I can never remember movement rules involving rivers and roads. If I move W4 23 onto the floodplain, will he be able to cottage on the same turn, or is it a waste?
EDIT: Since the screenshot is stuck on page 24...
Code:
W
* |
* | X
The W tile and * tiles are roaded. X is where I want to move. Does this consume 2 movement in total, or does the first road halve the cost (0.5) and then the second one too (1) and it all gets floored?
EDIT: I should probably just worldbuilder this...
Seems to work. Unless the tile is a semi-nomadic quarter-oasis overgrown with boreal taiga, unless you have Construction or Machinery, but not both.
Yeah I'm still kinda miffed about the oasis. My own fault, of course
Last edit for today: logged in to name B-West "Lifeblood". Not entirely inaccurate, due to the trade route allowing us to push for T58 Writing... Originally I had planned for "Glorified Simile" (is this... the meta-theme?), but once again, that's too long.
* It's important to meet dtay in-game as soon as we can. We're probably not getting past CML's land borders, but a galley might have more success.
* W1 or whichever number he has -- the worker nearest to Sicil -- will road 4, not 1; this still connects Sicil to all other cities and allows W1 to slip onto the plains cow without delay. 1 is only marginally more useful when roaded; that doesn't justify wasting a turn.
* We need more workers by this point; the current workforce barely keeps us from stagnating; too little room for chops, too little labour for new cities. In fact, both Vermin and Sicil should build workers next (Sicil, which produces 14fhpt right now, ought to whip at 56/60 for max overflow, since it can choose between 7 and 5 surplus at size2 swapping cows and mine, which allows for completing the granary at 12/24f; whipping at 42/60 isn't enough). But we also want a granary and spear from Vermin, while not whipping away the silver for too long. No idea on the numbers in Vermin, currently.
* W3 & W4 could also move 3, cottage (2t) -- cottage (1t) -- road (1t) -- move 9, road (1t) -- move 9, pasture pig (2t) -- pasture (1t), then chop into library (or granary, if that's more efficient -- not sure yet), to get X-6 running faster. Have Rhapsody build another worker at 15 fhpt (clams/rice/cow/copper/grass river cottage) after the settler; build granary/units (food storage timing) while the worker improves a floodplains cottage. Downside compared to floodplains cottage: 1t slower growth at Rhapsody, but 2t earlier cottage growth. Yeah, with our GNP, I think I'll take that.
* I expect both of our neighbours to become more aggressive once we settle two cities on the same turn, whether they think we can support these cities or not. The sentry warriors will probably not be dispensable any time soon, which means we need additional units for military police in ~20t, perhaps (wild guess; I think Rhapsody is actually close to the happy cap right now)
* I wonder why CML has built Henge and not the Oracle; but he might be going for both. (Of course, if he really just teched Wheel, he wouldn't have Pottery yet, and he'll probably want to choose Metal Casting for the Oracle.)
* We're looking at CML's second-ring or perhaps third-ring borders -- which is strange, because even if Stonehenge applies its +8 culture on the interturn, that's still only 9/10 (monument also considered). The rather uncomfortable conclusion is that we're looking at his capital.
* Last, but not least, I think I should start including screenshots of F1.
Going back to the settlement discussion, I think it has to be X-5 west. Mostly for the easier naval access, but also for the extra resource tile brought into culture.
On settling towards Savant -- I think you are right at the end of the day, we don't want to have pressure on both fronts, and we effectively already made the choice to focus on CML's border more. A little sad to effectively give up that borderland though. Can we settle so as to leave an opportunity for a culture-bomb later perhaps?
In brief: I think we should settle X-5 east because west can't get the library (and thus the seafood) before what feels like T135, and X-6 where indicated because it's well-placed to de-escalate the Savant border, by requiring less military investment, while also being well-placed to build a library by T68 without a whip, and to defend against Savant if he actually comes knocking. There's more information below, but I'm not sure how much; mostly details of reasoning.
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X-5:
The clams do outperform the plains cow after lighthouse and granary with CHM whips; we lose 12h in early development compared to East, but faster access into the western sea is probably worth that. The main problem is that X-5 West doesn't do anything until the library comes in for the second-ring seafood, and loses not only the 12h (modified 16h) but also a forest -- since another worker comes in from Sicil X-5 East can finish the library at size2 going chop -> chop -> whip, never wasting turns on unimproved tiles. X-5 West will be "hanging" at 27h after the chop, doesn't get any hammer tiles in borders before the pop (but we require them the most before the pop), and with a single 5f tile, isn't really fit to double-whip the library, either.
Besides this, X-5 East saves us the trouble of building a library at Sicil (which doesn't really need the beaker bonus, nor will it run scientists), since it picks up the grass cow with its culture. The extra 5hpt from both cows could also come in handy if we want to make this the Moai city (suitable candidate I think, next to your suggestion Lifeblood, which is also fine).
Thus after some thought, I favour X-5 East quite strongly. It loses 1fpt in the long run (grass cow <-> lighthoused clams) and might run into problems sharing its food with Sicil some 50t down the road, but I think the other advantages -- particularly how much more immediate the returns are -- outweigh the better long-term potential and western sea access of X-5 West.
The kicker is that the clams can be brought in by a city on the western landmass, albeit in second-ring borders as well (unless that's a peak tile north of the barely-visible estuary).
An issue with X-5 East: Sicil gives up its pcow to that city on T59, which means we'll need a different approach building the worker there -- or accept working unimproved tiles for a few turns. Alternatively, we don't give up the pcow to X-5 East before it hits size2, which means we don't get those 12h mentioned, but it does fit with Sicil's optimal micro (or what I believe that to be) for the next half-dozen turns after the settler completes.
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Savant border:
X-6 has the large advantage of three forests to chop with the two designated workers (W3 & W4) in first-ring borders. That's the library done within 10t of founding, no need to whip, as the remaining 9h can entirely come from the city tile itself. Besides, it's situated on a hill, and picks up silver in the second ring. The food is sufficient to run e.g. 2 scientists at size5 and still work both silver and whales at stagnation -- or, more likely, to whip with license. It's also very defensible: the hill placement helps to negate possible Shock promotions on incoming axes (What Would Savant Do?), the city is entirely surrounded by flatland (and a peak) after chops, has a single tile for sea access, effectively controls the entire region (i.e. no splitting of stacks between multiple front cities) and sits four tiles from the capital with roads in place from its inception. I've probably gone on about this site in the past.
Again, I'd be reluctant to change its positioning. The largest disadvantage of hill X-6 is that it overlaps a grand total of one cottage at the capital, but giving up the silver doesn't seem worth it, now that Savant has settled this area and the plains hill has become too risky (and more importantly, would add no extra food as long as Savant's second-ring borders overwhelm ours).
X-6 invalidates the plains hill, but not the hills north of it. We might have an opportunity to artist-bomb that, if any city at all. Alternatively, save the artist (if we get any) for border-fixing during or immediately before war, which I believe to be the stronger option on this map, since cultural borders will probably be long-entrenched before anyone gets to Music. What we might be able to do is to bomb a Savant city on some other landmass, though.
X-6's first build is going to be the library, so we will at least seal off Savant from coming much closer than this. Probably feels a bit ersatz -- but any closer city we could bomb would be outperformed so vastly by 6f ph Harmondale and the bananafish megalopolis (four food resources, not counting the 3f center tile; insane) that whatever tiles we snatch probably cannot even repay the resources poured into defending that city until Music. And that's the best-case scenario where we actually get the artist and culture isn't already entrenched enough for Savant to retain his tiles.
It does hurt to give up that borderland being IMP, but we have a similar borderland in the south (the copper even hinting at the parallel), in that CML was worse-equipped to settle it than we were, if only due to capital distance and biased topography (in his case, the forests slowing down potential settlers). I'm assuming that CML, in turn, has one such site on his border with dtay. If we can get land of the same quality as all of our neighbours, but grab and develop the cities faster or taller using our traits, we gain the advantage; if we give up one city near Savant so that we can settle a similar one near CML (and can defend it), we haven't lost out.
Of course, that's what I tell myself when I rationalize my decisions after the fact...
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PS. I can't play the turn before the evening anyway, but if there's a lurker reading who could cover T53 for dtay (see his post in tech), that would be great.
Confirms that we're close to CML's capital. Shame on me for not recognizing the third ring as such immediately. Maybe we can use the warrior to dissuade his worker from chopping (it seems that he has just entered the forest, unless CML cancelled the action before ending turn).
It also seems that he built Henge in a city somewhere near dtay. Good news for us, as that might make dtay more inclined to attack him down the road.
Equipped with Stonehenge as he is, I think CML will want to found a city on the tile our warrior occupies, unless he's fearless enough to settle the minimum distance away from us and grab clams. (I know I wouldn't be; we have an axe and he knows this, but has no idea where it is.) If we put an axe on the tile marked "a", he can't spot the axe until one of his units (hopefully including the settler) moves onto the hill. If that happens and he has no axe or archer of his own, he'll have to move the settler elsewhere or risk declaration.
EDIT: Actually he can spot the axe from the flat tile (2 of hill) as well, due to vision across water. The tile 8 of "a" will keep the axe hidden, though.
I've whipped the granary in Vermin. The food bin is spectacularly off (now 18/22f), but I do have a reasoning: The optimal cut-off point for the granary is 13/26f, reachable in 4t by growing to size3 and working unimproved tiles, then growing back onto size3 in 3t. But it takes 6t from now to grow to size3 with the granary fully loaded (it will only be near-empty on size2 growth), and we've even freed up our build queue immediately. Of course, that eliminates the possibility of building a worker at Vermin (silver is more important for our GNP), but we can build another axe instead, or a spear; then build the worker at size3
Another point of concern is the library used to produce both scientists. I think a more accurate date for completion of the Academy is T85. We'll actually have one grassland village by then, provided we work the cottage planted next turn without interruption. Lifeblood is well-equipped for working the scientists, but we lack some worker labor to build the actual library. The sheep pasture gets done on T57, then the rice farm on T63 (at the earliest), which is about the earliest time that Vermin's worker can come over to chop. Now Vermin's worker could improve the riverside grass hill to complete a mine on T60, but that delays the silver even further and we can't really allow that. (Rival Best GNP is up to 55, Avg. 35 -- and we're at 24. I suspect Savant is Rival Worst, actually -- the graphs seem to suggest so. Every size2-3 city costs us ~2 gpt in maintenance, too.)
So Lifeblood has a bit of trouble getting the library done. Which makes me think X-6, which can finish the library at T68 and grows to size3 by then, could work pigs + scientist + scientist; or we farm a riverside tile, grow to 4, and then work the two scientists to still get the Academy before T90.
Maybe you have an idea here? I'm at a loss what to do with Lifeblood, not because the city is bad (it isn't, emphatically) but rather because it has many options and only 1-2 workers over the next dozen turns. Skip one of the food resources (the riverside rice) with its worker and mine the hill instead, perhaps? Or mine the silver before farming the rice? (Actually not a terrible idea if we want to catch up in GNP as soon as possible... Not much help with the library, though.)
(Lifeblood's boxes are at 6/22 food, granary 2/60h. W2 is improving the pasture. I've actually removed the numbering from the workers in that region since it's potentially CTON-breaking if they get spotted in the future, although I guess CML is already assuming that, indeed, we have at least two workers But "W5"'s name is indeed spoilerish, so he's just "W" right now. I've kind of given up on the naming scheme with our units...)
Final note: You can see Vermin is empty; that's because the warrior is moving over to Lifeblood so that CML's warrior can't do anything there. The axe will enter Vermin on T55.
EDIT: Oh, and before I forget: do you think "a" is viable as a city site? I think we want to have 1-2 spears before we try that, since Hokey's chariots hit it within 3t, but afterwards, perhaps?
Yeah, I would say that X-6 works better for the scientists, as it really has nothing to work except the pig, and it has the three forests for chopping. I wouldnt build a bare grass farm at this stage, there are more pressing demands on worker labour. The only downside is that X-6 provides less base commerce for the library to multiply, OTOH we will still build a library in Lifeblood, and it has tiles to work, unlike X-6.
EDIT: On CML's border, seems we have settled nicely to put some pressure on him. a is a viable site, but I think we are even more interested in 1W of it, that way we get to lighthouse Vermin's lake, whilst also picking up the whales, potentially, and denying settlement. I think the choice for pressure on this border has already been made, and we shouldn't shy away from being a little bolder here. Can't afford to be passive on both fronts simultaneously.
X-6 can pick up grass silver (5c) after the border pop and whales (4c) after Sailing, at least, as well as a riverside cottage. It's not that bad. In fact, I think it's going to contribute more commerce than any other city besides Rhapsody for a while.
Regarding the south: As far as I know, the lighthouse works on a per-city basis, rather than improving the terrain itself, so Vermin's lake will never be 3f while Vermin is working it.
I might be overcautious, but I don't think the extra whales justify settling five tiles from CML's capital with no defensive bonus. We'd be forcing his hand by settling either city -- in a sense, taking pressure off him by giving him a clear objective to focus on.
I think the best way to settle here is aggressively enough that we gain land that "shouldn't be ours" (if this were Always Peace; where was the Prince of Aragón's quote?), but defensibly enough that our neighbours will doubt they could take and hold the cities without a major economic loss, or at least that they couldn't proceed with a less risky plan. The plains hill sits six tiles from his capital, but leaves room for him to settle one more city by the sheep (whose sole food resource we can culturally pressure with a library against his monument), and his wonder designs might make him slower to settle in general. No use backing anyone into a corner before we can finish that job.
Agree that we want to take action on this border, though, since that's the point of our hospitality towards Savant (Carthaginian hospitality means that we run our warriors next to your cities/units for 15t). Let's not allow CML to freely build workers and novelty megalithic observatories without any kind of army. For starters, that axe won't exactly be sitting inside Vermin and the threat to his worker isn't a bluff on my intent; he'll react or get whacked.
I'm not sure why, but connecting all the cities didn't award trade routes to Sicil and Rhapsody yet; maybe those only get re-calculated at end-of-turn, or I'm overlooking something. All our cities can definitely build copper units now and show the triangle-of-arrows icon.
If we want to, we can whip the second axe, at the cost of setting back Vermin's development, particularly that of the silver mine. I've been worrying that the granary whip was ill-timed compared to some variant I didn't think of; in any case, we hit 14/26f @ T60.
Savant has a fresh warrior in Harmondale. I moved Ari 8 to see. Which means the city isn't connected to copper right now; good to know he won't have metal units probing X-6 just yet.
I wonder where CML will be settling. We could see the forest last turn, so I suppose the settler has just left his capital's build queue. The worker and warrior being positioned as they are, I suppose he's aiming to settle towards us.
EDIT: Changed granary build to axe in Lifeblood (nobody else had logged in during those 15 minutes), since the spare hammers into the granary won't have much use compared to the possibility to whip an axe. What I've forgotten to check was Top5 cities; a whip by Joey and a size7 city vanishing from the rankings indicates that he did indeed have such a capital. Our size5 capital isn't anything special anymore, but decent enough.
I'll take F1 pictures once we're up to six cities.
Late edit: I've noticed I haven't mentioned this among the usual torrent of words: Savant's GNP isn't Rival Worst, I was mistaken. We are #7 at 24, and since last turn, Savant seems to sit 6-7 points above us, going from GNP graphs. Even after subtracting his two barracks, I think this means that he''s working a high-commerce tile in one of his cities. Silver seems to be common on this map; I wonder if only the islands might have gold.
a) Are you alright with declaring, if he takes the threat lightly?
b) Should we still do that if his power graph shows a marked increase next turn?
After my vetoing all the more ballsy proposals lately, I guess you'll answer yes to both but only one way to know.
If this happens, we might see him switching to full-on "to-the-death" aggression afterwards (no idea, he's a complete unknown); while our border cities can probably outproduce him (especially if we settle another -- you might see a-West yet -- gain more workers, and get all the granaries running -- Vermin already has a useful whip cycle thanks to CHM + granary), a protracted war at equal tech will still be a drain on the economy, both in maintenance and hammer costs. Edit: Lifeblood in particular would have to produce units; it will be difficult to squeeze in the library and granary.
I'd like to make a case for AH rather than Sailing as the next tech, independent of what T56 might bring.
Edit: From Civstats' recent logins, I think Savant's neighbour could be Krill. It could just be coincidence, but what makes me suspicious is the sudden flurry of Savant's posts, which appears to go along with this. It would also explain why he has never sent any units our direction: he might figure he'll gladly give us some room if that allows him to put pressure on the behemoth in his north. We can't get past Savant's land borders to find out, though, unlike with CML, where we might actually find a way to meet dtay after all.
Glimpse The Unthinkable Edit: They might be at war, or go to war soonish. I don't know what's going on, of course, but Savant has made about a dozen posts on this turn (making him seem rather alarmed), Krill is AGG/CHM, and a dedicated chariot rush tends to hit by T60 -- if we know that Savant hasn't built a spear yet, then so does any other neighbour. I really doubt our warrior move caused Savant this distress. Could also "just" be a settling race, of course.
We can always war declare just to get through, ita more the issue that we don't have a fast moving unit for worthy scouting.
I'm OK with snatching a worker, even if he has built a real unit. In these games conquest is kinda inevitable and a two worker swing (he loses one, we gain one) is huge.
Also, we do have that other half of our traits to put to use.
![[Image: Image.ashx?multiverseid=26848&type=card]](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=26848&type=card)
![[Image: qVkyXfc.png]](http://i.imgur.com/qVkyXfc.png)
and the threat to his worker isn't a bluff on my intent; he'll react or get whacked.
![[Image: WpfKglk.png]](http://i.imgur.com/WpfKglk.png)