[SPOILERS] Team BASTARD settles on deer.

[Mardoc]

Man, I'm glad we're Financial. Seems like half our empire's going to be coast tiles.




That said, Fish that's clearly in our sphere of influence =

We've got the wheel, but corn farming is definitely more important. In a couple turns when that finishes and the 2nd worker finishes we'll start laying down roads. Meanwhile...5 turns until granaries are possible!

Great Lighthouse and Colossus are going to both be Big Deals on this map - but 32 competitors, many of which are Ind...uh, pass. One early first-to is enough of a diversion, I think. Maybe we'll get lucky and Dhalphir will build one that we can take.

[Mardoc]

One More Thing:




I think I'm changing my mind on third city. Archery is only three turns, hills are additional bonuses to archers, and man that site is pretty. Plus it's not all that far away anymore, not with our 2nd city where it is. Plus I don't see Azza as all *that* aggressive - he seems to be attacked a lot, so perhaps strategically aggressive, but I haven't seen him whip out the stack himself.

[Mardoc]

I'm very glad you kept the warrior moving rather than return him to be a garrison:




Also I noticed a second reason why provoking Azza may not be super-duper risky just yet. Assuming he put his 2nd city where it seemed he was going to, he doesn't have copper yet himself. Granted we don't know anything about horses yet but it does mean he can't assemble anything super-scary just yet.

[Mardoc]

Wheel should be in at EOT, Pottery next. After that...probably Animal Husbandry, then Sailing.

Been thinking about this. Whatever we do, Pottery is going to consume a lot of our focus for a while - granaries will fill our queues, cottages will fill our worker turns. And we're not bouncing off the happy cap anywhere and won't as long as we're focused on catching up on workers. Can we really benefit from AH right away? About all it would give us is knowledge of horses and more for our workers' backlog.

Sailing, OTOH, would immediately get us trade assuming it comes in before we finish our road. And it would also immediately get us trade at the third city, either spot. Granted, lighthouses and galleys are both longer-term benefits that we couldn't afford immediately, but still, extra beakers are always handy. And once Granaries are in, we'll want to start whip/regrow cycles, which are a good place for Lighthouses to hang out.

I'd still want to pick up AH after Sailing, I'm just proposing swapping the two. Given a little time to put down roads and cottages, the workers will want more to do with themselves, and we'll grow to needing the happy soon enough post-Pottery.

Well, and I want to look in game again before committing. Need a better idea how much time each will take to research to have a real feel for the costs and benefits.

[Mardoc]

7 turns to AH, 9 to Sailing at current bpt. Maybe no diversion makes sense after all. Especially when we've only three tile to road to make our trade route anyway. And in addition to being good for happy, forested grass furs is a pretty darn good tile to work.

In other news: man, Commodore, you can make ice look beautiful:



For a frozen wasteland, this actually looks fairly hospitable. I'm not sure where exactly, but there's a great Moai site down here.

[BRickAstley]

That ice is hella cool.

[Mardoc]

That ice is hella cool.

Groan!

I'm not sure where exactly, but there's a great Moai site down here.

Actually, on second thought, probably half our planned cities would be happy to have Moai. We really ought to aim simply to build it early, not to try and optimize it.

[Mardoc]

Played last night. Got our worker finished and started with our road project, started a third worker. Seems like overkill, until I remember that extra worker turns can always be chops. Plus as soon as we have our granaries up, our growth rates will be very fast; need to keep up with that somehow.

Found exactly one new tile with the warrior, and it's bare coast. Could pop the hut next turn, but I'm not going to, with Pottery almost finished. I realize the odds of a tech are low, and the odd of that tech being Pottery are very low...but Murphy's Law still means it would have happened. We'll explore the hut with an empty tech box and fingers crossed

[BRickAstley]

Yeah, definitely wait a turn. Especially for going south and finding two seafood down there while we wait. :D

[Mardoc]

Sorry, Commodore wasn't that kind. Still waiting, keeping fingers crossed for next turn. If there's a tech, it's bound to be something useful, at least.




I realized I haven't shown our homeland in a while. So let's fix that.

FC is now totally focused on foodhammers. Saves a turn on the worker to do that rather than work the lakes. Still, I think we'll be happy to grow up to max here as soon as we can afford the food.



Troubleshooter, OTOH, only has the two tiles worth working at the moment. On top, next turn I plan to stick a granary in queue so we can whip it immediately; we're bound to need all our workers here for a little while to keep all the pop working improved tiles.



And our road is half done - two more turns to scrape up the three worker-turns, and then we can start praying for a Buddhism spread. If we get that, I'll need to find a place in a queue for a workboat - I guess the extra happy will enable a if nothing else.



Also, Dhalphir continues to confuse. What the heck is that scout doing? Did he forget it exists?