[Spoiler] Kaiser has a plan

[Ioan76]

What is your opinion between settling, Ioan?
- City sign
- Stone
- Truffles

South of Stone there seems to be an Ocean/Sea - right?
This could complicate a little the decision...

[Kaiser]

The new turn came around we already now more



It looks like there is place for another city here if we do not settle on Stone.
Settler ETA is 9 turns if my spreadsheet is correct + 5 turns travelling time. We want to keep the Warrior roughly in this area to ward against bastardly (barbly) surprises. I thnk we have enough time to verify if there is more settling space there and then turn east.

Ioan76
South of Stone there seems to be an Ocean/Sea - right?

Hm I did not realize this until now, where did you see indications for this?
If yes, then this spot might be a backline city for us and Northeast are the other players, I think we should still settle there first as it is clearly the better 2nd city site.




Ichabod met a scientific city state this turn, if our assumption with Woden having met a religious city state last turn, then only Suboptimal is still to find a city state. He might have already encountered an Industrial, Militaristic or Commercial city state though, we have no way to track this at the moment.



This is the wrong disaster, we need a flood on the Nile river :D

[Kaiser]

What is your opinion between settling, Ioan?
- City sign
- Stone
- Truffles

South of Stone there seems to be an Ocean/Sea - right?
This could complicate a little the decision...

My current impression is:

City sign
Pro:
- can be settled in 5 turns
- Government plaza location has 5 adjacent river tiles and a forest
- stone and truffles can be improved
- 3 22 tiles first ring, 2 more 2nd ring
- can share PHSheep with Capital right away

Contra:
- city tile is only 1
- has 4 desert tiles in BFC (this does not come into play really)
- shares more tiles with Bologna

Truffles
Pro:
- can be settled in 5 turns
- Government plaza location has 5 adjacent river tiles
- stone can be improved
- city tile is 2 and 3
- shares fewer tiles with Bologna
- can share PHSheep with Capital right away
- campus with +1 on river adjacent to later GP directly possible
- directly connects another amenity (capital has then 3 for the next bonus with 1 base, 1 coffee and 1 truffles)

Contra:
- only 1 22 tile first ring, 2 more 2nd ring
- more tiles are currently unknown (good or bad?)
- Government Plaza tile has a jungle and is a 22 tile delaying the placement of the district after Iron Working and sacrificing at least one good tile


Stone
Pro:
- can be settled in 5 turns
- Government plaza location has 5 adjacent river tiles
- stone can be improved
- city tile is 2
- shares fewer tiles with Bologna
- can share PHSheep with Capital right away

Stone
Pro:
- Government plaza location has 5 adjacent river tiles
- city tile is 2 
- 2 22 tile first ring, 3 more 2nd ring (1 even brings an additional )
- shares fewer tiles with Bologna

Contra:
- stone cannot be improved
- can be settled in 6 turns
- more tiles are currently unknown (good or bad?)
- Government Plaza tile has a jungle and is a 22 tile delaying the placement of the district after Iron Working and sacrificing at least one good tile
- blocks a potentially other city site


I think stone is less attractive for the moment, Truffles being my current favourite due to the Amenity. Hopefully there are some good tiles in the fog, if it is ocean then we have to  hope for resources there.

[Ioan76]

We need to check how big are the mountains beyond truffle-spot - this could lead to more unworkable spaces...

[Kaiser]

Yes, there is a higher uncertainty for the truffles spot, we need to make sure to be back there before settling finally. It looks like the Warrior moves mostly one tile here, we should plan accordingly.

We have some time though as we only need to take this decision 2 turns before settling.

[Kaiser]

We won the race to first tech, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good



Our GP location was devalued by the horses as you cannot place a district on a strategic resource. We might shift it 1 SW, but it gets farther away from the capital to place districts. Bologna however gets closer so we should consider conquering it to be a slightly higher priority.

The good news here is that there seems to be another city SW of Bologna and we should have the time of checking it out. I am not sure if we already should see loyality (I will test this tonight) but this might be another CS or a player.
As it seems that half the CS were already found, I prefer to find the following order:
- a CS which we meet first (filling up our 2 CS share)

- a player for the Writing Eureka as this would free up science from our current plan
- city state that had been found already

Mostly this order as it would mean that the new found city spot would have less competition as the Writing Eureka would be huge for us.


We should have the time to check this and then turn East (Settler ETA 9+2 travel time) before we have to make our decision.



Everybody has grown to 2, no buildings built (I believe they increase empire score by 1) and we are next turn 2nd due to having finished a tech and a pop (should be 11 points) this turn




Something weird, interesting is going on here, Woden overtook us in culture but stayed behind CMF. That means he needs to have a culture rate in between 3.7 and 2.7.
If he would have encountered a cultural city state he should be before CMF, I wonder right now if he has built a Monument (60 ) and if that does not get multiplied by the amenity bonus but it seems to be very off.



Supporting this would be the domination score, as it shows Woden just before us, indicating that the other build units but he did not.

Current estimated production numbers for this turn are:

Ichabod: 7*(2 palace + 2 city tile + 1 on his 4 tile) + 3*x (probably minimum 2) = 41 (Warrior fits)

Suboptimal: 7*(2 palace + 2 city tile + 2 on his 3 tile) + 2*x (probably minimum 2) = 46(Warrior fits)

CMF: 7*(2 palace + 2 city tile + 3 on his 2 tile) = 49 (Warrior would have been produced last turn)

Woden grew this turn, that means he has roughly produced

Woden: 7* (2 palace + 2 city tile + 3, max 4 on his 2 tile) = 49 - 56

The latter number would have been a hugely better start than our own replacing 1 we got with 2 for Woden. So it has to be something else but I cannot narrow it down right now, maybe he also has a 3 city tile (further improving his start over mine, is a 3 production city tile even possible?)

I will ned to check with my wife as I feel I am missing something here.




The religious city state for Woden seems to confirm itself, as there is a switchup in player order. Suboptimal has shifted himself in between Ichabod and Woden which likely means he either met a religious CS himself or is working a tile.
As he grew 2 turns ago and I did not see it then, I currently assume he met a religous city state this turn, that would mean we were correct with our guess as Woden is still leading this category.

This means our best pantheon pick would be 3rd if we push for it, I doubt that we should and so will stick with the roughly turn 51 pantheon plan from before.

[Kaiser]

Kaiser
Something weird, interesting is going on here, Woden overtook us in culture but stayed behind CMF. That means he needs to have a culture rate in between 3.7 and 2.7.

If he would have encountered a cultural city state he should be before CMF, I wonder right now if he has built a Monument (60 ) and if that does not get multiplied by the amenity bonus but it seems to be very off.

I think I got it, Woden is working a 1 tile like us, but is located before us.
CMF and me should be the only ones already having got their next tile in the capital, but Woden grew last turn, that means that he is working a tile with his new pop.

Remembering that Woden's current lead is coming from a first turn 4 era score, it is possible that he found a natural wonder first turn, worked a tile and bought access to it.
Now I remember that we discoverd a 2nd continent first turn as well and did not get any bonus, was this due to other players already having discovered the continent or because you can get this score only once?

Woden probably built a Scout or Builder first (like us), that would explain his lower position in domination score.

[Kaiser]

The Builder was finished and sent it on its way to the PHSheep. The Horse would be a comparable tile but is not yet in our culture and cannot be shared as easily with any of our 2nd city spots.
I went ahead and bought the Sphinx tile as it was still 50 gold.



The riddle is solved, we are going to meet a cultural city state. CMF might be in this area or we may get our 2nd first to meet bonus.
The tile my Warrior is on looks to be an excellent city spot as well.

From here I suggest we head W (hopefully that will be enough to meet the CS) and then SE -> E



Woden jumped up in domination score indicating he also finished a Warrior. I do not understand why he was lower before as he should have had a Warrior for about 1-2 turns already. Maybe his other Warrior was damaged?



My prediction to be 2nd in Score was wrong as CMF finished his first Civic and egalised.

Woden got another 3 points for era score which realistically could be:
- clearing a threatening barb camp (would coincide with his military score fluctuation due to health and promoting his unit)
- finding a natural wonder

I am also quite sure now that he settled in sight of a continental divide on first turn as he would have been close to a natural wonder otherwise and settling within 2 would give another 3 era score.

[Kaiser]

Another 3 score points in



Improve production and the only useful military card for the moment



Better to be very lucky indeed, this is huge and invalidates my whole spreadsheet. Not that I complain, but I have to redo it and we have to reconsider several things (quick list):
- do we farm the Pwheat (for Irrigation Eureka and Craftsmanship Inspiration) 
- do we build a Sphinx (now I am kicking myself for buying the tile last, turn, I think the cost did not go up anyway)
- instead of both we could use the 3rd builder charge to chop the campus meaning we can delay Builder #2

I marked the position of a barb scout I saw before moving the Warrior, our Warrior will head back East now to look for its source



Ichabod got another empire score, so likely grew again, I need to confirm this though.
Suboptimal got a technology, did he also met a scientific city state?



Some updates for settling. Our builder found a new potential spot to the S of our capital, Truffles would invalidate it.
The site our Warrior was on is really good with the GHSheep, PHJCoffee, PHJungle and a +5 campus spot west of the Geothermal vent.



Curious yields on that tile, is there a Volcano or has there been a storm. I need to check if the settler view also shows disaster information on blocked tiles. There is no natural wonder giving just 1 so it has to be a disaster causing this.

[Kaiser]

I do not have a lot of time today for reporting but I want to get some ideas/thoughts out of my head.

A quick update of my spreadsheet answered some foreign questions for me:
- Suboptimal has researched a tech as he has had a pop earlier than the others, the others should finish their techs this turn
- Ichabod is delaying researching a tech by switching, he should be around ~33 - 34 total science by now

The cultural city states brings us 2.1 more 18 turns earlier than we would have achieved with a Sphinx. That is a bonus of 37.8 culture which is roughly half Ealry Empire.
I think we will loose some of it due not being able to get the inspirations on time but this is a huge advantage and an amazing start for us.

I will try to find some time tomorrow to see how we can manage to get as many inspirations as possible and if we can push the PP date even earlier but my first instinct is to skip the Sphinx and keep the rough timing whilke working a better tile.