This is gonna be good: von Adlercreutz and Taotao

[taotao]

Thanks again for covering GJ!
Great work by the looks of it
Do you remember where we met Commodore btw? (even though that doesn't necessarily mean that much at this stage in the game).


Some quick comments on the general state first:

- I'm happy to see that DZ hasn't built any impis yet. I think I noticed a whip from him a couple of turns back, but it seems that he's focused on fairly friendly matters so far as well. This is extra promising from the fact that he was quite slow with settling his second city, so there's at least a chance that I can grab the good spots between us.

- I haven't done a full analysis on REMs techs and progress so far, but I'm rapidly feeling that I need to do that. REM quickly grew to size 4 and settled his second city the turn after me, yet he is clearly the last in score. Now, REM is one of the likeliest candidates for crazy beelines and that's what I feel is underway here. Add to that, that he's reasonably aggressive, prefers horse units and have a horse UU and I've fearing that he might be researching HBR as we speak! I don't think that it would be a smart play by him to try and take me out this soon (sacrificing economic techs and hardly being able to afford any cities he captures), but it's something I need to look into and out for. Good things are at least that you can't prebuild HAs (but you can have overflow ready...) and he's got a few turns of traveling distance before he can hit me.

- Serdoa probably had a fish start and thereby good early crop yield, but after that his growth curve on food hasn't been that impressive. It might be that his second city shared a food resource with the capital, but if not, he only had one worker improving the wheat and he needs a border pop to get the sheep into his culture, so not looking that hot on that front. (if it was just anybody I wouldn't think twice about this, but I've pegged the Serdoa+NH team as one of the best empire managers in peace time and here it feels like I've got a better snowball going...?)
That pig that Fintourist found in the east under GJs watch is slightly worrying btw though as I was planning on putting a city of mine on that "horn", but might get stuck in a battle with "my natural allies" as the pigs can also be claimed from Serdoas side of the mountains...

- Commodore... I don't know yet how I feel about having him close. Having him as a neighbour would be a disaster, but having my neighbour have him as a neighbour could even be good if I'm lucky... On the other hand it might make my neighbour more prone to settle towards me as well...
What I'm, however, thrilled about is that Commodore and Noble alike have that in common that they provide interesting reads
DZ and REM are decent neighbors to have, but sadly they haven't posted much in their threads and that is something that I'd like for when the game is over. Being able to read someone else's opinions on all the moves that I'm about to make.

Edit: REM finally got a tech on t41 and it was classical. However, looking at his earlier techs I see mining and hunting (initial techs), the wheel on t5, one of fishing, agriculture or mysticism on t8, and BW on t21. That means that he hasn't researched AH yet and thus can't have been teching HBR. No, the only classical tech available to him ought to be Iron Working. A strange tech to go for this early, but as he moved his capital I guess it's possible that he's got some jungled gold (or equivalent) that he wants to unlock. This also means that I probably should think about putting out a sentry eventually as while swords are slower than HAs they're even harder to stop if they get the chance to attack a city itself...

[taotao]

I'm realising here that lurkers wouldn't have seen the pigs I was referring to in my last post, so here you get an overview of the known lands:




The red lines you see is what I consider more or less ideal initial borders that I still consider within the realms of possibility.

The purple line is a possible border between Serdoa and DZ. Here's the thing also. I want this border to exist. Serdoa WILL put another city on his west coast to eventually get those flood plains and stone. DZ on his hand most likely will put some cities on his east coast. This will cause a whole lot of border tension between the nations as it'll be really hard to defend any cities on those coasts against naval strikes from the other party. To start an invasion though, things get a lot easier if they can strike along the corridor (untouched by me) and don't need to ferry over all troops.

The yellow marking is a really strong city location for Serdoa that would intrude on what I consider my part of this continent.

[taotao]

world news:
Dtay built Stonehenge on t40.
To me this actually feels a tad slow. I wonder if this wasn't in his initial plans, but he simply realized that he could get it quickly when it hadn't fallen early? I guess his plan now might involve landing a religion to try and put those GPP to use...
REM has also built his third city. So yeah, he's last in score, but really he's doing great. Imperialistic is not a bad trait to have early on...
I also looked at Commodores relationships and apparently he doesn't know Serdoa, has met DZ (who had a scout moving north pretty early on) and has declared on REM (presumably to either scout his land or simply get through). All in all it does seem like he and REM are neighbours

[taotao]

t42
Lured by promises of precious stones out in the open and an abundance of four-legged creatures that are tasty to devour, a settling party ventured out from Oravainen last turn. Having found things as they were told, the people earlier today decided to put down roots on grass valley between the lakes. Thus we now welcome Revolahti, or Revolaks as it's known in Swedish, amongst the fold of settlements in the Finno-Dutch civilization.




Being one of the first to three cities of course make the demos look reasonable enough, and as I feel I need to enjoy it while it lasts I'll post them here




Fintourist also moved slightly towards REM, showing the location of his third(?) city and a floodplain close to the gold which I'm afraid is another reason why he'll expand there soon. I got to thinking a little bit though. If I'm supernaturally lucky, REM might very well get into a conflict with Commodore. If he does, there's also a tiny possibility that I could take advantage by settling far towards him. If so, this could be a (pipe dream) dot map:




The baby pink, southern marble city would according to current micro be settled t55. After that I could send the next settler (mid 60s) north towards either magenta or pink. As pink probably would make a lifelong enemy of REM he better be occupied with Commodore, but it's at least worth considering. The reason I'm not overly fond of the previously proposed location of desert hill 1E of oasis is that REM would almost assuredly then settle on hill 1NE of gold, getting it first ring and out of my reach. 1W of gold is of course another option, but it's a clearly weaker city and I'm not sure REM would find it much less offensive...
(Red city is probably even more of a fantasy, but if I could just get Serdoa to settle somewhere else than this spot I'd be thrilled.
Purple could also easily be moved 1N. Makes it easier to defend, but loses out on DZs(?) horses)


Edit: coming back and looking at this one day later I believe I might've rushed things a bit with the third city. I considered moving Revolahti 2E (and possibly 1S or 1N) and all three options would've probably been slightly stronger. The tiles I would've given up are pretty marginal and the dot map could've worked round the new situation. I do, however, get a faster snowball (and especially economy) this way so I guess I'll just have to live with it and look at the bright sides (like much earlier access to horses )

[taotao]

t43
Domestically this was a nice turn as I finished the copper mine as well as the Revolaks cow pasture. Combined that means I'm leading both the crop yield and production categories (yes I'm still unblushingly counting my small victories here).

What's perhaps slightly more interesting though is the look Fintourist got from what I'm assuming is REMS third city.
Last turn I was slightly puzzled why he might've wanted to settle a city with only forests first ring (especially since there's a good chance he doesn't have mysticism and needs to chop out a barracks for culture), but I guess I at least understand his reasoning now.




If he's got a large enough workforce I could see this as a decent plant, but I still doubt whether it wouldn't have been better going for the great copper site prior to this (if there's a deer or better food tile first ring I guess this comment is nigh on moot).

I guess this also means he might not be as upset about loosing the gold in my direction, but he's still very likely to claim it before I get anywhere close.

(Random pieces of world news: I believe Molach and Gavagai settled their third cities this turn. Earlier I believe REM got his third city on t39, Yuri on t40 and dtay possibly on t40. HAK might've gotten the oracle, but I believe he's still on one size 3 city so I don't envy his position)

[taotao]

Did a wee bit of C&D on Serdoa.
Either he's been switching some things around at his start or I'm bad at reading graphs. I don't rule out the former, but am leaning towards the latter.
Anyway, I'm fairly certain Serdoa had one of the fish starts and went:
work boat-> warrior (timing with growing to size 2) -> worker -> growth to 3 (on war/bar) -> settler (might've squeezed in a worker, but don't think so).
That would explain why I didn't see more than one worker improving wheat at Nat Pagle.
Tech wise he had:
fishing & mining (initial techs), the wheel (t2 hut), hunting (t4), agri (t12, betting on him waffling between that and AH), AH (or possibly sailing) (t17), BW (t26), Pottery? (t33) and Archery (t37).
Or then he did a non-military tech and instead happened to finish an axe on t37.
AH is a bit of an odd choice that early, but I guess he prioritised improving his ivory early on.

Overall picture is that I prefer my own situation. I'm also wondering whether he might have an aggressive neighbour to his east looking at his latest power spike (Commodore and Noble haven't met, but I guess it's possible he's gotten a map from a hut...)

[taotao]

t44
Played this turn before work and forgot to take screenshots.
Anyway, workers did a bunch of stuff. Most notable was probably that one of the workers by Revolahti cut back across the city and finished chopping the forest to the SW into the Settler in Lapua. Actually I don't think that getting this city founded 1t earlier is worth almost anything, but the more important aspect is that the next settler (probably heading towards the marble by Donovan) is sped up by 1t as well.
The reason why I added a "probably" to that last sentence is that REM founded his 4th city last turn while DZ is still on two. It probably won't change my plans, but I'm just debating whether I need to send something up north to slightly lock down that border sooner rather than later. For instance the magenta dot in the previous dot map I showed is a fairly strong city even early on with the pigs and as I've noticed myself; getting a good city south of the gold isn't the easiest thing to accomplish.

Btw. Fintourist had a peek inside what was indeed Novgorod and he settled on stone and with plains sheep first ring, so yeah, that city is better than it looked last turn (still no sign of a worker though...)

In other world news it can be mentioned that Commodore settled his third city this turn.

Oh, and I should probably also add that I hope I don't sound too condescending regarding other players or their choices. I know that I'm not the best player here by far, but this is me merely trying to look at my opponents moves (with the limited knowledge that I do have) and figure out both what they might mean from a direct in-game sense and in terms of how good/engaged they might be (projecting that to future development).

[taotao]

Updated micro up to t60:
I probably will update and expand this a bit further, but I guess it's good to have a plan written down for any eventuality.

t45 - Granary in Oravainen at 32/60 -> 1pop-whip from 4 to 3
Worker 1N of wheat should move 1NW and put 1t into cottaging while passing
t46 - Oravainen has finished granary, starts axe
Worker between Oravainen and Revolahti moves 1SW (to 1E of ivory) and starts cottaging.
Worker on plains hill move 1W and starts roading
Worker on Copper shall move to furs and camp those.
t47 - make sure road finishes so can move settler to ”c4” in one turn.
Oravainen still uses 3 improved resources
t49 - Oravainen grows to 4. 1-pop whips axe (64/35)
Pyhäjoki is founded. Should steal plains hill mine and start a workboat.
t50 - Oravainen grow to size 4 (picks up river cottage). Has finished axe (moves to south border) and starts a spear.
ALT: Worker 1E of ivory moves to forested grassland hill in-between Pyhäjoki and Lapua
Southernmost worker moves 1S and starts roading NEED TO HAVE WARRIOR FOR COVER.
t51 - Oravainen finishes spear, starts another. Works silk instead of ivory for 1t to grow in 1!
Worker on forested grassland hill starts mining
t52 - Southermost worker moves 1E onto plains hill. Axe covers.
Pyhäjoki worker should’ve started northern cottage first!
t53 - Southernmost worker roads the hill
t54 - Pyhäjoki finishes workboat that nets the clams. City starts granary using clams.
Lapua finishes settler that moves to marble covered by spear. City restarts granary
Horse worker finished. Moves 1E to plains forested plains.
(Make sure Oravainen is using cottage instead of silks.)
t55 - Oravainen grows to size 6. Works 3 improved resources + 3 cottages. Starts worker.
New spear moves north towards city 6.
Northernmost worker chops.
Jutas - the marble city is founded. Starts library working forested grass hill.
Worker NE of Jutas cuts across (2SW*) and will start chopping under axe cover. *if DZ is posturing any units in an aggressive manner worker should instead first chop forest 1NE of sheep and then road that tile before going to sheep.
(move warrior into Oravainen so that it doesn’t stay unhappy)
t56 - Worker near Pyhäjoki moves to forest 1S of city and starts chopping.
Revolahti finishes library and starts worker before resuming granary.
t57 - Mathematics is in and masonry set as placeholder while saving money.
Switch granary back first in queue in Revolahti for 1t so that it picks up the chop.
t58 - Worker between Pyhäjoki and Lapua move 1SW and put 1t into cottage.
Switch Revolahti to worker.
Revolahti worker move 2E and will start chopping
Northern spear move towards desert hill 2E from gems and fortifies as a sentry.
t59 - Oravainen has finished worker, starts settler.
Jutas has finished library, starts granary.
Jutas worker move to sheep and road while waiting for borders to pop (axe covers)
Pyhäjoki workers move to pasture pigs when available
Revolahti worker chops
Oravainen worker move 1SW and starts cottaging
Turn research on 100%
t60 - Lapua finish axe, starts another. Axe move north.
Lapua steal cottage from Oravainen (who picks up plains hill mine) in order to grow in 1t.
Southernmost worker roads hill
Pyhäjoki has grown to size 2 and immediately whips granary.

[taotao]

t46
The brave adventurer Fintourist keeps looking for new tourist attractions in the east. Today he spotted some white rocks that I suspect may lie in the border area between REM and Commodore.




While most things were quiet on the home front:




However, our intelligence network abroad bring some worrying tidings:




That looks suspiciously similar to two impis having been produced by DZ two (?) turns ago
I've just started my first axe in Oravainen, but if he heads straight for me and attacks I believe he'll be able to raze Lapua. Since that's also my copper city I'd surely be in trouble. For this reason I'm currently debating putting a turn into an axe in Lapua. I believe it would delay my two next settlers, but at least it would make any attack on Lapua costly.
The thing is though, I don't feel like stunting my growth rate at this point for something that's far from sure of becoming a problem. DZ has another neighbour to his south(ish) that he early on perceived as a bigger threat. Meanwhile I haven't made a single offensive move towards him so far (marble city might change his opinion, but that's still in the future). If I'm lucky he doesn't even know where I am! (His scout made it to REM, but skirted around my capital to the east. He probably spotted my borders at some point, but it's not certain).
For these reasons (and the fact that I believe I'll need to take some risks if I want to do really well in this game) I believe I'll stay the course for now, but this might well be a misplay and there's still a possibility of me changing my mind whenever a new turn comes around.

[taotao]

t47




Yes, that does look like Donovan produced a third impi!
If I were a lurker, I'd be sure to bring out the as it's now clear that DZ will try to rush someone.
If this was a couple of turns later I wouldn't be particularly frightened, but as is, he might've launched this offensive just in time to make a real dent / take me out if this is the direction he's going.
I still didn't change any build queues, but in 3 turns I'll have my first axe out (from the cap) and in 4t I could have 2 more (providing copper isn't pillaged/ Lapua lost by then).
The working assumption though is that he's targeting someone else. If that's true, then I guess it's actually pretty good news (especially if he kills a couple of units, but stall and don't make much progress), but if it's me... well, it's not quite GG, but my focus (if surviving) will not be to finish high as much as making him suffer...
Exciting times!