[SPOILERS - El Grillo & Charriu PB51] One step at a time

[Charriu]

You are right that black is the next important city. In the north I could see a city between ivory and sugar. Will connect the ivory, defensive position, can share the rice and some river cottages, later gets its own food resources with cow and sugar.

[El Grillo]

That sounds reasonable, dotmapping this area will depend on how our scouting goes and where Ramk has planted his second city. I'd probably aim for medium-term security and plant our front city or cities such that our 2nd-ring borders extend a row or so back from the expected midpoint between our capitals (e.g. not trying to claim that dry corn). It would also be important for those cities to be on hills, and not share a forkable staging tile on the diagonal. Something like this, perhaps:




Also, I'm in no rush to claim this land until I have Iron Working and a lot more labor and defenders nearby. For the short term I think I'd rather just post some sentries to keep Ramk honest and instead focus on putting down a batch of flood plains cottages, while hooking up Gold and Silver and later Gems. Forges are going to be excellent for happiness this game.

[El Grillo]

T48:

I get Sentry a turn earlier than expected thanks to this hapless barbarian Warrior. A flawless win is appreciated too. I still kind of like the idea of attacking Plemo's Warrior for more Great General points, but it's less clear now. Based on some of his posts about PB88 (taken with a grain of salt due to Google translate + the language barrier), he could be the kind of player who frowns upon a hostile act without a direct benefit for the aggressor. I'll have the WC in the area anyway, and 2 Warriors in range of Humboldt Forest in case he wants to harass my wheat farm, but again if he wants to just explore down the coastline, that's fine by me. He'll help fogbust for a bit and probably die to a barbarian Archer at some point anyway.



Our warrior to the northwest reveals that this area is actually not quite as thickly jungled as I had originally thought. Next move is to the hill NW.



I spent a bit more time thinking about how to micro the cities, and I think I want to prioritize the capital's Granary and growing onto a couple of cottages instead of immediately rushing out the copper Settler. Reflecting on being dead last in GNP may have influenced my thinking here Also, I don't think we're in such an immediate danger from barbs or Ramk that I need to fully prioritize the Settler. Barbs still shouldn't enter borders to attack cities for a little bit while other players settle their 3rd cities, and there's no sign that Ramk is sending a spear attack.

At Tuolumne Meadow, that means overflowing 30h from the Worker into the Granary, putting in one more chop, and working one turn of plains forest at size 3. The two Workers in the area will put down two cottages for now, then we can think about putting two chops and a 4->2 whip into the Settler, around when one whip unhappiness will wear off.



At Humboldt Forest, that just means sticking to the plan and finishing the Granary with the incoming chop and a turn of Avoid Growth. Then it's all the way to size 5 on the lakes while building Warriors, and then a 2-pop Settler whip with overflow into an Axe.



Demos:

[Charriu]

If you give me the link to Plemos PB88 posts, I can help with translation.

[El Grillo]

PB88 Spoilers:

https://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?1...gnus/page9

It's the couple of posts where he thinks about, but ultimately chooses not to hit an unguarded Settler+Worker.

[Charriu]

PB88 Spoiler:

I only translated his posts

Have to resist the urge...

Quote from HeymlicH
He must be punished for this move

Maybe later. On the wheat is an axe. So I would trade 160 hammers for a warrior and an enemy.
I'm settling aggressive in the south and I see my expansion in that direction, therefore I need a quiet border in the west.
Hopefully Nane recognizes my intention.

Also I'm pleasantly surprised that their smileys work in our forum.

[El Grillo]

Thank you for the quick translation, it seems I had the right idea. I don't think the smileys are implemented via the RB forum, they're links to gifs hosted on civforum.de. They do have some fun ones though

Also, we seem to be pulling away in the post/view count race for good! May our (eventual) enemies fear the spam and count their days!

[Charriu]

Also, we seem to be pulling away in the post/view count race for good! May our (eventual) enemies fear the spam and count their days!

Isn't that the most important stat in any game.  

Other then that I agree that we should let his warrior roam free. We can use another fogbuster if only temporary.

[Charriu]

Our warrior to the northwest reveals that this area is actually not quite as thickly jungled as I had originally thought. Next move is to the hill NW.

Well that makes the B1 spot actually doable before Iron Working. Depending on Ramks position we might want to settle this spot sooner as a forward base and to prevent barbs running rampant in our cottaged capital.

EDIT: But first our capital needs to grow some more.

[El Grillo]

T49:

1 more turn until Springer Mtn comes out of revolt. I'm going to whip in an Obelisk as its first build, both as a culture backup in case I fail to found Buddhism and also because this city will want the extra point of happiness, and has enough surplus food to consider running Priests in. I'm going to slightly regret going Fishing before Mysticism since I ended up not necessarily needing to work water tiles yet, and I deprived myself of the option to go straight Mysticism->Buddhism, but in my defense that was before I was sure that I could eliminate Amicalola. I still feel pretty good about my Buddhism chances, giraflorens and GKC are the only players I know to have Mysticism, and I think both might prioritize Hinduism toward OR, or delay a religion altogether.

Sentry WC sees 4 full tiles thanks to elevation and water, and the absence of seafood means that the currently marked X should be fine. Plemo played shortly after I took this screenshot and he opted to keep moving to the south. Thank you for cooperating Plemo, in return I will let the Warrior live.



The Warrior will continue onto the hill NW. Fog-gazing suggests that there seems to be quite a bit more land in this direction than I would've expected. This unit is basically on borrowed time this deep in the wilderness, but I think for now I still value revealing more tiles over just picking a nearby hill to fortify on.



In foreign news, superdeath made two 1-pop whips on T48, so I'm curious to see if he's whipping units, or just late to finish his EXP Granaries. Mjmd and Plemo both settled their third cities on T48. That leaves Ramk, Lazteuq, giraflorens, and vanrober on two cities apiece. Giraflorens built Stonehenge, and all four of those players were late to their second cities. Civ4 snowballing in action.