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

[Ginger()]

CY is the stat that matters. Though that does swing a good amount with various parties whipping. Small cities are fine if they work all the food resources available and have granaries.

My fear is that Mjmd and Cornflakes have a commanding lead in both CY and MFG (and have CHA to utilize it). In my sims despite my granaries I don't approach reach their current CY for another 10 turns. The reason for that is that I am happy capped and can't make full use of the food available. My current strategy is to use whip for the "hard" MFG necessities like troops to secure settling sites, while slow-building civilians with the excess food while whip anger wears off. Does that sound correct? Or should I be using the whip more frequently? This optimizes the Food conversion while dodging happy cap problems but makes the new workers and settlers come out too slow for my liking, as the projections show ~1 new city per 10 turns until turn 80. 
I guess I'm asking is: what are the standard build orders are for farmer's gambit (maybe one metal unit per new city)? I just don't know how to balance the priorities, usually a simple call in singleplayer or always war.

[civac2]

So you are projecting to have 8 cities by turn 80 (5 at turn 50 and 1 more every 10 turns)? This depends on the map a great deal but I'd say that's way to slow.

[Miguelito]

Generally slowbuilding workers/settlers on food is very inefficient, especially with granaries. The whip converts food to hammers at a rate 1 to >2 for small cities, while slowbuilding gives just 1->1. You also generally want your settlers and workers asap.
If you find yourself happy constrained and unable to use all of your food you might want to consider a tighter dotmap with more tilesharing (might be a bit late for that), or do 3pop settler whips in your most food rich city.

[Ginger()]

So you are projecting to have 8 cities by turn 80 (5 at turn 50 and 1 more every 10 turns)? This depends on the map a great deal but I'd say that's way to slow.

Well would it still be considered slow if I said that was the pyramids ETA? Rough conversion being that Pyramid production loses about 3 settlers and another worker? So I could hypothetically produce 6 instead of 3 settlers between now and t80 but I think I prefer happy cap/tech from Pyramids.

Yeah Miguelito, I’ll set up Rome to whip for three pop instead, I think it will be the capital, it just feels so bad having whipped a Granary 4->2 and then being unable to grow past 3 in Cumae for 10 turns.

Edit: with some micro refinements (read: citizen abuse) and 3-pop settler whips, I was able to get to 11 cities at t82 at the cost of a 4 turn delay on pyramids. Tech rate is atrocious, but provided Mids dont get sniped, capital is ready to grow on some nice cottages

[Ginger()]

Well today was a big turn as I founded the fifth city, which promptly sank my economy like a stone  . Teching Sailing should be possible when the Silver comes online in 6turns. I also met Jack's wandering warrior and cried out in pain as I saw Mali's grassland, forested deer. I was briefly second in CY before I whipped the Capital 4->2 to finish the granary. Here are the photos:
   
   
Meeting Jack has revealed no KTB. He is on 3 cities at least, so fingers crossed he has a healthy base to counter the ascendant SD?

[Ginger()]

T53 report, Currently we are twiddling our thumbs until Silver > Sailing > ICTR > Masonry.
Mjmd settled his 4th city on a hill near his lake, deer, and horse. This is a nice location for me as it gives me room for the city I wanted to squeeze there underneath the cow without to rush to claim it. So it looks like our border will be peaceful (at least I won't instigate anything), I plan to send fish for crab a couple turns after sailing kicks in. (Of course he could settle that city himself but that would certainly be an easy raze on flat).
I have an etymology question, where did the term "pink-dot" come from? I see the dot map has different colors, but why pink for the most egregious settlements?

Fabled and Cornflakes war-peaced sometime in the last couple turns at CF's instigation. Fabled's stats are still very low but he is rapidly recovering, I have to assume early whipped granaries. CF still has monster CY/MFG with two pop 5 cities. To double check, you are able to see new buildings in the city center even if city is in fog, right? Because I see no granaries from Mjmd and he must've researched pottery + has conducted several whips. I do see an obelisk in Memphis, so I assume I DO get that vision even if I only saw the city once?

[Miguelito]

Pink dot

[Tarkeel]

To double check, you are able to see new buildings in the city center even if city is in fog, right? Because I see no granaries from Mjmd and he must've researched pottery + has conducted several whips. I do see an obelisk in Memphis, so I assume I DO get that vision even if I only saw the city once?

Yes.

[El Grillo]

Yep, buildings and city pop values update in the fog, but new cities/captures don't.

[Ginger()]

   

I feel completely humiliated, I chopped all but one tile in Rome's BFC and Mjmd is still just one turn behind me with the settlements (factor in SPI and he's right alongside). To say nothing of Cornflakes who leads every stat on 3 cities, 2 of which are on size 5. I almost wonder if he is going to generate a priest before revolting to slavery. Someone researched Sailing last turn while Sid's pity beaker accounts for 17% of my economy. This is my thread, I can whine like a brat if I want to; [insert obligatory greener grass complaint], [chaser of "picked wrong traits for the map"], and soon [a dessert of "wow this combat RNG sucks!!1!"]. 
Am I doing this right lurkers?   
 
I've binned my sims because the deviance is starting to show, most notably in tech, and there's no point microing when your builds are tech-gated. From now on I'll just do this the old-fashioned way of adding yields and food bars if I need to forecast. Speaking of tech gating, I need to decide if I want religion or cities. Luxuries are precious on this map, and the 3 best traits to fix are CHA (no shit), IND (all minerals until calendar by the looks of things), and SPI (temples and Reli/HR). Now I need to decide reasonably soon (in 7 turns, after Sailing is done) if I want to keep pumping out settlers/workers and cry about GNP or try to at least snag Mono. If I land the pyramids, catching up in tech becomes trivial, and I'd rather have several cities than religion. The problem is that if I get blocked on the mids I am in a deep hole with only 400 gold to band-aid it. Idk, it's a hard decision because tech acts as a snowball as much as CY/MFG does. Writing, Calendar, Currency, Religion free spreads, all those advantages accumulate over time too. To clarify, I think Big Trongle is a go, no matter what my other plans are, my only concern at the moment is whether or not to stop at 8 cities and tech up a little before filling out the rest of the dotmap. If I do decide to spam settlers in chimp mode, I might also want to consider a run at GLH in Cumae since I'll have both techs for it, could probably finish it maybe 10 turns after mids, around the late turn 80s. Not an impressive date by any means, but you never know what other players get up to. 

I understand how sometimes players can feel like reporting is a chore, but one rather unique thing about these stories that I'm just rambling on trotting out my stream of consciousness and people are actually interested in reading it, like wtf?! It's a funny experience, and a pretty enjoyable change of pace from the usual walk of life where you keep yourself to yourself because ain't nobody want to hear about your crap.


P.S. Edit:
Turnroll update