[SPOILERS] Back to Basic - Mardoc plays Augustus of China

[Mardoc]

One more turn to wait and see. Here's hoping everyone's awake and near a computer so I can see that turn tonight - odds are it's not til tomorrow though. Or even longer

I've found some resources worth grabbing - and only a plains cow so far to sustain actually working any tiles in this area. Maybe what makes sense is a fishing village of some sort, and to hook up all the stuff but only work the good tiles.



Still, so far we've got gold, silver, likely forge-doubled, and furs, in addition to likely Hinduism for happiness. That's what, size 10 cities if I can find the food for them? Quite promising.

It's also nice that I haven't run into anyone yet. No worries about army building; I can just pour that production into settlers and wonders.

[Mardoc]

Alright, one down, three to go!



Note: picture may not be perfectly accurate, I realized I hadn't reassigned tiles. Haley's actually working the copper mine, making another worker.

[Commodore]

Sweet!

I love that move.

[SevenSpirits]

I'm also currently aiming for the Oracle, which is only doubled with Marble, not Stone. But it's a free tech, and there are some good ones available around that era. We'll likely take Metal Casting, which enables forges (BtS version is +25% hammers to everything, doubles metal happiness, Ind gets at half price) and Colossus (+1 commerce to all water tiles).

To the south, we've discovered...no reason to move Haley. Better to share the mines with the capital than to get a bunch of foodless coast:

You may be right here, but coast is nothing to scoff at if you go for oracle->MC.

[Mardoc]

You may be right here, but coast is nothing to scoff at if you go for oracle->MC.

It's definitely arguable. Current position is better for hammers, south would have been better for commerce. And even there, when it fully grows up I'm not sure south would have been any weaker in hammers, I think my limit will be food to work mines. One more detail: south would have taken an extra turn to found. Slightly increased risk of losing Hinduism, and of course production delayed a bit.

I think I'd rather have my 2nd city be a quickly established, high early-hammer site, but I can see the argument otherwise. Especially since city 3 is also destined for early high production and mediocre long term.

[Mardoc]

Sian's been holding the save, so I guess I'll report on a recent turn instead of on the next turn.

First bit of news: looks like barbs are on. So the era of unprotected settlers wandering away from empty cities will need to end



Further exploration in the west continues to be irritating. Only 1 tile naturally with 2+ food, yet a lot of resources. Right now I'm thinking of something like a city on the ice, meant to work a lot of coast and 2 furs at max size. But mostly just there to provide culture to grab the resources.

Edit: Assuming it's allowed to settle on ice. I think it is, but I'm not sure - anyone know for sure?




In other news...what are the others doing with themselves? Growing to size 4 I understand. Don't quite get why everyone hasn't done that. Only guess is that people decided to make extra workers.




Regardless, our approach is paying off well in the demographics. Of course it'll get even better once we do the simple things like build a road connection and let the cities grow.

[Mardoc]

Three turns so far today, and chances look good for a fourth. This makes up quite nicely for a day with nothing

Mostly they've been quite boring, but something interesting did just happen in the latest turn:



Only one city could possibly lose population...and two health for the rest of the game would be very handy...I went for the full scale tests. And lucked out, we've only got that unhappiness to deal with, and it ought to expire before our cities can grow to the point where they would have needed it.




Meanwhile, workers have been busy constructing a copper/intercity route, and putting the sheep to pasture. I'm debating if it makes sense to build a road from the sheep en route to the gold, or if I should do that later and instead focus on strictly more tile improvements. Not sure that my worker management is at all efficient, but I figured a little inefficiency was ok to get the sheep pastured ASAP and make the copper available. Much rather build axes than warriors while growing, after all.

[Commodore]

Generally trying to get the most resource tiles hooked the earliest is best, so :shrug:

Awesome result for that event! Your citizens feel unsettled and a little violated, but all for the make benefit of Greater China!

[Mardoc]

Generally trying to get the most resource tiles hooked the earliest is best, so :shrug:

That's what I figured. It's nice to save worker turns, but not if that means letting the really strong tiles stay unimproved.

Still debating whether it's worth roading to the gold or waiting to road on the return trip.

Edit: ok, I don't know what I was thinking. What's more important, saving a couple worker turns, or a couple more turns of working a gold mine? Yeah...

Awesome result for that event! Your citizens feel unsettled and a little violated, but all for the make benefit of Greater China!

Yep! May not have been correct to take the risk, losing 1/3 of my pop this early would have hurt, but it couldn't have turned out better. Now I just need to get enough happiness hooked to use all that health!

[Mardoc]

Had a bit of luck.



The west is now worth settling eventually! Not soon, of course. Thinking something like this for when we finally get around to it:



Changed my mind on Roy, it's working on another settler instead. Three workers ought to be able to pretty much keep up, and what's Imp good for it you don't get your cities in place early?

Had to be either a worker or settler, I underestimated the unhappiness from herbalism. Should be able to grow again in 8 turns, but Roy was due to grow faster than that if we didn't slip in a foodhammer build.

Besides, I want to get that corn tile in play.