[SPOILER] Cornflakes brings the popcorn

[Cornflakes]

Whipped the settler this turn, because the river does prevent road movement through Elephant Just barely had enough hammers to make it a 1-pop whip. Overflow will go into Granary. I'm completely past the point of my simming now, and flying by the seat of my pants. And that's probably how most of the game will be. I will sim out the first 20 turns or so of each new city when after it is founded, but not much more unless I'm trying to snatch a wonder.




City will go to the southwest. Road will be completed just in time




Jowy founded 3rd city this turn. Or maybe last turn, because I don't check the diplo windows every turn. He is the only one at 3. I will plan my 3rd with that settler on T44 (3 turns from now)




Scout died on the turn roll due to my stupidity I have him orders to move 2 tiles right off the bat instead of moving 1-at-a-time (he is/was Woody II). Had vision of the barb after the first move, and then just continued on as ordered




Hmmm ... what will Jowy do? My guess is that his borders pop and kick my warrior out, thus preventing Jowy from having to make a decision. If not, and he just covers the two workers do I take the 50/50 shot at them and ruining his game? He is the farthest from me on the map, which means the hardest for him to get revenge in the short term but also least benefit to me from a weaker Jowy. I think I'll just play Mr. Nice Guy even if the workers are un-covered and hope he notices that for the +1 diplo point. I'd just have to delete them if I captured them. [EDIT: dont those workers look like they are just fortified/sleeping there?]

[spacetyrantxenu]

Sometimes I see rival workers looking like they're loafing around like those two even when the mouse over interface shows they're actively performing a worker action. Not sure why the (in)animation doesn't match though.

[Cornflakes]

[...] My early game will be focussed on not settling up on neighbors and not sniping workers, declaring to scout borders/sit on resources, and in general making myself as non-pain-in-the-rear as possible. [...]

I will not be sniping those workers even if left un-defended.

[TheHumanHydra]

Hello, Cornflakes. Just curious as to why you wanted to one-pop-whip the settler instead of two (I'm not saying you're wrong - what do I know? - but I always try to double-whip for more hammers for the happiness hit).

[Cornflakes]

Hello, Cornflakes. Just curious as to why you wanted to one-pop-whip the settler instead of two (I'm not saying you're wrong - what do I know? - but I always try to double-whip for more hammers for the happiness hit).

That is actually a good question. Here is my thinking: I am not worried about happiness in this case because +1 from CHA +1 from Elephant (why do I always call it Elephant instead of Ivory?) give me a large happy cap to work with early. I am going to whip Newton next turn, and have Newton work Cow + Clam and shift that 3rd citizen at Genesis from mine to Pig. So I wanted to be at 3 pop after the settler was born. I could have whipped a turn earlier for 2-pop, but would still have settled on the same turn due to the road not finishing in time and then would not yet have regrown to size 3. Like I said above, I did not sim this to see if it actually come out ahead ... In my head the 30H from whipping is inferior to whipping off the elephant ... I'm planning to put the overflow into a Granary and grow until size 5, then put a turn into worker and 2-pop whip and overflow to complete the Granary. Whipping earlier would also slow down this growth back before re-whipping.

Also, the absence of Granary makes whipping less powerful (right?). After the Granary it probably would be more efficient to just whip off the Elephant. But I don't have any actual numbers to back this up.

[TheHumanHydra]

Fair enough, thanks for the answer!

[Cornflakes]

Fair enough, thanks for the answer!

Thanks for the question! I'm not being nearly as thorough in this game as in PB9 with explaining everything, and explaining helps me think through whether I'm really doing things efficiently.

[Cornflakes]

More news on the northern front: Retep settled on Gems. That Gems tile had a Jungle on it, and there's no way Retep has IW yet to chop it. My guess is that he planned and failed to found a religion there, because he's SPI and hasn't swapped to the religion yet. And I can't think of any reason not to swap to a religion (unless he's trying to hide the fact that it was him). I think he tried for it because of the 2nd-ring Fish and Pigs.

Teaser ... I'm working on a plan to 1-turn Stonehenge about 6 turns from now.

[Cornflakes]

So 9 turns from now I can get Stonehenge 2-turned, one turn earlier with 13-hammers, and the the remaining 107 on the 2nd turn. If Stonehenge falls then I take my 13 failgold and put that overflow into a settler instead.

T48 Worker
T49 Stonehenge Put in 13H
T50 Whip Granary Work Pigs again
T51 Whip Worker Work Wheat + Elephant
T52 Overflow 60H into Stonehenge + 2 chops

[Qgqqqqq]

You could always work the mine instead of the PFH

Where does this leave you vis a vis border with Retep?
I suppose it depends greatly on how soon you move north, but regardless you probably have to cede the pigs/fish to him. So, 1SE of the Rice? I could also see 1S to share the wheat, but that raises dotmap issues (I can't remember previously, but gut says you'd want a city on the plains hill).

Of course, if you want to be more aggressive/want to snag marble, that's a different story. But that's what I'd be looking at, given that he's pushing rather aggressively your way.