[SPOILER] Cornflakes brings the popcorn

[Cornflakes]

[...] given that he's pushing rather aggressively your way.

Aggressive? By settling a city that overlaps with the first ring of his capital?

My plan, of course, is to raze that city on Gems and keep my dotmap as-is

[Qgqqqqq]

Yeah, aggressive is a strong word. I simply meant that he is pushing your way firstly, just as you are pushing south firstly.

[Cornflakes]

Q, I apologize for my terse response earlier. I was just in an antagonistic mood when I woke up this morning. Here is a more complete answer ... My plan right now is to put City #4 1N of Wheat. This has several advantages. 1) is close to home, and therefore does not step on anybody's toes and follows my philosophy this game of remaining out of early game conflict. 2) claims both Crab + Rice with a (hopefully Stonehenge-monument) border pop. 3) Is located such that it does not invalidate a future city at 2E of Banana, as it would if planted on the PH. 4) short term in can incubate many cottages for the capital, 3 grass and 2 plains, but long term it'll probably be a poor drafting-sized fishing village. 5) Once I am able to swap to Vassalage/Theocracy for a turn I will whip out a pair of 4XP galleys for Nav_1, which will then move through a fort 1W of Rice to raze the gems city.

The PH plant actually does look like a much better location, except that it would not allow a city 2E of Banana which i really want. I'll consider that more and get back with you, but I'm thinking right now a quick push to that 2E of Banana city immediately after planting 1N of Wheat.

So, 1SE of the Rice? I could also see 1S to share the wheat

Neither of these are good from a long-term strategic perspective. Both will always be vulnerable to 2-movers on the NE diagonal, and therefore require a permanent garrison. We'll never be able to take that 3rd ring NE diagonal tile because it will be 2nd ring to reteps Gem's city. At this time I don't really know what I'm going to do in the Northeast.

[Cornflakes]

I settled ORANGE city #3 this turn. It needs a border pop, and I was planning to whip a monument here. Timing of the Stonehenge attempts is such that all the hammers come in on the same turn that I was going to whip the Monument. This means that the monument will arrive in city #3 on the same turn as if I'd whipped it, and it I will only slow down the Monument build by a maximum of 1 turn if somebody completes it before me in the turn order when the hammers are supposed to come in. In that unfortunate case I'll put 1 turn into the Monument and then whip it a turn late.

My reason for suddenly wanting the Stonehenge is because looking at the map, all of my cities will want early border pops.




Re-posted dotmap from above ... I will not have time to post screenshots for a couple days, as I cannot do that from work. But I am planning to do a full T50 update + future plans (may be a couple turns early/late depending on which turn(s) come in over the weekend). But looking at that screenshot ... ORANGE (just settled) needs a border pop, RED is invalidated due to Retep's Gems city, YELLOW (now city 4) will need an immediate border pop, BLUE (now City 5) could be moved 1S to pick up marble 2S of Crab and would need immediate border pop, Newton already wants a border pop to pick up Fur.

Add to this the fact that all my cities will want a Monument at some point anyways for the +1 Happy and the Stonehenge is a no-brainer play. I could not have run for it earlier without compromising early snowball (and in my opinion that was a justifiable trade-off if I do end up losing it), but if it lasts for another 8 turns then it'll definitely be worth the hammers invested.

[Cornflakes]

HA! I got all the graphs after the turn roll, and most interesting is the culture graph




I was right that retep did NOT get an early religion, and I'm pretty sure that slope change at the very end is monument build. This is significant, because if he build Monument that means he most likely is NOT trying to get Stonehenge. Jowy is CRE so no reason to pursue Stonehenge. The other two each founded a religion, presumably in their 2nd cities, and therefore won't be really wanting Stonehenge either (I hope).

All graphs in spoilers.

[Cornflakes]

Another full map stitch now that I have found everybody. The lower right is a bit distorted, but close enough to get the idea of distances between everybody.

[Cornflakes]

It's so nice having a plan to follow!




I put the first turn into Stonehenge. It only needs to last 3 more turns. Next turn I 1-pop whip Granary. Following turn I 2-pop whip Worker. And then Stonehenge completes EOT52.




Here is a more detailed look at the south. Bob's borders expanded EOT, so I'm going to move East. That will give me a better view of what I'm hoping is a 1-tile island. If that really is a 1-tile hill island I'm going to prioritize settling that next, as that will pay for itself by increasing TR yields (although it will probably just barely pay for itself). As a 1-tile island it would be much more secure than if it had another tile where siege could be landed. If it is just 1-tile then a pair of archers could hold that city against an army.




Power graph says "nothing to worry about"




Demographics are looking good! Nothing to be worried about, except the underwhelming GNP. But Stonehenge will fix that with culture

[Cornflakes]

Do to an unfortunate fast-moving rain cell in the area you're going to get the Turn 50 State of the Nation Address this evening. I was planning to play tennis with a friend, but a fast-moving cell brought a torrential downpour for 2 minutes that soaked all the courts




Here's an overview of the empire. Settler will be 2-pop whipped next turn for YELLOW dot. One of the chopping workers will be employed full-time putting up cottages around the capital, starting with tiles that can be shared by YELLOW. The other worker will head for copper and have that connected about T60.

What about economics? I think I'm going to try to get The Great Lighthouse as well. As I noted in the post above, I'm going to try *stealing* Bob's hopefully-1-tile-island. I'll have the one near YELLOW as well. With that and all cities coastal except for the capital I think it'll be worth the investment. I haven't worked out a plan for building it yet, but it will probably go in Truth. I'll need to get some military online as soon as copper is connected, so I'll probably overflow 2-pop whips from Axes/Spears into tGLH.




Our capital, currently 2nd largest in the world, behind REM @ size 6, and ahead of everyone else @ <= 4. But she'll soon be whipped down to the sorry size 2 for Stonehenge. After that it'll be GrowGrowGrow! Hammers while growing will be dumping into Barracks since Writing for Library won't be finished until ~T56.




I'll probably have Newton go Worker > Worker > Settler after this. This will probably be accomplished by grow > whip. Military will come from Truth to generate overflow into tGLH.




And Truth, the newest sibling in the family. After Granary will be WB for Crab, followed by Galley [for ushering Worker over to Sheep, and then Settler down to Bob's Island] > Lighthouse > WB for Bob's Island > Axe > overflow to tGLH > Spear > overflow to tGLH ... etc. This is all tentative though.




Demographics look promising. GNP is low, but I'll be building cottages soon.

*****************************
Who am I most likely to come into conflict with first? Either Bob via coastal city raze (hopefully not my city being razed!) which I don't think is likely as I do not want to stir up unnecessary trouble, or Retep over his Gems city. Long-term I'll probably be fighting and absorbing Retep in order to win. We are destined to fight due to our close starts with a wide front. I'm not planning to settle any city northeast of my capital until I'm ready to raze Gems, although I will probably plant 1E of Silk directly North of my capital. That cannot be boated by Retep without him building forts, and it is a long hike around that lake in either direction for him to get to me.

But mainly I want to stay conflict-free and builder my empire.

********************************
Anything else of interest to anybody?

[Ichabod]

Nice happy cap for so early in the game (and you'll soon have fur too). It works very well, since you seem to have a pretty hard hand using that whip.

Regarding the plan you have for Truth, I'd say is best to get the WB for Bob's island before the lighthouse, since it gives you more food, faster and on a city that needs it more. Just a suggestion, though.

Nice updates.

[Cornflakes]

Nice happy cap for so early in the game (and you'll soon have fur too). It works very well, since you seem to have a pretty hard hand using that whip.

Regarding the plan you have for Truth, I'd say is best to get the WB for Bob's island before the lighthouse, since it gives you more food, faster and on a city that needs it more. Just a suggestion, though.

Nice updates.

The real benefit from CHA I think is the early game happy for the whip. I do tend to have a heavy hand with the whip, but that will slow soon as I start putting up more improvements. After Stonehenge I'll have the +1 from monument and that will pop the border for Fur. At that time I'll have +10 at capital and +9 everywhere else and I'm going to grow everything vertical ASAP, probably putting hammers into Libraries if the borders are secure.

That's a good call there about the WB before the Lighthouse. That lighthouse is primarily built as pre-req for the Great Lightouse, but it's still better to delay that and get out another WB first since that will greatly speed up the growth curve there at Bob's Island. ... Wikipedia "Bob Island" and we get the name for our city down there: Ile Famine