[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[Ginger()]

Hmm yes, I think this copper settle can guarantee us the disputed middle lands. I will march the first spear there, but I don't want to parade right near his borders to engender whips, because I plan on playing nice if I can get the border that I want. I currently have one scout sentried between me and Mjmd and he'll probably stay there for the foreseeable future. I think our border with BING is very well defined by that desert and we should have either no trouble or a lot of trouble there, probably the former. Bing did a 4->2 whip for his settler which means his turn 50 position will likely be slower than ours. As for balance of power between us three. Bing is inexperienced but showed himself to be a tenacious defender in PB61, pair that with Mali and an early BW and I'm not worried he'll be folded into someone else's snowball until at least Construction.

That list of dates is a little comforting and confirms my fear, Van and Nauf both had incentive to gun for Mids as Spi and Phi respectively. Something no one else is in this game. Also they had stone accessible at natural sites for expansion. However I see Superdeath's name pop up 3 times on that list, and to beat the dead horse, he is Industrious, with Mys/Min, plus has early kick start with Imperialistic.
I'm loathe to settle on a potential 1F4H tile for speed, I'd much rather crush a desert tile and bring our cultural borders further west into what will probably be strategically valuable waterways. I think that decision depends on how the worker labor/tech for Masonry lines up. I'm willing to wait 3 turns for 2 workers to Quarry (preroading of course), but if the workers are needed elsewhere then we do what Big Trongle demands. We start on the mids as soon as Masonry drops stone or no stone, a 3turn delay of the presence of stone only makes a ~1.5 turn delay in the production of the pyramids. As for seafood, our stone island is a mirror of Mjmd's then we should have a fish one south of our desert.
Aside from the ~25 gold savings on Masonry, Mysticism is also worth it to hook up our second silver (5gpt) near Antium, which will be neglected a long time if we wait until after Pyramids. I don't really know what our GNP will look like after sailing, but I'm inclined to settle the island city ASAP after Sailing before Masonry for ICTR.

Also popping the borders in Antium is worth more than just the silver because it brings an additional 2 forests into cultural borders and BFC for chopping. What is the penalty for chopping outside culture but still in BFC?
Cumae (3rd city near wheat) also needs a border pop to work the remaining 3 lake tiles

[Lazteuq]

don't want to parade right near his borders to engender whips

I totally agree. I was imagining staying at least 3 tiles from where he'll likely settle, but trying to be visible. It's too bad there aren't many hills to prominently sit on. 

Also popping the borders in Antium is worth more than just the silver because it brings an additional 2 forests into cultural borders and BFC for chopping. What is the penalty for chopping outside culture but still in BFC?

Cumae (3rd city near wheat) also needs a border pop to work the remaining 3 lake tiles

I'm really not seeing enough benefit of Mysticism before Sailing+Masonry. I played out a T85 Pyramids with Myst first, while still settling on top of Stone. It also put a delay on research because of not having 2c trade routes for longer. I'm not seeing the Myst prereq. bonus on Masonry working out profitably.
The chops just outside the border but in the BFC were giving 13 hammers instead of 20. So we only lose 21 stone-boosted hammers without Myst.

I don't think Cumae will take advantage of working the lakes very much until T80+ since I'm imagining it staying small by heavy whipping and trading tiles with Rome. When it's too angry, it can decently slowbuild workers/settlers at Size 2 to let the anger wear off. I don't think that's a big deal.
Getting access to the second Silver is great, but I think it's only a longer-term benefit.

Yes, Superdeath may be the biggest mids competitor. I assume we'll meet 2 additional players reasonably soon, there's a decent chance that we meet him, then we may be able to get clues from KTB or espionage.

I see what you mean about Mjmd's stone island being presumably a mirror of ours. So we may be able to get a workboat out of Cumae before settling the island, depending on how much we want military.

You're right that we don't need to wait for Stone to start Mids. I think the workerturns saved on not building a quarry would be well spent building cottages. Shipping two workers to and from the quarry takes 14 workerturns, which is 3.5 early cottages or chops or whatever. I played around a bit with going Masonry-Sailing-Mysticism and starting mids earlier. It seems to work out about T80 again. It sacrifices some commerce and some production for uncertain benefit. And also you already made a good diplomatic argument for early Sailing. Quarrying the stone seems 1-2 turns slower, which makes sense. 

I'm not experimenting rigorously enough to really back up all this crap I'm saying, I think you should play out to T80ish for yourself. I'm probably missing something.

[Ginger()]

Turn 35 and someone has researched Pottery, I also just met Fabled by crossing the land bridge with my scout. Unfortunately, I don't remember if I saw the KTB before or after the meet, so that is what it is.
The land connecting Mjmd/myself and Fabled is best described as a grassland desert. It is sparse of resources other than Banana (or possibly Iron and Horse). Calendar will be a strong pickup on this map.
   
Note that this is his second city, also he has met Cornflakes and Bing
After turn 41 and horses appear I will extend the simulations. Every worker turn and build is accounted for up until then. 
One question I should probably resolve now is what to do with my second scout. Up until this point he has been flitting back and forth along my border with Mjmd, looking out for warriors headed my way. Mjmd has seen my copper hook up and is probably unlikely to press me at this point, having settled for food, so maybe that scout should transition to the south to watch Bing more carefully? Alternatively, I could fortify him on the cow to send a message and keep him in the area? I don't know. 
I guess the options are
A) keep patrolling
B) fortify on the Cow to send a (potentially provocative) message
C) move him to the southeast, hill near the clams/crabs (the white dot in the previous dotmap post)

[Ginger()]

Mmm what a pleasant surprise this 5 hour turn was, and we were greeted with some more excitement and news as we meet another civ and find Egypt. I think you were right about Cornflake's scout's pathing Lazteuq, this is probably an inland sea. All the seas are likely disconnect, to the disappointment of JackRB's Vikings if he's discovered this fact yet
   
I think my parallel continents theory is correct minus the number I posited, I think we have 3 strips of land banding the toroid, with 3 civs on each. For symmetry and mirroring, I believe each of the groupings of three civs "together" on a landmass are co-longitudinal with 12 tile spacing. This axis is separated from the two other axes by 16 tiles laterally, that much is confirmed by the cultural borders of Cornflakes capital. That is how we get the 36x48 map.
The same timing of the slavery revolt from both Pin and Mjmd last turn makes me think they both did an identical AH -> Min -> BW. 

But there is some even spicier news afoot:
   
Ladies and gentlemen of lurkjury, that's right, your eyes do not deceive you! Pindicator has opened with the Jessel gambit! Now this explains all the activity in his thread, it can't be naming scheme-not with only one city settled! He probably had a mirrored start to what I had and opened by improving the Pigs and Deer and growing onto Fish, Banana, Oasis, Deer, and pigs. Since that's only 5 tiles I suppose a forested Plains Hill makes the sixth. My reasoning against growing the capital has been that the efficiency of whipping without granary is too suspect, and that I've dot mapped incestuously enough that my capital would run out of good tiles if it grew to size 4 before I started cottaging. But at only 3 turns to grow, I can sort of see the logic, it works good tiles and keeps the F/H growth curve high, then makes up the lost new city and worker turns by converting the stored fat back via whip . Despite my joking manner, I'm pretty sure he has a real plan and micro that shows this pay off, I'm not underestimating it. Let's see what the AI think about it:
   
Sadge, developing nations solidarity 

Speaking of our own demos:
   
 Top MFG woohoo lets goooo!!! ignore all the others plz

[Lazteuq]

I think you're right that Mjmd isn't much of a concern now. Peace until T38 and the spear finishes T39. If you send the scout SE, we'll be able to see if Mjmd is sending a warrior to slide into that 1t gap, but I admit that's very unlikely.

It would be nice to know who is to Mjmd's west, but I see his borders already block the whole width of the continent, so we'd have to get there by going south eventually. I think that's a good direction for the scout anyway. I don't think posturing the scout against Mjmd is necessary, he should already be scared enough.

I suppose there's a small risk of Fabled or Cornflakes randomly attacking from the East, but I don't think it's worth worrying about yet.

 Top MFG woohoo lets goooo!!! ignore all the others plz

You certainly predicted this feeling. I don't think there's anything to worry about on the demos yet.

That is some spicy news about Pindicator, I'm curious how the 6pop cap works out in terms of demos on T50 for him. It may be a short term risk, long term profit kind of thing. I guess being CHA makes it a lot more viable. If he does well, maybe this will become a new meta for CHA.

[Ginger()]

Mjmd settled his third city, which means he has either paralleled my opening without any or just a couple chops, or he went double settler before second worker. I'm going to be very disappointed if he managed to crank out a second worker too. I wonder what I did wrong to fall so behind with so many chops. Of course he might only have one worker, but it looks like he is having a good game. His probable mirror agriculture start buddy, Cornflakes, is also having an excellent time judging by the food demos. Our third city comes next turn and third worker comes in 3 turns. The current micro plan calls for 2 more settlers both appearing turn 49, but that is subject to change depending where horse appears.
Top rival CY went up to 31, I'm trying not to worry Lazteuq... I'm trying to be the shepard Ringo...

[Ginger()]

I'll write a full report in two turns once I see horses and make the new micro plan going forward. For now it's a photo dump. Seeing the 60/60 Worker from my sims come to life brought me some joy
   
   
   

[Lazteuq]

What's the micro plan for Antium? Will you maintain eternal devotion to the copper and grow slowly with the plainscow?
We could throw 5+ hammers into a spear or axe in Antium to make sure it can panic 1pop whip. What do you think, is that excessively conservative?

It looks like we will have a meaningful border with Cornflakes on that marble island. His neighboring land is pretty bad, so I think there's a decent chance we can settle it first, but how much do we want it? It might become a flashpoint. It's similar to the islands on the outer shores of PB60, except Tarkeel has made them 2-tile islands now.

How much do you want Horses? I think we'll neglect HBR for a long time being Rome, and maybe we can get by without chariots for a while.

[Ginger()]

What's the micro plan for Antium? Will you maintain eternal devotion to the copper and grow slowly with the plainscow?
We could throw 5+ hammers into a spear or axe in Antium to make sure it can panic 1pop whip. What do you think, is that excessively conservative?

It looks like we will have a meaningful border with Cornflakes on that marble island. His neighboring land is pretty bad, so I think there's a decent chance we can settle it first, but how much do we want it? It might become a flashpoint. It's similar to the islands on the outer shores of PB60, except Tarkeel has made them 2-tile islands now.

How much do you want Horses? I think we'll neglect HBR for a long time being Rome, and maybe we can get by without chariots for a while.

Everyday the citizens of Antium will Tinuflect and say three Hail Quarrys before eating their rocks for breakfast. The micro plan is to work the Lake until the Cow is improved, all the while slowbuilding a settler that finishes with a chop turn 49, then start on slowbuilding a granary (boosted by chop OF). That granary finishes around turn 54, right as the corn is improved, and then Antium swaps to granary-boosted Cow/Corn and is off to the races. Maybe I'm getting suckered in by the synchrony of the plan, given the convenient timing, but I'm not sure it makes sense to slow-grow in a city with +1 food surplus, or alternatively, to ignore the 6 yield copper. I believe the best way to prevent this choice of settling Antium from arresting our development is to equivalate MFG to CY by using it to produce civilian units. Deterrence existing is not as important as the perception of it. I think having copper connected (which Mjmd fully knows) has served its purpose and we probably won't have to worry about attacks until we try to settle for the north-western cow. I think putting 5H in is definitely too conservative. Any attacker will probably assume that we can whip a defender and by dissuaded, at least in the very short term. 
About horses, I would like a couple Chariots for the 'diplomatic' benefits, as a sort of defense that can be in two places. But it's not connecting the horses that I find as important as knowing where a 5-yield resource tile will pop up, as that influences worker turns and possibly city placement. Once I know better what the map looks like I can extend my sims to try and decide what order to settle, whether we can afford the worker turns to ship them to the island and Quarry or whether we plant on the stone, how soon to prioritize which of the remaining 4 core city sites, whether we actually do end up needing Mysticism before Masonry, etc.

[Ginger()]

Question for the lurkers out there, What do you usually build after the first wave of expansion?
I'm going to be at 5 cities turn 50 and at this point of the game I usually don't know quite what to build. It's clear that I need more military, but the most efficient way of producing (4->2) is locked behind Granaries, additionally after this crop of 2 settlers comes out, I need 4 more to settle the core with 2 more for some spots further away. In a singleplayer you don't need to worry about military, in an AW game you completely bulk-up before any settles. Here the choice is less clear because the potential to get wrecked is there, but I will also be ruined by being too conservative.

Antium will build a Granary after it's settler completes, it's the best choice for a city with very high MFG to build that granary and the low food to require it.
Cumae has gobs of food when stealing either the Fish or the Pigs from Rome, so I think Granary there is a waste of time before increased Happy Cap. Probably will finish it's spear, make a Settler-> whip then finish OF Axe, Whip Galley? Something like that
Rome I don't really know quite what I want to do, I would like to start cottaging now make use of the Palace happy cap to put some citizens to work, but it needs Granary for growing onto 2 food tiles, and it needs a unit for military police, and it also needs to contribute to the war effort, err... landgrab.
Split priorities got me feeling like