[SPOILERS] Rusten and Hitru laugh off any and all mistakes as bad RNG

[Rusten]

C'mon, couldn't you have moved that gold a little closer to the food?! Forgot to add the fish?




Increasingly likely we're on an island of our own given the tundra to the south and islands to the north. Wondrous times ahead it seems.

[Rusten]

Didn't really talk much about the opening, but starting to commit to it now so it's about time. Decided to plan for 2x worker into settler as it only slows down the settler a single turn compared to 1 worker (T27 vs T26) if they team up for the 2nd chop (only 1 wasted worker turn). Chopping that forest may also speed up settler movement 1T towards SW.

That means: Worker-warrior-warrior*-worker-settler

T18: First warrior
T20: Size 3 capital changes to worker. 
T22: BW/slavery. Research is set to [TBD]** and worker begins 1st chop.
T23: Whip worker for 1 pop.
T24: Start on settler. 1st chop comes in.
T26: 2nd chop comes in to finish settler with 0 overflow. 

And that's where I stopped because it depended too much on nearby land what's best next. But it seemed a good foundation.
Natural continuation is to grow back to size 3 working cows+pigs. That takes 3 turns which is the same amount of time it takes to complete the 2nd warrior.
Then 1-pop the 2nd settler a few turns later presumably (depends on worker actions).

*Part build for 5 hammers. Possible that this gets changed to SH but leaning towards caution and having the added warrior.
**Probably agriculture.

[Rusten]

Looking a little further into the future...

This map is less lush than RB standard which leads me to think growing wide is necessary. I talked about drafting G2 units earlier and this works out very well with what's scouted so far. If most cities have a single food resource and several brown tiles, then having lots of 8-10 size cities seems ideal, and they will not grow so fast that happiness becomes a problem when drafting.

Take the northern corn city for example. It will have a baseline of 6fpt with corn and can run cottages/mines with the remaining land tiles until around size 10. It's very quick to reach size 6, but slow to reach size 15.

What's good with many cities? Religious wonders. What's good with religious wonders? Spiritual.
I would not be surprised if this midgame is based around the UoS, SM, etc and heavy drafting. The less lush a map is the more you get out of wonders like this.
This would also set us up for a possible culture VC.

[Rusten]

T13:




Most definitely on an island of our own to start with. Don't mind this as there are multiple wonders I'd like to build.
As you can see there's stone, so the Pyramids are now a target for sure. Nice to reliably have it for religious wonders later too.

Need to get a work boat or two out asap to scout for (unfriendly) neighbours and better settling opportunities. This island is pretty weak.

Greed is good. Activate farmer's gambit.

[Rusten]

Lost our scout to a lion. Lion had 21% chance of victory.
Was extremely careful moving 1 tile at a time on flatland and the very first time he had to enter a forest there was not just an animal waiting, but unlucky combat too.

That has big implications. Early game battles matter more than later on, and losing a 4/5 one the very first chance sets us back. At least he did find the edge of the island providing valuable information before passing, but our fogbusting game will be ultra weak, and we won't be able to scout the stone+corn area. 

[Rusten]

Hoping for fish 2S1W of cows or pigs somewhere south of corn. 





The former would allow for a city to be settled on the river for trade connection with 2 independent food resources and fish in 1st ring whilst also sharing cows. Also have available worker turns to chop the wb.

Was originally planning on chopping 1S of Spongeworthy first, but with the scout dying there's a need to save exploration turns. New plan is to scout with worker 1SW of cows after the pasture and then jump on the plains forest and chop that instead. Gives some extra information before choosing tech after BW -- most of the nearby coastline will be revealed. Warrior will prioritize the western area. 

Worth noting that a city on the PH by the corn would also have trade connection by coast. Coastal fish wouldn't be bad there either. If absolutely nothing is revealed (unlikely), then that is a reasonable spot to settle. The backup plan given lack of available military.

[Rusten]

BW is now in and copper location is revealed.




No food south of cows, but crab was revealed near the suggested PH. In the process of fine-tuning the build order, but in order to provide a quick update here are the major considerations (excluding boring worker micro):

-2nd city goes to western PH and chops a wb. Can't blindly send a settler eastwards into fog without the scout and furthermore that western spot is excellent for commerce. Longer sims have proven that commerce is very relevant.
-3rd city goes to copper+corn+stone. Still deciding between copper and stone in first ring (could also change with scouting), but settling with stone in 1st ring while getting early masonry for a cheap SH is a very interesting option.
-4th city probably goes to pigs overlapping with city 3. As they're close together it only requires 2 roads to get a trade route in both cities (doesn't have to be connected to capital).

Tech goes fishing-agri-wheel-masonry-pottery OR fishing-agri-wheel-pottery-masonry. Need to look a little deeper before deciding this. After that there's a desire to get a religion for happiness. Close in priority to animal husbandry. So either poly-ah, poly-mono-ah (if poly religion is taken), or ah-poly-mono.
Thinking about it now we probably favour AH-poly-mono. Poly is likely taken, but can't imagine that Judaism will be.

Question for lurkers: Anybody remember the exact calculations for which city gets the holy city? I know it's population-based and heavily biased against the capital (and cities already having a religion), but don't remember the specifics. Might have to game this formula to put holy city in city #3 instead of city #2 (OR for Pyramids).

[Rusten]

Another path I forgot to mention is to make pigs city #3 (copper bronze as #4) and whip overflow+chop the SH without stone. Both cities have a 6f tile in 1st ring so the order is interchangeable. Whichever works out better in the long run. Depends on how long we dare delay the SH. Resource bonus in RtR only amounts to 40 hammers afterall.

[Rusten]

To follow up on the previous post.

Preliminary calculations have pottery at +/- T45, and masonry is only a ~6 turn tech at that point. T55-60ish SH seems reasonable in an 8 player game where 4 of the civs are creative and no players have a particular need for it. We decided that it's OK to take some minor risks for this wonder as it's not essential in our plans. Pyramids OTOH is a must.

The new plan is settling pig+lake as city #3 (around T37-38 IIRC) and stone+corn T44 or 45.

fishing -> agri -> wheel -> pottery -> masonry -> AH ---> religion ---> sailing

[Rusten]

Ran some more simulations and we're very happy with the results. Managed to speed up 4th city settling to T43. It will even have 2 workers nearby to irrigate corn and roads in place on settling for trade route in both city #3 and city #4.

Pottery is due T45 or T46 depending on tile usage. City #1 and #2 will whip a worker each the turn before pottery (they'll start river cottages) and complete granaries with overflow. City #3 and #4 will whip the granaries shortly after. I really missed IMP during my early simulations, but now that granaries are available I have no regrets.

There will be a small pause at 4 cities, but it doesn't take long for the granaries to kick in and multiple cities will follow in quick succession. With river cottages we can afford taking a maintenance hit at that point.