[Mjmd #59] Sea Shanties!

[Mjmd]

Changed thread title and naming theme; settled 2nd city. I got into sea shanties as something to listen to when I'm really busy at work during the pandemic. Evidently its gotten popular recently, which has made finding clips a little easier.







In my sim creative gave me trade routes and I'm glad it worked in real game. Creative made this spot good and it will make the gem city grow perfectly for the worker from Whiskey. Plan on going to 4 cities pretty fast, but then workering up pretty heavily and making sure I get some cottages started pronto. Debating about 5th city still; thoughts to come as that far off time approaches. 



Not my favorite but figured was probably the most recognizable.

[Mjmd]

Forgot 1 video per:
This is one of my favorites. I'll probably rename it again to full "whiskey johnny" as I didn't remember full name when I settled. 

[Mjmd]

I'm almost at bottom of 1st page. I hadn't planned on reporting for another two turns, but I can't take that chance!

Plus some mildly interesting things.
1) Found beaver on island north of me. See marked spot for best spot to be annoying with culture while being max exposed to a landing. Assuming literally any sea food. 
2) more importantly I'm betting my neighbor also settled 2nd city towards me. Who is it though. What vague shade of brown is this? Piccadily or Ramk? I think Native America is darker. You guys don't get player analysis until I know! (usually I do a spreadsheet and full player analysis, but as you may have noted I'm not doing that for 25 people so you get immediate neighbors as I meet them). I am now leaning towards "or here" border spot. Along with beaver X can steal some tiles with creative. Question is of course "WHEN"which probably depends on who, but certainly not for a hot second. I also don't want to fall into trap of "see first person focus that direction."

[Lewwyn]

Are you going to send a unit to make contact?

[Mjmd]

Are you going to send a unit to make contact?

What is a unit? Right now that panther is a member of my defense force! My scout is still partially injured and had to move to check 3rd. There was only 1 black square for my 3rd city, but better careful, plus wolves. Scout will heal there and then go fog bust on gold. I don't remember exactly when real barbs started appearing in my test game, but again better safe. I need to update my sim soon, but I do not have a warrior coming for a few more turns. Assuming that person notices my green culture (slight + to stealth) it is much easier for them to make contact just by stepping on that grassland hill over there.

[klops]

"What is a unit? Right now that panther is a member of my defense force!"


lol... AH done right

[Mjmd]

lol... AH done right

That is what I keep telling my scientists, but they say these wild pigs are the future and I just keep feeding the scientists to the jaguar to prove them wrong.

T38. So I have slight regret for not producing a worker instead of settler and mining the copper and performing an axe rush now that I see a city settled so near mine, but what is done is done and I've settled my 3rd city. 





Inland cities get slightly less sea ish songs. Anyways all kidding aside Donkey Riding thanks to creative will grow onto pig the turn the worker from Wiskey can start improving it. Current worker up near whiskey will start improving Whiskey's pig after current chop for new worker. I haven't fully fleshed out micro past this, but settler before worker at capital felt real bad. Also, I could be axe rushed..... So will grow to size 4 and early whip a worker from capital to start improving copper. Will then slow build a settler or worker depending what is faster with Donkey Riding for a settler.

There has been some talk in the tech thread of people not doing micro, but I can't imagine that. So far everything has worked out and I actually gained some production in my capital vs sim I think. Anyways demo's looking good. Now I just have to make sure I don't pull an Mjmd and crash real hard. #1 in food & #1 in land area (go go creative which is also helping with #2 GNP I imagine). 



I just hope the panther isn't too well fed......

[Mjmd]

Warning Long Post! I was waiting to see if turn rolled tonight, but doesn't look like it, so you get this screenshot, which is still a good one. Borders of Donkey expanded and new worker started improving pig right away as planned. That pig will finish perfectly turn it grows and will help it grow perfectly to 4. Lots of good timing there. Been working on micro. Not fully satisfied, but I blame the forest, hill, forest west of gold city for being really annoying when moving a settler from capital to plains hill I decided to go with. Best I can do is T52 settle, which seems slow for 4th city, but I am also used to being imperialistic. I have 1 great horse tile and a jungle horse on an island.........



I finished exploring and the east is a also uncontested, which means only neighbors are through the jungle. I'm torn where the scout is going. I think south. The 1 extra hammer I picked up vs my initial sim allowed my to finish a warrior. Decided to go for a worker before settler (ok so maybe I could have done 4th city sooner, but it would have had no worker support, plus I want to improve copper, plus that worker will help chop settler for and support city #5). Point being between extra hammer and worker first I actually have a warrior to go to gold hill instead of scout.

So anyone who has read my reports knows sometimes I ramble a bit. This is another one of those times. Before I meet people I'm trying to figure out my overall game plan more than my previous ramblings. Who am I? What am I? If you are still reading at this point:  

Who am I? - My aggression rating has certainly gone up from my initial games, but I like to think its mainly opportunistic (other than playing agg Rome, but that was partly to force myself into doing something different) and that I like building. I do like aggressively settling as mentioned when evaluating creative. I like building wonders, but rarely go all in on them. I am willing to go for them late if they are hanging out there too long (yes hanging was in reference to my extremely late grab of HG in both PB54 and PB56). I am moderately skilled, but am probably below a descent chunk of this games competition. I lack multiplayer experience still to a large degree and still have some holes when it comes to basics.

What am I? - I'm not sure if Noble still reads me, but I think he could do a good job actually writing a full article on this. See https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...082&page=3 from PB54 where I discuss the idea of "who is the beatdown". An ever changing concept that is pretty complex and is constantly hard to evaluate. I recommend the read of that post and then my analysis of Byzantium which ended up being spot on. I am creative organized meaning I don't need monuments and I get cheap lighthouses. This will naturally lead to a few more units produced early. Organized means taking a bunch of cities isn't as costly. Creative also means I don't have to worry as much about 1st ring tiles. Those factors of my traits would indicate I should be more aggressive. The other major aspect of organized in my mind though is the cheap courthouses, which I think can factor both to B-lining them, but also they can save economy if I conquer. I am also Portugal, which as mentioned when doing analysis is capable of doing something unique. IE expanding pre astronomy to other lands if they exist. Some of you may have noticed / figured out the numbers off to the side in the picture are tile counts of non jungled tiles. Assuming both western islands are "mine" I get to 113 tiles of the 115ish promised. Northern jungle is about 8 tiles and southern looks 10+ . Wine and beaver islands add 5 contested each way. Lets just say 15 per player contested would put me to 130 ish. 130*25=3250. Early calc of tiles estimated 3617. That is 300+ of possible astro lands for the taking. As with my earlier math please do remember accountants don't actually have to be good at math, we just have to be able to operate excel at a moderate level.

Now how many of them are actually reasonable grabs from where I am? Who knows! But along along with my lower skill level in relative terms it at least makes part of me think I shouldn't be the beatdown by default. However lower later game skill means maybe I should! Should I go to war with someone probably at a catapult era attack? Probably not, but maybe depending on neighbors and geo political factors. What I do kind of want to do no matter what is make sure I get an above average share of immediate land though including jungle border cities in both directions and both beaver islands. I'm not sure I'll actually place a city on NE wine island and SE wine island is going to be tough, but maybe a small military excursion. I also think Maoi would look nice on the easternmost tip and with creative if I settle it early enough I can claim the clam. To do the two jungle border / lower quality cities without crashing on emperor is going to be a challenge. Hoping to not over expand I'm trying to figure out which cities can wait until later and also how fast I need to settle such cities. The islands are pretty easy ASAP locations as they probably pay for themselves, but half jungle cities? When? You can see "filler" cities labelled. I could settle the southern beaver city on the hill to grab the fish and make both cities down there filler, but shall see.

I'll post updated micro at some point I'm happy with it. I had to do a whole bunch last night because I had T43 what do I put in queue decisions to make.

[Mjmd]

I've been sick, so I played the turn, took a screenshot, watched my little plague carriers, and then slept until I woke up, which is now at 2 am! Long post alert again, but you'll see the reason in a sec.

Always take demo shots early in the turn and turn before you whip. I'm annoyingly off the food lead, but I'm about to whip off an unimproved cow at Donkey so I imagine I won't be this high again. Almost went sailing before pottery, but wanted to start building granaries and timing really didn't work out for getting a galley and settler anyways.



Whats that you say? You see foreigners finally?!?!? Does that vague brown color look familiar to you? Yes that means that it is possible to go around the sea to the east and it isn't a PB54 narrow channel scenario (which for the record I liked).

Ramkhamhaeng Cyrus of Arabia - All hail the great and glorious one who helps out poor noobs like myself when they are started down the pitboss path (seriously like multiple PMs ect). Ramk played in PB51 my first game where he got a bad early game start (insane rivers though), got into early action with GKC, then took a city from Vanrober that they then had an early war over (in which Ramk lost that city back). Despite looking down and out and again having a slow starting capital Ramk came back to land MoM and the music great artist. Clearly more skilled and knowledgeable than me. Have no clue of how much experience he has over on the German forum, but lets assume he better than me. He got a very interesting combo. One of the slowest civs combined with a fast leader to help make up for it. I've always thought Arabia should start with fishing instead of wheel, but that would probably make it too easy to go for a religion. Anyways with Arabia UB Ramk has incentive to go for a religion and doesn't need one of the awkward ways of getting a prophet (for the record Stonehenge fell already to someone). Cyrus (Imp/Cha) would not have been a preferred 1st round pick or even 2nd rd pick for me, but again at least helps make up for the slow tech start of Arabia. I mentioned earlier that someone built an early warrior and thought maybe Arabia and with that scout sighting it was probably Ramk. Very glad he didn't come poking cause I had nothing for a hot second there. Who the beatdown is is HEAVILY dependent on if he lands a religion to shrine. Only one has fallen so far and I doubt it was to him due to timing and techs. Even with assumed experience playing higher difficulty with bad leaders (like the Germans do), I would expect Cyrus to struggle economically later if he doesn't shrine as only has the pseudo economic trait of Cha and map seems pretty ok for early happy.

Wait there is another?
Now this one may have been hard to identify as we have 4 vague colors close to that in this game and I would have preferred any of the other 3. I'm pretty sure that is Charriu as literally 5 seconds after that screenshot he logged on and said "hello", which his color in chat matched perfectly. Being the idiot I am I didn't quickly go and take a replacement screenshot for how funny it seemed to my sick brain that I could now see him.
Charriu Ramesses of Greece - what are the odds? I mean I'm between the two tech people. Also, Charriu plays in a game once a year and gets the same western (or NW this game) neighbor as his last game played. Definitely willing to tussle if he considers something his (ie a floodplains valley per se), but also had an early altercation with Jowy in PB52 over a spot. Obviously has a deep knowledge base of the game that is far beyond mortal kin. We ended up being friendly neighbors after our early war in PB52 despite sharing a long conflicting border and him placing one of the worst wtf are you thinking cities near me that I've seen (mind you I placed some pretty antagonizing ones too; point being we made it work as we each thought it benefited us). Charriu survived and took back territory after being double teamed by AT and Jowy that game. He then forced Jowy's rifle stack to retreat later which I was super sad about. Formidable opponent, although can make mistakes (see city example, but also forgot to pillage a road in our early war that lead to me snipping a valuable worker). Ramesses (Ind/Spi) screams 2nd or 3rd round pick. I would have preferred Amica as an Industrial neighbor, but Charriu being one of two will probably at least tempt me at some point to go snipe an early wonder. Again the question is if I should though. Who is the beatdown? If I did attack would probably be just an axe cat stack. No real point going to elephants when Greece UU is going to say "nope". Just like Ramk needs to do something early to keep relevant later. 

Its interesting I'm obviously not a default "beatdown" combo, but I could see being aggressive towards either neighbor (which maybe shows my natural tendencies). I probably shouldn't go after either though unless I see a 2v1 opportunity. I do plan on settling aggressively on both. Charriu jungle border specifically would be  nice as I would grab 2 river tiles long term. I think scout is moving 2e and then will mean Charriu, which may hide where I'm from and also start me going around. I do kind of want to see if there is food in tiles south of ramk though, which would just require a 1 turn detour. Decisions decisions.

[Mjmd]

Turn 50:

Ramk built Oracle?!?! I'm so confused. He can already get a GP from his UB. Did he get Buddhism? It makes no sense with his techs and civ right especially with timing? He can't even have all the food techs yet. Maybe he is going to bulb theology and build that shrine. Am I supposed to build a stack of axes or go HA? Man if I wasn't Portugal I would be on it (and maybe still mind). But at least for now full speed ahead with own development as I don't have any road network or spare workers / all whips and chops I want towards development.. 

I messed up my micro this turn because I forgot to write it down. New worker was supposed to go improve cow while old worker went to road gold hill. Instead i finished improving the cow which is kind of pointless for 2 more turns. Should still be ok although now I may have to put a turn into the horse, which isn't the end of the world). I'm going to be popping out some cheap warriors before hooking these up (1 + 1 more from overflow in Donkey and 1 from gold city in 3 turns thanks to copper and plains hill). Also, can see the settler pushing its way to its destination. I need to do some more micro to figure out if I'm whipping this work boat next turn in Whiskey to keep a whip timer going or if I'm just letting it be (if memory serves it grows back fast and I end up not working copper for only 2 turns, so trade 10 production for 30 and 4 commerce from faster workboat which seems good. I should check how fast I would grow to 5 though.



Officially met Charriu. Looks like he went for gold city first. Also has a jungled gem except it is on a river and the hill pig is right next to it..... Anyways my food demo plummeted with the whipping, but I'm still 3rd!?!?! (was 2nd still last turn but I actually went down 1 more when plains copper finished this turn).