[SPOILERS] PB42: Lewwyn blinds them with Science

[Lewwyn]

Sigh. I haven't had the time really to do a full plan. I have a settler built this turn and a galley due in 3t. I whipped + overflow to get the galley to that 3t cut. But now the settler has to sit a couple of turns to wait for the galley... Or I send the settler to the copper site now and get another settler after the galley... Decisions decisions.

Eff it. Let's REX and kill our last place economy. We can't be waiting around.

* Lewwyn logs back in

[Lewwyn]

Settler is heading out. Worker already has roads on the one hill and the next. I had started that because the worker couldn't farm or cottage anyway without techs...



Let's get that city up first. Whip a worker in Stars, chop into a new settler in the cap.

We still don't have vision on DZ's land:



Hey that marble looks tasty! I think I might have preferred Stone though. Or even better... some food.

The work boat is just south and still exploring, moving east now. Where is he??

This is another reason I don't want to wait on the settler. What if he's closer than we think and 3 turns from now he settles on our coast. Might have to hold off on the settler going across until archery. So let's get the settler we have moving now.

Wolfeater died to a barb warrior, but not before he discovered a happy resource!



Too bad its literally 20 tiles away and has no food in range! We'll get there eventually.

[Lewwyn]

I found Donovan:



He settled away from us. Looks like he has plenty of fish.



We can settle with impunity, get some skirmishers and be all up on his island. Maybe get a couple axes on a galley and boat his capital. What else are we going to do?

Settled our 3rd city, Jungle:



Happy Man:



Really love this band. Do yourselves a favor if you've never heard them. Watch the videos, amazing dance.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Nice video. The car is a metaphor for your land. It starts off looking like junk but they polish the turd and make it pretty cool at the end. Keep polishing your turdy land. Also, I love the mentality of "what else are we gonna do but shove axes in someone's face".

[Lewwyn]

Donovan just built the oracle in his size 5 cap.

He took monarchy and swapped into hereditary rule this turn.

2 cities, maybe 2 warriors. Probably only building warriors for happy. Tech is multiple religious techs.

He feels ripe for the take over... I wish we had vision on the capital. I don't know if it is on the coast or not. He's CRE so his cap is actually 2E inland, but is he on the eastern coast of his island? I feel like his start should have been coastal. So maybe?

So do I hook up copper, whip out 2 axes, put them on a galley and ride them south and east into the fog and hope that they find his capital, ripe for the immediate boating?

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HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM





BTW the warrior landed on DZ's island and there is NO FOOD by the marble. Just desert. Literally.

I know where there is guaranteed to be 3 food resources in a 1 city radius though...

[Magic Science]

Thank you for the status report and the music. R.I.P. Wolfeater.

About the land, it is sad that we still have yet to find anything that looks very nice, but at least the more area we explore without finding good terrain, the greater the chances that everyone else is actually dealing with the same sort of Depression Land we have been dealt. Still, that is not much comfort now. I think that an early Hereditary Rule is a must, because we will not be able to raise the happiness cap with luxuries for a very long time. Maybe Donovan saw this aspect of the map and decided on an Oracle run? If so, good play by him! Or, maybe he just loves building wonders?

And about Donovan, I agree that we should settle aggressively, but I don’t think that being directly aggressive is a good idea. Sure, he might be weak to an intercontinental axe attack now, but an intercontinental axe attack from us isn’t going to be at his borders now. It will take fifteen or twenty turns in production time plus travel time, and at that point, I imagine Donovan will possess at least one of copper, or horses, or Archery, which is all he needs to stop an axe attack with no reinforcements coming. He will also have at least two or three turns of advance warning due to Creative capital culture, and if he settles a city north of his capital or just wanders a unit over there, then he will have even more than that. An axe attack is incredibly unlikely to work, and it wouldn’t benefit us even if it did. Donovan would whip units from the other two or three cities he will have by then, and he will retake his capital. All that we will have done is set him and ourselves back. In conclusion, don’t listen to the crazy lurkers! They are nothing but a bunch of bloodthirsty maniacs!

Instead, settle some cities on his island (the copper/fish one looks like good place to start), use cottages and intercontinental routes to build up a good economic base, and then we will be able to afford the distance maintenance cost of skipping over bad land to claim mediocre land far away on the other end of our island.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

...listen to the crazy lurkers! 

Reformatted for appropriate context.

[Lewwyn]

We shall see. I definitely want to settle the fish/copper first. Need culture for the fish. Monuments? Current tech path is finish pottery>Agriculture>AH>Myst. But maybe I should go Myst next first. Really I should just build a barracks to get to the fish though... 

I don't think I've played this wrong, but maybe I should have picked a different civ/leader. Or maybe its just that the land is weak and difficult.

[Lewwyn]

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.



I can't orphan the fish, so it has to be on that coast, but then i get like 1 floodplain in the second ring if I settle on the plains. Settling on the grassland takes away a grassland tile but gives me 2 floodplains in the second ring. So maybe I should bust out another settler to try and take all the floodplains? but then that's super close to DZ. And he's CRE.

I feel like I need axes and chariots.

Tech Agriculture>AH>archery>Myst.

We'll just build barracks in copper/fish city. Granary>Barracks.

I roaded the copper tile so no more cheap warriors. I have 4 so that'll have to be enough for now. I don't think DZ is in any shape to come at me soon so I can slightly delay archery in favor of AH and finding horses.

[Lewwyn]

BTW its already turn 49 and I have only 1 worker. DZ has only 2 cities. I am praying that everyone else has as shitty land as me... The closest early happiness I have is 20 tiles from my cap. I still haven't finished teching agriculture or Myst so there's no way I'm getting calendar happy any time soon. 

But I can't be the only one. Out of a field of 10 only 4 are still updating their game threads. That tells me very little interesting is happening with them. The fact that Krill is updating as much as he is is worrying. What could he possibly have to talk about?