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

[Krill]

Too early to think, going to work.

[Krill]

Rusten, I'll reply to your post, but there isn't a rush to sort out the micro or any decision with Pottery until after we've revolted to Slavery, so we have time. I want to run a sim where we go settler>settler and settler>worker>settler, because I think that's the only plan that does hold up to Settler>worker>worker>settler>granary, and we need the warrior exploration to know more about that.

[Rusten]

Take your time. As mentioned in my 1st post it is indeed easier to judge with more scouting, so I support waiting until BW, but I'd be surprised if an earlier granary beats out an earlier settler.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I love the big lake. Easy early game commerce and nice on the worker turn savings. Hopefully (for you) there is a coastal settlement opportunity somewhere down there for some tasty lighthouse lake action.

As is, would you consider settling where your scout is now for an inland moai city? I'm not saying this would be great (nope) but it is a way to use some marginal land.

[Krill]

Can you build moai without being coastal? Would that be a legal build if settled adjacent to coast@

[Krill]

Take your time. As mentioned in my 1st post it is indeed easier to judge with more scouting, so I support waiting until BW, but I'd be surprised if an earlier granary beats out an earlier settler.

Just been looking at the spreadsheet, so this is just a rough calculation on a Friday night with a headache, but this is what it looks like. Remember settler1 eot30

Worker3 eot32, worker4 eot36, settler eot39, granary eot41, leaving 3 chops and using 1 pop whip that wears off around the time reaching size 5, and can then triple whip settler3 around t53, Warriors eot44 and eot50.

Worker3 eot32, settler2 eot38, then split option for worker 4 or settler3. Due to fewer workers, corn can't be hooked before t44.

If going straight settler, it completes eot36 but corn can't be hooked before t42 and we burn worker turns moving the worker.

The tldr for me is that disregarding the tech options, it's better to just grab the third and fourth worker before the settler, and we have the option of not chopping, instead putting roads down to the corn/fp site, not whipping just pushes back the settler to eot40, a single turn. Or just chop out the settler and overflow to settler4, which would then be due eot45. And if we one pop shipped on t45, the granary could be completed eot47 with a single chop and the foodbox half full. I think this works with wheel>Agri>pottery, and still allows the corn to be hooked asap.

[Krill]

I've half played the turn. I'd prefer not to go further without input. I need to leave around 1000 GMT to go to work and will not be back by 2200, so I need to have played it by then, or I need someone to log in and play the turn for me.







There is no path south of the big lake. I only see three options for scouting this turn, and two strategies for using this scout:

1. Move the scout S or SE, and delay other scouting by a single turn, just to peek over water. I don't think this has any relevance to us, doesn't give useful information unless we get "lucky" and meet someone we can start putting EP into. So I'll reject this out of hand.
   
   
2. Move W. We know there is a lion in this area, we saw it on T11. We do not know precisely where it is. We end up checking if this area is backlines, and does not lead anywhere, or if it connects to another chunk of land. If the scout lives, and if the lion attacks the scout whilst on a forest we have a 3/4 chance of living.
   
   
3. Move the scout back around the lake, hugging the coastline (NE this turn, then NW-N, NE-W). Potentially could meet a barb unit on the tile NW of the plains cow next turn, which we would be unable to retreat from without getting stuck in the corner for a bit, and we have limited turns until barb warriors start spawning. Best case scenario, the scout starts exploring south of the capital on T17; we have a warrior heading down here and will be on the dry corn on T20

I'm leaning towards heading back around the lake, as that frees up the scouting warrior a bit, but I am aware that another barb animal spawning in the wrong place could stop the scout getting any useful information, and moving west this turn is not the riskiest move available given the scout should have odds on a lion. I still think we should play safe though, keeping the scout alive could allow us to get the entire first ring explored by T25-ish, and it is an extra unit to scout for barbs as we move the settler and workers around the dry corn/flood plains city; if we send it scouting deep we will not have it return.

[Krill]

In the end I hedged:




Punting the decision to next turn, but I'm still thinking more useful to head back around the lake.

[Krill]

I also ran a quick sim this morning. Wheel>Agri>pottery works reasonably well, Granary eot47 with 1 forest left and settler3 eot45, don't need Agri that quickly and getting Wheel earlier helps with worker movements. FWIW, city 2 builds 3 warriors and reaches size 4 eot46, so it's not like we are low on units.

[Krill]

...and just as I'm about to go to work I'm told "Don't rush". Figures.

Bit more detail:

Phase 1: building Settler1. All this is pretty much set in stone. Build 2 warriors on way to size 4, build worker for 2 turns after reaching size 4, revolt to slavery, whip the worker, build the settler eot30. Worker1 improves sheep and plains hill mine, then chops one grass forest and moves to the grass fores 2W of the capital. Worker2 chops a northern grass forest (2N of capital) and then moves to the same grass forest as Worker1.

Phase 2: Improving city 2 and building Settler2. With the stacked workers chopping the grass forest on T32, and city 2 settled on the plains hill on T33, both workers remain stacked and pasture the sheep T34. If we go Wheel third, the micro is a bit cleaner, so I'll use that example: on T35, the stacked workers road, and then on T36 on worker moves to improve the grass sheep, and the other moves to mine the grass hill.

Meanwhile at the capital, it builds Worker3 (completed with the stacked forest chop eot32, worker4 (eot36) and then settler2 eot40. Worker3 moves to the grass forest E of the capital and chops T36, and then moves to the forest SE-S of the capital whilst Worker4 moves to the forest SE of the capital and chops that, both forests complete T40 and are used to overflow into Settler3: Both workers can then road to the drycorn/fp site, or just immediately farm the corn after a partial road, that decision is irrelevant at this point. Depends how much we need the trade route gold.

Phase 3 is removing the workers from city 2 to chop forests to get the granary at the capital. The workers are actually ahead of where they need top be so I figure they can each burn a worker turn putting down a road, and then they chop the two remaining grass forests on T45 along with a single pop whip to complete settler3 eot45 and the granary eot47 with 14 food in the box. Pottery should complete eot45 with a turn of saving some gold if we have a trade route to city 3, or close to 0 gold if the workers just farm the corn first instead. At that point all the workers have unallocated tasks, but we don't know the terrain at city 3, we need one worker to cottage the fp and overlapping grassland between the capital and city 2 and we do need to use some worker turns to get a third cottage down at the capital but due to worker positions that's really flexible.

City3 should be built T42-43 depending on location, and the corn farmed T44-46 depending on roads and city location. If we are aiming to cottage the flood plains, then we need to dedicate only one worker to that IMO, so we have two workers essentially free to improve city 4.

I don't really see a way to improve on this in a strategic sense: the granary in the capital is essentially built out of forest chops and worker turns that we can't use for anything else except roading to a fourth city location, the granary pays back the one pop slave by growth to size 5 and opens up the option of a triple whip from size 6>3 for the next settler. The forests are all grasslands that we need to chop for cottage locations anyway, if we wait for Maths we are waiting until T80 at the earliest so better to get the hammers out now. We don't need a fifth city that early either, even with incidental commerce it will be a net drag on the way to Priesthood, only starting to pay back around the time we need to be completing the Oracle.

We only really need to see where copper is, and scout around the capital for the next two good city locations.