[PB 64] Ginger plays as Charlemagne, famed man of letters

[Ginger()]

As such I'm already counting chickens and planning ahead. Astronomy will be necessary on this map at some point, and as protective it'll be fairly easy to get a 4-promo unit, so Literature is looking very appealing.

I presume that you are thinking about Heroic Epic, when you talk about 4-promo unit, right? But you do realize that the requirement for that national wonder is a level 4 unit not a 4-promo unit.

What’s the distinction? How many promotions is level 4?

[Charriu]

Promotions are not an indication of levels. With PRO an archer starts on level 1, but receives 2 promos thanks to PRO. The one thing you need is a 10 XP unit.

[Thoth]

The one thing you need is a 10 XP unit.

Simply having 10/10 xp isn't enough. The unit needs to have used it's 3 promotions in order to become level 4.

[Cornflakes]

The reason I mention this is that when I was looking through past PBs for similar Machinery beelines, I found that Cornflakes tried a similar strategy with a hammer economy in PB43, seeking to wealth-build his way to Guilds, and he wrote that he regretted not translating the MFG lead into troops at an earlier tech milestone than Knights. We'll see how the circumstances change, but that's the current shakedown of priorities.

PB43 was a fun game. I was IND but focussed on the forge bonus as the primary aspect of that game and hardly even considered any wonders. I still think high hammer games are viable (preferred?) on low luxury low food maps, but keep in mind that this was an RtR game with nerfed whips.

[Ginger()]

The reason I mention this is that when I was looking through past PBs for similar Machinery beelines, I found that Cornflakes tried a similar strategy with a hammer economy in PB43, seeking to wealth-build his way to Guilds, and he wrote that he regretted not translating the MFG lead into troops at an earlier tech milestone than Knights. We'll see how the circumstances change, but that's the current shakedown of priorities.

PB43 was a fun game. I was IND but focussed on the forge bonus as the primary aspect of that game and hardly even considered any wonders. I still think high hammer games are viable (preferred?) on low luxury low food maps, but keep in mind that this was an RtR game with nerfed whips.

This map is definitely low luxury low food, though luxuries are typically a non-function after Monarchy. I guess they're hammer savers? 
Yeah, this strategy is definitely about trying to adapt to what the map has given.

---

New city time 

   
Dune is a dry but rich city, the wheat and pig will eventually power all the plains hills and some odd bits of cottaging here and there. Likely candidate for Heroic Epic.


   
Always post demos after settling new cities 

[Ginger()]

I moved my worker 1N of Pillars of the Earth instead of to the forest 2S of Dune. Not chopping delays the workboat and fogbusting warriors by up to 4 turns.
Idk how strict the criteria for misclick reload awarding is, but we've had very good turnpace and no turn currently active splits.

[Mjmd]

Generally early its a little looser, but typically you should post a picture showing the miss click.

[Ginger()]

   
Choo Choo we be chugging along. PRO/IMP on monarch is a treat.

Superdeath kindly obliged and built henge, giving us 24 gold from Pillars of the Earth, which has now begun work on what will be our 6th city. With Imperialistic cutting the cost and too little food to run through a Granary, settler feels like the best investment. I also met SD this turn, hoping to hoover up more KTB, but I think I end up giving him more than I get since I'm researching Priesthood -> Metal Casting. 

The big news is we've settled our 4th city, (A Wizard of) Earthsea, 
   
What made the book special for me was a combination of how original and new it was plus the density of the writing, fitting so much story into a concise length and not wasting breath or breadth. I should probably read it again; it's been long enough and won't take me too long.
The name felt thematically appropriate for this city, naming our future Moai site after a watery fantasy archipelago world. Additionally, this city should also be able to squeeze a lot from just a few tiles of land.

[Ginger()]

   
New city with, named for this book:
   

Revelation Space, combined with its prequel The Prefect, are two of my favorite sci-fi books for depicting the interaction of same-old-humans with technology. They're very fun and satisfying plot-driven reads while having enough world-building teeth to avoid feeling like action or military fiction. Some series like Foundation or Dune try to explore how people change or societies get shaped by magical new advancements (and regressions), but Revelation Space takes a simpler approach, keeping humans static, but opening up a wide variety of plausible new tools for them to use, and hijinks ensue. If I had to criticize it, it would be because the humans really are static. The characters largely don't change and outside of just a few (this gets better in The Prefect) tend to be largely boring. However, the sheer joy of watching them interact with the incredibly diverse world he sets up is enough fun to compensate. His short stories like Great Wall of Mars and Diamond Dogs, are truly excellent because they manage to explore the plot device (often a literal device or discovery), without the weightier expectations a full novel brings on for characterization or development.

Back to earth civ, here is the rather ambitious settling plan:
   
I'm going to try and forward-settle Superdeath to claim these hills and the two stupid sheep. The slow growth means they'll need a long time to pay off, even if they do eventually become productive members of our society, they threaten to be an exposed liability. Maybe I should sit tight on eight cities and tech to a suitable milestone for putting Comm out of his misery. That would give me a path into Nauf in the midgame but then I'm relying on either Amica or SD to counterbalance Gav's massive tracts of land. The trouble is that Superdeath and Gav (I give Gav 80% odds to win this game given the map layout) have so much damn land to expand into, and these hills will be very hard to expand across in the mid game. 

The biggest problem though is I think I will lose Oracle to Gavagai. He just researched a tech two turns ago, and it didn't show up on my KTBs (unless I somehow missed it), so it has to be something I've already researched. Additionally, his MFG is spiking as if he was hard-building. Oh well I knew the risk when I decided to spice up the game and gamble on Oracle instead of GLH. I shouldn't be surprised, in the last game he reported, PB55, Gav spoke at length about how he thought wonders like Oracle were too valuable to be going so late.

[Ginger()]

Okay it looks like I will only be settling 8 cities before conflict this game. Once I've slaved in the granaries/lighthouses, I'll be able to swap to serfdom.
That's the fundamental problem I have, the timing on serfdom is really poor for early wars where unit count is largely CY not MFG. For a quick smash and grab with catapults I would need food and whip, but this map doesn't seem rich enough for that.
I just have to cross my fingers and hope my opponents have similar limitations to face.
The research of Metal Casting is also proceeding much slower than I would prefer, I shudder to think of the game plan if I miss Oracle*. An Engineer would cost 68 food (I wish I was PHI and could do something fancy here but alas) and the uneven distribution of land is just too much to overcome if I can't move quickly.

*probably going to end up being something with Shock Axes   
Oh yeah, did I mention I got the event for axes receiving shock some time ago?