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

[HitAnyKey]

Ok, I understand the ICTR stuff now...at least to the extent I need to right now regarding the island cities.

So back to the current turn and what to do and trying to comment on some of your other many lines of text.

I think I've already decided starting the GW right now is not a good idea. Also think starting that settler in Sleepy right now is the best way to go. As that gets us another settler in 5 turns (or less if there's a good point to whip it).
We have 2 settlers right this moment to choose where to send them. The one sitting in Sleepy (that still has movement this turn) can be on the spot 3S2E of Stressed in 2 turns, founding it on the 3rd turn. That's the quickest any "next" city can be founded.
The settler from Hungry is currently sitting on the Copper (having started his movement towards the spot 5S of Happy. Since this city either needs to wait for the barb city capture (or a border pop) for it to work any good tiles, maybe I should have this settler board the galley next turn (along with either an Archer or Axe)? Drop it off on the Stone the following turn. And then the city is founded on the next? The city would basically be a dud and only useful for the ICTR & Stone. Not even sure I'd want to bother having it take one of the Crabs away from Happy, at least not yet. It could at least take the GHM NW of Sleepy and I could Cottage the tile north of that.
Then we have the settler from Stressed coming out in 2 turns. I could then put that one onto the Galley for the SE island...if I whip the Galley. If I whip the Galley now, it will come out next turn. I move it to the water 1S of the Marble. Turn after that, the Settler is produced and boards it with a military unit. I drop it off on that forest SW of the Deer. Without seeing anything else of that island, that looks like it might be a good spot. Can always move it 1N (to share the Crab with Sore) before founding it if so desired based on what we see. Galley goes back to get a worker and maybe another military.
The next settler from Sleepy is then the one that founds the city 5S of Happy....or goes all the way down to the 8W1W spot. By then the barb city should be captured. It did make a Worker (it just showed up this turn), so hopefully it will grow soon. I've killed 2 of the Warriors now, so there is only 1 Warrior and 1 Worker. I'm going to leave the Axe where he is so as to not dissuade the barb from having it's worker try to improve the deer. I might get a free worker and improved Deer out of this deal.

What do you think of that for the city plans?
Also means I'll switch Happy off of the Barracks and onto a military unit. This many cities this quick (and on the islands) will require the quick military, foregoing the promotions, as you stated. Barracks can come later. And I also yes, agree with regards to Happy. I'll turn off that scientist now and concentrate on growth and such until we get a Market in there.

I'll look at and try to respond to some of your other things later. I still haven't even made an attempt at rebuilding the sandbox. Trying to do so now just intimidates me, plus haven't really made time for it. I have no idea how I'm going to do it at this point. I've kept a log of the detail of every city for the past 9 turns, so hopefully that will help. But I barely know where to start with it right now, since my last sandbox was as of T78. Plus the KTBs are going to constantly throw off the sandbox.

[HitAnyKey]

There is also the option of 2-pop whipping the Settler out of Stressed right now as well. So for the SE island, there is this option:
2pop whip Settler, 2pop whip Galley. Next turn Galley moves to 1S of Marble, Settler and defender (Archer or Axe? which is better right now) board the boat. Following turn both unload on the island. City founded T97.
This allows for my starting the Sleepy settler to 4S of Happy now...to be founded T96.
Hungry's settler boards boat next turn, to be founded on Stone T96.
Then the settler Sleepy is starting right now will found the 8S1W of Happy site on T102 (earlier if we whip it at some point).

I'm thinking this is the best option. Yes it's whipping those cities pretty hard right now, but they'll regrow quickly enough. They both got nice food.

[MindyMcCready]

Your wall of text is as bad as my own. :LOL: I'm not sure that I'm catching all of your points. Numbering system helps a bit.

Priorities as I see them:

1. 5S of Happy. This is just so critical as a chokepoint. Ideally we'd land the 8S1W as a better chokepoint,...but if anything disrupted us from landing 5S we'll need 2X the miltiary in the region if a throwdown happens with Borsche. I know that it doesn't have food but hopefully you can spare a worker to chop. This is my top, top priority and I don't want anything to delay this.
2. South island city via settler from Stressed. I'm thinking about 1W of the deer since a galley SE can instantly reinforce that city. It also allows another city 3S2E of that location as backfill. That city will share clams. All cities are worth it with TGLH even if they just grow to size 6 and whip. Speed matters due to the risk of losing it and the immediate commerce generated.
3. Stone Island via the Hungry settler. That city has 7 unique tiles and so is worth it as a +2F grow/whip 10T unit pump. 60H Rathus + TGLH makes every city valuable. If we think GJ's not going to kill it then it's definately worth growing to size 6.
4. 8S1W. Naval + Land choke.


BackFill:
1. 3S2E of Stressed. Excellent city as soon as we have the resources.
2. The hill corn city if Borshe waits like 20T. :LOL:
3. A second eastern city on southern island.
4. 2S4W of Dancing - 3rd city on southern island.

Yes, the cities will regrow. For some of these funny island cities your first whip-chop could be a cheap lighthouse. If I could only ever have one building, a LH is arguably it. This will help mitigate the clear lack of workers that we're going to have relative to cities.

[HitAnyKey]

So next turn is up and we now have graphs on GJ. At least he doesn't have obscene power...
And oh no....my Wishing for a Wonderous Wall has been Whisked aWay.....






And here's where things stand with the cities right now. Two new island cities should get founded in 2 turns, with the 4S of Happy being founded the turn after. The barb city is keeping the worker inside the city. Hopefully it'll grow soon so that I can capture it. It would be awesome if that would happen within the next 2 turns so that the other city can use the Deer immediately.
Btw, if you have any thoughts for city names let me know. Otherwise I'll just toss up whatever crap names come to mind as I'm founding them. LOL
And the Workboat out of Sore will net it's Crabs, which the new island city will be able to use immediately. I'll follow that up with another work boat right after it, which I think should reach the whales right about the time those borders expand.

[MindyMcCready]

with the 4S of Happy being founded the turn after.

You mean 5S of Happy right - the PH that gets us TGLH routes?

[HitAnyKey]

You mean 5S of Happy right - the PH that gets us TGLH routes?

Yes, that's what I mean. Sorry. Was typing from memory and not from actually looking at the screen. Memory fail.

[MindyMcCready]

Also, why are you researching Currency? I mean, save gold first and then do a sustained 100%,..more chance for an opponent to land it and get KTB. 2% per opponent. It will come out exactly the same except for the 2%.

Having the gold saved up also allows for emergency upgrades,...not that we've moved past the ancient trash phase yet.

Screen shots at break-even are move useful for me.

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So we'll be at 12 cities with the barb city. So it made a worker :LOL: At whatever turn you saw the worker, we probably need to count up 8T from there as the S2 turn [EDIT ASSUMING DEER]. Other than a city that generates ICTR we *may* have to pause at that point. As you plant that 10th and 11th city,...etc see what it does to our breakeven. With TGLH unnerfed you can probably get to 15+ cities before each city is not a net benefit.

To expand past 12 cities (and we have 16 if we get all the backfill excluding the Borsche corn site) we'll need to start working every cottage city possible. With our 2 cheap econ builds we can keep going past 12 while many other civs will have to pause.

#13 would be the 8S1W
+3 backfill cities.

The Library in Hungry - wouldn't that be much better as or 3S2E of Stressed city plant? I know that we're going to lose the Sheep, but if that city gets us a food resource, we're even right? And honestly, if we can plant all these cities we have a better chance at razing that city than we do winning a culture war. And we don't even intend to win that culture war do we? Just delay our loss? So if that's your reasoning, i think that a settler is better. In 30T Master Commodore will likely have Knights. It'll be maximum effort to sweep one of his 3 neighbours. If we don't draw the short straw then that might be our chance to try to either contain Master Commodore by razing that city or pick up some Grimce cities.

If you've got additional reasoning like build while growing, then I'll object less (I see it's size 5).

Anyway, we need to keep our eye on the bottom line:
10T to span settlers
10T to develop granaries & whatnot
10T to get our deterrant in place.

With all of our land requiring only 5 strong miltiary sites this is really our chance to catch up.

[HitAnyKey]

When I first eyeballed the research rate and negative cash flow a turn or two ago, I was hoping I might be able to come close to finishing it before the treasury went negative. I did drop it back to zero after those screenshots though. I'll log back in to grab you a shot at breakeven. And by breakeven I assume you mean whatever percentage we are no longer losing gold?
As for Hungry, yes that is the reason I'm building the Library right now. I'm regrowing the city after whipping that last Settler. Once it's back up to snuff, I'll start another settler. Though I suppose building another Archer while growing (since that is one of the few cities with a Barracks) might be better.

In either case, here are all three options:

[MindyMcCready]

When I first eyeballed the research rate and negative cash flow a turn or two ago, I was hoping I might be able to come close to finishing it before the treasury went negative.

As for Hungry, yes that is the reason I'm building the Library right now.

It looks like 7T left until Currency.

You could build a library first while saving gold and then turn on when its finished. That is such a great city!

And by breakeven I assume you mean whatever percentage we are no longer losing gold?

Which ever comes closest to zero. No biggie either way.

Though I suppose building another Archer while growing (since that is one of the few cities with a Barracks) might be better.

My first choice remains to build a chariot or 2 to raze that city. If he's only got 2 units,...then 3 chariots will do it. I don't think that GJ will make a move since it improves his chances. I don't think that Grimace will make a strong move either.

I also don't think that it will matter too much to whether Master Commodore chooses us or not. If he's trying to win that'll be a cold hard calculation on his part. He's not the bloodlusting underdog from years before. I think that he wants to update his logo away from "narration winner; game loser".

I don't think that he'll try to deviate from his DTay induced Knights rush and punish us. Why not?
-He knows its an aggressive plant so he won't be surprised when we retaliate for it. It's a purely defensive move on our part.
-We've made absolutely no aggressive moves in his direction. That should be of some value to the game leader.
-He knows that starting a fight with us could easily mean the start of a dog pile with Retep joining in. So I think that cooler heads will prevail.

So it's a calculated risk,...but probably the lowest cost way of fighting that culture war.

Now we could very, very easily lose our stone city. That would not surprise me at all.

[EDIT] :LOL: maybe a library is better. Keep the food for longer or long enough and avoid the bloodshed. I'll have to think about this. What I haven't done is look at the map to see if it increases our risk level. If Master COmmodore got his hands on a Great Artist for example,...that's what's making me want to kill the city. Nip that temptation in the bud. It could reduce our chances of war rather than increase them.

[HitAnyKey]

That city of Commodore's has in it an Archer/Axe/Chariot. So it won't be an easy raze by any means. So I don't think I can get enough units ready to slam it before he has his Terrace chopped out...which after 5 turns, he'll have the first culture expansion for further defense.

Would you want to take a few moments at some point to just log into the game to look around yourself? You can do so this turn. The password for it is just HAK. Pop in, take a look around. Might be easier than my trying to detail it all out for you.
I'll need to log back in again to switch the city back to Library again anyway. I've also been debating about whether to have it work the mines or those lakes. I've been working the lakes for the added commerce to try to help get to Currency that much faster. But I believe if I work the 3 mines instead, the city would grow in 4 turns and the Library would be done in 4 turns.