[SPOILERS] In the beginning...

[Commodore]

I'm finding this game pretty educational. It's interesting what you start to realize when you actually sit down and analyze things more closely.

It's fun, isn't it? Ruins the casual fun of single player though.

[superjm]

Turn 38. Looks like I messed up.

See, I had synchronized a chop and a whip together so that I could originally overflow into a library. Instead I had decided to just do a settler instead... but inbetween the granary and the settler I decided to finish the spearman that I had started previously (15 hammers in) to act as a garrison to the third city, the location of which the settler from Beijing is currently on route.

Problem is that I completely forgot that overflow hammers will never exceed the max of the items base cost or your base hammer production. So those shiny 39 hammers of overflow I had from the granary build were instantly chopped to 23 for the current settler build. And because of the weird Firaxis voodoo in their 3.19 patch, I don't even get any overflow gold from the endeavor.

So inessence, I just wasted a forest, a few worker turns and lost 16 hammers into thin air with nothing to show for it

This could have easily been prevented by just putting a turn into the settler before finishing the spear, or by waiting for the settler to actually perform the chop. Either way this will force me to rethink some things.

I can still get the settler out on schedule by performing another whip, which unfortunately will delay the worker a few turns thereafter while I grow back. I don't want to delay the fourth city any more than I have to, so I'm keeping that a priority. Meanwhile, I'm just going to use the worker that just finished pasturing the pigs to immediately connect the third city and then mine the gold and connect it. From there I'll see how things are going and decide what to do from there.

Also, Archduke converted to Buddhism a few turns ago. I found Azza's warrior while exploring the western portion of Catwalk's land up north and it seems he founded his third city last turn. This turn Catwalk declared on Archduke. Not sure if he's just snooping around or if he's attempting a choke or what.

[superjm]

Turn 40

Guangzhouis founded in 1600 BC! In completely unrelated news, I need some sort of naming scheme for my empire. Nothing against Chinese, I'm just saying

We were actually the second-to-last to get our third city, which annoys me slightly. I think in the long run it was the right decision to get the granaries+capital library up ASAP, the extra capital research will end up paying dividends early on, especially once I start working the specialists to get an academy up and running. Still could have probably been more aggressive in my expansion early on. Nevertheless, with Shanghai's settler finished the fourth city will be online in only 4 additional turns, so maybe things will work out in the end.

Of course, money loss is going to start to become a problem once more cities are founded, which is why after some discussion with treskies we're electing to go straight to Code of Laws for courthouses and, if we're fortunate enough, a religion to spread around. ETA on that tech is turn 56, 16 turns from now, which is steep, but is about the same research time as going straight for Metal Casting. After Code of Laws I'm thinking we knock out masonry to hook up the stone, sailing because I feel like I really shouldn't be delaying it as long as I am, and then go for math. Alternatively, monarchy is right there and with at least another city up by that point it could be a wise idea to start growing for real sooner rather than later. I wish I had scouted more thoroughly to see if there's marble about so I know how realistic TGL is right now, but eh, whatcha gonna do.

On the opponent front, I decided against harassing Catwalk since I want to stay on his good side as long as I can and just moved my warrior westward. A look at his borders gives me a good idea on how he settled.

Which of course corresponds to

I like our copper city better obviously, but then I'm creative so I don't have to settle the copper on the first ring :P The third spot I'm not keen on at all however. Maybe as a filler city later on once you've grabbed more suitable specialized spots, but not as a third. I do like the potential 3-0-3 lake tiles though.

Oh right, also forgot to mention the other thing that happened a few turns ago. Archduke, a player with a Creative leader and TWO founded religions...



Built Stonehenge

That's an interesting play if I ever saw one. The obvious motive is for the Great Prophet points, but still, 80 hammers this early on devoted to what is otherwise a redundant wonder is something. I guess on one hand, trying to aggressively expand in his direction is probably a bad idea with as much culture as he's pumping out by now. I wonder if that plays into why Catwalk declared on him...

Anywho, everything else is on schedule. With more military set to come out soon and no signs of aggression from anywhere, I feel reasonably confident in our chances of surviving any early shenanigans. *knocks on wood*

[Sian]

you can't build a Lighthouse unless you have saltwater next to the city, so the placement you have for his city wouldn't be able to build one

[superjm]

Something confuses me. I tried searching for something to explain this but I guess I'm missing something.

What is going on here?

As can be clearly seen, I'm working 15 food while at size 4, which should provide 7 surplus food for the worker. The game is giving me 9 (extra hammer is overflow btw). No matter what, whenever I work a surplus of food, it's giving me 2 more food than my actual surplus. Yet if I work a deficit, it starves me by the proper amount. I don't see this happening in any of my other cities, so the only thing I see that can be causing this is the unhappy citizen.

I lose an unhappy face after this turn so the citizen goes away, and I notice after the turn is done that now the food surplus is calculated properly (17-8 by working the grassland cottage). So what exactly is the deal with food production and unhappy citizens? Is this a documented feature? A bug? Did I miss something obvious?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Unhappy citizens don't cost food when building workers or settlers. Hence, your citizens are only eating 3 x 2F while building worker/settlers. If you switch to something else, they'll be eating 4 x 2F.

[superjm]

Up to turn 44

Founded fourth city. This will be the planned production city, and with a third worker from the capital finished this turn I'll be wasting no time connecting it and improving it. Just a little development and I'll have a good military pump in place, with plenty of forest hammers for good measure. Not sure what to use them for yet, maybe chop out the Heroic Epic when the time comes.

From here my plans are a bit tricky. I've been modelling different strategies in my city-tracking spreadsheet. I don't want to whip my capital for the time being since I need the commerce to get to Code of Laws quickly and want to get some GPP for a GS sooner rather than later. After growing to size 6 I can switch the corn to Shanghai and use the absurd food surplus at low pop to get more workers out. The capital is going to get a few archers out to cover my border cities and then start on another settler for my fifth city. The question is how soon to do this. Catwalk has been expanding and is at FIVE cities as of this turn. Azza got his fourth city out a turn before me, while Archduke and waterbat have been idle. Archduke is STILL at two cities for whatever reason. He's been following a religious plan from the start but you have to figure he'd start expanding at some point. Whatever the case, his lack of expansion only helps me because...

Here's where I plan to put my fifth city. Well okay, not HERE exactly, this is actually west of Catwalk's territory but given that our territories are mirrored this should be an accurate (forests notwithstanding) layout of my eastern tundra territory. That's a whole lot of resources (THREE happiness resources ) and plenty of river tiles to work with. I'm not sure whether to place a city right in the middle next to the silver, wine, fur, etc and take all the resources in at once or share them between two cities. I'm leaning towards the former since without the resources it's not a very fertile territory in the first place, and additionally I'd like to avoid relying on coastal locations in this area. The territory is going towards Archduke's land, which could present a problem if he's as culture aggressive as he appears, but I think I can afford that.

Oh, btw, waterbat offered an NAP to turn 63 + Open Borders wile approaching from the south. I accepted since I don't want to antagonize anyone and I figure it'd be a good idea to get a working relationship with him.

one thing I may need to do is squeeze a scout from one of my cities so I can finish exploring some of the blind areas I neglected to explore previously. The Northwest desert strip in particular I have no information on, which is a bad thing.

Aside from all that, everything is proceeding on schedule. I've actually been lagging behind on the demos for a while now (probably an effect of going worker-worker-settler) but if I can get the fourth city ready to go production wise and get the ability to build courthouses, then I can start being far more aggressive in my expansion and improving all my cities. Just need to hope no one tries to cause any trouble until then.

[superjm]

Been a while. At turn 52 now. Quite a bit happening now despite it still being relatively early. I'm probably make a longer post later on at some point, but quick cliffnotes version:

* waterbat built the Pyramids on turn 50
* Azza built the Oracle a little earlier and took CoL (so much for that religion )
* Archduke settled another city to my east. I know it's to my east cause I can see the borders right on the edge pof my visibility. As a result, I shifted gears to getting a settler out sooner rather than later so I can claim that tundra spot I was talking about earlier. Since his cities are going to have a lot of culture pumped in, I'm going to have to give special attention to making sure I can keep that border. I can't afford not to have those happiness resources.
* Catwalk declared on waterbat, and sent a diplo proposal to me to join in sometime within 20 turns. Nevermind that I have an NAP with waterbat, I don't want to get into a war with him right now, not when Archduke is my current immediate neighbor to tussle with.
* Azza is NW of me and has at least one War Chariot roaming about. Doesn't seem to be aggressive currently.
* I now have charts of Azza, waterbat, and Archduke. Will have to examine those and see if they tell me anything about what they've been doing exactly.

More later on I guess.

[superjm]

Over a week since my last update? What's wrong with me!

Yeah, we're on T59 now, so seven turns later. A surprising amount of stuff has happened since my previous post.

My fifth city, Icarus! BTW, I am now the Mushroom Kingdom, since I'm an uncreative bastard and video games the thing I'm most familiar with. I could've been even nerdier and went with a Pokemon theme but I decided against it. Actually, i think one of the others here has that theme in another PBEM

Oh, and if you paid attention to my previous posts, you see the problem here. Yes, Archduke placed ANOTHER city at this border just a single turn before my settler reached the intended spot (1E of where I actually settled). After the initial wave of rage passed I decided to simply settle at this spot and take the first ring fur. I quickly chopped out a library ASAP since both of his cities start with +3 culture. Hopefully with +4 so quickly I can keep my borders relatively stable until I take the culture part of the classical tree to deal with things. As far as the wine and silver goes, I'm considering those lost for the time being. I'm exploring the tundra west of me to see if I can grab the resources on that side before Xenon does.

Code of Laws finished precisely on schedule on turn 55 and Mathematics just came in going into turn 60. I've held off on whipping my cities because I decided to go full bore and research Civil Service and Monarchy for a double revolt on turn 75 (taking a quick stop at Sailing first for lighthouses and potential trade routes). I have a sneaking suspicion Azza, after grabbing CoL, may be intending to go that route, either now or in the near future, so if I'm going to stay competitive I need to leverage Bureaucracy and HR as soon as possible. After CS and Monarchy the plan can branch out in many different ways, and I'm going to see what develops first in the rest of the world before coming up with something concrete.

In worldwide news, Catwalk built the GL on turn 54. Catwalk and waterbat are still at war, and things look like they're serious. Catwalk's power has spiked tremendously over the past few turns (he's had Iron Working for a while now, so Praets are definitely in play it seems). Serious enough that waterbat sent me this proposal.

Greetings Willem of China!


In-game proposals:
none

Diplomatic Extensions:
NAP until 77
Unit exchange:
India: 1 Fast Worker to be delivered to Chinese territory (Samus) by turn 65
China: 3 Archers to be delivered to Indian territory SE of Samus by turn 65

The exchange is slightly unfair by 8 hammers, but I'm not terribly worried about that, and if waterbat needs the held to fend off Catwalk I'm willing to go for it. Getting another worker is always welcome, even better it being a FW. Still, I gave a counter proposal that changed the turn deadline to turn 70 (getting archers to his territory by turn 65 is impossible) and added a border proposal for security purposes.

He gave his own border proposal asking to be allowed to settle the two desert hills in that image, a strange move given there are absolutely no resources, water or otherwise, around those sites, and his lack of Financial lowers the utility of running cottages there. But whatever, I'm fine with that and I'm confident I can win a culture war with pavilions in play. We accepted and I have archers on my way to his territory now. I have a scout that's currently inside his borders (some intel: waterbat settled on the stone for his second city, which makes sense given his Pyramid strategy.) so in a few turns I should have more information on the state of his conflict with Catwalk, if it has indeed started.

As for the site above, after sending the proposal I decided that, as much as I don't want to do it, I will probably end up settling right on the incense instead. it'd give me an instant extra happiness resource without having to immediately get calender and it'd give me a tile of production that the other site doesn't. Wasting a potential 7 commerce tile hurts, but I think the immediate benefits are more worthwhile right now. I'm prepared for people to kill me on this after this game is done if it turns out I'm dead wrong.

It's late so I won't say much more, so I'll just show my five cities with comments on what they're doing and why.

MARIO: Switching to Hamlet next turn. Will be working scientists to get a GS on turn 66, which will build an immediate academy, after which the city will build some workers and pump out as much research as possible until CS and Monarchy are done.

SONIC: Will switch to corn next turn. Whipped a courthouse already. Gonna be a settler/worker pump for the time being.

SAMUS: Other seafood resource hooked up next turn, after that it'll build a library, courthouse, and lighthouse. It will be taking advantage of that gold and Financial-boosted coast for lots of commerce.

KIRBY: Salivating at the production potential of this city. After whipping the courthouse (with overflow to barracks) it'll grow out and start pumping out units in preparation for HR and workers. Will have to keep unit maintenance in mind as it's starting to become an issue. Pre-HR with its food surplus it can eventually reach 19 hammers of production, and much more after that.

ICARUS: Newly formed. Intended to be a resource grab city, but will likely just end up working cottages and fighting a border war with Archduke. Two deer and grassland sheep are still a good source of surplus food and I can't complain about the 5 commerce fur. If I could secure the wine and silver it'd be gravy, so we'll see how things progress on this front.

And finally, post-T59 demos and charts on everyone sans Xenon.

That's some power by Catwalk.

[superjm]

Turn 62. Foreign trade routes are starting to show up. +2 with one of waterbat's cities in the capital instead of +1, with some finagling, should allow me to get into Buer-HR one turn sooner, which is welcome. Also have trade connections with Azza and Archduke. Azza has a bunch of the expected resources (including marble, which just so happened to be that spot next to the wheat in the tundra. No wonder Archduke settled there). Archduke on the other hand hasn't connected much of anything. Seems to be relying on religion for happiness.

Azza also has currency and has been building up gold for the past few turns presumably for a large research project. Civil Service? Could very well be that.

In other news, thanks to my handy scout we have some visibility on the Catwalk/waterbat front.

Catwalk's power dipped two turns ago. Looks like Catwalk lost a Praet to an axe. On the previous turn the damaged axe was on that same tile with two workers. Judging by the lack of healing, it appears that waterbat was covering those workers on the hill with the silver and Catwalk attempted to snipe them, but lost the battle. A shock-promoted Praet should have odds on a C1 axe on a hill, so Catwalk was probably unlucky. If he wanted Catwalk COULD declare on me and push that scout to that unclaimed tile to easily dispatch it but I don't know if he wants to do that. I'm not terribly concerned about the scout, just putting that forth as a possibility.

Xenon is still a wild card for me. I haven't seen his land at all, I'm just now putting EP into him for his charts, and exploring west with my scout shows no presence in the tundra. That could be an opportunity to exploit since Archduke choked me up on the east side, so that's definitely a spot to watch.