[SPOILERS] joey and scooter's thread: FUN THINGS ONLY

[GermanJoey]

Some news in the west: TBS has 3 cities, each of them with a strong food source. That's a grassland forest deer there, and a grassland riverside sheep. He's also got a stone right nearby, how convenient for him!



In domestic news, Zoo just whipped considerable hammers into overflow (into a library); its granary whip unhappiness will wear off just in time for it to hit size 3. The warrior moved away from Cops (1N, which is fogged); Cops will have the hammers to finish the rax next turn, meaning it'll get a border expansion on turn 61. Zoo actually only grabs 5 additional forests with this, by the way, because Carnival's borders will expand next turn and grab 2 of the previously specified 7.

[GermanJoey]

Time for an overview I guess.



Carnival is working the Spices instead of the cottage because it gives us some better whip options. We currently have 42h invested in a Settler, and we'll get 7f+5h per turn, working the spices+cottage, while building it at size 4. Had we kept working the cottage, the warrior would complete in 2 turns with 1h overflow, but with the spices we'll get 3h overflow. Thus, putting 2 turns of production into the settler will bring it to 69/100, enabling us to 2-pop whip for 19h+11h overflow, or to switch the cottage to a forest on the second turn to get 70/100 production and 1-pop whip it to completion. Not sure which is better; I want another worker but I want more settlers too... at any rate, I should use the new worker from Zoo to mine one of those bare hills to improve our pumping efficiency. I want to get improvements done now because as soon as math finishes, all of our workers will just be chopping for quite a while.

Zoo is now recovering from that extremely painful single-whip - but hey, if we wanna move the Palace, we need LOTS of extra hammers for that in addition to basic infrastructure, and Zoo just doesn't have that many trees... a sacrifice of our horizontal growth spurt... The city will roll off its unhappiness just in time to hit lvl 4 and single-chop the library to completion when Math finishes, and then use another chop on a Hammam. A big question here is: do we want to use the library to start working scientists now, or do we want to get another library somewhere else soon? If the former, I feel like we should plant at least one (or more) peripheral city to start helping with cottage growth. So many cities I want to plant... currency next is looking more attractive... wish we had some furs or ivory though.

Cops switched to the 3h tile this turn so that, with the chop, it will complete its production of the barracks next turn. I think this was a mistake, I shoulda had it finish this turn. Alas. Next up will be a warrior, before the granary, which will upgrade to spearman mid-production when the copper is hooked up in 3 turns.

[GermanJoey]

TBS has horses! Looks like just connected, too. Soon the [GENERIC NATIVE TRIBE NAME]'s warriors will be gracefully riding across the plains...

[GermanJoey]

By the way, are you still with me here scooter? Been awhile since you poked your head in...

[GermanJoey]

Upcoming Micro plans, because I love typing words so goddamn much:

• Carnival wants to get another settler, a worker, and then a Hammam. Then more workers and settlers. We need so many settlers... How best to do this in the short term though? If we single-pop whip the settler on T55 (after letting the city bank food first), then overflow + production + expansive bonus means we could single-pop the worker on T57. However, at that point we'd be whipping away a mine, which is strong tile when producing workers. Hmmm... I guess we don't really need the worker until T58, so we could burn a turn regrowing to size 4 before the whip again.
  
  
• Zoo is going to grow to 4 pop; it remains size 2 next turn (23/24 food ), but would spend only 1 turn at size 3 if we were to work max food. Unfortunately, although the granary whip unhappiness will wear off in time, 5 turns of unhappiness from the worker will remain at that point. So, I think the thing to do is switch the sheep for the mine next turn, and then pick up a cottage instead of the sheep at size 3. 4 hammers a turn for 6 turns is enough to hit 56/90 for the library, at which point Mathematics should be done, and a chop on the same turn will both complete it and let it hit size 4. At that point, another chop can go right into the Hammam, and another will finish it and then overflow into the palace.
  
  
• Cops is easy. It'll hit size 2 in a few turns, at which point it will work the sheep and the copper and just puke out units (spears/axes/workers) as fast as it can with the help of chops. No whips, not really gonna grow much quickly. Just matter-of-fact. I think spear -> axe -> worker -> worker -> settler might be the way to go here, although planning production that far in advance is often a waste of time.
  

That leaves where to settle the 4th and 5th cities. Our current plan is to settle below the crab, to secure it and the corn. Our scout will reveal more about this location next turn. Settling aggressive against Native America can pay off because they're very difficult to invade because of their totem poles; we should try to get as much land as we can and then be happy with it for awhile. However, we also have additional pressing domestic needs:

• Our long-term plan is to turn Zoo into a commerce monster, but we're not developing cottages around it with helper cities. The super-floodplain is about 13T from a village (can't remember off the top of my head), and we have one other that's about to be a hamlet and... that's it. A couple completely unworked cottages. We want this thing HUGE by the time bureau hits. Cities to the North (4 tiles) and South (5 tiles) of it would be excellent helpers and still turn into respectable cities in their own right.
  
  
• Our neighbor can build Dog Soldiers and yet we don't have horses hooked up. Because of Cops' barracks and the fact that we're aggressive, we get very slight odds against him in the field if he has unpromoted dogs with shock axes right outta the gate, but not if he builds a barracks too. Maybe a horses-city can wait? I'm afraid of getting choked by a small stack of effectively impossible to kill units, but maybe I'm over-blowing the threat. I think in a big FFA like this, it would be foolish to declare war unless you can very swiftly eliminate an enemy. We should probably still grab archery soon just in case; dogs may rule on the field but just can't handle a barrage deadly arrows. (this turns out to be true for dogs in general, not just in civ4)
  
  
• I feel like control of the water will turn out to be very important, and it would be good to get some culture out there. At least to assert enough control of the first-ring seafood that people on the opposite side of the channel will be deterred from trying to steal it.
  

It is difficult to balance short-term and long-term plans here. My head feels like a more conservatively placed settlement may be a smarter play, but my gut says that the bolder move is better in the long run. Thank god we'll have math soon, we need that hammer bonus so badly...

[Ceiliazul]

We should probably still grab archery soon just in case; dogs may rule on the field but just can't handle a barrage deadly arrows. (this turns out to be true for dogs in general, not just in civ4)

i'm still reading and loving it. But how did 'cops' become a 'fun thing'?

[GermanJoey]

Didn't you ever play cops and robbers as a kid?? But now that I think about it a little more, Cops n' Rubbers, well... maybe too much of a stretch, in more ways than one...

[GermanJoey]

How about "Petting Zoo" ? That's more like unambiguous fun for the whole family... but then we already have a zoo... what else can you do that's fun with sheep...?

My yet-to-be-unveiled naming scheme in PB20 will be so much easier to deal with....

[GermanJoey]

I decided on "Cedar Point", not only in honour of the acres of beautiful cedar forests in the surroundings, but also for the vast swathes of parking lot that the theme park is known for that our land here will soon resemble.



In other news: RIP scout. Had to move him away from 2 lions on his first move! Also, feeling much more bullish on that plains hill... 3 food tiles, tons of production, YOWZA! want that spot!

[Ceiliazul]

full health scout? might just survive...