[SPOILERS] Yuris125 tries to win a game of Civ5 before it fades away

[yuris125]

T11

The big news actually happened on T10, which unfortunately went unreported, as I played it at 2:30am




T10 is a little earlier than I expected, but that's mostly because 2-Scout openings have been my default for a while now. Nicolae's timing is consistent with opening Scout into Stele, which is certainly a reasonable play. Culture from pastures seems to be the obvious choice on this map, there's plenty of livestock around. Glad to see great minds thinking alike; not glad to see my first choice pantheon no longer available

Onto T11. HAK had a Warrior in position to take the hut I was hoping to steal. But I found another one a little off the side to the east, and popped it this turn




Great result - pop to size 4 is 22 food for free

Otherwise, not much happened. Finished the Monument, started on the third Scout. Realised that my calculations giving me Collective Rule on T23 had an error where I counted culture from one turn twice. Forget about that estimate please, read all prior mentions of T23 as T24 :P

Tentative dotmap I promised looks like this

The south:




Orange dot is a good choice for the second city. Settling on the gold is the best way to make use of the resource tile itself, as flatland desert gold tile will never be worth working otherwise, even improved. This is the best spot from landgrabbing point of view, the most pointing towards the middle of the map

The southern gold may be a better second city, as it's more geared towards securing border with HAK. That gold is about equidistant from our capitals, and I would like to claim it as early as possible. The two gold cities will definitely be the first two cities, the only question is which one I should settle first. The spot of the southern gold is undecided as well; blue dot is a better spot, but cyan dot gives access to gold immediately. Will depend on happiness situation

I do realise that settling non-unique luxuries is a lot worse in MP than in SP, but confident it's still worthwhile, and it is not impossible to set up lux for lux trade in MP. Lux for cash is a lot less realistic of course

The north:




Yellow dot is the only spot which is set in stone, as it is the only viable way to claim the pearls. It is 4 tiles away from the capital and 4 tiles away from Mombasa, there's pretty much nowhere to move it unless I want to settle on the deer 2N (which I don't)

The furs region in the west is the one I'm least certain about. The plan shown is the most ambitious one, and it does take advantage of all resources. On the flip side, green dot has no unique luxury, and magenta dot has a lot of overlap with Hanoi (with Hanoi likely stealing best tiles before I can settle it). I'm not quite sure this area is good enough for two cities in general, and it would be possible to claim all resources with one city by settling on the furs - but that would put most resources in the third ring and the city 1 off the coast (less relevant in Civ5 because you pretty much never want to work the coast, Lighthouse or no, but still relevant because see trade routes rule). There is also a nagging thought that Hanoi would be a fine addition to my empire, and capturing it may be worthwhile

I will decide on this area after revealing more tiles, but for the moment I do want to plan for two cities here, because more cities = more Temples and more faith

Also pictured above - Nicolae's Scout. I wonder if he stole some of my huts as I stole HAK's. He definitely stole my 15g by meeting Hanoi before me

If I follow this plan, settling priority will be two southern dots, then magenta, then yellow. Green without a unique luxury and safely in my territory is very low, and is likely to be overtaken by other options as I scout more

Overview shot. HAK's border is hard to see, it extends to the plains incense in the SE corner, but not to the desert incense

[yuris125]

Calendar popped a turn early. I checked last turn and was one beaker short. Wonder where that beaker came from?

Thought long and hard about switching to Stonehenge immediately and decided that Scout was important enough to finish it. So Stonehenge starts next turn. ETA T25 unless my math fails horribly (again)

Research went to AH next. I have less money than expected at the start of the game, so buying an Archer is still a distant prospect, whereas AH will help me finalise city spots, and if I have plains horses in the capital (a 1/2 tile), I will be able to work it instead of bare hill and have an extra food

[chumchu]

Probably it came from pop growth. The game evaluates food and growth before the other yields so you get the science/production/gold of the new population you grew instantly.

[yuris125]

T13

Stonehenge ordered! Micro (really basic compared to what other guys are capable of, but better than nothing):




I need 16 food to grow to 5, meaning I can work 1-food sheep over 2-food silk for 2 turns without slowing growth down. Next turn I will also get an extra hammer from Republic

So: 1 hammer of overflow, 9 hammers this turn, 10 hammers next turn, then 8 hammers for 4 turns until I grow to size 5. 52 hammers by then, 71 remaining

At size 5, I can ditch the silk and work the sheep and the hill (or the horse if it's on plains). This will give me 12 hpt = 6 more turns

So, I need 12 turns overall, completing Stonehenge on T25, as I said yesterday Now let's wait and see where I made a mistake this time 




This is funny. Natural movement of my units lined them up this way - Warrior is returning to the capital for defence, Scout is going SW for.. well.. scouting. But the way their paths crossed, this sends a strong message to Nicolae  




In NW, it turned out that the coast curves, and the land ends. This makes the magenta/green dot plan from earlier more realistic, but less ambitious - it's basically backfill now. Hopefully those Scouts I sent out bring news of more settlable land towards the middle of the map

[yuris125]

Probably it came from pop growth. The game evaluates food and growth before the other yields so you get the science/production/gold of the new population you grew instantly.

Would've made sense, but I didn't have natural growth that turn - last time my pop increased was from the hut. Presumably the game would've accounted for that in research display?

Thanks!

[T-hawk]

unless I want to settle on the deer 2N (which I don't)

If it's grassland deer, settling on it actually isn't bad, you get the third food from the deer under the city once you build a granary.  But yeah, your yellow dot looks like the only way to do this here.

(with Hanoi likely stealing best tiles before I can settle it).

What best tiles?  Hanoi will get the wheat soon, but other than that, there's nothing you care about in overlap between the sites, just plain forest.


Calendar a turn early - this can happen if someone else researched it between your turns and dropped your cost, since your production phase happens at the beginning of your own turn, after everyone else has played.  (Not a spoiler, I haven't been paying attention to techs in anyone's threads.)

[yuris125]

If it's grassland deer, settling on it actually isn't bad, you get the third food from the deer under the city once you build a granary.  But yeah, your yellow dot looks like the only way to do this here.

Will check when in-game, but pretty sure deer is on plains. Also chances are that I will take food from camps as the pantheon, so yellow dot will have more food in the long run (although faster start would be nice)

What best tiles?  Hanoi will get the wheat soon, but other than that, there's nothing you care about in overlap between the sites, just plain forest.

Yeah, I was thinking about the wheat, but I wasn't getting that anyway There's certainly a lot of plains on this map...

Calendar a turn early - this can happen if someone else researched it between your turns and dropped your cost, since your production phase happens at the beginning of your own turn, after everyone else has played.  (Not a spoiler, I haven't been paying attention to techs in anyone's threads.)

Suspected as much. Thought I would get Calendar ahead from everyone because of higher pop than others, but oledavy actually has the same pop and could've easily researched Calendar before me, and there are huts as well. Can only hope there's no Stonehenge competition... I could've gotten it earlier by skipping the third Scout, and think I can speed it up by a turn by starving the city, but I really want to be at size 5 when growth stops for Settler builds

Thanks for the comments T-hawk!

[yuris125]

T15

Apparently I forgot to take screenshots of the map. Important news is that I found sugar to the south of Hanoi. Every unique luxury is worth mentioning of Civ5 Hopefully I will be able to settle there, but there's a possibility of that territory being contested with Nicolae; I didn't find him yet, but he has to be relatively close and in that direction. Hopefully I will have more news over the weekend, and I will remember to press the button this time

For now, let's talk about screenshots I did take, which give some insight on international situation




The first number which stands out is population. Specifically HAK's population. He's the only one not to grow the capital beyond size 2 (there are 2 players with size 4 caps, myself and presumably oledavy, others have size 3 cap), and this has to be intentional - natural growth has to happen by T15 if you work any kind of reasonable tiles. I would've suspected he was building a Settler at size 2, but he also has worst MFG. So yeah... I'm sure he has a plan, but so far I'm struggling to understand it

The other notable thing is Nicolae's numbers. Seeing his highest MFG made me worried that he may be competing for Stonehenge, certainly would make sense for him to go for it. However, the interesting number is crop yield. As I said, I believe he has 3 pop in the capital, and 4 crop yield is not enough to support it. My guess is, he's using a Settler using starvation loophole. Numbers are consistent with working two 1/2 tiles and a bare hill, which would not be unreasonable. I'm not too worried if that's the case; when I chose to go for Stonehenge, I knew by second city was going to be late. I plan to be on 4 cities by T40, and expect to be ahead of everyone by then. But Nicolae does have his pick of second city location, so one can only hope he doesn't settle towards me

The worrying thing is that I'm only 3rd in MFG. There's someone else who has 9 or 10 production. I haven't met that "someone" yet, so no idea what they're doing. Not that I can do anything if I'm in competition for Stonehenge, I can't speed it up without starving the city, and I don't think worth starving it, because it needs to grow as much as possible before switching to Settlers. Especially not without being certain the wonder is at risk




First policy choices are known, both Nicolae and HAK went Tradition. Not surprising, it is the default choice after all




HAK does have a lot of gold. Guess he popped some? The real question is, what is he going to do with it? He can't be saving up for a Worker, he doesn't have enough income to get it in a reasonable time. Buying an Archer could be a good play?

[yuris125]

T16

The horses




On grassland, not on plains. And not inside the borders just yet (expansion due in 3 turns). Looks like I can't avoid having to work that bare hill. The other copy is in range on Yellow dot, albeit in 3rd ring, but hopefully will be inside the borders by the time I need it

The sugar




Here it is, and I suspected, there's also Nicolae's border. I'm going to hope there's a chance to settle on the marked spot, but considering I suspect Nicolae is going to get a Settler out much earlier than me, the spot between two sugars seems perfect for his second city. Of course, I don't know what else he has available, but I would settle that in a blink. We'll see

Finally, here's an isthmus I found in the east




This is clearly HAK's natural territory, and as it has no luxuries, I'm unlikely to contest it. Scout is going to heal up, then I might send him and the Warrior to clear that barb camp. I hope Mombasa issues a quest before I kill it, but I do need 50g from clearing it sooner rather than later

Research went to Mining, don't believe the screenshots. Doesn't really matter, I need Archery and Mining as the next two techs in any case. The only question was which one I was going to get first, and I think the chance of needing Mining in the next 5 turns is higher than needing Archery

[T-hawk]

What is the quantity of horses shown on that horse tile?