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

[Krill]

So back to the drawing board we go.

Before I write this turn report, mack, Rusten, I have a question for you both:

Why don't we just finish Masonry and try to build the Mids in city 5? Even if we lose it, and it would take so long to build even if we were to finish it, it will likely fall at a point when we need the fail gold to finish a classical era tech. We don't need more military units (they are already hurting our tech ability, paying 4gpt and finish 3 more units over the next 2 turns), we don't need a barracks, and we can't build anything else. Assuming city 5 kept the pigs and we grew it to size 5, mine 3 plains hills (2 are river) it makes 17 hpt. Mids would take roughly 30 turns and finish around T100 (maybe T98 given hammers accumulated during growth).

Right now it is T61. If we finish Masonry, we complete Masonry eot62, Sailing eot67, then have to save gold and probably can't finish Writing before T77 because we have 2 new cities going down, growing onto cottages and possible just stagnating city 7 on two furs tiles until there is food hooked. If we stop and head straight to Sailing, we get that eot65 and then have to save gold anyway and probably get Writing eot75-ish. I can't gauge how the commerce is going to go, but I don't see it breaching max of 45bpt before T70, and I don't see breakeven going higher than 20bpt before then either. Even if we head straight to Alphabet (current plan) I don't see how we could reach it before Mids likely falls and then the fail gold pushes us along, or it falls after we get to Alphabet but just before we complete Mids, in which case it basically gives us Currency. I'm not really seeing a downside to this plan.

[mackoti]

So back to the drawing board we go.

Before I write this turn report, mack, Rusten, I have a question for you both:

Why don't we just finish Masonry and try to build the Mids in city 5? Even if we lose it, and it would take so long to build even if we were to finish it, it will likely fall at a point when we need the fail gold to finish a classical era tech. We don't need more military units (they are already hurting our tech ability, paying 4gpt and finish 3 more units over the next 2 turns), we don't need a barracks, and we can't build anything else. Assuming city 5 kept the pigs and we grew it to size 5, mine 3 plains hills (2 are river) it makes 17 hpt. Mids would take roughly 30 turns and finish around T100 (maybe T98 given hammers accumulated during growth).

Right now it is T61. If we finish Masonry, we complete Masonry eot62, Sailing eot67, then have to save gold and probably can't finish Writing before T77 because we have 2 new cities going down, growing onto cottages and possible just stagnating city 7 on two furs tiles until there is food hooked. If we stop and head straight to Sailing, we get that eot65 and then have to save gold anyway and probably get Writing eot75-ish. I can't gauge how the commerce is going to go, but I don't see it breaching max of 45bpt before T70, and I don't see breakeven going higher than 20bpt before then either. Even if we head straight to Alphabet (current plan) I don't see how we could reach it before Mids likely falls and then the fail gold pushes us along, or it falls after we get to Alphabet but just before we complete Mids, in which case it basically gives us Currency. I'm not really seeing a downside to this plan.

Mids always very good.Me have nothing against.

[Krill]

Turn 61:




Unwelcome news. GW has fallen. We are going to need to barb bust the east and north. We need 2 units for the east, 2 for the north, 1 for the west. We also need 7 units for city defense, 15 total plus scouts and wandering chariot or two to try and unlock HE. We currently have 6 warriors, a scout, 2 chariots with a further warrior and 2 chariots being built. One warrior is scouting the SW, so we have the units, need to reposition.





The warrior being built in city 4 can remain in place. The chariot can promote C1, heal and then move out on T64, or it can just heal, hold the XP and try to make it sentry to explore with and more out T65. It can try and cover the warrior moving to fog buster sign (not precise location need). (The chariot took 4 hits but won).





Fuck up on my part, should have healed the chariot for a further turn. Wasn't thinking. Next turn settle city 6, see if the grass forest is clear. Move the chariot onto the plains hill, see if that is clear, then move bother workers to road towards the furs. City 6 works the furs (camped T63).





Move to plains hill, evaluate available moves.





Overview. Southern worker chops for the granary (whatever happens now, we aren't getting Writing quickly enough to ignore the granary in city 4 IMO).





Time for city screens. I am worried about how tech rate. Due to that, focusing on growth to work cottages and not whipping. I'm sticking with what I wrote for the last turn report: keep the capital at size 6, working 4 cottages. The fourth cottage will be completed around T71 by 2 returning workers (maybe T72, depends if we hook copper T71 or not with them). Because of the timing for tile improvements, I reckon finish this chariot, put a turn into the chariot to reach size 5, sit on a settler until furs are hooked T67 and then slow grow on fp and sheep, growth@6 eot70 to finish another chariot and then go back to the settler. Taking the pig back just gives a few extra turns of working a mine, and might as well grow the easier pop in city 5 with the pig as they are also growing onto river mines. Settler eot76 due to overflow from the chariot with no mine usage.





I'm sticking with the worker whip. Chariot eot62, dump OF into worker T63, whip T64, OF into something (ideas welcome, could be another worker) growth@3 eot66 if not dumping OF into a worker, eot67 if so.

The worker (Worker 6) road/cancels plains tile T65, T66 move 6 cottage/cancel, moves to plains hill T67, Mine complete T71 (as City 5 allocates laborers to all hill mines).





Grow to size 3 and just whip the granary so food box is half full for regrowth. Growth@3 eot64, whip T66, regrowth eot68, growth@4 eot71. Then evaluate new needs ie build axes and spears and try to double whip a settler if needed (only city that will be able to whip with a granary, city 5 on Mids, capital sitting on cottages, city 4 readying to sit on 2 scientists). So this city becomes the settler production city but can grow on assorted units.





I'm not certain of the timings, but work plains forest hill and growth@3 eot62, chop into granary T64, whip granary T65, growth@3 eot67 with 12 food saved, growth@4 eot69. After this, is where it gets iffy. If we were to go Writing after Masonry, we could have another forest chop T68, and with working the plains forest, we could double whip the library around T70, T71. The whip from the chariot would have worn off eot67, so we would be carrying two whip unhappy with a happy cap of 5, but we can work around that IMO: we could even work fp cottage/scientist/scientist for some turns and still grow to size 4 as the happy cap lifts with zero difficulty.

Doing this would give up the opportunity to chop a galley in city 7, but we would instead end up chopping the barracks in city 6 to bring in the dry corn and plains sheep, and that gives us the opportunity of working both furs in city 7 as we can actually grow the city to size 3, and we could whip a galley, but I don't know when. Working 2 scientists around T72 onward would increase breakeven bpt for probably 18-20 to 27.5, so it's a big increase. So Sailing is the gamble, to find happy around the islands, Writing is the safer bet because we get definite beaker output and an earlier GS (and we have no other source of gpp).

FWIW, I reckon Writing is the smarter choice.





We have nothing to build here except Mids, or chariots. We don't want more military units as explained in the previous post.

Micro is straightforward. Take pigs T62, complete granary eot62, T63 build Mids. Growth@2 eot64 work pig/copper, growth@3 eot66, work pig/copper/bare grassland, growth@4 eot68, work pig/copper/bare grassland/bare grassland except T69 work pig/copper/deer/bare grassland, growth at 5 eot70, work pig/copper/plains hill mine/plains hill mine/plains hill (third mine complete T72). Does anything else fit into that? Only if we want to whip another worker or settler, which is difficult to justify given current costs.

If some bastard completes Mids around T70, build another library because we have fuck all else to build.





As I said, our tech rate sucks. We generate no additional culture, but at max tech on Sailing we have a GNP of 25. Rival average of 40 is not just culture.

Also, note Lewwyn has Buddhism.

[Rusten]

If some bastard completes Mids around T70 [...]

Pyramids sound good to me. At worst it's early access to build wealth.

[Krill]

Further comment on city 6/city 7 double forest chop, barracks v galley, Sailing v Writing question, the second greatest question of our time (right after: when are players going to stop rushing wonders?)

We have worker turns that we can dump into forest chops just moving them to camp and road the furs. 7 worker turns in total (3 going up, 4 coming down). City 6 will put 18 hammers into a barracks growing to size 2 eot67. Double chop completes the barracks eot68, with the city at size 2 and only 1 improved tile to work, and no serious plans to increase the number of improved tiles until borders pop. One option is to chop 1 forest and whip the barracks T68 (worker micro can easily be adjusted to enable this), and dump the remaining worker turns into a grass farm to try and grow city 7 to size 2 so it can then stagnate on both furs. Given neither food resource will be in borders until T78 at the earliest, and not hooked before T80, over that timeline a farm and growth to size 2 would likely give the same commerce return as just sitting at size 1 for city 7, and also give city 6 a second tile to work (regrowth to size 2 not due until eot73, city 7 grows eot73 to size 4 so the farm is always worked and this is reasonably efficient). This saves one forest, gives the barracks ASAP to unlock the other food resources and over this time frame gives just as much commerce as stagnating at size 1 (and more commerce in the long run because if stagnated at size 1 would have to stop working the furs at some point to use a food resource).

This fits well enough with Masonry>Writing>Sailing that I feel comfortable delaying Sailing because we can use the saved chop and a 1 pop slave for the galley. It's still a delay but something is going to be delayed whatever we do.

[Krill]

So back to the drawing board we go.

Before I write this turn report, mack, Rusten, I have a question for you both:

Why don't we just finish Masonry and try to build the Mids in city 5? Even if we lose it, and it would take so long to build even if we were to finish it, it will likely fall at a point when we need the fail gold to finish a classical era tech. We don't need more military units (they are already hurting our tech ability, paying 4gpt and finish 3 more units over the next 2 turns), we don't need a barracks, and we can't build anything else. Assuming city 5 kept the pigs and we grew it to size 5, mine 3 plains hills (2 are river) it makes 17 hpt. Mids would take roughly 30 turns and finish around T100 (maybe T98 given hammers accumulated during growth).

Right now it is T61. If we finish Masonry, we complete Masonry eot62, Sailing eot67, then have to save gold and probably can't finish Writing before T77 because we have 2 new cities going down, growing onto cottages and possible just stagnating city 7 on two furs tiles until there is food hooked. If we stop and head straight to Sailing, we get that eot65 and then have to save gold anyway and probably get Writing eot75-ish. I can't gauge how the commerce is going to go, but I don't see it breaching max of 45bpt before T70, and I don't see breakeven going higher than 20bpt before then either. Even if we head straight to Alphabet (current plan) I don't see how we could reach it before Mids likely falls and then the fail gold pushes us along, or it falls after we get to Alphabet but just before we complete Mids, in which case it basically gives us Currency. I'm not really seeing a downside to this plan.

Mids always very good.Me have nothing against.

If some bastard completes Mids around T70 [...]

Pyramids sound good to me. At worst it's early access to build wealth.

Those were my thoughts exactly. I've already swapped back to Masonry and turned tech back on.

[Krill]

Turn 62




Another barb warrior has turned up. The chariot from the capital can cover those movements and hopefully kill it when it moves onto flatland somewhere. The warrior on the deer has promoted C1, and will heal in City 6 next turn, and T64 will move on the new road towards the north eastern fogbust location. With luck, we will have the entire east locked down by T66. The north is now barb busted completely, so unless there is a barb in the FoW on the furs or the tile south, we are clear to settle city 7 and get furs hooked T67.





Another dead warrior. Scouting questions now irrelevant, either our warrior is dead or it needs to heal.





Posting this screenshot because I was working out our max base bpt on T74 last night (as you do). I chose T74 as an arbitrary snapshot as that is when both furs are hooked and worked. I think we are approaching a total of 65 bpt (including scientists at city 4) with unknown costs (unit costs, unit supply, city maintenance, I can't can't calculate that). However, that means Sailing would be a 2 turn tech so by eot75 we will have Sailing and an unknown amount of gold in the bank (may have sailing earlier, don't know, but that is the position we will be in. Every 5 turns of production into Mids is worth 85 gold, or about 3-4 turns of max tech, so if Mids doesn't fall before eot75, then we would have roughly half the gold needed to get Alphabet, just from Mids. Alphabet is 483 adjusted beakers. If Mids doesn't fall, I'm guestimating it is a 6 turn tech, meaning we will need 150 gold minimum saved to finance it. So latest? T90 Alphabet due to extra costs and settling overseas and paying for scouts. Earliest? T80 due to fail gold from Mids.

Currency is 664 adjusted beakers. More of a slog. Not sure how that works out, depends on need for HBR and Archery.

FWIW, we finish Masonry at 60%, so we are overflowing about 15 base beakers into Writing. Cost 193, we will make an adjusted 49bpt from next turn with enough gold for 3 turns of max science. That puts Writing at about 170-175 beakers eot65, so I think we can complete it eot66. Side effect of this is no point whipping the granary in city 4 until T66 to overflow into the library. Yes it might save us more food, but it actually delays the library. Better off slowing growth and working more hammer tiles.

[Krill]

Prediction before the turn roles: OH is about to chop Henge. He just revolted to OR (and founded Judaism, so I'm not concerned about an HA rush).

[Krill]

Essentially played a double turn; OH and DZ logged in together and almost made me last to end turn. That's unacceptable behaviour. I'm not happy being the last to end turn ever, so they disturbed my wonderful Sunday morning lie in. Note: I'm writing this report as if I had not played T64, I have, and that changes my opinions on some things slightly, but better to report it this way IMO, to explain thoughts and emotions as and when I'm playing.

Turn 63




OH has now researched Myst, Poly and Mono over us. I'd rant, but I don't really feel the need to, emotionally. That's over 350 base beakers in those three techs, and we've put in 6 beakers to Myst. He generates at least 7 culture per turn more than us (we generate only capital culture) so his GNP would be "inflated" compared to ours, but he may not have AH which would knock him down to only making a bit over 200 base beakers. That's just the build up of having a few seafood resources hooked for 40 plus turns and we haven't.





Techwise, I'm less sure that we are going to hit Writing eot66, but carrying on now.

You can just see the barb heading for the horse (again), chariot is positioned to nail it next turn. In hindsight, I should have positioned SW of the horse to give more range after the battle.

[Krill]

Turn 64




Dead barb for 1 hit and 2XP on another chariot. No barbs visible to the north or east, so the warrior is moving to fogbust the east as previously explained.





I had a feeling there was going to be another barb moving south, and I didn't know if was an axe or not. So I left the chariot in place, and this also allows cover against OH's exploring warrior being a dick.





I'm considering retreating the scout to double up in the city. The chariot in City 2 may need to kill a barb warrior next turn, and would not be able to cover City 3. Retreating the scout basically puts OH in a position where he could either kill the scout (he wouldn't) or he could try to pillage a hill mine (waste of a sentry warrior to keep an eye on me. I don't think I want to though, because OH now knows we have horses hooked and knows we have a really higher power (we are jockeying for #1, stupid but necessary), and he will likely think we have chariots around. And we do, he just can't know about the barbs being relentlessly suicidal.





The chariot is 84hp, 2XP and I want to get it to Sentry so need 3XP. Promoting to F1 give 10% withdrawal, and if the warrior moves to a forest, we do have an option of a 74% odds battle to get all 3 XP in one go, but I don't like it. If it moves to flatland, without promoting we have a 92% battle for 2XP, 97% with, and that is a more interesting option, with the ability to heal afterwards if we don't promote. But is it worth the ~3x greater chance of losing the chariot? Probably not, but given the chariot is costing gold every turn it exists, and a healing chariot is essentially worthless until it is healed and scouting again, whatever maximises the time scouting or not costing gold has a good shout of being the better option. So maybe it is better to attack and then heal if the warrior is on flatland.

If the warrior moves onto the plains forest though, reasonable options are to just heal in place or to move straight past onto the plains hill forest; even on defense, if it gives 1XP, still pushes closer to sentry (just need the last battle to be an attack not defense). And if we leave the warrior, we need the chariot that just killed the warrior on the capital horse to heal and then move south to deal with this barb warrior: this leaves City 5, Evora, exposed to another barb, so I think we might actually be forced to deal with this southern barb with the chariot in situ.





OK, this is the bit where I think a rant is a bit more justified. In addition to Myst, Poly and Mono, OH has Sailing. He does have over 480 base beakers on us. I hope to god he doesn't have AH as well, but where the fuck did he get these beakers? Did he have gold (more likely gems given location) at his capital or something stupid? Does he just have a billion seafood tiles giving him all that commerce as well? Just where did he get all that tech from?

We don't know if OH is colonizing. I'm tempted to move to the jungle hill and heal. It will not give vision into the city though, so I wonder if we want to promote and heal in place, and move after 2 turns. We could move NW or follow the desert to see if that is a land bridge. If it is not a land bridge, then OH had sailing a while ago, to drop off that scouting warrior and then retreat to pick up more stuff. If there is a city though, then it will be settled to the NW. I'm just not sure which information is more valuable to us, or if we want to hold the promotion and take longer to heal, or promote sooner.








Next turn we settle city 7. It will remove the unit supply costs complete and remove one unit from the unit cost, but with unknown effect on city maintenance. I don't think it will be drastically different though. Given this, I don't think we can reach Writing eot66, so I'm going to look at the micro for city 4 again.