going to disappoint a few of you. I'm not going to multi-whip Birdo or whip Hammer Bros. And if I'm not going to whip either of those cities it means I'm not going to be able to quickly put together a large attack force. Which means no attack on Moogle. It's something I was already leaning towards when I saw how slow Monarchy was going to come in. Instead I'll work on building up, finish my military builds in queue and start on Wealth, and maybe raid his [strike]mineral lines[/strike] cottages a second time.

Once I get Civil Service this won't be as big of a problem. I've put white squares around all the grassland tiles that can be irrigated. Except if you look closely, you'll be able to see that the only way to irrigate the forested grassland east of Birdo and the one SE of Hammer Bros is to farm over the cottage north of Birdo. At that point I'll need to decide if I want to irrigate those tiles and run mines or if I want to cottage them and windmill the hills. Either way, we'll keep the cottage going until that point.

Oh, and as I said before I'd love to hear what you guys would have done. Post in the lurker thread if you think it's spoilerish, but it's certainly an interesting problem.