[PB66 Spoilers] Miguelito and Ginger split the bill

[Miguelito]

Amica settled N of pig, that's kinda perfect for our red dot

[Ginger()]

So I was kinda scratching my head why on earth you'd want that pink dot for Vanrober because it looks like a terrible city, when I gave it a second read through and saw how it blocks off potential settling site that contest the Fur. (Note I think he can still settle 2N of fur and push it with Cre). Yeah that's a good city, and we can probably get 13 hammers into an axe and then prechop. I think thats great because it seals off the area. Supporting these two cities is going to be a pain lol, so many roads and paranoia.
But I think it's viable and we should push for it. Also I doubt it will be tilting, if their land is anything like ours, they have other juicy directions to expand to (speaking of, I don't think our blue dots in the southeast are that guaranteed, especially those clams might be contested, and that sheep far SE is definitely contested).

In your eyes, does Amica's pig plant leave any room from their perspective to plant for the dye or otherwise push in on us there? Probably not, right? I think they probably respect us enough not to leave a dangling city like that.

[Miguelito]

tbh I had been getting cold feet regarding the pink dot, as I couldn't work out how to cover it. Your suggestion of chopping out an axe right there seems viable though. Here's what it would look like:


Axe eot 64. It's still risky, if van has troops in the area.

We made contact with Gavagai:


Stone, but not in borders yet.
I sadly forgot to look before meeting him, but somebody has Masonry:


If we're lucky it is Jack (or Amica ) going for GLH. If not we have competition for the mids.

Regarding your question what Amica does next, here is the area in question:


They could plant on the dyes and chop a Cha monument. Pretty bad city, but it makes for a good border and opens further areas SE to them. But yeah it seems unlikely.
Amica getting the marked peak into culture would give them a pretty good understanding of our strategic troubles. Maybe they don't hurry the monument too much though (what for, anyways?) and our Holy City gets it first in 18 turns. I would certainly expect them to build the granary first.

If we decide to settle here instead of the north this would be my plan:


Nicholas should have an axe whippable asap. Not sure if it should stay at size 4 to be ready to whip 2 units quickly, or whip a worker instead.
Meanwhile the cap at size 6 could whip the next settler for the north, also safety remains an issue.
What I like the most about it is that we need workers in the area in order to connect the stone and mine the hills around Thomas.

I don't think the sugar blue dot is in peril (although I think we should probably change that dotmap, but that's for another time), but we could certainly lose the clam or sheep. Would you care very much though? The area is quite dry and has few resources. Of course if we can get it we should, but I think other areas have higher priority.

[Ginger()]

Btw I would not let warriors queue upgrade, If anything, I was going to suggest completing some more cheap mp before we connect our copper.

I highly doubt sugar dot is in peril, but I would like to plant it and the cow/clam in quick succession to get a decent stake down. However walling off Vanrober and preventing Amica from invalidating the dye city are probably our priorities

Since the southern neighbor by sea is creative Gavagai, I doubt we can hold that southwestern-most clam. Do you still want to plant on that peninsular tip and try to push culture/moai in there? We could cut the number of cities there from 2 to 1 by planting 1S of your mark. That is cheaper investment and only loses a clam we might not gain anyways, but admittedly does payoff more in the longer run.

If you're worried about Amicalola gaining cultural control of the hill and overlooking Nicholas, there is a very cheap 8 culture per turn wonder just ahead of us in the tech tree. You know, nudge nudge. 2 chops, Quarry, mine, some whip OF/whipping we could get it done in 8-10t.
I'm told you have some past experience with culture-bombing your neighbors with an Oracle build

[Miguelito]

Hm, good point about that crab. The problem I have with dye -SE is defensibility. The line from our planned dye-E is already in danger of getting cut into, but dye-SE would just easily get cut off. Essentially we'd have to prepare defenses against Amica on 3 fronts, while they can choose where to push. Or am I being overly paranoid?
First ring corn would be lovely, and with the clam the city is pretty good overall. Stupid peaks obstructing movement are our theme in this game.

Where do I send the settler (and workers) next turn, North or Southwest?

Oracle - would we even get Writing in time? Definitely delaying Masonry substantially. Also, is the worker investment worth it at this moment? Still not very much convinced.

[Ginger()]

Hm, good point about that crab. The problem I have with dye -SE is defensibility. The line from our planned dye-E is already in danger of getting cut into, but dye-SE would just easily get cut off. Essentially we'd have to prepare defenses against Amica on 3 fronts, while they can choose where to push. Or am I being overly paranoid?
First ring corn would be lovely, and with the clam the city is pretty good overall. Stupid peaks obstructing movement are our theme in this game.

Where do I send the settler (and workers) next turn, North or Southwest?

Oracle - would we even get Writing in time? Definitely delaying Masonry substantially. Also, is the worker investment worth it at this moment? Still not very much convinced.

I don't think the defense loss is that big. The end of the day, whoever has the bigger stack advances, defenses/culture are just* a question of buying turns to react.
(*allowing first strikes is huge, but I don't think that's a risk with either plant so out of consideration for the moment) 

Masonry is definitely Jack, idk if you saw my sign but he built a lighthouse before monument with an unclaimed fish in second ring

I meant Priesthood after Masonry, Writing would be doable, it's very cheap with 3 prereqs, but Mono would have to be delayed likely. Maybe I'm wrong and chasing two rabbits in a half assed way, I just can't seem to get it out of my head. Depends on competition for Oracle which I just don't expect a lot of. Biggest risk is probably Tarvac and Gavagai. Tarvac because they want Prophet points and are ORG for CoL, Gavagai because he personally rates the wonder and Sac Altars. We might be cursing it the way I cursed giving up on GLH in PB63 (on the flip side, expansion was excellent with the erstwhile-GLH city pumping nothing but settlers). I don't expect MC oracle as very likely unless someone wants Colossus badly.

[Miguelito]

Re: defense - say Amica has culture and a road SE of pig, which will happen eventually. They can then move a stack out of the fog to stone-W, and we're split. Now if we can hit them with cats in flatland it's fine, but if we need a little time yet to maneuver then the dye city is lost. But well, if the gist of it is that we need to maintain a position of strength that was provably true before.
Ok, you've got me convinced on dye-SE.
With our stretch out borders I'm wondering if we should get HBR rather soon, just to have a mobile force that can respond on every border (and of course it's alright for offense as well).

Now again, which city first for the new settler, dye-SE or vanrober pink? Also note that van does have some power.

[Ginger()]

Can’t see HBR before Construction, without collat to chip at spears, HA trade so poorly

Definitely Van city as a first-come lock-out

[Miguelito]

t56
The copper city was settled, 2 more turns to connect the resource (and city).



I sent the scout further south, with the intention of passing Gavagai and continuing SE. That way we should find out who our neighbour around the bananas would be. I don't think it'S very valuable to scout the Gavagai/vanrober border zone, although splitting van together with Gav seems like a winning play if we ever get that far.
Btw Gav knows van but not Jack. Amica doesn't know anybody (nah, they've met somebody, as they stopped the EP spending at 116,  but we don't know whom)



Preparations are starting. Note that van has overtaken us in power . Have to count on the element of surprise.



The cap can whip the next settler on t62. With full worker investment we can found dye-SE on t65, although that delays the quarry by 2 turns. the worker would then focus on the quarry, meaning the corn farm comes pretty late.
I keep flipflopping on this.

• Note that either dye plant is closer to their capital than ours, and that at a time when we are already antagonising a neighbour. I'd even consider settling something inoffensive like blue dot instead, although if Amica then gets the corn and peak it would hurt a lot. So, found corn-E?
  
• If  we want to go through with dyes, I am now again thinking that dye-E is better. It can work the quarry, instead of staying on unimproved tiles for 4 or 6 turns. The supply line is significantly shorter, and that matters a lot in our current situation. It saves 3 worker turns that we're desperate for. It does need a stupid monument though, or a missionary.
  

I think the graphs are showing some interesting bits:



What's up with van's GNP? Does he have another gold besides the one that we've seen? Some 2-arrow tech plus maybe KTB? That wouldbe Masonry, right?





van's demos in the core parameters are significantly better than ours . Something curious is going on with Amica - they have cheap granaries and Cha (+ivory ) happy cap, yet apparently are going heavy on hammers and light on food (and have only whipped 4 pop thus far).



want to find some meaning here?

[Ginger()]

Van's GNP wouldn't necessarily be masonry because he wouldn't research mysticism. My guess is pottery or writing.

I still think we should settle dye before the more inland dark blue backfill and keep a sentry plus Nicholas ready to whip. It's a good border spot irrelevant of distance. Also Amica unlike Van doesn't know exactly how close we are. I would keep the Warrior in the north where it is, and I would also keep a chariot in range of that wine spot, incase Van makes the mistake of sending an unprotected guy there. (Ideally he moves up, sees the chariot first, and doesn't force us to fire by delaying his settler a turn). I think it's worth trying to bully a little for that pink dot, and ironically I think the border will be better off and more stable longer term if we get our way. Can you imagine if that river valley was split along two or three front cities? Yuck.
Also it sort of removes good spots for him to settle near us, creating more distance. Ironically the early antagonism might be better for a more lasting peace that lets us sim and tech-up.

If you're worried we don't have enough hammers to afford it all, you know what I'm going to suggest...
I know that Pyramids is very very good, but cities and units as SPI/ORG are also going to be critical, and pyramids is very, very expensive and very juicy a target.
And if you don't want to give up on the pile of rocks, I'll issue my last plea for at least a sideways tag-along attempt at Oracling, Priesthood-Writing after Masonry?
[though I realize this doesn't solve the hammer problem, just makes it worse]
Delaying Judaism/Mono might also give us more time to random spread Hinduism and save hammers on missionaries if the religions aren't competing. The reason I am so bullish on CoL is that it invalidates the need for happy cap to escape the expansion tech trap where you waste food by not growing—that's a non-issue. You can dump that food into more cities without fear, or more courts if you bump up against the happy cap. With religion and temples to supplement the Food->expansion wave, we'll be at Calendar before it becomes an issue again.