[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[pindicator]

020

Not much coming up Milhouse so far:




Scout was hoping to find something good to the northeast - a few more resources so that picking a spot that shared the capital wheat would make for a good city. However there does not seem to be anything there. Still a few tiles to uncover and it seems unlikely for the land to be all that barren, but nothing has turned up yet.

The copper is in an annoyingly distant location. Also it pretty much vetoes my earlier city idea of planting north of the lake. Instead I think the best spot for a 2nd city may instead be 1 tile east of the corn: wet corn, & farmed bananas for the first ring, and then when we do pop borders we get the copper.

All this to remind me how much RtR spoils people for being able to pop borders. In there you can always sink 60h into a barracks if you desperately need to pop borders. Now we have to research Mysticism (which is more expensive btw) or we have to go on to Writing. I'm not sure which I'm going to do yet. I do not plan on going for early religion. Instead I think it makes more sense for me to get Wheel > Pottery > Hunting > AH for my next 4 techs. Maybe I'll need to put Mysticism if we continue to find city locations that need border pops to be effective.

[pindicator]

021

Let's try this again: I cropped my screen a little too far south last turn and completely missed a second copper




Unfortunately I don't think there's enough up there for me to send the first settler that way. If I was CRE (again, if only) then I could look at sharing the fish and then I'd have the clams and copper second ring. As is, I'll probably do exactly that later in the game when I'm able to pop borders a little easier.

Second "unfortunately" of the turn was that a bear showed up on the hill I wanted to move my scout to so I'm not going to be able to completely scout the area west of my capital's wheat - perhaps not at all before the settler is done. Depends what that bear does.

So with all that I think I'm choosing between the two marked locations in the screenshot. Probably going to go with the wet corn just because slavery isn't nerfed in this and that's +8 food on size 2 with the potential for copper in the 2nd ring once I can pop borders. And we still have some hills to work before that. Though unfortunately we do not share any flatland tiles with the capital and wont' be able to help grow cottages there.

[pindicator]

022

Demos:




Top 5 cities show 4 other people at size 3 in their capital. So obviously us going for an early settler would have us showing as being behind in this point. But 15 food ... that's got to be a nice capital, at least 3 tiles with 3+ food.

[pindicator]

So city #2 is going on the 'c' by the corn and now we need to figure out what to do with it to get it up and running. First of all, there isn't much to build right now except warriors, workers, and settlers - which is fine because there isn't really anything else I want to build. But just as you don't want to under build workers, it isn't great to over build them either.

With that in mind, I do have a lot for workers to do. First priority is the new city will need the corn farmed, the banana farmed, and then the two grass hills chopped and mined (though the hills aren't quite as important yet). Then we also want to connect the two cities with a trade route because that's 4cpt we're leaving on the table for a long as they are unconnected.

Now I think the capital is going to definitely go with a work boat and grow to 3 after the settler finishes. Then another warrior and then either a settler at 3 or 4. This means we don't need any more tiles improved at the capital before that settler is finished. The new city by the corn will have its corn farmed by our current worker, then it whips out a worker at size 2 and that new worker farms the banana. I think this frees up worker #1 enough to road the two cities together but I still need to look at the details. Then the 2 workers can chop out granaries. Or maybe a monument.

[pindicator]

025

Chop chop




A lion hit my warrior this turn which unfortunately makes things a little dicier for covering my settler. If I want to only have 2 turns of movement I need to go SE-SE and then SE-SW, which is also the most exposed route for a settler to take. So I moved my warrior SE myself and hopefully we can get ahead to the forest tile south of the banana and cover the settler from any animals there. If things look bad we can always take a slower, safer route.

As far as those worker details that I was talking about in the last post, the worker will move south next turn and then spend a turn chopping before it starts farming the corn (sadly wheel is 1 turn away from completion here). After the corn is done we move the worker back north and then road that tile and the hill north of it as well. The sim gives me a trade route connection between the two cities as soon as I road the first hill which makes zero sense to me but trade route connections in this game have always been a weird to me. Perhaps it's because I only have land filled in on the sim where I've seen? In any case, if I get a trade route from just that I'll be very happy but I'll plan as if it will take more.

[pindicator]

026

Settler is out and time to revolt:



But my second city is going to have to be delayed a turn, because a panther showed up in a bad location:




Now I can't move along the flat grassland to quickly get to where my warrior is, so instead I decided to move him along a safer route. The settler is on the same hill as my worker and should have a safe path to go SW-SE onto the corn next turn.

Then to the northeast I found a neighbor:




That looks like Gira's japanese red in the fog. I don't know much about Gira so maybe I'll have to go look if he's been in any other games here. But our capitals are only about 10 tiles apart - a lot closer than 46, thank goodness.

And no, I'm not going to complain about how I haven't found anything nearly as good as what I see in his capital's second ring here

EDIT: Oh no, that actually looks more like Superdeath on second glance.

[pindicator]

027

Yep, that is superdeath




Most important: not Maya and not Zulu

[pindicator]

029

Second person to second city:




Mjmd with IMP & India's fast workers naturally beat me, planting his down on t27.

I was tempted to finish the road before settling because my sims showed that was enough to connect the two cities, but I don't trust that it actually is enough to do it. So I played it safe and farmed the corn first and will finish the road after. If anybody can tell me why from this picture that one road would be enough to connect cities I'd love to learn that mechanic better. Also, it's something like 24 commerce I'm leaving on the table just for getting the corn hooked up a turn faster. Definitely worth taking 24 commerce for 3 food; I'm just not certain enough that it would have connected to actually do it.

Also, I'm thinking I should cottage that banana, not farm it.

[Cornflakes]

Cottage the Banana now and the bulldoze it later for a plantation? Or leave the cottage long term?

[pindicator]

I think it would depend on how far along that cottage is when I get Calendar. Certainly possible we just keep it there