[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues

[HitAnyKey]

Yeah, I definitely want to get a city over there quickly too. But I was thinking we could get the currently planned C5 & C6 done quickly enough to then move onto the island. Unless you think I should delay the Luxury city in favor of getting across the water first.
I haven't really put anything into Masonry yet (since it was a turn of 0% research)...so I can switch to Writing this turn if that really seems like a better option. Just got a big assignment from my consulting job that needs to be worked on today, so don't really have much time to sim anything out though. But might get something tested tonight. I could just do another turn of 0% research (I'd have to likely do another one anyway for Writing)....it'd just delay Masonry my a turn if we ended up deciding that getting Masonry before Writing is just as good. But yeah, I suppose since the plan is to whip Sore pretty often....might not need to waste time on the quarry just yet.

[HitAnyKey]

Where is the lighthouse for Hungry? Isn't that our very top priority right now? Given our high power, we have no immediate need for a chariot.

And why does the capital need a lighthouse? It only has a few water tiles. Hungry, in contrast has 3 [EDIT 4] LAKE tiles. So between Hungry and Happy, the capital isn't likely to work much coast for the forseeable future.

We're getting a bit behind on city count. We'll need to focus the micro on positive returns while maintaining our 2 chokepoints.

I'm only putting 1 turn into the Chariot at Hungry. That way it's there in case we need to whip it for someone coming at us with axes anywhere. The chop comes in next turn, which will go into finishing the Worker (with maximum benefit)....the Lighthouse then finishes a few turns after that.

Was doing the lighthouse in Sleepy while growing (though I suppose I could grow on the Galley...maybe I'll log back in to switch to that?) since I planned to start the Settler there when it reaches Size 6.

[MindyMcCready]

Where is the lighthouse for Hungry? Isn't that our very top priority right now? Given our high power, we have no immediate need for a chariot.

And why does the capital need a lighthouse? It only has a few water tiles. Hungry, in contrast has 3 [EDIT 4] LAKE tiles. So between Hungry and Happy, the capital isn't likely to work much coast for the forseeable future.

We're getting a bit behind on city count. We'll need to focus the micro on positive returns while maintaining our 2 chokepoints.

I'm only putting 1 turn into the Chariot at Hungry. That way it's there in case we need to whip it for someone coming at us with axes anywhere. The chop comes in next turn, which will go into finishing the Worker (with maximum benefit)....the Lighthouse then finishes a few turns after that.

Was doing the lighthouse in Sleepy while growing (though I suppose I could grow on the Galley...maybe I'll log back in to switch to that?) since I planned to start the Settler there when it reaches Size 6.

I would like to delay the chariot completely if possible. Now 1T into a defensive unit up there would make sense or 1T into a chariot where all the barbs are spawning could also be ok.

I don't think that Sleep really ever needs a lighthouse so it could be pure waste. Galley would probably be better since we look like we'll have a spare archer to scout up there.

I agree with the first 2 mainland cities. The Stone island should come later and only after we've done a bit of scouting.

[MindyMcCready]

But I was thinking we could get the currently planned C5 & C6 done quickly enough to then move onto the island.

Agree with this.

[HitAnyKey]

I would like to delay the chariot completely if possible. Now 1T into a defensive unit up there would make sense or 1T into a chariot where all the barbs are spawning could also be ok.

I don't think that Sleep really ever needs a lighthouse so it could be pure waste. Galley would probably be better since we look like we'll have a spare archer to scout up there.

I've made these changes (along with switching to Writing) for now just in case the turn rolls before I can do sims of each of the alternatives. Set Hungry to do 1T of an Archer before switching back to it's Worker.

[MindyMcCready]

OUCH! I took a look at your spreadsheet. GJ planted 3 cities in 3T!!!

So his rapid expansion drives our play a bit. We may have to postpone the island in favour of locking our continent from him. Once he's settled (and developmentally ahead of us) it could be very hard to dislodge him.

It looks like we're not due for another city until T71. That's a painful 10T behind Borsche, GJ, Commodore and Elkad (I though he was lagging,..) in getting to our 5th city,... let alone our 7th. Some of it was our 2nd city not having it's own 1st ring food (non-seafood),...some of it was the necessity of Gold as our 3rd city and some of it was us stretching to box in Grimace.

Regardless, we'll need to do what we can to catch up. I'd consider a granary essential and a lighthouse where there are a number of lake tiles or seafood,...but we'll have to think about postponing everything else.

If we don't keep up and fail to lock down our continent,...we'll be fighting wars not of our choosing. It's still early of course, but those guys are further along their snowball.

Some suggestions:
-I see a monument in C4 on T68. We don't need the furs and the crabs can probably wait a bit.
-C3 looks like it's in continuous development, which I agree with, but probalby should have a library rather than a Barracks (T70)
-C4 starts a lighthouse on T70. This goes hand-in-hand with your monument strategy I imagine to use those lakes. This has good synergy. Still, those 2 items are a settler and we could think about having C4 build a settler while the capital's (?) settler heads west. This may not be better than your plan, but it could be used to establish the C6 luxaries city. C5 will want culture for the cows and that could capture the furs which might allow us to delay C6. Getting culture on C5's southern cows will also springboard the whales city.
-T73 another library in C4,...might be warranted depending on what Grimace does culturally. I don't think that we should dispute Grimace's furs,...let him have them since it's best if he doesn't become desperate towards us.

Last thing: I see a lot of 2-pop whipping happening. I want to verify that you're aware that it's not terribly efficient. The hammers from whipping are 30H/20H/20H,...

Food to grow Size 1(22F), Size 2(24F), Size3(26F),..etc,...Size 6(32F), Size 7(34F).

So a 1-pop whip at Size 7 (-34F/2) means
-16F +30H = +14FH (net FH)

While a 2-pop whip at Size 7 (-34-32)/2 means
-33F + 50H = +17FH

So that second pop only resulted in a small improvement while two single pop whips would be +14+14 = 28FH. This can be worth it if the results of those hammers have a high rate of return. Right now, that's probably still settlers which can hook up very high output food tiles. Otherwise, it should probably be avoided unless we're at the happy cap and/or are growing onto unimproved tiles.

For libraries, I would say that the only ones right now that are worth the investment are in the capital and the C3 gold city or for a culture requirement. Otherwise, I think that we have to delay in favour of expansion. I'm still not sure whether we should fit Masonary in or just drive stright to Currency and then wealth build up to COL.

[HitAnyKey]

If you have some time, run a couple sims. I keep trying to figure out good way to get us caught up. With regards to the whips, I've never really paid much attention to the calculation difference between 2-pop and 1-pop whips. Most of the ones in my plan are either to get a Settler out a turn earlier, or to keep happy cap in check.
In C4, the reason for the Monument is that I know we're going to be in a Culture war with Grimace for quite some time. I just figured it'd be better to get that started sooner, rather than later. Also, the sooner we get the first ring culture to pop, the sooner we get that added defense bonus if he actually decides to attack. Those were my thoughts behind that. But yeah, I didn't think about getting that city up to it's happy cap and then having it make a settler...I'll try simming that later tonight.
Your comment about C5 wanting culture for the cows.....it's being settled right next to the Cows (1S of them)...so culture doesn't matter for that city.

The others did expand a bit faster than I expected. GJ's city pace there is just unbelievably insane. No idea how he did that.

[HitAnyKey]

Did another map trade with retap this turn. Surprised he accepted, since I doubt he got anything new at all from me...but I got a lot from him. I can see almost the entire world now.
Here's a bunch of it:

Looking at GJ's map, it looks like that city of Harrapan he must have captured from a barb. That explains his 3 new cities in as many turns.
We can also see now where Gavagai is....across the water from Grimace. We also see now a good shape of that island to our SE. Which is ONLY contested by us and Grimace. So we might want to get something on there relatively quickly. If we can claim that whole little island, that'll be awesome. Looks like enough room for only 2 cities on it.
The Donovan/Elkad/GJ triangle is already having quite the city placement contest with them all already butting right up against each other. Then again, we basically did the same with Grimace...and Commodore just got another city settled further south towards us. I realize I didn't take a screenshot of it, but it's on the Desert Incense tile 1E of the non-river Corn. I'll take a screenshot next time I'm in.

[MindyMcCready]

If you have some time, run a couple sims.

I will have some time to run a sim or two this evening. Do you have a latest sandbox? I'll post the results after lunch on Sat.

Also, the sooner we get the first ring culture to pop, the sooner we get that added defense bonus if he actually decides to attack.

This is a very good reason - Grimace is more boxed in that I would have imagined. And,...um,...now that our map is out there he's going to know that we did it intentionally. Oh,...I mentioned that already. :LOL:

But yeah, I didn't think about getting that city up to it's happy cap and then having it make a settler...I'll try simming that later tonight.

I'm not sure how high of a happy cap you're referring to (w/wo luxaries), but you don't necessarily need to grow the city to the happy cap before making the settler.
IF (value of the tile that the existing city is growing onto > Value of the tile that a new city will grow onto) then grow to maximum size.

If instead, (Value of the tile that the existing city is growing onto < Value of the tile that a new city will grow onto) then we can think about getting the settler out sooner. Of course, there are increasing maintenance costs that reduce the value of the new city, but we're not there yet. We've got a lot of high output tiles (copper, vows, pigs, sheep,...) that will exceed the value of growing onto a RGHM for example. You can also save worker turns around cities that are acting as settler pumps of course.

All of this is, of coure, easier said than done! :LOL:

Your comment about C5 wanting culture for the cows.....it's being settled right next to the Cows (1S of them)...so culture doesn't matter for that city.

There's a second cow south of C5. Getting culture in that city will allow the future whales city to grow immediate after planting. At some point in the future we'll need the happy; +2 with 1/2 price markets.

[HitAnyKey]

Here is the sandbox as of this T65. Only differences I can see right now between this and the actual game is that the wounded axe & archer over by C4 are just out of position, but since they'll both be fortifying in spot at some point to heal, that won't matter. Also the actual game we have 6 Gold in the Treasury and my sandbox only has 5. Maybe I'll fix that in a future sandbox, but for now it doesn't really matter.