Gavagai's spoiler thread

[Lewwyn]

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).

Sugar island looks like a forest in the fog.

[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).

Sugar island looks like a forest in the fog.

Yes but to get this forest into a first ring I will need to move all three resources to the second ring. This or orphane the fish permanently. Settling on sugar is an option, though, I will evaluate it after I scout the rest of the island.

[Gavagai]

(Of course, all this is an excellent land overall, this is just me becoming too picky in this game.)

[Lewwyn]

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).

Sugar island looks like a forest in the fog.

Yes but to get this forest into a first ring I will need to move all three resources to the second ring. This or orphane the fish permanently. Settling on sugar is an option, though, I will evaluate it after I scout the rest of the island.

You're about to land Confu. Surely you can get a missionary to go with the settler and a WB.

[Gavagai]

A missionary still means 10 turns to wait. Also, I will need to build a monastery somewhere and then invest additional 40 hammers per each. Right now I'm not in a position to just spam them for every new city. Of course, later I'll be doing exactly that but at this point I will also spam cities to all remotely usable locations.

(Free missionary is already earmarked for Nitrogen. This city badly needs culture primarily for strategic purposes.)

[Lewwyn]

No dangit! You must churn your empire towards settling that city immediately! Your entire survival hinges upon the expedience with which you can settle that island city and make it a worthwhile cornerstone to your dominance!

[Gavagai]

I think I should expand a little bit. My idea of a good city spot, worth settling ASAP, is something which has at least one 5+ food resource and at least one forest immediately available (crab or clam would also do if I have a work boat to net them at once). This city can typically have a granary up in less then 10 turns. Before about T100 I usually try to settle only in such locations because settlers are a huge investment early and I want them to pay back quickly. Of course, a weaker spot can be settled if this location is important for some empire-wide reasons (claims important resource, block off important land, etc). Otherwise, I will at least consider, whether I have more productive use of those hammers which I can spend on a settler. Usually, with poor land an early wonder is a good idea (and, conversely, with lush land like on this map early wonders are most usually bad play, I think).

[Gavagai]

A skirmisher fortified on a random hill... which is actually a pretty good city spot. Bad luck for him; he doesn't yet know that Beryllium is now a confu holy city and he will be unlikely to push his second ring towards my territory. So, if he settles here, it will be one more city which I can one-turn with two-movers. This is what you get for the lack of scouting...

[Gavagai]

I was thinking what my longer term strategy can be. I won't participate in Liberalism race as at least Seven and Mikehendy are better positioned to win it (Mike due to having Elizabeth and Seven due to apparent lack of military pressure). Music Artist could be very useful but is also a long-shot as many other players would go for it and it will involve researching techs along Aesthetics line which I don't particularly want. On the other hand, monk economy is an intriguing idea. It goes well with infinite city spam for which this land and my civ/leader pick open a great opportunity.
However, there are two arguments against this idea:
1) Building wonders is difficult here. Land is very poor in terms of natural production, no way to set up even one city with high hammer output. I will need to whip into wonders. Also, no stone. I was, actually, going to skip world wonders completely, building national ones would be enough a trouble.
2) As my (and also my enemy's) income from land is going to be very high, it raises a question, whether flat benefit from religious buildings would make that important difference.

[Gavagai]

After reevaluating I decided that monk economy doesn't worth it. I think that I have a pretty good shot at conquering Gaspar eventually; my other neighbor is Bantams who currently has, like, four cities and this is while playing as Sury. He is already forever behind. I should just focus on grabbing as much land and as quickly as possible.