[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

Yeah, I figured you'd be happy I haven't abandoned it, just shelved it. I may still make a play for it later if it isn't taken early. One thing about wonder plans is that they tend to distract me from the rest of the game, and this probably isn't the right time to make a focused play for Colossus. If I was Expansive and could REX with cheap granaries or Industrious and able to use the cheap forges (or even Imperialistic and able to produce cheap settlers), I think Colossus by t100 would be the right play. With PHI, your plan for an early academy is likely the better one.

Should we try to grab an early religion? Getting Monarchy fairly early would be nice, especially since we have wine already. Two paths to choose from (after Mysticism):
Meditation (123) => Priesthood (92) => Monarchy (462) = 677 beakers
Gives a 20% bonus for Writing and Code of Laws, prerequisite for Philosophy (with Drama or Code of Laws)
Unlocks monasteries and temples.

Polytheism (154) => Masonry (123) => Monotheism (184) => Monarchy (462) = 923 beakers
Gives a 20% bonus for Theology, prerequisite for Literature (with Aesthetics) and Construction (with Mathematics)
Unlocks quarries.

First path is far cheaper, obviously. The bonus on Writing is useful, but will only be worth around 16 base beakers. Second path gives us a better chance of getting a religion, although I'm not sure how much I care about that. If I find marble somewhere reasonably close, second path looks a little more promising as I'll already have progressed two techs towards Literature and the national Epic.

Other early tech priorities:
- I'll want Animal Husbandry, Writing, Mathematics and Currency fairly soon
- I think I can postpone Sailing for a bit, work boats can manage early naval exploration decently
- Iron Working doesn't seem very important, unless my copper is somehow hidden away
- Construction will be important if things start heating up, I'm guessing that won't be until t60 at least
- Calendar is not critical, only gives me one happy face (that I can see) and a very low percentage shot at MoM

Rough draft of tech plan, subject to change:
Bronze Working => Wheel => Hunting => Pottery => Mysticism => Polytheism => Masonry => Monotheism => Animal Husbandry => Writing => Monarchy => Mathematics => Currency => Sailing => Calendar

If I manage to grab Hinduism I'll move Writing back to right after Polytheism, need to figure out when I want my first library.

[Catwalk]

We can get Meditation on t49 (maybe t48 with extra fiddling) or Polytheism on t50. Or we can research Mysticism and then hold off on getting a religion until we know which one of the early ones fell. The risk here is that we might not see anyone getting an early religion before t55 or so, and then we could end up losing both. Going for it right away doesn't delay anything crucial, we won't be needing AH right away and I probably won't start building a library right away either. We have strong early commerce, I think we can afford a small gamble here.

[Catwalk]

With Colossus being off the table for now, I'm pondering a GP plan centered around trade missions. Once my capital is set up at size 8 or so with an academy, a library and a monastery, extra gold has very large value to me. Setting the research bonus at an average of 25% (20% prereq for all techs past the first ones, 40% for some of them and neighbour bonuses on occasion), that means extra gold is converted to beakers at a rate of 2.3:1 in my capital. Since the bureaucracy bonus is multiplicative (unlike most bonuses in the game), I think I'll realistically be looking at a conversion rate of 2.5:1 by that time, taking into account that not all commerce will come from my capital (3.45:1 if the capital was the only source). This means that a trade mission worth 900 gold (lowest amount possible) will give me 2250 beakers in fairly short order. During the turns that I'm burning through massive gold reserves, I can set my capital for max commerce output and work cottages + silk only. During other turns, I can help the capital grow and run a grass hill mine or two for some development, while other cities work its cottages. It seems to me that this is a far more valuable use for great persons than any other alternative. I like using a golden age to avoid anarchy turns, but other than that I doubt golden ages will be worth more than trade missions, given these multipliers.

One problem with this plan is that I'll be short on merchant slots. Only way to get them early on is the 2 I get from a market, unless I'm willing to run Caste System. I think Caste will be inferior to Slavery for quite some time, and by the time I'll want to use it I probably won't need it. Other sources of merchant slots are grocers (2 slots) and Wall Street (3 slots). Temple of Artemis would give me 2 MGPP and 3 PGPP, that could come in handy to spawn a prophet eventually for a shrine to put here. It's usually low priority so I may have a chance at it if I find marble, although an IND player may decide to pick it up just because. The merchant city will have a total gold bonus of +215%, and a base income of 22 from specialists alone (if I work the full 7 merchants and put Temple of Artemis there). Add 20 gpt from a shrine and I'm looking at 132 gpt, disregarding commerce. This will require a very food heavy site, though. 3 food resources for a total surplus of 12 food would be much preferred, else I can't capitalize on additional merchant slots later.

EDIT: Whoops, can only build a shrine in holy cities. I'd have to rely on quite a bit of luck to land it there, pretty much the only way would be to grab an early religion and settle the merchant city as my first one. Given the lack of food we've seen so far, that seems unlikely to happen. If I settle it as my 2nd expansion, I have a decent chance if I whip my first expansion down to size 1 and grow the 2nd expansion to at least size 2. Probably won't be realistic, but worth keeping in mind if a good candidate appears.

EDITSOMEMORE: Hmm!

This is really not that terrible a pink dot, it's 2 tiles from my capital borders and 5 tiles from his. The bananas and pigs are equi-distant between us, with the bananas being closer to me and the pigs being closer to him. Given that there seems to be a bunch of jungle over there, it doesn't look like this is his favourite spot anyway. The bananas work perfectly here, given that I don't need them anytime soon but it's excellent to have them available later when I want to work 7 merchants. Micro-wise it's not a good plan, but I think the long-term value might be worthwhile. This also plants a holy city in Jowy's face, ensuring me cultural control over our border. I don't have him pegged for early warfare, although his combo is somewhat ambiguous. FIN/IND strongly suggests builder mentality, Zulu suggests early harrassment. He doesn't even have Deer or Fur in his BFC, making the civ choice even more puzzling. While not amazing, he had Ottomans and Babylon available to him. Ottomans are all-round mediocre, but they have good starting techs and their UB and UU are at least somewhat useful. Babylon is also unimpressive, but they have good starting techs and their UU is useful for an early builder plan. I'm guessing he's a bit unfocused and not sure how he wants to play.

If Jowy decides to mess with me early on, I'll need axes. Impis go down fast to axes, I'm guessing 1 axe can easily take on 2 impis and 1 spear can take 2 chariots.

[Catwalk]

Turn 14
Copper is in! Neither one of us have it by our capital:

The yellow dot looks like a very appealing site for Jowy. I wonder where he moved his first scout, he'd have been golden if he'd moved his capital 2S or 2S1W. If he settles yellow dot and I settle pink dot, he could try for an opportunistic rush at my expansion. He'll be able to see its borders as soon as my first border pops, due to the GH immediately NW of yellow dot. If he does, I'll either need to settle my own copper at blitz speed somehow and get an axe there fast, or I'll need to research Archery.

I've updated a tentative dotmap for the eastern territories. One big problem with it is that I won't be getting the copper anytime soon. I could move the red dot SE and remove blue dot, that would take away 2 tiles of cottage support for the capital. Even I do that, Jowy will likely beat me to copper by several turns (provided he settles yellow dot). I decided to offer him peace and move my scout to the corn tile. Hopefully he will interpret that as a gesture of goodwill, realizing that I could screw up his early micro but decided against it. That alone might be enough to make him decide against rushing me, but I wouldn't want to bet the game on it. I'm guessing he'll settle the copper on t36 at the earliest, which means it'd take him 7 turns to hook up the copper with one worker. He'd also need to road 3 tiles to connect with his capital, and he'd probably want to hook up the cows first. Let's say copper will be connected on t45, and he whips out an impi on t46. My scout can feasibly return to scout all of my eastern territories first, then go back and check out his expansion plans.
EDIT: I think there's a good chance he'll think I have copper hooked up since I'm going for Bronze Working early (shown to him through revolting to Slavery). He may even think my first expansion grabs copper, in case he hasn't scouted in my direction yet. That may help convince him that stomping on my expansion is unlikely to succeed, potentially coupled with a little bit of gratitude for not stepping on his food.
EDITAGAIN: He accepted peace as expected, my scout is free to move west now.


Rest of the dots are unchanged. Tentative expansion plan:
1) Pink dot, hoping to time it with Meditation. One road will be needed for capital connection. I won't have Animal Husbandry on time, which sucks a bit. Main problem here is that it's likely that at least one other player is planning on making his first expansion a holy city and my expansion will likely be a turn or two late. On the other hand, research is likely to be the main bottleneck here. Results so far show that I can get it t40.
2) Red dot, moved 1S1E.
I'll need extra roads for this one, and the dry rice is unappealing. I'm considering planting on the rice as planned and chopping a monument right away, although that will delay copper access for at least 12t. That's making early defenses rather perilous if Jowy decides to mess with me. On the other hand, I could build the needed roads while waiting for culture. This one will work out fine long-term, if only I can make sure copper arrival won't be too late.
EDIT: Nope, no roads needed. Forgot about coast access.
3) Brown dot.
This is still a solid expansion, and delaying it means I won't be needing Hunting quite so soon.
4) West.
Probably somewhere towards those grass cows if I see more good stuff.

[haphazard1]

I get busy with family and holidays for a bit, and I miss the first war of the game.

Interesting copper locations. The dry rice tile is such a nice spot otherwise, but having the copper in the second ring...ouchie. Tough decision to make there.

On great person percentages, I seem to recall that they are not based off the total number of points of each type but rather from the total number of "source-turns" of each type. So one turn with a wonder (say 2 Merchant GPP) and an engineer (3 Engi GPP) ends up giving 50-50 odds for merchant or engineer, not 60% merchant/40% engineer. (Assuming you had both sources for the entire time needed to reach the GPP threshold.) But I may be mis-remembering...it has been a while since I calculated a great person to that level of detail.

Iron Working will be necessary once you expand to the east and want to improve the banana. Or if you need an alternative to your copper location. Otherwise not crucial for a while. As always, there are so many other things that are more urgent at this stage of the game.

[Catwalk]

I recall something to that effect about GPP, but never quite understood it. This thread by Kylearan confirms your claim:

You hire a priest specialist for 22 turns. Then you fire him, and hire two scientist specialists for 11 turns.
...
the odds will be 22/33 = 67% for a great prophet and 11/33=33% for a great scientist instead, because you had 22 turns with only great prophet sources and 11 turns with only great scientist sources.

This makes Temple of Artemis slightly more likely to generate a merchant, and lets a shrine work harder to generate a prophet. I may want to work an engineer in my merchant city too. It gives me one extra slot long before I have a grocer, and it gives me two or three chances of fostering a great engineer to build Taj Mahal for me. Then again, I'm not really planning on a golden age strategy. Any other mid-game wonders I'm not seeing? Only the early game wonders seem useful to me with this plan. I might work a priest instead until I have a shrine, though. Should I bother with more scientists, once I have my academy? Settling scientists in the capital might not be so bad: With a monastery, library and academy I'll be getting 11 bpt from it. And if I'll be bulbing, scientists are definitely the best choice. Until I get at least a grocer, the gold multiplier won't be that significant anyway. On the other hand, spending the resources on a library there that I won't really be needing is also not ideal. Caste System is starting to look better...

Interesting copper locations. The dry rice tile is such a nice spot otherwise, but having the copper in the second ring...ouchie. Tough decision to make there.

Yeah, I really don't know. My instincts tell me that Jowy won't mess with me early on, and I think I'm willing to gamble on that. My scout will be back to tell me more about the copper location before it's time to decide though, maybe the lands will make the decision for us.

Iron Working will be necessary once you expand to the east and want to improve the banana. Or if you need an alternative to your copper location. Otherwise not crucial for a while. As always, there are so many other things that are more urgent at this stage of the game.

If I go for one of the locations that lets me grab pigs, I don't think it's critical to get IW early on. I'll have +8 food early on, and working the bananas would require Calendar as well for the plantation. I'll likely get Calendar and Iron Working back to back.

[Catwalk]

All my micro plans for grabbing the food site first with a religion are terrible. As much as I'd like a holy city there, the long-term loss of a production setback is unlikely to be compensated by a much, much later shrine. If I continue with my previous plan to first go for the deer site and then the copper site, I should be able to make an aggressive plant on Jowy that grabs all 3 food resources safely. I'd need to get culture the hard way with a monument, which makes me keener on getting first ring pigs.

So that's 2 bold plans scrapped now, maybe I'll end up playing as originally intended and just do a conventional game without bells and whistles

[Catwalk]

Turn 15
The jungle between us and Jowy is fertile:

I like how this works out strategically: We're encouraged to fight for the land in between us, but getting there early would mean a setback. I'd say Jowy has a slight advantage here, as the resources are 1 tile closer to him and he can make a viable early expansion on the eastern banana. He has extra food right away, a strong pig tile and 3 rear grass tiles to survive on until he gets Iron Working. I don't think he'd do this super early, but I can see him considering it as his 3rd or 4th expansion. It makes me lean more towards settling my food city NE of cows rather than N of them, to make sure I get first ring control of the pigs. I suppose his slight advantage is offset by him having jungle much closer to his capital than I do.

I'm planning on moving back with my scout now. I'm considering moving NE for a few turns first, as I'd still be able to return in time to make settling decisions.

My city is no longer revolting and the fish have been netted:

I got 2 overflow hammers as planned, letting me whip the worker in 4t. For any interested lurkers, was this WB/whip start the right choice? I could have settled on the PH instead and worked a 3/1 deer. But had I done that, I'd either be unable to improve it for a long time (BW => Hunting) or waste several worker turns after improving it (Hunting => BW). I may have dismissed this option too soon, but it felt suboptimal to me.

I'm considering making the deer city my GP farm if I find seafood down there. With clams or crabs it'd only have a food surplus of +8 without extra farms, but that'd be enough to feed specialists for quite some time. It's inferior to the other location, but I'd be able to put a religion there very early and it'd likely be a much safer spot to hide my assets in. Also makes it safer to delay my copper connection for a little while.

[haphazard1]

Gems...potentially interesting for the non-expiring happiness plus commerce. Heavily jungled area, though, and Jowy may make a move on them first.

For the scout, a few more turns NE-ish probably is not worth it. If you had more time so you could go far enough to meet another rival, that would be useful. But for only a few I think you are correct to bring it back and explore the area closer to you, hopefully finding something else useful near the rice and copper.

A plains hill for the capital is always nice when you can get it -- it is worth a fair bit, as was discussed on the strategy thread. But with your starting techs going for the coastal start and fish was the way I would have chosen. Being FIN also makes the coastal start more attractive.

[Catwalk]

Thanks for the input haphazard1, a few more questions for you
1) What do you think about the GM farm plan? Both the basics of it and my thoughts about location (main site by Jowy and backup site by deer), including hopes for a holy city and shrine.
2) What's your threat assessment of Jowy? How much military will I need at what point?
3) How would your dotmap look:

4) Generally speaking (without sandboxing), how would you prioritize between growth, expansion and getting a granary in the first 40-50 turns?