[PB 55] Miguelito and Mjmd help Amicalola avoid a repetition of last time

[Amicalola]

Have done brief simming (about to get back to it), and I just wanted to say I like meditation, but I think it should be after pottery. We actually run out of things to build in our cities while growing at a certain point, and the earlier granaries I would argue are worth more than the religion so far.

[Amicalola]

Amica, its time for you to present a micro plan!

I literally want a road map btw.

Sir yes sir!

[Amicalola]

I'm going to have to log off for tonight as family are coming over, but here is my first sim which needs huge reworkings but has some solid things I'd like to keep, and wanted to just have it here. If nothing else I want to compare it to the final version. I'm going to give it a few more goes tomorrow morning. It really does start taking exponentially more time as it gets complicated, how far into the game do people usually sim out openings? I feel like T75 would be absurd, for example.

At the absolute baseline (this), we have 4 workers and city 4 settled by T50, although I think we can probably get faster than this.

The thing I am most concerned about is the roads, which are a hot mess, and I can definitely find much better places to have them I think. I'm mostly happy about what Bourdain does, basically connecting and assisting get '4' out, but the other workers needs serious work.

T41: Settle 3 (Vijay). Ramsey finish chop into monu, work river grass. Finish worker, start warrior. Lopez (new worker) road 1E of Water, Bourdain road 1NW of Water.
T42: Ramsey & Lopez road 1NW of Vijay. Vijay takes cap sheep from Coffee, which swaps to another 2/1 forest. Bourdain finishes road.
T43: Bourdain moves and finishes road 1E of Water. Lopez and Ramsey start pasture on horse.
T44: Water takes cap sheep. Bombay size 4 and finish monu, switch to FW. Ramsey/Lopez finish pasture, Vijay switches to work. Bourdain pre-chops forest 1NW Water.
T45: Bourdain roads 1W of other road. Ramsey/Lopez road horse. Vijay builds chariot (can do granary if math on research is wrong; pottery either 45 or 46, Vijay builds less short-term important), switches to cap sheep. Coffee 2-whip worker. Water switches to ivory.
T46: Coffee start granary. Bourdain chop forest 1NW of Water. Nat (worker 4) chop forest 1NW of Coffee. Ramsey/Bourdain move towards ivory.
T47: Water takes cap sheep. Vijay switches to grass forest. Lopez/Ramsey start ivory 2S of Water. Bourdain finishes road 1NW of Water.
T48: Lopez/Ramsey finish ivory. Bourdain finishes road 1W. Nat finishes chop. Water 2-whips settler. Vijay steals cap sheep. Water steals cap deer. Water work ivory.
T49: Nat starts moving down to wheat. Ramsey goes 2NW. Lopez pre-chops forest (could do something else? Rework workers). Bourdain roads hill 1W. Settler moves to 4. Delhi starts granary.
T50: Nat/Lopez move towards wheat (finish on horse). Bourdain starts pigs (1 turn off connection road; needs work). Ramsey finishes road connection to 4. Settler founds 4.

[Mjmd]

Quick thoughts.

As stated way back Hannibal is not a leader that usually wants a religion (as Mig stated we have cheap monuments and plenty of happy). I am only tempting you with it because we are one of two civs starting with mysticism. If we got to pottery first (which I did in PB51 and PB52), you have a higher chance of losing it because you don't have a seafood start (why I asked about land percentages way back). Now mind because we have a high early happy cap granaries are very good for us. I suspect we would end up with mono, which organized is the sexy thing anyways. Plus we avoid noob trap I really want to step in of Oracle (mind Oracle would provide a shrine). It is almost certainly a more solid opening to go for pottery first. But you know have to tempt you a little right?

Micro thoughts (note I haven't run it through yet this is just thoughts from looking)
-I kept micro up until turn 63 in PB51 and T50 in PB52. I would recommend until about T60 just for practice and because we are three way sharing the sheep.
-Why aren't we 2 pop whipping Coffee for a fast worker T43? You wait in yours for T45. Is it for overflow into granary? Generally I prefer to get whip timers going asap. Miguelito thoughts?
-You have 2 workers improving the ivory, if you don't need it for timing I would recommend 1 of them roading / pre chopping. Probably roading. The ivory yield isn't a big enough jump to put 2 of our workers that far south where they have nothing else to do.

-I was thinking about Vijay and I think while we don't have granaries / it doesn't have good tiles to work, it should 1 pop whip a chariot when it grows to size 2. We can hopefully avoid having to emergency whip a more important city that way.

[Miguelito]

I second going Pottery first. As I've mentioned, I'd prefer archery after that, but it is ok, I just reserve the right to say told you so if we get problems with barb spears .
I honestly don't expect to get Judaism, just because it's such a nice target for Pindore (and we would not want to hard beeline it). I do think Buddhism might fall quite late here though, because the only other Myst civ is going the other path, and Mysticism itself is an expensive tech in CtH. Also no other Cha civ who wants monuments. And another competitor has to expect us going for it anytime, so it's quite a risk for them.
If we miss Buddhism, would Confu or a Philo bulb still work for you (I admit that it gets hard to get out the prophet then)?

Sorry that I don't manage to keep up with micro in this game, but in principle I would certainly agree that a 2pop whip should come earlier rather than later, moreso of a worker where every turn he's alive is useful. Particularly while building workers/settlers you are converting food to hammers below the whip exchange rate (this becomes very relevant once you have a granary), so you want to get those out of your queue asap (and rather give the food resources to other cities meanwhile). (credit to Rusten, although might be it's general knowledge and I jsut had a gap there until recently).

Btw, Amica, can you edit in the very useful pick overview of Mjmd's in post #43 into the opening post? I always lose track of what the other guys are playing, even in my own game. The Pb51 mod had a very nice solution on the scoreboard for this, Charriu said he'll look into it.

[Amicalola]

About to get back to simming!

re: religion. The other thing that is nice is that similar to Miguelito, I think Buddhism is likely to last a while. Only Pindore start with Myst right, which means everyone else has to research all our worker techs, not archery, and then risk a religion with us being a theoretical competitor. I just dont know if that's likely, so I feel mostly fine about waiting. At least until Pottery, maybe archery. I've stopped simming research after Pottery, because ktb just messes all the math up too much. I really want the early granaries because I think with our tight-knit start we need to whip the heck out of our cities to make use of our food sharing, plus our charis happy cap (plus religion, I'm sure )

Hmm ok, thanks for the input on whips both of you, I'll definitely add that when I redo it all today. I hadn't known that either, but it makes perfect sense.

I'll try the 1-pop whip on Vijay with these sims! Vijay is a city where this micro is less helpful right now, because I haven't exactly worked out the turn we get Pottery (ktb is nice, but it makes micro much trickier). I worker not working the ivory is actually something I wanted to try as well, so will definitely check that.

I'll edit in that post now!

Edit: Alright, I have flexed my artistic muscles to the fullest. Front post is both useful and neat now.

[Amicalola]

Alright, I have a version I'm happy with! Always looking for feedback and tweaks though. With this version we get 5th city out T60, 6th worker T62, and copper connected T61, with a couple warriors that upgrade to spears in queue. Also first 3 cities all have granaries (and grow 50%+ after to not waste any), and there are 3 chariots and 6 warriors across the empire on T61. T62 also has 4th city whip its granary, and growing onto flood-cottages. This version is super growth heavy, with little commerce or military priority. But with our pick and green-ness, I feel we need to take some risks early to stay in the game. Let me know what you think!!!

The main thing this doesn't account for is barbs, and we have to play a little risky in the first 40-60 turns, so it might slow down some, but it's a little RNG dependent.

T39: Ramsey start chop.
T40: Bourdain finish chop.
T41: Found Tea (monument). Bourdain road 1NW Water. Ramsey finish chop. Lopez move to forest hill.  Water start warrior.
T42: Ramsey road 1W Tea. Lopez road forest hill. Tea take cap sheep.
T43: Bourdain chop 1NW Water. Ramsey pasture horse.
T44: Lopez road 1W Tea. Bourdain road 1W. Coffee start worker. Water start warrior.
T45: Ramsey/Lopez finish horse. Coffee 2-whip worker.
T46: Finish Pottery. Ramsey/Lopez road horse. Bourdain chop 1NW Water. Nat chop 1NW Coffee. Coffee/Tea start granary.  Coffee take cap sheep, Water work ivory.
T47: Bourdain finish chop. Lopez/Ramsey chop forest 2W Tea. Water 4, start settler, take cap sheep.  
T48: Bourdain road 3W Water. Nat finish chop. Ramsey finish chop. Lopez camp ivory. Water 2-whip settler. Coffee steal cap sheep.
T49: Nat move to wheat. Ramsey/Nat move to hill forest (Tea takes). Water start granary. Tea take cap sheep, switches to chariot. Settler move to 4.
T50: Bourdain start pigs. Ramsey chop forest. Nat move to Ramsey. Tea 1-whip chariot. Coffee take cap sheep, tea switch to horse. Red Wine (4) settled; start granary.
T51: Ramsey/Nat finish chop. Lopez finish camp.
T52: Nat move to wheat. Lopez move to wheat. Ramsey chop forest 1W Water. Water works ivory. Tea border pop, finish granary, start chariot.
T53: Bourdain finish pig. Nat/Lopez start wheat. Coffee size 4, start worker. Water take cap sheep.
T54: Bourdain cottage 1W Red Wine. Ramsey chop forest 1SW Water. Coffee 2-whip worker (Oliver, 5th).
T55: Bourdain finish chop 1W of Water. Oliver move to cow. Lopez move to hill. Nat finish wheat. Tea finish chariot, start chariot, swap to wheat. Water start settler. Coffee steal cap sheep, back to granary.  
T56: Oliver road hill 1NW cow. Nat cottage 1W Tea. Lopez/Ramsey finish chop 1SW Water. Coffee finish granary, start warrior (will upgrade to spear in queue). Water take cap sheep, Coffee take cap deer.
T57: Lopez/Ramsey move 2N Water. Nat cottage 2W Tea. Oliver road 1W cow. Coffee take cap sheep, Water take cap deer.
T58: Ramsey/Lopez road 2N Water. Bourdain finish cottage 1W Red Wine (switch to work). Oliver finish road 1W cow. Settler (5) move 1NW cow. Water back to granary.
T59: Lopez finish road 1NW cow. Oliver road copper. Ramsey move to copper. Bourdain cottage 1S Red Wine. Settler move to yellow dot. Water finish granary, 1-turn chariot.
T60: White Wine (5) founded, start monument. Oliver finish copper road. Ramsey/Lopez mine copper. Nat finish cottage 2E Tea (can be shared by Tea/Water). Coffee grow to size 4, start worker. Tea steal cap sheep. Water finish chariot, start warrior (upgrades to axe next turn).
T61: Coffee 2-whip worker (6th). Copper finish, warrior in queue at becomes spear.  Tea grows to size 3, works cottage.
T62: Coffee finishes 6th worker.

Pictured: State of the Empire on T61. 0% into MC after Pottery on T46 (checked now), because ktb is a lot now. Only thing wrong in this pic is the spear has no hammers in Coffee, because I forgot to switch it in this run earlier. 

[Amicalola]

Alright, I've played this one out in-game until T41. I'm going to leave myself (or you if you play) signs for instructions for the next turn always, whether we change the micro or not, just so I can play without having to second guess everything. Here is the current state of things:



Edit: Research switched to 50% after screenshot, then 100% to Pottery T46.

[Miguelito]

I haven't looked into the details, butt I like the t61 pic

Monument in Coffee is for the happy?

[Mjmd]

If spears show up don't I get to say I told you so for not settling copper first?

I'll take blame for that monument; was my suggestion. I assumed we might want to improve the stone before libraries and it was pretty free and the warrior just didn't finish in a relevant time. Very maybe wrong.

Micro is one of those things that my eyes glaze over when other people do it, but I get really excited doing. It looks good though. Those are certainly good numbers if barbs don't throw a wrench into things.

I think I like monument before work boat at White Wine. Are we sure on that spot?

Question. Are all three of those workers needed for White Wine timings? It looks like it. I can't exactly because resource icons are blocking some population, but when is the next settler due? I'm basically wondering if we can squeeze a settler in instead of that last worker and go for the border city with Lewwyn? We could also have Nat not build the cottage for the project.

Either way we probably idle on 6 cities until currency. Build a bunch of workers and then have settlers ready to go.