North Korea Part II- The Final Naming Scheme

[MindyMcCready]

Hey Mindy, reallly sorry for the lack of updates. I'm just so incredibly busy right now, but that will soon change and I'll start doing much more regular turn updates

Hey no problem,...I've been on vacation anyway and am heading out tomorrow again for an extra long weekend. Post when you can and I'll comment on whatever I can see.

Sorry that I couldn't be of more help with the sub duties.

[yuris125]

T87 played. Oxy, let me know if I should take care of T88 as well

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Ill get home at like 4:00'so I should be good, thanks again Yuri!

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 89

More scouting of Molach's land:



I guess we didn't ask for a balanced map. Not blaming you at all Commodore, and I'm sure a better player than I would be in a much better position than my current one, but in the heat of the moment this is pretty dispiriting. Oh and if you carefully in the north...



Iron



We settled Panem this turn, bringing us even with Suttree for first in city count. The discovery of Suttree actually wasn't that surprising; a couple of turns ago I used the old "requires improvement/route" and saw that the ivory was hooked up and a trade connection with Sut revealed that he had ivory. Despite expanding reasonably well, we're still 7th in food

But, out new cities are just running artist specialists now to borders, once they're working their improved food resources, we get 9 more food. I think we just need to keep up disciplined horizontal expansion and try to leverage pure land advantage into an eventual chance at victory. We do have some chance if we can prolong the game for long enough; SPI becomes becomes better and better as the game progresses and PHI Universities are a great boost in the ren era. If we can make it to Astronomy and Steam Power, the late game advantages the Dutch offer are nonpareil.

In more good news...



Free settlers galore! I have no idea if Avar is a good city or not, but regardless, I'm sending an axe over to either raze or capture it, the double promoted warrior suggests that a different player took a low odds shot and lost, so maybe another civ is trying for it?

I'm reluctantly considering admitting Phonecian to my dotmap, it's not a great city, but it'll be an ok commerce/hammer hybrid. But the discovery of Suttree in the East has changed things, I'll demonstrate with a picture:



Blue is the site of Suttree's city picking up ivory, corn and 2 floodplains.

Black is the former proposed city site for grabbing corn and the 2 wines

Light Blue picks up the cows, floodplains and shares the wheat with Panem, it is the very defensible against Suttree thanks to caste culture locking down 20% border expansion in 4 turns. It does, however, invalidate black has a city location.

Green picks up similar tiles to blue, but it can be settled along with black. It is a little weaker than blue, but black is stronger than Phonecian. It is more exposed to potential Sutree aggression, he can 2-move it without much warning. Also, it instigates an immediate culture with Suttree. And most assuredly to his chagrin, it is a war that we will probably win, considering the free artist specialists from caste system.

However, the last thing I want is war. Future war-related expansion prospects look pretty bleak. The west we have AGG Rome, impenetrable until machinery. To the east, we have 2 competent, powerful economic opponents. In addition, that stupid desert to the north east of Airstrip one forces our empire into a sort of crescent shape, with a wide eastern and western fronts and a very small backline. In other words, a logistical nightmare to defend. Supply lines are very stretched and rapid reinforcement of any one region is impossible. My forces in the east are respectable: 2 axes, 1 spear and 1 chariot, but it's definitely in my best interests to play nice with my neighbors.

So, Mindy what do you think settle black/green or light blue/phonecian?

Pros: black/green

Lots of overlap to split food and grassland cottages
Cities are more compact and can reinforce each other quickly
Stronger overall city locations

Cons: black/green

More provocative towards Suttree

Pros: light blue/phoneician

100 hammers saved
Easier to defend
Allows for connection of the eastern and northern halves of our empire
As close to a peaceful gesture as possible in an AI diplo game

Cons: light blue/phonecian

Weaker overall cities
Phonecian is a bit of a reach and not too far from Sisu
Suttree might not care and attack us anyway

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 90

We had our first hamlet mature to a village this turn



Our scouting chariot to the east discovered Sisu borders, this will not impact the settling of cows/FP, but it does mean pushing farther east is impossible. Suttree and Sisu appear to share a rather long border, hopefully that will encourage aggression between the two. This also means where ever we do place the cows/FP city will be a border city with both Suttree and Sisu



I hired two merchant specialists in Malacandra this turn. This is all part of a pretty slick plan I've put together. Ok, so here's the situation: We have a settler coming out of Animal Farm next turn. He will move to the east and settle cows/FP 4 turns after, so t95 the city is settled. We're staying in Caste System until t98 so the city can use an artist to pop borders. Next turn. t91, Libria will hire 3 scientist specialists. After 5 turns, on turn 96, Libria will have generated (9*2)*5= 90 GS points. Then, we can fire one specialists and generate the final 12 points, generating a Great Scientist eot96. This will beat out the GM counter in Malacandra. From turn 90 to turn 98, Malacandra will work 2 merchant specialists for 8 turns and 3 for 1 turn generating (6*2)*8 + 18=114 GM points. At that point, t99, we switch back to slavery to whip out a granary and lighthouse in Libria and a Settler in the capital. On t103, we re-adpot caste and hire 2 merchant specialists again in Malacandra for 6 turns and 3 for a turn, generating 90 GM points and a Great Merchant eot109. While this is happening, Librira will grow to size 8(2 from luxes, 1 from MP and 1 from religion) and will run 5 merchant specialists at a -1 food surplus. This will generate 30 gpp per turn, getting a GM in 10 turns. Once we research math, currency and alphabet, we can bulb Metal Casting and then Civil Service.

tl;dr

- First GM born eot109, bulbs Metal Casting
- Second GM born 10 turns after Libria grows to size 8, probably around eot120
- In the mean time, I plan to research sailing-monotheism-monarchy-math-currency-alphabet
- Second GM bulbs Civil Service
- Our capital will be able to grow respectably tall, have an academy and work a lot of riverside cottages, bureaucracy will be amazing.
- This also gives us the inside track on the liberalism race, if we can research philosophy and then swap into caste+pacifism we can generate a quick GS to partially bulb education. Very roughly, I could see getting liberalism somewhere in the ballpark of t140-t150.
-Something will almost certainly happen that screws up this entire plan



Interesting news around Avar. WilliamLP has an axe in the area. I moved first this turn, and considering there is some potential for a double move, I'm considering PMing him to clear up the turn split. Perhaps a global lurker can tell me if he's aware we need to play in a turn split? As for Avar itself, the news isn't great. A city 1 NW of it is strong, but it requires IW and calender to improve, two techs that I have little need for elsewhere in my territory. Something to think about, I also hope to get a scouting workboat to see how long this Northern sea extends.

[Jowy]

Gonna interfere here and say go ahead and PM him about a turn split. Both sides are asking whether they should PM each other.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Figured

Edit: Sent

Hey, I'd like to clean up the issue of a turn split for the contested barb city of Avar. This got a little messy, because we noth had no idea that the city was contested and thus moved while the other was logged in. However, if I have the timeline correct, I moved my axeman first, so I should be placed in the first half of the turn split, with you playing after me. Let me know if I am wrong or you have some issue with this resolution.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Turn 91

First, got this back from WilliamLP

Hi, that sounds fair to me - I'll play after you in the turn order from here while there's a potential for a double move mattering. Thanks for resolving this - I just want to play Civ with a fast turn pace and don't want to be on either side of clock games.

The first person to attack here will cede the city to the other. I'm pretty sure we both want to raze it, him to deny me a free settler, and me to replace it to grab gems. However, I'm paranoid that LP might actually keep this as a forward base for aggression, so I decided to delay the issue for at least a turn and move 1 NW. His move.



There's an interesting city management puzzle at our new city of Harding. This city has virtually no commerce potential, but is also a little short on food with only 1 food resource. I think the smartest play here is to farm over all of the grasslands and mine over all of the hills. At size 9, the city can generate 20 hpt base. However, the nearest source of irrigation is miles away (pictured below). Until Civil Service, this city can not work any farms, so that begs the question, how do we improve these tiles? Placing down bare cottages is a no-go, they can only mature to 2-0-4 tiles pre-PP and also block irrigation. There are plenty of hills to mine, but not enough food to work all of them while still growing. I think growing onto the bare grassland forest tiles is the best bet, until civil service. This let's us skimp on worker activity in the North and once we get CS, I intend to chop out a swarm of workers to spread irrigation to the north.



Here is the north, the black dots are tiles that need to be farmed to spread irrigation, this is a serious undertaking, but once fully improved the cities of Malacandra, Animal Farm and Harding will compose the industrial heartland of the Great Utopian State.



Our next city after cows/FP will go here. IC trade routes are awesome, decreasing our dependency on foreign income. I think this is where Moai will go, two forests to chop and the GL copper get us part of the way there and after that I guess it's just slowbuild. The city does not have a lot of good tiles to work that aren't coast, and the potential to build it in an ok time frame make Moai seem natural here. Thoughts, Mindy?



Barb city discovered a little while ago, what are your thoughts on capturing it? I'm kind of on the fence, on one hand it's a decent location and comes with a free worker, but on the other it may antagonize Molach and it's not exactly defensible from a determined assault.



The marked tile would make a good filler city, splits food from the capital and picks up some of it's own grassland. Farm a couple of tiles, chop a granary and this can be a very productive site. Considering the close proximity to the capital, this should get settled sooner rather than later.



As according to the plan, we hired 3 scientist specialists in Libria, this turn. It sure is fun to be SPI/PHI.



Overview of our civ, demos are shit right now because we're working a lot of non-rep specialists, but hopefully should improve as the new cities grow and our happy cap rises.

Any questions/comments?

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Ended up letting LP raze the city because I don't actually want to keep the city and if I had positioned myself for razing the city, LP could have sniped a worker. Course know he has a woody 2 axe which could be annoying, but I have a chariot or two in reserve if he gets frisky.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

My real life time is getting stretched again... no time for a report until this weekend. In short, we're doing pretty good. Tied for first in city count and about to go up to #1 once we capture the barb city. Easily 10 cities by t100. Our GNP is #4 at max tax, the trade off is that we're #6 in food. Once all of our cities start growing and we fire all of the specialists, I expect to get up to tops in food. Monarchy is a 5-turn tech pre-academy, should be able to knock out monarcy-math-currency-IW-alphabet in 30ish turns, maybe a little less. Score is crap, but at this stage in the game that doesn't matter. Need more workers though.