[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[scooter]

I agree that settling blue first looks good; it can use the cows to push a workboat for the crabs while growing. Probably too hammer-focused for a whipping post, but that's not a real problem here.

I don't see much use in settling red early. It's main purpose would be to grab the cows if we whip blue, to first push a monument for the fish. I guess it can share two grassland cottages for the capital, which does have some value.

Similarly yellow's main value was taking the corn while the capital got whipped. I'd much rather settle white first for inner-ring ivory, and move yellow back onto the desert. Early sailing to connect ivory was always in the cards here.

My preference: Blue>White>Red>Yellow. Also, could we codename these sites in some way other than colours?

I pretty much agree with all this. Red is mostly about the Fish, but that's a city with a slow payback time with Monument build + wait for borders + WB all needed for it to be useful. It's a poor snowball city. As for codenaming these sites, what do you prefer? Signs with the future city names locked in? I'm a serial procrastinator with naming, hence my tendency to go with colors right up until the turn I'm settling them, but I'm happy to switch it up here. As for the actual cities, yeah settling White and prioritizing Sailing makes a lot of sense, and it opens up the possibility of settling overseas prior to some of the lower priority sites.

How do you settle white before yellow, though? White has no food without yellow to get the grass cow in culture. That would require prioritizing Mysticism much earlier than something more like Blue - Yellow - (White or Red) would.

Forested Ivory is a really good tile, but also our pre-Ivory happy cap is a real burden. It limits us to size 4-5 depending on capital/whips, which is really painful. So I'm OK with a city that won't explosively grow if it contributes happy cap to other cities really quickly. I'm assuming Tarkeel is thinking along that line as well here. It is a bit far/awkward initially, but we get away with it fine largely due to the nature of the game: islands + no barbs.

Need a scouting workboat just so we have something new to talk about

Yeah unfortunately there's about to be a bunch of boring turns. I did technically uncover a tile or two that I had pegged 2 weeks ago:






Not super interesting. Scout will probably head back north to watch out for scouting work boats. Given our geographic position in what appears to be the global south, plus an ocean to our west, any scouting work boats are highly likely to come from the north/east.





Settler is being built. It'll get one chop to speed it slightly.

[Tarkeel]

I was about to suggest that the scout head north for that exact reason. Similarly, the reason why I want white early is to increase the happycap. It *is* possible to let your cities grow to 4 only as you're about to whip them, but having them be happy at 4 gives much more flexibility. This might be my PB67 experience clouding my judgement though, but the less said about that game...

could we codename these sites in some way other than colours?

As for codenaming these sites, what do you prefer? Signs with the future city names locked in? I'm a serial procrastinator with naming, hence my tendency to go with colors right up until the turn I'm settling them, but I'm happy to switch it up here.

I doesn't need to be the final name; I like using something silly that refers to the features of the spot. Here's an example from PB62:


Marbletusk and popcorn in the north pretty definite placeholders for cities, while PurpleRice and BovineLake are alternatives for settling the border.

Some examples could be TripleC for blue, HotCow for yellow, GreenTusk for white, and W(h)iney for red.

[scooter]

Animal Husbandry finally in. Things are finally happening so I need to lock back in here.






No horse visible anywhere on our island or nearby. Not a huge deal as this will not be a huge horse game, and early conflict will be practically 0. I do assume we'll find it on a nearby island. Settler is on its way. Basic plan will be grow to size 4 while pasture is being built on a Work Boat, then another Worker after that. WB can go for the Crabs at the new city.

[Zed-F]

We're building a floating pasture, to drop on the crabs? Cool, but seems impractical.

I kid.

[Tarkeel]

I would consider moving the worker over to the cow, to start pasturing it as soon as the city is settled, but I guess it has a chop to finish first at the very least?

[scooter]

We're building a floating pasture, to drop on the crabs? Cool, but seems impractical.

I kid.

My time piling absurd things into the PB78 map is bleeding over.

I would consider moving the worker over to the cow, to start pasturing it as soon as the city is settled, but I guess it has a chop to finish first at the very least?

Yeah, this prompted me to re-examine the plan a bit because it still felt off. Concluded the capital building a WB for Blue Dot is wasteful when Blue Dot is hammer rich. The chop was already 1/3 done, and this turn is Anarchy. I was going to pause it to pasture the Sheep, but quickly growing is of limited utility when I'm capped at size 4 until a Warrior is built. Instead I noticed a happy accident: 4h overflow + 20h chop + 3 turns of 12 foodhammers/turn == 60h on the dot. So, 3T worker it is.


The net timings are:

Turn 31: Worker A completes chop, heads west the following turn
Turn 33: Blue Dot settled, Worker B out of capital end of turn
Turn 34-37: Sheep Pasture
Turn 35-38: Cow Pasture


There is still a 2T lag between settling the city and beginning the Cow Pasture, but it also speeds the second Worker by 2T, so I think I'm good with it. On T34 I'll have a choice out of the capital. Either I grow on a Warrior, completing it just in time to hit size 5, or I grow just one size on a WB build, pausing to build another settler at size 4 on corn/sheep/crabs/mine which is a solid enough 15fhpt. Will try to figure that out.





After ending turn. Anarchy ended so I technically have not committed any hammers to the Worker, but I think this is the way to go. Queued Wheel because I can't wait too much longer than that for roads. I think Wheel-Sailing-Myst is the right order.

[Tarkeel]

Agree that delaying the cows by by two turns to add another workers is worthwhile. Just that the chopping worker can put a turn into the sheep on the way over! With the happy-cap being what it is, slow building feels more lucrative than usual, but the capital can afford to whip I think. Just need to spare the hammers into a MP warrior at some point. I'd also chop and road the route the settler is taking for our minimal road network.

[scooter]

Agree that delaying the cows by by two turns to add another workers is worthwhile. Just that the chopping worker can put a turn into the sheep on the way over! With the happy-cap being what it is, slow building feels more lucrative than usual, but the capital can afford to whip I think. Just need to spare the hammers into a MP warrior at some point. I'd also chop and road the route the settler is taking for our minimal road network.

Ah good catch! I was imagining the worker taking the same path as the settler over there, in which case it's not possible to dump in a turn. But yes, if the worker follows the chop path (sheep -> mine -> cow), it can without losing a turn. I like to think I would have noticed this when I went to actually move the worker in-game, but perhaps that's optimistic.

[scooter]

Of course I immediately moved the worker onto the Sheep unintentionally instead of chopping while looking at this in-game.


This is why I probably should not play morning turns unnecessarily as they do not improve our turn pace at all.

[Krill]

Out of interest, other than the path you have taken, were there any other tech/worker paths you considered?