[Mjmd #51 No Players] Mjmd Rambles - a civ story

[Mjmd]

International news 1st. Ell Grillo took Amicalola's capital and destroyed the Aztec civilization! back on turn 46! This is a huge game defining event. War Chariot rush? I guess Amicalola didn't settle on their copper like SD did. (Mjmd is in a dream for a minute where SD didn't either).

Anyways 3rd city founded this turn. Oregon Trail. Great little fast game. Played it over Christmas with some friends and still great. Did I lose 9/10 oxen my first time crossing an early river, sure sure, but I got back into the hang of things. Below is updated dot map. You can tell what I think of the fish city I wanted. I believe SD got Iron working this turn!



I know you can see the mini map, but thought an overall map with resource icons was interesting.


Map description: Fractal Pangaea with lots of lakes that looks kind of like a fritter...   I was wondering how fractal and pangaea would go together. I'm betting I'm on a 6 player donut with the other players somehow making up connecting landmass of some sort. Based on Vanrober distance from both Ramk and myself I'm guessing connecting points are Southeast and Northwest. Also if you look you can see a zone of no resources between Van and Ramk (although admittedly I didn't scout all the way across). So basically Vanrober might border 3 people but has long distance from capital to all of them. I'm betting other 4 people were in pairs of two in the sense that they had close (10 tiles away) capitals. Circling back that probably means El Grillo who has the best or 2nd best leader now has no one around him! Good news is that he will have quite the distance maintenance early and will be a target going long. If i start doing stuff I might sneak under the radar. You know, assuming I survive this prat thing. Also, if I'm right it means SD has a lot of room on the other side to expand into peacefully if I look nice and prickly.

[AutomatedTeller]

big news!! El Grillo has to be the favorite at this point. 2 capitols is pretty awesome.

My worry about city #4 is barbs. It's a LONG way from your other three cities, which means that you can't support it, so you might run into a situation where you have multiple barbs threatening your city and you can't improve or deal with them because you have only 1 axe. Even getting a settler there will take a while, cause you'll have to go 1 tile at a time to not get sniped by a barb.

I always meant to play oregon trail - I heard good things about it - but never did.

[Mjmd]

So I could settle the filler z city in between the two sheep instead if its an issue. Long term its a filler production city as the best food resource the grassland sheep will go to the stone city. Mind would help stone city develop faster.

Assuming I go for the rice city, If SD isn't poking around (which at turn 60 assuming he will also be back home dealing with barbs), and I don't have barb issues at that moment, I would send 2/3 axes that direction. 1 on plains hill E of grassland sheep and other on hill west of spot. That would give vision the whole way. I'm a dreamer, so will probably have to do the z filler city first along with spot 5, but will see.

[Suite]

You can confirm/double check the iron working if you look closely at Chevy Corvette. As IW is a classical era tech, there should be houses in greek/roman style.

Spot 5 is extremely slow in my opinion. You should not settle there without having the southern cows already hooked. I'd go Z (hook cows, build monument), then "5th" instead, but even better would be placing the "5th" city one tile north (Cow-2). But yes, the "Z" between the sheep are a good spot for your fourth city: compact and grabs two food resources and is arguably a better city on it's own than "4th" (at least in the beginning - more wood, no culture needed, plains hill, contributes way earlier).

[AutomatedTeller]

Here's a question: what sort of fritters have holes in the middle? I'm serious - I thought a fritter was solid. This is looking to me more like a donut

I don't disagree with the cow/fish as a next city - 2 strong tiles are good - it takes a little while. The main issue is that you don't have AH yet and all the alternate sites we are talking about need AH, so you'll need to switch up your research. Of course, that will also show you horses, which is good in itself.

[Commodore]

I'm going to be real with you: something very very wrong happened with this dough.

[Mjmd]

Turn 50 report! First responding to last couple of messages:

@ AT: Tech path is AH > Poly > Writing > Mathematics > Masonry So, will have AH by time 4th & 5th cities are out. AH was the "extra tech" I was talking about when I did the micro plan change to switch to the lake with Leap Frog.

@ Suite: SD just got a tech and had two cities grow which was why I thought it was a classical tech. I'm 100% positive it was pottery. Turn after he did two 1 pop whips. I'm assuming he chopped then whipped. Very strong play putting expansive on display.

@Both: I had already adjusted spot 4 to double sheep city on my dot map 1) better for my thin military at that time 2) It speeds up development of city #6. 3) Even with reduced maintenance and sheeps it would probably be down on commerce potential vs rice copper; HOWEVER, I am amazingly worker poor atm which is the real reason I had already decided to move 

@Both: Spot 5 is slow, but again its a disaster if SD settles 2 north on his hill. Also I am definitely only settling on hills atm on his border so 1 north is not an option even though it is better. Plus I have plans for this city. Those forests are 3 wonders including Hanging Gardens. You are looking at my future National Epic city. I may dream too big most times. You've persuaded me about not going for the fish city, you've persuaded me about not going for the copper rice city. If it wasn't for the strategic implications of letting SD have this area maybe you could persuade me to move it, but this dream, this dream stays. I've moved 2 cities for better early game, this one is for a defensive city spot and long game. AT was right earlier that Lizzy has some anti synergy in financial and philosophic. Other than an early academy she doesn't really want to use pop to run specialist, so the best way to utilize philisophic is to have a few wonders. Just a few as they are not settlers, infrastructure, or military to defend. Hanging Gardens wasn't on my original list of wonders I wanted, but I have stone and its on the tech path. Also will create a nice cultural vision in the west long term. I

Plan post building the two settles is to build worker > settler for spot 6. Build a lot more workers while waiting and teching to currency. Can either fit Poly in before currency and will have it to help with completion time and to get new cities up and running OR can can get currency right around same time HG finishes which obviously would help keep overall tech pace going. ETA if I wait for currency turn 95-100 depending (test run was turn 100 but with sloppy academy, no tech micro, and no known tech bonuses). If I deviate for poly before currency I probably wouldn't want to wait past turn 100. Would then limp rest of the way to currency (as much as Lizzy with a capital academy with 5-6 cottages can limp). I'm currently leaning on getting Poly before currency. Hanging Gardens is a tricky wonder because you want enough cities to make it worth it, but you don't want to wait too long on building it. Obviously plans could all change if SD starts building power.

Overview of empire below. You can see the cities I would plant right before HG finishes. I would like another if I can scrap 4 settlers together at that point; probably SW fish? Too far in future.



Quick aside on international news is that both Ramk and Vanrober only have 2 cities still. I settled an extremely slow second city; people how am I ahead of anyone in cities? Maybe they got an extra worker though. BTW my original micro plan before I knew where copper was would have been to have 4 workers before 3 cities so very possible. I am tied for last place in pts with SD so there is that. BTW evidently Germans are reporting over in their forums so if you can read German go read Plemo's thread. I obviously haven't, but he has no early game anything and he is doing well on pts. There are 5 in the 120 range then 4 of us in the 100s. But the rest of the 120s are understandable. 2 cultural, 1 wonder, 1 India, so Plemo kind of sticks out.

[AutomatedTeller]

I suspect SD will not settle towards you that far. My guess is that he settles normally, in a circle around his city. Why?

A) barbs
B) there's no real advantage to settling into your face like that. If that area held stone or marble or a lux that looked rare, that would be one thing, but it's cows and forests, which I presume are not rare. The fish/cow you were thinking of settling is a better spot for him, and I presume there are other spots near his cap.
C) You have a lot more power than he does

[Mjmd]

Turn 56: Long report
AT your 100% right. I expect his 4th and 5th cities to go around his capital. Where is his 6th city going? I won't beat him to 6. If I could fork my opponents capital and another city I would; while taking a bunch of contested land. Not like my non aggressive opponent will want to face my prats. And that opponent is my near neighbor! I would not get if I don't take with my 5th. All of that is probably mute thanks to updated screenshot however as I think you'll now approve? BTW power is now a lot more even. Plus would kill my dream of HG and a national epic city.
-Borders popped last turn at my cap and there is land south of that fish; probably an island. You'll see a bunch of ??? for city locations; will try to get a work boat from leap frog at some pt to scout.
-Hinduism was founded last turn. Not sure if it was by someone I know and they haven't converted or it was El Grillo. I could have gotten Poly as of this turn, but hopefully its still available turn 62; trying to place it does have costs. Mind goal is organized religion so not the worst if don't get, just might move it before math. Saving gold until I need to turn on for Poly. If I don't get I can blow through writing then. Poly 62 is still the goal I would have 2 settlers in transit for anarchy which is nice. Plus Leap frog will be whipped to 1 prior turn and Oregon Trail will grow to 4 that turn (does growth happen 1st or tech? either way all my tests with Leap Frog at 1 it has never gotten)
-Met last player on the donut - Giroflorens. It is kind of nice to see him as SDs other neighbor as SD might decide to go after him instead. On the other hand a strong player / combo might make him want to go that way faster.
- Discovered horse this turn! And I have one right where I was going to put a farm for city #5.... slightly annoying I now need to redo sims to see if I should farm the grassland above 1st or improve horse 1st. Any opinion?



Also mystery of what Ramk was doing is partially solved. Answer is something weird. All I can figure is he went warrior into settler, settled on copper, built an axe, and then did nothing with it??? Probably to used to the German games where evidently they just rush each other constantly if reading PB88 reports is any indication. I originally was sad he was on other side of Vanrober as I didn't really want to do resource trades with financial leader, but its probably fine. Will definitely be trying to do some with Giro later.

Graphs: BTW I am #1 in GNP when I turn on the slider, so at least doing good in 1 category.

[AutomatedTeller]

improve the horse before farming a grass. Its faster and it's a lot more value.

I think #5 is fine.