[49 spoilers] Miguelito, pindicator and Adrien take Shiva by the hands

[Miguelito]

Yeah that's right, I wasn't precise. The issue is that it leaves the capital with just 1 fish, so it actually stays on size 1 from now until t42 or so (I found this to be the most effective way to get a worker and settler out, helped by chops. Growing it just works unimprovex 3 yield tiles, and growing for whipping is slower than just staying at size 1. Growing to whip the worker gets us extra hammers for a build queue, but that's just a warrior or a wb which both can't complete afterwards because - then the granary gets started - and it delays the worker 1t. And getting him 1t earlier speeds up either of the purple dots by a turn)

[Miguelito]

t28
the turns are uneventful right now. The copper's being mined, 2nd city grows to size 2 this turn, the starts a worker which will be chopped for overflow into a second warrior and then the granary on turn 34, capital is at 1 building a worker (out eot33). From next turn on we'll get new scouting info, as long as the scout doesn't get eaten. 

Elkad founded his second city this turn (second player to do that, after us), and Cornflakes whipped a second time for 1pop, after having done so on t23. I suspect he is running an early Babylonian granary to fuel that. Everybody else's capitals are at size 3, making me feel bad, but again, our cap has no more than one good tile, so I don't see what else to do.

Demos / power

Power looks a bit ugly, but it's got to be all tech and warriors, as both of them have no second city yet and therefore shouldn't have resources connected yet. Could one of those jumps of Cairo's be AH? I'm not too concerned though, as he has little motivation to wade through the jungle with his Immortals, and by the time we settle towards him we are sure to have spears.

I simmed going blue dot 1 with the third city, and it seems like a good idea. It comes a turn later than purple, but with two animals connected fast and a chop for the granary it gets productive much faster. After that, we can realistically go for the PH W of the spices. That's a formidable city, with dry plains wheat, wet rice, and grass sheep plus a lot of hills. how much do you think we need to secure that? Founding on t55, I can have a total of 4 axes/spears there (plus an axe at blue dot), but that may be overkill, and I would rather like to have on of those in the south. I'd also really want to found yellow around that time, and I have a settler but not the galley, so there's a lot of room to do things better.
Early blue dot also makes an Oracle play more realistic, as that city would be up and running by that time.

[Miguelito]

Oh and Raskolnikov seems to be in a turnsplit, as he's not played back-to-back turns on two occasions recently. Unfortunate, as he seems to only play in a narrow window of 2 hours late EU morning (strange for a someone in lockdown in France, but what do I know). So we recently are having just 1 turn per day.

he's just posted in the tech thread and I was wrong.

[Miguelito]

My complaint worked like a charm and turn 29 came around.

Scouting brought some interesting results:


Interesting choice between light green and dark green dots. The former gets more workable tiles, particularly hammers, and shares nicely with the second city. Dark green with strong culture gets to claim those resources that we otherwise would likely not get to before a conquest, and is in a great defensive position towards the south, while also looking far west after the border pop. I think it's going to be dark green.
Also the scout should get to 5xp next turn, making him a medic. I now think Cornflakes came straight from the south, as it's unlikely that he'd cross that desert.

So I think the founding order right now according to the latest plan is:

1. blue - which one can better be decided once the scout gets to reveal all the BFCs there.
   
2. orange - that's the new one in the north, W of the spices  (picture below). It's controversial. Far away from the cap, mgiht be a bit in the face of MrCairo and may also make us a neighbour to Commodore. Otoh a great city
   
3. yellow, or dark green, depending on whether I get the galley out in time
   
4. dark green or yellow. The last chance to get serious about Oracle with marble, if it's still available.
   
5. light purple in the south
   
6. pink, which is reduced to a filler pretty much ( and may be moved if Cairo gets the clam first ring). Doesn't actually make a lot of sense before IW
   

Orange dot:



Also, cities are now named with by-names of Shiva. The capital Nataraja, lord of dance, and the second and holy city Mahadeva, great deity:


Now what I thought i knew about Shiva going into this was that he's a god of destruction, dancing the world to pieces to allow creation start anew. Fair enough for a civ theme. Reading up a bit, there's a whole lot more to it, but I will not be able to dig into the matter enough to do it justice. I will rely on Wikipedia lists to find by-names that fit the cities, but if somebody is more educated on the topic I would welcome comments.

Demos

Raskolnikov still whipped last turn.

[Miguelito]

t 30/31 scouting:



Fintourist founded on t31.
Cornflakes whipped a third time, this time for 2 pop, on t30, after 1pop whips t23 and t28. The first one presumably was the Babylonian granary, and now he's making it pay for itself. I hadn't noticed before, but of course the  2 from his CHM trait enable this play nicely.

demos/power

I'm thinking whether I should whip off the copper for the worker in the second city next turn. It regrows in just 4 turns. It nets me 6 extra hammers and 2 worker turns due to earlier completion, speeding up the development of the third city. The main drawback it has is that it delays the first axe for the third city by a turn. I don't expect that spot to be contested at that moment, so it should be fine. But it feels very wrong to whip off that copper. Is it, actually?

When should I start worrying about getting boated at the capital? It stays without a garrison awfully long. I don't expect to have a border with someone before t54, so it would be an opportunistic strike. I don't really expect that from Cairo. Ruff might be more unpredictable, but I also see his boats coming very early, thanks to my culture on the island.
Thinking about slotting in Archery after pottery-hunting and getting/prebuilding an archer there mid 40s, delaying the granary a bit. Archers could also be good for the northern expansion plan to claim those hills.

[pindicator]

Of course, we could always be the ones doing the boating...

I mean, we want to settle that island anyway, right? That galley's gonna just be sitting around after that.

[AdrienIer]

Spot 1 in the north just got fresh water (nice for the very late game) and a fourth 3 food tile, that's good. And the west seems cut off, so no need to fear stuff from there. I'd say this is all good news.

Would one of our neighbors choose to try to boat the cap without knowing anything more than the soldier count ? Even if it's a low count, you don't want to build a galley and two units for nothing.

[Miguelito]

Of course, we could always be the ones doing the boating...

I mean, we want to settle that island anyway, right?  That galley's gonna just be sitting around after that.

Totally, we should. But that's around t60 (the galley), my concern is if I should consider Cairo going for an opportunistic strike before t45, until which time we don't have anything at the cap according to current plans (because we need power in the North). So far he hasn't even put out a fishing boat for his clams yet, so I hope the seas are really not his priority early on, also what Adrien says. Sailing + the galley would be a very high price for uncertain, and limited, gain, and I think Cairo isn't really one to gamble.

Spot 1 in the north just got fresh water (nice for the very late game) and a fourth 3 food tile, that's good. And the west seems cut off, so no need to fear stuff from there. I'd say this is all good news.

Would one of our neighbors choose to try to boat the cap without knowing anything more than the soldier count ? Even if it's a low count, you don't want to build a galley and two units for nothing.

yeah, I also liked the news from the scout. And you're probably right on the boating hazard as I said above, but forgive me if I get a bit paranoic with the capital without a garrison and his capital just like 3 galley turns away  


on to turn 32!
Our scout met with Fintourist's:



Of our contacts, he has met Cornflakes, Ruff, and superdeath:


that indicates that he's somewhere in the south, possibly west of Cornflakes. I don't think he's close to us, and as our neighbour's neighbour might become an ally temporarily. 

The other players have started founding their second cities, and I've made a tally from PBspy

Code:

2nd city turns of foundation

Elkad         28
Cornflakes   none yet
Rasko         32
us         25
MrCairo         31
Fintourist   31
Commodore    31
Ruff-Hi         none yet
superdeath   none yet

edit: this was posted before i finished, gonna post the second part of the report in a new post

[Miguelito]

We got the second city quite early, but pay for it with low pop (in the end, I whipped the worker this turn, so we're back to 1pop in both cities. It is only marginally better, but I think it is). On the plus side, we have copper improved already (ok, we'll now not work it for 5 turns, but... )

I also tallied whips:

Code:

whip turns (and pop)

Elkad            
Cornflakes    23 (1),    28 (1),    30 (2)
Rasko    28 (1)        
us    22 (2),    25 (1),    32 (1)
MrCairo            
Fintourist    22 (1)        
Commodore            
Ruff-Hi            
superdeath

As I said, Cornflakes is running wild with his assumed granary. I suppose the last one was the settler, so we should see him founding next turn probably.

Notably, Commodore, Ruff and superdeath are not yet in Slavery, Ruff despite being SPI and Commodore even though he has founded his second city already (I always assumed the last reasonable window to do the revolt is when the first settler's moving):



Ruff had an event:


that means that all his AGG melee units now get cover on top . We should defend the south with something other than archers. I was actually thinking of fairly early crossbows for our defense (on our way to Engineering and our UU), that may work less well now against him.

Finally, if you compare this shot:


to the overview in post #84, you'll see a forest missing. I assume this means he's founded there (other option: on the elephant, with a chop on foundation? - don't think so). I had hoped he would go for the northern sheep first ring. White dot was my plan for 4th city, but would compete for the sheep with Cairo's second. He'll probably have culture there by then, but we could of course try to contest that with SPI tools. But black dot may be wiser in order to avoid tension (he'd still probably not like it, if he doesn't even plant his 3rd city there first)

Demos (looking awful agai nafter the whip) and power:

[Miguelito]

t34

the scout continues to find good stuff:


It's now quite hard to argue against spot 3. It is not actually further from home than the others, but a tile closer towards a potential NW neighbour (Commodore I think, who however might be directly to the north as well)

Here's the settling plan, which is valid for either of 1, 2 or 3:

• on  t40, the settler and two workers move onto the banana tile 2NW of Mahadeva. t41 the settler moves onto the city spot, while the workers road the banana. t42 the city is founded, and the workers can improve the cow within 2 turns
  
• we'll have our whole military in the area, but on t40 that's just one warrior and the scout (and some whip potential). That keeps us safe from animals, but we have to be scouting carefully for axes coming our way (chariot/Immortal would be worst case, but I think it's highly unlikely. Cairo founded for copper, I suppose/hope he does not get horses in the same city. Also there's little motivation for him to wander around there with an Immortal). So far I see no cultural borders in the area. The scout will now check a bit further N / NW, then turn back to spot 3, to be able to protect the settling party and the warrior from animals. The warrior can circle around spot 2 through the forests, giving him some protection and scouting the north/northeast meanwhile. I don'T expect anything to come through the desert from the SW.
  
• t41 a fresh axe from Mahadeva moves onto the bananas, and can reach the city on foundation t42 if needed (would delay the cow for roading).
  

It feels pretty daring, but as long as I am not seeing other people's borders in the area I think we should be fine.

In foreign news Cornflakes founded on t33, and Ruff t34, apparently not in our direction (I can't see new borders from him, and we look pretty far over the sea). Cornflakes' capital is also back to size 4 already after whipping 4 pop over the last ten turns, his granary truly is doing wonders for him.
I got his graphs, so I'll do a complete dump:

We're not doing so hot atm, but that's expected at 2pop. I'm not sure when I should start getting concerend about the power graph, otoh, why would anybody attack at this moment? At least we also have got a lot of whip hammers. Cairo and Cornflakes can whip out the next settler pretty soon, so we're not winning there as we should be with IMP. Well, I maintain that we have a comparatively complicated start (what I've seen of Cairo's land seems a lot more straightforward to me), and maybe we can still get to our strengths.