[SPOILERS] The Rise and Fall of Whositania (all glory to Whositania!)

[Whosit]

It's just rather annoying that both of my strategic resources are in dismal locations. They are close to my start, yes, but neither spot lends itself well to a good city. At size 4, Copper city would be making 16 hpt. Not awful for the ancient era, but it won't improve beyond that for a long, long time. I'll just build a Granary, a Barracks, and make nothing but units out of it.

I have to decide where city 3 will go very soon, because that will determine what I have my workers do. As much as it pains me to stifle my development at all, I think perhaps city 3 should still go for Copper. I'm unlikely to have found the Zulu by then, and in the event that someone rushes me or probes me with a Bronze unit, I'd rather be a little bit behind than crippled or dead because I only have Warriors and Archers. Perhaps I can just improve my build plan to end up in a stronger spot.

[Whosit]

Scout took a few hits all for some gold. Will retreat to the trees to heal up, again, and then set off to the west once more. I can't say that this side-track for the hut was a complete waste, because now I know where the southern coast is. Where the scout is standing actually wouldn't be a terrible coastal town. Fish, deer, and 3 lighthouse-lakes for food and commerce. Could scrape some production out of those hills. A shame that marble wouldn't be in range, but I'll have marble access up north anyway, and I doubt that tundra marble would be a terribly good tile, anyway. The main problem is that it would be rather far from any other city of mine unless I found a way to squeeze something between it and "C3" you can see at the edge of the screen shot.

[Whosit]

I'm still feeling lost on what to do after my 2nd city. My latest attempt saw me with 5 cities at turn 7, but 4 Workers and just 5 military units. Maybe against AI, but that just feels too risky and thin against strong human opponents. My other plans result with 4 cities, 6 workers, and 7 military units by turn 70. I'm just trying to figure out how to maximize my population, production, and crop yields.

I might have to do something drastically different. That city to the south is, I still think, a great location, but it's proving to take a long, long time to get going. I think this is mainly due to a complete lack of forests to chop in the initial ring, and only dry corn as an initial food resource. Perhaps I should find another location to settle as a fourth location, and save that for 5th due to its distance and effort required to get it started.

On the other hand, the earlier I get that location settled, the sooner it will start to be worth it. I also want Copper city to hit size 4 before I settle Horse city, because Horse city is going to take the Wheat. Unfortunately, the capital always gets stuck at low population because it only has the fish and sheep to sustain it, and it's hard to get enough worker turns into the tiles around it.

I've been very torn about where to put worker turns. I try to get all the bonus tiles improved at every city as soon as I can, and then focus on forest chops, and then road connections for trade routes (I generally try to get those done before a city is founded). I haven't seen enough of the rest of the map to have an idea of how everyone else is sitting, but I feel like my land is... OK, but tricky to use well. I feel like Krill will end up with the best of the land between us, and more, if I can't find a way to grab some of it safely.

I'll take another crack at it later. I think I want to focus on horizontal expansion, using my 2 luxury resources to allow for more whipping. I've just had trouble figuring out where and when to slot in Granaries. I know if I want to do a lot of whipping I should build 'em. I think a problem is that I didn't chop into them last attempt. I don't want to waste a lot of time on building them.

I at least feel like my priorities are in the right place, but definitely don't feel like my execution is doing so well.

[Whosit]

Any turn in which no one has declared war on me is a good turn. Settler complete, new city next turn. Cheater Hater has his second city now, Krill/Novice do not yet, so I might beat them to it... for whatever that's worth?

Someone built Stonehenge. No idea who because I don't try to track that stuff, but good for them.

No long-term plan yet, though....

[mackoti]

Actulay is very easy at beggining to see who builded seeing who's had a huge score increase.

[Whosit]

Yeahhhh, but that's so much wooooork. Also, I forgot that our tracker displays score changes. So there's that.

[Whosit]

So I think it might have been Ruff, but it's kind of a pain to comb through the score changes, so whatever.

[Whosit]

New city!

Together with the capital, these two cities will form my economic core going forward. To be honest, I'm not sure where I'm going to be getting much commerce elsewhere for the time being. I think that my first cottage is going to be built on the late side of things, as I will rely on those gems to power my economy through the first 50+ turns.

Scouting turned up another hut...

..but also a dead end, it looks like. I hope my hut result doesn't suck. I'd even accept a map, as long as it's of the west and not the ocean.

Lurker question: This is probably something I should have figured out on my own by now, but if I move the scout to the hut and then heal, will he heal for that turn, or might I as well move 2 spaces and start healing the next turn?

Lastly, I took a snap of the demos.

I'm not gonna try to decipher much except that I'm basically an improved food resource away from being in the top tier with regards to crop yield. So in 5 turns, although I imagine those other civs will have grown their crop yield, as well. At least I'm not that poor sucker with a crop yield of 7.

[Whosit]

Meanwhile, I continue to try to figure out where to go next. I have a couple of plans I've worked on that get different results. A previous one results in:

@Turn 70

5 cities, 4 Workers, 5 units
GNP 40, MFG 28, Crop Yield 51, Pop 119000.

The one I just tried gets
4 Cities, 1 Settler, 5 Workers, 6 Units
GNP 37, MFG 23, Crop 45, Pop 118000.

The second one "feels" better to me. My Demos are lower, but I have more "stuff," 16 vs 14. I am counting cities, workers/settlers, and military units as "stuff." Hm, it might be useful to track buildings, too. I don't have the data from the previous run, because I haven't been saving them separately (might want to start doing that, I suppose). In this case, most recent attempt gives me 2 Barracks and 3 Granaries on top of everything else. I think the previous attempt had 3 Granaries and a couple of Barracks, as well.

I'm going to make a couple more attempts to refine the last pass. I'm feeling alright with it (5th city to be founded turn 71, Overland Park grows T71 and finishes new Archer that turn as well). Maybe I can get city 5 founded by T70, and I was doing several whips on the capital without a Granary. Would an earlier Granary help? We'll see (though the Capital kind of gets stuck with a bunch of crappy tiles for most of the game thus far).

[Whosit]

So, here's what I did:

T36 - Overland Park FOUNDED.
T37 - Willow Lake: Warrior > Warrior
T40 - The Wheel > Archery
T41 - Willow Lake: Warrior > Worker (work Dye); Alexander move to Ivory
T42 - Whip Overland Park; Alexander Camps Ivory
T43 - Archery > Pottery; Overland Park: Barracks > Archer; Willow Lake WHIP
T44 - Willow Lake: Worker > Settler; Benjamin moves 2S (forest)
T46 - Alexander roads Ivory.
T48 - Alexander moves 1S (forest) *Sandbox has extra forest*; Benjamin moves

1NW, Roads.
T49 - Pottery > Writing; Alexander chops.
T50 - Willow Lake: Settler > Granary.
T51 - Overland Park: Archer > Worker.
T52 - Prairie Village Founded (Granary, work Wheat); Benjamin moves to Copper;

Alexander moves 1S, 1t road. Whip Overland Park.
T53 - Overland Park: Worker > Archer; Alexander pastures pigs; Benjamin Mines

Copper; Clay moves to gems (2 turns).
T54 -
T55 - Whip Willow Lake. Clay mines Gems.
T56 - Writing > Maths; Willow Lake: Granary > Worker.
T57 - Benjamin roads Copper. Alexander moves 2W (forest) **Late pigs, OP 2T to

4**Early Pigs, 2t to 4**
T58 - Overland Park: Archer > Granary; Alexander Chops.
T59 - Overland Park swap to Settler; Benjamin to Cows, Pasture; Clay Roads;

Whip Willow Lake.
T60 - Willow Lake: Worker > Worker; Davis 1NW (forest).
T61 - Clay 1S, Road; Alexander 2N (forest); Davis Chops.
T62 - Alexander Chops;
T63 - Benjamin 1N
T64 - Willow Lake: Worker > Settler; Prairie Village: Granary > Barracks;

Benjamin Mines; Elijah 1SE (forest hill); Davis 1SW.
T65 - Overland Park: Settler > Granary; Alexander 1N Cottage; Elijah Chop;

Davis Road; Clay 1S Road; Settler Move.
T66 - Plano Founded (Work Boat).
T67 - Prairie Village: Barracks > Axeman; Clay Farms Corn; Davis 1SW;
T68 - Davis Mines; Elijah Mines; Overland Park works completed Cottage;

Benjamin to northern forest; Whip Willow Lake.
T69 - Willow Lake: Settler > Barracks; Alexander moves 1SW (forest hill).
T70 - Maths > Masonry; Prairie Village: Axeman > Axeman; Avendale Founded

(Work Boat, Wheat); Benjamin Chops; Alexander Chops (to OP); Whip Overland

Park.
Turn 70 summary:
5 Cities, 5 Workers, 6 Units
GNP 39, MFG 25, Crop 47, Pop 104000
2 Granaries, 2 Barracks
Overland Park grows to size 5, Granary next turn.

Overland Park: 24/28 food, +9, Granary finishes same turn. Results in 5 food

in box next turn.
T71 Demos
GNP 42, MFG 27, Crop 51, Pop 146000

I'm feeling pretty good about this one, and I might just stick with it. The capital has been whipped down to size 2, but Overland Park is large with some great improved tiles. Getting a Settler out for a 6th city shouldn't be too difficult, or I could get a few extra units if I'm feeling vulnerable. At this point Prairie Village is churning out Axemen every 2 or 3 turns, and I'll probably add in a chariot or 2 for scouting/sentry purposes.

It will probably still be 20 turns until Plano, the south city, starts to pay off. However, it's nice to know that it's an ocean city and not a lake city.

Can't be sure this is the best plan, of course, and it's probably not, but I feel like I'm in a decent position, so... we'll see. I wish I could get the Copper online earlier, though. Still a bit nervous about an Impi rush, which would mess everything up. I am annoyed that my Scout is going to have to backtrack so far to find the Zulu.