[Spoilers] PBEM 62 - Ichabod's Thread, feat. Mardoc and retep

[Qgqqqqq]

Sorry to hear about that incident, sounds horrifying!

Wow, I can't believe I never noticed you were doing a tea theme - I did that back in the Demogame, actually (changing from the bizarre setup Tasunke had going). Hopefully you'll get more cities then I ever managed, to show off the scheme.

I've have to say, my favorite is probably still English Breakfast (which is missing! But I've heard IB is very similar), but I had the fortune of going to China this year, and had a tea ceremony there. We brought home a tea which I'm struggling to remember its name right now, but which was slightly sweet and served with dessert.

Oh and my sister swears by Red Bush.

[Ichabod]

Sorry to hear about that incident, sounds horrifying!

Wow, I can't believe I never noticed you were doing a tea theme - I did that back in the Demogame, actually (changing from the bizarre setup Tasunke had going). Hopefully you'll get more cities then I ever managed, to show off the scheme.

I've have to say, my favorite is probably still English Breakfast (which is missing! But I've heard IB is very similar), but I had the fortune of going to China this year, and had a tea ceremony there. We brought home a tea which I'm struggling to remember its name right now, but which was slightly sweet and served with dessert.

Oh and my sister swears by Red Bush.

Thanks, Q

I was going to use English Breakfast, but it's a bit too long to fit properly.

A trip to China sounds awesome. Recently, it has really grown on my "where to go" list. The problem is that the list never gets shortened, because I never travel anywhere.

I had never heard of Red Bush before. Pretty interesting, I'll try to find somewhere to taste it.

[Ichabod]

We got the Mids and we revolted to Representation, because the Capital woul be unhappy this turn, otherwise.




We settle our eighth city, Masala Chai. We were always calling this city Marble City, so now it remains MC. The next ones will use the names suggested by Molach and Q.




This city will get religion soon. OT finishes the spear with 6 overflow and it'll get 10 hammers the next two turns, for a 2t missionary. We really need to pop borders here, so I'm prioritizing this city.

I wonder what we want to do with this city? Cottage it? Make it a hammer city? It'll be really powerful either way. Any suggestions? I'm thinking cottages.

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Overview shots (after ending turn):







*I started a library in LS and I plan to farm most of the remaining grassland of it. I think this city doesn't have cottage potential, since EG will get the best cottages, and it'll do better with production + specialists. Besides, those farms will help with chain irrigation. We'll need CS before we can improve most of it, though.

*I think I'll whip the library in IB for 1-pop when it reaches size 7, because I think it'd otherwise work an unimproved tile. We'll see, I'll think a bit more about it. I'm also thinking of cottaging that riverside grass hill, because this'll be a commer city.

*What cities do we want the Rep bonus in? And is there a way to control it? I guess just growing one city more than the others... Interesting that the happiness from Rep will be incredibly valuable here, since the map is pretty happy starved.

*I set Maths to finish in 5 turns, because I want to start chopping forests after 5 turns. I'm still thinking if I want to go for TGLh, probably in OT. Would the forests there be put to good use building it?

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City "micro":






















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Demographics (after ending turn):

[Ichabod]

No turn since the last one, so no update.

I'm thinking of getting an axe or spear in PPM next, to put in Milk. I'm worried about Commodore deciding to attack us, since we have a good lead right now. I also want a chariot from that city to explore the bits of land still not revealed.

I'm thinking of how to settle our East... I'll make a post about it soon. Next city should probably go to our south. We still have a city to the North and 2 more island cities to settle (one of them in the waters in OT and IB, because THH lost his port there). With 3 island cities, TGLh seems very good. Problem is finding time to build it... And the resources too. IB could do it pretty fast, but I want missionaries, workers and units from there.

Interesting decision. I think TGLh would give us a boost in commerce, which is what we need. We already have a big CY advantage and a small one in prod. I guess using this advantage to create a commerce one right now is useful (which will be big with the islands we can get). Probably the key thing is that, as far as I can tell, we are the only civ that would gain something by getting the Lighthouse. I don't think Commodore has a lot of coastal cities and the other players don't have a lot of cities. So, we can take our time building it, after more pressing concerns. What this means is that I think I'll get a missionary and a worker from OT, then I'll think about building TGLh there.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

FYI, the rep bonus is in your x biggest cities (4 for this map size?) It is done on population number, and if there is more than 1 city at the size that would get the last bonus it goes to the city that grew to that size first, or the oldest city if they grew the same turn. Leads to interesting situations, where whipping a city can cause it to become unhappy because you lose the +3 faces.

[Mardoc]

We got the Mids and we revolted to Representation, because the Capital woul be unhappy this turn, otherwise.

Isn't Spi awesome? Glad to see we've already got a use for the Mids.

I wonder what we want to do with this city? Cottage it? Make it a hammer city? It'll be really powerful either way. Any suggestions? I'm thinking cottages.

Honestly, it depends on what the rest of the empire's doing. For instance - if we go for the Lighthouse, then we'll want a production city.

Actually, do we have a good production city, a Heroic Epic candidate? I don't really see one in the shots - LS seems the only possible one, and if we go that route, then the capital will be low-hammers. If not, then I'd vote hammers all the way. We've got time to develop a HE city, but not as much as it seems.

*I started a library in LS and I plan to farm most of the remaining grassland of it. I think this city doesn't have cottage potential, since EG will get the best cottages, and it'll do better with production + specialists. Besides, those farms will help with chain irrigation. We'll need CS before we can improve most of it, though.

Sounds good.

*I think I'll whip the library in IB for 1-pop when it reaches size 7, because I think it'd otherwise work an unimproved tile. We'll see, I'll think a bit more about it. I'm also thinking of cottaging that riverside grass hill, because this'll be a commer city.

I like the whip, now that it's grown. A 1-pop whip isn't as bad as usual because we can stop growth by hiring scientists - which we maybe-probably ought to do anyway.

*What cities do we want the Rep bonus in? And is there a way to control it? I guess just growing one city more than the others... Interesting that the happiness from Rep will be incredibly valuable here, since the map is pretty happy starved.

Earl Grey, of course.

Irish Breakfast, Peppermint, Oolong, and Masala Chai all seem like reasonable candidates to me as well.

It's not a permanent choice. We can switch cities any time we get an empire-wide happy boost, like right after Calendar. Or any time we're willing to whip down a city a bunch - lots of infrastructure can be a 3-pop or 4-pop reasonable whip. So I think the most important thing is that we start using it ASAP, and just pay a little attention to not switch cities accidentally.

Demographics (after ending turn):

Looking good

I'm thinking of getting an axe or spear in PPM next, to put in Milk. I'm worried about Commodore deciding to attack us, since we have a good lead right now. I also want a chariot from that city to explore the bits of land still not revealed.

Both seem good to me. Do we have graphs on Commodore yet? Do we have graphs on anyone?

Interesting decision. I think TGLh would give us a boost in commerce, which is what we need. We already have a big CY advantage and a small one in prod. I guess using this advantage to create a commerce one right now is useful (which will be big with the islands we can get). Probably the key thing is that, as far as I can tell, we are the only civ that would gain something by getting the Lighthouse. I don't think Commodore has a lot of coastal cities and the other players don't have a lot of cities. So, we can take our time building it, after more pressing concerns. What this means is that I think I'll get a missionary and a worker from OT, then I'll think about building TGLh there.

Hmm, interesting reasoning. I can agree that the Lighthouse would be nice, but at this point it's not necessary. We can convert food into beakers anytime now that we're in Rep with Writing - just need to whip a library and then run some scientists.

So I guess that means I agree with the proposed course of action. Go for the Lighthouse, but not until it's cheapish for us. For the moment, still push expansion to keep that crop yield and MFG high. We'll run out of room soon enough.

Besides, I still think it's too early to be concerned about GNP beyond 'don't crash'. It looks like we're keeping up with the neighbors. Given how straightforward it will be to swap to GNP via the Mids, I feel like we should be still pushing for more land at the moment. Add 15 bpt/city for emergency teching, and that's already 120 bpt - three times our current GNP. Even a less-focused approach to let some cities still grow will be a lot of GNP.

[Ichabod]

Nice thoughts, Mardoc. I agree that I have to resist the urge of "wasting" hammers on frivolous things, when we still have land to expand into. Now that our economy isn't crashing, we should focus to "crash it" a bit more. Otherwise, we'll give chance of others catching up. So, I'll focus on settling more cities with good support (decent defense, workers ready to improve, missionary to spread religion), so we can make our lead bigger.

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We have graphs on everyone but Dazed, we still have a few more turns to go for his graphs. That's because the only person that put EP against us was Commodore, so we got them pretty cheap. I'll post a round of graphs soon.

HE will be a difficult build, because we won't have the unit. We won't find enough barbs for it, so I guess we'll need a war. So, our first war won't have the HE hammers to help, unfortunately.

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Our best hammer city right now, IMO, is OT. Copper + cows + a decent number of hills. We can get decent production from LS, GT and PPM, if needed - still need a bit more improvements, though. If we focus on farming + mining these cities, we can use specialists while teching and mines when we need production, which seems pretty nice.

As for commerce cities, we have IB and EG. That leads me to think we need to cottage Masala Chai. Of course, with Corn and pigs, this city can get both, but I'd like to focus it more on commerce. This way, we'll have three strong commerce cities, which I believe is enough, since we have representation when we need.

So, since we won't have a very strong prodcution city, at least for now, we can make up for it with more farms than usual on our support cities, which we convert to hammer or specialists as needed.

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Regarding expansion, how do you think we should settle this land:




I like the idea of red circle being settled first. Yes, it's a very poor city, but here's the reasoning:

*It helps settling dark blue as a more integrated part of the empire. Light blue, the option if we only want one city on the region, doesn't have anything on the first ring and is very distant from our Civ, which is not good. It'd take ages to start producing something. With red already in place, dark blue could share some improvements and defenses.

*EG will reach happy cap soon, and I plan to stagnate it on cottages + mines. Fish + corn is too much food for Milk, so we can use the fish to support yet another city, while giving corn to Milk. Later, the red circle city would have rice to feed itself + coast and grasslands (it won't need much food resources, since all tiles are 2 food tiles).

After red circle, we prepare to settle dark blue and green circle gets settle when we can afford to.

I'd probably settle red circle with the 3rd next settler we produce. First one goes south, second one goes north, third one goes east. And we have a settler already in transit to the western island.

[Ichabod]

FYI, the rep bonus is in your x biggest cities (4 for this map size?) It is done on population number, and if there is more than 1 city at the size that would get the last bonus it goes to the city that grew to that size first, or the oldest city if they grew the same turn. Leads to interesting situations, where whipping a city can cause it to become unhappy because you lose the +3 faces.

Thanks for the info. I really need to take that into account when whipping, because my cities are all very similar in size. It's actually 5 cities for this map size, though it really seemed a bit much (I thought it would be just 4).

[Mardoc]

We have graphs on everyone but Dazed, we still have a few more turns to go for his graphs. That's because the only person that put EP against us was Commodore, so we got them pretty cheap. I'll post a round of graphs soon.

Ok, cool. Mostly what I want to know is whether anyone but Dazed/THH is building an army.

HE will be a difficult build, because we won't have the unit. We won't find enough barbs for it, so I guess we'll need a war. So, our first war won't have the HE hammers to help, unfortunately.

Ah, I forgot about that requirement. On top, given the way the game is going, there's a good chance our first war is our last war. If we do it properly we'll get a concession shortly afterward.

Count of commerce vs hammer cities

....

That leads me to think we need to cottage Masala Chai. Of course, with Corn and pigs, this city can get both, but I'd like to focus it more on commerce. This way, we'll have three strong commerce cities, which I believe is enough, since we have representation when we need.

Ok, that seems reasonable. I didn't have as good an idea as you do on our hammer/commerce balance, especially since most of our cities are still new.

Regarding expansion, how do you think we should settle this land:

I can see the case for red circle. I really don't like dark blue unless we need a canal to the Pindi-sea. Haven't scouted far enough south to know if there's a sea connection. But the cows are nearly the only tile in the area we really want to work; mountains and coasts and such aren't very enticing. I'd much rather something like 2NE of blue circle.

Of course, that all assumes that Pindicator doesn't grab the area first. I guess blue circle is worth settling if it's a border city. That's actually a really good defensive spot for us.

[Ichabod]

This discussion about where to settle made me realize that it's pretty important to get a border pop in Milk. It'll put the mountain in our borders, giving a lot of vision of the surroundings. Also, I need a chariot to explore that peninsula, so we can do a proper dotmap.

Can't wait for Maths. It'll really help us to get the units we need.