[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Coeurva]

It might well be contested while X17a can surely wait for later.

That's true.

Also, I'm not sure about the placement of x17a. Would it not be better later on the bananas so that it can get the southern fish and other potential resources in the fog? Then you would have a city on the deer on the island that get clams and horse.

Potentially yes, but natural production will be hard to come by on this map (besides, we might not always want to run Slavery), while 2-food cities can be settled almost anywhere. Therefore I'd like a city with ~10hpt from double horses, ivory, and deer. The deer/crab city looks a bit marginal, compared to what else we could still settle.

Settling on bananas at this point wastes 2fpt since we already have Calendar and a workforce, but it's an option if no other city can take the fish (which would result in losing even more food).

EDIT: I've only now actually looked at the screenshot again -- X17a does in fact pick up the fish, putting its food surplus at 11 (12 with lighthouse).

The happiness from ivory could be gotten through a border pop in westward ho (when is that?)

The F1 screen shows this, actually -- 36t from now (which is too long).

I think we can still build the Parthenon later.

Actually, we can build it in Vermin instead of wealth while pursuing GLib at the capital -- as soon as we finish Aesthetics (eoT112; takes 11t from there). This would delay the Heroic Epic by a few turns, though. (We probably pick up Literature around eoT117 if we proceed straight towards it.) We could instead choose Construction before Literature and build a few catapults or colosseums in the north.

For competition, Gavagai has a strong incentive to build the Parthenon as well, since he's running Rep anyway, and the Khatunate has at least settled for marble (although that could have other reasons) and runs OrgRel, so they could pursue it for efficient failgold, if nothing else.

The map does encourage specialist use (unless you go to HR and whip forever, which isn't a bad plan either) on the islands. Specialists are horrible to employ without Rep or when they don't generate Great People, though. We're running a scientist inside Whitehall because it has no more tiles and stacked anger becomes a problem if we whip further (might whip a market soon and execute the GP plan there, actually; NE is just too far away for GP #2).

On X17, I don't see why they are mutually exclusive.

They aren't, but only one of them can be the 17th city. I realize that I've used "A" and "B" for mutually-exclusive cities so far. They can't all be "q" and "w". Actually, they could, but I'm a major slacker about the theme already.

[chumchu]

Early morning derp from my part then. That makes x17a it a significantly better city. If you have 4 workers that could be spared I think it can get going at a decent pace. It will take a while to get the other good tiles though.

I still think that 17b is worth fighting for with its wheat, crab and clam and would settle it first. With IC trade routes it should pay it self back fast economically as well.

[Bacchus]

I'd build both pretty quickly, there are workers in the jungle nearby already, may as well put them on 17a presently, then ferry to 17b and the deer island.

[Coeurva]

Alright, I think I can make that work; we'll have Ignis and Sicil free to build settlers quite soon. I think we'll have to make do with a single galley, but it should work out. I'm also concerned about the garrisons in the east, but Ignis should be able to contribute some CG1 archers. The axe from the GLib plan will also move towards one of those cities.

As for the workforce, we have five workers presently improving X13 (I've actually given proper names to our cities in the afternoon: this is "Maudlin Sphinx", I think; you'll see them tomorrow, although I might switch some names around or replace them entirely), of which three can be allocated to X17a; the fourth worker should probably be the one cottaging at Ignis, who doesn't contribute much while the city doesn't grow. The fish boat should not be whipped locally as we'll need the monument quickly as well; perhaps X13 / Maud can supply this while assembling whip hammers for the NE; if not, that's Westward's task.

X17a can hopefully proceed to assist in the settlement of the southern sea, as our cities in the south mostly have other tasks, except Lifeblood, which has to supply the west before X11 ("Pomewater") matures.

And after settling those cities, where should we go next? ("For Yuri" is an answer I'll take as well.)

chumchu: Doesn't every city we found get ICTR to one of our island cities? The real question is whether it picks up a +3c foreign trade route with an Aethiopian or Mongolian island, which seems to get decided at random for each of our cities (some of them just have domestic +2c routes), but probably isn't. If anyone knows more about how that works, I'd appreciate it.

[Bacchus]

We actually want the islands to pick up TRs with mainland foreign cities, and vice versa. The distribution is pretty random I think.

At 18 cities, I think a pause will be in order, and well used to build wonders/army. Yuri next.

[Coeurva]

T112

dtay asked for Open Borders. Declined; we don't need them. Savant now has Open Borders with Yuri (Alpha research makes sense because he's at 30gpt again, having founded his sixteenth city now), in addition to all the other gifts he supplies him with (gems, silver, copper). I think we have to assume that he'll consider an attack if we make any move in the south.

dtay also has a monstrous gold reserve and gpt (480 / 120). Perhaps saving up for Machinery (he has MC) and looking to attack Yuri with xbows + trebs?





Due to residual overflow, Vermin could finish the Parthenon by ~T123 and then the HE by ~T130. There are some interesting city sites on the southern islands, too. Maybe set T145-150 as the date to attack Yuri -- we're not really safe in the north before we can build catapults, and dtay could take our conquests from us easily before NumCav if he's actually going for xbows/trebs.

[Bacchus]

The MFG ranking shows that this map is far, far too mirrored.

[Coeurva]

T113



We've lost a site in the increasingly-misnamed Vacant Sea to Krill, seven tiles east of Swallow's Gyve (we have an -- empty -- galley next to his undefended settler, but I decided not to extort him on a bluff because we can probably coexist there), we'll lose X17b to Savant (most likely; the work boat gives away where he wants to settle; how he'll support 17 cities without Currency is anyone's guess) and, not least, we've lost X17a to the barbarians. Well, we might have the chance to get XP on a few swords, and we save costs on a settler, so that's not too bad unless Savant snipe-razes the city (in which case I'd suggest shifting our target from Yuri to him). Wheat/iron island looks rather marginal and we're bleeding money (-178gpt at 100% sci) -- I think I'll just move the upcoming settler in Ignis southward, to settle the strong-looking spot in the picture above, after OB with Krill.

(I think we should OB with Krill. He's a potential ally against Joey, who looks to be fish buddies with Savant. Mongolia doesn't seem to care about us much.)

I've decided that we don't need the Parthenon after all. We'll finish Literature eoT114; let's grab GLib and the Heroic Epic and run over Yuri, who still has roughly the same soldier count as 30 turns ago, starting around T140-145. Upcoming techs to consider: HBR, CoL (still no Confu), Construction, Compass, Drama, Music, Feudalism, Metal Casting.

Regarding the plan to bulb Astro, the priority of techs goes as follows (I've excluded Fiber Optics and such, as well as techs we've researched):

Code:

Scientific Method
Physics
Education
Printing Press
Philosophy
Chemistry
Optics
Paper
Astronomy

so we want to avoid Meditation, and perhaps Civil Service as well (running Vassalage instead and pursuing the bottom line on the tech tree, including Knights).

Joey is putting a garrison (spear, axe, archer) into newly-founded Red Coral, which competes for the fish at Boneless Foals (second-ring for both). Not that I was planning to attack the city anyway -- someone is #1 in soldiers and it's nobody we have graphs on, which means either dtay or Joey (graphs on dtay in 2t). We should be able to win the culture war, though.

EDIT:

If it turns out Joey isn't the #1 soldiers guy, or he gets embroiled in a war with Mongolia, we might actually want to tech MC -> Machinery after Literature, and attack Savant. We just need 1-2 crossbows and 2 NumCav in the south against Yuri; we'll need more material to deflect Savant if we attack Yuri, but I doubt Savant could withstand massed xbows + trebs, particularly if we can build triremes to threaten his islands before he can do the same to us. Besides, he's getting really audacious with his settlements while his GNP is still lagging, and the spoils of war are much more seductive as well.

Late edit: Somehow forgot about Gavagai of all people; he could also be #1 in soldiers.

[Coeurva]

T115

dtay fired a Golden Age last turn, revolting to Hinduism, but taking no new civics. Yeah, he's going for Machinery to kill Yuri, who obviously has the solidarity of half the world. Krill is sending fish-for-fish and might be giving him gold sporadically (not sure); Savant is still sending all kinds of resources (copper, pigs, gems, silver) and has OB with him; I think Joey is doing something as well, but I might be mixing that up with him gifting silver to Donovan.

Yuri is starting to add soldiers again (not many, but there's an increase) and has a city on the eastern seaboard (near gems).

Amusingly, dtay's 100% sci GNP in a Golden Age is just above ours at regular 100% sci (274 to 264), but he gets more turns to run full research, so the advantage is dangerous. I think we should tech Construction and HBR now and assemble our invasion force -- HBR because we'll need defenders against xbows and for the wider northern front -- as well as the front lines after we take Cahokia. HA can also fork Utica and Cahokia quite well. I'm not so worried about Yuri's defense as about what dtay will do to our conquered cities; the Great Artist from Music would be very valuable...

Dark Savant has settled his 17th city and is settling his 18th this turn. Presumably he's thinking that Currency will solve all of his problems, which might well be true. We can't even cut our Open Borders, as he'll just draw his income from Yuri instead. Good news is that he's not chosen X17b, but rather the island south-east of Sorpigal for his next city site.

Literature completes eot; Heroic Epic takes 6t at Vermin. Can't wait to get on it. Whether Savant or Yuri is the target, I'll still leave open.

I'm surprised that Gavagai hasn't shown any interest in making deals with us yet. I'll send him fish-for-fish soon; he's land neighbours with two people who both seem likely to attack us down the line.

[Bacchus]

On culture, I'm pretty sure we are actually going to have to run the culture slider at 100% eventually, as it will help to resist pressure in every single direction. Around T150 would work well for that. There is that magic thing that happens with plot culture where you get +20 points of production for having the plot in inner rings, so being fast to second, and especially 3rd ring is very valuable.

We should welcome dtay's attack and let him do the heavy lifting, whilst being prepared to counter with HAs at the three cities closest to us. After HE at Vermin, and given our sea presence, I don't think dtay can realistically hold onto those. Hopefully he doesn't raze them.

We need to start on Moai soonish too. Krill's activity in the sea is unsurprising, and I think I'd rather pick a fight with him, than Savant. Being in a fight with Krill is great for earning diplo-points from everyone else, and because of the lay of the land, that war will always threaten Krill much more than it does us. Of course, if we do go into that, we are gonna have to commit pretty heavily, but we are kinda already doing that with the Astro push. It's actually particularly important, as with Theocracy he will be able to make double-promoted boats, something we probably won't have access to, so we need to degrade his production capacity in the sea whilst we have the chance. If we can build 3 boats in Vassalage, could spend the next GG to make them triple-promoted, would be a pretty strong advantage.