[spoilers] Commodore is absolutely confident this will end well.

[Commodore]

Sorry, I meant to keep the city on the *warrior*, and yes, finish the wheat farm. The scout actually should probably go 1W instead, so that it can heal on the jungle hill.

[Commodore]

Ok, going to move now. Just saw there is a lion 2W from the worker. Still finish the farm or move to safety?

Edit: actually, don't know what happened but the farm is complete and the worker's movement is spent. Pretty sure I didn't press the button. Will complete the rest and post screenshots in a sec.

Animals can't enter borders, all good.

[Commodore]

Thanks again Thrawn.

Moving along faster now, looks like JoshyBravo, He Who Signs Up Via Spreadsheet, is Superdeath/mystery guy's neighbor. Yum.


Timing going pretty decently right now. Have a warrior, he'll scout, and once we hit size 3 next turn we'll kick off a settler at 13fhpt, taking a quick break when the deer gets done to get to size 4. Going tall by default here, looks like.

[dtay]

Looks like everyone gets gold *and* gems, so the warrior will need to scout for that, too. Dtay, what do you think about the GLH? Also, any chance you could play one turn if there's an awkward roll tomorrow? We're leaving on a mini-vacation Tuesday-Wednesday.

Retroactively and unhelpfully - well, I could have had I checked the thread this week (also on vacation as it turns out, though with internet access).

My unvarnished opinion is I'm a bit hesistant, mostly for the combination of (1) the opp cost is relatively higher given the likely easy-to-conquer neighbors (would we rather just have 5 praets?) and (2) large, new-ish field means high likelihood of someone kind of irrationally targeting it really quickly, though maybe not well?

Probably other helpful facts to go gather to have a more informed opinion - what actually is the math for how much commerce/turn it will get us with the nerf + pro, + how many other pro teams are there that might think something similar.

[dtay]

Thanks again Thrawn.

Moving along faster now, looks like JoshyBravo, He Who Signs Up Via Spreadsheet, is Superdeath/mystery guy's neighbor. Yum.


Timing going pretty decently right now. Have a warrior, he'll scout, and once we hit size 3 next turn we'll kick off a settler at 13fhpt, taking a quick break when the deer gets done to get to size 4. Going tall by default here, looks like.

The high tech costs (+many food types) and therefore lack of BW really limit any other approach looks like yeah... (can't fiddle with mixes of chops and whips alas)

[Commodore]

So scouting south, we have a lot of good stuff here...unfortunately, there are no foods to share. :-/

[Commodore]

Copper in, woot. Aaaand...dang, this is a tough one. Any suggestions for first city, Dtay?

[Commodore]

Personally, my thinking is that we have a large, well-delineated "blob" so pushing borders fast and furious isn't as important as usual. Additionally, the real limiting factor for a lot of growth is tech (Wheel, AH, Sailing, Iron Working, Writing). Finally, axe rushes at these distances are going to be hard to swing. Ergo...

[dtay]

Copper in, woot. Aaaand...dang, this is a tough one. Any suggestions for first city, Dtay?

EDIT TLDR: Forgot this isn't RtR so we need AH for the cows and sheep, which mostly just further reinforces the answer I got to anyway. For posterity...

Whew... well I mean good problem to have of "see lots of things I like"... only real problem is we lack good shares unless we go north. Nothing picks up 2 first ring foods, some spots pick up a first ring food and one other good high tile yield resource (copper or gold). Lots of interesting border pops but given that is an indeterminate time away I would mostly ignore. Direction wise, all other things equal would prefer to be expanding to the SE towards what feels like the center of the ring, those floodplains, and that island.

Spots that catch the eye

1) Production spot - PH to the East: Picks up 1F First ring + Copper, marble for more production. I guess settles towards the nearest neighbor we know about, but there is probably someone to the south and the next ring of eastern land isn't good so not that excited to be closer to it. 

2) South, between copper and cows: Picks up 1F and Copper, and shares a food. On border expansion (substantial tbd on that...) grabs gold and gems. Probably not really enough food for optimal snowball.

3) South of Cows for addressing the tech gate - gets cows and gold, pops to copper and gems. Probably gold is better as the 3rd city, but would strongly consider as 3rd city to get that tech going.

4) N where you selected - picks up 6F corn, shares fish, basically the strategy of "2nd city grows and slaves"

I think I like either option 2 or 4 best.

 2 would be a pretty good raw tile yield city and get us closer to what I think the mid-term expansion priority is. Is that the non-shared food resource is a cow, basically, and cows are only sort of a food resource.

Option 4 - pro is it will autoconnect trade route and have 2 6f resources for fast whip cycles when capital is on a settler. Con is a) pointless direction and b) it does pretty much nothing besides what I just said.

I suspect an the optimized output answer is something like this: go north, as the worker is already up there and the whip cycle won't take a lot of worker turns to set-up (farm the corn) so we'll have worker turns for chops for another settler. Something like build this settler, settle north and farm, whip out a worker in capital, start another settler, whip/chop that settler, settle south very quickly. Capital will be small but be able to give away its foods to the other two cities until it regrows. Won't have the gold until city4 then though, so we could settle for that but depends on how the math works out and if we need the immediate capital share to avoid wasting the wheat. 

Con to that is just international strategy and settling the backline first, and hard to say how harsh that tradeoff is since it will be being 1 city short down the line on "outward" expansion.

[dtay]

Copper in, woot. Aaaand...dang, this is a tough one. Any suggestions for first city, Dtay?

Whew... well I mean good problem to have of "see lots of things I like"... only real problem is we lack good shares unless we go north. Nothing picks up 2 first ring foods, some spots pick up a first ring food and one other good high tile yield resource (copper or gold). Lots of interesting border pops but given that is an indeterminate time away I would mostly ignore. Direction wise, all other things equal would prefer to be expanding to the SE towards what feels like the center of the ring, those floodplains, and that island.

Spots that catch the eye

1) Production spot - PH to the East: Picks up 1F First ring + Copper, marble for more production. I guess settles towards the nearest neighbor we know about, but there is probably someone to the south and the next ring of eastern land isn't good so not that excited to be closer to it. 

2) South, between copper and cows: Picks up 1F and Copper, and shares a food. On border expansion (substantial tbd on that...) grabs gold and gems. Probably not really enough food for optimal snowball.

3) South of Cows for addressing the tech gate - gets cows and gold, pops to copper and gems. Probably gold is better as the 3rd city, but would strongly consider as 3rd city to get that tech going.

4) N where you selected - picks up 6F corn, shares fish, basically the strategy of "2nd city grows and slaves"

I think I like either option 2 or 4 best.

 2 would be a pretty good raw tile yield city and get us closer to what I think the mid-term expansion priority is. Is that the non-shared food resource is a cow, basically, and cows are only sort of a food resource.

Option 4 - pro is it will autoconnect trade route and have 2 6f resources for fast whip cycles when capital is on a settler. Con is a) pointless direction and b) it does pretty much nothing besides what I just said.

I suspect an the optimized output answer is something like this: go north, as the worker is already up there and the whip cycle won't take a lot of worker turns to set-up (farm the corn) so we'll have worker turns for chops for another settler. Something like build this settler, settle north and farm, whip out a worker in capital, start another settler, whip/chop that settler, settle south very quickly. Capital will be small but be able to give away its foods to the other two cities until it regrows. Won't have the gold until city4 then though, so we could settle for that but depends on how the math works out and if we need the immediate capital share to avoid wasting the wheat. 

Con to that is just international strategy and settling the backline first, and hard to say how harsh that tradeoff is since it will be being 1 city short down the line on "outward" expansion.

Oh also this isn't RtR, so we can't even use the cows or sheep right?... ok yeah I very much think go north and something like the above. And probably AH needs to be the next tech since everything else is a pasture.