[Spoiler] PB42: Rusten and mackoti play Krill playing Bismarck of Portugal

[Krill]

I don't believe that is an island, I think it wraps around the southern peak. I don't actually care if there is seafood on the otherside of that peak, can scout that later, but the dependent on that, a city where teh scout is, or the tile north of the sheep could be a later Moai city (I think north of sheep is better because it can reach size 9 and 19 base hpt with just a lighthouse and the improved sheep using workshops).





I went through these screenshots of demos, and for some reason on T8 crop yield increased for the leader to 6. So either someone settled a 3 food capital or they improved a 4 yield seafood, and I don't know why they would have done that: It would be better to go wandering. Turn 9 shows the leader at 7 food, so someone did hook a 5 yield seafood tile.

[Krill]

Current world map

[Krill]

First run through of Wheel>Pottery.

Second settler eot40, with four workers, 2 forests left at the capital, and a capital granary due eot43 and the foodbox at 15/26 (fp cottage completed turn after, so work pig/sheep/fp to grow eot45 with the granary full). The second city has one turn working an unimproved tile on T33 and then works plains sheep to size 2, when the grass sheep is improved; the worker improving the grass sheep can mine the grass hill, and that then gives 2 workers to cottage the river. Pottery completed eot39 and the overflow (ie two chops) from the settler is dumped into the granary.

There is an option to also whip the settler T39 and that gives a completed granary eot41 with 4 turn growth @size3 eot43, @size4 eot45, dump hammers into a settler to whip shortly after the whip anger runs out, this is likely the better option (it's up a warrior, down 5 commerce). Agriculture is due eot46 whatever is done, and there are two workers to improve the third city.

I think this is the bare bones of a plan.

[Krill]

On the warrior numbers, this gives 2 warriors before the second worker which have to cover the second city, exploration and capital (not needed for happiness). The second city builds 2.5 warriors by the time it reaches size 4 (so can withdraw the defending warrior that was built in the capital and one other, the second built warrior has to stay for happiness), and then post granary the capital builds 3 warriors to reach size 5. So that's 8 warriors by T50, plus the scout if it doesn't get eaten.

The main issue is that most of the warriors are positioned awkwardly, but it shouldn't be a problem to both explore and cover everything. The only thing that I think is mandatory is that shortly after the second city is settled and it is churning out the first warrior on the way to size 2, is that the defending warrior needs to run over to the capital to defend the workers that road to the third city location and defend that settler.

[mackoti]

I didnt see any  happy early resources, why do we(you) want granary that fast? I usualy dont bother with those if dont have at least 1 happy till latter.Situation is totaly  different with happines.From what i see till now  hapinnes is very few(none) so i recomand an orcle, monarchy openning.

[Krill]

We do not need a granary in the second city. We could get one but I agree it is wasteful. The second city can sit at size 4 working two sheep, a hill mine and one river cottage and build workers (14 fhpt) or settlers (12 fhpt)

The capital needs to work cottages though so the extremes of the choices we have are: we can either leave it at size 5 working pig, sheep, and 3 river mines (17 fhpt) or work the pig, sheep, fp cottage and cycle on a grass cottage or two as the city grows (12 fhpt).

We can't put the production that we put into a granary into a settler (we get the production too fast and don't have warrior escorts), we have enough workers already so don't need more, and we don't have the tech to improve the food resources for new cities any earlier than we are already expanding. We can't leave both cities working cottages at max population and can use the capital whip to get what else we need for flexibility.

We could chop less, and save the forests for an Oracle run. I'm trying to find another sim plan to leave 4 or 5 forests. I have found a way to slow down slightly and leave 3 forests but want to try and leave more; I think it would mean we lost a worker so had 3 completed but have the same timeline. But we need Pottery for the cottages anyway so can't run straight to Oracle (and we need another 15 turns of scouting to check the other close areas for happy resources). We have only scouted 1/3 of the first ring city locations so not expecting to find zero happy resources just yet.

[Rusten]

If the problem is a lack of food techs then simply go agriculture before pottery. Pottery is not required that early -- especially with river mines available. You gain the arrow bonus on pottery this way too.

Monarchy with the Oracle as mackoti suggested sounds like a good solution to the lack of happiness.

[Krill]

If the lion moves onto the forest the either E-NE or S-SW work IMO.





OT4E grew to size 2.

[Krill]

If the problem is a lack of food techs then simply go agriculture before pottery. Pottery is not required that early -- especially with river mines available. You gain the arrow bonus on pottery this way too.

Monarchy with the Oracle as mackoti suggested sounds like a good solution to the lack of happiness.

(NB. the problem isn't just food techs, it's warriors to cover everything as well, we are relying on city 2 to provide warriors whilst growing and that is also a limiting factor).

The micro to reach the settler eot30 is pretty much sound: it does not involve any tech beyond BW and uses 3 forest chops; 2 are for the settler, the third is to position both workers to then improve the plains sheep.

The second phase I've written down is basically Third worker>Fourth Worker>Settler>overflow out granary hammers. Agriculture before Pottery doesn't change the timings that much; yes the overflow out is pushed back, but the capital just sits at size 3 for a bit longer whilst the third settler gets built. It'd probably go Third worker>Fourth worker>settler>settler>granary. We're still going to want that granary and we do not want to fall into the trap of a neighbour starting to push us, and we drop the granary to focus on more immediate needs (Zulu PB8).

We can roll straight from the third worker into the third settler. That would give the settler eot38 (one chop) with the capital at size 3 and it would take until eot45 to get the capital to size 5. In this instance the mines are worthless until then. If we do this, we have to keep both warriors close by to cover the settlers.

Or we could instead grow to size 4 and then 5 first, but it's not that pretty as we have to work the unimproved flood plain and grasslands to make it in a reasonable number of turns, 7 in total, plus another turn to dump the chop hammers into a settler. If we just mined both remaining river hills (one has to be chopped, then on T40-ish we would have the capital at size 5 working everything, so the settler would be due eot45-ish as well (that chop hurts things).

These paths save 5 forests at the capital. But I don't think that matters for Oracle: If we can pop borders at city 2, then there are 6 forests to chop for Oracle (I take it as read that if we don't find a pre-Calendar happy res that we are rushing for religion and Oracle).

One thing I am wary of, is that we can easily expand too much if we do this, we need to get those cottages down.

[Rusten]

I don't see how we can make much use of the granary until HR or hooking up multiple happy resources. In your microplan it's listed as early as T40. OK, imagine you make a granary on size 2 or 3 and grow super fast and super efficiently to size 5. You almost 1-turn the growth, but then what? You can never whip multiple times, and if you stay on size 4/5 making settlers/workers the granary is not doing anything either. +8 food (capital) is already enough to grow decently without granaries before you find external happiness. You still outgrow whip unhappiness without the granary. Settling a new city with a good food resource is more productive than a granary with no happiness available.

With so much natural commerce available I would not be very afraid of expanding too much/going broke any time soon. SE corn has flood plains, SW corn has lake, capital has river, sheep has lake, etc.* But I am not against early cottages. I just think the granary sounds like a wrong use of hammers. Instead of a granary we can have 4 warriors to escort settlers/workers.

*IMO lakes are decent early on for newly settled cities because they give decent yield (commerce can be hard to find and is often underrated) and most importantly require 0 worker turns. Frees up workers for other important tasks.

Edit: I find choosing when to get granaries as one of the most difficult and most complicated decisions in the early game so I'm happy to be proven wrong/persuaded. It's always an interesting spot.
I haven't played through the opening personally, but on principle I don't see what the granary does after you reach size 5 (for a long time). And the food you gain growing to size 5 does not equal the granary in cost.