[SPOILERS] MNG as Hattie of France

[Mr. Nice Guy]

In this turns news:

Missed it last turn, but Hinduism and Buddhism have both been FIADL. Pretty late for this game speed. I'd hope for their sake that the owner of Stonehenge got one of them. On such a happy-rich map, religion's main benefit will be shrine income and/or the priest economy. So I expect someone to be heading to priesthood now for an Oracle run. I don't have any intention to compete with that. I would rather prioritize HG and maximum early expansion. I think the next step from maths will be MC. Forges are hugely important, and if I can have 8-9 cities each with a forge for production boost by T60-T65, I will be in about as strong a position as I can be, and then I can make a play based on game circumstances.

Oh, and the plans for rapid expansion continue. This turn, Paris whipped it's settler.

In theory, the next city should improve corn first after chopping a WB. But I keep finding myself needing happiness before T44 in my sims. Would better warrior management eliminate that problem? Or should I look at mining the gold first for the empire-wide boost, rather than the push for growth at the new city?

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Chat with Commodore, Darius of HRE:

Darius: Hey, just a quick note, the lion near you is dead, my scout was on the wooded hill and didn't even take damage.
5:49 PM me: Great, thanks for the info
5:50 PM Darius: No prob. I'm also headed to the center, but thus far it looks like icy wastes
I think it's the "Wheel" script, with modifications.
me: have you passed the silver yet?
.. and i think you're rigth
Darius: The huh?
I'm fogreading coasts.
5:51 PM me: okay. one of my scouts has already hit that area. it's icy tundra but not bad land
Darius: Oh, did Gaspar put my deer there? :-P
5:52 PM me: umm... i don't get the joke but ... yes....
Darius: Hunting start, I was hoping for hunting food nearby.
No such luck.
me: oh gotcha
yeah, but do you have sheep?
Darius: Yeah
Hrm, so do you.
me: and corn and cow?
5:53 PM Darius: No cows, but corn and rice.
me: oh bummer for you
yuris and I both have cow and sheep
no confirmation on corn yet from him
Darius: It's okay, I'd rather not have mirrored starts.
5:54 PM me: same here
Darius: It's hard to be fair with animals.
We'd lynch whoever got the pigs.
me: lol
Darius: Unless they were jungle pigs or some other sick twist.
5:55 PM me: fwiw, my first barb contact was a wolf - and i killed him
Darius: Nice, two lions and a panther for me thus far.
me: ooo a panther? exciting
i had a bear, but no panther yet
question for you, no pressure yet...
Darius: Yeah, Krull crushed him without issue.
5:56 PM me: but i believe my scout is about to hit your territory. Would you be willing to open borders so I can pass through back to my homeland?
Darius: I'd love too, but as you can see, I took a detour to get Polytheism.
Unless you have writing?
5:57 PM me: EOT
the beauty of creative :0
Darius: Nice.
Sure, I'd just ask you stick to the north coastline.
Hidding my nine gems super-site, y'know.
5:58 PM me: naturally :0
just guide me if I'm heading the wrong way. I only have a warrior heading that way, so he's going to be slow getting home. any shortcut will help
oh, and congrats on your second city
5:59 PM Darius: Thanks! My lurkers kept nattering on about Stonehenge.
I said no, I'll be betting the Ind person without Creative who starts a tech away from BW will be getting it first.
6:00 PM So why bother?
I'd rather have a second city + religion.
me: yeah, stonehenge is a foolish play most of the time, i think
Darius: Against humans, anyway
me: and it would have been for you, clearly
Darius: I always take it from the AIs
6:01 PM me: AI's are sure different than humans
or vice versa.
Have you played much MP?
Darius: Nope! This is it, save a duel game or two with my brother-in-law.
6:02 PM Used to play Alpha Centauri PBEMs a fair bit.
I like the format, just haven't had to community.
me: that counts, at least to have figured out the diplo aspect
Darius: Diplo, yes, "feel" for the timing, less so.
6:03 PM By the way, I note with extreme jealousy your first-ring stone.
me: oh you don't have?
Darius: Would you be up for a trade when I'm near Moai?
6:04 PM Yeah, marble over here.
me: gotcha
i would keep a trade in mind, yes
Darius: Not terrible, just not as nice as stone IMO
me: i don't really have any wonder aspirations in this game, so stone won't help much beside maoi and walls if you or yuris get frisky
6:05 PM Darius: Oh yeah, walls get its help too.
Lucky Mr. Notnearwarchariotsorskrimishers Guy
6:06 PM me: i guess you're right
but i'm stuck next to ottomans again
6:07 PM I have not-so-fond memories of ottomans in PB3
if you've ever read that
Darius: I'd rather have musketeers over jans.
Actually, I read some but it was dang confusing.
You know what's great? Actual geography.
6:08 PM me: yeah, tell me about it
Darius: Man, that map was terrible.
6:09 PM And Krill was amusing, but made it even more mind-breakingly confusing.
me: it was awful to play on mostly
it was a fun group to play with, but that was it
6:10 PM Darius: I prefer this one. 5 players is just about right.
me: yes, definitely
Darius: 1turn/day at least too, so it doesn't even do worse than a Pitboss in that respect.
6:11 PM me: yeah, the pace has been great
Darius: It's what, turn 29 already?
me: and in just 2 weeks. that's closer to 2/day average
6:12 PM Darius: Yeah, long may it continue.
I think Yuri's gone to bed for tonight, but hey, 2 today that I've seen
6:13 PM Maestro is in the US I think, but he's only a sometimes player.
me: the trick is getting through Maestro before it's too late for you if we get in a 3rd turn.
i guess i'd better hit end turn
Darius: Ah! Yes, by all means.
6:14 PM Send me the ope

What are the lessons from this chat?

*Not all starts were created equal, and not all civs have stone.
*Commodore really is inexperienced at MP civ. But he recognized that Stonehenge would be worse than Poly+expansion.
*Commodore is willing to give me OB to allow easy commute back to my lands, but wants me to stick near the coast.

I think it's pretty straightforward that I want to build strong relations with at least one of my neighbors. All things considered, I think this chat went well toward achieving that goal with Commodore. We'll see. I will say that Commodore is keen at this, though. Not to pull an MJW, but as we were chatting, I accidentally viewed his profile. He was viewing my thread from PB3. Always smart to gather intel, and that's the only really good data point he has on me. I just wish I had one to use on him. Oh well, these chats are sure to help.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

So, I think I'm going to make a move for HG. If there's time to squeeze it in, Great Lighthouse would be nice coming from the stone city, but I'll have to look at that in the game tomorrow. Not much else to say, so how about a couple overview shots from the morning turn:

.

[Rowain]

Think goldctity should be done soon to get the border settled

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Think goldctity should be done soon to get the border settled

This turn!

Actually, the turn just came in to me, so right about now it'll be settled

The nice thing is that that really does close off my land against yuris, thanks to only one land bridge between us.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Some random notes from this turn:

Of the civs that I know, I am the only one with slavery. Clearly, that has helped expansion. Of the civs I know, I was the first to two cities, and with the founding of Lyons (gold city) this turn, I am now the first to three. I hope that on T38, I will be the first to 4 cities.

Upon opening the save, Commodore had offered open borders. That is big, as now he can help defog the south while swinging through Commodore's land.

Settling Lyons brings me down to 70% effective tech rate. I'd say I can easily get in another 2-3 before crashing the economy, and I fully intend to do so. This whole REX strategy means I really will want to look into that GLH. Looking at it, it will take 174 hammers (GLH + LH). If I produce it at city 5 (the stone city), I can use 5 forest chops (100 hammers) to help out. That means I need to naturally produce 74 hammers on my own.

With this being a coastal map, and my expansion outpacing the other teams.... what if I put the GLH in city 4 - ivory city, and the HG in city 5? The HGs would still be completed in the 60s, but this way I'd know that a more important wonder on this map would be done in the 50s. The nice thing about that, is that it would be worth an immediate 8 GPT (4 coastal cities), which would suddenly allow me to settle another 1-2 cities easily, which would take me to a more reasonable 8 or so cities for the HG to have a massive effect. I think this may be the better way to play the rest of the opening....

[Mr. Nice Guy]

A few pictures for fun. First, the capital. You have to love that high growth rate. Thanks to irrigated corn+cow+sheep+granary... next turn it will sit at 14/18 food at size 3, and will grow to size 4 the following turn. Unfortunately that will put it at the happy cap, but that's perfect because I'll want another worker/settler by that time. Here it is:


Next two overview shots. North first. Here you can see my planned city sites. I also want a southern sheep and a southern cow city, but my map intel is too poor to be specific. In around 10-12 turns I should know more, depending on the route I have to take to get back home. Notice, also, that the gold city has been settled:


And finally, the south/east. My northern exploring warrior has skirted along yuris' southern border. I believe that land bridge will connect to the ice, at which point I believe he'll use another "spoke" to make contact with the neighbor directly opposite from us. The southern warrior is the one that will swing along the coastline and back home. Commodore's borders are visible through tile bleed at the west side of his view. Here it is:

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Not a whole lot to report from the afternoon turn. I found another seafood south of the southern cow. That city will be pretty nice when its turn comes. In other news, copper came online this turn. Not going to do much with it, but with hunting due in 2T, I'm about to finish the last warrior of the game. What else? I'm about to walk past the Hindu holy city in the south. It looks like a confirmation of icy tundra in the NE, which means I should meet at least one more team in ~5-10 turns. Speaking of diplomacy, it's been 2 days since I have heard from yuris, so I suppose I'd better send him a quick message. Won't have much content, but at this phase of the game it's best to not go more than a couple days without a message. Want to keep people thinking I have peaceful intentions...

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Today's turns were fairly slow. Things continue churning along. The big news of the day:



Is that a barb city showed up in my SE. The bad news is that the city is not in a good place for me to capture it. But at least I'll get some razing-gold, right? Will the city have warriors or archers? If warriors, once I pump out an axe or two I can take care of it pretty quickly.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

News from the morning turn:

*Oracle landed to team Yuris. Word on the street is that they took Metal Casting with it. I haven't heard back from them since I sent my congratulatory e-mail but in all fairness that was just a couple hours ago, and Yuri is BST so it's his sleep-time.

*Barb city... hmm. Looks like that was last turn's news. Well poop. And here I told Commodore and Yuri in my diplomatic e-mails that I just noticed it this morning. Oh well, I really forgot if it was morning or night. Guess that's what I get for playing the turn literally 2 minutes before I get out the door for work.

*Commodore has chariots. Well, I've only seen the one chariot used as MP in his holy city. But still, he has horses hooked up. We now have copper hooked up, and hunting. So although I don't plan to build any spears soon/ever, I can.

*Orleans whipped its library this turn. That means that after a little growth, it'll be time for scientists.

*Exploration continues on the east side of the world. It's not long now before Yuri's spoke gets me to the icy center, and then I can head eastbound to meet the 4th civ out there. I'd like to figure out the rest of the world soon. The fact is, I'm playing a quiet but friendly diplomatic game so far. By around T50, I want to start "turning it on", and identifying which flank I want secure and which neighbor's land looks tastiest. I'm a bit of a ways away from that now, but with continued exploration, I think my overall goal of T50 for that kind of diplomacy can be achieved.

tl:DR --- nothing much new, still just playing through the early turns of expansion.