[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[Sullla]

Dp101, I'll try to keep our sandbox and planning updated as long as possible. I don't think we've hit the point of diminishing returns as yet; these Industrial era games are highly compressed in length, and as scooter said, we've seen a crazy amount of action for only 37 turns played. I think that the benefit of planning ahead of time is too great to give it up in a situation where every turn is crucial. Besides, I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

I had a chance to look around in-game. Some observations:



Here's our border with Donovan. We managed to get the forest chopped this turn without issue, and that's a big relief from a defensive perspective. We did not want any attacker to have defensive cover right next to Radio. The tile in between the corn and the horses flipped to our cultural control this turn, and we'll maintain it since it's second ring for Radio but third ring for Sector 19. (We will never get the horses in our control for the same reason.) Note that dyes are now within our borders as well, which I'll try to have the workers connect soonish for our cities.

Third ring borders at Radio also gives us cultural control over the tile south of the clams and east of the horses. These are nice tiles to have, giving us sightly more warning of incoming ships. It would be really nice to control the two tiles with white dots on them as well; they are third-ring for both Radio and Sector 19. The southern white dot would let us see the two boxed tiles, and that would give us even more warning. Apparently spies are allowed for this game (active missions are banned but the spies themselves are not), and so it would be really nice to put a spy on the hill tile north of Sector 19 at some point. It would be very difficult for Donovan to attack us with a spy granting vision over there. Anyway, if this game lasts deeper into the Industrial age past the point where we get factories, I have some ideas about how to leverage espionage in our favor, through mass building of Jails / Intelligence Agency combos. The building combo produces 24 EP/turn and they're pretty cheap in the post-factory period. Build a whole bunch of them, and we'll have massive passive espionage plus the ability to stick spies essentially anywhere without them getting caught. Getting a little ahead of ourselves though...



Scooter, I'd like to keep our explorer on the southern island stationed on this hill tile. That reveals the boxed tiles, and gives us a good chance to see any incoming attack ahead of time. Unfortunately we can't see the column of tiles further west; it would be nice to have another spotter over by the deer at some point down the road. Maybe later.



I noticed that BGN is about to capture this barbarian city to his west. I see this as a positive development: another city that we can use for foreign trade routes via Open Borders, and something that makes BGN a bit stronger. His position is weak enough that we'd prefer him not to be a tasty meal for Donovan or REM. Also note the cottage economy that BGN is running over by PetroPoroshenko. I think that's part of the reason why he's been struggling in this game, not using Slavery civic in the REM fashion and also not going the production route like we are. Three tall cities with a bunch of cottages is kind of "meh" under this game setup.



Pindicator researched Steam Power this turn, the last team in the game to discover a tech. Here's the full list of what everyone has at present, in the same order listed in the screenshot:

Pindicator: Steam Power
BGN: Scientific Method, Communism
Donovan: Steam Power
Dreylin: Scientific Method, Communism
REM: Scientific Method
Gaspar: Steam Power

Everyone has been on one of the same two tracks, either Steam Power first or Communism first. Generally speaking, the Steam Power track fits with taller cities, while the Communism track fits with lots of smaller cities. We'll complete Communism tech in 3 more turns, and then we'll see where everyone heads next after that. Our empire definitely wants Assembly Line after Communism, despite the huge cost.

Also of note: the city capture makes it obvious, but we can also tell that Dreylin/OT4E are fighting Gaspar/Noble because they show up with war weariness on the diplo screen. That's the truest test of whether a war is fake or real if no cities are changing hands. If the teams involved are showing up with war weariness, that means that units are dying.



So here's the real question for this turn: what are we doing on the pindicator border? Scooter, I moved our grenadier onto the hill tile for vision of this region, and this is the screenshot that resulted. Pindicator founded his city on the dotted red hill tile last turn, and then used Build Culture to pop borders (presumably stealing the copper resource from his other city to make it happen in a single turn). We can't settle on the 3a tile anymore, which means that we have a choice between the 3b tile or the grassland hill tile further west (yellow dot).

I'm a bit uncomfortable setting the 3b spot, as it's a very aggressive location only three tiles from pindicator's city. That would be a difficult spot to defend, as we will always be at risk of getting hit by 2-movers out of pindicator's city without warning. I also don't think that we really want to pick a fight with pindicator, given his traits and the fact that we're going to be bordering Dreylin for the indefinite future. I'm leaning towards settling the yellow dot city instead, for the following reasons:

* Less aggressive towards pindicator
* On a hill for the defensive bonus
* Potentially controls the identical resource tiles

The problem with the hill tile is that we only "potentially" control the same resource tiles. The corn and the sheep resources would be second-ring for the hill city, and they are currently second-ring for pindicator's two cities. If we can't win those cultural battles, then the city has no food and is useless. However, I think that we can almost certainly win the cultural battle against pindicator's Aggressive/Charismatic combo of traits. Our biggest advantage is Caste System civic:



Pindicator is in Slavery civic, so he can't run Artist specialists. Pindicator also has no state religion, and he's not using any religious civics. We can chop a quick theatre this city, while also running Artist specialists, and then use the corn resource to support more Artists once we flip those second-ring tiles. (Pindicator has kindly connected it for us already! ) I think we spread religion in here quickly, and also get library + cheap Spiritual temple + monastery for culture. I just think it will be tough for pindicator to match us given his setup, and his hill city will still be quite good even without the corn. It would also give us a pretty stable border, with each of us having hill cities 4 tiles apart, roughly separated by the lake and channel geographically. (We would then settle a filler city later at the white dot.)

The worker micro for this turn is pretty simple if we go with this plan: one worker finishes the road on the plains tile, and the other worker moves northwest onto the hill tile to road it. Another little advantage of the hill tile is that we get our city founded a turn sooner, T289 instead of T290. What do you think scooter? This is ultimately your call. I simply don't like planting on that 3b spot for defensive reasons. We have enough security risks all over the place, methinks.