RMOG: Renaissance Men of Genius

[WarriorKnight]

I agree with your reasoning for both diplo deals. I do have slight reservations about the resource trade as it directly benefits them more than us, however the sub-context makes complete sense (no reason for No.3 & No.4 to fight) and we would rather trade with them over Al anyway. Denying the map trade with REM means we should probably push for the western cities next though.

If we want to race REM in the W, we need to get a plan together for it. W isthmus is the only location that can build the galley we need and it'll take some 10t after settling to complete. Aggro W isthmus will also require a bit of planning, although hopefully not as much. I'll try and update everyone's city locations when I log in next, but we should try and come up with both a REM settling plan and city specialization over the next couple of days.

City names? I assume 'No Copper' is confirmed. W isthmus should be called 'Jungle Fish', pretty happy with that one too. We could call mack city 'Tundra Deer' to put another food complaint in the game. Whale city probably wants to be called 'Lake Whale' or something, although I lean on 'PlainHill Sheep'.

[WarriorKnight]

Resource trade offered and turn ended.

Since we have a settler I went through everyone's city locations again. I won't post screenshots of where they all are (I signed them for dave and lurkers can read other threads) but the important stuff is:

• REM hasn't yet expanded E from his starting location and subsequently doesn't have a city on the ocean between us. Music to my ears.
  
• mackoti has planted a city which invalidates our aggressive plant option. We probably weren't going to go for it anyway but oh well. I do question its long term potential but I assume mackoti knows what he is doing, so whatever...
  
• Most/all teams have settled a location similar to our JOA area. About half settled our location or close to it while the other half split it into 2 cities to get the silver within the BFC. I'm curious about the silver choice though, is that really worth it? Seems to pale in comparison to the bureau cap for research potential.
  

[WarriorKnight]

I saw scooter planted his 9th city this turn, so I logged in to try and find it before we lose the ability to find it by settling. Turns out it's over here somewhere:



I can't confirm where on the island it is, but see if we get scooter's map for info on the equator islands. Also note that is actually plako's islands that scooter are settling, mack border and W isthmus may want to build galley's very quickly if we want to get moving to the islands (I think mackoti can reach the one that should be ours, but in the same vein we should be the first that can reach scooter's).

[oledavy]

Turn 225

You want to ask for his map next turn? I feel like he will just to keep things cozy with us. Them settling that island makes me think they're going aggro towards Plako.

Also, to be clear, these are the two islands you want to settle (plus of course copper between us and Nic)?





What do you think about the treasure islands between us and Nic btw?

Anyway, the big news, settled No Copper!



I promise that's the last pic I'll show of this island for a few turns.

1 down, 3 more coming right up. Right now, the city counts are:

Scooter: 9 (Lots of SA's)
Mackoti: 7 (Academy)
REM: 7 (Priest Economy/Taj GA)
Alhazard: 6 (All the Tech)
Plako: 6 (Academy)
RMOG: 6 (Huge Capital)

I've put other things each civ has going for them in parentheses. We hope to add to that soon with: lots of cities, control of more than our fair share of islands. We're holding good on military for now, seems like everyone is just sandboxing. Still holding what feels like 4th place on our end for now, and the demogs back me up.



Nothing of note in the event log for the last few turns, just feels like everyone is in a settling push at the moment.

Any questions?

[oledavy]

Turn 228

Apologies for the lack of a Turn 227 report. I had a stressful day yesterday and didn't end up getting to the turn until really late. Hoping this makes up for it, as actually quite a few things happened this turn.  First off: 



Settled the city of Orphaned Seafood, our seventh. Our 8th city will be going up next turn, our 9th the turn after that.  

However, our neighbors are getting frisky, and stealing our seafood:  



This shouldn't come as any great surprise since they settled the other island, but I'm still irritated. WK I'm going to propose we move our final city towards REM to east of the lake perhaps? Alternatively, we could still plant on your southern C and try to crush their city with the combined culture of both of ours.  Food for thought.  

Looks like we were right assuming tensions between Plako and Scooter:  



Their map additionally revealed a bunch of their, REM's, and Plako's cities.  

On a final, completely unrelated note, I really hate SA's:

 

Nothing else happened abroad of note. 

Future Plans

I think our foremost priority at this point needs to continue to be overcoming our lackluster start. We do this through relying on our capital and IMP to assist our settling efforts. We don't need to be doing the best, we just need to avoid appearing to be an appetizing target while we wait for dikes to come online. Financial and our research capital should prevent us from running a tech deficit until then, so our shortcomings will be in the Food/MFG department, and military strength as a result. However, what's important here is just to not appear the weakest. It seems that Scooter is going to go after Plako, I suggest we try to remain on good terms with them. Alhazard seems to be in no condition right now to go after anyone, so I don't think we need to worry about that front. This means we still need to convince Mackoti and REM. The former will hopefully go after Al (maybe we split him up together). REM might take some convincing.  

So, with this in mind, I propose as the main tenets for our foreign policy:  

1. Play for time/cultivate good relationships where we can.
2. Do not appear weak.
3. Set up to devour Al/Do some EI pillaging.

After the next two turns, we only have two land border cities left to settle (Far west with REM, east with Al).

I think these need to be priorities simply because they may not always be available. After that, let's grab every single island we can. We aditionally want as much coast in our culture as we can get for future dike craziness. With that in mind, I envision our settling taking place in two more waves:

1. East and West border cities/island land grab
2. Backfill everything

Top of my head settling priority list: 

1. Western Border City (Most likely to be settled by REM if we don't)
2. Eastern border City (Port to build Galley in for...)
3. Northeastern Gold City (Mack has a port already, need to get going on this fast)
4. Northeastern Silver City (Ditto)
5. Southeast copper island (Boat from Ismus city we're settling soon)
6. Northern Gold City (Boat from Mack border city)
7. Northern Silver City (Ditto)

We need  to discuss if we think we can beat Mack to the northeastern island. I think we should still settle the eastern border city really soon regardless.  Maybe we can boat them away later even if he gets them first.  I hold that the copper islands can translate well into early game naval strength if we play it right, but we really would need Cuirs to do things off of boats.  


After we grab as many islands as we can, we return to our subcontinent and fill in the gaps to the north and south.  

I expect some people's expansion will be slowing down soon, so we may have more time than I think.  

We should set somewhere up for a scientist to get an academy in Plains Cow.  Also, do we want to sit on our 1 man GA for awhile? Or hit it as soon as we can? I lean towards the former.  

We need a to finish libraries in some of our core cities (KND, JOA, RD) and after that, we need a round of courthouses.  We also need stone city in some time frame to get Oxford going, but we can hold off on this until we have six cities large enough to build them in a decent time frame. We also need workers for island cities, and longbows to defend island cities. 

With this in mind, here is my general idea for what to do with each city in the short term:

PC - Bank -> Settlers
DR - Longbows, workers, start a whipping cycle on
KND - Regrow on library, courthouse, whip another settler
JOA - Regrow on library, courthouse, whip another settler
RD - Regrow on library, courthouse, whip another settler
No Copper - Work Boat, Worker, ???
Orphaned Seafood - Work boat, Worker, Longbows
Western Border City - Work boat, Galley
Mack Border City - Galley, Worker

I think we continue to cottage every riverside we can for now, but other than the capital, let's try and hold off on cottaging non-riverside grassland for now, as we'll likely want to do workshops on those. As far as city specialization goes:  

Plains Cow - BC capital
Dry Rice - Shitty unit pump
Krill Next Door - Cottage/Specialist Hybrid?
Jungle All Over - Cottage/Specialist Hybrid?
Desert River - Future Naval Pump, interim whipping city, somewhat cottaged. I really think we just want to grow this city to size 5/6 and put it on a whipping cycle. 
No Copper - Naval Pump
Orphaned Seafood - Cottages, interim military pump

I struggle with what to do with JAO and KND. They both have massive food bonuses, but both also have lots of riverside land.  Realistically though, we should probably denote one (KND?) as a dedicated GP city. Then again, I think our ismus city to the south might be better for that, with a good food bonus and no riverside grassland that makes me want to cottage it. I think for the time being, growing riverside cottages in these cities and whipping them for settlers is fine though. Maybe our future border city with REM (3 food bonuses) should be our GP city? Our northwest lake backfill would also be a decent spot.  

As important as bulbing is in this game though, it would probably be a good idea to identify which one will serve the cause soon.  

Anyway, I'll leave it at that for now.

[WarriorKnight]

Lots to comment on. May have to cplit it up into multiple posts, we shall see...

I've been more or less keeping up with everyone's city locations so the strategic situation is relatively known. However I am unable to locate 1 REM city. If I had to guess, it is located on the copper island between themselves and Alhazard (since they have a city on that ocean but not on ours). This does not include the settler on the silver island though.

Speaking of which, how do we deal with it? Looking at the area between the two of us:



I'm assuming the N spot won't be an option once REM silver city pops borders, but I can't say I'm super happy with any of the possibilities. The food is great but it's a defensive liability and an aggressive plant towards a player on a faster snowball then us. The main reason to go for it is so the rice/banana city does not need to worry about a naval attack, but if the front line falls then it's vulnerable again. Call me crazy but I think we should aim for other spots instead. It may cause us defensive headaches but I don't think there is a configuration we can do which won't cause problems.

As for the other contested areas:



We definitely want an E isthmus city, and given the amount of food here it would be great to get it soonish. Do we want to move the city NE to get the clam in range sooner? NC can build the workboats for this city easily so getting all 3 neeted quickly would be awesome. I don't think there is a huge race to settle, but we should definitely aim for this city in the next settler cycle.




scooter's map gives us all the info we need of these islands. Considering there are 2 clams in the fog we should get cities out there ASAP. This is the one that borders ourselves/mackoti/Alhazard. The good news is Alhazard can't reach it atm, the bad news is mackoti has had a city that can reach these islands for quite a while now...

Will mackoti take a shot at settling these islands before us? It is quite a stretch to aim for islands on the other side of the equator but I wouldn't put it past him. This should be our No.1 priority, we cannot afford to lose these. The good news is that as long as we get 1 of them, we might be able to use a Great Artist from Notre Dame here to great affect (assuming we misfire on the GS or GE).




These islands border scooter/ourselves/mackoti. The good news is that no-one has a city on this ocean yet, so we should be able to claim these relatively easily if we want to (since we settle a city on there this turn).  However it is quite a N/S stretch and probably would tick off scooter quite a bit. I think these should be a backup in case we are unable to get the islands in the NE, but not a super high priority.

And of course we can't forget about the SW copper city but since REM doesn't have a city there yet (that I know of...) we should be in fairly good shape to secure it.

So I have 4 city locations in mind for the next round of settlers, with 2 possible backups. Copper island is probably lowest due to minimal competition. Gold city is higher priority then silver city due to proximity. E isthmus location is hard to judge, being able to ferry workboats/galley(s) from copper island to mineral lake would be amazing, but it requires sparing a settler which is in very high demand. It will probably depend on how fast we can get settlers out (which I have not looked at yet).

In short, settling priority is:

1. NE gold city
2. NE silver city
3. SW copper city

E isthmus ??? (need to discuss further)

N gold/silver city are backup island locations with risk attached to them.

How we get those settlers to come next post (along with city specialization and planning).

[WarriorKnight]

As for cities, here is what I am thinking each should do for the next several turns:


PC: Agree on Bank -> Settler(s). We want to grow until size 13-14 so we can work every cottage, then go max MFG to finish the bank and bang out 5t settlers. Probably won't be able to finish a settler for about 10t but can consistently crank them out after that.

DR: Start a whip cycle on workers. Grow back to size on military builds. Can work 3 cottages for PC which it should be doing at all times. Won't be building settlers, but can probably handle our worker needs by itself.

KND: The location for our next GP, it should complete its Library ASAP in order to switch the Engineer to a Scientist (whip?). Build military and grow on cottages in the meantime (it does not need a courthouse anytime soon). It should be working 1 cottage for PC at all times. Probably won't be able to contribute to expansion due to GP focus.

JAO: Long term NE city IMO, but for the time being I think it would be a great settler pump. With 11 food surplus we can grow very quickly, so should aim to 3/4 pop whip settlers here while the race is still on. A Courthouse/Library would be useful but those are relatively low priorities, I think we should build military while regrowing pop. Should be able to produce a settler in 6-7t or so.

RD: Has 1 chop and is size 5, so can easily 3 pop whip a settler within 5t. Will be difficult to produce settlers after that without production or high food. I don't think a Library is needed here yet, military or workboats?

NC: The best city to crank out workboats for all our eastern coastal cities. Seriously, we will need a lot and this city is just made for workboat building.

OS: Just founded but with 2 food, whale and 2 forests it should be able to contribute to settler building relatively quickly (within 10t?). Not sure after that, will have to wait and see but will be a pretty good city. Can work 2 cottages for PC which it should aim to do, but not at the expense of settler building.

mack border: If we don't settle E isthmus before mineral islands, we need a galley out of here ASAP. We could probably finish one within 6t thanks to the iron. Minimal food and no chops mean no settlers can come from here, but will probably be busy with ship building.

E isthmus: Also needs to build a galley, although will take considerably longer to do so due to no production and needing to whip a workboat first. We could probably get one 12t after settling or so.


So to summarize our settler schedule:

RD - within 5t
JAO - 6-7t
PC - 10t
OMS - 10t?


We can get 2 very quickly, and another 2 5t after that. Since I located 4 priority spots, it works out nicely. Should E isthmus be one of those 2? Hard to say... I think I lean yes though, it would make the workboats from NC be able to get them up and running very quickly. Is it quick enough to claim the spots we want? I sure hope so... (mackoti does have several other locations he can settle, including his own mineral islands so there is hope).


You mentioned long term specialization? I think I mostly agree with what you put down, with a few minor points:

KND - will probably be a secondary commerce city, it will probably not be as important as mack border in the long run and we might want to think of giving one of the deer to that city permanently.
JAO - is the likely LT GP farm, there are many locations with high food but JAO is the oldest one we have. For now though settler whip cycle is what it should do, leaving GP generation to KND
RD - Probably another secondary commerce city, but one that can build boats so somewhat significant.
OS- Decent long term city with 2 food, river cottages and several hills. Have to wait and see what to do specifically with this city, but it could do almost anything
mack border - Shipyard


GP generation? KND will probably produce the next one with a decent chance of Scientist, Engineer or Artist. A GS should be an academy, no question. We might be able to get creative with a culture bomb should we get an Artist but a Golden Age would probably be better. Same goes with an Engineer (Golden Age). I don't think non-GS bulbs are worthwhile, both for the smaller beaker count and the techs they bulb (Nationalism/Gunpowder for Artist/Engineer respectively, we have 2 pre-req's for both of them).


So yeah, those are my thoughts atm. Apologies to lurker for the wall of text and somewhat tedious details but surely a wall of text is better then nothing.

On a unrelated note, do scooter and mackoti have a turn split happening or what? They've been at war for practically the entire game, yet there's been no sign of any fighting nor timer squabbles.

[WarriorKnight]

Question: If our goal is to settle land while it's still available should we even finish the bank in PC? The only reason I wouldn't be building settlers out of there is because the cottages aren't being worked, but I think we can work all of them at size 12 (the size we are right now) so it's a moot point.

[oledavy]

I agree with your reasoning that settling far west may be a stretch. I'm just concerned that we're going to get forked three ways if they ever come after us. I also kinda wanted a city there so we have a guaranteed path into the western mineral lake. I do agree with you that with islands on the line, it is probably more worthwhile to kick this defensive dilemma down the road. 

I agree with your settling priority of the northeast island. I do think we should settle our eastern border city first though so we can bring the No Copper galley up. I'm not sure about moving the city, but am willing to talk about it. 1 NE for a three food city center and another fish, not bad. The only downsides I can see are that it's no longer on a hill, and it wastes some tiles to the west. Once we figure out when we want to settle this city, let's hash out current location vs. 1 NE.

So, I would argue: 

1. East Ismus
2. NE Gold City
3. NE Silver City
4. Copper City

Then the northern island.


Other thoughts:

River Desert should build military, let's get workboats out of No Copper.

My concern in forgoing courthouses in the short term is running our economy into the ground. Then again, nothing boosts your economy like working grassland gold. 

Regarding PC, yeah, let's freeze it at turn 12 for now and keep pumping out settlers, at least until we get the islands settled.

Regarding Mack/Scooter, I would imagine Mack is just blocking them from exploring towards him on the land bridges. I doubt it will turn into a hot war anytime soon.

I think I answered all your questions. If I missed something you want my input on, feel free to speak up. Otherwise, I will play the turn tonight in about 8-9 hours. I'll switch PC over to a settler, but otherwise, follow your micro plan if that sounds good.

[oledavy]

Turn 229

Quick turn report, kareoke is calling.   

Settled Plainhill Sheep: 



Abroad, Scooter started his GA, apparently to cram out a lot of great people. 



Also of note, REM and Mack's great people. On a related note, I am still a little dumbfounded as to how REM and Nic are doing as well as they are. They are SPI, yet lead the board in cities (11) and have the TM and AP. They're playing a blinder over there.  

We settle our 9th city next turn, which, if Plako and Mack don't settle any of their own, moves us to 3rd place in city count. 

Mack showed a slight powerspike this turn, I wonder if he's just getting garrisons out, or is preparing for a military venture of some sort.  

What we're working on:  



WK is hammering out the micro for the coming turns. Islands, here we come!