[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Mardoc]

T38. Let's catch a bananafish.

Phew! For a second I thought you meant I put a banana underwater, but you only meant that the locals will be making the weirdest sushi...

[Bacchus]

I wonder what our southern jungle area looks like now, is there also a decent food resource and copper there?

I also wonder whether the landmass is like a sparse diamond lattice structure (https://goo.gl/images/zOtZ03), obviously not north-south aligned, but tilted a bit. Would make for a nice toroidal map potentially actually

[Coeurva]

Phew!  For a second I thought you meant I put a banana underwater, but you only meant that the locals will be making the weirdest sushi...

Indeed. I'll never adapt to how they fill those rolls with corn. We should introduce some Carthaginian cuisine to those barbarians:

Afterwards the tables were covered with meats, antelopes with their horns, peacocks with their feathers, whole sheep cooked in sweet wine, haunches of she-camels and buffaloes, hedgehogs with garum, fried grasshoppers, and preserved dormice. Large pieces of fat floated in the midst of saffron in bowls of Tamrapanni wood. Everything was running over with wine, truffles, and asafotida. Pyramids of fruit were crumbling upon honeycombs, and they had not forgotten a few of those plump little dogs with pink silky hair and fattened on olive lees,—a Carthaginian dish held in abhorrence among other nations.

T39. There's a lot to discuss. Shorthand conventionally used from now on: "worker #2" -> W2, etc.


The north. Dark Savant's warrior has wandered into our sight (he has played before us this turn). I moved the warrior next to him, into flat jungle; even AGG should not be enough to make his chances favourable. I'll try not to shadow his warrior so as not to provoke too much of Savant's attention. With such lush terrain, it's near inevitable that Savant will found 1-2 cities in the same area; if we found here, we should expect this to become the front line against him.

As such, I'm considering settling on top of copper. This loses a great tile but gives us a "plains hill" city centre for some compensation, and we won't have to worry about Savant occupying/pillaging the tile (hill is a mixed blessing in that regard). Silver/pigs (first-ring) becomes possible again for the dotmap as well. Then again, corn + silver is only a decent city; the landgrab has denial value more than anything else; and the hill silver (the one close to us) can be picked up by a coastal city after popping borders.


The south. We have two options for settling it: A (defensive, long-term pattern) or B (economical, short-term pattern) -- the second city for A would go adjacent to the rice; too little information there yet. A is a terrific city once it hits second-ring borders, which  CML will have trouble attacking; hill + river with all flatland surrounding it, and we can probably control the supply corridor towards Rhapsody.

B probably doesn't need comments. We could even abandon the somewhat-risky Savant site and just settle these two for #4, ignore Sav, and focus on CML. I'd rather settle both south and north with our next pair of settlers, though.


The ugly. Our worker (W2) is out of position. We want copper connected by T43 to produce an axe while growing to 4 (and we have to grow soon; someone has hit size6 already and Rival Best food is 30 to our 22; average 24; I'm really worried about falling behind -- although our MFG is the best worldwide right now; most everyone else probably found a two-food spot with their scout and settled it).

How do we do that? Seeing as we finish the third worker in Cowish on T43, there are two possibilities:

"South": W2 T40 >21, T41 >1 road cow, T42 road cow finished, T43 >7 road copper -- W3 >17 road copper finished
"North": W2 T40 >1 partial road, T41 >1 road grass, T42 road grass finished, T43 >4 road copper -- W3 >44 road copper finished

The question is whether we prefer a tile of road towards the south, or half a tile towards the north (which makes it easier for W3 to move/road towards Savant, or rather our city towards him). Both plans contribute equally to connecting Rhapsody and Sicil. Right now I'd say north is better, since we're too late to speed up the settler heading south anyway and connecting the cow has no immediate utility to us, but then again, north means we're delaying W2's arrival at any southern city.

(Side note: thought about whether the chop could have been delayed, since it doesn't actually speed up the settler, but rather the worker following in its wake; but W2 had nothing else to do on T36 since Wheel wasn't in yet -- maybe partial-farm one grass tile that we'll probably cottage directly anyway.)

Settling plans

I) Settle the south (A or B pattern) for #3 and the proposed front city against Savant for #4 (either next to, or on top of copper); if he's faster, settle pigs / silver instead. Note that our job attacking said front city would be more difficult than Savant's, due to how the river bends.
II) Settle full speed towards Savant: pigs first, then the front city.
III) Settle full speed towards CML (A or B pattern).
IV) Settle cautiously towards both and emphasize commerce; pigs/silver #3 + B east #4. This looks sheepish, but one distinct advantage of settling the pigs is that worker #2 is in position to improve these right when we settle; no other city enjoys this.

The front city, if we settle it, is somewhat pressed for worker labor, too; we need W2 for the south and W4 comes out of faraway Sicil, so only W3 can be dispensed (W4 would move/road towards Cowish after chopping the settler on T48; W1 stays at Sicil to chop / improve) and would be occupied with roading, rather than laying down earlier cottages. Another problem: the fourth settler, who goes towards the front city, also comes out of Sicil. So we'll need our two northern warriors to cover the journey, and it will take a while -- the south-eastern forest at Sicil will be gone, at least; thus we'd settle the front city as #4 on T53, or T54 if on copper (for compensation, the settler backfilling for the whaling village, probably city #6, will be excellently supplied).

[Bacchus]

It seems that settling full-pelt one way or another fits better with the worker labour shortage than going two ways, especially as our extant workers are already tending north.

In the south, I like B better, especially as it leaves space for a filler between itself and the capital. I would also say that B is actually the long-term play, whereas A is mid-term.

Overall, I think I would prefer settling two next settlers at Bs for the moment, especially as B west potentially opens a way to an ICTR. Then maybe the next two settlers towards Savant. If we pushes to settle there rapidly, it will be a little unfortunate, but it seems we are going to get hammy silver in any case.

As for growth, I imagine people are growing to 5 to double-whip the next settler without giving up copper, fish or rice.

[Coeurva]

Alright, we'll be going with settling two cities in the south, roading the cows, and increasing our military presence in the region (at least 1 spear + 1 axe soon).

One problem with B-East is the lack of first-ring forests for a library, though -- I don't see us reaching the T80 Academy with that city. A-East can easily chop two forests and grows faster initially (whipping potential, or just get to 2 tiles + 2 scientists faster), and picks up all the best tiles that B-East could work right after finishing the library. Besides which, we can definitely pick up a coastal site with A-West (e.g. 2 of rice) as well (ICTR-eligible, hopefully), and fillers can still be inserted south of the capital regardless.

However, A-West will probably turn out weaker than B-West.

Note that the errant panther (which has been refusing to move away from that hill for 10t or so; hence the sign) forces Avoirdupois to move 69 immediately, or the settler might get eaten. We'll just have to defer further scouting here. On the other hand, our northern warriors can follow any course.

[Bacchus]

B-west is a more natural place for a library due to more food anyway. There is one forest there, plus an easy whip, which should let us build the library in line with growing to 4+1. Just don't chop the forest too early 27+40 leaves 23 hammers to make up, which will be easy with the river grass hill mined and picked up by B-east.

B-west is also a very nice Moat spot.

[Bacchus]

I have to say I'm having difficulty in assessing whether a northerly settle is better than a southerly one. Northerly does seem just overall more questionable though -- terrain, overextension, mediocre second city.

[Coeurva]

T40.

We'll be settling B.

Savant's warrior had vanished between turns, but in moving onto the hill, we have found him again, along with the borders of Castle Ironfist (as evidenced by the forested furs). This means that the front line city would be equidistant from our capitals; what worries me is that Savant, prioritizing this spot, can deny us pigs/silver due to the minimal distance between cities.

B-east also has second-ring bananas.

Panther troubles: do we let the settler skip the next turn (currently 21 of Cowish inside cultural borders) or trust that the warrior kills the 1.2 panther on flatland, and thus move him onto the warrior's tile?

CML's capital is size4.

[Coeurva]

T41. Panther is a moot point (attacked; warrior survived at 1.4/2), but I've made an idiotic move covering the settler with the warrior, despite there being no danger; now we can either move the settler onto the B tile with the warrior not covering him (found T43), or move them both at warrior speed securely (found T44). Probably better to do the latter, as losing the settler is essentially game over here; the worker doesn't get to pasture before T44 anyway.

Speaking of this worker, I've had him partial-road the cow, but now I'm wondering if we should not simply use the next two turns to move onto the grass cow without further roading and pasture immediately after settlement, leaving W3 to road. Otherwise, it takes 3t longer to partial-road shuffle W2 towards B-East.

Pottery due on T45. I've saved gold last turn; 13 in the bank, -2gpt. Sicil will likely build a granary after the settler.

While we have been (slightly) leading graphs over him in every category except Power, Savant is the first player to reach three cities (settled Castleview this turn; we're third in Land Area at 28,000 and Gavagai is still first at 44,000, so it's quite unlikely, although technically possible, that anyone else has three) -- double chop, perhaps?

He has retreated the warrior further towards Castle Ironfist (the city is probably empty and he didn't want to risk us declaring); I've opted to follow the coastline instead, but let's try to find his cities while we're here, too. His south-east resembles ours -- gems are flat, and he has at least one dye instead of sugar there.

We're dead last in Crop Yield now (22, Rival Worst 22 which is probably Savant since the ever-outdated graphs still show us above him, Rival Average 27, Rival Best 33); second in MFG (12, average 8, best 13, likely also Savant). GNP is middling and below CML's.

I'd like to defer the production of the axe in favour of another worker (exactly 15 fhpt at capital), as we would grow onto essentially nothing (oasis at best); we need to get up to speed in food and commerce; we need to improve the rice at the capital using W3 (farm finishes T48), which allows for 3t growth (2/26 bin, T47 copper/cows/clams 8/26, T48 rice/cows/clams 17/26, T49 same 26/26) while investing into a granary and using W5 to lay down our first cottage, or road towards B-East, or whatever we'll prefer. Copper isn't as urgent; neither Savant nor CML are running around with anything substantial yet (no chariots, no axes) and we have two warriors in the south-west. As you've said, that should be enough for now -- nothing about Savant's behaviour so far suggests that he's planning to throw chariots at us; unless Castleview's settler slipped past our scouting warrior somehow, or went south-west, he hasn't even settled towards us at all. CML could be more dangerous; we simply don't know anything there, except that his soldier graphs don't show any 4000 increases (as far as I can see). For the record, we're still #2 in power with our four warriors; fearsome.

The warrior currently at the pigs/silver site will stay there -- perfect place to spawnbust, and I don't feel safe keeping zero warriors at home, even though both cities could produce one in 2t / 3t respectively.

B-East needs a name. I propose something involving "Vermin".

[Bacchus]

Good that Savant settled, and not towards south and yeah, that must be from extra chops, which suggest extra workers too, which make sense given Exp. His problem is that these chops didn't speed him up compared to us all that much, and we will get those chops into infrastructure.

On the border, the obvious place for Savant to settle is among the bananas for a real power-city, so I would be surprised if we lost pigs.

Also, everyone's expansion speed is about to skip a beat due to lack of commerce, so unless Savant settles his next city towards us, I think we get a chance to snipe that border settlement. What can we comfortably aim for there, T55?