[SPOILERS] Tres Equis: Mardoc plays the Most Interesting Civ in the World

[Azarius]

That last screen also looked to me like there was more barb culture than would be accounted for by one city. Maybe it's just an odd shadow.

The picture doesn't show it, but I take it the copper in the barb city is the only relatively close source? If so, that would make me lean more towards heading for philo to unlock the potw. Going for bronze working first without access to copper wouldn't make much sense, and going kote would leave you with only str 3 warriors for a while as your strongest units. Barbs haven't been a huge issue yet, but having bronze warriors or something stronger turns them into free xp. On the other hand, as you said, the sooner you start on adepts, the sooner you have your mages. They are your long term plan, so getting that rolling would be nice. And with enchantment you still get some help on your warriors. What would eta on kote be currently?

[Mardoc]

That last screen also looked to me like there was more barb culture than would be accounted for by one city. Maybe it's just an odd shadow.

I think so. I think it's the boundary between visible and unseen land, from my borders.

The picture doesn't show it, but I take it the copper in the barb city is the only relatively close source? If so, that would make me lean more towards heading for philo to unlock the potw. Going for bronze working first without access to copper wouldn't make much sense, and going kote would leave you with only str 3 warriors for a while as your strongest units. Barbs haven't been a huge issue yet, but having bronze warriors or something stronger turns them into free xp. On the other hand, as you said, the sooner you start on adepts, the sooner you have your mages. They are your long term plan, so getting that rolling would be nice. And with enchantment you still get some help on your warriors. What would eta on kote be currently?

Definitely the only close copper. At least unless there's some in the fog - I really ought to get some more scouts out soonish. I could perhaps take the copper by founding a new city north of the barbs, but realistically it'll be a lot faster to just go conquering. Which, yeah, does argue for Philo. Already quite useful for me, but adding a free city is a nice bonus.

If I go for KotE directly, I've got first 5 turns of Mysticism, then probably about 10-11 turns of KotE (current eta is 13, but that doesn't include prereq or growing cities onto lake tiles). Philo would be about 9 turns, and Education is about 7-8. I'm improving my GNP steadily, but also kinda slowly at the moment; no big leaps until later. Remember that none of these provide instant benefits, I've got to invest some hammers first.

[Ellimist]

Wow, that's a beautiful site. Especially since you can freeze it to fix any food difficulties.

[Mardoc]

Wow, that's a beautiful site. Especially since you can freeze it to fix any food difficulties.

Dual coppers, you mean? Agreed - but there's a fair bit of investment between me and it. Gotta get military capable of taking it, and then a monument, probably Temple of Hand, and ideally a lighthouse as well. Still, likely Heroic Epic candidate .

Turns are pretty boring at the moment. Barbs aren't much of a threat for now, and I'm catching up on worker production - I have about six mines I want yesterday, in addition to improvements at Green Tea and eventually preparation for whatever I pick for city 4.

[Mardoc]

One more turn last night - the pace is looking pretty solid. Which means things will be getting interesting again in a month or so .

All that happened yesterday was two more workers born. Which puts me up to 5 for three cities, nearly enough. Although - part of the reason I'm spamming workers at the moment is great huge food surpluses at both Mint and Vanilla and barely any hammer production - but that'll change soon as I get mines built. Therefore - workers now, hammer stuff in a few turns. If I overshoot on workers a bit, I'll just have to spam settlers pretty hard - hardly a tragedy.

I'm debating between Philosophy and Education next - but I think KotE will be waiting until after both. I want the Priests, I want Slavery, and I want cottages. It'll probably end up with Philo first because I'm still catching up to Mining with my current worker supply, so cottages can wait a bit longer.

[Mardoc]

One of these days I'll have to post an actual screenshot. Turn this morning (well, really about 2 hours after I went to bed), means a low chance of turn tonight, but sometimes it makes it through despite starting late.

In foreign news and demographics: I'm totally completely confused. I'm way, way ahead in foodhammers - like 30 ahead in food and only ~10 behind in hammers, but I'm bringing up the rear in GNP. Someone's got an Academy already, someone's gotten Kilmorph, but no one's even close to the foodhammers I've got. Why push science that hard on a big map? I think expansion is still more important, myself. It's a lot easier to convert hammers and food into cash than vice versa.

I revolted to God King; it only helps a bit for the moment but will start to pay off a lot once my mines complete. I'm up to six workers, and am catching up on the mines, so pretty soon I'll start another settler or two. I'm debating location, but haven't thought seriously about it yet. One possibility is to stretch a bit and grab marble, so I can make the Bone Palace. I think I want to wait for after I get the PoW built, though - one major project at a time is enough, I still need to push out settlers and warriors somewhere. Probably I'll end up settling somewhere to the SE. Well - I should go for somewhere that can steal the farms Vanilla's built, since it'll be switching to working mostly mines. Save enough worker turns that way and I can send out more settlers sooner.

PoW will have many purposes - capturing my new city, barbarian and calabim security, and maybe I can even explore some with them. I doubt it's worth walking them over the the Calabim to hurt him some more, but I should definitely consider offense with them. Planning to give them primarily Combat promos, and eventually hopefully Mobility (gotta research HBR for that)

I've started research on Philo. Won't help me catch up in GNP, but I still think expansion is the most important thing for the moment - and Slavery and PoW will both help a lot there. Use that massive food lead I'm accumulating! Can always get GNP later, and I don't need all that much tech this game anyway.

Killing a goblin put one of my warriors adjacent to the barb culture, so I plan to duck in next turn and see what the garrison and size look like. Not likely to be anything good, but it's not like 2 warrior turns is much of a cost. Maybe I get lucky and discover the archers have wandered away or something. Or at least I'll verify that it's grown to a capturable size.

[Azarius]

Pictures are always nice . I agree with you as far as commerce vs foodhammers. With as much space as you seem to be working with, expansion should take priority over commerce. With more sites coming online faster, you get the snowball going sooner. If some out there didn't have good candidates for city sites the commerce focus would make more sense, but with someone (Q iirc) having built the map, someone having a really poor position seems unlikely.

ETA on Philo, and rough guess on PoW after that? Here's hoping that the barb city is lightly defended, but I don't think I've ever seen the archers just wander away, but maybe I've just been unlucky.

[Qgqqqqq]

Starts were balanced but not rebuilt. Everyone has a chance (IMO) but some positions are definitely stronger or weaker.

[Mardoc]

ETA on Philo, and rough guess on PoW after that? Here's hoping that the barb city is lightly defended, but I don't think I've ever seen the archers just wander away, but maybe I've just been unlucky.

See, if I'd been posting pictures, you wouldn't have to ask . Let's answer that question and also show the barb city.




8-9 turns to Philo, depending on what tiles I work in the interim. 268 hammers is a lot - but I can get Vanilla to 20 base hpt pretty easily, and God King on top makes it about 9 turns from Philo to PoW. Less if I can boost Vanilla more than that or use Slavery - that's a guess without actually counting tile yields.

Speaking of foodhammering, I've started to think about dotmap again. In the south, it's a tradeoff between sharing tiles with Vanilla and getting the best tiles for the cities themselves. In particular, I'm waffling on the northern city by the lake, if it should stay where it is to have three grass farms pre-made, or move 1E to the hill to claim the pigs and oasis? I can't grow Vanilla any more vertical this instant, but claim a little more happy resources and that'll work. Like, for instance, that wines to the south.




To the east, I'm thinking something like this. The city needs a Temple of the Hand to shine, but with a Temple it's pretty awesome. Wipe out all that desert, make some Ice Oases, and also have a nice mix of flatland and hill. The northern dot is mostly to claim marble, although the corn and dyes are a nice bonus.



Consider that a first draft dotmap, if you see something better I'd love to hear about it. Still ~5 turns before we get our next settler, after all, we've time to debate.

[Ellimist]

Less if I can boost Vanilla more than that or use Slavery - that's a guess without actually counting tile yields.

Slavery can't be used to hurry a ritual, unless you mean you'd whip something else and use the overflow.

If you do plan to utilize whip overflow, it might be helpful to whip things early and then wait to complete them until later. A building in the queue with 59/40 hammers invested can be saved until the hammers are needed for another goal.