[Spoilers] rho21 follows the works of Homer... D'OH!

[rho21]

Aztec military strength is starting to get pretty scary! Is that all he's been building, full stop? That scale of investment has to be with intent to actually capture, rather than merely raid, a city-state, surely?

Yeah, no other production, I think. Remember that he will have been getting builders out of his special ability, probably a couple of them by now. I agree that there will be plans there to take a city state: easier to grow that way than to build a settler! Even more likely that both are planned.

Still, that's what the gameplan for Aztec has to be as their biggest advantages are concentrated in the early game. We expect them to get big early, the question is whether they can make use of that advantage to reach dominance.

Good job with the careful scouting - but happening to have found an unexpected first-time city state is still only a justification after the fact for over-scouting!

I approve of the extra slinger at home before the Campus push as detailed, though let's be honest it still won't save you if somehow the Aztecs do appear out of the fog in the next dozen turns or so!

Fortunately, I agree that's fairly unlikely to actually happen.

The slinger should give me a bit more warning too. Pythagoras has an excellent position for defence and can produce units quickly. My biggest concern right now is having sufficient defence for the campus itself, which will be a little exposed until I have another city in that direction. I'm intending to have a scouting cordon in place before long to prevent any unwelcome surprises.

Turn 22's image appears broken, by the way.

Not to me. I'll have a look from work and see if it's just my computer it's working from.

[rho21]

Turn 23

Score tracking:
Aztec lost 12 points of CQUI military score last turn. Either a lot of fighting or a big purchase.
Egypt and Kongo have both gained a second city this turn. Given military power, I'm pretty sure Kongo's was from a disguised settler. I can see approximately where one of them is: the marble a few squares SE of Valletta is now red on settler view.

Kongo's second city is called Frikandel; their capital has been renamed to Patatje Oorlog. My extremely limited understanding of Dutch suggests this is a food theme of some sort. Perhaps they will turn out to be a tasty snack in 50 turns or so.

Scouting:
The warrior runs into another barb camp on the route home, complete with warrior and damaged spearman. Looks as though Hong Kong has been fighting it. Time for some kill stealing!

Housekeeping:
The pantheon choice is available this turn; Yerevan does indeed give us first pick. I'm tempted by God of the Forge, just to produce a bunch of extra from my early chops. It doesn't feel right though when I'm neither particularly threatened (currently) nor planning an early rush. Hopefully someone else will take it before Aztec grabs it fourth.

Goddess of the Harvest it is. May the ideal of slash and burn farming ever inspire the Greek people to greatness.

[rho21]

And we're back.

Turn 24

Score tracking: Kongo jumped 13 military strength this turn. Given how low it was previously, I'm guessing this was promotion healing rather than a new unit.
I have the first domestic tourist. I'm decidedly not ahead in the culture stakes, but I believe this counts inspirations; each domestic tourist is 100 total culture. The boost for mysticism carried me over that line by about 15. I expect we'll see the others getting one soon (unless they've not met three city states yet).

Scouting:
Sadly, Hong Kong has cleared the barbarian camp I found last turn. Oh well, perhaps I'll get the kill on the warrior. Not hopeful, there were sounds of fighting after I hit next turn.
I've sent the new slinger to clear a little fog N of Pythagoras before it heads around to escort the builder.

Housekeeping:
Slinger done, builder due in 6. This should drop to 5 if I institute Ilkum when Craftsmanship is done. I'm a little torn on this, as I'm not planning to build more builders immediately, so it'll be worth all of 6.2 . The alternative is to keep Discipline in play for the advantage fighting barbarians. It's going to be a while until another civic finishes though (particularly if I can't find a second continent), so perhaps it's not a bad idea anyway. A few turns until I need to decide.

[rho21]

Turn 25

Score tracking:
Egypt increased population and finished a second civic, while Kongo increased population (in the capital) and finished a tech.

Scouting:
As suspected, the city states finished off the southern barbarians. Oh well, on to the northern camp (with a little exploration on the way). I wonder if I'm going to need to farm that for three kills.

Housekeeping:
New city founded, marble quarried, masonry boosted. That essentially doubles my culture rate (1.6 -> 3.0), though that will drop briefly again if I work the 3 food tile for quicker growth in the new city.
The city starts on a warrior as that will be done before the scouting warrior can get back there anyway. This lets me send the existing warrior off to the SW shortly to pick up contacts and more importantly hopefully find a new continent. The foreign trade boost would be huge right now.

Writing done next turn. Also I will be at 19.7/40 on Craftsmanship, so will need to switch. Unless it seems better to waste a turn's culture to get the new policies quicker. I believe that would be 2.7 for 4.7 . Probably not quite worth it.

Anyway, in the immortal words of Humphrey Bogart, here's looking at Euclid:

[Garath]

While it's a beautiful long-term city, the lack of 4-foodhammer tiles does mean Euclid is not going to be particularly quick off the mark, to the point where it would almost certainly have been the wrong city to build had there not been the two charges left on the original builder. Even then, extra builder labour for mines may be more important than usual?

I'm not completely certainly I follow what you're talking about with the culture. Is the issue that completing it with the boost won't have overflow while completing it with a turn after the boost will?

[rho21]

Euclid should be fine thanks to the builder, and has enough production to make its own builder before long. I wouldn't really want to have moved the settler much further afield. It also boosts my culture significantly. Would have

I'm a bit short on quick-starting city sites all round. I suspect there's a site south of Euclid near the warrior which might be a good choice for city 3 (though it's a bit far away). However to help defend the campus from passing units, I'd really like a city at or near the marked C3 site. Again, that one will need a load of builder labour to get up to full productivity. Hrm.

I'm a little worried about the capital's short- and long-term production. It's going to be down to two 4+ foodhammer tiles once the campus is placed. A worthwhile sacrifice, but still a bit painful. There are a couple that will be the next two tiles from the picker (but that's going to take a while) then there aren't any more ever. I imagine I will need to work the dyes for a bit in the short-term. In the longer term I'm expecting to grow a bunch of population here with farms on and near the wheat and look to make this city drive my economy while others provide military and production.

About the culture, yes, if I keep researching Craftsmanship next turn the boost on turn 27 will finish it immediately but with no overflow. If I pause research for a turn it will finish at the start of turn 28 with overflow. Given the delay is short and the gains not that great, I think saving the culture is best.

[rho21]

The other thing to consider right now is which civic to research next.
The only options are:

• Foreign Trade (40 , boost: find another continent)
  This is really valuable, both for the trade route and because it leads to Early Empire. I've no idea when the boost will hit though, doubt it will be particularly soon. Sooner or later I'll have to suck up the expense.
  
• Military Tradition (50 , boost: clear a barbarian camp)
  Not on the critical path to Political Philosophy, which is definitely a down side. It would let me run the Strategos to get a great general: might be a worthwhile exchange for 30 turns in that policy. Note that the boost from the general doesn't apply to Hoplites or archers. Could be very important to deny it to the Aztecs, if they're going that route. Boost looks like about 10-12 turns away.
  
• State Workforce (70 , boost: build a speciality district)
  Unlocks the conscription policy (decreased military upkeep), but I don't need that just yet. Boost should be done on turn 36 or so.
  

At 3 a turn now, I'm tempted to grab military tradition quickly, then switch to foreign trade. Not sure whether to switch off foreign trade if I haven't found a new continent before it gets to half way.

[Garath]

I prefer critical path to Political Philosophy normally, of course. But then I'm not normally in a multiplayer game and competing for great generals!

I would definitely incline to leaving Foreign Trade incomplete for as at least a while so long as you still have a scouting unit moving away from your current lands, though.

By the way, is it entirely in my imagination that continents are usually vertical sheets and therefore east/west movement is more likely to find a new one?

[rho21]

Continent borders always seem to have a large vertical component to them. Also the continents are usually in a pretty silly size ratio, like 6:3:1 or something. Of course, I believe it is possible for the mapmaker to paint them, so perhaps there's only the one!

My plan is to move the warrior across the top of Kongo, then SW past Valletta. This will let me swing it NW towards the campus area in an emergency. I should have enough units out of Pythagoras soon that I can spare another to head W from there. Lastly, I want to check out the far NE once the barb camp is cleared, in case there's a continent hiding there - or a surprise land bridge.

Anyway, a turn showed up late last night. Managed to play it but didn't have time to report before bed.

Turn 26

Score tracking:
Egypt grew another population and finished a slinger.
Just noticed an interesting bit of information I'd missed up to now: the envoy in Valletta is from Kongo, not Aztec. Makes some sense: Kongo's warrior will have started on that side, and we know they haven't scouted any distance at all to the east. I still suspect Aztec has met a military city state.

Scouting:
A few more tiles uncovered, nothing much to report.

Housekeeping:
Something has gone wrong with my culture tracking, I'm definitely slightly past 50% already on Craftsmanship. I suspect that the game lies about the number after the decimal place in some fashion. The headline culture and tech numbers in the top left of the screen already disagree with the numbers in the score screen and the numbers in the city screens. I've been assuming the headline numbers are correct as they are smaller and better fit the known formulae. Oh well, much better to have slightly more culture than expected than slightly less.

Craftsmanship switched out for Foreign Trade for a turn (only option right now). Writing completed, Masonry is now 2 turns away.

Score overview:
Egypt: 25 (2 cities, 5 pop, 3 techs, 2 civics)
Greece: 23 (2 cities, 3 pop, 4 techs, 1 civic)
Kongo: 22 (2 cities, 4 pop, 3 techs, 1 civic)
Aztec: 14 (1 city, 3 pop, 2 techs, 1 civic)

These numbers are looking pretty good to me.
Egypt has the cultural lead, but I've just doubled my culture so hopefully the gap isn't growing much any more. I'm expecting to have extremely high culture in the long term anyway.
Geneva has given me a clear scientific lead, and my awesome campus locations should keep that true for a while.
I'm a little behind on population thanks to all the lovely 22 tiles I've been working. Both my cities are small and growing fairly soon though.
Aztec looks out of the running already, but I think that's misleading. They have clearly been focusing on taking advantage of their eagle warriors, and probably have a good number of builders. I'm expecting to see a city state capture before too long, plus some districts to catch back up economically. It will be interesting to see how that game plan ends up working out for them.

[rho21]

Turn 27

Score tracking:
Aztec has finished a third technology. They dropped 6 points in CQUI military score.
Egypt also dropped in military score, by 10 points.

Scouting:
Well, here's a great big horseman-shaped spanner in the works.


This isn't a crisis, Euclid and the slinger are fine. The only big problem is that I can't improve the wheat because for some reason builders can't make an improvement after moving into a ZOC. So he'll wait safely back in the city. This delays Craftsmanship and slows all the builds down commensurately.

On the plus side, hopefully the slinger can kill it in a few turns. I'm considering bringing the warrior back home now though, just to make it safer to assault the barbarian camp.