Get Rich or Die Tryin': HidingKneel and Mardoc tackle the Khazad (Spoilers!)

[Mardoc]

I'm undecided about the question of worker -> settler or settler -> worker. Tried it both ways... not obvious to me which one is better. Worker takes 3 turns to build, but manages to shave a turn off the settler. The new city seems to be about one and a half turns behind in development that way until reaching its happy cap. On the other hand, we get some extra improvements built, and have more time to get roads in place for city number 3.

It's not REX unless we're able to slap down city 3 quickly, with adequate worker support itself. I'd go for the worker first.

I'm pretty convinced that God King is worth the turn of anarchy, though. At a happy cap of 5, the capital can be working
Incense + gems + corn + 2 mines, for a total of 14 hammers. So the hammer boost is worth 7 hammers per turn.
I don't think it'll take long to pay for the commerce lost during anarchy.

Which reminds me - Agrarianism revolt? On its own, or wait until God King?

I'm now in favor of a Kilmorph beeline after exploration. Looks like we can get our third city founded and discover the religion on turn 40. I think we should be running religion at that point, and built a Temple of Kilmorph in the capital. That'll raise our effective happy cap from 5 to 9 (and we can grow to it near-instantaneously, with all the farms we've got around there).

Sounds reasonable to me. I think we're already in Religion, but if I'm wrong it should definitely be part of one of the other revolts. The tricky part is going to be resisting building Thanes and letting the religion spread naturally .

(Looks like we can 1-turn an elder council in the capital with overflow from our second settler, assuming we're running god king and working a bunch of mines. Something to keep in mind... though I'd prefer to generate our great people in other cities, and use the capital to work great tiles.)

It's tough to manage the really really good cities, they can do everything but not everything first . But it'll be much easier to decide if the scouts can find a very food heavy site that can borrow a couple mines to get started.

[HidingKneel]

Which reminds me - Agrarianism revolt? On its own, or wait until God King?

Good question. If we're not revolting to agrarianism right away, I think it makes sense (from a worker efficiency perspective) to go with mining before calendar. Tried it both ways. Results were nearly identical: third city founded T40, Kilmorph in at T40,
second cities reached happy cap on same turn, etc.

That was assuming we go worker -> settler. Also tried settler -> worker. Ends up getting city 3 out one turn later (since we don't have mines prebuilt to take advantage of God King), but the second city is three turns ahead on building another settler.
Still WotE comes in on turn 40.

Two questions: do we put a mine on the deer hill? That adds one hammer, making it a nice tile to work early. But it also destroys the forest, making it a worse tile in the long run (once hunting comes in). If so, we can maybe knock a turn off the settler if we go worker first.

Other question: which plains hill does city #2 go on? Settling west of the gold gives better long run access to food (one riverside grasslands tile in the first ring and even more in the second. On the other hand, the worker -> settler open will let us get our roads in place to settle north of the gold immediately, shaving another turn off of our development.

Sounds reasonable to me. I think we're already in Religion, but if I'm wrong it should definitely be part of one of the other revolts. The tricky part is going to be resisting building Thanes and letting the religion spread naturally .

We'll probably end up building thanes; I think the religion spreads are too unreliable. In XXIII, I even built the FoL shrine, and got a grand total of one free spread for my trouble. But the thanes can wait until we have hammers to burn.

[Mardoc]

Two questions: do we put a mine on the deer hill? That adds one hammer, making it a nice tile to work early. But it also destroys the forest, making it a worse tile in the long run (once hunting comes in). If so, we can maybe knock a turn off the settler if we go worker first.

I think yes. Hammers now>hammers later. And we get the 8 chop-hammers too. True, that leaves the city eventually weaker, but we're aiming for a horizontal growth strat anyway.

Other question: which plains hill does city #2 go on? Settling west of the gold gives better long run access to food (one riverside grasslands tile in the first ring and even more in the second. On the other hand, the worker -> settler open will let us get our roads in place to settle north of the gold immediately, shaving another turn off of our development.

I would go for the north site. Settles earlier, closer packed for better defense. And also...in the short run, we won't have the happy cap to work lots of good tiles. In the middle run, we'll have Construction and Sanitation (both high priority for us at the moment, after all) and plenty of food either way. In the long run - well, in the long run it can stagnate. There are worse things than running out of workable tiles - leaving many good tiles unworked, for example . But stopping as a medium size city with a lot of commerce, pumping out Trebs and maybe Great People, that's not exactly a horrible fate.

We'll probably end up building thanes; I think the religion spreads are too unreliable. In XXIII, I even built the FoL shrine, and got a grand total of one free spread for my trouble. But the thanes can wait until we have hammers to burn.

Yeah, that's basically what I meant - delay spreads until they're absolutely necessary, out of hope. But not to rely on hope above all else. As soon as we can use the happy, we should spend to get it.

Mostly I'm hoping that we'll get some benefit from WotE so early. Especially with a REX gameplan, that should ideally leave us lots and lots of empty cities for religion to possibly spread to.

[Mardoc]

Yikes, we're close-packed. Especially for a world with 1432 land tiles!

I approve of your decision to hurry the warrior a bit. Even if it'll end up slowing our growth.

[HidingKneel]

Yikes, we're close-packed. Especially for a world with 1432 land tiles!

I approve of your decision to hurry the warrior a bit. Even if it'll end up slowing our growth.

Mardoc is referring to the following:



Grigori capital, 9 tiles away from ours.
We've also met the Kuriotates, though I don't know where their capital is, yet.

If they'd been playing aggressively, they could have finished us off. Scout was 4 tiles from our undefended capital, with no way to finish a warrior in time. I spent a turn working the deer hill so that we could be a little safer. Because other players are not our only danger:



Figured I had to get rid of that ruin, since lizardmen on the loose can really wreck havoc with worker plans.
Well, you see how that turned out. Fortunately, Huey was able to put up a good fight:



Just one lizardman left. If we're lucky, it didn't even get enough xp to promote. If we're even luckier, it'll go bother someone else (given how close the Grigori are, I wouldn't be surprised if the lizardman is closed to someone else's capital than to ours).
Anyway, I think I'm going to bring Dewey home. We've got a good idea what's up north. I'd like to claim the cow and jungled dyes with city #3 (hopefully before the Grigori move in on that land).

It's our turn now. I'm planning to move Dewey toward the capital and not-quite finish the warrior (since nobody is in a position to just walk in, at least this turn), but I'll hold off for a bit in case you want to weigh in.

[Mardoc]

It's our turn now. I'm planning to move Dewey toward the capital and not-quite finish the warrior (since nobody is in a position to just walk in, at least this turn), but I'll hold off for a bit in case you want to weigh in.

Oh, dear, I hope I didn't wreck the blitz by going to dinner. Agreed on going back to food heavy now there's a corn farm; kinda think Dewey should keep exploring, but don't feel strongly about it.

[HidingKneel]

Oh, dear, I hope I didn't wreck the blitz by going to dinner. Agreed on going back to food heavy now there's a corn farm; kinda think Dewey should keep exploring, but don't feel strongly about it.

Naw, I wouldn't hold the turn if we were still blitzing. Blitz broke up when Sian went to bed. It's still 8AM for WarriorKnight, so we're in no rush.

Speaking of which... since it's our turn, I should engage in the subtle art of diplomacy. WarriorKnight could be a dangerous neighbor if he decides to harass us with an early adventurer. And I want to be on the good side of TBS. Kuriotates will make good allies:
1) They're strong early and weak late.
2) They'll have unique happy resources to trade.
3) We probably don't have to argue over land. (Though I hope they're not too close, or their worldspell could really wreck us.)

[HidingKneel]

Played the turn.

Decided to bring Dewey home. I think the most useful thing our scouts can do early on is tell us where the good land is. There's good land up further north, but WarriorKnight will settle it before we do. I'd still like to have a look at our southeast, and the lizardman (and Kuriotate scout) are making me nervous.

Sent this off to WarriorKnight:

WarriorKnight of the Grigori,

The Khazad are pleased to make your acquaintance. As you have no doubt yourself learned, our empires are situated quite close to one another. It is our sincere hope that our meeting marks the beginning of a long and mutually profitable relationship. Surely we can both see the benefits of peace (a stable border, early trade routes)?

I understand that you have also met the rat-man, Splinter. Do you have any idea which direction it came from?

Flintheart Glomgold, Founder and CFO of the Khazad Mining Corporation

[HidingKneel]

New turn in.

First, we got a reply from WarriorKnight:

Greetings Flintheart,

Well met. The Grigori share the Khazad Mining Corporation's enthusiasm in a long and mutually profitable relationship, and indeed hope that we can benefit from close collaboration in the future.

Sadly I have not managed to locate the source of the ratman, as he found me and not vice-versa. I'm guessing you don't know their location either? I managed to contact the elves, although I have not managed to confirm their location yet.

Regards,
WK

That's the kind of talk I like to hear. Do you have a good sense of how WarriorKnight likes to play, Mardoc?
Passive? Aggressive? Passive-aggressive? Technically I was dedlurking his team during the pitboss, but I spoiled myself early on when it looked like the game was stalled, and didn't follow their thread much after that.

No reply from the message I sent to the Kuriotates. It was a little brief, though (sent between turns during the blitz), so maybe I should try again.

Not much to the turn. Kuriotate scout moved on to the west (maybe to get eaten by a lizardman), which allowed our worker to start farming the riverside grasslands north of the city, right on schedule. City grew at EOT (Yell0w grew as well: he's also a turn ahead of the bunch, thanks to his Ind trait), and Louie was born. Assuming the Kuriotate scout doesn't double back, I think I'll send him on a quick scouting mission down here:



I'd like to have a look from that hill before settling city #2, just to make sure we don't miss out on the Yggrdrasil + riverside gold or something like that.

Just realized that I probably made a mistake in dismissing the agriculture -> mining -> calendar opening too easily (postponing the agrarian revolt until Mysticism). It was basically equivalent to the other opening in my sandbox. But my sandbox didn't figure five smart opponents with equally nice starts, all of whom are likely to research calendar right away. We could have ended up with a big discount, which might have made that path more attractive. Anyway, no use crying over spilt milk.

Also noticed another point in favor of going worker -> settler at size 5. "Lush starts" might well mean we have bronze in our bfc, so having a second worker out just as mining comes in might well have more payoff than it did in my sandbox.

Not yet convinced we should settle north of the gold. 2nd city will almost surely be the Kilmorph holy city. Which means two things:
1) Kilmorph will land on T40ish and bump the happy cap up by 2. So it could quite possibly make use of a fair number of tiles, and will need some food to grow on.
2) The city will generate a lot of free culture: we'll get the second ring just after T40, and the third ring another 20 turns later.
This could be quite handy given our culture issues. From that point of view, further from the capital is better.

Also:

3) 4 tiles from the capital doesn't seem so different from 3 tiles as far as defense is concerned. Either way, once we've got a road connection, it takes 1-movers 2 turns to move between them, and 2-movers can do it in one turn. We can also station warriors on the road to reinforce either city, if need be.

As for city #3, I'm liking up here:



Either of those riverside hills. I lean toward the eastern one, to get cows and both dyes in our first ring.
Speaking of which, those dyes are making me lean toward early bronzeworking. Clearing those jungles will be worth quite a bit of commerce and raise the happy cap by 1. Plus, now that we know we're near at least two other players, early defense is more of a priority. Even if WarriorKnight is on the level... why tempt him?

Dwarven vaults: low

[Mardoc]

That's the kind of talk I like to hear. Do you have a good sense of how WarriorKnight likes to play, Mardoc?
Passive? Aggressive? Passive-aggressive? Technically I was dedlurking his team during the pitboss, but I spoiled myself early on when it looked like the game was stalled, and didn't follow their thread much after that.

I wouldn't say a good sense, but I have a moderate idea: I think he's generally mostly passive, likes to build a mid-late game stack of doom and then use it against an inferior enemy. But he's not all that aggressive - if he can't find an inferior enemy, he tends to behave like, well, you or me. He'll keep building in hopes of the next big thing outclassing the enemy.

He's prone to the classic dogpile failure mode, too - won't really join in unless he sees something valuable for himself.

Or...at least, this is how he was in PBEM3 and the pitboss. Both games, he developed a fairly impressive Tier 3 force, but didn't use it the right way to actually win a game. PBEM3, he chose the wrong side of the dogpile, preferring to absorb a weak opponent first instead of attack the #1. When he finally did fight Thoth, it was too little too late and obliterated.

In the Pitboss, he correctly chose us as the target, but was too cautious and didn't accomplish anything. He could have done a lot of damage with the stack of Wizards he built, but he didn't know we were mostly tied down on other fronts, and was afraid to let us wipe that stack. Maybe this is the Goldilocks game where he gets the meta right and the amount of aggression right, though. He's got more MP experience and diplo on, both of which should help.

Of course, I would bet there's at least one more foe that distance from us. So WK's not the only one to worry about early.

Not yet convinced we should settle north of the gold. 2nd city will almost surely be the Kilmorph holy city. Which means two things:
1) Kilmorph will land on T40ish and bump the happy cap up by 2. So it could quite possibly make use of a fair number of tiles, and will need some food to grow on.
2) The city will generate a lot of free culture: we'll get the second ring just after T40, and the third ring another 20 turns later.
This could be quite handy given our culture issues. From that point of view, further from the capital is better.

With free culture, you might be right. Although I've a quibble:

3) 4 tiles from the capital doesn't seem so different from 3 tiles as far as defense is concerned. Either way, once we've got a road connection, it takes 1-movers 2 turns to move between them, and 2-movers can do it in one turn. We can also station warriors on the road to reinforce either city, if need be.

Except, of course, Dwarven 1-movers can move between in one turn, by moving cows ->hill (+1 move) -> city.

As for city #3, I'm liking up here:



Either of those riverside hills. I lean toward the eastern one, to get cows and both dyes in our first ring.
Speaking of which, those dyes are making me lean toward early bronzeworking. Clearing those jungles will be worth quite a bit of commerce and raise the happy cap by 1. Plus, now that we know we're near at least two other players, early defense is more of a priority. Even if WarriorKnight is on the level... why tempt him?

I'm torn. I like sheep/rice better, in a vacuum, but if we wait WK may settle the dyes before we can. And our happy cap is a nasty limit at the moment, yes. If we take it, agreed on the eastern hill, as long as that doesn't hurt us diplomatically too much. May be worth negotiating a border split with WK that lets him have a dye, if you want something significant to talk about this early. Would have to tie that to a NAP, though.

Also - Construction is the same price as Bronze . Bronze warriors are good for 'don't be tempted' but Trebs are good for that too, and possibly also for 'hey, nice capital, hand it over please' Or, um - if you don't want two of these nice capital sites, pillage gold might fill our vaults nicely .

So...would you rather have a really nasty military, and no dyes, or a reasonable defense and dyes? Mostly depends on whether you're willing to consider a T50ish war, or if you'd rather expand peacefully for a while yet.