[SPOILERS] Rusten enters uncharted waters

[Rusten]

Yeah, it's looking pretty good. Unleashing my builder game, much like PB41. This could realistically be a 12+ cities Hanging Gardens which would be an incredible bonus to the engineer points.

Some more thoughts on the current situation and the future:

I should note that I'm mainly focusing on the abundance of gold because I think it's funny -- I've never seen so many at once before. As for what value they bring you'd rather have a 6F tile, at least beyond the first one(s).
Gold is especially strong for starting turns teching and your first source for +happy, but after that they're not a huge deal. When I'm settling a city on turn 80-100 this game I'd rather have 2 food resources than 2 gold resources. But the one I already have is very much appreciated, and the next two will be important as well to secure classical techs like currency and CoL at a reasonable time while expanding. The grassland hill gold tiles are amazing the entire game, but the desert ones are more "meh", it's -2 food after all.

I must say, I'm really looking forward to first contact with a civ and they open up the resource screen and see 10 available gold resources there. Much complaining will ensue I'm sure.

I also think I'm 100% to get Judaism. I'd be shocked if anyone would go for it at as early as me, it doesn't make sense for them, but the minor demo/score reading I did also made me feel very at ease. Hopefully I didn't miss anything and hopefully Plankton becomes the holy city. It's *very* weighted to end up there so I'd be gutted if it ends up in Diatom (Leviathan is impossible).

Not having writing for a while is not a big miss, not like I'd build a library right now anyway -- still busy expanding. It's an overrated building*. Having one for the GPP can be very good, but in my case I'm probably going early CoL so I can catch up on lost turns by running caste. I'm not limited by 2 scientists per turn. I can grow my cities and then run 10 all at once later instead thanks to spiritual.
CoL --> caste + GS --> bulb philosophy --> GE (engineering or machinery) and GPro (shrine) with pacifism.

*Obligatory hot take to stir the pot. Still one of the best buildings in the game, but a lot of people build too many of them too early. At least when they don't have hammer bonuses.

[darrelljs]

I was a compulsive bulber, so I liked Libraries for the two Scientist slots .

Darrell

[Rusten]

The scientist slots is the right reason to build them, but to anyone that gets them early on for the +25% to commerce -- don't. Get a settler instead.
Their main use other than scientists is a useful building to pop borders, but I have religion for that (), so that's another reason why the lack of writing does not hurt me.

Monotheism completes end of turn. Like I said I'm not expecting anyone to be near it, but if they are and I lose another coinflip don't expect an update. I'll be busy banging my head against the wall for the next few months.

[Rusten]

This game is the story of the fish that never was and the butterfly effect in full force. I got my religion (yay), but in the wrong city, so my fish is 11 turns delayed again.

Adopted OR at the cost of 1 gold to be able to 2-pop whip a missionary next turn. I REFUSE to make a monument at this point. Now it's personal! 
6th city will be slightly delayed as a result.

[Rusten]

Judaism in the wrong city led to 2 important changes. My 6th city is now a couple of turns delayed and instead of settling it nearby to claim whale in 2nd ring I am heading for the overseas pig right away as it coincides with sailing now. The work boat intended for the fish has been repurposed to scout pig island right away.

I am instead keen on making a long dash for the better whale, namely this area:




I'm not sure how soon yet, but definitely before city #10, maybe as early as 7-8.
I need to figure out how close my enemies are, but if I can settle a city 1S of the wheat on the plains hill then it's very difficult to do anything about it. It will be costly in maintenance, both for units and distance, but that area is ace. Well worth delaying a few natural city spots on the way.




I'll also settle this fish-sheep-gold river spot very early, but the scout is alive and will figure out the northern fog soon. "Reachy McReachface" is back at it again.   Fuck libraries, I'm getting military and settling faraway cities. The gold will keep me afloat.

[Rusten]

Confirmed not alone. Borsche is our first neighbour.
The good: Not one of the players I highlighted as dangerous, although I don't really know him -- I should look up some of his earlier games.
The bad: Not much to mention. It's the only creative leader in the mix -- Sury is annoying. But it's T57 already so it shouldn't matter. If we ever settle on top of each other I'll have the option to get temples and monasteries.




If he moves in further next turn I'm going to have to kill his scouting warrior. I'm about to settle the copper and I have unescorted workers and settlers in the region.

Very happy with my decision to go for pig island. Scouted furs for happiness to go with the pigs. As expected it looks to be a tiny island. If it was part of a larger continent I would've seen an enemy unit scouting the pig at some point.

[Rusten]

Borsche moved in with the warrior. I would've let him pass if it was a scout, but I've got settlers and workers moving and roading while unguarded in the area so I had no choice but to declare war and kill it. Hopefully Borsche won't hold a grudge.
He only put 2 EP on me so I already knew he had met someone else, but the mystery was revealed to me almost immediately as a 2metra scout said hello.




Pretty good neighbours.

[naufragar]

Hopefully Borsche won't hold a grudge.

A warrior snipe?    

What do you mean by unguarded? In your pic from the last turn, the area looks chock full of units. Are those all spreading out to fogbust?

[Rusten]

Yes, they're spreading out to prepare for future cities. Next turn I have my settler and 1 or 2 workers on the forest tile 1E of the copper. Then the turn after worker(s) move to copper to road (and then mine after) while the settler moves to city spot. I can't cover both. Other workers are meanwhile roading between the copper and the rest of the cities, also unable to be covered. And there's all sorts of problems with him moving twice while not in a turnsplit to ruin my actions completely.

No other choice than to take the diplo hit. Warriors are military units, like it or not. He might not understand how much of a bother the warrior was, but c'est la vie.

[Rusten]

In short, use work boats and scouts when tracking down other players, not galleys or warriors. Your opponents can't trust your intentions with the warrior or know whether the galley is empty.
edit: If I were to offer him a free worker, which would be almost unavoidable, he'd snipe it without hesitation. I don't have a garrison warrior in my 4th city either.

Scouts are much better than warriors at scouting now anyway, with barbarians not spawning until turn 50 and the scout having two moves. There's no reason for him to push his warrior on me. Using a warrior for scouting is simply bad.