[SPOILERS] Bismarck of Mali (NobleHelium and Lewwyn)

[NobleHelium]

Caught Lewwyn for a chat and discussed some short and medium term things.

We're probably going to plant on the awesome cows/rice spot next. It'll reveal some tiles for us which is nice. We should be able to see whether we should move the inner coast city 1SE to catch a potential resource on the other side of the mountains. In Hydrogen we'll probably grow to 7 on the library which will put us into unhappiness (unless we get a Judaism spread), then slow build a worker (4t) and then triple whip another settler.

Also Kuro claimed that he got Mathematics when I went into his FFH blitz chat to get him to play his turn (instead of delaying it for 6-18 hours for no good reason), which makes sense.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 72. Some interesting events this past turn:



So yeah, we got another free spread. :2dance: EMC adopted OR which means they researched Monotheism obviously. So two of their last three techs were Masonry and Mono. Other one was Meditation?

Scouts found more dyes in the south and fish in the west. We're now past our quarter of the donut in the west.





Quiet C&D turn for once! Kuro built a sixth city. I really wonder whether he has worker support for those. I mean he didn't sink hammers into a wonder like the rest of us, but he's not EXP or IMP. EMC's capital grew to 5, which means they whipped a different city to preserve the same score. 4->5 is 48k->90, which is 42k. Their score went up by 37k, so they did a 2->1 whip which cost them 5k. So they're now at 5-7-4-1-1 city sizes. Jkioan regrew their capital to 5 and got a second pop in their third city. They're now at 5-2-2-1. And their fourth city got renamed to Johnny English.

We're probably going to change up the Hydrogen plan a bit now that we have an extra happy there. I think maybe we should have overflowed into a worker instead of the library previously, since the settler overflow food becomes converted into hammers on overflow, which we can then feed into the EXP bonus. We're probably going to do that this time, whipping the settler and then overflowing into a worker. Lithium might whip out another worker in the meantime, it's about to finish the lighthouse and will grow very fast. We definitely need more workers for the third mainland city.

REMEMBER TO TURN TECH ON NEXT TURN.

[NobleHelium]

Kuro
Agriculture (0), Wheel (0), Mining (6), Bronze Working (18), Fishing (23), Hunting (29), Pottery (36), Sailing? (41), Animal Husbandry? (45), Writing (50), Mysticism? (56), Masonry? (58), Mathematics (71)
Cities: 5, 4, 4, 3, Sollux(1), Aradia Megido(1)

EMC
Fishing (0), Mining (0), Agriculture (7), Bronze Working (20), Mysticism (25), Polytheism (33), Priesthood (38), Wheel (42), Pottery (44), Sailing (48), Hunting (51), Animal Husbandry (54), Writing (57), Meditation (63), Masonry (67), Monotheism (71)
Cities: Sirius(5), Canopus(7), Pollux(4), Regulus(1), Denebola(1)

Jkioan
Hunting (0), Mysticism (0), Fishing (4), Meditation (13), Agriculture (20), Mining (25), Bronze Working (35), Priesthood (39), Wheel (45), Pottery (49), Sailing (54), Writing (59), Animal Husbandry? [coincided with a 2k power increase] (64)
Cities: James Bond(5), Jason Bourne(2), Austin Powers(2), Johnny English(1)

NobleLewwyn
Wheel (0), Mining (0), Agriculture (7), Bronze Working (20), Mysticism (27), Fishing (32), Pottery (35), Polytheism (42), Priesthood (45), Sailing (52), Hunting (53), Masonry (55), Monotheism (59), Animal Husbandry (63), Writing (67)
Cities: Hydrogen(5), Helium(5), Lithium(2), Beryllium(2), Boron(1), Carbon(1)

Masonry and Mathematics from Kuro. That looks like Hanging Gardens. Maybe that's what his longassed turn was about. It could also be the Pyramids and he wanted better chops for it. A good move might be to build the HG and then wait 25 turns for the GE (using PHI) and then knock out the Pyramids with that.

I went back to old saves and noticed that we could sign OB with Jkioan on turn 60. That means I forgot that they go after me in the notes, and that they got a tech on turn 59, which was Writing. And they got a tech along with a 2k power increase after that...did they research AH right after Writing?

[NobleHelium]

Big news! Found stone exactly on the divide between us and EMC. It's 2N of the corn and 3 tiles off the inner coast. That means Marble is probably between us and Jkioan, and probably why Kuro is now building the HG as well as rushing settlers out (there is likely stone on the south divide as well). We need to think about what we want to do about this.

Started tech back on, ETA 7 turns after EOT. Helium and Lithium finished its lighthouses, Beryllium whipped its granary. It should probably overflow into a warrior, not sure about He and Li. He should probably build a library while growing. No idea about Li - we could build another warrior there while we still can, but there may be issues with the overflow cap and whatnot if we whip another worker over there.

I left some signs for the mainland workers if you're playing the next turn. Basically we want roads on the diagonal connecting B and C (and then both workers can build the mine next to the corn), and the other worker will chop the forest hill into the granary, which will complete quickly once we work the grass mine at size 2 temporarily as the corn gets farmed. Chopping should thus be better than whipping in Carbon. Boron grew to 2 at EOT, I think it can finish the granary naturally. The mine will finish before growth to 3.

[NobleHelium]

Played turns 73 and 74.

So yeah, as I said, we found Stone in the center:



Lewwyn of course wanted us to immediately rush out a settler and plant on the stone. On the Stone is very aggressive and also probably a crap city for the first ten turns, so I think we'll do 1NE of the Stone. We are whipping the settler in Hydrogen next turn. EMC has connected Copper, but I doubt they can beat us to the site or get axes to the site before we can get Archery.



We also discovered that EMC has Gold on the mainland. Lewwyn was not happy about this. I think it's not a big deal. We currently have a trade route to Denebola but not to any of their other cities, so DO NOT GIFT THAT WORK BOAT JUST YET.

I realized that I made a stupid mistake in not taking the eastern cottage with Helium after Lithium whipped its worker. There wasn't really a need to work the mines over the cottage, and I got stuck into the mindset that the mines belonged to Helium. Anyhow, Helium is in fact working the cottage this turn, which will let it grow to 6 next turn once it gets the rice back. However we want to give the cottage back to Lithium now that it's grown back to 3. Helium will still be able to grow next turn. Or maybe we can just keep the cottage and give the gold to Lithium, which won't stop it from growing to 3, and we'll get more food into Helium that way. Not sure.

We definitely want to load the current island worker with the settler onto the galley. Next turn it finishes the cottage. Turn after that it can move into Hydrogen and get loaded up. This means the galley MUST STAY IN THE CITY until both units are loaded up on turn 76.





EMC lost 42k in pop. At first that looked like a 5->4 whip but their capital hasn't moved. So it must be a 4->2 whip which is also 42k (interesting). If they got a classical tech that would offset the point loss exactly. That seems unlikely that they would get a classical tech in 2 turns, but there weren't any land gains on turn 73. So that must be it. That's very interesting...maybe they started on Mathematics and decided to switch to Monotheism for OR halfway? And they just hooked up copper...hmm...what does that say to you?

I...do not know why Jkioan got 14 points. Average land area did go up by 2333 between 53 and 54 (they move after us), which is 7 tiles total. That's probably their second city's second ring. 4 tiles is 10 points, so 7 tiles...~17 points. Hrmph. But, Kuro also built his fourth city on turn 54. So part of the land increase could very well have been that. Maybe Kuro's fourth city claimed only two tiles, which is quite possible for one of the island spots. It's also been almost ten turns since Jkioan have discovered anything...and I just checked the power graph this turn (74) and their power spiked up a lot. That's reflected in the rival worst soldier points on turn 73. Their power went up 16k it appears. 10k is HBR, 6k is Archery. This really looks like HBR to me:



I speculate (and hope) that Kuro is spamming cities towards them in order to claim the Stone for HG and/or the Pyramids, and they are planning an attack. I sure hope so. And that explains why they researched AH after Writing, since they decided they needed HBR at that point. I'm not really concerned about an attack on us, since we haven't planted a single city towards them. They'd have to ride like 20 tiles to attack Carbon, and we'll have Archery by then. Skirmishers on a hill will do fine against horse archers. I think we're actually going to get some use out of those things.

So yeah, back to the C&D. HBR is ~6 points. So ~8 points from land which is 3 tiles. 4 tiles is probably Kuro's city. Wonder if we should contact Jkioan about it and point out that we've noticed it (just to hint that they'd have no surprise in attacking us). I'll think about it.



EMC regrew their capital to 6. If Kuro did gain 4 tiles of land points that's about 10. He gained 5 points total, so he probably whipped something and gained 11 land points due to rounding or whatever. Or maybe the whip was only -5 points. Either way his pop was previously 209k. Now it's 167k. 42k is likely a 5->4 whip, so he should be at 4-4-4-3-1-1 now.

[NobleHelium]

Hmm. Mono only took EMC four turns. That doesn't make much sense...how did they get a classical tech that fast? Iron Working is pretty cheap (but still not that cheap) but their power didn't spike up. This is a total head scratcher. Hmm.

Oh, apparently HBR is a classical tech. I guess (almost) that's the entirety of Jkioan's points then. 7 land tiles is about 17 points like I said...and Kuro lost 5 of them. So he whipped two pop? So that must be a 4->2 whip and not a 5->4. So he's now at 5-4-3-2-1-1. I hope that's correct.

Oh that reminds me, Jkioan might have researched IW and not HBR. That's quite possible also, and cheaper. HBR fits better with his likely AH research before that though.

All right that's enough of that. Maybe we can defog some more EMC cities and that gives us a missing piece of information.

[NobleHelium]

So yeah we have issues. Ellimist claims they have a settler on the way to the stone. The two pop Pollux whip could have been for that I suppose. But they have nothing in the area besides their scout and probably no roads. And the settler claim could very well have been a bluff.

So here's what I want to do. Start shifting the mainland garrison warriors over. Overflow into two warriors in Hydrogen. I think we won't lose any hammers. They can't really have axes yet, and either way if they escort their settler it'll be slowed down to one move. After the Boron-Carbon road finishes next turn let's take the western worker and move it to the forest SW of Boron and start roading. That won't speed up the settler but it'll speed up reinforcements. And the worker from the island can help build the Carbon mine instead. I think that delays it by 1t but it'll still finish before Carbon can work a second tile. So basically we shift the workers as well this way. After that the galley goes and picks up two warriors from Hydrogen to replace the mainland garrisons.

So basically we swarm the center area with three warriors in a threatening manner to cover our settler and pounce on theirs if possible/necessary. If need be we can pause MC research to tech Archery. What do you think Lew?

[Lewwyn]

We could attack them.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 75. I decided to move southwest with our warrior, because I realized that the food is in the south so they probably planned to plant near there.



As you can see, most likely they would plant on the first ring of the stone. So we basically need to guard the three tiles to the west of it. So next turn we move directly north and basically just patrol this area until the next warrior arrives. It's better to stay on the forest for obvious reasons.



I am still defogging with our borrowed work boat. Ellimist is pushing me to gift it, but we still only have trade routes from Denebola, so I think it's reasonable to hang onto it for another turn. You can see their copper, and they've fortified a warrior on it. That's interesting. In fact they emptied the city to fortify on the copper. That's very interesting.

We're going to research Archery at EOT next turn. Then we'll whip a skirmisher in Boron, maybe two of them since it's pretty close to growing to 3.



You can see the warrior train has begun. Unfortunately we are getting less overflow in Hydrogen than I thought, so we'll only be able to build one warrior in a reasonable timeframe. So I've again moved the Lithium warrior out of its city. Lithium can overflow into a warrior from yet another worker whip at 4 and complete it instantly.

There is a worker under the warrior SE of Boron. Next turn it moves to the tile SW of Boron. I was thinking we'd road with it and then road the tile SW of that. Not sure yet though, it might be better just to chop the forest. That road doesn't do anything until we road the next forest, and the presence of the forest prevents that worker north of Boron from moving onto it in one turn with movement left over (after that hill is roaded). That mine will finish next turn, then it can road. So I think it might be better to chop that forest SW of Boron, and then do leapfrog roading with those two workers. I haven't worked out the exact micro so it might be off, but it seems correct at a glance.

The island worker is going to help that worker NW of Carbon with its mining. After that I think we might want to do something that allows both settlers to get onto the copper the instant borders pop to mine it, using only one real turn. That'll probably mean that we won't get to farm the corn first, since it only becomes available one turn before that. So turns permitting I'd road the corn, then put as many turns into the farm as possible before rushing the copper mine. Then the workers return to the corn and finish farming it.

That worker south of Carbon is chopping the granary, which should finish quickly after growth to 2 since the grass mine will be available. After the chop it can road the hill for future use before joining the other workers in improving the corn and the copper, both of which are reachable in under a turn.



Not really concerned with demos at the moment. You can see Jkioan lost 10k power. So they definitely popped HBR or IW, not sure if the latter is poppable. The tech was worth 12 points. And apparently I can't do arithmetic and they actually got 24 and not 14 points on that turn. So 12 was from the tech and 12 was from something else, which must have been normal research, a classical tech. So they didn't have any beakers invested into their popped tech. Their power also went up 6k, and Mathematics gives that much, so that's probably it. And that means, assuming Kuro did get Math a few turns ago, that Kuro probably passed EMC in power on that turn with his 6k gain. Something like that. We'll know for sure when we get graphs on him in a few turns. I'm quite confident that he did in fact research Math.

EMC got 13 points. Population went up 20k which doesn't compute to anything worth 2 pop. Or maybe it does. 2->3 is 15k and 1->2 is 5k. So that must be it. So 6-7-3-2-1 population sizes for him. Kuro lost 13 points. He's at 125k pop from 167k. Loss of 42k is uhm 27k (4->3) and 15k (3->2). So he should now be at 5-3-2-2-1-1? I hope so. Jkioan went from their previous correct score of 217 to 224. So that's seven points. A 15k pop increase is a 2->3 growth. So now they're at 5-3-2-1.

Also, now would be a fantastic time to get a free religion spread in Carbon, oh RNG gods.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 76. Ellimist was not happy about my not gifting the work boat yet, and cited clause 3:

"3) I will then move the work boat over to EMC and gift it once I've established trade routes."

I think I'm within the clause, as it says trade routes plural. And previously in our chat I discussed it with him and said that I would gift the work boat over the previous turn if I was able to get additional trade routes at EOT, which I was not (as evidenced by the demographics).

12:18 AM me: so are you ok with me waiting an extra turn to confirm that the trade routes are working before gifting...?
Ellimoogle: well we have plans for that WB
me: hmm
Ellimoogle: but you should get TR with Sirius and Canopus
12:19 AM next turn
me: at eot you mean or at the start?
Ellimoogle: Pollux and Regulus are culturally isolated
me: right, i don't expect to get TRs with those for now
Ellimoogle: well Denebola hasn't popped borders, and you moved into our waters this turn, right?
so next turn you'll be on the other side of the city
me: i moved 2W
Ellimoogle: that's 1N of our waters?
12:20 AM me: uh i think so
Ellimoogle: but next turn you'll get visibility on the unfogged tiles between Denebola and Sirius
er, the uncultured
12:21 AM but either way, Denebola is at the top of the list for a border pop, I anticipate it will have one in less than 12 turns
me: you could just say you'd highly prefer i gifted the wb next turn :P
Ellimoogle: heh
I would
me: okay, so how about this
i will play my entire turn
defog the neutral tile
12:22 AM then i will save it
gift the wb and end turn. then i'll check the trade routes at eot
if it doesn't come up, i'll reload and defog for one more turn
is that all right?
Ellimoogle: ummm whatever
12:24 AM me: moo?
Ellimoogle: sure
me: i think reloading to check for game mechanics is reasonable
Ellimoogle: I actually don't mind reloading unless it's for random stuff
like, if you didn't like the combat results
me: yeah no abuse of rng of course
12:25 AM Ellimoogle: well the seed is preserved
but if you did a 95% odds attack and failed and lost a super unit, you could reload and undo it, and that would NOT be kosher
me: yeah absolutely not
Ellimoogle: but misclicks and stuff
or "omg I forgot to do X"
in a PBEM I don't mind, and even if someone does have a problem with it, they'll never know
12:26 AM me: yeah, i'm okay with that stuff in general
within reason of course
Ellimoogle: hell, I replayed my last turn lol
I forgot to swap EPs from you to jkaen
12:27 AM (again)
12:28 AM me: i was wondering why you hadn't switched yet :P
Ellimoogle: I keep thinking of it
then forgetting when I'm actually playing the turn
so this time, when I realized I'd forgotten, I replayed and swapped them
12:29 AM grrr I hope he logs in soon
me: i usually forget to put signs up that i mean to

Bolded part is the operative section. So I definitely think he agreed to let me hold onto the work boat for another turn there. The discussion further was about what situations it's reasonable to reload, which I included for some context.

In any event, I did take advantage of the situation to gain some valuable scouting intel:



So yeah, that's probably the settler that's "on the way" to the stone site. Whipped just this turn. I did of course gift the work boat after this, and was able to gain two additional trade routes at EOT. You can see the borders of another city in the southeast. Their plants have been very forward, and they only have two cities on the island. I'm not sure what city that is obviously, but I'd guess that it's Regulus (fourth city).

Ellimoogle: meh
I'm not liking Krill's stone/marble though
1:05 AM me: i thought he didn't put any on the map
pb4 didn't have any
and it's huge
well either that or he put it on the center island
Ellimoogle: well we should have a source in a few turns, at least
if you want to borrow it for Moai we can probably work something out
me: hmm
1:07 AM Ellimoogle: [crickets]
me: obviously i'd want to borrow it :P
Ellimoogle: I'm guessing you just found it, by the position of your warrior
me: yeah of course i've seen it
1:08 AM Ellimoogle: we found it before our scout moved through your territory, settler on the way
me: i moved next to it :P
that's the benefit of exploring earlier
i did debate building a scout and ended up not going with it
Ellimoogle: I was surprised you didn't, tbh
no workboats, no scouts
me: eh, kinda just didn't
i was half expecting krill not to put any on the map
Ellimoogle: we have the entire donut circumnavigated
1:09 AM me: so planning to build all the stone wonders then? :P
Ellimoogle: well I'm negotiating with Kuro for the pyramids
me: i thought he might be going for that
Ellimoogle: we probably don't want them
me: i thought you might want them too
easy to swap in and out of CS
Ellimoogle: thanks to hammams, he'll probably go for HG
1:10 AM CS?
me: caste system
Ellimoogle: what does that have to do with the pyramids?
me: uh rep + cs
Ellimoogle: oh, gotcha
I thought you had the civics columns confused
me: naw :P
1:11 AM Ellimoogle: even "civil service" / bureaucracy isn't enabled by pyramids
though we have considered the Shwedagon Paya
me: well that should be easy to build
not that great though
Ellimoogle: that's why
1:12 AM me: oh
good for spiritual i guess
for temp pacifism
and theocracy to a lesser extent
Ellimoogle: earlier access to pacifism/theocracy/free religion
all could be useful at times

We also talked about the Stone in the same chat, which I was semi-trying to avoid but I didn't end the conversation soon enough. And actually I think it might have worked out better for us, at least in the short term, since now we know they're directly going for the Stone when I thought they would wait a bit longer. It is farther from their existing cities than it is from Boron (Denebola and the city south are the ones furthest east - their other mainland city is at horse which is probably on the far west like ours is), so I have no qualms about beating them to the site when it's farther from their existing cities than it is to ours, and equidistant to our capitals.

The issue of course now is that I'm quite sure that they're alerted to the settling race we're in for the Stone (I probably should have responded more quickly to his Moai probe question), and may take more aggressive measures. This turn we finished Archery. Next turn we start a skirmisher in Boron and then we can do a 3->2 whip for it the turn after that.



The open question is still where to plant. Most likely we will plant NE of the Stone as originally planned, because I'm concerned about the supply line length from Boron. Plus it's on the river which means it gets instantly and permanently connected to the trade network, so we can build axes immediately after we get copper. The forested hill next to it is a source of concern. I'm tempted to plant on that, but it will take an additional turn and loses the rice from its first ring. Having the rice available immediately is better than it looks, because we can grow to 2 much quicker and then whip something for defense if necessary. These considerations combined makes it considerably easier to defend a city one tile east than one one tile west. So what I'm thinking right now is that we just keep a unit or two on the hill until we can chop it, at which point it becomes much less of a problem.

That area southwest of the stone is very juicy and I am tempted to make a play for it. That's too far into the future though, we'll have to see. Haven't really decided what to do with the westernmost warrior next turn yet, it is possible they have another settler that's closer than the one just finished. We just need to hold on until the second warrior arrives and gets onto the forested hill, at which point we'll have much more vision. I suspect they will load the settler on the galley and then ship it over to Denebola the following turn, unload it and then move on land. But I don't think there's a road SE of Denebola (unless they build one - their worker was on the gold last turn), so I don't think it'll be very fast either way.

Next turn we'll unload the galley's contents and move them along the road. The settler will be able to reach the tile SW of Boron. MAKE SURE TO UNLOAD THEM BEFORE MOVING, or it will be treated as a "from ship" unload and lose all movement after the first tile. The worker will help the Carbon miner finish the mine just in time for Carbon to work it. That will finish the granary quickly with the chop, then they can road the Corn and prepare to mine the Copper as soon as it's available. The galley of course will move back out of Carbon towards Hydrogen, which is why you see that sign there indicating it will end turn on the same tile it's currently on.

We have 101 gold in the bank with -22 gpt. MC says 4 turns. It should complete before our expenses go up substantially, so we should be good in that respect. We will probably head for Currency after that, to buoy the economy. Monarchy is also an option, however. Mints will help us slightly, so Monarchy may be the better choice.



Ellimist's MFG is very high, much higher than everyone else. They're probably building the Colossus, although bonuses don't show up on the demographics. It could very well mean they're working high hammer tiles for that though. Nothing we can do about that (yes we could attack them and take the wonder over, I hear you whispering that Lew ).

EMC lost 19 points, which is the capital whip (3-7-3-2-1). Jkioan grew their last city from 1 to 2, so now they're at 5-3-2-2. Kuro gained 87k pop. 60k is 5->6. 27k is 3->4. So now he's at 4-6-2-2-1-1.