[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[pindicator]

061

My fifth city goes does:




With Iron Working still due in 6, I realize that my next settler really does need to come out east to collect those gems. I also am going to need a lot more workers - I've always needed workers, though. I have always felt like I need more workers this game. So I start another worker at the capital and I may just do another wave of workers after the current 2 finish. What I want to do is to hook up the gems as soon as possible, have both gems worked as soon as possible, and then after that have all my cities go to the happy cap with granaries as soon as possible. Then we can worry about pumping out settlers because at size 6 the capital can pump out 4-turn settlers; I think a few other cities can do so as well.

So all the workers are coming east. I already have the area fogbusted. And in 6 turns we'll try to get the next city down.

I finally have graphs on both Superdeath & Gira














I'm topping almost all the demos right now, and I don't feel like I've played this right.

Another thing - it's going to be horcher time before I know it. 6 turns to IW, and then those gems are going to speed up everything else. Probably 4t Writing, 3t Masonry, 10t HBR after that? I don't have the game open, those are just off the top of my head.

[pindicator]

062

The barbarians finally found me




This is going to be a problem in a couple turns, so I'm having Tillamook delay it's worker to finish up the warrior I half-built there. This should be enough to deal with him, since the barbarian is already injured from winning a previous fight.

I took a look at Clatsop and decided to whip its worker to completion. This will give me enough overflow to finish the granary 3t later. It will also delay IW a turn, but I might get that back with growth elsewhere. Unfortunately I decided this after I had already moved a worker to chop out Clatsop's granary, so that was a wasted turn. I would have hooked up the copper otherwise. Now I'll have him help finish the sugar farm for Malheur while the new worker from Clatsop starts roading towards the gems city site.

[pindicator]

064

Looks like mine is not the only war out there - although calling what Gira and I have a war is a little bit of a stretch; more like we have an annoying neighbor who does nothing with his warriors and won't sign peace. In any case, Charriu clearly seems to be in a split with someone, probably Mjmd.

The barbarians approached, and with an 83% chance I took it with the warrior.




Had 2 more warriors ready to move into the city just in case, but we won and so I shuttled one into Yamhill and another back to being the MP at Clatsop.

Yamhill also finished its settler at eot and that unit is now going on its granary. We are probably going to painfully 2-pop whip that granary in 3 turns once we get to size 4. Its settler will found a city by the gems in 2 turns. Expenses keep climbing up and so I'm probably 4 or 5 turns away from IW. But that is fine, as long as I can start chopping jungle on t69 my plans will be unaffected.

Scouting lately has been focused up north:




Met AT's scout coming south. But no cities anywhere close to my north or east so far means I really want to set a border with superdeath on my next city.

[pindicator]

066

Settled my 6th city, Multnomah




The pattern here irks me a little.

We're break-even at 50% right now, so expenses are starting to mount up. But I'm laying down cottages at the capital and I'll have my first Gems online by t70. Multnomah needs to work a plains hill first - YUCK! - but I really need to pop its borders to get to the Horses and Fish. If we could get a Buddhism spread to Multnomah next turn I'd be ecstatic, but I haven't had any free spreads since the first turn I founded the religion. Looking at the F7 screen, I don't see my neighbors are having any similar luck. Hinduism is just at the capital, and Judaism has gotten 2 spreads.
So without divine intervention i'm looking at horses getting under my borders around t84. That's right about when I expect to have HBR finished, which is why I'm resorting to work that plains hill mine for 5 turns. I thought about chopping too, but I think i need that forest for the granary.

In foreign affairs, it looks like Charriu built The Great Wall. With Mjmd landing Stonehenge a few turns back that takes care of the early Stone wonders. I had a thought about chopping out Stonehenge myself - only I had 2 hostile warriors camped out on the tile right beside the stone. So I didn't see that as worth the extra investment and went for religion instead.

Getting a few more archers out now - I'm going to want 1 or 2 for the next city I put down, which is going to go west of Tillamook and establish a border with Superdeath. That will be around t75, so we're having a little bit of a pause with the city building right now. However, once we get the capital to size 6 it's just going to 4-turn settlers until we get to 10 cities, or until I get HBR.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Huh, planting on sugar gives 3 food? live and learn

[pindicator]

Huh, planting on sugar gives 3 food? live and learn

I think sugar is the one which makes the most sense to settle on too, since it can only reach +4 food otherwise

[pindicator]

067

This is the only iron i can see anywhere




Next city definitely needs to go west.

Yamhill had just gotten to size 4 at the start of the turn and I took a little bit to deliberate whether or not to 2-pop whip it's granary. I think I've played too much RtR where you have to deliberate about multi-pop whips more. Playing with full power slavery I end up trading 2f for 4h by waiting a turn - basically the difference is working that mined plains hill a turn more - but more than that it's having to wait another turn to be able to whip again. So I hit the button.

I'm also remembering some of the basic lessons of BtS civ again - like how working mined plains hills are not efficient tiles compared to grassland mines or (better) grassland cottages. So it does make me question delaying mining those grassland gems in order to mine a plains hill up at Multnomah. However- we really want to have borders popped and horses hooked up by t85. So I think when you look at the larger strategy it makes it okay in this instance to do a less efficient tile play. Dunno, maybe this means I should have just chopped the monument. But I really want to save as many trees as possible for numids.

With that in mind, I think I want to get some barracks started. I have enough units right now anyway.

[pindicator]

I'm looking at those forests surrounding the marked city spot west of Tillamook and wondering if diverting to Oracle is worth it.

[pindicator]

068

Sometimes I feel like I have the worst luck when it comes to combat rolls. Specifically barbarian ones:




I was already thinking my east was thin on defense. Now there's literally nothing east of Clatsop as far as a military unit goes. So there goes the granary- we need to whip something to take care of that barb warrior fast. I could whip out an archer and have a cute little way of defending with enough overflow to still get the granary a few turns later, but screw cute. I want to something to destroy barbarians. So we're whipping out an axe and I'll figure out the granary later on.

Found Cairo's borders to my north. There isn't much between us worth fighting over, just a wine tile that is closer to him than me. Still, it would be nice to pick up.

Superdeath has taken the city lead count again with his 7th. It's a coastal city that he put down right by my scouting work boat. That northern lake is a lot larger than I thought.

[pindicator]

071

Capital has hit size 6 and we are at the fabled 4-turn settler rotation:




There are about 3 or 4 of these guys I'd like to get out, but more settlers also means I'm going to need more workers. So the rest of the cities will likely be whipping those as they come up

Cities like Clatsop




Who has run out of improved tiles. Yamhill is in a similar situation but since I just 2-pop whipped Yamhill for a granary I feel like I should regrow it a little first.

All this made possible by Gems




Next turn we'll have the 2nd Gems inproved and that will mean swapping Multnomah off its plains hill and onto that Gems tile, delaying the finish of its monument by 1 turn. This means borders expand onto the horses somewhere circa t85. Which means I need to have HBR finished by t85 and cities ready to whip out Numids. Probably going to try to get 8-10 in my attack force and I think I can have that within a couple turns of researching the tech.

I guess now is as good a time to talk a little about PRO v FIN here. FIN is obviously the best trait for late game commerce; nothing I can do will ever beat that. However, PRO has been really out-performing FIN in the early game. For instance, if you look at my whole empire right now I'm gaining 6 commerce per turn from the buffed trade routes in PRO. If I had FIN instead, I'd currently be making 5 (2 seafood, 1 lake, 1 gems, 1 riverside hamlet), and I up until t70 that number was closer to 2. I'm probably really close to the tipping point right now as I'm going to have more riverside cottages grow to hamlets and more Gems & water tiles being used. But I think there's a place for PRO as a REX-ing economic growth trait - just not sure it's powerful enough yet. Perhaps if I had picked the Celts and gotten some super cheap border pops with Duns.

In any case, it's also going to be harder to leverage PRO than it would be FIN going forward. I'm going to have to seek out extra trade routes: exploring more for circumnavigation; getting Currency ASAP (after HBR of course); getting Cothons online; and then later on going for Castles. But I'm actually liking PRO in the early game for that slight yet effective buff. I probably would have liked it more if I would have played a better early game and gotten more cities out (like Superdeath).