[PB66 Spoilers] Miguelito and Ginger split the bill

[Miguelito]

Thomas could whip a spear. Next turn it trades Horse to sugar city, so it dips below 5 hammers.

Yes but that one goes to Nick (or we have to whip one in Marge for Nick later, either way Nick needs one by t74)

I started the spear in Santiago to get it to 5h.

Changed Marge to temple. I don't think another chariot immediately is very helpful. Do you think we need one? Will always come out 2nd of a 2pop whip anyways.

Fleshed out the worker plan for the next 5 or so turns; what i still don't quite like is worker E who moves north to help with the fur camp, but has 2 spare turns where he isn't really useful.

Imo Tom should get the pig next turn. Marge is at the happy cap, meanwhile Tom should whip asap because it isn't working much in way of hammer tiles and has run out of whip unhappy. Next turn when the new city takes the horse start a spear yes. But Tom needs to grow back quickly so it can work the new mine t70, therefore give it food.

[Ginger()]

Promise you won't be mad at me...
I uhh... so I solved the problem of E's spare turns by not paying attention to your clever hill road plan. No more spare turns, no more problem :D

I also settled the sugar, and we have guests in our new city. A barb spear has showed up, but two warriors can chump until the axe arrives from Thomas, so no problem
:DDDD
I petition for Joan d'Arc as the patron saint of bravery

Van returned our Deer for Deer but canceled OB. Perhaps he's worried about us getting trade route benefit or doesn't want to let us scout him? I mean I'm very uncomfortable with the vision disadvantage at our border, but I guess I'll have to take it on faith. Fish-Fish is sacred to me for 10 turns, I hope Van feels the same, so I hit accept.

I realize our thrid ring pops to claim "amica's forest" either the turn before or turn after Amica's 2nd ring pops, if it's in our culture and we can control the chop, maybe worth revisiting the idea?

Also I'd like another cottage between Nick and the Capital sometime soon

[Miguelito]

Shit happens. It sort of works out - the pyramids mine is delayed by a turn, but E is free to build a whole riverside cottage (or chop a forest at Marge? - right now we can hardly ever work all the cottages given that Nick is busy with hammers), and Jeanne* also gets connected a turn earlier.

* my control needs had me homogenize the language, sorry.

I think I found a different solution for the barb spear problem. The axe from Nick can take him out in the same time that a new one from Tom would. That way we can still get a spear from Tom which is kind of important I think. Is this ok with you? We'll whip an axe in Nick anyways, and we'll have excellent vision on any approach of his in the area.
Are we sure that the warrior defends the city against the spear and not the chariot? warrior should have better (still <10%) odds, so yes?

With van we have to think long and hard if we're willing to have Santiago's security depend on 2 chariots and a warrior blocking his chariots, and if yes, for how long, if he doesn't give OB. He can strike from the fog at any time. Whipping the spear 2-1 right after growing sucks, hard, but after finishing the camp we'll have two workers around who can lift up the city with some chops.

Next turn Tom can take the horse again. Jeanne can work plains forest instead for one or even two turns without delaying growth. I think it's better for Tom to fill up the foodbox before whipping, even though it has no whip unhappy atm. Or would you prefer the instant whip?

Mjmd has shot up to 9 cities. How many gold mines does he have to pay for that?

[Ginger()]

uhh, I don't like whipping Nick, the Oracle city, I really don't. We need every cottage and mine worked to inch up our Oracle time
Especially if you plan to whip Thomas anyways, like what's the point?
I would rather whip the capital and overflow into temple for happy if you think we need more units. (I don't think we need more until the turn before peace expires).
If for some reason we're able to squeeze writing in 8 turns (currently looks like 9), we'll need every bit of production to try and co-time the Oracle.

I think maybe a couple turns I'm willing to wait on Vanrober dragging his feet. The alternative is to keep spamming OB offers every turn until he gives in. Which isn't a half-bad way of sending a message.

Yeah Mjmd is good. There's a lot of strong and dangerous players in the field this game. As for gold mines, meh whatever, we play what we have and make judgements after we've seen the whole picture. But yes :salt:

[Miguelito]

Nick axe whip isn't urgent - it should just come before peace with Amica, gives 30h of OF into Oracle (and we need two of those to finish the wonder, don't we?). We can whip from size 5 with food or size 6 (if there's time) to hit HC quickly. The whip timer will run out and it's a way to convert the huge food surplus into hammers precisely to speed up the wonder. Temple whip would be nicer but Amica is still adding power.

Have you made a concrete sim for building Oracle? (well the hammer part, research is too complex to predict exactly) otherwise I might tonight.

Just to be clear, I was talking about the existing Nick axe, not annoy whipping a new one for the barb spear.

The spear from Thomas is pretty much needed.

OB spam for van I hadn't considered... yeah let's do that. Edit: logged in to do just that. Although I'm having second thoughts - if he sees how hard it is for us to defend that might incentivize him? Anyways at least once there's a wall he will have a hard time cracking it without siege.

Yeah Mjmd sure does a good buildup, and 9 cities with Imp is a lot not at all impossible, it's just... where does he take the money from if his land is in any way like ours?

[Ginger()]

if by concrete sim you mean scribble out hammer counts over ~10 turns on the back of an envelope, yes I have. Although I welcome more profesional Excel-ence

Sure, move the axe from Nick I don't mind. Does the spear in Thomas have less than 5h invested? I don't remember off the top of my head

Unlike say Amica, Van already knows how hard it is for us to defend. He's scouted that whole area, he's either being generous and investing in a long-term relationship by not making the border a gory nightmare, or he's made his decision to contest and is just playing nice. I suspect the former but either way OB benefits our security.

[Miguelito]

I see that I'm easy to predict

I checked in game, 8 turns to Writing (from t68) should be a sure thing, 7 turns is a challenge. That would mean that we need to finish the build eot 75 or 74. Here are the expected spreadsheets:



The first one is the high pop variant. Just one whip from size 5, growing back quickly. Oracle finishes eot76, so basically we have to chop the deer. Which again, I'm not opposed to in principle.


The second one ekes out 2 whips, in order to finish eot 75.To enable that, we work the mine during 2 turns only .
Basically, the first is the preferred variant if we think we can manage 7 turns Writing and need to finish eot74. The second avoids the deer chop, so if we think we can't do better than 8 turns to Writing anyways then it is probably better.
Need to decide between the two by t69 (next)

[Miguelito]

We can reassess after whipping Thomas next turn, but I'm now pretty certain that eot 74 should be possible. We'll add costs in the form of a couple units, otoh we most likely will lose 2 warriors to that stupid barb spear, great.
So I think we follow plan #1, and prepare to chop the deer. That also gives us some leeway with the mine - we can afford to instead work a hamlet for 2 turns, and we definitely should.
I want to send the workers to chop next turn already, so they get home before Amica can attack.
Sadly needing a third chop also means that we are slow to develop Jeanne. However next turn we build the road between two workers. We should try to log in and do that as early as possible, so that wemay get the trade route if someone founds a city (or signs OB? declares war? I don't quite remember what triggers TR recalculation).
Thomas mine also gets delayed very much, to t76 . Almost tempting to have it grow back to 4 and whip again immediately. In fact that kinda works out if we connect the furs (or it catches Hindu).

Vanrober hasn't added power, but of course he might just whip a ton t69/70.

Here's how it looks:



Demos could be worse:

[Ginger()]

What about chopping "Amica's" forest instead of the deer? If the monument appeared t64 then I think we get it on our 3rd ring from Nick. 5cpt 3rd ring should beat 1cpt 2nd ring, right?

It should be 16 hammers if it's in our culture, right?

Curious if we can get the worker there in time and finish before peace treaty. I should've brought it up before you recalculated the worker movements.

if it is too much hassle then yes, I am happy to chop the deer

Yeah, demos are fair all things considered, though additional stress might break things given our precarious geography.

[Miguelito]

That's possible actually, if rather remote. B gets there t70 and chops 71-73, C chops the other forest 72-74. 74 is the turn when Amica can declare, so we'd need to make sure we play first, and still risk getting two workers assaulted.
We get culture on the tile only on turn 73 itself. If Amica has a monument in the pig city that claims the tile earlier we can only chop t74 (and Amica could snatch it with their own worker anytime before 73 in any case).

Imo a lot of stuff that can go wrong, and losing the deer hammer is not that bad. Mind, we gain a coin in prime commerce cities.