[SPOILERS] Charriu, chumchu, and Magic Science in Pitboss 45

[shallow_thought]

Just dropping by to wish you luck - in the case of Magic Science, much more than he got in PB40. And for Charriu, fewer backstabs by notional friends. I'm thoroughly spoiled, so am restricted to cheering from the sidelines, but ... go for it!

[Magic Science]

Turns 8 and 9 and 10
   
naufragar and Rusten met us on Turn 9. I expect that they will declare war to see into Babylon on their half of Turn 10, which I don’t mind much, but I will be very annoyed if they stay put on the corn for even a turn. That would force us to improve the cow first, but the best opening plan I have figured out so far has us improve the corn first. I hope my calm response to superdeath last game hasn’t convinced nausten that they can screw with me without consequences.

   
The weird land feature stretching off into the east makes me wonder if that land we saw from the gold hill is part of our continent after all, but that mystery can wait for later. Exploring our closer surroundings and figuring out where Lizard (the Japanese capital) is are more important. Next turn the scout moves two tiles southwest.

[Charriu]

Just dropping by to wish you luck - in the case of Magic Science, much more than he got in PB40. And for Charriu, fewer backstabs by notional friends. I'm thoroughly spoiled, so am restricted to cheering from the sidelines, but ... go for it!

It really didn't feel like a backstab at the time. I was already in loosing in a two front dogpile back then.

About the game: naufragar camping on our corn would really send a bad message towards us. More importantly they are most likely near by, which also the more reasons to scout their area and box them in while we have early bonuses like Cre and UU.

[Magic Science]

Turn 11 – 3560 CE
   
nausten made the friendly choice to stay on the edge of our culture, so it looks like our worker will get to start farming the corn next turn after all. Note that they actually do get vision into Babylon this way, because it is on a hill, which I somehow forgot last report.

[Magic Science]

Turns 12 to 17 – 3520 to 3320 BC
   
You have three guesses to figure out what general region the second city will be settled in, and the first two don’t count.

Nothing we have found so far can compete with a pig and wheat city to the south of the capital, but I am still not sure what specific tile is the best.

• A city one tile east of the pigs can be established on Turn 33. It has the most forests of any city in the area, but no river access. Babylon’s corn is outside of its BFC, so there could not be any sharing, but I don’t think that Babylon is a strong enough capital to be able to afford to give up the corn very much anyway.
• A city one tile north of the wheat works the weaker wheat tile instead of the pig for the first few turns, but it can also be settled the fastest (on Turn 32), which has a foodhammer value of its own, and it has four riverside tiles.
• I think that a city one tile northwest of the wheat is the worst of both worlds. It can’t be founded until Turn 33, and it lacks both the river to the east, except for one tile, and the hills to the south.

Back at the capital, I am sure that all the unreliable lurkers know that the Japanese scout went on its merry way and didn’t bother us at all, so the worker was able to farm the corn like I wanted. You can chalk that one up to my terrifying reputation, don’t let whatever naufragar and Rusten are saying in their thread trick you into thinking otherwise. The worker’s next task is to moove over to pasture the cows, and then… then it gets more complicated and uncertain.

Lastly, the scout moved forward and found this:
   
You can bet he is thanking Krill Almighty right about now. Instead of being a certain goner like in the old days, he will probably live, which is especially good because of how interesting the region he just discovered is.

[Charriu]

Interesting stuff. My first question is, can you see any culture from japan on the edges, maybe even via the global view?

I agree with you that a city by the pig and wheat does not necessarily need to share the corn. We could leave that corn to any potential city in the west. My first thought was settling on the desert 1S of the pig:

• It also can be settled in T33 just like 1E of the pig.
  
• It converts the desert tile into a usable tile.
  
• It can spread irrigation to the wheat tile with just one additional farm. This safes on cottaged river tiles. Although I'm not sure that a city on a desert tile spreads irrigation. This needs testing. But if not it can still receive irrigation via 1SW of corn and 2S of corn.
  
• It gets 7 forests, one less then 1E of pig
  
• It too gets 4 river tiles and the 3 hills.
  
• It has more grasland tiles compared to 1E of pig.
  
• This may also give us more land towards the potential japanese position.
  

[Magic Science]

I have checked every turn, and so far there has been no sign of Japanese culture, even with the global view.

About settling on the desert: I should have thought of that, thanks for bringing it up.

I see two main problems with that location. One, it is two tiles beyond the capital’s thrid ring culture, so animals could delay us unless we stop exploring and use the scout as an escort unit. Two, it takes three road segments to establish a trade connection with the capital, and we do not have enough worker turns to build that many roads before Turn 33, so we will need to choose between delaying the roads and losing commerce or delaying the pasture and losing food. None of the other spots have this problem, since they can be linked with only one or two roads.

Another thing to consider is that working the pig first isn’t actually better than working the wheat first. Assuming that a worker can start improving the chosen food resource as soon as the city is founded and that we start by growing and whipping a garden to completion, the pig-first cities will have one more food, two less hammers, and three less commerce on Turn 41 (the turn that the pig is improved in the wheat-first plan) because of that extra turn before they are settled.

About irrigation: cities can spread irrigation across deserts, but so can farms. No matter where we settle, the needed desert and plains will be in our culture long before Civil Service, and we won’t need to waste a river tile on a farm.

[Commodore]

You can't farm deserts, by the way.

[Charriu]

One, it is two tiles beyond the capital’s thrid ring culture, so animals could delay us unless we stop exploring and use the scout as an escort unit.

If animals stand in our way, we could still settle 1E of the pig, as this will mostly likely be the way to the desert anyway. Yes the city needs more roadwork, but on the other hand it will have enough food to take advantage of the full BFC.

[Magic Science]

Turns 18 and 19 – 3280 and 3240 BC
Speak of the devil…
   
There is Japanese culture to the west and northwest of the riverside desert hill, which indicates that there are eleven tiles between Lizard and Babylon. I think that the new floodplains region is too close to nausten for us to contest, but securing a city to the east of the rice and oasis may be possible.