[SPOILERS] ALWAYS PEACE? What will Lewwyn do?

[Lewwyn]

Have you found northern and southern edges of the map? How tall is it?

Why do you have diplo enabled?

Great game so far.

Thanks novice.

The map seems to be 44 tiles tall. I've found the south edge but I didn't actually see the north. It's 22 from my cap to the bottom.

No idea about why diplo is enabled, but... it is so I have to use it even as limited as it is.

On that note:

Hey Lewwyn,

Thanks for the notification.
I'm indeed plannning on settling close to the banana's but don't plan to settle west of that first city for a long time, if ever. Of course, that will only hold for as long as you don't settle east of there...

I'm settling towards Scooter as well to stake my claim there since he is expanding west as well.

Cyneheard learned from Krill, but I think he is making some mistakes if he really is settling so far out of his core.

Cyne is between you and scooter then? Seems like we all started on the same line and have a lot of room to expand to north and south but not east and west. Am I correct assuming that?

Cheers,
Nakor

And he dodges the question as to where he'll settle it. I press on.

Yeah its a good deal like that. Lot's of room north and south, but a bit of border clash east and west.

When you say close to the banana where are you thinking of settling? North of the banana, East of that banana, West of the banana, on that PH SW of the banana? I'm curious because it will affect how I plan to settle in the future.

Lew

Just closed game and send it on... I think on a PH SW of the banana, but I'll let you know after the next turn, ok?
Scooter has very agressively as well btw...

Yeah I bet he's settled aggressively towards you... Not an EXCUSE!

Well, that's not ideal for me that's over the meridian, it was the site I was worried about. If you decide to settle there, it's fine, but I will settle a city close to that to shore up our border, just so you know.

Lew

Always Peace threats FTW Nakor:

Let me see if I can find a good spot S, N or E of the banana before jumping to conclusions.
I'm willing to work with you here.

Compliant Nakor would be best. Acquiesce!:

I don't mind if you get the Banana, but I want to keep the rice that's on my side of the meridian. That's pretty much the sticking point for me.

Lew

So if you note the screenie from before I was planning on settling close to my core, but I guess that's changed. This turn I moved it 2 tiles east. It can settle on either the PH SW of the Banana or the PH SW of the rice in 3 turns. I think I'll probably end up planting on the PH SW of the rice. The best out come would be he settles 1 East of the banana and I settle on that PH SW of the rice. The dotmap does seem to be in trouble though. I don't really like that I have to push the PH rice city, but its a huge border city. The good news is that I can chop a terrace in 3 turns of the city being built. I have a worker shadowing the settler.

This whole settling race has left me feeling weak on the west side of my empire so queued up another settler in Giraffes and will 2 pop whip it next turn. It'll settle on the plains west of the banana in 6 turns. I just want to be sure I'm keeping Cyneheard honest over there. Plus every turn my economy gets stronger as my cities grow onto more cottages. I see no reason not to keep pushing the expansion. Nakor has the fewest cities and is the closest in GNP to me. Cyneheard and Scooter are both behind me so there isn't really a problem with being outteched at this point.

I don't have any workers building right now. I may want to queue a few up and whip them out. in the next couple turns.

I'm considering a 3 pop whip of Elephants for a library. It'll set it back to 3 pop but the city has gold and that library would be very welcome there. If I don't whip it it'll take 18 turns.

Wolves is going to get a double dose of math chops to finish the temple and overflow into the library. Even better that's one of the cities with Hinduism so those chops are getting the OR bonus.

[Lewwyn]

Diplomacy with Nakor wins!

Looked at the game. I'll be settling 1N of the bananas, are you ok with that?

Nakor

Hell yes I'm okay with that. Now I don't have to rush a settle out to block you off. Plus he's already said he wouldn't be planting west of that city and I don't think I have to worry about him trying to take the pigs north of the banana (which is just outside where his new city's second ring would be.)

As a result I settled my city in the original location and started drawing up new Eastern dotmaps:



You see the sign for city? It was just atrocious for the dotmap. Leaves a lot of empty tiles or really poor fillers. (Cyneheard settled his blocker there ^^). My new map has Nakor's city in green. Then another 3 to fill out. This is really preliminary. Blue may irk Nakor but its not OVER the meridian. Just on it exactly like his banana city. I don't think he'll settle in that area any time soon. Maybe blue should have been pink.

One other thing. There's a single tile that is enclosed by culture but doesn't have my culture. Shouldn't it? Hopefully it does. I want to chop that forest and get a terrace in Lambs with it. Also I have 1 units supply and if the culture moves over that worker won't count towards the supply and I'll save a gold. What's the ruling on that?

Demos:



Notice I'm #1 in life expectancy so I also have the most fresh water cities and forests around my cities. Bodes well for the future. Population rating went to 3rd! I 3 pop whipped the library and 2 pop whipped the settler. Whip baby whip!

That cost me a bit of commerce, and it looks like math won't finish in 2 turns, but it will. I'll have the 1 unit supply disappear, I'll get +1 trade route and I will tile manage a couple of cities in the south. Bears is at 4 pop with one turn into a settler I was going to whip, but now I'll hold off on that and have it work two more riverside tiles instead of forests. If I have to I will delete a scouting Q that has gotten really far from home.

[NobleHelium]

That surrounded tile SHOULD be in your borders...but it's clearly not. So chopping it right now is likely to incur a penalty.

[Lewwyn]

That surrounded tile SHOULD be in your borders...but it's clearly not. So chopping it right now is likely to incur a penalty.

If its not culture by the time the chop is almost done I'll build 1 turn road and the borders from flamingos will pop and cover it.

[Lewwyn]

I played a turn last night and it looks good. The culture filled that lone tile and the chop will go to lambs. I moved a couple tiles and got the defict to -3. when I ended turn it went to break even so I will finish Math next turn no problem. Scooter and Cyneheard settled their 11th cities. I still haven't seen Nakor's settler. By this time I could have settled those bananas myself.

[Lewwyn]

Okay games back on. Long update on things I think.



Here's a shot of what I'm planning to do on the Cyneheard border. I will plant next to the bananas in 2t. I have another settler that will plant on the PH next to the sheep in 5turns. I'm thinking I will whip Giraffes AGAIN for a settler to plant between those two in 6turns. SO the next 3 plants wil be border cities with cyneheard who is actually #1 in land area thanks to his aggressive no overlapping plants. In the long run I think I'll be able to out expand him though because I can support more cities without crashing the economy.

Currency next to give a big boost to tech and expansion. I'm also starting to think about COL after currency... a few reasons. First, Courthouses are going to be huge with how large this empire is going to be. Taking Sheeps off the gems dipped my gpt from +1 to -1, that's it. The maintenance is around 4 already and the city is only size 2 this turn. A courthouse is going to pay huge dividends there. Second, it allows me to get to CS. Third, if I get it first I get Confu too. But I'm giving it serious thought. Is that worth more than wines and HR?

Speaking of, I have tech set to 20% this last turn because it finished math all the same and I was able to switch off the gems and get Sheeps to grow this turn. I had 5 cities grow this turn. Cottages are maturing everywhere. I'm chopping uber chops. Things are good.

Things I need to do. Build more workers. Only 3 cities are working unimproved tiles and only 2 cities don't have any improved tiles to work so you can see I'm doing just fine in terms of keeping ahead of my population, however, in a few more turns I will have cities outgrowing their improved tiles in addition to 3 new cities that need help. Workers are in demand.

EDIT: OH YEAH! forgot to say 2 more religion pops ftw!

Let's see how I'm doing EOT Demos:



Great. On top in Food. Almost even at MFG which is not important at this point because I'm whipping everything. Really on top in GNP. Remember this GNP number is after math has come in. I'm not teching anything. No bonus is inflating it. I will say however that there is a good deal of culture inflating it. But if my opponents don't have terraces inflating theres as well then all the better since that means I have more terraces in my cities.

Speaking of terraces.



Now looking at this city of Cynheards is funny to me. This was his 6th plant. That means if was planted before the one on our border and yet it is still size one and until this last turn has been working a grassriver. Notice that the worker says farm(6) which is basically telling me it finished just lats turn. 2 things here. I understand the farm is supposed to be helping the city grow since it has all those hills, but honestly that tile is too good a commerce tile to give up. Why not grow using the rice? Second why hasn't a terrace been built yet? What I bet Cyneheard did was grow to 2 one a 2f/1c yield tile and whip the terrace. Contrast that with my city in the same spot. Double chopped a terrace in 3 turns of planting the city because I knew I wanted that rice ASAP. I also cottaged the tile that cyneheard farmed.

So what do we see in those differences? Maybe I have more workers? Maybe having my cities spawn in a circular manner outward allows better worker management? I have prioritized getting cities to higher yield tiles faster? I prioritized cottages?

It's hard to generalize based on just 2 cities (remember the 7th city plant on my border is far from the core.) I do think however that these 2 cities show a difference in how we are approaching this game. And I think my approach is better. We'll see if my arrogant statement holds up, no? :neenernee

FYI city count:

me 13
cyne 12
Scoot 11
Nakor 9

[Lewwyn]

Got the save. Cyneheard did a bit of chatting when he sent it. Said his C&D went to pot. That he couldn't track tech or pop anymore. Given that I am now apparently 3rd in pop on the demos I'd say that it would indeed be pretty difficult.

Currency says 13 turns. We'll see what it looks like after I plant two more cities. I decided not to start another settler just yet since I don't want to whip giraffes again right now. It has a bunch of cottages that its not working and I think letting it grow would be good for my economy snowball. I'm definitely going to go COL after Currency. Its cheaper than currency and I'll have 2 prereq discounts on it. Should be a breeze to tech. Following that I pick up Monarchy and wines. Then possibly hunting (!) for furs. Maybe I'll even get hunting before monarchy. Depends on how soon I settle the furs. But yeah, those furs are on the meridian with Cyneheard again... I should settle them sooner rather than later.

I'm really curious about everyone's settling and how many workers everyone has. I still have only 15. I'm planning on chopping a couple out at newer cities and Next turn I'll start a slow 4t build of one at Rabbits.

I had my temple finish in wolves and I think I'll begin running a priest immediately. The city will still grow in 2 turns while building a library. Depending on how fast that finishes I may run a scientist near the end to boost the GPP. It's getting 42 overflow hammers into the library but won't get the 5hpt until it grows to 5 in 2 turns. I'm looking at 9turn build on the library. I think I'm looking at GP in 21 turns. Man its slow on normal speed

[Lewwyn]

Okay a couple of things. I planted my new city:



I thought Mockingbirds would be appropriate. That city is over the meridian and it grabs the bananas. Cyneheard should never have planted that city so close to me. He displayed a sense of aggressiveness that I returns by encroaching further on his side. I haven't planted any closer to Nakor (who STILL hasn't planted his banana city) and focused towards Cyneheard instead. So far I've got Mockingbirds and actually Baboons steals what should be Cyneheard's pig. Now I'll cement the border in the south in 3 turns and then probably the next city will be the furs on the north part of the Meridian. Maybe I can grab Nakor's later too and disallow both of them furs.

I have a worker on the forest there which will 3t chop the terrace. Also have two workers at Baboons.

Another note on the worker situation, I just counted and I am working only 3 unimproved tiles in my entire empire. 1 is the FP for Mockingbirds. 1 is the unimproved pig in Lambs (closest city to Nakor). And 1 is flamingos which grew this turn to 4 pop and is working 3 FP cottages and one unimproved FP that is 2t from being cottaged. So yeah I'm very happy about that.

You may have noticed in this picture that I am running 0% tech. I have 2 libraries built now, but also I have 3-5 more being built in the next 5 turns. Currency finishes in 4t at -75 gpt so I only need 7t gold to get that and when I flip the tech rate up I'll have more libraries to abuse. I probably should have started collecting gold the turn after math, but didn't think about it. Still fine though shouldn't make much difference.

Something that I'm thinking about now is I think Cyneheard may have gone Monarchy before Math. Not sure. I know Scooter did I think its the wrong move. My uber chops are doing most of the work getting libraries up these next couple turns. For the most part our cores are production starved. The Chops are allowing me to get the production I need without whipping and slowing down cottage growth. This is especially good with OR as well. I'm creating an extra 7.5 hammers with every math chop into a city with Hinduism building a building. I've already chopped 3 so far which is about 22 free hammers in addition to the math chops. The efficiency is huge.

Demos:



I think #1 GNP is Cyneheard. Either him or Scooter. I'm still #2 at 0% tech though which is a great sign. I probably should have checked 100% tech GNP. I do know I get 137 beakers at 100% though.

MFG I'm close behind, but the great stat here is Crop. I'm 15 food up on my next rival. And I'm still 3rd in pop! That really is a bit misleading though since pop is calculated with higher pops being worth more. I am growing my cities now though. I had 3 pop increases EOT and I will have 3 more Next EOT.

I've sneaked back ahead in land area at EOT with a border pop. Mockingbirds actually didn't put me over. So I was still at #2 before I ended turn. Cyneheard's cities must be really spread apart. I wonder how many aggressive plants he's made towards Scooter like the one on our border.

Still #1 in Life expectancy. I have a lot of forests to chop.

[Lewwyn]

Wrote this while RB was down yesterday:

I’m probably paying more attention to this game than any of my other games at this point. The fact that it’s a completely level field, no war, no trading and based entirely on your empire building skill is what made it extremely attractive to me in the first place, and continues to hold that attraction for me.

In the turn today, I moved some workers, did a few individual city micro plans and looked at dotmapping the furs and north of my core. Let’s look to the map:



It’s not an area that inspires a lot of great cities. That pink dot will be awesome with double corn and furs, but its not on the river system nor are those corns near freshwater. I’m going to have to chain some irrigation once I have CS, but for it’s still great. Additional note, I’m planning on having that settled in 8 turns. Odds that Cyneheard is able to get a settler up to stop me? Not great, but not impossible. Depends on if he realizes the importance of the furs. Sine I have no plans to switch into HR for a while that fur will be important.

Note the gold up there. If I’m expanding faster than Cyneheard there’s a chance I could grab it. Its far enough north that it might not be a priority, but it should be.

Also in the north, Jungle. I will avoid settling here a while since Iron working is NOT high on my list to research. Calendar also requires sailing and as such is low as well. Let’s look at my tech…

Currency>CoL>Hunting>Monarchy/MC>CS? IW? Fish/sailing/calendar?

I want forges sooner than later. 25% is going to be important, but even more important is the +3 happy for the metals. Because of that I may research MC before Monarchy. Monarchy gives me wines which is a quick +1 but MC might be better in the long run earlier.

CoL I’ve discussed earlier. Courthouses are looking mighty fine already…

Something I’ve touched on before is GP. I’m thinking that I would really like to grab the Economics GM down the line. I don’t think I’ll be going after the Music GA as that whole side of the tech tree is fairly useless in this expansive economic battle. I would like to get the National Epic at some point though. I just doubt it will be anytime soon.

I’m looking at 3 new workers in 6 turns. 1 in 3t, 1 in 4t, 1 in 6t. I have 33 cottages. Only 5 are not being worked yet. About a third have grown to Hamlets a few to Villages.

Demos:


My Mfg is only 1 off now. GNP is #1 when at 100%. Crop is killer.

Tops in Land area again. And I’m #1 in pop by a large margin now. I’ll have 3 more pop growths next turn and then another 5 pop growths in 2 turns.

City count:
Me – 14
Scooter – 13
Cyneheard – 12
Nakor – 10

Nakor finally planted his city North of the Bananas.
Scooter popped a new city. I think he’s paying less attention to the game now. His last two cities are named Cuzco and Tiwanaku. Either too busy to rename them or doesn’t care enough at this point.
I’m expecting Cyneheard to plant a new city soon. I just am not sure where he wants to go. Not sure if he wants to work on his border with Scooter, try to block me off a bit or fill in behind his way out plant. In any case, I’ve got plans on 3 new settlers built in 4,5 and 9 turns. Maybe I’ll move the 3rd one up. Depends.

I'll have another update in a few minutes.

[Lewwyn]

New turn. Not a lot to report.

I moved workers. Started a pasture in the north. Explored a bit. Next turn I settle my city SE of Cyneheard’s border city. A lot of cottages grew. Next turn 5 cities will grow and 4 will grow the turn after that. Speaking of cities lets look at the city list:



Thought that might be interesting. Everything is growing and under the happy cap. Only one city is not, Zebras. I will be growing that city to pop 8 in 2 turns. When I hit 8 I’ll have one unhappy and will switch build to settler. Now I could put one turn into the settler and 2 pop whip it the next turn, but I think I will worked a few extra turns and get the hammers to 44 or lower. THEN I will 2 pop whip it with a ton of overflow into the library. This way I can convert more of the surplus to hammers without whipping the library itself. Now this will set the city back to 6 pop at the happy cap. I will probably go ahead and work the library a couple turns working mines until I grow back into unhappy. Then switch to a worker and slow build it until the whip unhappiness wears off. I could really use religion in this city. Please Hinduism, spread here.

Other notables, Wolves is at 5 pop with one pop running as a priest. It will finish the library in 8 turns and grow to pop 6 in 8 turns. That new pop will immediately be a scientist and I should be able to speed up the GP while still getting 70+% odds for a GPriest. Yay Shrine gold.

Speaking of gold, Nakor got currency! Great for me, gives me a tech discount later when I switch to full science. Scooter and Cyneheard still haven’t gotten there. I’m willing to bet they both went Monarchy first and then Math. Scooter for sure, and I’m 50% on Cyneheard. Either way I get tech discounts on Monarchy later as well which is nice.

Demos:



Mnnn, #1 in GNP again at 0% tech, and the difference is actually pretty hefty. My opponents are at 91, 76, 67 GNP. I think I went harder at cottages.

MFG I’m 4 hammers off, but I’m totally cool with that since I’m 24 food ahead of my first rival (who I believe is Scooter). I think Cyneheard is at 131 food. I haven’t been whipping the last couple of turns (though I have 3 whips planned in the next couple). I may be looking at some 3 pop library whips.

Soldiers even. I only have 10 Qs. My cost is at 1 and supply is at 1 because I have a settler and a worker out of territory. Next turn he settles and those 2 costs disappear again.

Land I’m only ahead by a slim margin. I wonder what Scooter has been doing with his plants. Aggressive? Has Cyneheard planted towards Scooter the way he did me?

Pop has grown tremendously these past couple turns. A few more and we’re ripe for the whipping.

Life expectancy has decreased what with me chopping 30H forests into terraces, libraries, workers. My favorite is definitely the terraces though. Those are 60 hammers, almost seventy if the city also has Hinduism. (Baboon is getting a chop next turn into an almost finished terrace and it has Hinduism. There will be huge overflow into a settler and then the next turn I’ll 1 pop whip it.)

Overall we can see my snowball is picking up a bit of speed in terms of GNP and food as my empire grows vertically and my cottages mature.