[PB59] Pindicator's One Thread to Rule Them All

[pindicator]

And the turn rolled shortly after, so

Turn 049, in the reckoning of the Shire

Mr. Bear, please leave me be




I don't think that is our same bear, having wandered the long way around our city.  The first bear, thankfully, looks to have died of old age.  Or wandered into the jungles north.

Worker turns actually should line up okay for my granaries; Right now borders pop end of t51.  That means the 2 workers at Brandybuck will connect the horses on t50, move to the pigs t51, improve the pigs 52 & 53, and then be ready to start on cottages t54.

The new worker down by Took will finish his road t50, chop the pre-chopped plains hill on 51 & 52, which will be the same turn we whip the settler at the capital.  This will give 54 hammers overflow for the granary.  The worker then roads towards the west with the new worker out of Took on 53 and 54, so we still do get to settle the new city on t54 - the difference is that Took delays its granary as it doesn't get the forest chop.  Perhaps Took can put out another worker instead?  I'll be at 4 workers and 4 cities, so I'll certainly need more workers.

[pindicator]

Turn 050, in the reckoning of the Shire

Bear

Bear!




Are there other wildlife around? Did the bears kill them all off?

Naturally I retreated my warriors. I'm not going to mess around with bears.

My latest warrior has gotten to the choke to my northwest, but I fear he won't go farther




Another bear!

Could this be the great bear invasion of the Shire?!

[pindicator]

Turn 052, in the Reckoning of the Shire

Pottery is done, and Brandybuck swapped immediately to a granary. The two workers up at Brandybuck started improving the pigs, as 3rd ring borders popped end of turn at the capital, and that city is shortly going to be working 3 very good tiles. I decided to aim for 4: Mysticism is the next tech, winning out over Writing. Decided the cheap border pop and happiness is worth more, especially since we'll be growing the capital tall very soon. With the monument +1 and the gold that will put us at a size 9 happiness cap at the capital.




This is the last time we whip our capital until it hits size 9. The chop combined with the 2-pop whip will give 55h overflow next turn. I'll spend the next 2 turns working the Corn and Ivory to finish the granary with 12 food in the tank, and then we work max food. The two workers that are improving the pig are going to be putting out a lot of riverside cottages after, and then chopping into a library.

Everything else is chugging along. The bears have retreated after their defeat in the northern jungles. Fog busting coverage is good, with a little gap in the west that we are moving a warrior to shore up right now.

[pindicator]

Turn 053, in the Reckoning of the Shire

Settler is out and plans have been made.




I took some time and actually did a bunch of micro, because we've got some puzzles to solve here with builds, city micro, and worker turns. It all got a bit overwhelming at times, honestly, and i had to keep reminding myself what the main goals were. Growing the capital to max size is goal #1, so the capital gets priority on all tiles and worker needs. Goal #2 went a bit more back and forth: do I spend more time improving the new city or in improving Took? In the end I decided the new city was a better plan, and Took is going to get the short shrift on food for now. However, once the new city gets its pig and clams online and once the capital reaches size 8, then we're going to have lots of food in Took again. That means this is a great time for Took to build its own granary, or perhaps another worker if I think that is better. I'm going with granary. But first: a work boat for the new city.

Still not entirely sure what to do with Brandybuck. It's going to be largely on its own once it gets the Pig improved, but it will have 3 really good tiles to work. Because of that I don't think it whips the granary until it gets to size 4. Yet maybe I should go earlier. When I was simming out possibilities for Chubb (the new city), I was originally thinking that i want to improve the copper and work that right away after the pig. And yet it is faster growth to just chop out the granary there straight after improving the pig, and ignoring the Copper until it hits size 3. Not what I intuitively would have thought.

Demos are pretty much near the bottom in mfg (24th) and gnp (23rd). Crop is slightly better at 16th. Lets see how that looks in 10 turns.

[pindicator]

Turn 054, in the Reckoning of the Shire

I've got a Chubb for you




Costs are up to 9gpt, which is a little less than I expected. This means I can start turning on research and be able to just squeeze out Mysticism a turn earlier than expected. This means the capital doesn't have to worry about unhappiness as it grows to max happy. It sadly does not mean I can get the gold a turn earlier, unless there is some magic in the worker turns that I've yet to uncover - it would require a chop regardless and I'm not sure I want to give that up quite yet.

[pindicator]

Turn 055, in the Reckoning of the Shire

Granaries make you do funny things to build them.




The capital finished its granary end of last turn.  At size 2 it was working the Corn and the Ivory to finish the granary in 2 turns and the Deer was going unworked, which seems just completely wrong in a vaccuum.  But because the capital is now at 15/24 food, it's going to get more food in the long run by building it this way than it would if I had worked the Corn and Deer to size 3 and then finished the granary.

Similarly, Brandybuck is now not working the Cow, opting to work the Pig and Horse this turn.  The reasoning here is the same, though we won't see the effects for a few turns.  The granary is going to be whipped there when it hits 30h, but I found that when that happened the city was going to be at 19/24 food.  That means it's better to set No Growth that turn and then let the city work the cow and pig with the granary bonus for a turn, getting double food a turn before letting it grow to size 3.  And so 2 food was going to be wasted because Pig+Cow= 7 food, putting me at 26/24 and then No Growth drops you back to the maximum of 24.  Because of that, we're taking this turn to use up that 2 extra food, exchanging the 4f2h cow for a 2f3h1c horse.

I know this is old stuff for the veterans out there, but I still get a kick out of how counter-intuitive it all still is, even after years of doing it.

Turned on the science in full, Mysticism comes end of t58

[pindicator]

Turn 056, in the Reckoning of the Shire

As you can see, there is a lot of excitement going on right now:




That little Cow-to-Horse swap last turn also lets me finish the warrior and with overflow we will end next turn at exactly 30/60 in the granary. Which was pretty cool for whipping in 2t, except I then decided that it was worth it to chop out a monument in Brandybuck at first opportunity - one turn earlier working the gold, one turn earlier growing the capital - and so we're actually going to end at 50/60. I'd consider not whipping at all, except we are going to need that overflow to 1-turn the monument on 59.

Demos show things are starting to improve:

[Lewwyn]

nice micro fun

[pindicator]

Turn 057, in the Reckoning of the Shire

Bear




After turns of dancing we finally have the setup with the bear that we've been waiting for. Our warrior has full fortify on a forested hill. These are the best odds we could possibly have. Will he survive? Tune in on next turn's edition of Man vs Bear.

nice micro fun 

Pure adrenaline

[pindicator]

Turn 058, in the Reckoning of the Shire

The Great Bear Wars rages on.




Bears: 1, Me: 1

I'm going to send my warrior over to clean up, but I am not going to have good fog busting coverage up north until I can get another warrior up here now. And we may not get to spare some because of developments out west:




My warrior on the western jungle has been healing since his victory against the bear 6 turns ago. But with Amicalola coming up with a spear, I decided to move my warrior up this turn rather than continue healing. Reason here is I want to gain a little more sight, to sit on a more defensive tile, and most importantly that if Amicalola is going to snipe my warrior then he needs to move his spear away from my territory and this will buy me an extra turn if he keeps pushing in to harass.

If he declares and kills my warrior then I need to tech Archery next. Otherwise I'll continue on to Writing. I may just need to stuff warriors into a city if things go that way. I'd rather not hook up my copper until I have my area fog busted... but we'll see.




Work boat has connected the crabs at Chubb. The surprising micro effect there was that it was better to chop and whip the granary rather than improve the copper first. But actually, maybe I want to bring a worker west and hook up the copper sooner just to get an axe out. Next turn will give me some more indication there. But if there is no aggression by Amicalola then the plan was to chop the hill and then that same worker would improve the Copper, which timed out to when Chubb regrew to 3 after whipping its granary.

Whipped the granary at Brandybuck this turn and set No Growth on that city as it will finish the turn at 24/24 food in the box. Capital continues to grow - it will jump a pop a turn for a couple turns now - and Took continues it's slow grind on a granary.

Writing is looking like end of t67 right now, later if we have to sneak in Archery first.