[SPOILERS] Bismarck of Mali (NobleHelium and Lewwyn)

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 59. Found another fish in the south, I guess that means a city south of the pigs too. You can see the galley is heading back up, since I want to pick up another warrior for more mainland scouting. And we'll get a settler for the mainland about five turns after that.



We got Judaism as expected, unfortunately in Helium and not Lithium. There was about a 1/3 chance of getting it in Lithium, one of the reasons why I slaved Helium two turns ago, to increase the chances slightly. The shrine would be better in Lithium since it's closer to the center of the map for natural spreads, and Lithium will have more cottages to work for Wall Street down the line.

We'll be researching Animal Husbandry next, to see horses on the mainland and to get another bonus on Writing. We should meet Kuro's work boat from the south soon, which will further cheapen the tech. Maybe we should run a turn of gold before researching AH, since Kuro has that too.



EMC's capital grew back to 6. Kuro's capital grew back to 4. Jkioan's second city has still not grown. I'm starting to think it's working the gold while waiting for a border pop.

[NobleHelium]

Played turns 60 and 61. We got some nice popups:







Jkioan founded a new city, hilariously named New city . They founded their second city on turn 40, which got 6 new land tiles. That's about 15 points, so there are still 6-7 points unaccounted for. They didn't get any other population increases, so that must be a tech. EMC grew their second city to 2.

Now for this turn, I've planned out some interesting micro.



As you can see, we found sheep in the west. Right now the two warriors in Hydrogen are boarded on the galley, even while they're still providing the garrison effect. Next turn I will move the galley south and land both warriors (I will probably land both warriors on the left sign, landing one on the right sign doesn't actually unfog any more tiles). Then the galley heads back north and waits for a turn. A worker will board the galley on turn 64, and the settler in Hydrogen will be done at EOT 64. Next turn the settler boards the galley and the galley moves northwest. The worker can then disembark that turn (the settler cannot), onto the grassland. On turn 66, the settler will disembark on the pigs, while the worker puts one turn into the road on the pigs and cancels. On turn 67, the city will be founded and the worker will start the pasture.

You can also see that I've finally decided on some city locations on the mainland. The city across from Hydrogen will be very useful for logistical purposes, as units that board a transport from Hydrogen can then be shipped over and be unloaded in the city the following turn (or the same turn), and be ready to use roads to move inland. That is considerably better than disembarking onto land without a city the following turn. Plus I realized it doesn't really matter that that city won't likely be working those coast tiles, since you almost always share tiles between cities anyway, and it doesn't really matter what those tiles are if they're worked by the other city. Only a small amount of flexibility is lost in that the mainland city doesn't want to work those tiles, but that's more than made up by the logistical importance of the city.

I am founding the farther city first because it gets food in its inner ring, and can take its time in claiming the corn for the other city. If I found the closer city first, its best tile before the border pop is the flood plains, and cottaging that will take quite a while since it's desert. And it's obviously not as strong as the pigs. This may get viewed as aggressive by EMC, and it is aggressive in some ways, so hopefully they'll gift us their work boat and not see the city for quite a while.

Oh and we also got a natural spread to Lithium. Hoping to get one to Hydrogen soon, it's pretty likely. Natural spreads happen more on slower speeds since the chance is checked every turn and not scaled, I don't think. We'll revolt to Judaism when Hydrogen and Helium finish their settlers. Helium is going to grow to 5 next turn while putting some hammers into a work boat, and then back to the settler (3t at 15 hpt, 42h to go).



Our GNP is currently highly inflated from the double prerequisites of AH, but it's still pretty good. EMC has triple whipped their capital, which must be for a settler.

[NobleHelium]

Oh and we also got graphs on EMC this turn, so let's show some:



You can see where they were researching Writing. The spike before that is probably AH, which is inflated as well.




You can see where we started growing our cities, particularly Helium, and planted Lithium.



Not really all that interesting yet. Most of the power is from population and tech. The steep climbs mark Bronze Working, and the smaller one is Wheel (and MC for EMC).

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 62. I am slightly regretting not researching AH one turn earlier. The reason is that I miscalculated again and the settlers are actually both due EOT 65, so the micro in the last report is kind of off. What I'm debating now is whether I want to start shipping the worker next turn to get onto the mainland and start pre-chopping the granary. Once I start doing that though obviously the city site is pretty much set in stone, which is why I wish I could see horses now to be sure it doesn't need modification. Still, not a huge deal, next turn the worker will be in the ship when horses are revealed. Now obviously the worker is going to be kind of exposed while it's on the mainland, and the warrior isn't going to be in reach to cover it when it starts chopping. There aren't any barbarians and it's very unlikely that an EMC galley will appear out of the fog and dump a warrior to capture the worker, so I'm not too concerned.

No sign of stone or marble. I think Krill intentionally removes them from his maps or something. Technically speaking that's a relative Industrious buff, but I'd prefer to find both in my quarter of the map. I'd love to spam the junk wonders for GPP, but I'm really hesitant to sink hammers without the doubler.



EMC regrew their capital to 4. Kuro grew one of his small cities to 2 (now at 4-4-2-1). Jkioan is now the lowest pop (on demos) at 5-1-1. Also checked trade screens and EMC has pigs hooked up. That is likely a city on the mainland. That's a pretty good move...

[NobleHelium]

Okay, terribly behind on reporting, my apologies. During the mysterious downtime yesterday I was finally able to catch Lewwyn on chat and even managed to get him to open the save to take a look! Let's talk about the recent turns first and then I'll go into detail on medium-term strategic planning.

Turn 63 revealed some new tiles.



Cows is nice for that city, it's looking severely production-lacking. Hopefully the iron is there. As you can see on the sign, EMC has a scout in the area and is going to thoroughly see what our land looks like. Not a huge deal, and I'm definitely not going to declare war on them or something. I'll probably be more cautious with the mainland cities and have garrisons for them immediately though. I want to research Archery soonish.



EMC's third city grew to 2 (now at 6-4-2). Kuro whipped his second city from 4 to 3 (4-3-2-1), and then researched a tech, resulting in a net loss of 1 point. His power went up by 4k (40k power is EMC's), which is likely unrelated to the tech since it's an ancient one.

For turn 64, I found rice near the cows, so that pretty much settles that city spot.



The only other possible location was 1E on the newly revealed rice, since we definitely want that flood plain that's wedged between the two coastal cities to the north and east. The site looks really lacking in production as you can see, but oodles of cottage tiles. There might be another hill in the south if we're lucky.



EMC grew their capital to 5, and whipped their third city back down to 1 (likely for a granary). That results in no change in score, but their population value changes a lot. Kuro is whipping like a madman and lost 13 points. 34k population indicates a 3-2-2-1 setup, which means he whipped from 4 to 3 and also 3 to 2.

Okay, now that we're done with the turn reporting, let's talk about strategic stuff. Ellimist said a few days ago that he thinks Kuro might be up to something like an attack on Jkioan due to his six hour turn or whatever. I'm not sure if I believe that, either the possibility or that Ellimist really thinks that. We'll see what happens.

This turn (that I haven't played), Kuro has established contact with me. I pitched him the following deal, possibly too bluntly, and he eventually accepted.

1) I sign open borders with Kuro this turn (1400 BC, turn 65).
2) On the following turn (turn 66), Kuro enters my borders with his work boat and gifts it to me.
3) I will then move the work boat over to EMC and gift it once I've established trade routes.
4) EMC will move their work boat south and then west and then gift it to Kuro.

I mentioned the deal to Ellimist a few days ago and he said he'd be cool with it. The deal is not quite finalized, so I won't be playing the turn until then (but EMC still has it anyway).

I talked to Lewwyn and he still wants to attempt to steal the Colossus (I agree with taking a shot, but I wasn't sure if we'd want to do it this early). So the current plan is to tech Writing and then Metal Casting. Right now I turned off tech since I knew we were about to meet Kuro, and I figured if we're going to burn through MC research we might as well save up gold now. I actually dumped the AH overflow into MC and not Writing, so Writing will be teched from scratch. That should produce a decent amount of overflow as well.

Lewwyn and I agreed to plant both cities on the mainland rather than the last island spot, but I think I might change that again and still plant the Helium settler in the last island spot. Hydrogen can whip a settler right after finishing the current one, which only delays the second mainland city by 1-2 turns (depending on whether we want to revolt before or after it). The reason why we're hurrying to plant the second mainland city is so that it can claim the copper of course. MC will take ~10 turns after Writing (2t), but I may do one more turn of gold first before turning on research. Previously I wanted to do another worker in Hydrogen first, but I looked it over and I think we're okay on worker labor for now. I kind of wanted a third worker on the mainland for the two cities, but it's not a big deal. Lithium is about to whip a worker, so we'll have two workers on the mainland and two on the island. The island is quickly running out of tiles to improve, but there are still a few left.



The signs are rather incorrect actually. Lithium will keep the gold since I realized a mine is better than the second clam for the worker whip turn. And I'm not sure if we need to save that much gold.

So anyway, we have about 12t until MC finishes. Current H settler takes 1t. Next settler takes 2t. 2t to get it onto the mainland, then it founds. Then 10t for border pop. That's 15t. Hmm. We can pre-road the copper and then mine it with two workers as soon as it pops. The forge will take 4t of normal production in Helium (16h base production with 5 mines). I was planning to whip it on the last turn to overflow into Colossus. That gets ~30 base hammers into it, and according to my calculations we only need 91 base hammers (250h / (1 + 1 (copper) + .25 (forge) + .50 (industrious) = 250/2.75 = 90.9 -> 91). A followup two-pop whip would obviously be 60 hammers, so we could conceivably build the Colossus in TWO turns (unless my calculations are off again which is quite possible ). This depends on the copper being hooked up of course. From my rough calculations I think the copper will be hooked up in time for the overflow (mine only takes one real turn since the second two worker turns complete before production). If not then we can delay the forge for one turn or something. If we miss the Colossus by one turn you can laugh at me. If we revolt after the second Hydrogen settler that will gain a turn of culture relative to the research.

Also, if we actually do get the Colossus, that is obviously going to piss EMC off. If that backfires I blame Lewwyn.

[NobleHelium]

So yeah, played the turn (65) again after midnight so no time for a full report. I think I will go with the Judaism revolt after the whipped settler, since the mainland settler will still be in transport on that turn. Both settlers finished, Beryllium will be founded on the island in two turns. Writing is actually due in 3 turns, which is no big deal. Whipped that worker in Lithium. Not sure what I want to do about getting the second worker on the mainland, the turns aren't really working out and I can't really get a worker onto the galley on the right turn without losing worker turns to long movement. I think I'll just load up the worker next turn and have him road the copper or whatever. The new Lithium worker can slowly crawl over to the west and chop Beryllium's granary.

And I forgot to switch EPs to Kuro.



Kuro grew a city to 4 (4-2-2-1). Jkioan got a tech.

[Lewwyn]

Also, if we actually do get the Colossus, that is obviously going to piss EMC off. If that backfires I blame Lewwyn.

Indeed you better since its my plan! I want the glory dang it!

I've got the turn! I"m gonna play it.

[Lewwyn]

Okay, I followed up on what you said here. One worker and the Hydrogen Settler went onto the galley. I moved it towards Boron. I moved the other settler to Bery site. Bery should steal the rice and grow to 2 then we 1 pop whip the granary there.



I had both the other workers start a riverside cottage for Lith. It'll finish next turn when Lith grows and can work it. Then the one worker should start a road. Then finish it on the following turn and have the other worker move 1SW-1W and start another cottage. Then the roading worker joins the cottaging worker and finishes the cottage that turn.

Hydrogen is ready to be whipped next turn:



The galley moves 1 W, drops the workers and settler then goes 1E (T67).
The galley moves 1 W of hydrogen and the settler gets on the galley(T68).
The Galley moves 1 SW and the settler gets off at its city site (T69).
The Settler settles (T70).

This gives us copper by T82-83 dependsing on our worker micro. thats fine I think MC will take us a couple extra turns with the new maintenance.



BTW there's some nice wheat down there on the donuts inner coast.

I've also moved Kuro's WB North and West per our scouting agreement.

Demos:


City count:

Us: 3
Jkioan: 3
Kuro: 4
Ellimoogle: 4

We will be at 6 cities on T70.

[NobleHelium]

Okay looks good. There are some issues though:

The worker currently on the galley is supposed to be for Carbon and not Boron. So next turn we move the galley 1W and land the settler, then SE and land the worker on the copper. Worker roads copper while waiting for the settler to come.

That wasn't quite what I was thinking for the Lithium worker...I was thinking it would move west while putting turns into cottages and then chop the granary for Be. Also your road micro is wrong because cottages take four turns on normal speed...

[NobleHelium]

Looked over the save. Apparently settlers cost maintenance. That's annoying. I guess we're definitely doing one turn of gold before teching MC. Maybe two turns if we're building libraries, haven't calculated that far yet. I assume Helium is working the gold now since Lithium currently cannot work it?

We probably want a city 1E of the wheat, unless there's a reason to plant SE of that tile. It's kind of annoying how we're missing all the rivers with most of the city plants, going to hurt if we make it to levees. Too far ahead to be concerned with of course.