[PB59 SPOILERS] Cornflakes comes along for the ride

[Cornflakes]

[...] or Math bulb

You may be wondering "why bulb a cheap tech like Math, when you could build and Academy for the long term instead?" ... In this game, Math costs 540 beakers due to difficulty and map size which is already a lot more than the 400-ish of a typical small/Monarch game. Breakeven research is 19 bpt now and will optimistically double to about 40 bpt by the time I could research Maths, for a 14-turn research timeline. Currency is behind math and costs about 700 beakers this game. The Academy would be worth about 10 bpt at breakeven rate, or 20 at full burn.

The advantage of bulbing Math is that I can use my treasury of saved gold to burn through Currency instead of Math, and thus speed up Currency by about 14 turns ... which equates to 300 additional commerce from the extra trade routes. Overall the Academy would take about 30-40 turns to return the amount of combined Math beakers + extra TR commerce. Additionally, I could follow up Currency with Calendar and may a play for MoM which would be sped up 10T overall compared to the Academy play ... AND I can still build an Academy with a 2nd GScientist for the long-term beakers.

[Lewwyn]

[...] or Math bulb

You may be wondering "why bulb a cheap tech like Math, when you could build and Academy for the long term instead?" ... In this game, Math costs 540 beakers due to difficulty and map size which is already a lot more than the 400-ish of a typical small/Monarch game. Breakeven research is 19 bpt now and will optimistically double to about 40 bpt by the time I could research Maths, for a 14-turn research timeline. Currency is behind math and costs about 700 beakers this game. The Academy would be worth about 10 bpt at breakeven rate, or 20 at full burn.

The advantage of bulbing Math is that I can use my treasury of saved gold to burn through Currency instead of Math, and thus speed up Currency by about 14 turns ... which equates to 300 additional commerce from the extra trade routes. Overall the Academy would take about 30-40 turns to return the amount of combined Math beakers + extra TR commerce. Additionally, I could follow up Currency with Calendar and may a play for MoM which would be sped up 10T overall compared to the Academy play ... AND I can still build an Academy with a 2nd GScientist for the long-term beakers.

Good thoughts, does this mean you've settled on the going for the math bulb?

[Cornflakes]

Math bulb is currently the most-likely path, but I reserve my right to change at the last moment

Speaking of changing plans  ... I accidentally whipped the granary at Poverty Point instead of the settler. The good news is that I was strongly considering this as an alternative path last turn. This will be a 5-turn delay to the wine-island timing, but regrowth of PP + Mound City (which I'll whip for granary ahead of the galley now) will be much quicker. The snowball picks up quicker with the granary builds ahead of wine-island, at the risk of Jowy settling and popping borders over that island in the 5-turn delay.

As of next turn I'll have granaries in 4/6 cities, and I am chopping into the granary at Snaketown right now. The only city without a granary will be the capital and I'm trying to figure out when that makes sense. Side note - I like the Native American city names so far, they are a naming scheme in themselves. I checked the WiKi and from here the names change from [ADJECTIVE] + [GEOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTOR] to mostly native words. I intend to carry the naming scheme forward with the adjective + descriptor scheme. Some other cities further down the NA WiKi list:

• Casa Grande
  
• Five Finger Ridge
  
• Puye Cliff
  
• Montezuma Castle
  
• Angel Mounds
  

Some more that I stole from Civ 2 (Sioux):

• Little Bighorn
  
• Wounded Knee
  
• Cedar Creek
  
• Slim Buttes
  
• Three Forks
  
• Stony Lake
  
• Dead Buffalo
  
• Point of Rocks
  
• Pine Ridge
  
• Standing Rock
  
• Eagle Butte
  
• Turtle River
  
• White Earth
  
• Buffalo Gap
  
• Deer Creek
  
• Wind River
  
• Clear Water
  
• Oil Springs [Civ 3 Iroquois] 
  

Some more stolen from landmarks that I recall, or possibly stolen from Oregon Trail:

• Crazy Horse
  
• Death Valley
  
• Pike's Peak
  
• Garden of the Gods
  
• Alcove Spring
  
• Windlass Hill
  
• Courthouse Rock
  
• Chimney Rock
  
• Sweetwater River
  
• Independence Rock
  
• Devil's Gate
  
• Soda Springs
  

That would get me to 40 cities, which is more empire than I want to control but probably realistic for the winner ... based on my starting territory, 40 cities would be less than 3 civs-worth of land or 12-ish% of the map.

[Cornflakes]

Jowy is still at war with Piccadilly, and his power is now spiking. He is still only on 3 cities, while I have 7 and Ichabod has 6. Unfortunately for Jowy I don’t think he will be able to climb higher than “food tier”

Writing completes end of turn at 10%. Im down to 30% break even research, but my first cottage grows into a hamlet this turn! And I’ll start working the gold mine in 2 turns so that will be a nice boost.

[Cornflakes]

Jowy didn't fogbust his lands, and a barbarian is now waving an axe on his border ...

   

Oops.

Also note that my plans changed and I'm not settling wine-island now. Open Borders have been signed with multiple people and my trade routes are filled out with foreign trade. Therefore I will be saving the production from the galley and settle the higher-value MAGENTA dot. Clams are immediately available, and grass-forest-deer will be picked up by the CRE border pop. Mound City will build the library instead and run scientists for the Math bulb. Scientist will be born around T82. I'll have Libraries in most cities for +25% science, and enough gold in the bank to complete Currency.

[Cornflakes]

I was confused by Jowy’s Masonry research, but he’s following it up with Monotheism ... and I don’t think he even has fishing yet! I’ll try to remember to check the trade screen, but research visibility showed him saving gold on fishing for a long time, then turning on tech for Masonry.

My own Masonry research is for connecting stone to build Hanging Gardens for the GEngineer points, and then marble for MoM. I’m using the scientist beakers while waiting for the Math bulb and saving gold for Currency.

[Lewwyn]

Do you have new cities?

[Cornflakes]

Do you have new cities?

Yes, two new cities on the far west and east peninsulas bringing me to a total of 9. And I'm still at 40% breakeven!

   

I hired the two scientists last turn so I will be bulbing Math on T83. I will chop out Hanging Gardens primarily for the GEngineer points, but the pop will be nice since I'll have 10-11 cities and I've been suppressing growth everywhere. Currency will complete in about 7 turns after the bulb, or approximately T90. Then Calendar for a couple happiness resources and MoM, at which point I'll have another scientist to launch a GA, or wait a couple turns to unlock Caste System at the start of the GA.

Frozen (Babylon) settled the Pig-island to the west. That is a juicy claim to stack. I had a galley ready to whip when it was founded so I contemplated sniping the the 2 warriors and razing or capturing, but decided to continue on my current peaceful development vector.

[Cornflakes]

2 turns from Math bulb. I'm still at 40% research rate and 2nd in GNP at 0%. At current breakeven bpt the Math bulb will be worth 10 turns of research, plus 10 turns of Currency commerce (an additional 10 * 9 * 2 = 180 => additional 5 turns of breakeven). This ignores the natural growth over those 15 turns as well as the opportunity cost of 10-turn delay to the Academy: 12 bpt if running 100% slider for those turns, but 7 turns is more accurate with the treasury when the GScientist will be born => 3 turns if rounded up. So the discounted benefit of the bulb is roughly 8-10 turns for Currency and the following techs. That is approximately equivalent to the turns saved by bulbing a later more expensive tech, but earlier speed is better for the snowball.

I have been strapped for time lately so I apologize for the lacking screenshots. But here is a text update on the foreign intelligence and C&D front:
• My current contacts include Ichabod, Jowy, AT, Piccadilly, and Frozen/Dulland ... 5/24 rivals.
• I have OB with all rivals so I don't need my own island city(ies) to get 2c routes, and half of my cities currently have 3c routes from my rivals' island cities.
• Jowy and Ichabod appear to each have a starting "blob" with just 2 land neighbors, similar to me. My scout is just starting to explor Piccadilly.
• Marble and stone are abundant on the map and assumed to be readily available to everyone
• two rivals know Masonry, one of which is confirmed to be Jowy
• Jowy founded Judaism last turn in his city that borders Piccadilly. I find the early investment in religion to be questionable for an AGG/CRE Byzantium which starts in a tech hole and still doesn't have Fishing unlocked at T82! But at least that gives Piccadilly and Jowy a Bone of Contention to growl over.
• I continue investing EP into Jowy about 3 turns out of 4 to keep research visibility. Ichabod continues investing EP into me probably trying to achieve research visibility, so the odd turn goes into Ichabod in order to keep his graphs.
• I'm currently 6th in food on the demographics playing against 8 IMP rivals and 5 CRE rivals, while running 4 scientist specialists.

Map Theory: Donut-of-Donuts

   

My starting dounut is boxed in red, and then copied 5x for 25 players total. I'm 90% sure I remember seeing a Frozen scout on land in Jowy's territory indicating that we are connected by land. AT met us from the northeast by a very early workboat indicating that he is close, but clearly not connected by land to Jowy or I.

In this theory, each of us in our dounut is separated by a tiny wine-island on the center sea-spoke, and a slightly larger fur-island on the outer spoke. In the center of each donut there is a "goodie" island with a unique-to-the-donut calendar resource. In our case Frozen settled the goodie-island, but my city of Wounded Knee claims the incense via CREative border pop and will be able to maintain control with a cheap library. Presumably the other donuts have a mix of different resources on those islands so that we can trade across the seas with different donuts later in the game, while having access to a limited number of the overall resource types earlier in the game.

What jumps out to me here is that nearly every city on the map will be coastal and there are a ton of islands. Each of the 5 donuts had 16 islands for 80 island cities total oof, what a slog to capture all those. Culture victory will be difficult due to the abundance of coast and scarcity of inland cities. But ultimately a large and prosperous nation is the long-term goal, and the specifics of victory can be brought into focus based on how the game develops.

[Cornflakes]

Mathematics is bulbed

   

   

Currency in 6, EOT 89.

   

We meet some new neighbors-of-neighbors. I'm not sure how far Naufrager's galley traveled, but he has not met Ichabod yet so he is certainly not a close neighbor. There is also purple tile-bleed to the west which as best guess appears to be Roman colors.