[PB61 - Spoiler] bell's uncreatively named spoiler thread

[bellarch]

Update time!

So when we last left off, I was showing off the results of my micro plans for producing the next settler and Mjmd was realizing that I maybe didn't totally know what I was doing with micro    honestly I think I'm at least decent, but that doesn't mean that I can't make mistakes or need help/someone checking over my ideas from time to time. I am not immune to being dumb!

where we were:



Anyway, we spent the next few turns figuring things out and working out how to found/improve the second city, Thalassina. Basically we worked out that we could send a worker with the settler so that we could start farming the wheat immediately after founding the city. The other settler went to build a camp over the deer. In the meantime, Mjmd spent some time coming up with some micro plans:

Usually I just do micro  like bellow because I'm lazy. A quick note is that you want workers to end up direction that will end up going. So for instance it would have been nice to leave the forested hill 1W so we could road after a chop there  alright .

I only focused on worker into settler. With all the roading we need to do just makes sense. Only delays gem settler by 2 turns. I didn't do anything with new city. I kind of assume it goes wheat, move 1NW of new city and either road for trade route or chop out work boat then do opposite one. That worker prob goes to chop a forest a capital for stonehenge after that (or an axe)

Two variants. Whip to 1 pop or extra chop. Benefits both ways. Note may depend on if new city can afford to give up rice. Also obviously get more time to road if don't spend time with extra chop. Advantage of not whipping and doing extra chop is next worker or settler is out faster (probably worker).

Whip
After deer worker goes to forest 2N of ivory
T35 put worker in queue
T36 whip
T37 settler (make sure working cow mine). New worker goes to forest E of deer
T38 chop finishes
T39 settler finishes, put settler in, worker moves to hill SW of capital (or 1W still debating)
T40 chop finishes
T41 whip to 1 pop.  Worker that was E of deer goes 2W and then T42 helps road elephant)
T42 settler

extra chop. Still unsure of exactly where want to move the worker (prob same)
T35 put worker in queue
T36 whip
T37 settler (make sure working cow mine)
T39 put 2nd settler in
T40 chop finishes
T41 switch to stonehenge for 1 turn for growth (take rice?) . Move worker to hill 1SW.
T42 switch back to settler and finish chop
T43 settler finishes. Road and then move. Other worker heads SW to improve new rice * depending if we think really need copper pronto

Based on these, I quickly decided on the plan that involved whipping the capital for two reasons. First, it allows the fourth settler to come out earlier, which is important because that settler is the one that secures our copper resource. Second, it allowed for Stonehenge to be completed fastest - allowing us to whip it to completion on T48. (We would change this later -- whipping wonders is of course very inefficient!) 

While I was checking over Mjmd's micro plans, I also built a map of the world as we know it and checked the second city micro. I quickly realized that that city would also be able to build a second worker in this time frame -- except I was being dumb and wanted to do it by whipping the work boat, and then whipping a worker with overflow. I sent these messages, which sum up my thoughts:

okay, finished simming for now. I may do a more careful writeup tomorrow but here's some quick notes before I go to bed:
- whipping seems better IMO; we get the copper on line earlier and we get the city earlier - and we get Stonehenge quicker! it does come at the cost of some pop growth and not improving the ivory as fast, but I think that's worth it (especially since we won't need the ivory happy before we can improve it otherwise anyway)
- conditional on whipping, roading the forest NW of the second city is probably better; besides the commerce improvements, we get that worker ready to chop at the capital on the next turn, and I think that's better for micro purposes
- Stonehenge completes on T48 under the whip and whip/chop plans (the latter chops a forest instead of building the road NW of second city) and T50 under the chop plan. I think that's competitive enough that it's worth going for. Note however that it uses two chops at the capital (and a whip under the whip plans).

---

so the goal of working rice is to make sure that we get Wheel on the turn after the worker moves to the forest so we can road immediately. as soon as we get wheel (is that next turn?) we'll swap
the road is necessary because it lets the worker we whip at Thalassina move straight to improving the capital (it helps chop for Stonehenge)
we'll actually whip work boat 1 turn before discovering Fishing and then can whip worker 2 turns later; no chopping involved
I'll write up a more detailed micro plan and then post something in thread with everything in a bit; this is just the first moment when I'm not doing the equivalent of running around like 'aaaah our micro is messed up what do I do' lol

So we had something of a plan at this point. But then we started panicking over the possibility of JackRB trying to whip some axes and rush us. So I started revising the plan to take into account prioritizing the copper. In the process of revising things, we also realized: (1) by moving the worker at Thalassina straight toward the fourth city location, we could build roads in such a way that we could get the settler there in one turn (2) we could whip the worker in Thalassina at size 4 and also build a Quechua and the work boat by exploiting the cow mine in exactly the same number of turns in the previous plan (3) we could set up the our third and fourth cities to have two axes at our fourth city before T49 if necessary (4) we could do all this and also set up Ater to finish Stonehenge naturally at the end of T49. This being our final micro plan, I actually have pictures this time!

Here's the setup producing the axes. Wolof can whip one and Foramen can work the copper to produce the other:



Of course, this sacrifices growth, so we won't be doing this unless we see JackRB's power graph spike. 

Here's the overall outcome of the plan at the end of T49: 



We'll see how well it works. I think we're competitive for Stonehenge, but I wouldn't be surprised if we lose it to India . . . or JesseL, I suppose. It's the kind of thing that would be easier to produce in a size 8 city -- and tbh, I have no idea what else JesseL is doing with a size 8 city . . . But the rest should be fine. We'll see at the end of this turn, but it looks like JackRB whipped Everview last turn, before he would have had the copper linked up, so he probably went worker into settler. So I think we'll be safe from an axe rush -- though it looks as though we'll have our axes in time if it's necessary!

Now for the current overview. We just founded our third city, Wolof, south of Ater on the river. Long-term that'll be a nice commerce city, with lots of grassland cottages and two gems. Ater is getting ready to whip the settler next turn, and Thalassina is happily building a work boat while working tons of food. 



We've been exploring the southern area in the meantime -- we're moving the Quechua west just in case we need to defend the fourth city location -- and we've spotted a few decent medium-term city locations for after we get iron working. (Well, we spotted one really nice city location, but it's so close to JackRB's territory that we'd be lucky to actually plant a city in the optimal place yields-wise. More short-term, our fifth city will be going on the hill tile on the land bridge - not in this picture but it's in others. It's at least a really nice city after we get a lighthouse (+10 food surplus! tons of 3 commerce tiles!) and it'll be fantastic under Moai if we can put it there. It's also just a really nice border fortress, since there's likely a neighbor across the way. We'll have to send a Quechua that way at some point to check it out.



If you're wondering about all the signs in the southwestern corner, that's just Mjmd and I having a tiny conversation over that spot. That would be a really nice city, but I think it would require JackRB to actually misplay for us to have a real shot at it. We'll see if we can at least plant a city to pick up the gems and cows, though.

Our tech situation is okay; we're behind Fishing and Pottery on JackRB, and he'll have AH around the time we research Fishing. I believe we're up Mysticism on him though. Anyway, we'll be able to research a lot faster once we start building some infrastructure; up until this point we've been lacking commerce due to no trade routes and the lack of seafood resources to give commerce at the capital. But the grassland gems will allow us to push commerce without sacrificing growth, as will grassland cottages once we get Pottery.

If anyone is interested, here's a copy of our detailed micro plan through T49. Note that the stuff the workers are doing after chopping out Stonehenge are kind of approximate; I wasn't too concerned with the details of that and I know they need to be further optimized. I'm also assuming that we'll build the axes; obviously that gets swapped for more growing if we don't have to. (Note to Mjmd -- if you haven't realized it, I've labeled our workers in-game with the numbers I use to refer to them here. In case you need to take the turn or check something you should be able to follow along using that).

T39 - Settler finishes; build Settler. Worker 2 moves to 1SE of Ater.  Worker 1 moves to 1SE of Ater. Settler moves to 2S of Ater. 0% on Fishing
T40 - Wolof founded.  Worker 1 builds road. Worker 2 moves to 1N of Wolof (where the Settler was). Worker 3 finishes chop. 0% on Fishing
T41 - Ater whips Settler (swap to cow mine for 1 turn). Worker 1 finishes road. Worker 2 moves to 1NW of Wolof and roads. CANCEL. Worker 3 moves to 1N of Wolof. 100% on Fishing
T42 - Settler finished; build Stonehenge. Worker 3 roads 1NW of Wolof. Workers 1 and 2 road copper. Settler moves to copper spot! 100% on Fishing
T43 - Thalassina grows to size 3. Foramen founded. Workers 1 and 2 mine copper. Worker 3 moves to 1NE of Ater. Thalassina works plains cow. Thalassina swaps to Quechua. 100% on Fishing
T44 - Workers 1 and 2 mine Copper.  Worker 3 chops. Foramen works copper tile. Thalassina works clams. Wolof and Foramen build axes. 0% on Pottery.
T45 - Wolof grows to size 2. Worker 1 moves 1N of Ater. Worker 2 farms rice at Foramen. Worker 3 still chopping. Wolof works forest plains hill. 0% on Pottery.
T46 - Ater grows to size 2. Thalassina grows to size 4. Thalassina builds Quechua; swap to Work Boat. Worker 1 chops. Worker 3 finishes chop. 0% on Pottery. Thalassina works two plains forests and wheat. Wolof whips.
T47 - Thalassina finishes work boat; start Worker 4. Wolof finishes Axe 1. Worker 3 moves 1N of Ater. Axe 1 moves to copper. 0% on Pottery.
T48 - Worker 1 finishes chop. Worker 3 roads.Axe 1 moves to Foramen and fortifies. Thalassina whips Worker 4. 100% on Pottery
T49 - Thalassina finishes Worker 4; build Settler (1 turn overflow). Foramen finishes Axe 2. Worker 1 roads. Worker 2 finishes farm. Worker 3 moves to 1SE of Ater and mines (1 turn). Worker 4 moves to 1NW of Thalassina. Axe 2 fortifies? 1 turn on Stonehenge. 100% on Pottery.

I admit that I've mostly given up trying to figure out too much from the demos screen; I've worked on it some and I'll attack it when I have some time tomorrow, but I'm not convinced we can get all that much in the way of useful info out of it. But I think we're in a pretty good spot. We'll have four cities shortly, they'll be improved in due order, we may be able to grab Stonehenge for free border pops, and we could still be in position to grab a religion. I think we're doing okay, all things considered! We'll see how that pans out though 

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention -- sadly, it looks like our scout may not be long for this world. On its return journey to fog-bust it landed right next to a barb warrior. Granted, the scout's on a forested hill and has Woodsman I, but that still only gives it about 36% odds to survive. Thankfully the quechua is be in position to clean up the warrior in a few turns, so the city spot should remain safe.

[Mjmd]

I'm far from immune from being dumb.......

Speaking of the reason we were asking a lot about barbs is that a 2nd barb warrior appeared to the north. I actually haven't played a ton of pitbosses where they have been dangerous to me due to various circumstances or not being on, but going for Stonehenge definitely started giving me a little bit of nerves, but luckily mechanics held and barb turned back north.

JackRB looks to having a seafood start and got 2nd city connected via trade so not shocked up tech especially as didn't start with myst. Didn't settle for new food, but early pottery might help make up for that. Still suspect we can out expand especially with cheap granaries coming somewhat soon.

Some quick things I divined from demo screen:
2nd in food with 5 total pop plus 2nd in land area not being creative probably indicates we one of the earlier to 3 cities which is important for barb math and overall good feelings.
Also note you were correct that they just finished copper, you can see spike in production graph.

[bellarch]

2nd in food with 5 total pop plus 2nd in land area not being creative probably indicates we one of the earlier to 3 cities which is important for barb math and overall good feelings.
Also note you were correct that they just finished copper, you can see spike in production graph.

Oh the "just finished copper" was from moving the scout there last turn and taking a peek like you suggested (shoulda taken a pic but oh well). I was just assuming they hadn't started roading since I didn't see any "road 1 turn" or whatever pop up when I hovered over the worker.

[Mjmd]

2nd in food with 5 total pop plus 2nd in land area not being creative probably indicates we one of the earlier to 3 cities which is important for barb math and overall good feelings.
Also note you were correct that they just finished copper, you can see spike in production graph.

Oh the "just finished copper" was from moving the scout there last turn and taking a peek like you suggested (shoulda taken a pic but oh well). I was just assuming they hadn't started roading since I didn't see any "road 1 turn" or whatever pop up when I hovered over the worker.

I believe Charriu fixed it a couple versions ago where you can't see that in enemy territory anymore.

[El Grillo]

I love your signs. Thanks for all the screenshots and the thorough reporting!

[Tarkeel]

2nd in food with 5 total pop plus 2nd in land area not being creative probably indicates we one of the earlier to 3 cities which is important for barb math and overall good feelings.
Also note you were correct that they just finished copper, you can see spike in production graph.

Oh the "just finished copper" was from moving the scout there last turn and taking a peek like you suggested (shoulda taken a pic but oh well). I was just assuming they hadn't started roading since I didn't see any "road 1 turn" or whatever pop up when I hovered over the worker.

I believe Charriu fixed it a couple versions ago where you can't see that in enemy territory anymore.

You no longer can see half-built improvements outside your territory, but there is other information to be had. If you can see the resource itself, it will tell you if it needs an improvement or road to be hooked up. If you can't see the resource, you can still hunt for the yield, as long as the person controlling the tile can see the resource. This is one way to tell who researched iron working.

[bellarch]

The last few turns have been big for us, so let's do a quick recap of what happened. In short: everything went off completely as intended!
n.b.: screenshots are from T43, not the current turn (T44). This is because the turn rolled over while I was writing; we're moving quite fast!

First, the least likely thing: our scout survived! And now we don't have to deal with a hostile unit harassing our next city. This wouldn't have affected our settling, but it's nice not to have to deal with it again.

Next: Foramen has been founded!



This is a nice location with food, hills, and copper. While we would have preferred the copper resource to be a bit closer, Foramen has secured it for us. Eventually that'll be a nice production city -- and the focal point of any western defense we have to pull off.

We've also spotted JackRB's next settler. Last turn he moved a warrior into the scout's line of sight, and I got just a tad bit worried that he was going to try something cheeky at one of our border cities. But then he moved a settler up with it, so presumably it was just an advance guard. T44 EDIT: yeah, he founded a city in that location. It's a good location for him. One thing that kinda bugs me is that once he farms the corn, that'll be a 6-food tile for him -- sure wish we had some of those! (We have a fish, but it's not in a good location from what we can see).



With this in mind I'm very glad that we rushed this settler; JackRB could easily have claimed that general location in a few turns and we would have been pretty screwed. Now we're safe and can go back to building in relative peace. It's also worth noting that we still have yet to see a spike on the power graph from Khmer -- we'll still be looking out for a spike sometime after AH is discovered, since chariots could also be dangerous to us, but that's easy to deal with by building spears.

Next, let's take a look at the demographics:



The important thing to watch here is our relative position: We're second in production, food, and land area! This is a big deal; it reflects the fact that we're just more developed and settled than our rivals. Production and food are especially big since (a) we're only fourth in population (b) we're second in both. T44 EDIT: we actually dropped behind Khmer when we whipped Ater (to 3rd in production), but we'll regrow that soon enough! The fact that we're (almost) second in both is important because it's very possible that the leaders are (a) specialized in one of them, e.g. one civ could working max food and little hammers (b) JesseL and pulling what appears to be a madlad play of emulating an OCC. Land area is also a big deal once you realize that the leader is likely Mali -- with just one additional city with popped Creative borders, they could be up to a maximum of 58 tiles in theory. (Though slightly less than that because we know they had a coastal start.) So we're almost certainly the largest civ by pure number of cities. Basically, we look to be in a very good position as far as expansion and development go. For the moment, we just need to focus on getting 'taller' -- developing our economy to support further expansion and regrowing the population we've been converting into hammers. If we get Stonehenge that'll be a step in this direction. So will improving the gems and ivory, which will come right after Stonehenge completes.

Finally, while it's lower priority, I spent a little time dotmapping the southern jungle. I came up with this:



The key city here is the purple dot. I would kind of prefer the city to be a bit closer to our borders, but that location has the distinct advantage of having its food tile in the first ring. Notably, the food tile is a grassland cow -- that's a 3-food tile naturally, and we can farm it to get a 4-food tile even without AH if we chop out a terrace there immediately. It's not the strongest location (that would be a city on the plains hill to the west) but it has a few good tiles, and that's all we really want from a city this early. I can see that location being our sixth city, though I'm guessing we'd send at least one settler north first.  Brown dot would be a nice additional city in theory, but I think we have realistically about 1% odds to get it -- I'd think JackRB should be sending a settler there very soon. Aquamarine dot is a longer-term project that needs Iron Working first. 
T44 EDIT: yeah, he just started researching Iron Working; he's almost certainly thinking of settling the southern jungle soon. Time to get on settling?

Anyway, the turn is about to roll over AGAIN, so I'll shut up for now and get to playing!

[bellarch]

So it's now Turn 50 51, and it's time to do an update because a lot of stuff has happened!

First, the most important thing:



We built Stonehenge! I am super happy we managed to do this; it takes care of our border pops in the short- and medium-term, and sets up to fund our research with a Holy City and shrine down the line. Unfortunately we're going to have more competition for this than we thought because Meditation was discovered, and it wasn't by India (who we just met).


Next: we met Mali and Mongolia -- and they're at war!! Not that that's a surprise for the lurkers, of course. It does explain the conversation about war turn timers in the tech thread though. (We are of course only seeing this due to our heroic scout, who defeated that barb warrior despite the odds being against it.   ). Anyway, the next turn I moved down a space and saw this flood of Malinese chariots:



Our reaction to this was one of immense relief.

Mjmd — Today at 6:02 PM
We would be sooo dead from 3 chariots from the fog

bellarch — Today at 6:02 PM
sometimes it's better to be lucky than good?

Mjmd — Today at 6:03 PM
Yes lol

Checking the tech screen and the map, we see that one of those civs discovered Meditation, both Mongol cities have popped borders, and that Mongolia is on two cities -- so my instinctive read is that Bing tried to go after Meditation + Stonehenge, and Mali picked up on that and chariot rushed. But I suppose we'll figure all that out when the game is over. Hmm, now I'm wondering -- if Mongolia dies, do we get to see their bar graphs even if we never put any EP towards them? I would be a bit curious. We also met Vanrober's scout coming from the east. No telling at this point whether India is actually our eastern neighbor, but that wouldn't be a terrible thing.

Anyway, the big impact of Mongolia dying would be reduced competition for that super gems + cow + banana resource cluster. We may have to try to pick up a spot around that area at some point soonish. That and Mali getting big -- they could end up being our biggest competitor.

In other news related to settling, we've moved a quechua to the northeast, and we discovered this very juicy city spot:



That'll be a very important pickup -- besides insulating our core cities from northern barbarians, it's a source of marble and a high-food city that we can use to whip workers and settlers. Probably our sixth city? Anyway, the quechua will be turning around and going northwest next. We're looking for an island that we can settle to get some overseas trade routes going. (We actually think there may be an island northeast of our fifth city location, but we'll be sending a work boat to go check that out).

Our other internal news is that we discovered Pottery this turn! I already have Wolof lined up to produce 15 hammers on this turn with overflow, and we'll then whip the Terrace next turn. Ater and Foramen are building Terraces as well, and Thalassina will be building one after a work boat finishes. We plan to chop one forest at Foramen and two at Thalassina and whip at Ater, Wolof, and Foramen. Once the terraces are on line our growth can really take off! We'll also get the gems mined next turn, so that should boost our commerce by quite a bit.

Speaking of commerce, let's take a look at our demographic situation:



Number 1 in GNP!!! . . . yeah, I know, that's all culture. If you subtract the 12 culture we're getting from Henge and Monuments, we're actually dead last lol. (Funny story -- we were actually at 43 GNP last turn. KTBS go brrrrrrrr!) That being said we'll shoot up to the middle of the pack once we mine our FIN gems next turn. And cottages will be coming soon after that! Anyway, the rest just shows the success of the farmer's gambit -- 5th in soldiers, 2nd in food, 2nd in land area, 3rd in production, and (of the civs we know) 1st in score. Population is more of an issue, but it is skewed by the quadratic formula used to calculate pop size. We'd be crying if we were next to Mali, but we aren't! How Bing must be feeling right now   Really bad luck on their first game tbh. I hope they aren't discouraged from playing more games based on this; it must really suck to be on the receiving end of a rush the first time you ever try to play Pitboss. I remember how I was feeling when I thought JackRB was going to attack at any moment, and that didn't even happen . . .

Speaking of JackRB, we're keeping an eye on the Khmer power graph, but it's been flat for the past few turns. We're not particularly worried about a chariot rush -- he'd probably have to road from his capital to the third city across a bunch of desert first, he might not even have horses, and we have a spear ready to whip in Foramen if he tries anything funny. Plus, I uhhhh may have played a few too many extreme farmers gambits in Single Player     And I can tell you that Quechuas fortified in cities get at least decent odds against 4-strength units . . .

Anyway, our big consideration right now is our plan for the next 50-ish turns. So far, our initial plan has been a big success in my eyes. We've claimed Stonehenge, settled four cities, hooked up copper, done some internal development, and are prepared to get Terraces on line. We're doing well from a demographic standpoint, and we're set up to improve further in the areas where we're doing less well (read: beakers). So what comes next? Well, Mjmd and I have been talking and we think our next step is to go for the Oracle! We're already committing to a religious route, and it looks like many of the other players either haven't worried about religion or are facing more pressing problems at the moment. Ideally, we'd like to go for Currency with the Oracle, but Metal Casting seems like a more realistic goal. Of course, this depends on what else we have to do first; we need to pick up Sailing, and there's a strong possibility that we'll have to go to Monotheism to get a religion instead of Poly because India (or another civ?) may snap up Hinduism. But that's our next big goal; the rest is just going to be building and expanding like we've been doing.

---

Before I post, let's take a look at where our cities are right now.



Ater is kinda low in population, but that was the price of getting Stonehenge. Fortunately, we should be able to regrow that quickly -- quick math says Ater will be size 4 again in four turns (five from the time of this picture). Obviously most of its key tiles have improvements, and we'll be camping the Ivory and building cottages soon as well.



Thalassina is probably going to be our main source of workers and settlers in the near future -- it's got a lot of food but few good cottage tiles. We'll also get the oasis tile once borders expand for another surplus food tile.



I had to get a shot of Wolof on T51 instead of T50 to show off the micro. Between overflow from a Quechua and nat production, we'll put 15 hammers into the terrace on this turn -- the first turn we could -- and then whip it next turn. I swapped Wolof from the copper tile to the ivory two turns ago to ensure that the quechua completed a turn later so we could do this. Honestly I didn't sit down and do the math to to make the numbers line up exactly, so this isn't that good on my part, but I'm certainly happy they did!



Foramen's our newest city, so it's not nearly as big or improved as the rest. That being said, it'll usually have both the rice and the copper, which is good enough most of the time. The big issue is honestly just that it needs Iron Working (both for defensive purposes and for the second food resource) and we're not going to get it for awhile. We'll want to chop the forests in the second ring at some point for defensive purposes, probably into a wonder (Hanging Gardens?)

Finally, just as a note, I explained the whole naming theme a few episodes ago, and I finally changed our civ naming to go along with it. Not that it matters much lol.

[Mjmd]

I love that we are being efficient with terraces. One of the things I'm always bad with when doing these fast expansions is never fitting in granaries, so I just never get above size 4 early. Our goal should be 9 cities by turn 75 which I don't think I've mentioned, but this way we can hopefully grow pop along the way and work these weird things called cottages. Also have enough workers to actually support that.

And ya we never would been able to survive a chariot rush whatever timing this hit Bing (we still would have trouble!). If this game is like last greens pitboss Bing after getting chariot rushed will end up as a really solid player who participates a lot (Amica got war chariot rushed in PB51 across much farther distances and died to it).

[bellarch]

I love that we are being efficient with terraces. One of the things I'm always bad with when doing these fast expansions is never fitting in granaries, so I just never get above size 4 early. Our goal should be 9 cities by turn 75 which I don't think I've mentioned, but this way we can hopefully grow pop along the way and work these weird things called cottages. Also have enough workers to actually support that.

You hadn't mentioned the city benchmark, but I'm glad you did! It's good to take into account. I'm slightly worried about how we'll manage to do that, but I think we can figure it out. (Time for more simming . . . ?) At least we're farther towards that benchmark than anyone else we've met so far!