[Spoiler] PB42: Rusten and mackoti play Krill playing Bismarck of Portugal

[Krill]

So...OH just settled his fourth city. His Crop yield is now 50 and we are in second place at 37.

That is a jump of 9, so 7 has to come from new tiles, so I reckon he just improved a seafood tile and moved pop points around (no change to MFG, so I don't think he has moved onto mines). Still, he is probably working something like 8 food resources right now, and I think a lot of players have sweet FA.

Best competitors land area only increased from 30 to 32 though. I don't think OH was in second place at the start of the turn. We are at 8 pop points, and I think OH is now at 11 pop points.

[Rusten]

The only thing I'd worry about in putting GW in city #5 over city #2 is that the GPP could be wasted. Wouldn't want to risk getting a great spy early game, but it's as good as any for later golden ages. At some point we want the passive 2 GPP/t to turn into a GP.

[Krill]

Do we want to risk a joint GSpy/GSci as first GP in city 5? Because we could get a library in city 4 and use that as the back up for a 200 point GS (that's pretty much the best current plan, to split the corn off to the "filler city" around T85 at the latest. And even a GSpy is the perfect sentry against OH.

[Rusten]

That's true, getting a Gspy comes with its own merits. A unique advantage.

edit: I like it. City #4 is so marginal anyway so it's not set back by running these 2 scientists for a longer period of time.

[Krill]

That's what I was thinking: we can even get the city to size 5 and grow a capital cottage half way to a town whilst we're at it.

Doing this will mean tech path of AH (eot52)>Masonry>Sailing>Writing, but there is scope to swap Masonry and Sailing around, and still need to figure out what to do with the two forest chops between cities 6 and 7 (even if the barbs screw around with settling times, we use 6 worker turns moving the workers around so there will always be two forest chops to allocate).

[Krill]

Turn 50 State of the Empire




Barb warrior bounced, but did a lot of damage. I'm going to leave the warrior in place to heal and then send it wandering. It['s ion as good a fog busting location as possible.





This is a bit more of a problem long term. It's a land bridge. We can't be aggressive on both fronts with city locations. Now we can either return the scout, check the desert coastal area south of city 3 and fog bust, or we can go deep with a medic 1 unit. As much as it pains me to say it, I think we have to retreat the scout, let the warrior heal and then send the warrior to scout.





Warrior, growth@4 eot51. We have the option of fitting in a settler and a worker whip here, but due to happy cap issues, just better to grow to size 6, triple whip the settler and then regrow. That gives growth@5 eot53, warrior and growth@6 eot55, settler build t56, 57, whip T58, OF into axe and growth@4 eot59 and then stagnate. Pig can't be given up to city 5 until T62 though, so it's probably worth it to grow into unhappiness at size 5 in preparation of the furs hook up on T66, even though that would only give a half completed axe in the capital. It's probably going to be that we grow at 4fpt to finish axe to size 6 once the city comes out of unhappiness, so we'll have 4 turns (T62-T65) to stagnate, which likely means we could build most of a worker, or get a settler close to 50/100

At this point, need to discuss city 5: The worker micro is in the spreadsheet here for copper mining T58 and granary eot61. Taking the pig T62-T64 allows growth@2 eot64, requiring a further 38 food total to reach size 5. This is the pig for 6 turns, and the deer for one of those turns, with no usage of 1 or 0 food tile during those turns. Therefore the capital will not get the pig back until T71 at the earliest, and city 7 has to give up the deer after growth to size 2 eot66, so deer given up between T67 and T70.

So to go back to the capital, it can grow to size 6 using the fp and sheep over 4 turns (T66-T69, growth@6 eot69) to finish that axe, and then get the settler to a position it could be whipped, but more likely we just leave the city at size 6 working the sheep and a bunch of cottages. City 5 can definitely use the pig to power out the GW.





Warrior, growth@4 eot51. Sit in unhappiness for a few turns, but double whip settler T56 and then...no plans. growth back to size 3 will take 4 turns, and there will be 13 production overflow, so we could get out a warrior if needed, or we could dump the overflow into a worker, regrow to size 3 and complete the worker eot64. Depends on needs, but we have a few turns to make this decision as yet (fwiw, that worker would be of help to get city 5's mines up and running, and the cottages at the capital.

Longer term, I don't actually see much to this city. It maxes out at 7fpt but only has 4 grasslands, one of which is a capital cottage, two are shared with city 3 and it has one unique grassland. So it can work a grass hill cottage for the capital as well, and 3 plains workshops, or we could cottage it up to the eyeballs (which seems to be the plan for all the cities near the capital). More on this with city 3. City 2 can work up to 8 cottages, plus a capital cottage





Micro got screwed about due to the lions (repetitive I know, but without that could have grown to size 3 a turn sooner, as it is we dump a turns production into a warrior). Warrior eot51, Growth@3 eot52, Settler whipped T59, and no further plans. Minimal overflow, no cheap military unit to grow on, but best to grow on a spear IMO.

We have the same problem as with city 2, a good chunk of plains and a food cap of 6fpt. 4 Unique grasslands, 2 shared with city 3. If we want to workshop it, we can work the grass hill mine and 5 of the grasslands for a reasonable production city, 24 base hpt, or just cottage it to the eyeballs with city 2 and work up to 12 cottages in city 3.

I think we need to consider what to do with city 2 and city 3 together. I know working none financial none river side cottages is generally a stupid move, but the choice is between that, and...not working any tiles. MC is coming after Currency. I don't have an answer that doesn't revert back to: our happy cap is shit anyway so who cares.





Current plan remains as discussed. Growth@2 eot54, swap to work boat T56, whip T57, warrior and growth@2 eot58, get a library (probably double whip and chop or two), regrow to size 5 and work two scientists and three cottages, giving up the corn to a city to the NE. Longer term farm the plains BW of the city to irrigate the corn, cottage the 4 remaining plains and leave it building wealth, siege or galleys, stealing the corn to grow as the happy cap increases.





Note we are second in crop yield in the game. OH has been doing a good chunk of one pop whips.





That power jump looks like AH for OH, or an axe. In fact I'd expect both.





I can't read anything in this graph apart from the knowledge that OH has 6 culture per turn more than we do.





Some of the recent score jump of OH will be settling city two before us, and then he will get another score jump from the border pop from the holy city.





I don't see a worked copper tile sized bump in this graph, unless it was this last one a few turns ago (which would support the axe build idea).









OH is still putting 4EP into us, but that does not mean he hasn't met another neighbour.











We need to get Archery, AH, Sailing, Masonry and Writing before we can go through Alphabet. I have no idea when or how long this will take.




New world map.

[Krill]

Just as heads up, I'm back at work from today. Not 100% but no where near as bad as I was last weekend.

[Krill]

This also completely ignores the location of horse, but the only legitimate locations for those to spawn at NE of city 3 (in which case I need to run the micro of improving this versus chopping, I think improving this comes out ahead just on the settler), or to the east of the capital on either of the river plains or single grassland tile in which case the Worker 4 can hook it without input from the 4 furs workers. No where else it can legally spawn, which means Mardoc would have put it somewhere on purpose, and I'm not planning around that.

Called it.

Also, Mardoc, you put the desert incense on that capital tile, not the map generator. I am not impressed.

[Krill]

Belated turn reports:

T51




I played this last night. Moved on a hunch, before planning to move back NE. That sea must be an inland sea, OH couldn't have gotten the scout up this land bridge and south of our capital to appear where it did. I wonder how much land is on the other side of the sea? Could be quite a lot, and looking at the jungle, could be a good chunk of grassland as well.

This warrior will theoretically have an opportunity to attack our warrior on the forest whilst it is at 1.4 health and with 25% fort, so I think it is safe.





Middle of the pack.


T52




Going to move the scout to the desert tile and leave as a fog buster.

[Krill]

T53 and Horse location.

And barbs. I've not played this turn, just moved the scout one tile. There is a lot to discuss.




We have two horse already claimed. The worker at city 3 can hook the horse there, but we would need to use both workers at city 4 for the road to the furs. Horse pastured T60, roaded T62,

The horse at the capital could be hooked by the worker that was intended to remain at city 4, and we could use that worker to hook the horse, then return to finish the second fp cottage. Horse pastured T59, roaded T61.

But the barbs, man. The Barbs!

I think we withdraw the warrior on the plains at city 3, and move up the warrior from city 2, and just hit the barb warrior if it moves onto the grass sheep. If we lose a warrior we just suck it up.




Do we just push the button and move onto the plains forest? I think we do.