(SPOILERS) Donovan Zoi Fights in Honor of Japan's Bad Name

[Donovan Zoi]

Hi Donovan,
As papa bear I come from the civforum to read more of this epic game.

Do you have already made some thoughts of where you are? Phillipines maybe?

Welcome Maugitar!  I hope you have as much fun lurking this game as I am playing it.

My main guess has been Malaysia for most of the game.  Cornflakes had been thinking Japan and New Zealand IIRC.  There were developments this turn that narrowed down our location, but not before I discovered a disturbing glitch in the matrix......

Not sure what is going on with the graphics in the SW but I think if we just ignore it, then everything will be fine.  Right?

Turn 11

This is the last turn that we will expose new land for awhile, but this last reveal was a pleasant one. Not only did we find Whale (which won't be unlocked until Optics on base BTS), but we also have sight on the southern part of the globe!  Here's the same shot without the interference.




This is great for many reasons.  

--Immediate protection to the south.  We already have it better than many folks scattered across Europe and Asia
--Pretty sure we can get a jump on circumnavigation, at least until stopped by a huge chunk of ice.
--This could open up farther and more lucrative trade routes, which could come in handy if we choose not to be nice to our neighbors.

And now that we know where we are on the globe, the only countries that seem to match would be New Zealand and Madagascar.  Either one also comes with decent protection from the east until Astronomy as well.  As for which one, I am not completely sure yet -- Madagascar is surrounded by more islands, but New Zealand has that northern island as part of their country.  In either case, it gives us a large continent to conquer to the NW.

Do you think we could be anywhere else?  Here is a screenshot of all of our nearby resources:

[Donovan Zoi]

Had some time to play through a few sims and then crunch a few numbers. Here's my current best: 2nd city settled T37 with workboat in place for immediate fish connection, and Hunting completes in time to build the grass deer camp by the time city_2 grows if you want to go that route.

Note the tiles swaps on T30 and 31. This gets a little extra overflow from WB#2 into the settler in order to hit 40/100 and whip a turn earlier.

Awesome!  What's extra cool was that your worker moves matched mine exactly.

I can see where the extra two turns at GFH got you to 40. I was at 37/100 with about a 5 food surplus at the same time, so I did realize there was some tweaking to be done there. Was just too busy (lazy?) to do it, so thanks.

I noticed that you went Sailing over Pottery after Hunting.  I am totally fine with that, as I think the next two trips to Size 4 will come pretty quickly with the food we have.  It also may still get us a shot at GLH in the 50s.  Perhaps we reserve City2 for that wonder due to more chops, as the capital has proximity to the two metal sites offshore.  

And if we still want to try for GLH, we should definitely get a worker out before a new Settler (and give him a ax). Let me know what you think, because we can also just starting claiming all the islands instead.

[Maugitar]

Are there any news / pictures?

[Maugitar]

Any news?

[Cornflakes]

I see it’s T29 on PBSpy. Just a quick reminder to swap tiles next turn to if you are following my spreadsheet.

[Cornflakes]

I've hardly thought about this game in the last month, the turns move so slow. Responding to a couple things in your last update ...

I noticed that you went Sailing over Pottery after Hunting. I am totally fine with that, as I think the next two trips to Size 4 will come pretty quickly with the food we have. It also may still get us a shot at GLH in the 50s.

Two reasons for sailing are (1) to give us the option to pursue GLH, and (2) because the next two cities will likely go offshore to the gems and silver so we'll need a galley before our next settler. The capital and 2nd city have enough food to get by without a granary for now.

Regarding the builds at the end of the sim, I put both cities on workboats since we won't have to worry about barbs or neighbors with our island start. I'm not sure if that's the best but didn't put much thought in as (at the time) it was still a long way away.

And if we still want to try for GLH, we should definitely get a worker out before a new Settler (and give him a ax). Let me know what you think, because we can also just starting claiming all the islands instead.

I'm inclined to try for GLH. I'm not 100% sure that another worker is required though. I haven't played through any sims in the last month but here is some brainstorming:

- Capital doesn't urgently need any more improvements ... we have 4 improved tiles, and can stack whip unhappiness if we really outgrow that (which I doubt without a granary)
- Work at 2nd city should have time to camp 2nd deer and mine gems before Bronze Working completes. At that point there are only the grass forest hill and dye to chop inside culture borders. One builder should be able to chop those tiles in the time it takes to build GLH.
- We can set up a whip cascade at 2nd city to overflow 60 hammers from the lighthouse into GLH. Combine that with 40 hammers from 2 chops and we have 100/200. We can set up the cascade by leaving the in-queue workboat short of completion, then get lighthouse near completion, then whip WB > whip lighthouse.
- Masonry is required for GLH and Bronze Working is required to chop. Might be best to mine gems before camping 2nd deer.
- We could consider delaying first deer camp at city 2 in order to speed up gems connection. If we road gems T37-38 while waiting for Hunting to complete, we delay the deer camp 1 turn, but save the 2 wasted worker turns on T37-38 with a useful road on Gems, plus another worker turn moving back to gems on a road after camping the deer. Or we could simply build the gems mine first and work gems with pop 2 instead of deer. More simming required to determine if commerce or production/food is the limiting factor in GLH timeline.

[Jabah]

Any update ?

[Maugitar]

Are there any news?

[Cornflakes]

Any bones you can throw to a poor starved dedlurker  ?

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 57
Another Turn, Another Wonder Scare

It would be great if this headline had some context, wouldn't it?  That's entirely my fault, but I hope to change that by becoming more engaged in reporting going forward.

Over the last 8 turns, the following wonders have dropped

T49 - Stonehenge to Mouseferatu (no surprise on the timing there, and maybe a bit late).  
T52 - Pyramids to KSL (that seems waaaay early and KSL doesn't even have an IND civ!)
T56 - The Oracle to Pico (sounds about right -- hope he didn't choose Metal Casting)
T57 - The Great Wall to 2metraninja (thought we were toast here)

I am putting emphasis on the above because I have been making an honest play for the Great Lighthouse.  I am building it in our second city of Kojiro, but in all honesty I should have been building this in our hammer-rich capital.  We still won't finish the GLH until the early 60s.

Here is Kojiro as of T56.  It's a growth powerhouse, which I am hoping to exploit as the last part of rushing production by whipping the last 30-45 hammers.  We have already completed one chop and one 2-whip of a standard Lighthouse.  I have the Workboat queued up to whip at 28/30, and 2/3 turns into the last chop.  I actually left that forest before completing because we will need to have Gems connected when we hit Size 5 in T59 to pick up the South hill that will be ready on that turn as well.






 



And here is our capital Ieyasu as of T55, where I started a Settler.  I am slow building this Settler, because the usable tiles are so good.  I do like the idea of growing beyond our happy cap to whip things like Libraries and Forges, but am stalling growth here to get our first island city founded.






We already have a Galley and WB scouting the east and north and have ocean protection on both sides so far.  I have been doing L-shaped scouting around islands in order to confirm ocean status, something I would otherwise miss by cutting corners for faster travel.  The one drawback here is that our full west is still a mystery, so I am not ready to rule out a rival boating just yet.  But nothing we can do but stay the course until the fate of the Great Lighthouse is revealed.