[PB66 Spoilers] Miguelito and Ginger split the bill

[Ginger()]

If that piece of land is not directly connected to Mjmd's mainland, and we both need to ship units there, then I say we contest his claim there. Afterall, that might be our only source of Iron, who knows?

[Miguelito]

To bring back discussion to the thread a bit.

What do these 3 pictures tell us?






Gavagai living up to his reputation. If he provokes a super tense border conflict that might be our ticket to survival and whatever else. Ginger also spotted Amica's culture south of Peter, on what I thought was Gavagai's home blob, so



Mjmd has this settler. Might just go to replant some Jack city. I don't think we can suffer him setting into our sheep. Would be a really expensive city for him though, for a hill sheep and no river. If he goes and reaches towards Gavagai that would be sweet, but not gonna happen.



Looking at this I'm wondering how we're supposed to even get that corn? Library on the island sounds like it will take a while. Missionary + temple to get some culture going? Probably only claim it eventually upon getting 3rd ring then.



Jeanne has 6 food surplus and is at HC next turn. I think itwould have been better to finish the plains river cottage over a dry one on grassland. But now we can finish that one as well.
Jeanne should start a settler imo. Would be at 40 within 4 turns, or whip later if we don't have the units around and want to run down the whip timer.
Where did you want to send that axe? I'd have kept it in Marge.


Other points for discussion:

• My gut feeling is that having Nick work cottages is better than whipping an expensive library. If we run into excess pop (with Rep) sure. Do you prefer a GProphet or a GS? Might build the temple if the former.
  

• WB before the decaying axe at Expeditus is a bit risky if we want to send an axe to the island together with the settler. Do we? We can of course just trust that Amica and Gav hate each other more atm. At least Amica hasn't been reinforcing borders. Of course that might just be the trap as well
  
• Amica is building Barays. I suppose the synergy is more food lets you whip more, and Cha allows for that?
  

[Miguelito]

In game chat:



Pearls from Discord:

...

Miguelito
Are we actually getting OR the turn after we finish mids?
Ginger
Lmao yes
Do you want to delay everything a turn?
Idk if it’s worth it bc it’s actually 2 turns delay
You need to have researched it before to swap into it
Miguelito
Actually it’s one turn delay
Ginger
Yeah hm
That’s a fair bit of hammers
70*.25
Miguelito
Yeah but not worth the risk
Ginger
Idk if 20 hammers is worth risking a one turn mids delay
I would pay that tax
Miguelito
Rather 15
Ginger
Nobody we’ve met has Stone though
Migueiito
Like a quarter of granary
Ginger
I’m loving these non competes on key wonders
Miguelito
And we'd also delay Rep and couldn't grow Nick for example
And lose the worker turns on the forests
It's very stupid but let's just build it
Ginger
I’d also like to bring up the idea of running specialists but the only cities with that kind of food surplus atm is probably Peter and Margaret. We could time things so we barely edge out the prophet in Nicholas
I think it is unfortunate but we probably won’t be able to make use of the GPP from mids, Thomas is too stunted and needs Granary and regrowth desperately
Place bets on where Judaism lands?
Also running specialists when our food graph looks the way it does seems dangerously irresponsible to me
Miguelito
Are you saying run caste for specialists or just casually a priest in Nick and sometime later scientists in Marge? And in Peter but that's way down the line. I can see something like 3rd or 4th GP coming from Thomas with help of the mids points. After all it also has 8 surplus but first has to catch up ofc
Ginger
Yeah I’m thinking we finish the Library in Marge
For the modifier
And use it as an opportunity to run Rep speci as we push up against the cap
All our remaining cities are fillers anyways


....
Miguelito
All those 3 pop whips by vanrober, that can't all be settlers right? So... forges?
Ginger
Seems reasonably likely
Not sure why he isn’t going a straight math-Currency-CoL beeline as Mongolia
But all Math is accounted for
SD/Amica/Gav

[Ginger()]

Would rather go south with the chariot
For the lurkers:
One of our priorities at the moment is to map out the geography of islands and isthmi, so that we know if Mjmd's cities in the sea to our east are connected to the mainland or not.
Long term we've reached the conclusion that this map is very difficult to defend properly with multiple neighbors and angles and long distances for a defending stack to traverse. Buffer zone in the seas will be useful, especially as we'll have 5 cities (3 main, 2 filler) dotting that coastline eventually. It's also at least a cow and probably more too.
If it's disconnected from his mainland, we plan to launch a boat attack on the islands to nab up the city site. If there is a land reinforce route then they'll remain Zulu

And as Miguelito just posted, we've had a chat about some interesting development choices from the neighborhood.

Gavagai leaning into his early game push motif with a Math bulb and skyrocketing power (place bets if he does Cats before Currency?)
Superdeath doing pretty well on city count but has made some curious development/micro choices (I really don't like early mines).
Vanrober is doing a forge push but Org really engenders Currency->CoL so idk.
Plemo is munching merrily on Magic Science (and his Colossus), but hasn't gotten tech beyond Writing and Ironworking, no Math, MC, or Monarchy to show for his PRO trait. Of course, with his conquest he's in the running to win, but it's encouraging to see some less than explosive progress from that quarter.

I mention specialists because Great People are really powerful and if I had to criticize the RB meta on one thing it's how little appreciation there is for the sheer juice that GPP can give your game. If I proved anything in PB64 it's that you can remain competitive in tech even with shit land and pitiful cottaging just by throwing enough great people at the problem.
HOWEVER, our food graph is pathetic at the moment. Yeah we've done a lot of Courthouse and Settler whips, but still, it sucks. Mainly it's the absence of luxuries and generically poor food sources like dry rice. Miguelito did some counting of food sources and it's just not comparable. Not to mention gold/silver/gem mines and copper placement.
Map gripes aside, we have to adapt to that, and I can't really support specialists until we fix our food situation. As much as I would like a Shrine/Academy/Golden Age

[Ginger()]

   

[Miguelito]

Now turn it into yields somehow. We are behind on food, commerce, and hammers so it can only get better

vanrober, instead of acting like a true Mongol, is replaying the passive-aggressive variants:


That is an impressively bad city! It manages to upset two neighbours, has no food, not even shared, and its only purpose is to steal the furs that we rightfully pinkdotted. vanrober has scouted our land, so he is aware that Krill put our luxuries in his first ring, nothing we could do about that.
Our response is to convert back to No Religion, because you see Judaism was founded in Santiago just this turn. That should give us the boost to keep us safe until we get third ring, or so I hope. It doesn't come without a cost of course - OR would add 1h to Marge and 2 to Thomas, getting the ganary a turn faster.
But we had no plans for how to get Hindu missionaries in the short term, so we figured if we need the culture (also in Expeditus with Confu vs. Amica), this should be the best opportunity, as well considering that we can take the hit best with the Rep happy just having come in.
We'll also chop the forest west of fur just so he doesn't get it (and can't chop it into a library).
Of course if he's hellbent on trolling he can just work a mine at size 1 and get the library in 9 turns, and then a monument on top. Maybe Gav takes care of that silly thing? Or us from a galley, if it stays empty.
Sad thing, I liked our vanrober friendship. Amica is no friend, so who's left.... Mjmd ?

Other decisions of his are also leaving us frustrated:


Sure, if you're bathing in coins you may prefer 2 food in a new city over a gold mine, but here's us, salivating at the sheer though of gold.

[Ginger()]

Vanrober's terrible city is his iron source, we see it in his trade window and as an extra yield

Mongolia confirmed second holder of IW, with Rome ofc

[Miguelito]

Good catch, that in fact excuses it, although it's still annoying for us. What does he need IW for though? Maybe he settled into some jungle in the north? Jungled gems somewhere?

Btw Tlacopan is kind amore obnoxious for poor vanrober than Santiago, and less justified, isn't it? So maybe he isn't even that mad with us?

[Ginger()]

Good catch, that in fact excuses it, although it's still annoying for us. What does he need IW for though? Maybe he settled into some jungle in the north? Jungled gems somewhere?

Btw Tlacopan is kind amore obnoxious for poor vanrober than Santiago, and less justified, isn't it? So maybe he isn't even that mad with us?

Correct analysis, but I doubt the relative anger means much when factored against our threat and power level relative to Gav

[Miguelito]

Ever envious, I'm looking at the food that the other kids just let spoil:



This city is pretty sweet now however: