[SPOILERS] Rusten prepares to face the music

[Rusten]

Also, I'm baffled by naufragar demos. I need to log in to the game again later this turn to double check, but I think he might actually be building a size 1 settler! Somebody still has 1000 population (rival worst) and his graphs and score are stagnant. What on earth!?

That would help explain why so many people are posting in his thread.

[Rusten]

So here are the graphs and demos:

Demos: Donovoan grew to size 2 3160BC so the civ with 1000 population has to be naufragar. At this point it gets difficult because I have no idea what he could be doing. Surely it's not a good move?

Crop Yield: Mirrored until worker completed. Then I chose FP and he chose deer. Mirrored again after resource improvement (6F tile for both). But then it gets weird – for some reason he is completely flatlining from this point on, but he's still working the resource.

Production: Same story as crop yield. The only difference is after worker where I chose FP and he chose deer.

Power: Difference is mainly him having researched BW (8k soldiers).

So what stays on size 1 while working a food tile and does not increase noticeable in power? I can only think of workers/settlers. Even so I am still confused.

In other news I forgot to mention that I met Aretas a while back. I believe he is to the NE somewhere.

[Rusten]

Size 1 settler confirmed by civstats! 

[Rusten]

A superdeath scout popped up near my borders. So it seems I border at least 2 of the "new" players (and all 3 are very close). As mentioned before this can be both good and bad. I kinda prefer a reliable/predictable veteran nearby, I'd hate to get bogged down in a war where both players lose, but it does have the potential of being very good also. Perhaps one or more of them will be easy pickings.

It does make me question my approach to the game a bit. Perhaps it pays to play more conservatively than I would if I wanted to eek out an advantage against more experienced players.

[Rusten]

First nailbiter of the game over with. My scout was surrounded by animals and had to take a fight.

Fortunately he prevailed (~80% chance of victory).
A pretty big deal actually as having him around means at least 1 less warrior needed later. Possibly more as he can fogbust a whole lot and make sure I don't get invaded from the east. Speaking of the east, it looks really dry. Not a priority at this stage.

BW is due next turn. Very excited to see copper location as it may turn my whole settling plan around. I have a number of possible dotmaps in mind which are fairly close and a suitable copper tile could swing the advantage. The aforementioned plan up to T50 is only a baseline and source of comparison. I have a flexible worker 3T from now which can go hook up copper nearby when the other chops a wb. But fishing may not even be the next tech.

[Rusten]

I never mentioned the naming scheme. I went for something simple. As a music enthusiast and a bit of an audiophile I'm going through my discography over the years and revisiting musical gems.

First up is the capital, Kaputt, which is dedicated to Destroyer's 2011 album by the same name. It includes my track of the year for 2011.

Maybe someone will find something they enjoy as the city count grows.

[Coeurva]

Did you intend for the "caput" pun?

[Rusten]

Yes. Having it come first was not accidental.

[Rusten]

Found copper, but in a very awkward spot. I need to sim. There's no other copper tile in sight (CBA to post a zoomed out screenshot).

Initial thought is that rice+crab is off (until much later and will add wheat) and that the first city goes for pig+silver (will have trade route with capital) and the copper city is next (only a couple of turns behind) because it won't have connection before the wheel. It will overlap a lot with capital and pigs, but it has the potential of being a fine GPP city (no need for actual tiles).

On second thought I may settle copper first even without trade route, I'll need to check the sims. It means I get trade routes later, but the production should benefit as I want to hand over this corn tile ASAP. Part of why I liked the crab city so much was that it's settled the turn after the settler is complete. It takes 4T turns to get to the pig spot. I'm fairly sure it will be stronger.

Probably want both hunting and the wheel (order still unknown) before fishing now too.

Annoyingly not going Poly would've had some advantages right now, but that's only because some very specific things occurred. Having the wheel right now would've been good to establish that trade route with a single road. The long term advantage of a religion is still good to have though.

[Rusten]

Thinking about it some more there's no reason to place the pig city there anymore if copper is settled the way I plan (2E of fp). Its only boon is trade network, but at that point I can have the wheel researched anyway. It will be very marginal come later.

I'm now leaning towards settling copper first and then 1w of deer. Effectively picking up corn+gems instead of pigs+silver. I can then settle 1W of pigs (silver in 2nd ring sadly) while getting an axeman to help me settle to the NW.

Another option is to settle 1NW of the pigs and keeping the PH spot for the SW city. A big benefit of this is that it's not vulnerable to barbarians (no axes/spears yet). Settling all the way to the gems with a single warrior (or 2 if I decide to finish the one in Kaputt before settler) is a little suspect. I might like that more actually. A little weird to settle on a forest rather than on a PH, but I have my reasons. Settling gems first means that I need to dedicate spawnbusters in every direction.

So 1st sim plan is copper city --> pig+silver (inland). Wheel-hunting. If it feels good intuitively I may stop there.