[Spoilers] Adrien and Mardoc relax and play civ

[Mardoc]

Actually a religion would likely spawn in Stegosaur because it would be the biggest city outside the cap

Yeah...it's just that when you multiply together 'might get religion' with 'likely where we want it' and put it up against 'must have 2nd ring tile improved before anyone gets any crazy ideas', I start to get antsy.

But then I guess it's probably not any worse than gambling our settler on a 95% lion battle. The chance of Fenn or Jowy invading us before we know what happens in the religion race is low. They don't even know where we are yet, and religion isn't *that* far out. If we're not willing to take the good-odds risks, we're doomed in the long run anyway. So I'll wait to build a monument and hope we don't have to.

[Mardoc]

Ran into the intersection of Jowy's borders and the sea, so our warrior won't be doing a loop of his capital after all. I've got him coming homeward, by way of the northern coast.

Our scout is going south along Fenn's eastern border, then he'll turn toward Jowy again to hopefully prove one way or the other if this is a 3-man continent or bigger.

At home, we've got our third settler completing EOT. I'm planning to send him to the M2 site. We'll need to pause for another worker or two, and another warrior or two, then our third settler will head for the ?, I think.




After that, I'm not sure. Still haven't found the time to think through a dotmap in the SE direction, but I'm pretty sure that direction should be our priority.

[Mardoc]

Fenn built the Henge.

May as well show my scouting of his lands, this is probably the most we'll see of him unless we declare war or get a map trade




Between Henge and our settler whip, demos look bad at the moment. REX means we have lots of potential, though! Surprisingly, despite the whip, we're very competitive in crop yield.




I was debating whether I wanted to go for another settler next, or another worker. Then I looked at the top of the screen again. Wheel is almost here. That's going to change the worker situation from 'adequate, given our limitations' to 'what the heck is your problem, Mardoc?'. An absolutely minimal road network, just connecting the cities, silver, fur, and next city site, requires 8 roads. All eight are on slow terrain (no surprise given the map) so that's 24 worker turns - in addition to what we need to try to keep up with city growth. More if we want to connect any non-happy resources

And it's not like our workers ever need to be bored. If we get ahead on tile improvements, there are tons and tons of forests to chop.

So, yeah. Worker next. Probably worker again after that, unless I'm ready to have the city grow. Stegosaur should build a worker, too. Given a little delay, and a surging workforce, maybe we can consider a settler again once we hit six workers.

[AdrienIer]

I agree with building more workers but we should time it to have a chop ready right after the last worker to try and 2t a settler. Actually is the cap still size 2 ? If so growing would be a good idea. How many warriors do we have ?

[Mardoc]

Four warriors. I think that's adequate, presuming neither Jowy nor Fenn goes aggressive this early, but I'll stick some more in queues as needed for growth/regrowth. I've now spotted a barb warrior (by Fenn). I don't think I'll be building any more scouts, but I may take a surplus warrior to finish scouting our continent if anything eats our scout.

I waited one turn on the cap, so a chop went into a worker instead of warrior, then put it on a warrior to regrow at least one pop. My only real concern in regrowing more is whether I can keep ahead of the cities demand for improved tiles - already have Triceratops stealing the furs until I can get the Pigs improved. That said, either growth or worker-building for the time being, should get us out of that hole pretty quickly.

I've got a first draft dotmap to run by you.

First up, toward Jowy. If we can grab all three of these cities, we've got the second ring and he does not. They're all on hills, and none press up against his current BFC's, so I think it can be a stable border once established.

I'd love to push a little further if possible, but we'd be antagonizing an Agg civ early, so it's a risk. OTOH, he's Agg/Fin, therefore he has nothing to hurry a start but will be scary later if we let him be equal size. The most likely spots for 'a little further' in my opinion are the plains hill 3E of Alt-C, and the plains hill 2E of the pig.



To the south, I'm leaving a bit more room, because Fenn doesn't even have a first city toward us yet. And he's Pro/Exp, so we're not likely to be able to push quite as much anyway.



Backlines hasn't really changed, but maybe something in the forward settling plan will affect these dots? I don't see anything but maybe the horse site that's more urgent than the six cities toward the foes. I'd want to start with the four inland cities in that line. If we can get those, the coastal sites are probably ours as well - either immediately, or with limited galley-wars. That also lets us delay Fishing-Sailing for a while.



Thoughts? It's definitely early enough that we can shuffle around some of our dots. I do think it's important to plant the forward cities on hills, but that's not much of a constraint on this map.

Demos are still a bit stunted, but should be improving shortly - just as soon as I can get tiles improved, we can work them.

[AdrienIer]

I like the dotmap, I was thinking of moving the city 1E of pigs 1S in the second shot but I think Fenn will get a city N of his fur soon so we'll never get the sheep.

[Mardoc]

Jowy's about to join the three-city club. Fenn's still at 2 for now.




Doesn't invalidate our dotmap, but we will likely be fighting for the pig. I don't think I want to move our city in response.

I do think that this means we have to settle toward Jowy first. We're at four workers, with two in queue, so I'll be putting another settler in queue shortly.

[AdrienIer]

So we'd found the "?" spot next ?

[Mardoc]

Hmm. I'm torn between that and the 'c' to the south of it. I don't think Jowy will plant anything that invalidates the '?' site, while I could imagine him wanting a city between the lakes for deer/copper. Plus that would get us first-ring copper, in a way that Jowy would *know* we have copper.

It's not like we'll likely be building any culture in our fourth city immediately, so that wouldn't decrease our chance of pigs.

But I think the ? is a somewhat stronger/faster-starting city, and snowball is worth something in itself.

I really ought to go through the signs and change all the 'c's to unique names, to aid in discussion.

[AdrienIer]

I agree, those where my thoughts too (except for the part about not really delaying the pigs due to having no culture, good thinking there). "?" does have 2 food resources, and will grow fast. How about getting 2 settlers in a row there ?