Turn 26 – 2960 BC
Buster has revealed the tile of the Barbarian city between Gavagai and us. Its name is “Goodneighbor” (another Fallout name) and its garrison is identical to Rivet City’s.
I neglected to mention this in the last report, but the pre-placed Barbarian garrison units are also unable to move until Turn 120, and they have Guerilla I for some reason. Both details are probably irrelevant.
It occurred to me just now that the Cho-Ko-Nu would make capturing these cities with Axemen and Swordsmen a lot more painful, though not any more painful than an ordinary Crossbowman would.
Buster also discovered Gavagai’s Copper.
Unlike our Copper, his is in a great spot. That Corn is on an Oasis, so it is like pre-improved Wheat. Which is good for him, because it can never actually be improved.
And there is a pre-placed Road leading to the city site too!
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Gavagai is very likely to settle his second city right there. So he will get Copper quickly and be closer to us too. I am displeased.
And we have visual confirmation that his capital is the same as ours in the essential details (Corn, Pig, etc.). That is especially good to know about our possible Wonder rival.
The phrase of this turn is “Indecision is a decision.”
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The second Worker was ready to go this turn. We can only hope this one will not be such a HORRIFIC SCREW-UP like the first one, who has been appropriately renamed to reflect his shame.
The second Worker moved to chop a Forest rather than Camp the Ivory. This is questionable but I think it is correct. This delays the Camp by four turns, so it costs us 4 hammers and 4 commerce, but because of the quicker chop, the Settler will be ready one turn sooner. That is probably a good trade, especially since I am leaning towards founding our second city on top of the City Ruins in the northwest, which is an incredible snowball spot.
I enjoy getting to see so many City Ruins all around the map, by the way. An extraordinary experience.
I do not know where the second city should be founded. That is what I am terribly indecisive about.
The aforementioned spot on the City Ruins in the northwest is the best pure snowball spot, in my opinion. First ring Flat Grassland Pig, and then the border expands for the weird tile that is as good as a pre-improved Grassland Horse (minus commerce), as well as Fish and Crab. Four good resource tiles, counting the special Forested Mine tile as a resource.
And there are interesting possibilities with pushing CRE culture on the Barbarians. We can steal the Gold as well as the Fish, and if the Barbarians build a Mine on that Gold for us, then we could have that tile’s yields pre-Sailing and pre-conquest! Not the happiness, though, but still pretty good. And I think it might be reasonably doable to take the Barbarian city with a culture flip. It would only be 3 tiles away, and I know Barbarians are particularly vulnerable to culture flips. This demands further research, but I think it could be a much quicker and cheaper way than ordinary conquest.
Also, this spot is safely behind the capital. Though that is a downside too.
However, this spot does not have a strategic resource. It is possible that the pre-placed immobile Barbarians will neutralize the Raging Barbarians so we won’t need a strategic resource to defend against them like I thought, but I am not sure. And even if the Raging Barbarians are neutralized, the other players won’t be. As you mentioned, they could rush us quickly over the Roads. Gavagai in particular is so close with such a well-positioned Copper. But none of the others are out of the question for a rush on us. Dreylin/Coldrain found our capital, so they know where we live. I never saw Thrawn’s Scout when he met us, but that happened when Buster was close to the capital, so Thrawn probably knows where we live too. And Superdeath/Naufragar is Superdeath/Naufragar, though I think they have not found us.
The point is, being without a strategic resource is dangerous. But that City Ruins spot is so tempting. And I think we could get away with only researching Archery and training Archers is absolutely necessary. An alternative is to connect the Horse that is already in our borders, even with no city to work it, but I think 10 or more Worker-turns for no yields is a greater cost than spending the commerce of Archery.
For now, I switched to Archery from The Wheel, but I don’t know. Fishing will most likely be the next technology after whichever one I commit to.
For comparison, the alternative second city spot is of course by the Copper. Possibly on the City Ruins too.
. But that only brings in Fish and the Copper itself, only two new resources. It shares Corn with the capital, but I don’t think the capital has so much food that sharing will be much use.
With CRE we can settle a lot of other sites and still get the Copper, but what are the good alternatives? 1N of the Copper loses the capital Corn, not a big deal, but also delays the Fish by 5 turns, which now I realize would not be a big deal either, because we need to wait for a Work Boat and maybe even Fishing anyway. The attraction of that is that we gain Gems and Silver, which are great, but not what we need for the snowball right away. I really want to know what is past the Gems. I wonder if Buster should backtrack more and start exploring the second ring over there instead?
2E of the Copper gains a Wet Corn instead, but at a 5-turn delay, and the Copper is delayed by 5 turns too. That makes me uncomfortable, especially since the city would be flatland and close to Gavagai. It would get a Wet Sugar, like a Dry Rice, I see.
None of these are as good as the 4-resource spot in the northwest. Not even close. Nothing is.
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. You can blame the long pause and the reporting dark age for my failure to produce as much lurker entertainment value regarding this issue as I should have. 