Gavagai's spoiler thread

[Old Harry]

Lighthouse needs salt water, wb needs salt water or food resource in adjacent lake.

Salt water is anything bigger than ten tiles I think.

[Gavagai]

Pretty unpleasant situation here. Next turn the warrior will step on my cow and I will have only two warriors of my own to remove it. I should be fine but really, need more units (even though I'm something like third in power).

[Gavagai]

I've been thinking a lot about this city lately... Gaspar got it essentially for free but it still may prove to be a terrible investment lately. It is miles away from his capital and short-term gonna tank his economy. Also, this city, though very good long-term, can't make an immediate use of any of its resources. Rice is jungled, clams need a workboat, gold and cow need a border expansion.
Last but not least - how is he going to defend this city? There is no way to reinforce it from his core quickly enough and if he would keep a large garrison here, it will be locjed out from any possible battle in his core.
I think I will snipe this city with HAs at some point but only when I'll be sure that I can keep it.

[Gavagai]

Gaspar is annoying... I want to play the turn and go have them sleep and here he is, staying logged in for forty minutes and holding up his turn. What can he even do in game for that long, especially given that he already made one log in earlier?
20 minutes left on timer does he want it to run down naturally for some reason? Can't imagine what he could possibly gain from it...

[Gavagai]

...and he logged out with 12 minutes left. This guy is truly trolling me.

[Catwalk]

Victory is the best revenge

[Gavagai]

I'm rethinking my strategy now. My previous plan was to get an early Academy (absolute must in this setup) and an early golden age to switch into Bureau/Monarchy/OrgRel. To achieve this I was going to run 2 and 3 specialists in these two cities:





(the third specialist was going to be a spy)

But this would be brutally wasteful as these cities are also my best cottage cities. Five specialists ran there mean five riverside financial cottages unworked. I can afford two scientist for Academy (I can't add cottages that fast anyway) but three more specialists for golden age would be too much. Also, I'm not really going to get anything special from this golden age except free civic switch. I won't be able to reach any important military or economic advantage which I would be able to immediately leverage (unless I'm going to wage an elimination war against Gaspar with Maces/HAs which I'm strongly inclined not to do). And I will lose a possibility to start a golden age later with a much broader base.
So, I decided to scrap this plan and just eat a turn of Anarchy switching to Monarchy and Civil Service ASAP (not sure about OrgReligion - I think third switch should add a turn of Anarchy anyway and I will also need to convert to Confu somehow; may be I will postpone this until my actual GA). This actually may change my tech plan. Earlier I was going to take Currency as the timing of civic switch was tied to the timing of my golden age anyway. Now I'm thinking about skipping Currency; it will take about 25 turns to fully pay off and I definitely should be able to research Civil Service and Monarchy faster.

Also, I'm starting to run out of places to settle. On this picture:



you can see three most obvious places to settle next (will need to check for additional seafood in the north-east, of course). I think, I will have these spots covered before T100 or may be just a couple turns later and this would bring me to 10 cities. After that things will become much more dubious:



I really can't figure out this spot. In theory, it can be a very strong city but it has no way to bring up infrastructure fast. Even getting a workboat here would be a problem. May be I should temporarily farm the flood, I don't know...



Also I may go and settle those islands, though they have trouble with production too. At least I can bring workboats there from other places.
By the way, I'm really glad that I've settled Carbon early (though getting a galley and a workboat was quite painful as I postponed a granary in Helium for this). It has proven to be a very strong play. It gave me a large and fast commerce boost via Gems and IC traderoutes and also gave me a third happiness resource which has been extremely useful. There is no city with 8 pop in top five and I suspect that no one but me has three happy at this point.

[Lewwyn]

No production? I see lots of food. Just whip, whip, whip.

[Gavagai]

No production? I see lots of food. Just whip, whip, whip.

These food is two clams, one of which is in the second ring. Clams need workboats which can't be brought here from elsewhere. Also, there are two floods which, if farmed, can be a pseudo-food resource. But 4 food is simply too weak a tile. I will need to farm a floodplain (7 worker-turns) and then spend 6 turns to grow the city. Then, I guess, I'll need to whip a workboat, net clams, spent another 6 turns to regrow. In 12 turns the city will still sit with no granary, no culture, unless I would spend 40 hammers somewhere to bring a missionary, and even without a cheap lighthouse.
Alternative scenario is to work a second floodfarm, grow the city to size 3 in four additional turns and only then whip a WB. It speeds up the development by two turns but sacrifices eight commerce from clams and, more importantly, prevents me from putting a cottage on a flood, shared with Nitrogen.
Of course, the city will become good after problems with initial development are resolved but this, for example, may be a better spot:



In the course of the same 12 turns it will be also at size 2 but will have a granary - with only one more worker-turn which I will need to invest. This what just one forest and 5-food resource would do. I will bring a chariot here and, if the city is safe to settle, will prioritize this location.

[Gavagai]

No production? I see lots of food. Just whip, whip, whip.

And yes, the problem with sugar island is similar in a sense that it has no forest to chop into a granary. Which means that the only way to build a granary here is to grow the city to size 4 and then whip. Of course, this is also an option but I generally prefer to avoid doing this; growing a city from size 3 to 4 without a granary is usually a pain (unless you have a city like Nitrogen with three food-positive tiles around).