[SPOILERS] Don't mention the war

[plako]

If they are that way then I would suggest sending those ponies at them!

1N of the horse or 1NE? It depends if you want the plains cow or the gems in your 1st ring. Gems will add +1 to the capital whereas cow won't - although the yield 3f3h is a nice tile for putting out workers etc...

Yeah. If Rome is there, sending a Chariot there to help in border negotiations is definately a good idea .

Capital's borders will pop on T25 claiming gems so 1N from horses is better.

[NobleHelium]

1N is better because it doesn't waste a forest. Unless you're catching another interesting resource by moving east.

[plako]

1N is better because it doesn't waste a forest. Unless you're catching another interesting resource by moving east.

Yeah - 1 other point supporting 1N.

Furthermore I'm going to be cautious here and won't scout much further with Plinho so the positioning is pretty much decided.

T20

[Profane]

1N is definitely a very strong plant for the long-term too, grabbing those 2 extra flood plains in its BFC.

Or you could always go 2N to grab the extra cow and 3 flood plains but lose the gems. And get a nice Forest Hill for Agg Praets to camp on

[plako]

I think going any further would be too reckless. Because of the mountain even 1N of the horses is quite far.

I've attached here my current sandbox (not totally accurate e.g. number of tiles is bit off and positioning of warriors is not right). I've played it to T22. Next steps are building a road to NE-NW with both workers while moving the settler in position (immediate trade route connection). I'll build 2 more workers after the settler in capital.

[plako]

T21

Jungle wines.

OleMack still has size 1 capital.

[plako]

T22

Settler was finished at the end of turn.

Serdoa has double whipped something. OleMack has founded 2nd city.

[plako]

We'll see the copper positioning soon enough, but based on the fact that we're clear MFG leader there probably aren't copper inside capital borders.

I also think I'll take a shot at Stonehenge on our 2nd city. Unless Serdoa really focuses on it I might be able to grab it with relatively low expenses, if we lose it.

[plako]

T23

Settler on the way and we can found the city next turn 1N of the current positioning. At the moment only Mackoti has 2 cities, but they're both size 1 so I'm in pretty good shape expansion wise. The city is excellent immediately with 4 early resource tiles and has also good late game potential when those flood plains can be worked.

[plako]

T24

Second city founded and borders popped revealing good resources also in the east. Cities are extremely expensive to found. This one cost 5 gold/turn. I don't need immediately BW so I decided to delay it 1 turn and collect gold.