[SPOILERS] SevenSpirits goes on a mysterious adventure

[SevenSpirits]

t37:

I've whipped both granaries and then got out another settler - founding Medalist - and more workers. Also got writing and started a library in Punishment.



As you can see, about 7 turns ago I explored west with my warrior and found an indian city building stonehenge (it had 69h in the box first I saw of it). I moved my warrior in, hoping to force him to delay henge to build a defender, with a small chance that someone else would then build it and I would not have it on my borders. No such luck, he finished it the following turn and then got several warriors near to cover the area.

[SevenSpirits]

t44

I've completed two libraries (in Punishment and Chance) and also just finished the granary in Medalist. (It's at 16/16f right now.) Turned tech back on and the next two will be Mathematics and Iron Working.

Punishment just whipped a settler and it will go 3NW to the highlighted tile. My warrior discovered that Mackoti has iron 1NE of this tile, so I am guessing that my copy of the city will claim iron as well. But even without that it would be my next choice. I'm also planning a city for the eastern X, claiming gems (jungled) and cows. That will follow soon after.


Taking a step back, how is the game going? Well, I feel behind right now. I've saved up perhaps too much gold, being used to harder difficulties than normal. And before then, I didn't manage cities quite right, and before then I picked China instead of an agriculture/wheel civ. And of course I have india and inca as neighbors. Inca is expanding like a madman (didn't even bother with slavery yet) and India even has stonehenge on my doorstep. Just doesn't feel like my game.

So OK, what's the plan? How can I use my large stockpile of gold with two libraries and some FIN cottages to good effect?

Usually my thought with a tech surplus is to try to vacuum up some of the first-to-research bonuses. Well, in the classical era, we have:
* Judaism
* Hanging Gardens
* Confucianism
* MoM
* Shwedagon Paya
* Great Library
* Colossus

Let's go through these. Colossus is out since Huayna Capac built the oracle. Paya is out since I don't see gold anywhere. Hanging Gardens is pretty unviable for me since I have such a low city count, and by the time it's high enough to make them worthwhile everyone else will have math too. Judaism is just in a terrible part of the tree for me, not to mention it's not likely I will get it. This leaves:

Confucianism
MoM
Great Library

MoM is nice because I'm already planning to get Calendar (pretty obvious, since it's worth 4 happiness). The problem though is that marble is in a terrible location on this map. Observe:



Vertically it's exactly on the other side of the torus from your capital. If I claim the one that's connected to me by land (i.e. the one pictured), it's also 13 tiles to the west of my cap. So distance maintenance will start out at 7gpt at size one, and more importantly it's freaking hard to get to. It further has the drawback that the entire southern peninsula is pretty much backfill. Ice blocks off other players from reaching it via their own southern lands, so the only issue is later when people can send boats up from their northern coastal cities. Whereas, the northern area is completely open and so warrants some aggressive settling.

Despite all this I am considering going for a marble play. Benefits are that I think it gives a good chance of landing MoM due to my tech rate, it allows Aesthetics-Literature to be a very good path for me a little bit later, and to be honest the southern cities are pretty strong ones. If I went for this it would require 3 cities in that direction. One on the wine (which will have 2 clams, horse, and a beautiful 2/2/3 center tile); one 1N of the northern furs, which gets fish, 2 deer, furs, silver, and a trade connection by sea to the wine city; and directly on the marble, which (with 2 connecting roads to the fur city, on fur and silver) gets marble, another deer, 2 more fish, and an irrigated tundra wheat. (There are a lot of resources down there!)

Timeline I guess is the next 20 turns: I believe calendar is on the order of 17 turns away for me. And I need 3 settlers and a couple workers in order to get those cities down - this is the real chokepoint. Once I have marble I should be able to build the MoM itself in 1-2 turns with chops, for example at the wine city.

If I don't go for this, I guess it will probably be currency-CoL after calendar.

[Old Harry]

> Does the marble play give you enough of an advantage over the IND players to make it worth while?

> Any chance of using [screenshot ] tags?

> Are you feeling behind enough to start trying?

> If you burn out of CIV what will you play?

[SevenSpirits]

> Does the marble play give you enough of an advantage over the IND players to make it worth while?

If I have an advantage over IND players it will be a tech advantage. The purpose of marble is just to allow the build in the first place. I can easily chop 6, maybe 7 forests into the wonder but without any multipliers that still leaves 160+ hammers which would take basically forever (more than 10 turns, for sure). (A city with 6 forests won't be one with any significant production.) With the doubler I can get it done in 2 turns - no natural production is needed.

> Any chance of using [screenshot ] tags?

I find screenshot tags annoying as the default image is too small, so I have to click on every one to get it to the good size. Are my screenshots too large for your screen?

> Are you feeling behind enough to start trying?

Yup.

> If you burn out of CIV what will you play?

I'm not close to burning out of CIV. But I do play a lot of other games. I guess I'd play those!

[Old Harry]

> Does the marble play give you enough of an advantage over the IND players to make it worth while?

If I have an advantage over IND players it will be a tech advantage. The purpose of marble is just to allow the build in the first place. I can easily chop 6, maybe 7 forests into the wonder but without any multipliers that still leaves 160+ hammers which would take basically forever (more than 10 turns, for sure). (A city with 6 forests won't be one with any significant production.) With the doubler I can get it done in 2 turns - no natural production is needed.

But if you settle those cities does your tech advantage evaporate? Or will you be settling them after you've got to the techs you need?

> Any chance of using [screenshot ] tags?

I find screenshot tags annoying as the default image is too small, so I have to click on every one to get it to the good size. Are my screenshots too large for your screen?

A bit, but I'd rather you use IMG than SPOILER tags so carry on as you are... I find that I only click on a few of mine that I need to get close detail from, but your screen res is higher so I can see how it wouldn't be ideal.

[Krill]

TBH, I think you ought to use spoiler tags because viewing this thread on a phone or smaller screen is very difficult.

[SevenSpirits]

But if you settle those cities does your tech advantage evaporate? Or will you be settling them after you've got to the techs you need?

Well everyone is still settling more cities, so it's not even a given that anyone else's tech rates will catch up to my tech rate, let alone that their accumulated beakers will catch up to mine.

But it's also worth noting that my hypothesis of having a tech advantage isn't necessarily true. I haven't been doing strong C&D. It's based on the following:

1) I have had a high relative GNP so far this game, and relatively low crop yield/MFG.
2) I am financial.
3) I've built two libraries.
4) I just researched math and neither of my neighbors has math or fishing. And I have enough saved gold to make it through most of IW, fishing, sailing, calendar.

So there is some pretty substantive evidence that I will be first to calendar, but it's not definitive.

The marble idea is still tentative. I haven't done anything yet that I wouldn't be doing regardless of whether I go for MoM.

[SevenSpirits]

Overview:

I've caught up somewhat from hovering around 4th/5th in demos to 2nd/3rd. (Serdoa with EXP/IMP/Inca is unsurprisingly leading so far.) Next worry on the agenda is setting up stable and not-too-unfavorable borders. I do expect to get squeezed a bit since both my neighbors have really strong expansion civs/leaders.

Annoying Indian settlement. I want to raze it. May try a small invasion with ancient units in a couple turns just before it pops borders, in case Mackoti doesn't take its defense seriously. If that doesn't pan out I will probably get HBR and/or construction soon. Opponents are just too close. As you may have noticed above, Mackoti's already had a noticeable military clash with his other neighbor.


MoM plan. 7 workers. t62.

I ended up being worker-constrained on the completion date by a couple turns. Calendar can be done eot58 (in fact could have been done a turn earlier I think except I threw in archery, despite no severe need for it). Marble can be settled t61 (this was also worker-constrained, actually). So the limiting factor is the chops which I couldn't get to come in until t62.

I believe this is fast enough, but I haven't been doing C&D other than checking known tech bonus. (Neither of my neighbors has anything of interest. OK, one of them has masonry.) And I only got Sailing right as I started my Calendar run. But I think the two early religions were landed by my two non-neighbors, so that makes them somewhat less likely to get there before me.



Cities in order of founding:

[scooter]

I think the screenshot sizes are perfect, don't listen to them :P. Threads where every screenshot is in spoilers are just the worst. Thanks for the update.

[SevenSpirits]

Catching up on reporting - here is t59.

Mackoti did take his city's defense seriously so no attack was made. I had 2 axes, 3 spears, and 3 chariots ready to move in and be able to attack the city the turn before it got a border pop for 20% defense. But he brought in two axes (including one with C2 and shock) to defend it alongside a spearman (C1 + medic + morale (gg)) and two chariots, so I didn't even enter his territory. Instead, I moved my settler up to lock down a reasonable border.

You can see here the turn on which I would have moved next to his city from the jungle, had his city been underdefended.




Down here you can see that Mackoti built the pyramids. I'm sure you already know this from other threads. I was the only opponent who had vision of the city he was building it in.

By the way, I don't think I mentioned my city of Robert yet. I put it there just in time to keep cultural control of the calendar resources there. His stonehenge city was getting 17cpt from doubled henge culture plus a free monument, so I just had to get the first-ring border pop a turn before he popped to fourth ring and I'd be good (getting 22cpt on those tiles from creative and the 20-per-ring mechanic). Now, he did build the mids there now, but that's still just 23cpt so it will take him a while to catch up. I'll have third ring borders and thus 42cpt or more before that can happen.