[Spoilers] Lazteuq and RefSteel's PB51 Adventure

[Raskolnikov]

• I totally messed up that worker micro trick and accidentally built the road on that middle tile. OOPS.
  

Take the habit to cancel worker actions before hitting "enter". But yeah, I've been there

[RefSteel]

I'm done with school now, so it's time for a big update!

Sweet! I hope the finals went well!

I think I'd recommend mining the grass river hill with the worker: It's the fastest way for us to add one extra food-hammer per turn, costs fewer worker turns than a floodplains farm, and won't end up needing to be paved over later on. (Our capital FPs will presumably all want cottages eventually).

I should have mentioned explicitly with the Worker that canceling orders should be done the same turn the road is started; as Raskolnikov pointed out, it's usually good multiplayer practice to cancel ALL Worker orders at the end of each turn (even when they're just going to continue the same job the next turn) so you can react by moving them and changing their orders in case of an unexpected emergency. This "greens(ish) game" is a good time for learning little things like that, of course!

Are there hammers in a second Warrior at Enchilada? I don't think our builds will quite match the timings from my "mentalsims" up-thread since the cow pasture was delayed by a turn, but having the option to revolt to Slavery while the Settler is en route and change our settling plans in response to copper will both be good things in themselves!

Great news about our victorious Scout! The intel on the map a still-alive Scout can provide will be very helpful

I'm inclined to wait for the border pop and a little more scouting info before I comment on the dotmap; there are still a number of things this could reveal that may change our plans, even before we reveal copper.

And I suspect you're right about the tightness of the map, but I think we can find out to an extent: If you mouse over your name and score, the game should give you a score breakdown in the lower left-hand corner that tells you (among other things) what our land area score is like. This should be something like 21/??? right now, where the ??? is the total number of land tiles on the map!

[Lazteuq]

Turn 32:

• Bronze working was just discovered, immediately revolted to slavery. Not sure what tech next, I was assuming Writing or Pottery.
  
• Settler will be done next turn. The Scout is moving to the unexplored north, he can reveal some new tiles in 2 more turns.
  
• Grass hill is mined, I really didn't know what to do with the worker so he's farming a floodplain for now.
  

We definitely have a secure copper source, now that actually looks like a pretty good city site after all.
I'm still leaning toward 3N3E(yellow from earlier) from the Enchilada for city 2, it will be able to grow extremely fast with the 2 corn and a floodplains farm to work only 1 turn after founding.

It looks like the marble and stone have been tactfully placed to be in the contested areas between players. I don't really feel like going for a specific wonder right now, any ideas?
About Land Area: These 37 tiles are 2.34% of the land area, so there are 1581 tiles. There are definitely some islands, so I'm guessing that means about 140 tiles of mainland area per player.

The Opposition:
Giraflorens switched to Slavery on T25
Giraflorens now has a total of 4 population
I think Giraflorens has the highest production, with 11!

We still don't know who the southern neighbor is. Maybe their scout died early on, or maybe we just passed eachother.

Sorry about the lack of posts, ill do better this week

[RefSteel]

Welcome back! The turns seem to be flying by, which is always a good sign.

It looks from the screenshot like we're researching Writing now. Surely we should pick up Pottery first though, right? We'll want to cottage all those floodplains, and we'll really want to get Granaries! (Plus it does provide a prereq bonus for Writing when we go for that.)

As a tip for future games, unless you're playing a Spiritual leader or plan to whip the first Settler itself (or whip something you'll produce before the first Settler) the best time to revolt to slavery is after the first Settler comes out, before it plants its city: That way, the city is not delayed, the way it will be for us since we revolted with the Settler still unbuilt.

Also for future reference, a Worker in this situation could have roaded toward a future city site, especially given there seems to be one you favor enough to want to settle it without any strategic resources. It could even have built roads to enable quick movement onto key forests post-Bronze Working, and could have moved into a forest the turn before BW completed to start a chop. All that is water under the ridge of the floodless desert plateau though. Let's have a look at what we've got now.

Is our Warrior (do we still just have one?) in position to watch for (and/or fight) barbs ahead of our Settler? If possible, we should avoid walking our Settler outside our borders unless and until we know for sure that there's no animal waiting to eat it the moment it steps out. (If we were founding on unforested flatland just outside our borders, that would be easy, but it looks like your preferred spot is a forest just outside our borders, which could well be dangerous.

Our opening has been slow, which means we're already playing catch-up. I'm not sure what we have in the way of food in the city, warriors produced, and hammers in the next warrior. If we have hammers in a Warrior that we started before the Settler, we should probably finish that first while growing. If we have to grow all the way to size 4, then we'd start the Worker then and double-whip it after one turn. If we already have a second Warrior though, especially if we're getting overflow from the Settler (say 4+ overflow) we should just go straight into a Worker and whip it at the first opportunity (for 1 pop).

Not knowing where everything is also makes it hard to offer advice on where to plant the next city. You may well be right that we need to get double corn as a way to more easily catch up. If we were to plant 1E of your marked yellow dot (4E-3N of Enchilada) would we be able to guarantee the Setter's safety and get the Worker to the first-ring wet corn in time to start farming it the turn the city is planted? (Canceling the FP farm for the purpose would make sense to me.) The site in that area I like the best by far is actually 1N of yellow in spite of the fact that it gets fewer floodplains: A plains hill plant on a coastal inlet with first-ring dry corn, second-ring wet corn, a lighthouseable lake, an more river tiles in the fog. On the other hand, we haven't scouted enough in that region to be sure we wouldn't be orphaning seafood, plus I'm not sure if we can make sure the tile is safe, and because we haven't started roading in that direction yet, we'll lose about 10 commerce in trade routes. It also would get founded 1t later, cutting into its advantage.

Sorry I can't offer anything more definite; I don't have a good sense for what's actually going on in the game right now.

I do think we can't afford to worry about Wonders - at least not yet. We need to catch up on Workers and Settlers and get Granaries going! The Pyramids would be great for us, but I doubt if we can afford the 250 hammers (assuming Stone) any time remotely soon.

[Lazteuq]

I definitely agree that Pottery is better, switched to it.

I definitely messed up the planning on slavery-settler timing earlier. I was trying to time it just right, but instead I did it just wrong.
You have me questioning my previous ideas about city sites, which is definitely a good thing. I'd never thought about the value of early trade route income before.
Enchilada is on 8/26 food. Because of my past mistakes, it will take 3 turns of growth to reach size 4 even if working a floodplain. The settler only has 2 hammers left and then a warrior has 6 hammers left, so i think 6 overflow would carry through into whatever is next. Enchilada has a warrior at 9/15 hammers, so it can be done on T34. I guess another option is building 3rd warrior during growth, then 2-pop whipping a worker. I don't like such a delay though, so I'll probably go with 1-pop whipping the worker.

The lone warrior is moving out of the Enchilada now to the northeast. Also the Scout should be able to reveal some more important tiles next turn.

A more detailed view:

[RefSteel]

Cool - thanks for the update and the more-detailed image! For one thing, that corn I thought was dry turns out to be not only wet but riverside, which is terrific! Hopefully our Scout will survive to find out more about the area northwest of there in the next couple of turns.

We're going to be taking some risks here unless we delay our city even more, so a few things to bear in mind:

- Remember to check for visible barb animals at the start of each turn and make a note of where they are. So for instance if we don't see that northern Lion on T33, we'll know it must have moved to one of three shrouded tiles: N, NE, or E of its current position. (So WNW, NW, or W of the river corn.)

- When moving Warrior and Settler and/or Worker outside of our culture, since it looks like the logistics won't let us scout ahead to be sure, move the Warrior first, and check to be sure it's actually safe: A bear or even lion has a very real chance to kill the Warrior even in a forest - a bear might even do so on a forested hill! I might be too risk-averse, but if I see an animal (other than a Wolf) threatening the Warrior, I would avoid moving the Settler (or Worker) in such a way that it would be lost if the animal wins its die-roll against our Warrior (or Scout).

- If a tile isn't safe, don't be afraid to accept a delay of a turn or two while you bring up a second unit (Warrior or Scout) to ensure one bad roll won't cost us our first Settler!

- With so much overflow from the Settler (11, I think?) it's tempting to start the Worker right away and whip it on T35! It would delay the Warrior though (and I think cost us 1h in either overflow loss or decay, depending on when the latter applies) so it might not be worth it. Regardless, after our next Worker and Warrior are complete, I'd be inclined to put the overflow into another Settler before starting to grow again.

I'm still not sure about the dotmap (including our next city) since that northern region carries so much uncertainty. In a vacuum, I really like the plains hill plant, especially since its first-ring corn is riverside, but it might render other important future cities impossible (as well as costing us trade route commerce as noted previously.

I'd be inclined to cancel the Worker's actions immediately on opening the game on T33 (if they haven't been canceled already) even though it would delay the farm (or it might never be finished at all) but what to do there gets complicated, as it depends on your favored city spot, how much of a risk you're willing to take to speed things along, and how soon the second Worker will be produced and ready to follow along behind. My first instinct is to just put a turn of roading into the Incense and immediately cancel orders, but there might be better options as well.

[Lazteuq]

Turns 33+34:
Disturbingly, the Lion didn't move at all. Because the intel was so valuable, I risked the scout on a forest tile next to it, and the scout did win. He has now revealed this:

Because the plains hill spot would block some city sites, here's my new dotmap idea:

Do you still think the advantages of the plainshill spot are worth it?
That green circle is pretty questionable, would definitely be something to fill in later, if ever.
Purple dot I think needs to be city 3 for the copper. 

I did road the incense tile because it will eventually be useful, no matter where the second city goes.

With our borders pressing against the coast so soon, barbs should only be approaching from about half of the compass directions.

I like the idea of going straight to another worker, then putting the overflow into a settler. I think we can afford to delay a warrior by 3 turns. Then I'm thinking of growing while building a Granary, then whipping to finish a Settler. Maybe another warrior first?


Looking back at the map, I think the southern copper must be close to our southern neighbor's capital. I'm assuming every civ has a copper within 4 tiles or so for balance.

[RefSteel]

Disturbingly, the Lion didn't move at all. Because the intel was so valuable, I risked the scout on a forest tile next to it, and the scout did win. He has now revealed this:

Excellent!

Do you still think the advantages of the plainshill spot are worth it?

That's a good question; there are arguments either way. Planting on the plains hill does make the overall dotmap more difficult, especially to plant a city that will work the gold. It also needs a road built 1S of its position and a border pop (5 turns after founding since we're CRE) to get a trade route to our capital. On the other hand, it's clearly the best snowballing city we can build in that area, with its extra hammer per turn, first-ring river corn, and seven choppable forests. If we did plant on the plains hill, we'd probably only have two true backlines cities: One probably 1SW of the Ivory (1E of the cows up there) that would be planted soonish for the ivory happiness, and one on the desert hill 1W of the desert copper to be planted later, after we've secured better, more-contested sites. The yellow dots do get more floodplains, which will start to have value a little later on, and make the dotmap more flexible in general.

Purple dot I think needs to be city 3 for the copper.

If we could commit the necessary worker turns, I would actually suggest placing our third city 5W-1S of Enchilada, for first-ring grass Cow and second-ring grass Cow + Copper + Horse. The logistics will be difficult, but I think we can manage it.

I did road the incense tile because it will eventually be useful, no matter where the second city goes.

In that case, I'll assume our Settler is probably on the new yellow dot (i.e. the same tile as the Warrior) right now, and that the Worker is on the Incense, having just finished a Road. If there's a bear (or even a lion) on the tile 1N of the Warrior and Settler (and I'm right about where everyone is) that might make our decision for us; we'd have to settle in place (and send the Worker toward the new city's first-ring corn to get started on that ASAP) just to make sure we don't lose anything we can't afford to. Of course, we might want to do that anyway! If you like the plains hill though (in spite of the way it restricts our dotmap) you might try something like this:

We could start by moving the Scout 1SE onto the Corn, revealing the marble and grassland across the inlet. If there's a wolf (I'm assuming no Panthers this far from the jungle) on the grassland tile revealed this way, assuming there's not another one visible nearby, we could just move the Warrior 1N to block the Wolf from attacking anything else. If that tile is clear but there's a wolf somewhere the Warrior can reach, we could actually attack to get the wolf out of the way and pick up some XP! If no animals are in sight though, we could start moving the Warrior back toward Enchilada instead. The Settler and Scout would then both converge on the plains hill forest (assuming we want the Scout to take time out to heal after this). The Worker would just move 1NE into the forest between the river and the lake.

The next turn, T36, we would plant our second city on the plains hill. Then even though it would slightly delay the farm, I would start roading the forest where the old Worker is standing while finishing the Warrior in Enchilada. Since we have already roaded the incense, and since the roads will be needed for tactical value anyway, I think if we planted on the plains hill, it even makes sense for the new Worker to move 1NE to the floodplain between Enchilada and the Incense and start (but then immediately CANCEL) a Road, so as to be able to help the other Worker around the new city: The old Worker would finish the Road the next turn, and the new Worker would WAIT for this to happen before taking advantage of the Incense road to move 2NE to join the old Worker in the forest, put one turn into a Chop, and then immediately CANCEL that too! Both Workers would move 2N through the city to the corn the following turn to start farming.

I like the idea of going straight to another worker, then putting the overflow into a settler. I think we can afford to delay a warrior by 3 turns. Then I'm thinking of growing while building a Granary, then whipping to finish a Settler. Maybe another warrior first?

I don't think it's necessary to overflow from the Worker directly into the Settler; it might be better to overflow into the Warrior, completing it before we face any additional hammer decay, then overflow from that into the Settler. I'm not 100% sure though; I'm still trying to decide how we can best get the Granary into place while getting the Settler out at a semi-reasonable date.

[Lazteuq]

I did go for the plainshill spot, no new animals were spotted. Hopefully, this large city will work well with specialists in the future. I'm assuming it should go straight to working on a granary.
We had some convergent evolution on those two backline city spots. I drew a dotmap and then realized it was exactly what you suggested! Anyway, I'd prefer to settle towards our opposition first. Especially if one of the neighbors goes for the Marble or Stone, that is an opportunity to expand toward them while their hammers are all focused on a wonder.

I like the 5W-1S idea, I think its totally reasonable as long as there isn't too much barb opposition. I'll try to have a warrior fogbusting over there soon.

The Worker will be done next turn with 7 overflow, and the warrior's production is decaying: it will have 7 hammers left. 
Because the city is only on Size 2 now, I'm thinking of growing back to size 4 while building warrior->granary. Then 2pop whip settler 3 I think.

[RefSteel]

I'm assuming it should go straight to working on a granary.

Yup, I think that's probably the best plan once Pottery comes in - but it'll take a few turns for the tech to complete. In the meantime, we can put hammers into a warrior while getting a head start on growth, or put foodhammers into a Worker (to be whipped a few turns after the granary, most likely).

We had some convergent evolution on those two backline city spots. I drew a dotmap and then realized it was exactly what you suggested!

Heh - neat!

Anyway, I'd prefer to settle towards our opposition first. Especially if one of the neighbors goes for the Marble or Stone, that is an opportunity to expand toward them while their hammers are all focused on a wonder.

Makes sense to me.

The Worker will be done next turn with 7 overflow, and the warrior's production is decaying: it will have 7 hammers left. 
Because the city is only on Size 2 now, I'm thinking of growing back to size 4 while building warrior->granary. Then 2pop whip settler 3 I think.

That sounds right to me too, although we'll actually get 18 overflow from the Worker, including the foodhammers produced on T35 itself. So we could resume the Warrior T36, complete it EoT, and still get lots of overflow for the Settler which we'd then start T37. On the other hand, if we overflow directly from the Worker into the Settler before resuming the Warrior, we'd be able to whip the Settler a turn sooner, I think. It does delay the Warrior itself by another three turns, and also delays the Granary. (Uh, depending on the plan we follow. The one that gets us the Granary at size 2 after whipping the Settler is a little finnicky....)

Contrary to what I supposed before, I think the best thing to do with our new Worker is probably to move 1W into the forest and road toward City 3, speeding that city up by 1-2 turns (depending on what the Worker does next) just by reducing the Settler's travel time.

Also significant: When we found our second city, we'll have to deal with maintenance costs, which (depending on the width and/or height of the map) will probably come to 2 or 3 gpt. Either way, I think we'll end up getting Pottery on T41. So, here's a research trick you may or may not already know about: Rounding errors very often cost you about a beaker per turn at break-even research, so it's often best to get your gold-saving for a tech out off the way in advance.