[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[Sullla]

Ships are going to be very important on this map, so I wager that circumnavigation will help the team that picked it up a fair bit. Here on these settings, the circumnavigation essentially came down to map trades, and since Donovan didn't want to exchange with us, we had no chance. Anyway, a couple more pictures and observations from the turn that's about to end.



By meeting pindicator, we gained visibility on another team's civics. We only need REM now to complete the whole group. Pindicator is running the standard Representation/Bureaucracy/Mercantilism combo, but there are two interesting things here. One is that he's still using Slavery civic; all of the Spiritual teams are in Serfdom, along with Donovan who never adopted Slavery in the first place (which I think was the correct call for his leader/civ pairing). We know that REM is also in Slavery since he tripled whipped a settler a few turns ago. The fact that the non-Spiritual teams are missing Serfdom has to be hurting their development.

In addition, pindicator is also running Theocracy civic. This is despite the fact that he hasn't even adopted his state religion yet. I guess he did the initial swap all at once before the religion appeared, and pindicator didn't want to wait another turn in Anarchy to change to his actual religion. That's a fair tipoff that pindicator likely plans to attack someone in the not too distant future. Due to our late contact, our status as #1 on the Power graphs, and our Aggressive trait, I'm hoping that pindicator has plans for another team - assuming he plans to attack anyone at all.

I would probably not trade maps with pindicator if he asks. We have vision on every other team's cities, and I don't think it's worth giving out our maps to him at this point.



Here's the border region between our team and pindicator. We were slightly unlucky in the shape of the land on this isthmus; several teams had some nice spots for a corn/iron/sheep city, while we really didn't have that option. It's a minor point, but we would have seriously considered placing a city here if the corn/iron spot wasn't so terribly weak. Anyway, I think we want one strong border city vis a vis pindicator, and otherwise we'll be content not to settle too strongly in this direction. His Agg/Chr + Russian cossacks combo is not one that we want to pick a fight with.

I thought about this for a while, and I think I like the pink spot best for a border city. It claims as many land tiles as possible (remember land is MUCH better than water for us) and has a fairly strong defensive location. No, it's not on a hill, but it can't be 2-moved on the diagonals, and it can only be boated via that narrow canal to the south or from the northwest. And if we can't control the seas right next to our capital, then it doesn't matter where we put this city. This would be a very high food city and a strong spot overall. We could also backfill another city later for the corn/iron spot; I think I like white on the iron (much as it sucks to do that) to allow for both of the food resources.

I would think about prioritizing this spot after we grab the red dot location with our first settler. Obviously a lot depends on what other teams are doing.



Here's that red dot location for reference. It's a relatively "safe" location in the sense that we aren't going for land right on someone else's border, but that spot is so ridiculously good that I think we want it first. We can go levee first there, and after a dozen turns of growth, this spot will be ready to build military/workers/settlers itself and further the expansion snowball. Up for debate of course, but I love this spot so much. (It has ELEVEN tiles that can benefit from a levee! This is our Iron Works city for sure.) The yellow dot is then another strong and safe spot that we can settle down the road at our leisure.

I would love to get a city on the green dot tile as well to secure our border with Donovan. It's another strong location that brings in several new resources and should be relatively easy to defend. Who knows if it would still be available down the road though. Alternately we could try to settle here first and then backfill to the red spot, but this city would be a lot slower to develop. I dunno scooter - what do you think? Red is stronger but green would put us in a better strategic position. I lean towards red but you could definitely talk me into green. We've got the drafted rifles, we could very easily settle aggressively if we want to.

So either red or green first, then pink second? Depends what we find on the islands too. Lots of tough decisions to make here.

One other note for the turn: Gaspar/Noble added another 30 production in their capital, going from 112 shields to 142 shields. That has to be a settler in production, and I expect that they'll triple whip it to completion in a few more turns. They can probably do settlers on roughly a 10 turn cycle that way. However, my gut feeling is that this is the wrong way to produce settlers in an Industrial start. Our first settler will be slower (albeit not that much slower; ours finishes eot 274) but we won't be whipping down to size 3, and with the levee and Caste System in place, we can pull 67 foodhammers/turn (!) for effective 5 turn settlers. While also getting far more commerce from Bureaucracy bonus, naturally. It's kind of like building a granary in Civ3 - the first settler comes out slower, but all the subsequent ones are a lot faster. I think we'll be going settler -> settler -> settler pretty much nonstop once we have our setup in place.

Let me know what you think about settling decisions scooter; since we have the map mostly revealed now, it's a good time to revisit that discussion.

[Sullla]

Oh, and as Kurumi said, the German assembly plant is a factory replacement, not a power plant replacement. There's no production bonus sadly, it just builds faster and has extra Engineer slots (5 total with forge!) Don't worry, I made the same mistake in one of our sandboxes.

[Honk]

@Kurumi
@Sullla

I see. Well, moral of the story, don't trust CivFanatics. Didn't have access to my copy of CIV. And, wait, you get factories for free on Future starts? Geez, CIVFanatics! "Information in this section is correct as of Beyond the Sword v3.19" Not hardly!

[Dp101]

Wait, how will you improve the fish in your proposed western city? I don't see how a work boat can get there.

[DMOC]

Most likely they're planning on using a fort as a canal on one of the tiles bordering the fish.

[scooter]

Definitely agree with red first. With our weaker 3rd city, I think our first plant needs to be a real powerhouse. Red's got double food, all the riverside tiles, and a half dozen forests to get it going very quickly. From there it gets much harder to decide.

I don't have a good idea of what comes after that. I agree with pink out east - that seems like a conservative enough choice to not ruffle too many Russian feathers while being a very strong city in its own right. I do think we need to keep in mind that they probably won't be super pumped about ceding that fish. The question is how much of a rush are we in to lock that spot down.

Since you covered the most likely options pretty well, let me throw a curveball option out there, and we'll see 1) how much you like it and 2) how much I even like it after I get some sleep.



This is, well, pretty aggressive... but it's not as bad as it looks. That hill way out west is 10 tiles from our capital and 9 tiles from Donovan's. It would certainly have to be well-defended, but we did pick Montezuma for a reason. Our leader (and choice to do 3 drafts) makes something like this far more viable.

The thought process here is that if we're going to aggressively claim land in one direction, Donovan is the best target. Obviously pindicator gets kid gloves due to his leader/civ. Dreylin has Spiritual, so that does give him the flexibility to dive into whip/draft mode at a moment's notice, so that makes him a little dangerous. Donovan though is neither. He's got a purely economic leader/civ, and he seems to have a pretty decent start going, but he's also gone for an eco opening with a cottage + academy + Serfdom. He won't be able to match our production anytime soon, and he'll have no ability to pop-rush military, so... what's he going to be able to do if we manage to get our machine gun down on that western hill? I think he'll be a little annoyed, and then he'll settle for Bombay as his front city and go settle in the other direction. He's gonna need to hurry the other way anyway, because Imperialistic REM is over to his west. The cherry on top is that his direction is where the most and best land is located.

The merits of the spot are obvious I think. Instantly lighthoused lakefish for a sweet 7F tile, irrigatable corn, copper. It's on a hill, and it prevents Donovan from being able to get boats onto our lake there which would be a real weakness if he settled this lake. Plus that spot has 0 BFC overlap with Donovan's city. We wouldn't need to settle this spot first I don't think. I'm willing to bet Donovan will be first settling the other direction anyway - if only because that's where the better spots are.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. The risk is higher for certain, but I think the potential reward is pretty good too.

[Elkad]

Most likely they're planning on using a fort as a canal on one of the tiles bordering the fish.

Right. Temporarily it could go anywhere just long enough for the workboat. The stronger defensive option would be to fort a hill (without chopping the forest/jungle) and stick a buffer stack in it (or even both hills). 125% defense (hill+fort+trees+fortify) with an agg/pinch rifle is pretty stout. Of course you give up improving those hills that way, which isn't insignificant. No CR promotions (except on siege) until tanks means the fort doesn't have much downside for quite a while.

Either the tundra or the grass forest has to be irrigated to get wet corn I think, and with a watermill on the other river tile being stronger than a mine on the hill, I'd lean towards the hill fort. Even if you do decide to chop it down later (like after 3rd ring pop?).

And grabbing the same forest hill on the west side of the map (1sw of ruins - for corn/copper/fish) is a bit of a reach, but I'd call it a "stretch goal" It would mean moving dye/greendot 1NE, but that isthmus is even stronger defensively from that side. The corner move isn't denied, but they would be assaulting across a river and uphill (or a turn late to go around).

[scooter]

And grabbing the same forest hill on the west side of the map (1sw of ruins - for corn/copper/fish) is a bit of a reach, but I'd call it a "stretch goal" It would mean moving dye/greendot 1NE, but that isthmus is even stronger defensively from that side. The corner move isn't denied, but they would be assaulting across a river and uphill (or a turn late to go around).

That last sentence is a good point that I also neglected to mention. The river placement is pretty nice there for that spot.


Turn played, pictures will come tomorrow though unless Sullla beats me to it.

[Sullla]

Hey, I would love to claim that forested hill by the fish if we have a chance to do so. That's a great spot and an excellent defensive location too. I just think it's unlikely that we'll be able to claim that location, as Donovan surely realizes that it's a great spot too. We can talk all we like about the spot being equidistant from our capitals, but that's all theoretical and doesn't mean much in practice. Donovan has borders only two tiles away, while our borders are five tiles away. He's probably going to claim this area first.

If we really want that land, we probably have to settle it immediately with the first settler. We certainly could do that if we wanted; we could put the machine gun and two rifles in there, and it's not falling for a very long time. Then we could backfill from that spot as desired. The downside is that it would be tricky to get that location started from a worker labor perspective due to the distance from our core. It would also escalate tensions with Donovan. That might be worth it though if we could found a city there and seal off our core from anyone else. But it would be an aggressive plant given the current situation, and we'd have to commit substantial resources to defending it.

I think the only settling decision we have to make at the moment is where we're sending the first settler. If we both like the red dot location, that's all we need for the moment. Conditions are going to change pretty frequently, and we'll be adjusting on the fly depending on what other teams do. So if we both like the red spot for our first city, and I think we do, that's good for the moment.

Looking forward to see our new Demos now that we're out of Nationhood.

[scooter]

Turn 266



Boldly swapped into Caste/Pacifism and shot out a 1T scientist. I see from Civstats that it looks like he bulbed Scientific Method to completion. Looks like he is the current pole-sitter for the Communism spy race. Wouldn't be surprised if he gets out an artist for Communism next.



We did one last draft in poor Cotton Gin, and then swapped back into Bureau.



Still not that amazing!

Steam Engine goes back to a normal config next turn as it starts the settler, so MFG should get a large uptick at that point. We are definitely the only team to build multiple rifles. In fact, I'm not sure anyone's built one yet.



Started to head north to meet REM and complete our group of contacts. I agree with not trading maps with pindicator, or at least not going out of our way to do so.



So uh, these cities still have WARRIORS. I'm almost wondering if we might consider loading up a rifle onto our Galleon and patrolling the waters for barb cities that we can raze for denial value. Anyway, one of these 3 teams will snag an amazing city for almost free any time now. Definitely feeling like barbarians on may have been a mistake, especially with how random city spawnings are.



Borders popped at Cotton Gin greatly expanding what we can see down there. The land isn't quite as good as what we've seen on the mainland, but it's still solid.



Here's the island from the other side. The river is short, so no levees on it. I think with what we've seen, the islands can probably wait until we've settled at least 2-4 mainland cities.



Here's our capital sporting a cool 12F surplus to get to sz10 EoT, at which point the settler begins, and we'll swap to 4 watermills + gold.



Moving a pair of Rifles west to the two hills discussed to keep an eye on Donovan. If you look closely, I also moved the third drafted Rifle up near Telegraph. It can stay there for now, but when it comes time to settle red dot, we can start moving it forward.



Turn is moving pretty quickly today - if Gaspar ends turn (he's logged in now), Dreylin will be all that's left. So there's a good chance we'll get to start our settler today.