[SPOILERS] By the Rivers of Babylon, FIN has no effect (on krovice)

[novice]

See, all of the above, including the admission of failure isn't technically true either.

The problem is one of prioritization, rather than anything else. It is possible to use 3 workers to chop the granary at OT. It is possible to use 2 workers to chop a granary at TtL. It is possible to use a chop and whip overflow to finish a granary or galley at WH. It is possible to mine a grassland at DS to speed up the settler and finish the bowmen whilst growing to size 5. It is possible to road the copper location and get the copper mined by T77 or even T76 with different DS micro.

It isn't possible to do all of these at the same time though, unless we whipped another worker out of FP.

Yeah, so I guess we need to get our priorities straight. The mine at DS has already been set in motion. I think I'd like granaries at OT and TtL. So let's try to plan our micro around that, perhaps?

[Krill]

Yeah, those seem like solid priorities.

General consequences of other micro: roading the copper before settling Free Reign means that we get a granary there with 1 chop at size 1, because of the worker positioning. WH can do whatever, it's not that important so long as it stays at size 3 or higher; the granary is there mainly to make a galley slave more palatable afterwards. Also we need commerce, so a lighthouse afterwards makes it a solid commerce city for us.

[Krill]

OK, I looked at the MM this morning. I can do the following:

1. Copper City settled T76, copper hooked T77.
   
2. OT Granary eot T73 (16 food in box, growth trick needed to maximise granary food).
   
3. TtL Granary eot T72 (no growth trick needed).
   
4. DS second mine finished T78 (growth to 5, bowmen, eot T75, work lake for much needed commerce building settler).
   
5. WH, 1 pop whip, Worker8 eot T74, Granary eot T75 with OF and chop.

The cost? We need to use 2 workers to road the copper, which is done by using a worker from TtL after the chops, and the worker OT is building now after it does the granary chop there. So basically we end up wasting 2 worker turns to do it. Everything else isn't lost (although you may quible that I'm using 1 worker turn on a cottage at FP as I've moved it from FP back to WH because of chop timing needs). There is zero optimisation done for FP; it looks like Whosit has backed off, which means that we ought to consider whipping it at size 2. Likewise, there is pretty much nothing done for RC but that city has the lakes and 9fpt with the rice; it kinda makes sense to overflow from the worker into a granary, grow to 4, whip the granary and take it from there.

[Krill]

Other points with the micro that I haven't put on the map:

• TtL: T70, OF into Granary.
  
• TtL: T71, build Worker.
  
• TtL: T72, build Granary.
  
• TtL: T73 build none foodhammer unit (can finish 23/25 bowman).
  
• TtL: T74 eot grow size 3
  
• TtL: T75 (Nothing happens)
  
• TtL: T76 eot grow size 4
  
• TtL: T77 double slave Worker

TtL grows quickly to size 4 but has no improvements beyond the food so must double whip a worker. This worker can then cottage the tiles that would be shared with filler city. Can also drag a worker back from Free Reign to help with this process, all depends on how you want to manage FR with regard to size 1 granary, hooking the fish/deer, and getting a galley to go settle/explore the southern island. As a very tangential point, we do want a scout on that island as there is at least 1 goody hut to pop, and it is a cheap way to explore. We still need military units there so the scout does not necessarily have to fight barbs if we are smart with it (and it can barb bust).


OT:

• OT: T69 Build Settler or Worker
  ...
  
• OT: T72 Build Granary
  
• OT: T73 eot finish Granary
  
• OT: T74 Enable avoid growth, build none foodhammer unit (Warrior good for MP)
  
• OT: T75 Disable avoid growth, eot grow size 3
  
• OT: T76 eot grow size 4 (at this point lots of options depending on what built waiting for Granary)
  ...
  
• OT: T78 eot grow size 5
  ...
  
• OT: T80 eot grow size 6
  
• OT: T81 triple whip Settler?

This is all a bit of a hand waving exercise. Growing to size 6 is possible, no issues with happy constraints. Problem is that settler or worker would be at 38/X hammers, need a hill mined to be able to get it to 50/100 for 2 pop slave if a settler. If a worker, should just build it for 2 turns at size 3 using the remaining forest. Also, limited tiles to work. If growing to size 6, need to drag workers down from WH to cottage, as only 1 worker left to cottage at OT and need at least 2 workers there. Personally, I prefer growing to size 4 and then just double whipping the settler T78. That settler can be used for horse city very easily. Or for an island city (see below).


WH:

• WH: T69 build Worker.
  ...
  
• WH: T74 slave Worker, size 3.
  
• WH: T75 build Granary eot.
  
• WH: T76 OF into Bowmen?
  
• WH: T77 build Galley?
  
• WH: T78 eot grow size 4
  ...
  
• WH: T81 eot grow size 5
  
• WH: T82 2 pop slave Galley

This is a lot more shaky because on T76 we have two workers at WH that could farm a grassland and speed growth by at least 1 turn. More if we didn't work the gold for a turn. No chopping necessary, but that would speed the galley even more...or get a work boat for the fish. Not working the gold for a turn but getting an island city a turn sooner means we make up 7 commerce from trade routes so it's actually worth it when you look at it like that. If the farm was created, then could feasibly try to 1 pop whip the galley T81 (using 1 worker for the farm and growing to size 5 eot T80). Or if using worker 8 to chop a forest, could 1 pop whip the galley T79 and no farm needed. Would have island city T82 or T83 depending on N or NE of the sign in the T65 turn report pictures.


DS:

• DS: T66 build Bowman
  
• DS: T67 work clam/rice/corn/lake build Settler
  
• DS: T68 work clam/corn/rice/mine
  ...
  
• DS: T72 finish Settler
  
• DS: T73 work clam/rice/corn/lake build Bowman
  
• DS: T75 work clam/rice/corn/mine eot grow size 5 finish Bowman
  
• DS: T76 work clam/rice/corn/mine/lake build Settler
  ...
  
• DS: T78 work clam/rice/corn/mine*2
  ...
  
• DS: T82 eot finish Settler

This settler is probably timed better to be used as the horse city, because we will have a few more turns to get roads in place and to then pasture the horse, chop the dye to get the work boat out. Only posting this so the timeline is apparent when considering the micro for the other cities, I don't think there is anything particularly critical to consider here. If DS went onto another settler immediately afterwards, it would complete eot T88. That would bring us up to 10 cities, without building a settlers anywhere else after T78 (OT).

[novice]

I played through your plan, Krill, and I like it. I see you already made one obvious improvement in your save stack compared to your in-game signs: The worker currently at FP's deer takes care of the chop 2NW of OT, instead of trekking all the way to WH.

Maybe TtL should build a settler after the granary and not a worker?

I'm going to play T66 now.

[novice]

Turn 66.

Not much to report. I updated the in-game signs for workers 1 and 4, and in the east our spawnbuster revealed an offshore sheep.

[Krill]

TtL could fairly easily make a settler and not a worker after the granary, it's just dependent on the worker MM getting cottages down. Which is again dependent on the worker MM at Free Reign and hooking the copper, getting the single forest chop for the size 1 granary, and then ensuring the deer and sheep are hooked to fit in with that granary, and growth to size 2 respectively. I'm sure you will be able to figure that out better than I can...

I'm not strictly speaking sure that the swap between which worker chops at OT and which one chops at WH is beneficial. We end up having to "waste" a turn or two at WH farming a tile, and if we chop/slave the galley out that tile is not going to get worked...but that can be dealt with by just cottaging the tile 88 of OT before moving onto the forest on T72 or doing that road as you've noted.

With regard to settlers, I think the next 4 cities can go down as quickly as we can make the settlers. We need one for Copper, one for an island city (which is dependent on the turn we can get the galley), one for the horse, and one for the ivory. Arguably the ivory city should be city 9 as we need to get culture expanded to stop the player to the SE settling 1S of the clam. After that, cities become more expensive economically (those 4 cities, working resource tiles bring in an extra 34 commerce due to the trade routes). But those next 4 settlers are done 20 turns form now at the end of this MM period so it's probably wise to start looking at what the aims are for the period afterwards.

I think we need to somehow build 2 scouts and 2-3 bowmen. Or we need to build a couple of copper units, send them to the front and then bring back a few bowmen, we can use those units to scout out the islands. The scouts can be used to safely pop any huts we find on the two islands, and then barb bust behind the exploring military units. With a size 1 granary in FR that city grows straight to size 4 (or more likely 5) and then whips out a galley to start moving units over in the south, overflow would finish most of the work boat for the clam there.

We want to stake a claim to those islands. I'm not sure how to afford it without wrecking tech pace, but I'm becoming less and less concerned that we are going to need HBR too soon. Unless Whosit gets a move on and gets a few more cities, he will not be able to build enough HA to justify us going that tech path, we should just manage him with spears, bowmen and chariots. dtay will more likely want to eat Whosit than us. That puts us in a position where rushing to Currency is going to be very justifiable, and the more none Calendar happiness we can settle for on the islands, the better that becomes. Oh, and on that note, we also need to get a chariot out to scout the southern tundra, might be furs or silver there.

[Krill]

I now like settling on the island sign as the first city there. 15 unique tiles. But settling 1NE and then 2E of the newly discovered sheep is not bad either, we have so little overlap having a bit there is OK IMO...but we can scout that area fine with the defending units on the turn we can settle the sign anyway (drop both units onto the sign on whatever turn, next turn scout then either move settler or settl.

[novice]

Turn 67

Feeble Position's borders expanded, giving us visibility on Overland Park. Man, that city is vulnerable. It was clearly never intended to be a front city.




Also we have a better idea of the shape of the central lake. And dtay is powergaming by not enumerating his workers.



Demographics and such. Ours is a peaceful corner of the world; we top the power graph but we're only 13th in the world.

[Krill]

Did you chance DS back to a settler?

Ours is a peaceful corner of the world because everyone knows it won't stay that way for long. Everyone is just sitting back waiting for everything to kick off.

I did some MM in my head earlier (really boring lectures...) I think once the copper is mined we can get everything done at FR with just 2 workers including a second forest chop for a workboat to improve the clam for use at size 3.