[SPOILERS] Lewger goes for the Bigwyn

[Bigger]

there's a lot more space than we thought:



you know, its entirely possible serdoa is east of us and not south of azza. in any case, I'll find out, heading to the gold hill next.

and look, another largish freshwater lake!



im not sure whether to move this worker (the one right of the city) north or south to chop??? we have some time to decide, without input ill move him south. north is safer and could allow the workers to converge in one spot to chop out a warrior in an emergence, but south is a better cottage spot since it can be shared by city #2

with the 2 chops coming in the settler will complete in 4 turns, we revolt, "the Iliad" founded in 5 turns. I think we will have enough overflow to 1 or 2 turn a warrior, I don't remember though.


demos:


our gnp jumped as we finished the wheel and started pottery. I assume this is because we know all 3 prerequisites for pottery (the wheel, ag, and fishing) and doesnt mean Azza or Serdoa know pottery?

[Lewwyn]

I think move that worker south.

I think the stone site is a bridge too far. Just... trust me on this one. If we had chariots... Maybe, but I simply don't want to risk it. If we have chariots I'd just want to chariot rush Azza instead of trying to settle up on him. We could not hold STone with just archers... Well we could but it'd cripple us and we'd spend too much time getting the city to be profitable. Remember it needs a lighthouse and culture for lakefood.

Hopefully Azza settles south and gives us time to encroach on him and block him off. The best would be if Azza settled the stone the city would mostly suck and we could take it at our leisure.

The point about the granary in the capital is BECAUSE we have so much food. The granary will help us convert that food into hammers via the whip. Trust me, the sooner the better there. We'll be whipping and regrowing like a typhoon. Same with city number two and three.

[Bigger]

yeah, I've decided the stone city is too much of a reach. Maybe if it had a good city in between it and the capital :/.

I also agree that taking it from azza would be better than founding it ourselves. chariots will be very useful.

well, we do have 2x production granaries, so thats fine.

what do you think about building the pyramids without stone (assuming horses)?

[Lewwyn]

yeah, I've decided the stone city is too much of a reach. Maybe if it had a good city in between it and the capital :/.

I also agree that taking it from azza would be better than founding it ourselves. chariots will be very useful.

well, we do have 2x production granaries, so thats fine.

what do you think about building the pyramids without stone (assuming horses)?

Mnnnnn, we've got cheap granaries and beyond the first 3 cities we don't have a lot of food. I am not sure we'd be able to support a full on specialist economy. We are IND so the pyramids take on an extra glean, but I'm not sure its necessary. How do we know someone else who is IND hasn't started near stone like Azza and is able to grab it easily with their second city? Do you want to risk losing all our production for that? Its not a balanced map. Someone may have done exactly what you describe with Scooter's last game. I'm just not sure I'm comfortable going for the Mids in this situation. Azza is close, we have some land that we do find attractive.

What if after AH we focus on getting to Monarchy instead, building cheap warriors since we don't have copper and having our first 3 cities grow vertical on cottages? If we get horses we spend some hammers on chariots and sneak in close to Azza maybe rush any city he tries to plant in our direction?

In any case we have pottery>Hunting>AH before we can think about the mids. That's still a ways away.

[Qgqqqqq]

Drafting infantry is not weakened (much, I can't remember if he put min size back down).
Drafting rifles is.
Plus, around that period is Taj + traditional GA firing. (which is psuedo-SPI)
I'd say SPI just gets stronger later, when more civics open up (if you're willing to micro).

Giving christo a free SPI is not only as powerful as SPI, but it comes at a time in which there's little to no oppurtunity cost involved.
All the land has been settled (normally) and you're in the build-up phase, either for war or tech.
OTOH Stonehenge for example comes with a massive opportunity cost.

[Bigger]

sure there's an opportunity cost. mass media is not a convenient tech path - usually, if you head towards it, you're neighbors are going to hit assembly line and flight well before you, and you might find yourself unable to defend yourself!

[Bigger]

played our turn as soon as it rolled:



yay for another happy! thats furs and spices within easy reach, wine and gold with a little more effort! nice. That will create some interesting dotmap dilemas if we can beat azza to that territory (which I think we can). it does look like we will be expanding mostly east for the foreseeable future. I want to explore north of the wine (hoping for seafood up there to make it easier), but I think we can send our third warrior there, to immediately loop back and defend the Oddyssey (corn city/3rd city), so probably better to continue east and south. I could be talked out of that, though.

now this is most excellent news:



Azza got his scout et by a nasty lion notice the lion is at 1.6 health, so its unlikely azza snuck it out of there between our turns. He was on a forest tile, but at 50% health. I guess he should have taken the time to heal

I'm pretty sure azza came from the stone sight direction, so its highly likely azza hasn't scouted out the wines and gold in the east, or much of the area north of his capital at all. Good news for us!

its turn 32. settler will be complete EOT 34. it will end turn 35 on the rice, safely within borders, and found the Iliad on turn 36, the same turn it leaves our borders. so it will be safe from the lion, and should have a decent military in place before non-animal barbs appear.

that will come none too soon. we're falling behind in growth:



2 level 4 cities, while we're still at level 2.

demos:

[Lewwyn]

Hmmm I'm worried about possible seafood 2 tiles off the east off that coast in the fog now... Nothing we can do though...

[Qgqqqqq]

sure there's an opportunity cost. mass media is not a convenient tech path - usually, if you head towards it, you're neighbors are going to hit assembly line and flight well before you, and you might find yourself unable to defend yourself!

Yeah okay.
Christo's available at Radio (unless they changed it) which is needed for bombers, submarines etc. and is in a very useful place in the tree (near fission, which is even more important due to increased value of uranium).
Compare that to stonehenge, which typically needs to be built before settler, thus greatly stunting growth.
Christo also provides a full trait compared to stonehenges 1/2, and each comes at the heyday of their respective traits.

[Bigger]

Hmmm I'm worried about possible seafood 2 tiles off the east off that coast in the fog now... Nothing we can do though...

yes I thought of that too. even if there is, and we settle on the spices to claim it, there would be other trade-offs. lets just hope there is seafood in more convenient spots .

sure there's an opportunity cost. mass media is not a convenient tech path - usually, if you head towards it, you're neighbors are going to hit assembly line and flight well before you, and you might find yourself unable to defend yourself!

Yeah okay.
Christo's available at Radio (unless they changed it) which is needed for bombers, submarines etc. and is in a very useful place in the tree (near fission, which is even more important due to increased value of uranium).
Compare that to stonehenge, which typically needs to be built before settler, thus greatly stunting growth.
Christo also provides a full trait compared to stonehenges 1/2, and each comes at the heyday of their respective traits.

ah yes, radio, of course. MM is hollywood and UN .

still you're going to lose the pentagon and give your opponents a head start on infantry if you beeline radio, which was my only point. I agree that cristo is stronger than stonehenge in bts. its certainly not in rb mod, heh.

not sure what you mean by the uranium comment. there are no nukes, so as long as you have oil the only thing uranium is good for is the tile improvement for mining it, at least as far as I can tell. I don't see fission as particularly important either.. but granted I don't have much experience with missles in civ 4.