The Second Korean War: THH duels Ruff_Hi

[TheHumanHydra]

Here is the micro scheme I've followed and where I intend to take it the next few turns. This is being written ex post facto; I just did stuff in my head up to today and didn't do any sort of long-range planning or comparative simming (I'm a lazy civ player, so I focus on what I like best - for micro, that means I tend to fly by the seat of my pants). Here's a shot of what things look like as of t23 (right now) so you can follow along:




t0 - settler moves
t1 - 5fh into worker
t2 - 10fh
t3 - 15fh
t4 - 20fh
t5 - 25fh
t6 - 30fh
t7 - 35fh
t8 - 40fh, worker1 finishes
t9 - 3/14f, 2h into warrior - worker1 farms rice
t10 - 6/14f, 4h
t11 - 9/14f, 6h
t12 - 14/14f, 8h, grows to 2 - worker finishes rice farm
t13 - 8fh into worker - worker moves
t14 - 16fh - worker farms corn
t15 - 24fh
t16 - 32fh
t17 - 42fh, worker2 finishes, 2 overflow - worker finishes corn farm
t18 - 8/16f, 12h into warrior, warrior finishes, 2 overflow - worker1 moves, worker2 farms grassland
t19 - 16/16f, 4h into warrior, grows to 3 - worker1 mines grassland hill
t20 - 8/17f, 7h
t21 - 17/17f, 9h, grows to 4 - worker1 finishes grassland hill mine, worker2 finishes grassland farm
t22 - 13fh into settler, worker1 moves, worker2 roads rice 1t & cancels
t23 - 26fh, worker1 chop/mines grassland forest hill, worker2 moves
[Present]
t24 - Swap to Slavery, 2-pop whip, 76fh, settler finishes, 11 overflow - worker2 chops grassland forest
t25 - 8/16f, 13h into granary - settler moves
t26 - 16/16f, 28h, grows to 3 - settler moves, worker2 finishes grassland forest chop
t27 - 9/17f, 43h, granary finishes, 3 overflow - settler founds city2, worker1 finishes grassland forest hill mine/chop, worker2 pastures pigs
t28 - 18/17f, 14h into warrior, warrior finishes, 4 overflow, grows to 4, 1 overflow - worker1 pastures pigs, workers1&2 finish pigs pasture

City 2 goes on the X between the sheep and pigs; it's the highest-food location around.

And just 'cause I haven't shown inside the city yet - it's nothing special - here's P'yongyang the turn before it's whipped:




tl;dr - move to plains hill, worker - grow to 2 - worker - warrior, grow to 3 - grow to 4 - double-whip settler - grow to 3, granary - grow to 4, warrior; 2nd city t27; 2 cities, 2 workers, 2 (3) warriors, 1 granary, 6 improved tiles eot28

[TheHumanHydra]

This turn: I meet Ruff, and make ready to found my second city:




Realized I might have made a mistake in my micro (probably one of many); I forgot I'd have the pigs in my borders this turn and could start improving them before the city was founded. I stuck with my plan, finishing/continuing the chops, so I don't have to waste worker-turns moving back onto the forests later, but it costs me three food in the second city (doesn't delay it's growth to size two, but does delay it to size three).

[TheHumanHydra]

Immediately upon meeting Ruff, we engaged in a little early-game maneuvering:




Now that's a Woodsman II warrior he has there, albeit at 1.6 health:




He retreated through the forest 1N of his warrior in that shot when he saw I had both cities covered, and carried on exploring. I think he should have taken the 16% shot with his warrior instead; that was a 16% chance to end the game right there. But maybe I'm crazy. I myself took a risk: I could have finished the road on the rice tile and been able to kill his warrior with my freshly-produced one if he did so, but chose not to deviate from my micro (and delay improving the pigs, and thus the growth of Pusan, a turn). Anyway, minor stuff, but it was interesting enough.

As it turns out, we founded our second cities on exactly the same turn:




And, after a few turns previously when I had been a bit behind, ended up in a demographic dead heat:




P'yongyang finished its granary and built a quick worker on max. pop, to be followed by a whipped settler. Pusan just maxed out and will whip its granary. I want to expand to the spot 1N of the jungly gems next; that's why I (questionably) teched Iron Working. I figured that would give me a large commerce boost (that would make up the investment) - what I wasn't counting on was this, ahem, similarly-significant shot in the arm:




Yeah, I got lucky. I hope this doesn't prejudice the game too much in my favour (maybe, on the contrary, it's all that'll let me keep up [I have no idea how much better Ruff might be]). Here are the new, much shinier, demographics:




And that's the kind of day it's been.

[Commodore]

North vs. South Korea theme agreed for?

[TheHumanHydra]

No, we had decided on a mirrored combo and just randomly rolled Korea. Saw my capital was P'yongyang to his Seoul, and went with it. Hopefully this does not presage my country's economic performance ...

[TheHumanHydra]

The silver pop did have one negative effect: it left me one hammer short of being able to whip the settler in the capital this turn. Also Ruff's harassing me with his Woodsman warrior again.

[TheHumanHydra]

Interesting turn. So a few turns ago Ruff finished Stonehenge, then a few turns later founded his third city. I had planned to found my third and fourth cities the same turn, like so:







The idea was to share off the food-rich basin of Pusan to feed the new cities that would claim valuable resources (pigs and horses to the west and gems and stone to the east). The location of the eastern city will probably be controversial, since it claims no new food, and in fact makes settling for a couple nearby food resources more difficult:




I realized I should probably have founded the eastern city on the highlighted tile instead, and later founded another city on the tile the barb warrior is standing on to the northeast.

Anyway, I double-whipped Pusan last turn for the settler, and P'yongyang this turn to try and get two workers out in quick succession. Copper will be hooked next turn, so the warrior in Pusan is my last one (my seventh [!]). I survived the attack of the barbarian warrior on Cheju (it only had like 0.3% odds, though it did bring mine within one hit of death) - but wasn't so fortunate with my carefully-timed religion founding:




Yeah, Hinduism founded in Pusan, the one city that needs culture not at all. I was obviously hoping for one of the new cities - but it's okay; they're both sharing pre-improved food, Pusan is sharing the capital's rice so it's fine too, and P'yongyang has its corn.

Next: I amass a larger workforce and improve my land, while figuring out how to get culture into my cities.

[TheHumanHydra]

I may lose my new eastern city of Cheju Ruff's turn (sorry, I forgot to take a screenshot ...) - this turn a Woodsman I warrior appeared 1S of the stone, damaged - if the damage means it took a barb attack after moving and can promote, it can take Woodsman II, move through the forested plains hill, and kill my warrior that's at 0.2 strength from defeating its own own barbarian, razing the city. Erg - nothing I could do to stop this, nothing I could realistically have done to have foreseen this. Just crossing my fingers it doesn't happen.

[TheHumanHydra]

Ok, I didn't lose the city; he didn't have a promotion. His warrior's still wandering around looking for an opportunity to cause trouble; I've laid an ambush for it with my newly-produced axeman. Meanwhile I founded Judaism in Cheju, just as I wanted!




It may seem uncreative since I just did it in my last duel, but I think I'm going to try for the Pyramids. I mean, stone is right there, and I have the tech already, and plenty of forests to chop (I've taken people's advice and focused more on tile improvements than chopping this time - I've only chopped two forests so far). This will be in either Cheju or the capital, while the capital (if Cheju) and Pusan (second city) build settlers and workers. I've been building a library while regrowing in the capital, but I don't think I'm going to whip it; I think I'm going to save the foodhammers for the next settler. Where he will go I haven't thought of yet.

[TheHumanHydra]

I found something interesting:




Also I don't understand what's going on here:




It's been something like this for several turns: