RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[Cyneheard]

For GNP, and why we're ranked so high (sorry, long and involved):
Only Zara (Cre) and Napoleon (Buddhism) are size 2 and have an extra source of culture, so we gain +2 on the other teams based on that. And with Napoleon's +5 culture, he's got to be researching a tech without any pre-req bonus, so one of the 6 starting techs, likely Agri or Mining. The only tech Zara could be researching with a pre-req bonus is Pottery (has Wheel, Agri, AH), so they're probably going Mining-BW.

The lowest GNP is 17, which would be a non-creative civ working 1 river tile without a pre-req bonus. The rival average is 19.
We put out 4 culture per turn. Of our 15 rivals, 10 get 2cpt, 4 get 4cpt, and 1 gets 7cpt, for 43, or about 3cpt. +1 over the rival average. (-17 commerce)
7 civs are size 2. So minimum +1/2 over rival average for river tiles. (-7 commerce)
8 civs could be researching either AH or BW. I assume that no one is going for Pottery without BW. So a minimum +1 over the rival average for the pre-req bonus. (-14 commerce)
That leaves up to 7 commerce available for either working non-river tiles, or 2 commerce for not going for either AH or BW given the current opportunity. So it doesn't sound like many teams are working anything less than the maximum, and the civs who can go for AH or BW are. 3 of that commerce has to be from Napoleon, since otherwise he'd be past us in GNP, instead of tied. I assume he's going for Agriculture, then, and will finish it next turn (10t to research working 1 river tile, Meditation completed T12).

[Cyneheard]

T22. We get extra land points next turn.

Domestic News:
We completed the Grassland Hill Mine. Next turn we need to switch to the GHM for maximum overflow on the warrior. I moved Gulliver onto the hill. More resourceless tiles. Also, our Settler is going to start moving on T36. I think we need to start having Gulliver wind his way back, probably by going E or SE. The healing time really slowed down our ability to explore with him. If he gets damaged again, I suggest we have him guard London, and send the other warrior out with the settler.



Demographics:
Lots of score increases. 7 teams. 1 gained land points, 3 gained pop, and 4 techs were discovered (Krill's Gandhi got both pop and tech).
Napoleon got Agriculture, Darius and Gandhi both got Mining, is my guess. Mehmed finished Animal Husbandry. Since they started with Hunting, and also got Agri, it was very fast. No warriors were built in the IT. Gandhi or Darius have built a 2nd warrior at some point, since one of them now has 13k power.



Someone is working 2 improved food tiles (no one is size 3 yet).
Possibilities:
An expansive civ with 2 Agriculture resources. None of the Exp civs have AH. Only Pacal and Bismarck went worker-first of the Exp civs (yeah, I know), and Bismarck doesn't have Agri.
A 2-hammer plant civ who went AH first (or had a 3/1/0 tile, like a forested deer. That is very powerful, and should have been avoided), and is size 2. Since I assume Sullla wouldn't have given someone a plains hill to settle on T0, this would leave Pericles and Zara as the only options there. So Pacal, Pericles, or Zara could be churning out 11 food a turn, and should be watched carefully if we meet them.

[antisocialmunky]

NE? There's another river, you can see the coin on hte NE hill.

What is this Bangladesh?

[Cyneheard]

NE makes sense. We probably should head towards the capital 1t after that, though. If we do, we arrive at T34, and can head towards our new city site. If, of course, we're heading towards the NW pigs for city #2, we get some more time, but that lion roaming off to our west must die.

I automated some functions for the C&D spreadsheet. Power now generates the pop and power levels from the respective sheets. This should also reduce errors. I now have 18 warriors for 15 opposing teams, 1 less than I'd thought. Seems I missed a Mining discovery in the Power screen.

[haphazard1]

I like NE next for Gulliver. He is currently 8N of our capital, and we can see a bit of river. Perhaps he is not that far from another civ to our north? With the hill move we should get visibility another 3 tiles northward. Maybe this is a river valley and we might see some cultural borders?

Agree that we need to start moving him back towards the capital after that. Hopefully we can clear a little more territory NE of the capital by going SE and then SW on the way back. I am still worried that we may not have explored the direction where our copper (assuming there is such a tile) is located.

What do we do if we finish BW and see no copper? Send the settler for pigs + dry wheat + rivers and hope to claim metal with the second settler? AH will not be done at that point, so we won't be able to see any horses which might be around.

[Cyneheard]

SW of the northern wheat on that plains hill looks good, if no copper. We'd found on T38, getting Grumpy to start farming the wheat on T40, finishing T44. The pigs wouldn't come online until T50, they're far away from that wheat, if there's only Grumpy there. Still, on T50, we'd have our second city producing +8 food per turn...at size 2!!! With a 3rd city founded. That's a lot of .

If no copper, though, the problem is we won't have a whole lot of time to explore before we send out the next settler after that, our extra warrior can start moving T40 and the settler starts moving T46. However, we're going to pop our 3rd ring in 3 turns, and we have a peak to the E and to the S, so that should cover a lot of the ground that way. Copper should be clearly within "our" territory, and we'll be able to see at least 5 tiles in each direction. Yay Creative! Also, if we weren't Creative, I don't think we could afford to settle on that plains hill, we'd have to take the Grass Hill to get the pigs right away instead. And Expansive, of course, is what's made this 3 workers + 2 settlers by T45 possible. Sury, dude, you've been great. I suspect we'll be able to have Pottery in around T60 or so, and chop or whip granaries ASAP once that's in.

If we get copper by T47, I can get us a barracks and an axe by EOT50 out of London, double-whipping us back to size 2. No chops required (which is good, there's only 2 left in the BFC). I'd like to save those chops for the granary and the library. This move requires the copper to be on a river and a trade route to exist, of course. But we'd be much more secure if we can do that.

[antisocialmunky]

Any ideas where IW for the silver fits in?

[Cyneheard]

My guess is that IW'll be part of the first round of tech trades. I would not be opposed to researching it after Pottery, if that's what the diplo situation calls for. Getting Pottery first is a necessity, though. Without cottages, we'd might as well say "hello, team, we're never going to research anything else ever again!" If Writing has to wait for IW to come in, well, that's manageable. Writing costs 216 beakers (but we get 1.4 bonus on that), IW costs 360 (only 1.2 bonus). Eventually, we're going to have to contact somebody. And with NTB on, we're going to have to meet our tech partners, even though negotiations through an intermediary a la PB1 are legit.

T23 to-do list:
Gulliver NE
Doc W-W
Switch London to Rice + GHM. The default Rice/Sheep/GHM is the best we can do once we're size 3.
Our new warrior needs a name. As a good English warrior, why not use one of the oldest English literature works, Beowulf? Hrothgar, the King of Danes; Beowulf; Healfdene (Half-Dane), an off-screen king; Breca the Bronding (friend of Beowulf). We could also do Anglo-Saxon kings for ancient times (which includes my handle's namesake, Cyneheard, slayer of Cynewulf, who was also a king, classics such as Aethelred the Unready, Aelfred (the Great), Edmund Ironside, there's plenty to work with). Although, I do want to save Aethelred the Unready for an emergency situation, like a "whip or we lose this city to the barb axe" type of thing.

[antisocialmunky]

That sounds good. I was going to go with Knights of the Round Table but I like your idea more.

[haphazard1]

I think we will want Writing before IW for our cheap CRE libraries. Not getting them online early (and one city running some scientists for an academy) would be a big failure to get the most out of our traits.

A lot depends on how many civs we meet by the time we have to choose (finish Pottery). With no tech brokering either everyone has to tech Alpha, or we need someone who has researched it as the "center" of our trade network so they can trade it to everyone else as the first deal. Otherwise the techs from the non-Alpha civs can not be passed on (brokered).

IW will be attractive since we need it to clear the silver, and of course to reveal iron. But if everyone has a similar start (jungled happiness resource), then a lot of civs will go for IW early anyway and it should be available for trade. This would make the Writing-Alpha line attractive, both for our cheap libraries and so we can control our own trading.

Anyway, that is still quite a ways off. Have to see if we start meeting civs and who they are.