[SPOILER] Yell0w - Rhoanna, Hippus

[Yell0w]

And our warrior heading towards the Citadel will most likely be eaten by a Griffon as well -.-

[Yell0w]

A short screen shot less summary:

We've got lucky and our warrior on his way to the citadel survived.

I liked the vulcano event, though smoke should go out sooner, It still could get a fire and we would have fires and smokes in our forests till turn 75. Still I liked it it was nice to see the impact over the course of the last turns and I like the burned forests slowly regenerating.

I mistakenly assumed mushrooms give health. They don't, toads do. Still it's a 3/2/0 tile which is better than the 1/3/0 tile it would have become.

Our first settler finished he'll take 3 turns to reach his destination and settle.

I queued up a worker which will finish in 3 turns.
Then it's onto warriors and growing to 6-7 and then another worker and then a settler.

I also swapped to exploration, I think it will save us worker turns and mining is still a while away and I don't think it matters that much to delay it.

[Yell0w]

As of turn 32 Molach and Mardoc are at war.

I'm just imagining Mardocs thread right now, he'll be frustrated, though he tends not to let that influence his play too much. Let's hope he is really frustrated

Or maybe he started the whole thing, maybe got a scout in his lens and is threatening Molach with a C1S1 warrior.

In any way this is good news of course, and since there is no diplo this will probably keep up in a hot or cold war.

On the same turn Molach settled another city, so he's now up to two. I don't know if this is the reason for war but I'm guessing it's unrelated.

[Mafro]

In looking at the latest save, I suggest our northern warrior fall back and fortify on the mushrooms. It will give the highest defensive bonus while controlling two main attack vectors, not to mention ensuring we don't lose the mushrooms to pillaging or even a turn of an enemy being on that tile.

Glad you chose Guerilla I for the warrior defending that castle...if he survives the griffon he should do well. Out of curiosity, do we know whether castles grow into citadels before or after the barbarian turn? That extra 15% defensive bonus would be nice.

Another question: in FFH EItB, do defensive bonuses applied to cities (e.g. from warriors) apply to units defending a fort? What about City Raider bonuses for attackers?

[Yell0w]

These turns are pretty uneventful but this turn I wanted to highlight some things.

First of all our fortified warrior already defended vs a Griffon and survived, now he has 115% boni so he should be fine vs the Griffon threatening him now.

Glad you chose Guerilla I for the warrior defending that castle...if he survives the griffon he should do well. Out of curiosity, do we know whether castles grow into citadels before or after the barbarian turn? That extra 15% defensive bonus would be nice.

Another question: in FFH EItB, do defensive bonuses applied to cities (e.g. from warriors) apply to units defending a fort? What about City Raider bonuses for attackers?

Both these questions I can't answer. I think the fort will grow after barbarian moves though.

If our warrior gets city defensive bonus it's even better. That would be interesting to know I might test that soon.

In looking at the latest save, I suggest our northern warrior fall back and fortify on the mushrooms. It will give the highest defensive bonus while controlling two main attack vectors, not to mention ensuring we don't lose the mushrooms to pillaging or even a turn of an enemy being on that tile.

As you can see here I didn't move the warriors as suggested. I'm confident in taking a fight with only 25% boni. But my hope here is that the barb moves into the desert and I can kill him off and get 5xp on one of these warriors.

Now to city management.
First of all I decided to get two more workers before building another settler. But since the overflow from the last worker out of Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel get's a 100% bonus from a settler and I can take use of swapping tiles I decided to put 1 turn in the settler and then build a worker.

Now giving up the rice tile doesn't even lower our production by a point, with or without the rice we get 49 production into the settler. We could make that even more by swapping the grass land farm to the rice tile but it'll only give us two more points.

And we can use the rice tile

Conrond Mor will grow in 1 turn thanks to the rice and the just finished farm and then produce a worker as well.
I'll most likely swap the tiles back next turn, but this turn being able to swap was really worth it.

[Mafro]

As you can see here I didn't move the warriors as suggested. I'm confident in taking a fight with only 25% boni. But my hope here is that the barb moves into the desert and I can kill him off and get 5xp on one of these warriors.

Well played...looks like you're going to get that offensive victory and some nice XP.

Speaking of which, with another barbarian warrior heading in from the east, we've got a nice XP stream going. Who knows, maybe there'll even be enough to take a shot at getting Form of the Titan, if we're able to pile a bunch up on a single unit.

[Mafro]

Just looked at the latest save. I like the expansion we're pursuing. Looks like we'll have our third city planted in 6 turns, 5 if we road the entire way there, barbarians willing. I scream and Mauros each have two cities like we do...lets see if we can beat them to a third city. Given that we're Expansive and they're not - none of the other leaders are - we should be winning this fight.

Are you planning on giving the rice to Conrond Mor when it grows to size 6 next turn? Or do we need to improve another tile for it? Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel has a grassland farm it can work instead of the rice if we want to stay focused on improving the tiles for the third city.

Speaking of which, are we going after Animal Husbandry after Festivals for the cow tile? Or maybe Ancient Chants so we can start popping borders (great for Conrond Mor)?

If we are able to work the cow tile, our 3rd city could spit out warriors while growing, while the first two build settlers. That could allow us to plant another two cities in the next 15 turns or so. And if we include a couple more workers and continue settling along rivers, our economy should be able to absorb the expansion with minimal disruption.

Just thinking out loud here....

[Yell0w]

Just looked at the latest save. I like the expansion we're pursuing. Looks like we'll have our third city planted in 6 turns, 5 if we road the entire way there, barbarians willing. I scream and Mauros each have two cities like we do...lets see if we can beat them to a third city. Given that we're Expansive and they're not - none of the other leaders are - we should be winning this fight.

From what we can see we were the first to a 2nd city beating the Vampires with RoB. Now we also should be the first planting a 3rd city, the settler finished this turn. We should use our expansive trait to expand quickly, as we are doing. I won't road the entire way, I think It would save 1 turn, but also cost 4 worker turns.
More important we will have another settler in another 5-6 turns.

This turn we also finished Festivals, the only economic tech I plan on researching, from now on it's straight to CoL for Aristocracy. Cheap markets won't help our little research, but it will allow us to plant a few more cities and keep research at 80%.

Are you planning on giving the rice to Conrond Mor when it grows to size 6 next turn? Or do we need to improve another tile for it? Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel has a grassland farm it can work instead of the rice if we want to stay focused on improving the tiles for the third city.

I didn't plan it but after reading your suggestion and looking at the tiles it made sense, so I did it.

Speaking of which, are we going after Animal Husbandry after Festivals for the cow tile? Or maybe Ancient Chants so we can start popping borders (great for Conrond Mor)?

If we are able to work the cow tile, our 3rd city could spit out warriors while growing, while the first two build settlers. That could allow us to plant another two cities in the next 15 turns or so. And if we include a couple more workers and continue settling along rivers, our economy should be able to absorb the expansion with minimal disruption.

So there aren't a lot of options we have, at least thats what I think. It will take a lot of turns already to research CoL, there isn't an abundance of commerce on this map, enough though that new cities will bring a little more than they cost. Also there ain't a lot of other options for us getting commerce. Cottages are nice but Aristocracy is better for us, since we don't want to go too late with our Civ, we don't want to fight really early either, we want to win the midgame. I'll still cottage some tiles, especially in Conrond Mor which has a lot of food but low production, hoping to speed up CoL. Also Conrond Mor will build a Market and run a Merchant Specialist pretty soon, we want to pop Currency (partially) as soon as we have CoL. Animal Husbandry looks great, we can see Horses which are a great tile, we can work cows which is nice, but it delays CoL even further, and if we go for AH, what are we actually gonna build? We don't have any good military techs so we can't build that. The only thing we can build are more workers and settlers, which is good but without commerce we can easily over expand and crash our economy and research.
We will run out of things to build pretty soon.
Which leads me to my next point.
We will build mostly monuments here, I dislike monuments cause they are way too expensive. But they are our only way to get culture. Going for an early religion will take too long and give no commerce whatsoever, going for early Drama will take too long as well. I want to get Drama right after CoL-> Currency so that we don't need to build monuments in the cities we will plant later, but can build the culture. We need most of the borders in our 2nd to 5th cities popped sooner rather than later, waiting for Drama is not an option, so Monuments it is.
I'm not satisfied with that solution, so if you see another way I'd be delighted.

Just thinking out loud here....

And please continue to do so =)

[Mafro]

I won't road the entire way, I think It would save 1 turn, but also cost 4 worker turns.

Yeah, with our rate of expansion, worker turns are precious to us.

More important we will have another settler in another 5-6 turns.

Whoohoo!

This turn we also finished Festivals, the only economic tech I plan on researching, from now on it's straight to CoL for Aristocracy. Cheap markets won't help our little research, but it will allow us to plant a few more cities and keep research at 80%.

I think focusing on CoL for Aristocracy is a great strategy. We already have 6 farms that could be bringing in an extra 12 commerce, and by the time we get CoL, it should be triple that.

One thought, after CoL it might make sense to get Archery. We have enough rivers that lumbermills could be a meaningful contributor to both our economy and our production. I see 13 forest tiles next to a river, most of them plains, that could use lumbermills.

I didn't plan it but after reading your suggestion and looking at the tiles it made sense, so I did it.

Yay! I actually had a good suggestion!

there isn't an abundance of commerce on this map,

What about the rivers? Just the main river that we're on has something like 30 - 35 adjacent tiles. The southern river, next to the citadel, has at least 21 river tiles. And the two small rivers south and west have a combined 9 river tiles between them. That's some 60 commerce just waiting to be claimed.

The limiting factor is that we need big cities to work all those tiles, which means lots of food, happiness, and preferably health. Our main river is rich in food, with 6 floodplains along its northern stretch, and rice and corn near the southern banks, so that shouldn't be a problem. We also seem to have plenty of health resources available nearby. However, I see only a couple unclaimed happiness resources - incense and gold. We'll need to establish trades with other players to get further happiness, or explore our surroundings to find our own, either of which means an investment in scouts.

The only thing we can build are more workers and settlers, which is good but without commerce we can easily over expand and crash our economy and research. We will run out of things to build pretty soon.

Totally get it. It's the economy, stupid.

We will build mostly monuments here, I dislike monuments cause they are way too expensive.

I'm not satisfied with that solution, so if you see another way I'd be delighted.

Putting my creative hat on, the only other alternative I can think of is to aggressively pop dungeons in the hopes that the RNG gives us a disciple of some sort. However, that could be costly in terms of units (though I do think we need a little more scouting happening), it's reliant on luck (which is never a good idea), and I don't think we've even seen a dungeon thus far (so it's a moot point).

Hey, thinking creatively again...can we farm gold from the citadel we're holding? Seems like we should be able to pillage it back to castle level and then let it grow back to a citadel. Keep doing that and we might make some decent money over time, enough to help us focus on research. And unlike the other self-improving improvements, it doesn't require a city to work it.

Speaking of research, I often see players pursue binary research, where it's either all or nothing each turn. Apparently it helps avoid loss due to rounding (though I'm not sure how much of a factor that is in the current version of Civ - I remember back in the day it was a real issue). Is there a reason we're not doing that?

[Qgqqqqq]

Disciple pops are also only a single city - you can't reliably spread the religion until the associated tech.