[Spoiler] Any volunteers for a human sacrifice? Brennus of the Aztecs, by Krill

[Krill]

Oh hello. This could make for a rather interesting SW border. I need to consider this carefully...I do not want to become sandwiched between the two players, nor do I want them to feel comfortable next to each other. But I also want a city in this area that lets be float boats from the north into the south as required: note the lakes, some city locations plus forts meet this requirement for both me and regocator.

City spammers. Hopefully there GNP is tanking? I doubt it, but after looking at Ceil's GNP they have competition for top GNP IMO.

Hehe. That will probably scare some people.

Worker>granary>? Need to figure that out. HR available in 10 turns if I don't swap to Archery (starting to reconsider how much I need to have more than 8 warriors as my entire military). Warriors are not completely useless, but...this city can grow up to size 15, just by hooking up the wheat, sheep at furs, and building a granary. I could get it to that size by about T100. So flexible right now.

This city might get screwed over in the long term, but it is still useful right now. Considering growing it to size 10-ish in the near future, but worker due next turn as expected, but after that...warrior>Monastery?

I love this city. I said early on in this thread that I have pretty crap land. On one hand, I think that is true: Crapital has 2 food res and a plains cow, but until it worked the flood plains the river doesn't do anything. Even now, only two worked tiles are riverside, out of a total of 11 in the fat cross that are riverside. DF has unirrigated corn (decent tile) and nothing else really worthwhile including hills. WTF steals food from the cap so it has a food resource to work. SC is 8 tiles away from Crapital, 10 from where my settler started, and needs a border pop before coming vaguely decent.

On the other hand, my land works quite well with my traits: the +2 happiness from CHM has let me grow DF, WTF? and Crapital to work na extra 6 pop points, each pop point working an improved tile, either a hill or cottage. The stolen food at WTF has let me work 4 more hills and given me a city that with watermills and caste can hit 40 hpt (base). I have 3 early game happy res that only need hammer investment to hook up (OK, plus fishing and Sailing but I need them anyway). Ultimately, CIV is about working food res first and other tiles second: CHM gives you a chance to work even more tiles, so if you can get cities to grow, you are more than halfway there. My (settled) land is fairly green, even if I want to save a good chunk of it for future tile improvements, the rest of the land is good enough to work at this stage of the game compared to what everyone else appears to have.

Right now I'm considering going settler>barracks(T78)>warrior*2(T80)>2*chariots (T84). I am also considering stopped Monarchy to get Archery instead to drop 2 CG1 archers in SC. Archery is effectively a 2 turn tech at break even, delaying two wineries for a loss of about 16 gold, plus HR loss (which I don't think is worth anything with the resources due to come online). Two archers would save me 10 hammers WRT chariots, but I probably need one chariot anyway between SC and WTF? to play zone defence against axes. Also need a chariot to stay 1 turn behind the warriors so the warriors (for barb busting) don't get eaten by any axes.

This city is better than I expected it to be...Don't think it is going to be awesome by any means, popping 3 irons here wouldn't change that, but it won't be crap. With a grass hill and gold worked at size 4, might be worth slow growing it vertically with a barracks as a military pump. Something for the future, to decide in a few weeks.

[Krill]

Double move would be possible here in other games, I could just run straight under the warrior and Azza couldn't stop me. but that's not really fair, so I'm not going to move this warrior until after Azza has played his turn. He will have the chance to declare war on me to stop me running through.

regocator work boat, nothing I can do to stop it, but there isn't anything he can do to really annoy me or vice versa.

This city, and other unexpected cost increases over the past few turns has my gold loss by 50%, so I'm going to save gold for another turn. Trade route should be in place by T78. Then there are two different ways of improving the city, but I'm thinking I'm going to burn one worker turn to do the following:

T77: W9 moves 98, road, W2 moves 88. RVC takes corn from DF.
T78: W9 roads/finishes, W2 moves 97 pasture, trade route complete.
T79: W9 moves 97 pasture, W2 pasture.
T80: W9 pasture/fin, W2 36. eot RVC grows to size 2.
T81: W9 road, W2 road, RVC works corn, sheep
T82: W9, W2 road/fin.
T83: W9 36 camp, W2 camp.
T84: W9, W2 camp/fin. eot RVC grows to size 3.

9 turns (including turn just played) gets the city to size 3, working 3 improved tiles, two new resources to improve happy and health caps in a growing capital, making 7 commerce per turn, 6 fpt and 3hpt. From this position I could go either for vertical growth, working cottages, maybe get Writing shortly after plus chops for a library. If a random religion spread occurs a temple to pop out the GP is possible. But this isn't going to be a great city site so I'm more likely to try to fit Sailing in so it just pops out a galley asap.

This city sat at size 7 for 25 turns, popping out 3 settlers, about 4 workers and helping keep research moving along. 9 healthiness atm, drops to 8 with two forest chops. But with the sheep, wheat, granary, clams and fish it can hit size 15. What tiles would it not work at that size? 5 tiles it can't work, would be pig for WTF?, and a grass farm, plains hill, grass hill for desert city, leaving one more tile to not work. It has +7fpt with two fp cottages, cow and wheat, and needs to use 5fpt to work a grass hill and 4 plains cottages (three riverside). Admittedly, to grow above size 14 I need either to keep 2 forests, hook up the banana, or build an aquaduct.

Whatever happens, in 10 turns it should have grown a couple of sizes and be making another 4-6 cpt

Need to quarry that marble then mine that hill, but it can sit at size 7 for a bit I think. Arguably once RVC is up to size 3 I can move the workers back to here, and steal back the corn to work a few more cottages and the wines (Monarchy should be researched by then).

It works the cottage next turn, plus the quarry, cottage growth, that's another 4-5 cpt.

I'm considering going warrior>chariot>warrior and growing to size 7 whilst I still have the pig to use here (for 3 more turns). I think I can 1 turn all of them due to the overflow, and get a good chunk of food here as well. I can get another grass farm down after the fp farm is completed. I want the city at size 7 sooner rather than later to work the winery once it is improved, and growing without the pig will take a while.

With all of the tile swaps, looking at +3cpt from tile reorganisation.

Gold is hooked in 6 turns, for +8 cpt. City grows to size 3 on eot T78, size 4 on eot T84, with the gold worked from T82.

So over the next 10 turns I'm looking going from 37 cpt to 63 cpt. The wineries, which I'll be working within 3 turns of getting monarchy, are worth a further 8cpt. I'm getting close to doubling my GNP in the next 15 turns. Let's see how the others keep up.

[novice]

Looking good. I would have worked the farm in Crapital this turn since it was available.

[Krill]

Depends how the MM gets worked out, I don't think it's that critical a decision. Either way works.

[Krill]

Still not sure what I want to build in this city, so I've decided to just go warrior>warrior and max growth while I can. Both warriors will be used to fog bust and will eliminate the chance for any barbs to spawn north of SC.

Azza played his turn and didn't declare war, so I skipped on through.

...Why has top GNP fallen so much? Someone saving gold maybe?

[Krill]

Azza played the turn so knows where the warrior is. I have two options from next turn: head straight SE and try to run away from his culture, or move SW adjacent to his borders and hop he doesn't do anything to kill the warrior. Pretty sure I'm just going to skirt around him.

Still nothing around here to bother me.

New city...not the cheapest one either. Though this turn I'll get +1 commerce from a new trade route to RVC, and turn after +1 from a trade route to this city of NAP. NAP is a pretty hard city to justify though: is it really worth settling? If it had a seafood here, then the answer IMO is yes, but without that...eh. End of the day I decided I need cities on this coast to actually build boats, otherwise I'd have a grand total of 5 coastal cities in my empire, on a map that for some players is basically an archipelago map. That did not bode well for the late game. Eventually I expect NAP to work something like 2 plains hill, 2 grass hills, the fp and the grassland. Not much, but 19 base hpt with full hammer multipliers is better than nothing. Should it have been built this early? Admittedly I don't exactly need the hammers this early, but it needs time to be set up (I'm thinking 20 turns) before it is size 5 and making 12 hpt using hills form the capital, fp and grassland farm. Pretty crap, but Ceil would have complete control of the straights between us, this at least gives me the ability to build galleys, and a back up barracks city to build cats from later on. It won't really build much other than a barracks, granary and potentially a light house if I decide I'm going to want to draft muskets.

I get to see a bit more of the desolate north in a few turns. I should have 2 units entering my borders next turn and 2 leaving, so I shouldn't have to pay any gold for this excursion.

With the loss of the pigs upcoming, and the loss of the grass farm in about 10 turns I think I'm going to need at least 2, potentially 3 grass farms in this city asap. With the happy cap increasing as well, I can get WTF? up to size 11, but it won't grow that high: size 10 with 4 grass farms, wine, horse, two plains hill and 2 grass hills is food neutral, 19 hpt. But it would take a good 10, 12 turns to reach there even if all of the farms were already in place: no, this city sits at size 7 and gets out settlers for the fish site and the clams site. Seven, this is probably a good example for you use to work out your little points system, you can even assume this as a vanilla game: just how useful are the farms, and mines, versus slaving, with and without that pig.

I'm considering changing the MM slightly that I worked out for RVC and stealing the corn back to DF for 2 turns to grow it, whilst RVC works the sheep. Slows down RVC a bit, but I don't mind that too much: the tiles are improved specifically to get furs for the capital, not to be worked. mostly it comes down to the cost of working another tile (maintenance) versus how useful it is at DF. The quarry isn't going to get improved until T87.

Worker MM could be better over here.

Maybe top GNP is starting to get hurt by maintenance? Not sure if that is good or bad for me yet. And oh the costs of barb busting. Still, better than having to settle a junk copper city.

[Krill]

Hmmm, it doesn't connect, so it looks like I'm going to have to back out of this one. Need to decide where to send this warrior as I don't really see the point in letting an axe crush his skull.

Trololololol. Free religion spread to the capital. That demands a religion revolt. Also woot, free pasture on the sheep! Really nice that. Ass I commented to Darrell, every time I do a bit of MM or strategy explanation, the RNG finds a way to make it invalid...

1 more turn to the granary then either 2 or 3 turn growth. I'm thinking 2 turn: I don't have any reason to work the hills, I have nothing to build...wait. That monastery sounds like a good idea. Or maybe a temple. No, the temple and priest goes in DF, but the capital can push out missionaries for me now, which sounds like a really decent use of hte capital. And I'm not complaining at +10 beakers either.

Trololol again.

Decrease in MFG as I set WTF? for a 1 turn growth, next turn it gains a new farm but loses the original grass farm, so can sit at size 7 quite comfortably. Just got to stop the GNP from worsening over the next 10 turns...

[Krill]

Actually:

Next turn the farm finishes with 1 worker. The other two workers move to the tile 1N of WTF? and farm. turn after the other worker farms as well for the completed farm. Then all 3 workers move to chop the forest for GNAPs, two then move to improve Crapital, third goes to farm/chop another grassland at WTF? Probably chopping then farming so I can immediately move the worker to make a winery when possible.

Crapital can work the cottage, farm and pig next turn, WTF? works 2 grass hill mines, 1 farm, 1 pasture, 1 silk and 2 plains hill mines for -3fpt. Turn after it moves from one plains hill mine to the new farm for food neutral. WTF? shall make a 4 turn worker. to help with the winery most likely. I don't want to build more units, so the barracks can wait a little bit until I want to grow the city to size...10?

Crapital is going to grow on cottages, the northern worker that it built before the granary is going to hook the cow up to the trade network, and one of the workers from DF is likely going to chop the last northern grass forest for a cottage. Crapital can keep 2 turn growth until size 14 due to food overflow. Growth can be slowed if needed by giving the pig to WTF? so it can grow quickly onto new grass farms depending on worker management, but I'm looking at a size 14 city at least before T100. Tasty. The other cities in the Top 5 cities are all size 4, maybe a couple are size 5.

Turns out just got a trade route with pindirarr (I would appreciate a good combination name for these guys FWIW, not found one i like yet). They don't seem to have much, but then again, they don't have a cow hooked to the trade network so they are sandbagging here. OTOH, so am I, I don't have a plains cow or dry wheat and...ok, maybe I'm not sandbagging in this screen. I really don't appear to have that many resource tiles looking at that screen. Plus side is that with Sailing for me and Liam Neeson down south I could probably get a trade route without much difficulty. OB need Alphabet though, and I doubt they tech that any time soon. I sure won't.

[antisocialmunky]

pregodicaterr

[novice]

sugarcoater