[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

Me too. Sorry. Just came home after a very long day, have been awake for 23 hours after a 3 hour sleep, and won't be able to properly react to what I saw. Sorry for the delay, but will play when wake up tomorrow. Sian - please pause after you play

That's a little spoilerish, but I guess we just found out who's on the receiving end of 79k soldier points. Poor yuris

And yay us
It can only be in our best interests that resources halfway around the world are being spent on troops instead of settlers, workers and wonders. Yuris is CRE/EXP, so he should have a lot of early game strength. Ideally he's being invaded by FIN/AGG Furungy who seems to be falling behind, that would help explain why his score is lagging. Even if furungy steamrolls him, I don't think he'll have the economic strength to take advantage of it.

[Catwalk]

Turn 71
I've been eagerly looking at the news tab each turn, and I finally see something good:

See that orange arrow with the white circle? <= Buddhist banana dancing in Punching Bag
This is pretty awesome. I don't need culture there that badly, but I will be getting a lot of vision due to the lake tile that I gain control over in 10 turns. Settling here instead of 1W was definitely the right choice.

There's some other interesting stuff to discuss here. One is the impending combats. My southern axe just moved west, it could have attacked BaII's scout right away. But I caught myself and remembered that he moved before me last turn, so that would be double moving. We have been taking turns moving first and second the last few turns, though. Given that I'm moving first this turn, does that let me attack him next turn? I'm keen on attacking because I already have 1 XP, adding one gives me a promotion and greatly improved odds of surviving a later attack by Jowy. I also don't want BaII scouting out my lands if I can help it, and I'm giving him an out here by letting him run NE and then away. Lurker comments are very welcome here, I don't want to piss anyone off.

I also want XP up north. My spear is sitting in Vacuuming, ready to attack the incoming barbarian warrior. It currently has 80% odds on the attack, giving me 2.9 XP which is rounded down to 2. If I let him walk on a hill next turn and then attack, I will have much better odds and still get 2 XP.

I double whipped a worker in Groceries instead of finishing the granary after this screenshot was taken, it was only working 1/2/0 and 2/1/0 forests anyway. I decided to "cheat" and grab the demos shot before whipping, then felt guilty and took another one after whipping

The first one is also with 100% research, whereas the second one is with 0% research. I think I will be able to get Mathematics in 7t starting next turn at 100% research. I still feel that I have a well-rounded economy, and I think that my research speed is decent for my needs. Getting Mathematics a turn or two sooner won't make as big a difference as getting workers and settlers sooner.

Plans:
- Dishes triple whips a settler when it grows to size 6, then finishes the missionary and builds another one right away
- Vacuuming triple whips the settler next turn, then regrows on an axe and a spear
- I will settle location 6 before location 5, but getting them both in short order with the above two settlers
- Groceries will grow up to size 6, the worker it just finished will supply the tiles for that growth. At size 6 it will triple whip a settler and send it down to the fish site. Alternately, I can prioritize the PH site to the west by Nakor which also has a first ring fish. Nakor has low military, chances are good he won't be keen on a border skirmish.
- Foot Rubs will also triple whip a settler for the calendar city later on, it's okay if I settle it a few turns before Calendar hits as the 3 food city tile gives it a fast start. Foot Rubs will likely grow on a military unit or two.

I'm not sure when or where to build a library for my first scientist. Any suggestions? The obvious choice is Dishes (capital) which already has a monastery and fairly high commerce. That will have to wait until it finishes two missionaries, though.

[haphazard1]

Interesting news on the war. 79K this early definitely sounded like someone was prepping, and indeed they were. Wars somewhere far away are a good thing.

What is your back up plan if the spear fails against the barb warrior? Unlikely, but....

Plans look good -- lots of settlers in the pipe line. Just make sure you also get enough workers in the pipe line for improved tiles for the new cities, roading to the new cities, etc.

Moai...tough choice. Do you make a middling city decent or do you make a strong city even stronger? I often focus on the strong city and make it stronger, as a few really good cities can out perform a larger number of middling cities. Especially for things like wonder production. GPP pools are tougher to plan, at least for me -- I always seem to end up with mixed pools, and lots of cities with small numbers of GPP that never produce anything. So not sure I can help much here.

I am not familiar with the MP expectation on killing scouts. Is that likely to create long term hostility?

[Catwalk]

What is your back up plan if the spear fails against the barb warrior? Unlikely, but....

There's also a warrior in the city, so the only risk is losing the spear hammers. I get the same 2 XP for a hill battle as for a forest battle, so I didn't want to take 80% odds when I get 90%+ next turn.

Plans look good -- lots of settlers in the pipe line. Just make sure you also get enough workers in the pipe line for improved tiles for the new cities, roading to the new cities, etc.

I'll be triple whipping the capital shortly, so it pretty much has enough improvements for now and its worker will go east probably this turn. Groceries has a worker coming out that will furnish it with a cottage and a mine. Punching Bag has a worker by it that will make pastures for the cows and pigs. Foot Rubs has a worker by it that is pasturing pigs and building a grass mine afterwards. Vacuuming has no workers dedicated to it, but it already has 3 mines, a rice farm and a pig pasture. Mathematics will hit in 7 turns, I plan on having more workers available by then to chop more.

Moai...tough choice. Do you make a middling city decent or do you make a strong city even stronger? I often focus on the strong city and make it stronger, as a few really good cities can out perform a larger number of middling cities. Especially for things like wonder production. GPP pools are tougher to plan, at least for me -- I always seem to end up with mixed pools, and lots of cities with small numbers of GPP that never produce anything. So not sure I can help much here.

My main concern is adding useful tiles to a city that already has many useful tiles. It seems to me that Moai is worth the most in cities that have little other than water tiles to use. In this example, Vacuuming already has 5 good tiles to work + the fish on occasion. I can build another 2 grass mines for it, making it a great production city at size 7. It also has 4 grassland forest tiles for cottages. Added +1 hammer water should come after those first 7 tiles, meaning that I only get 3 hammers out of Moai at size 10. Conversely, Foot Rubs has pigs and an oasis which it will likely have to share with other cities on a regular basis. It has 2 grass hills that Vacuuming will want to use on a regular basis, being my foremost production city. There's nothing much to do here other than catch fish.

So GPP aside, I feel quite strongly that Foot Rubs is the best option. I will also be able to build it faster here than the southern fishing city, as I will definitely want to put it in a mature city at size 4-5 rather than one at size 2. The only problem is that I put 1 GPP somewhere it's likely to be useless. I suppose a guaranteed prophet later on isn't all that bad though, I can build a temple later and work a priest when I feel it's time to finally put out the shrine.

I am not familiar with the MP expectation on killing scouts. Is that likely to create long term hostility?

He'll probably be miffed, but he's not my next door neighbour so I don't care all that much about that. My concern is that I risk violating double move rules. We've been taking turns moving first for a while, and there is currently a sub (plako) playing it for BaII. I believe I have been moving first on most turns, the turn before this last one plako moved first and on the turn I just finished I moved first. I could have attacked the scout this turn and decided against it, as that would effectively be double moving him. If he puts his scout in range of me again (he has an alternative), would I be justified in attacking? I don't care all that much about his scout, I just want to pick up 1 XP as I already have 1 and get a free promotion that way.

[Catwalk]

My scout issue is unresolved:

plako continued moving into my lands rather than taking the safe route east. I want to eat that scout for the XP (and secondly to deny him scouting knowledge), but I don't want to break any rules. So I really need some input on this. I checked our turn times the past 5 turns, and this is what it shows:
t71:
Catwalk 9:22 AM
plako/BaII 10:32 PM

t70:
plako/BaII 8:13 AM
Catwalk 8:29 AM

t69:
plako/BaII 8:32 AM
Catwalk 9:29 AM

t68:
Catwalk 12:11 PM
plako/BaII12:55 PM

t67:
Catwalk 1:07 PM
plako/BaII 1:16 PM

So it seems like we've played turns very close together, unintentional from my side and I think from his side as well. I'm not sure if it matters any, but I logged on first during all of those turns as I took quite some time to play my turns. I sent plako a message just now asking him not to move yet, I apologize if this violates diplo rules grossly. I wanted to avoid a potential reload situation, as 2metraninja just logged in and is about to finish the turn.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Have you declared war? If you want the first slot in a wartime turn split you need to declare war and state that you've taken the first slot. That would be the only reason I could see asking Plako/BaII to hold off playing.

[Catwalk]

No, neither one of us have declared war. I could go ahead and kill the scout right now, but I'm not very keen on doing so without knowing that I'm not breaking any rules in doing so.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Sorry I misread the times in your list. So Plako/BaII played last night (PM) and you played this morning (AM). If he has already played before you in this turn you're free to declare war. Previous actions don't really matter as they were at peace time, in my opinion. And you didn't double move him to get into position to attack him, so I think you're in the clear here.

[Catwalk]

No, I played before him on this previous turn. The two turns before that he played first, and one turn before that I played first. I'm not sure if that establishes any kind of turn order or not.

I could have killed his scout last turn, but that would have been a double move. Instead, I moved before him last turn and awaited his reaction (to see if he'd run away or stay in range).

[spacetyrantxenu]

The last several turns don't really matter that much, IMO. It looks to me like Plako/BaII have taken the last two actions, am I right? If so, I think you're completely free to attack, you're due an action yourself and you've taken no liberties in lining up a position to attack from. If it's your choice, go forth and .