[Spoilers] DZ'CH is apparently a catchy name

[Donovan Zoi]

Oh last thing, we got another offer from scooter/Sullla:



I turned it down of course. Their Explorer is just NE of Bombay, and the city shell we located earlier is their Vijay equivalent.

After seeing the map, we will not have to deal with them navally for awhile -- only BGN and possibly Dreylin at some point. Let me know what you think of proposing a map trade to Dreylin so we can see if everyone else is treating them like the hot girl at the bar that no one dares approach because they know deep down they will fuck it up somehow.

[greenline]

Irrigating Bombay's corn would be better for quick growth and then we can swap the grass over to workshops if it has enough food to work it all at size 11.

I would definitely cottage all the river tiles at the capital for the commerce.

The deer tile by the sheep north of people's capitals would make the filler city by our northern sheep a lot better assuming the starts are mirrored; would that be city #5, or should we focus on pushing outward with all of our settlers?

At Vijay I'd hook up the grass Iron first. It's a better yield then the windmills. It would also be worth building a farm on one of the grass tiles for quick growth so we can start working a bunch of hills and pumping out settlers.

[Cheater Hater]

Delhi: How good are watermills at this point--I know they get an Electricity boost, and State Property makes them great, but that requires some research diversions (and I don't know if State Property is the "one right choice" in a Corporations world). Otherwise, cottages seem fine.

Bombay: Workshops+farm corridor seems fine, but I'm not sure if I want it to come from Delhi--if we're settling an eastern city soon, I might want the farms to come from the east instead (since that city might want more food than Delhi). At the very least we might go from Delhi first, then redo it once the eastern city is founded.

Vijay: Why the heck are you continuing to push for the Library in Vijay? A couple Windmills we're going to improve over in ~50 turns does not make a Library a good investment! Otherwise, what do you need a Library for in that city? If it's culture, a Theater is a fine investment (btw, is Globe a thing in Industrial?). If it's the University for Oxford, I'd rather wait until it's cheaper (Ironworks and/or Factories) unless you think the city is going to be busy the whole time with Settlers, and in that case I'd wait a city. I feel like you should be prepping military with the Barracks in here, or building military proper.

Map stuff: Map analysis is hard, but it's looking like navies will be important, despite it appearing all the civs start on the same land mass.

[Donovan Zoi]

T260 - T263!

Wow, this game is moving right along. Let's see where we are at:

Demographics


As you can see, we are doing quite well despite our slow start due to chopping out FW's. But when I compare where we are against the other maps I see thus far (REM and Noble), we will win the long game on development once our cities start to max out.

One thing important to note is the Soldier account, as someone is already at 213000, the possible equivalent of 2 Rifles. The other is our GNP, where we appear to dominate despite this:



Either way, I have got to think this gives us the inside track for being the first to Steam Power, where we are now 15 turns away. Getting there as quickly as possible allows us to move on to Steel and Iron Works, so the GE discussion just got easier with Taj off the table. It also sends our worker production into the stratosphere and should allow us to exploit something I discovered back in T260.



Barb Camp!

Here is what lies north of Vijay, on the landbridge between ourselves and Dreylin:



This site looks to be just out of Dreylin's sight, but we will need to beat him and BGN here. It boasts Deer, Gems and Bananas, all of which we need and would increase our happy cap to Size 15 (16 for Delhi)

So no more talks of Libraries for now, as the new plan will be to scour the map for barb camp opportunities and and try to anticipate the military resources necessary to grab them successfully. I also feel we will be able to set up a spidered roadnet from our core that is defended by checkpoints, which is going to be extremely important to build toward IMP REM.

Here are the important tools for such a strategy:

Explorers: We will need an explorer for each island, as well as Explorers for sentry duty to warn of encroachment.

Rifles: Building a defense to guard the outer edge of the perimeter will be important to keep others from using our roads, which will go up quickly once we can 1-turn them. It also means declaring war on anyone who may pass.

Spies: If I am not mistaken, Spies can only be kicked out of sovereign lands but can roam free in unincorporated lands. So for a relatively low cost, we can build a spy network to monitor any or all future objectives without risk of capture. This totally adds a new element to the game, as we can also park them just outside of enemy outskirts to warn us of any impending attack before it gets too close. I am definitely thinking scooter/Sullla here, but BGN too.



Now The Not So Good News...

Before I get to the city reports, I just thought I would post a couple of downers here to go along with losing Taj (which I am not that broken up about really). This game update pretty much spells it out:



So that was fast for circumnavigation. Could this have been for north/south? I did not get a chance to investigate, but it seems impossible that BGN could have traversed east/west fully already.

Also, scooter/Sullla in Nationhood already?? Their first draft just happened in T263, so Bombay should be on high alert. They would only be coming from land for the near future, but this might be a nice place to send our first Spy.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 263 - 1765 AD

Delhi




I know, I know: where are all the workers???

If we want to grab an easy barb city (did I mention it's currently defended by 2 warriors?), we need to put all resources possible into doing so. So the last few turns, two road crews of 2 FWs have completed a road net from the Bombay horses all the way to Vijay. With that done, the next step is to pave the path to Tartar (we really need to have that naming convention talk too ) so that we can take the city.

I know, I know: Why are we working those crappy coastal tiles??

Frankly, I don't mind working these that much, as they are much more useful with the default Granary/Lighthouse. You can rest assured that less developed civs are using this strategy too, so we are basically keeping pace with them for the time being -- sustaining growth and increasing our commerce. Where we differ is that by the time we need to transition to production, we will have 3-4 mine/workshop tiles ready to go. This will pretty much go for Bombay as well.

Next Moves

I am considering sending 2 FWs back from the Vijay mission to chop the University (yielding over 80 tiles), then temporarily farm the river grasslands to to get taller faster. After that, we can set up the mines and workshops so they are ready to go.



Bombay




Currently the redheaded stepchild of our nation, at least we have all of the goodies hooked up. Started building a Fast Worker here this turn so that we can work on bringing irrigation and growth here, then mines/workshops. After the FW, I may go with a Spy but let me know what you think.

Oh yeah, our Galleon made its maiden voyage this turn:



The Galleon will be picking up our Explorer so he can check out the island between us and BGN. Hopefully we will be able to find and plan for another barb capture.


All Eyes on Vijay




The prospect of a barb site capture has all resources headed to our northernmost city, with 7 workers for hire. Vijays infra is staying just ahead of growth, with Jumbos cued up for pop point 6. Roading comes first here, as it is a must for our upcoming Rifle to take out an approaching barb warrior next turn. Luckily our two road crews had holstered some axes to help chop out our prospective city's defender in just a nick of time.

I think we should farm the lone grassland here next to help growth, then pasture the Horses and chop/Windmill (another Rifle? Cavalry?) the last 2 river hills.

I figured out that we get around 40 in base production at Size 15 by going with Windmills on all hills, as and additional 6 food will allow us to utilize 3 Plains Workshops. Then once we have Iron Works here, we are looking at 5-6 turn Settlers and maybe better if we get lucky with Coal.

So yeah, not losing much sleep for missing out on the early Taj.



TBD

[Cheater Hater]

Curious: do we get all the buildings when we capture a barb city (both does it start with them, and can they be destroyed in the capture)?

Maybe move the Rifle from Delhi to help the capture effort--I'm presuming we still have some happy cap to spare?

Make sure Spies are legal before you build one--I'd check, but I should be asleep right now

More will come tomorrow, I just wanted an "I'm here" post after two days of silence overall in the thread.

[greenline]

but it seems impossible that BGN could have traversed east/west fully already.

My guess was map trades.

Also, scooter/Sullla in Nationhood already??

I'm hoping that they're just doing that to get quick rifles for capturing a barb city and not rushing anyone. Or maybe Pindicator rushed them (pretty please)? The good news is that it's hard to draft huge armies this early since their cities should only just be hitting size 6. Two drafts will cripple any city this early, so that would give around 6 rifles at the absolute most.

I'm surprised Taj went this early, especially to Dreylin; the tile yields aren't that useful with 3 cities and he doesn't even get any free civic switches from it. Maybe the snowball value is worth it anyway?

[Cheater Hater]

How are we still in front of Dreylin in GNP despite the golden age? Is it mostly our Academy? Are we the only ones working our gold?

Ironworks still needs 6 Forges (and thus 6 cities), right? That will delay it a bit :/

That barb city is a lot closer to Dreylin than I thought--which city of that is his, probably the Vijay city?

Have Scootlla found our borders naturally? Presumably they've traded maps, but I don't know who's been to our eastern border.

Delhi: I don't mind the coastal tiles, though I want that chop to happen sooner rather than later. Not much else to say here--what are we building here after the University, maybe the Observatory? You also might want a Rifle here if you're moving the garrison over, even if it isn't optimal.

Bombay: How many boats do you think we're going to need? Considering I doubt Delhi is going to be that productive in the short term, they're mostly going to have to come from here. The Spy seems fine though.

Vijay: I like a Cav or two for variety, along with the Rifles (assuming you're moving the one from Delhi over). Then again, I probably want to move the Machine Gun to garrison the barb city if we get it--how far away is the civ west of Vijay?

[Donovan Zoi]

Donovan's Mega Answer Post!

Sorry guys, one more week of working two jobs and I should be able to respond more quickly. I'll answer all your questions for now and post a report for the last two turns tonite.

Curious: do we get all the buildings when we capture a barb city (both does it start with them, and can they be destroyed in the capture)?

I am not sure of that, but we should find out soon enough (I hope)!

Maybe move the Rifle from Delhi to help the capture effort--I'm presuming we still have some happy cap to spare?

I am not as bold as BGN to wander my city defenders, especially against this bunch, plus I think we will have it captured by the time the Rifle could make it up there...it's about 10-12 tiles away from Delhi.

Make sure Spies are legal before you build one--I'd check, but I should be asleep right now

More will come tomorrow, I just wanted an "I'm here" post after two days of silence overall in the thread.

Looks to me like spy builds are legal, but Spy actions are not. So this will be a cheap and effective way of sentrying for encroachments and enemy settlement, depending how elaborate we will want to go with this.

but it seems impossible that BGN could have traversed east/west fully already.

My guess was map trades.

I thought you had to physically travel the globe in order to get this benefit, but am not sure.

Also, scooter/Sullla in Nationhood already??

I'm hoping that they're just doing that to get quick rifles for capturing a barb city and not rushing anyone. Or maybe Pindicator rushed them (pretty please)? The good news is that it's hard to draft huge armies this early since their cities should only just be hitting size 6. Two drafts will cripple any city this early, so that would give around 6 rifles at the absolute most.

Thanks for putting my mind at ease a bit. Looking further they may be doing it for EP bonus too. C&D is a big thing for Sullla so that would not surprise me. We are their biggest recipient, by the way.

I'm surprised Taj went this early, especially to Dreylin; the tile yields aren't that useful with 3 cities and he doesn't even get any free civic switches from it. Maybe the snowball value is worth it anyway?

How are we still in front of Dreylin in GNP despite the golden age? Is it mostly our Academy? Are we the only ones working our gold?

My guess here is that he saw the opportunity to keep it from scooter/Sullla, as it could prove to be devastating for him (or us!) in their hands. He may have also been racing against the other PHI civ (us as well) but had to have seen that we popped the GS instead.

As far as how we are still ahead in GNP despite Dreylin's GA, I am sure it's the additional research modifiers. For reference, we just ran out of our 100g loan last turn and moved to 4th in GNP when I dropped us to 0% research.

Ironworks still needs 6 Forges (and thus 6 cities), right? That will delay it a bit :/

We'll have to see. We have about 12 turns left for Steam Power, and am anticipating about the same for Steel, which times nicely for the slow build of a GE in either Vijay or Bombay. We will just have to include additional discussion to see if 2 more city sites are possible then too because that would be ideal.

That barb city is a lot closer to Dreylin than I thought--which city of that is his, probably the Vijay city?

Yes, but he has it planted more west than NW, to pick up the Whales. But the hills are keeping him from recognizing the city so hopefully we get away with this. It also sets up a possible attack on that city if we are feeling bold.

Have Scootlla found our borders naturally? Presumably they've traded maps, but I don't know who's been to our eastern border.

Yes, both Dreylin and scooter have wandered up to Horse Hill and retreated. I decided not to trade maps with Dreylin for now, for obvious reasons, so I am not sure if they have traded or not.

Delhi: I don't mind the coastal tiles, though I want that chop to happen sooner rather than later. Not much else to say here--what are we building here after the University, maybe the Observatory? You also might want a Rifle here if you're moving the garrison over, even if it isn't optimal.

Chop started this turn, and a perfect time to run 0% research because the chop will bring the University online just as we go back to 100% research. Next build will likely be our 11th worker (got 2 more this turn) with the overflow, then an Observatory should be cool.

Bombay: How many boats do you think we're going to need? Considering I doubt Delhi is going to be that productive in the short term, they're mostly going to have to come from here. The Spy seems fine though.

2-turning a Spy in Bombay now actually. I'd like to get a Galleon/Explorer combo going off the Dehli sea too though. Once we expand our roadnet, I'd like to support it with Frigate (Ship O' Line?) sentry as enemy canals open up. I'll try to dedicate a post to this in more detail soon.

Vijay: I like a Cav or two for variety, along with the Rifles (assuming you're moving the one from Delhi over). Then again, I probably want to move the Machine Gun to garrison the barb city if we get it--how far away is the civ west of Vijay?

Yep great idea! Will be chopping out a Cav in Vijay, which will help logistics in moving the Machine Gun up to the barb city.

There is a lot of green (eh, and brown) between ourselves and REM to the west right now. That's why I like the idea of a Rifle guarded roadnet that can get Cavs to a frontline quickly. REM will probably be pretty unassuming with the first settler he sends our way, so if we are able to gently persuade him elsewhere, we won't get too burned by our IMP neighbor. REM seems to like to build a tall p-graph at the outset, to back up his REX tendencies, so we'll need to choose our battles wisely.

[greenline]

I thought you had to physically travel the globe in order to get this benefit, but am not sure.

Map trades definitely count towards it as the whole kerfuffle involving one in the PB31 tech thread will attest to.