[SPOILERS] enough is ENOUGH! scooter opens some windows and finishes first!

[scooter]

T20 likes copper when it's close to home

Or maybe I don't because, you know, spears and Keshiks. So I'll get right to the most interesting moment of the turn:



After several turns of boringness of southern scouting, we hit the jackpot here. We find pigs, copper, deer, and fish. The deer being jungled is disappointing (and slightly humorous), but assuming it's the same as forest I can still camp the Deer, I'll just suffer -1F until I clear the jungle at IW. Most interesting part about this picture (IMO) is that... the copper is pre-mined! This is exciting to me because it makes me more optimistic about the Horse being pre-pastured. Unfortunately there's also this voice in the back of my head that is yelling "yeah that's part of the nasty trick!" and the Dazed will likely agree with that voice . But still! I'm allowed to briefly get excited here whether you like it or not. ANYWAYS. So I do want to figure out how I'm going to place a city that steals the town. So I zoomed way in and attempted some fog-gazing.



Left a couple signs for myself. The lower sign points out what seems fairly obvious - - there's a land tile 1W of that sign (appears to be a plains hill) so I can definitely settle a good town-stealing city. There also must be water 1N of the sign because there's clearly no connection to the island. 2N of the sign is obviously land, so just a couple itles are in question here. First, 1NW of the sign? Also appears to be land, but I'm not certain. More importantly though, the sign up top noting the possibility of a land connection up there. That could change things dramatically... However, It appears to be a water tile 1S of that tile. I'll find out soon enough, but the copper city could depend on these tiles here. Ok, enough on that - that was completely unnecessary. The scout defogged more of orange dot in a roundabout kinda way:



So orange dot also gets a floodplains (yay) and a workshopped desert hill (yawn). Either way, that's some really nice land NE of orange dot so I'll need to make sure to lock that stuff down. Finally, my cities:



I was 22h away from finishing a settler and produced 39h. My warrior already experienced 1h of decay (6 -> 5), but I need to dump that overflow into a worker or something so I'll live with another hammer of decay. Pathetic overflow question because I rarely pay attention to these things: so how do multipliers work here? I'm producing 17h of overflow, and if I dump it into a worker that's 17 (overflow) + 10h (base prod) => 27 * 1.25 => 33.75h => 33h + 5h(food) => 38h into a worker... Right? And it'd be 45h if I overflowed into a settler.

Reason I'm checking is it seems odd to me that the overflow number gets to be "distorted" by +50% settler bonus and then get multipled again on the new build.

Anyways, Simple Math:



This worked out differently than my sim because in my sim I roaded the grass hill completely before chopping. This works out fine though because I'm better able to get to the next city and get that going. Demos:



Obviously I'm the only one working tons of hammer tiles while building an EXP worker and an IMP settler. Most important though? #1 LIFE EXPECTANCY. Also LOL at my GNP. Researching is for noobs.

[scooter]

T21 gets a lesson in overflow

So apparently yes - overflow that was getting influenced by modifiers does get "reduced" back to it's original state:



I got 11h of overflow rather than 17h. Makes sense. So yeah, I dumped that into a worker. Settler is on the move as planned:



Warrior keeps moving but sees nothing special in particular:



Thrilling. Demographics:



And my worker gears up to chop again at the capital:



That'll probably go into a settler for City4. Farmer's Gambit Joao is fun and dangerous. Before I do that I'll need to finish that sitting warrior, but still.

[scooter]

T22 teaches a man to fish

Fishing is due at EoT. Worker plan at capital:



Warrior finishes this turn. Worker begings chopping now. Next turn we finish the worker in 1T. Chopping has another turn still to go. Then we start a settler and dump the completing chop into that. It'll be super fun. More:



I decided to go ahead and save a worker turn here by mining this plains forest hill instead of chopping and eventually mining (5t instead of 6t). The second worker will join next turn and the turn after that it'll be mined and Simple Math will have a bunch of hammers into a worker. Next turn I'll spend 1T on a work boat here, then swap back to worker to get full force of the chop. At least that's what I'm thinking. I THINK that's more prudent then chopping into the WB. Then again, the crab hookup is pretty important so... need to think about this. I actually JUST played the next turn (I'm running behind here) and I'm expecting a second one today, so I'll need to figure this out. Settler is moving as planned:



Warrior moved onto orange dot and is waiting. After my workers mine that forest plains hill they'll move on to help at orange dot. Scouting:





Also noticed the size 5 guys have held still for awhile:



Assuming they are emphasizing workers/settlers like I have been.

[scooter]

T23 laments the lack of wine

Greeted with the Fishing splash screen:



Cool. Not Cool:



A winery with no wine?? Ok now I'm not feeling so great about the prospect of horse .

Warrior scouting:



Interesting stuff. This is a nice area - I'll have to revisit this dotmapping. I'm realizing this town is more "mine" than it is Lewwyn's - the other one would be stealing from someone.

I thought I took more pictures, but apparently that's all I have. The major thing though was choosing between Pottery and AH next. I'm going with Pottery despite the fact that I'm likely to settle Pigs/Gold next. I need to get my Exp granaries up, and even if I settle Pigs/gold before I have AH, I can just use the gold tile to finish AH faster if it comes to that. I'm going to need some commerce to keep me teching while this is going on, so that gold is important.

[DaveV]

Why did you move the warrior E instead of SE?

[scooter]

Why did you move the warrior E instead of SE?

Accident actually. I was playing the turn (hadn't gotten to the warrior move) and BtS crashed, so when I went to play it again, I was annoyed and in a hurry so I went east. I realized my mistake but it seemed unfair to reload and fix it, so I'll live with it. Oh well, it happens.

[scooter]

T24 thinks hammers are, like, way cool

Been a busy day so the report waited until now. As planned, the chop completed at capital and went right into a settler:



Joao uber alles (except for, you know, teching). Need. More. Workers. SCOUTING:



Oh yum. Plains gems. Mostly makes up for the "HAHA GOTCHA" dry winery. I'd pillage it for some straight cash, but I have a scout so no dice. The south is mostly clear to me at this point:



Some good cities to be had in general down south. The terrain is really funky in general - it has a slight Fantasy Realm kick to it. Anyways, back to looking at cities.



I'd get slightly more mileage out of chopping into the worker, but I need the WB more for the moment. Oh speaking of cities... I have a new one!



Say hello to the city of Sante Fe. My two workers completing the mine (that finished the WB) will head to Sante Fe next to get it started. Popping borders is something I really need to happen pronto, but I need to finish Pottery and then AH and THEN I can get to Mysticism and stuff like that, so... eh yeah. This is going to be annoying for awhile. Thankfully this city hhas good tiles to work in it's initial radius and the pre-made road to Simple Math helps out considerably. Also youch at -6g for 2 settled cities - though the distance on this one certainly doesn't help. Don't care. I wish I could wait a tad longer on that Pigs/Gold site, but I really need some sort of commerce funding so I can limp to Currency before I totally bottom out the economy. Anyways, demos:



Going kinda hammers happy here. And yes, I recognize that my GNP is hysterically bad. I'm definitely the only person whose MFG is keeping pace with GNP. Serdoa is off to a nice start - Hunting/Fishing is definitely the strongest starting techs here. Good job by him. I'm really curious what he'll do with Phi + Grocer here. He can do some crazy bulbing or he could play it long-term and settle a merchant or two which I'd be realllllly tempted to do with the Grocer there from the start. Oh I forgot one picture:



This is just getting into place for the pigs/gold city. I want that city to immediately work the gold to knock out AH as quickly as possible. I'll probably build a road on that forest while I wait just for efficiency of not having to sit on that forest again for a dead turn. The warrior is headed up there to make sure the coast is clear and all that jazz.

And that's T24. I really need to grow some of my cities... but horizontal over vertical has been the doctor's orders thus far - partially driven by how long it took to get stuff like Fishing. Plus I'm not in a rush to whip while I have no granaries - I can do some growing while I build them.

[scooter]

What I really would love is Stonehenge... But it doesn't seem worth it without using the Stone, and given my teching it'll be forever before I get around to finishing Iron Working (not to mention Masonry). Either that or getting a religion, but I think the early two have now fallen and I don't even have Mysticism yet so that's not in the cards either.

[scooter]

T25 is unable to make a boring turn sound interesting

Work boat netted the crabs...



...So we'll take a look inside Simple Math:



This is actually a pretty lousy city longterm, but in the short term I can get this up to size 3-4 and work several mines and use it as a decent worker/settler pump. It's not like I'm actually going to WORK that incense. Speaking of which, I need to hook that up. I'll likely farm those two grassland tiles and yeah, just try to squeak some hammers out as best as I can. So for now I'll grow it and probably chop a forest into a worker soon after.

Demos:



The worker turns were especially dull this turn - it's unfortunate but they mostly were walking this turn. Two of the workers headed to Sante Fe to start on the corn next turn... The one that chopped the forest plains at Holocene started to head northwest, and the one that was on the way to the pigs/gold site stopped to road.

And yeah that's pretty much it. Hopefully things will get more interesting soon.

In the meantime, go check out the Duel Tourney forum if you aren't a player. I did a brief write-up of my game with Bobchillingworth - it was a fun Ren start. /shameless plug

[scooter]

T26 starts the gold rush

My setter is off:



Could've attacked Shanahan's scout there, but not worth possibly losing my city escort at only ~ 70% odds at no real gain to me. If he tries to walk in on my capital I have my warrior coming from the southeast who could kill him rather easily if he steps onto flat ground. Going to bump my capital up to size 5:



Swapped from the RR mine to the FP workshop for 1T to get me to size5 in 1T and then I can swap back to a worker or something. Going to settler for copper fairly soon too. The south is pretty much clear:



Good land but not spectacular. Demos:



Pretty sure Serdoa has been the consistent leader here.