[SPOILERS] Magic Science and Mr. Cairo in Pitboss 40

[Magic Science]

Turn 31 – 2760 BC
This was a big turn, as expected. However, there were some unexpected events that I really need some advice on, please.
   
To start, I moved Moncacht-Ape two tiles west, and he found Superdeath’s capital (still named To Be Decided )! That is much closer than I would like; I am already feeling protective of MY RIGHTFUL LAND! Not just in his direction, but to the east too. I imagine that there is someone located roughly as far away as Superdeath, but to the east of Cuzco. If the crab and corn city isn’t third (I am still working on that), then it will almost certainly be fourth.

I think that Moncacht-Ape will move south, then southwest, to the grassland forest hill. Then he will circle around To Be Decided to get vision of the tiles and hopefully the city, but he will do so cautiously, because warriors could be lurking. Also, the espionage ratio between us and Superdeath is 36/32, which means that he has met someone else. He could have met them with that scout we saw earlier, or they could have stumbled on his capital like he did in our case. We may meet another player any turn now if it is the second option.
   
Of course, we also founded Sidon this turn! Yay! Quechua One moved into the city to defend it. However, the founding of Sidon also brought bad news. The city costs more in the game than in my sims. Does anyone know (I think that lurkers could answer this too) what the cause may be? This means that my plan is effectively obsolete, because it relies on getting a technology the very turn we need it in several cases.  We need Fishing in two turns for Cuzco to start a workboat, and I am not sure that it is possible to do that. Getting The Wheel on time will almost certainly not be possible, and Pottery will be delayed as well. We need a whole new plan, really.

What I am asking is, what do we do now? I did not actually end turn this turn, so we can still adjust things. I don’t want to delay the game much, but we have plenty of time on the timer, and I am willing to make the other players a bit grumpy to optimize our play. I guess I will go try to set up a sim with the correct maintenance and then see about a new plan. I hope that there is a way to deal with this besides "Suck it up and be delayed," but I don't have very much confidence.

[Mr. Cairo]

How much more is the maintenance in game than the sim?

[Magic Science]

In the game, Cuzco costs 0.56 and Sidon costs 1.63. In the simulation, Cuzco costs 0.56 and Sidon costs 1.10. The greater in-game maintenance means that 90% science is -1 gold per turn in game, rather than break even like in the sim, so we can't run it two turns in a row.

[WilliamLP]

City maintenance has two parts, one for number of cities and one for distance. You can see it broken out hovering over the stat in the city screen I think. Distance maintenance depends on the longest distance between any two points on the map so it changes with map dimensions and cylindrical vs torroidal, so sandboxes need to match the real map to be accurate.

[Magic Science]

I just now actually hit end turn for Turn 31. I thought about the situation some more, and I am no longer as panicked as I was earlier. Yes, this is a setback, but it is actually an extremely small setback. I can obey the plan that I already had in my head with only a few modifications for this new discovery. This turn, Cuzco worked the corn farm, grassland mine, and unimproved sheep as planned. Sidon worked the sugar farm. I set research to 0%. In the coming turns, I will set research back to 100%, which will enable me to research Fishing in 2 turns, then The Wheel in 5 turns (just in time to fit the plan!). The only other modification besides the research tinkering is that Cuzco will put a turn of production into Settler Two after finishing Quechua Two before Fishing completes and it can start Workboat One. Settler Two will not be delayed. Pottery will probably be delayed by one or two turns, but I can't be too sure of what is going to happen until I set up a sim with the correct maintenance costs.

City maintenance has two parts, one for number of cities and one for distance. You can see it broken out hovering over the stat in the city screen I think. Distance maintenance depends on the longest distance between any two points on the map so it changes with map dimensions and cylindrical vs torroidal, so sandboxes need to match the real map to be accurate.

WilliamLP, thank you for that information. The distance maintenance is the component that is different between the game and the sim, so I guess that my sim does not have exactly the same dimensions as the game. I will have to try to fix that.

[Mr. Cairo]

I just now actually hit end turn for Turn 31. I thought about the situation some more, and I am no longer as panicked as I was earlier. Yes, this is a setback, but it is actually an extremely small setback. I can obey the plan that I already had in my head with only a few modifications for this new discovery. This turn, Cuzco worked the corn farm, grassland mine, and unimproved sheep as planned. Sidon worked the sugar farm. I set research to 0%. In the coming turns, I will set research back to 100%, which will enable me to research Fishing in 2 turns, then The Wheel in 5 turns (just in time to fit the plan!). The only other modification besides the research tinkering is that Cuzco will put a turn of production into Settler One after finishing Quechua Two before Fishing completes and it can start Workboat One. Settler One will not be delayed. Pottery will probably be delayed by one or two turns, but I can't be too sure of what is going to happen until I set up a sim with the correct maintenance costs.

City maintenance has two parts, one for number of cities and one for distance. You can see it broken out hovering over the stat in the city screen I think. Distance maintenance depends on the longest distance between any two points on the map so it changes with map dimensions and cylindrical vs torroidal, so sandboxes need to match the real map to be accurate.

WilliamLP, thank you for that information. The distance maintenance is the component that is different between the game and the sim, so I guess that my sim does not have exactly the same dimensions as the game. I will have to try to fix that.

Ah, good, I'm glad you found a way to fit it into the plan, I would have hated to see all that work gone up in smoke.

Maybe we can ask the mapmaker (or some other lurker) for the dimensions of the map, so we can create a more accurate sim.

[Magic Science]

Turn 32 – 2720 BC
ALERT! ALERT! SECOND CITY ALERT!  
I neglected to mention it, but we were the first civilization to found a second city! This turn both Superdeath and Coeurva joined us in the Two-City Club. That was foreshadowed by Superdeath revolting to Slavery last turn, but I didn’t notice that until this turn. Also in the news, RFS-81 got a technology. I believe that the technology in question is Fishing.
   
In our own civilization, everything proceeded as planned, which was a nice change of pace from last turn. Moncacht-Ape found an unclaimed wheat tile near Superdeath. Next turn he will move to the tile west of the wheat. He should hopefully get vision of To Be Decided on the way.
   
Fishing is due in two turns. Next turn is the turn that Cuzco will put some hammers into Settler Two.

[Magic Science]

So, I have been constantly mentioning this plan of mine (and panicking whenever there is a minor disruption ), but I haven’t actually posted its most recent, complete version yet, so here it is, from the next turn onward:

Turn 33: Worker One moves one tile northwest to the flatland grassland forest. Worker Two finishes mining the copper. Cuzco works the sugar farm, sheep pasture, and copper mine while putting hammers into Settler Two. Sidon works the corn farm and continues to build Quechua Three.
Turn 34: Worker One starts chopping. Worker Two moves one tile southeast to the plains forest hill. Fishing is done, continue on to The Wheel, still at 100% research. Cuzco starts Workboat One.
Turn 35: Worker Two starts chopping. Sidon has grown one population, it picks up the grassland mine and switches to building Worker Three.
Turn 36: Worker One finishes chopping.
Turn 37: Workboat One finished, it moves to the crab tile. Worker Three is at 20/60 hammers, so whip in Sidon. Cuzco resumes Settler Two and picks up the corn farm, Sidon stays working the grassland mine. Worker One moves one tile southeast, towards the copper mine. Worker Two finishes chopping.
Turn 38: Workboat One improves the crab. Cuzco now works the crab workboats, sugar farm, copper mine, and sheep pasture. Sidon resumes building Quechua Three and picks up the corn farm again. Worker Two moves to the corn farm. Worker Three done in Sidon, he moves to the floodplains and puts a turn into a farm.
Turn 39: The Wheel done. Set research to 0% on Pottery. Worker One and Worker Two starts roading where they are. Worker Three moves one tile north (so one tile west of Sidon) and starts roading.
Turn 40: Turn research to 100%. All workers finish their roads where they are. Settler Two runs all the way to the tile that Worker Three is on.
Turn 41: Settler Two and Worker Three run to the copper forest (a quechua will be there to defend them). Worker Two runs to the tile they just vacated. Worker One (To Be Decided).
Turn 42: Third city founded, Worker Three starts mining the copper forest, Worker Two runs to join him.

You may have noticed that there isn’t much mention of what Cuzco and Sidon are doing towards the end there. That is because I am not sure what they will be doing yet. I have a rough idea for how things can play out, but I need to set up a sim with the correct maintenance costs and do a few tries to be sure. When exactly Pottery completes is very important. Regardless, this plan should work fine until about Turn 40. At that point I will need to have a better idea of how to micromanage Cuzco and Sidon.

I was already heavily leaning towards settling your red dot for the third city, and I am basically decided now. Purple is a bit slower because it needs a workboat to use its second resource tile, and it is farther away from our civilization than red. I still do lean towards settling it fourth, even more now because Superdeath has been revealed to be nearby.

The reason that I am now chopping instead of whipping to accelerate the third city is that I feel the worker turns would be going to waste in building a mine, the mine that would be built just doesn't get used, so we might as well chop and save the population.

[Mr. Cairo]

sounds pretty good Magic Science, although at the end there, it's probably best to chop the copper first, then mine. It shouldn't slow down the mine, but it'll get the Terrace out earlier, which is preferable.

Cozco or Sidon could probably get a scout or two during this time, which would be beneficial for scouting, especially for that spot down by the silver.

Speaking of, I think I agree with you on settling purple before that, before seeing how close Superdeath's cap is I was leaning more towards the silver spot, but now I would rather settle towards Superdeath. Of course, there's probably someone equally close on the other side who might be settling towards us, and who knows how far that silver site is from anyone else. Which is why I really want to get some more scouts out there.
We need to know EVERYTHING.

[Magic Science]

Turn 33 – 2680 BC
ALERT! ALERT! SECOND CITY ALERT!

Err, probably, that is. shallow_thought played last on Turn 32 and first on Turn 33, and he got a point increase for another population immediately after the turn rolled. By looking at the Top 5 Cities screen, it does not appear that his capital increased in population, so that score increase must be a second city. Also, RFS-81 experienced the first score decrease of the game, which must be a double-whip. I expect his second city any turn now. On another small Cloak and Dagger note, I realized that I made a noobish mistake in regard to Superdeath and espionage points. We were actually the ones who had less points against him because we revolted to Slavery before him, he didn’t have less points against us, so he might not have met another civilization.
   
Moncacht-Ape did manage to get sight on To Be Decided and some of its tiles this turn. He found a corn farm and a copper being mined by a worker (he also saw that there is an Ikanda in the city already ).  The capitals are obviously not exact copies of one another, but my current guess is that they all have the same resources and roughly the same number of riverside tiles, forests, and so on.

Moncacht-Ape will try to prove or disprove that idea by going one tile southwest, then one tile northwest. We could declare war on Superdeath to let him run two tiles west immediately (and win the favor of the lurkers ), but I don’t want to antagonize our neighbor, and I want to see what is south of To Be Decided anyway.
   
Back home, everything proceeded along the guidelines of the new plan without issue.

sounds pretty good Magic Science, although at the end there, it's probably best to chop the copper first, then mine. It shouldn't slow down the mine, but it'll get the Terrace out earlier, which is preferable.

Cozco or Sidon could probably get a scout or two during this time, which would be beneficial for scouting, especially for that spot down by the silver.

Speaking of, I think I agree with you on settling purple before that, before seeing how close Superdeath's cap is I was leaning more towards the silver spot, but now I would rather settle towards Superdeath. Of course, there's probably someone equally close on the other side who might be settling towards us, and who knows how far that silver site is from anyone else. Which is why I really want to get some more scouts out there.
We need to know EVERYTHING.

I think that you are right about chopping before mining being the best play. I will alter the plan to do that instead.

I agree with you about NEEDING TO KNOW EVERYTHING! Do you think it is better to scout with actual scouts or with quechuas and, later, chariots that are assigned to scout? Scouts are fast and non-threatening, but human barbarians eat them for breakfast, and human barbarians will be appearing soon.

To round off this turn report, in the interest of full disclosure, I accidentally clicked on Charriu and Zalson’s thread a little while ago. I immediately clicked back without seeing any spoilers.