Quickly now: It looks like you posted right after I went offline yesterday. I can`t play this turn until the evening. Here is a few comments, more coming up when I have time.
Borte should be at 11/10, with one happy face. I`m pretty sure it doesn`t have any whip anger. Radnashiri could (and should) have been whipped last turn, I missed it. Let`s get out a scout boat instead. Muqa should be 10/9 happy now. One worker is roading at the presumed soon to-be iron tile in Borte`s bfc. There are a worker 2N of the city that can complete the mine. Note that the worker on the iron tile has to board the galley to go W to the new city. Radnashiri has two workers that can be moved elsewhere, Agreed that a few more workers is a good idea.
Aye; I could easily have posted something brief while you were in-game instead of waiting and then rushing through a four-point list that I ended up posting too late to matter anyway. That was silly of me, but it won't really hurtmuch: Radnashiri is going to be a terrific city regardless; it'll just take a little bit longer to really hit its stride this way than it would with the granary whip. (And we'll get that workboat out as a bonus, which certainly has value!) With that deer and gold, it's looking pretty good already!
Something else I said somewhere upthread that wasn't quite correct: It turns out that Toregene's cultural situation isn't precarious at all. Yes, State of Zijin will start putting pressure on some of its second-ring tiles by T101, and yes it'll be making more cultural per turn than Toregene, but it won't be nearly enough to overcome Toregene's enormous historical culture before T111, when Toregene will pop third-ring borders even if it doesn't get religion or any other cultural buildings in the meantime.
That's all from me for tonight (I really should have been asleep hours ago; one of these days, I'll get into a proper sleep pattern...) - have a great day!
All the others had played their turn so I got to play a double turn. The big news is that dtay has built more military and is now ahead of us in power. Chubei is finishing an archer that was meant for an island city but we can keep it in Chubei instead. The worker N of the city will finish a mine next turn. Muqa`s Lighthouse was whipped on turn 97, which gives us a good amount of overflow. Should we build another axe there instead of the settler?
Borte whipped the settler on turn 97. I couldn`t find a better spot for it than the corn sharing tile on the west coast of the mainland. Bulugan started a Barracks. It could build a defensive unit for the new city. Oghul Qaimish started yet another work boat heading for the new city.
Oh, on turn 98 we built another city, Babukhan! It brings us up to 11 cities. Strangely, still no enemy borders in sight. We might want to get out a settler there soon. I set research to 50 % that`ll allow us to finish Iron Working eot. We`re making 171 beakers at full speed! That`s not bad.
Note the galley of Dark Savant`s close to Radnashiri. I decided to play it safe and returned our own galley, unloaded the chariot and let the two workers board it. The galley is heading NW to Muqa. The northern galley has an archer on board that could hop off next turn.
Graphs and demos. As previously noted dtay is gearing up for.. something. He`s more likely to hit Russia than us and we have a favorable border situation (very good vision of the area) but we shouldn`t let down our guard. Btw, someone got an increase of 19 food from turn 96 to turn 97! That`s a lot of food. I suspect that it`s Joey. He`s now at 12 cities, one more than us. It seems that the Great Lighthouse is paying off nicely for him.
- Nambui needs its Monastery as soon as possible. After that, I think a temple (we can probably one-turn Priesthood above break-even) and a barracks would be called for, also as quickly as we can finish them. Hopefully they'll all complete in time to keep control of the copper and bananas, but it's going to be a near-run thing.
- I'm looking forward to seeing where the rest of our iron is!
- dtay's power spike is interesting, but I'm not concerned yet. He has a lot of cities to protect as well, and as you note, our border is pretty favorable (and, unlike the GJ border, fairly stable on both sides, I think). If it continues for another turn or two (or especially accelerates) we'll have to take it a little more seriously, but right now our power levels are still roughly the same.
(August 12th, 2017, 16:30)RefSteel Wrote: - Nambui needs its Monastery as soon as possible.
- I'm looking forward to seeing where the rest of our iron is!
- dtay's power spike is interesting, but I'm not concerned yet.
I had a look in game and dtay hasn`t made any aggressive moves towards us. The only thing that could be a worry for us would be an attack on Bulugan out of the fog. Getting that Barracks built will eventually help with a border pop as well as the XP. It`s going to be one of our best production sites in the near future. I`d like to slip in a galley sometime but dtay is likely to see it as a big threat to his city if we sail past there. Let`s see what the power rating looks like next turn. Russia is probably in deep trouble here. Another hint that something`s about to happen is the fact that dtay posted in his thread for the first time for maybe a couple of months.
Hopefully we`ll get at least 3-4 iron sources. It`s always fun getting to know where the strategic resources are located! Btw, the two workers near Toregene are lined up to start on the gems mine next turn. They could head down to Nambui next as there`s plenty of jungle there. Let`s start a Monastery immediately in Nambui and whip it out asap. We can ill afford losing control over the jungle copper. It`s such a good tile when we finally get rid of the jungle.
I took a few screenshots of possible city sites. We have to prioritize here. I`d love to go for an even more greedy gold island plant W of our new-built city as Gavagai doesn`t seem to emphasize this area just yet. He wouldn`t be happy about us settling there, of course. Also, we should decide whether to settle up on Couerva, dtay or Dark Savant. I think going for the island NE of Kokejin is a good idea, though dtay or Dark Savant might get there before us. Also, I took screenshots of Borte and Muqa.
- Chubei and Muqa are still working 3 unimproved tiles between them; that'll still be the case T99 as Chubei grows onto the new mine. Muqa should therefore probably whip its Settler.
- Borte and Toregene have five unworked improved tiles between them; partly that's because we just double-whipped Borte - but only partly. (I also miscommunicated about whipping Borte in the first place: I said we should probably whip the Settler if it would speed up founding a new city and the new city working an improved resource, but I should have specified that I meant a new improved resource - i.e. one that couldn't be worked by another city.) Fortunately these two cities are now growing on Markets, but it might be better to let Toregene work on a Worker on turns when Borte works the rice since it makes no more than 1 food per turn at those times.
(If the turn still hasn't rolled though, I'd consider giving Toregene the rice, working a mine in Borte, and one-turning a Worker there before moving on to the Market at a slower pace. If that were the case, I'd even consider 1-turning a Worker in Muqa instead of getting such a big jump on a Settler there, but that depends on whether we want that Settler to claim an important contested island or something.)
- On the Settler in the west: Would it be worth sending it to the stone (or even a different western island) instead? Given our worker situation, it doesn't look to me like the corn-sharing city will have any really good tiles to work for a long time unless it's stealing them from Bulugan - which is starting to run out of good tiles to work itself. It could work the copper forest (and perhaps steal the corn while Bulugan builds a Worker or Settler) while it waits for the eventual mine/chop for a net 1f/4h but the Stone city wouldn't have to steal anything and would make 3f/2h until the deer is improved. That city will be slow-starting with or without worker support, but it will connect stone as soon as we tech masonry, and getting its slow start underway sooner means getting it fully up and running sooner too - plus it's a slightly more-contested location just by dint of being an island. (Another alternative is planting the city on the 1-tile(?) forest island north of Babukhan, which could work the clams while Babukhan works its land tiles initially. Or we could aggressively plant for that gold island, but it would want workers and a missionary pretty desperately.)
- Regardless of events in the game, have a terrific day!
Borte switched to a worker. I can see the attraction of 1 turning workers now! As we`re about to get another worker to Muqa by boat the settler build was kept. Whipping it out soon is okay with me. There are plenty of islands to settle out there.
The settler standing on the hill W of Borte has a few options. The point about getting the stone island up to speed quickly is a good one. It does, however, come with a risk, as we don`t really have any military to send out there right now. I`ll think carefully about what to do when playing turn 99. Oh, the work boat under construction in Oghul Qaimish would give the original city site I had in mind at least one improved tile.
Gavagai offered another map swap. I accepted (couldn`t find a good reason to risk angering him by declining). Here`s a couple of screenshots of the new lands discovered in the trade.The good news is that Gavagai`s cities seem to far away from the gold island that we could settle. The first screenshot is the area directly N of the gold island. The second one is the area E of dtay`s second city, Space Rock iirc.
It turns out that we have 4 sources of iron (3 of them in our borders). As expected, the plains tile near Borte has iron. Also, iron appeared on the grass tile shared by Muqa and Chubei! That`s pretty awesome. Sugabala has an iron S of the whales. And finally Bulugan has an iron in its second ring. I sent workers in the direction of the newly discovered resources and whipped Bulugan in order to expand borders asap.
We`re just about able to squeeze out Priesthood this turn at 40 % science. Expenses are getting high but our economy is still in great shape. After having a long thought, I decided to send the settler on the boat to found the island city on the stone. It`s a little bit risky as we don`t have a defensive unit ready to go but Bulugan can make an archer shortly. Oghul Qaimish started another settler. It could be whipped again soon. Borte`s growing in two turns and is very much looking forward to getting that iron online. Muqa was whipped and Chubei is working all the strong shared tiles.
Annoyingly, State of Zijin expanded borders already and we`re about to lose control of Nambui`s third ring tiles. The Monastery can and will be whipped next turn.
One of the workers on the galley SE of Muqa jumped off at Sugabala island in order to improve the iron there while the other is going to the main land next turn.
Graphs and demos: Finally, we got the graphs of Gavagai. He seems to be doing very well and is still very much in the contest for winning this game. Dtay built a bit more units but the power increase wasn`t as big as the last couple of turns. We`re actually in 7th place in production but only 12 hammers away from the leader. This game really is close now.
