[SPOILERS] Mardoc's Magical Mystery Tour

[Dreylin]

EitB43 spoiler:

Aurorarcher seems to be the only one of us who sims, which might make up a bit for having Dain instead of a more economic leader. Last game it appears he popped a GPro from a lair around T10, to explain part of his dominance there - but, well, he's also got the management chops to exploit it properly, and the aggression he needed to convert a lead to a win. Reminds me more of Thoth PBEM3 than anything, and we know how Thoth turned out.

Aha! Probably should have Spoilered that....

[Mardoc]

Oops! Thought that game was closer to finished than it turns out to be.

Hopefully it's old enough news that I didn't ruin your game. Still, mind spoiling it now in case Ventessel wanders by too?

[Dreylin]

Well, it's closer to finished for some of us than it may be for others....

[Mardoc]

Well, it's closer to finished for some of us than it may be for others....

Yeah, and most of that game's players are in this one and hence not reading the thread! Just...kinda overlooked that most =/= all

[Mardoc]

Turn was boring, didn't even reveal any interesting tiles while scouting. But it was the second of the day and there's good odds of at least one more tonight, so I can't complain too much.

In other news, top GNP is now 19. Which has to be Molach. 8 Palace, 1 city tile, 2 Oasis = 11 base commerce. 2 Palace culture, prereq bonus of 2, creative culture of 2, inspiration of 2.

Compared to our 13 GNP...I don't know why I thought I'd have the best initial economy . Although, I could swap to the Oasis any turn if I was willing to give up the Industrious bonus on our worker, so it's not quite as bad as it appears. Still not leading the pack, but at least not trailing too far behind.

It's all going to depend on the barbs. If we can manage to farm up a Wane early enough, before anyone can get real commerce tiles in play...then we'll start to pull ahead. If we can get a steady stream of them, and manage the cities well on top, then we'll stay ahead. If they fizzle, then I'll be sad and have to try something riskier to get my high level units

[Mardoc]

Sadly, no second resource to go with a wheat/gold city. I still think it's one of the strongest sites we've found so far, once we have Mining.



With 20 hammers left on the worker, I swapped from the forested hill to the oasis, taking our net foodhammers from +6 to +5. Still 4 turns to complete the worker, this way we trade 3 hammers of overflow for 8 beakers immediately.

Pretty sure barbs should be popping up any turn now. Any turn now...but I don't see any yet.

[Mardoc]

Aurorarcher is the first to a tech, presumably Agriculture. We could have made it if I had gone oasis-first, but I didn't see much point in getting to Agriculture and still waiting on the worker.

We found our first barb! And...he's useless from the perspective of gathering XP.



Yet more territory that's worth settling, but cannot realistically provide an aristo-econ. Which is a good thing for us, since we're planning/hoping to base our economy elsewhere.

I've been debating the best next tech, post-Calendar. We could pick up:

Exploration: Cheap, 7 turns. Would give us +1 happy by hooking our dyes tile. Would also give bonus commerce to a second city, and possibly make XP-gathering easier, by making it easier to get warriors to the barbs, on terrain where we can attack out. But only the dye is guaranteed to come early - the other benefits can't be used immediately, most likely.

Mysticism: Cheap Elder council, to greatly speed our GSage production, let us work 4-beaker sages, provide its own beaker benefit...and possibly even God King to bump up our nearly non-existant hammer production (we'll want to work the oasis, corn, dyes, floodplains, a sage, and maybe one other tile).

Crafting - Mining - BW: More expensive, less immediate benefit. Industrious makes Dereptus better...but probably not enough better to be worth building until we have a few cities. Mining lets us finally get serious hammer production, and enables the gold city to be founded. BW makes barb slaughter fun and easy! All of them cost a fair bit, though.

Other? Those are the strongest options I see, but maybe you see something else worth considering, Q.

Right now I'm leaning toward Exploration followed by Mysticism. Extra happiness will be quite useful, and our third tech is probably about the time we're going to be able to start working on a settler. Plus, warrior efficiency is worth a good bit. Mysticism seems likely to pay for itself quickly, with Phi Sidar Elder Council.

After that, reevaluate, but most likely it'll make sense to head at least to Mining, if not also BW. Gold gives us the happy cap to work mines, mines give us the hammers to make Dereptus reasonably quick to build, and of course we have jungle to clear and barbs to slay as well.

[Qgqqqqq]

Wow, this turn speed!

I'd swap them around. Without considering the capital in great depth, the top sizes in the early game can be very marginal to pick up, and I try to go for Exploration right as I want the next city, as I don't think it pays off until you want to lay down to that city. Not many worker turns at your city, but road turns are marginal anyway, and getting out a EC before the settler would be huge, if you can squeeze it.

Up to you, though. That's just my instinct.

[Qgqqqqq]

Hang on, by third tech do you mean Exp/Myst or just one of the two? If one, equation becomes harder - Exploration wanted for road-speed, myst wanted for GK revolt.

RE:Titan, definitely wane the first one if there's 20+t before FotT. After that, becomes a bit grey, but I'd probably keep second on hold and wane after that. Keep second on hold permanently, actually, as one super-fighter is very handy in a pinch.

[Qgqqqqq]

And hang on, since when is Cotton in BtS?