Turn 038
All right, we've had some turns come in and some of our opponent's plans are starting to become clear as other plays begin to finish their first districts.
First of all, Jester used his +25% district production pantheon to build an encampment on t37. I'm not sure if this is aiming for a quick great general and early rush, or if he means to just expand sensibly and is using the encampment for extra production in his initial trade route. He's middle-of-the-pack on techs, and at the very bottom of the pile in culture (but I feel like he's intentionally coming up short on finishing civics & techs in order to keep his early district hammer costs down. I wonder how much benefit that will actually gain him for the extra work. I also wonder if this means he is not pursuing quite the same wonder strat that we saw Woden pull off in PBEM2.
This last turn I'm pretty sure Japper built a campus with +2 adjacency. Likely he's pushing for Hypatia and trying to position himself to being the leader in science to go with his early game culture boosts. He's reached 6 civics this last turn, except he's still in a Chieftain government so he probably diverged to Mysticism or Military Tradition. He also picked up God of the Open Sky for even more culture generation. I've also found Japper's lands up north:
City districts also get me to where I found a mistake I made: I thought the amenity boost would see me also get percentages applied to great people. (I think I was mixing up in my head that because Classical Republic would give decimals to GP points then the amenity 5% boost would also help give decimal places as well.) So that means my religion comes on turn 45 and there's not a whole lot of point to buying the shrine straight away. I can wait all the way up until turn 43 to buy the shrine and still get the religion on t45.
Taking a look at my lands:
Archery came in a few turns ago, and I moved my upgraded slinger back to be upgraded. I'll finish a 2nd archer at the end of the turn, and that will bring me up to 2 warriors, 2 archers, and 1 slinger with another warrior due out of Forgottonia in 4. (It says 3 but we're going to switch from Urban Planning to Colonization when Early Empire finishes in 2 turns. Speaking of which, I miscalced on when that civic would finish too.) The 2 warriors and 2 archers will go after Brussels, I'll send the warrior to escort my next settler, and the slinger will stick around and upgrade whenever I feel like it's time to (probably should have made it as a warrior instead).
And that damn barb scout, it just keeps poking around. When I send a unit near it, it runs away. And when that unit goes too far afield (like my warrior in the fog did) the scout comes back to pester Forgottonia. I'm not sure what kind of logic it's following, but it ain't suiciding. It's playing like a human would, lol. But if it keeps coming forward the slinger should be able to clean it up.
Finally, I think I know where my next city is going. When my warrior went out chasing the scout after a while the scout disappeared and I just decided to investigate some of the nearby fog. I turned up what is a fantastic city location:
Look at all those 2f2h tiles. The banana is 3f2h, the coffees are all 2f2h1c. It's all beautiful and it doesn't need any builder turns to get up and running. I'm just not exactly sure where to put it.
Do I plant on top of the coffee and then just build a campus right between the 2 mountains straight away?
Do I plant between the coffee and the stone so I can get the masonry eureka faster?
Or between the coffee and the banana to work the banana first and grow faster?
However, this is a bit of a stretch. It is 10 tiles away from the capital and 7 tiles from Forgottonia. It may be safer to start compact and take the horse location:
I keep coming back to this spot because it is safer. It keeps my empire closer together, easier to defend. It also connects better to Brussels for after I take that location. Also, I would be able to plant down a campus beside the mountain and between the 2 jungle as soon as the city is built, at least locking in the cost early on.
What I may want to do is just stay in Colonization for a while longer and bust out 2-3 settlers. Besides, if I add in all the 2f2h1c coffee tiles north of the horses and I'm tempted to plant on top of the horse tile, or to just save those coffees for another city on the coast north of Forgottonia. There's a good location to my east and while I don't think I'll actually get it, it's possible that i could still get a city on my side of the mountain pass against Rome.
As far as technology goes, I'm going for writing now, but I am thinking about switching to Bronze Working next turn to get some sight on gold. I don't actually need Writing to finish until right when this next city is planted. But all these jungle locations do want me to get some campus districts down.