[SPOILERS!] Grimace and wetbandit hope to stay on their side of the DMZ

[wetbandit]

Have you built MoM yet? What's going on?

[Grimace]

What the hell? I've been posting updates...I KNOW I just posted an update for Turn 47 because we met Elum. I had screenshots and everything! I also posted I think around turn 45, but I don't see it either. Maybe I'm hitting Preview and then not posting it. Argh.

*sigh*

Turn 47

We met Elum this turn. His wounded Woodsman II scout came out of the fog and landed near Bismarck. So he's certainly seen that we have copper.


Not much we can do to keep him from exploring around our territory unless we want to try to attack it, but that's unlikely to work against a W2 scout with a warrior.

Our exploring warrior also found the land directly to our south near the other copper seems to be a peninsula, so we can settle that land at our leisure and we should focus on the north, east, and maybe southwest.



As you can see in the second screenshot I set Yamato to produce a settler for lack of anything else to build at the moment. It's at its happy cap without a military unit, so letting it grow isn't worthwhile. Should I do another worker instead? We've got 4 right now, but I know we can always use more. Just depends on whether we want to settle two more cities quickly.

Speaking of workers, one is mining the copper, one is irrigating the rice, and the other two are building riverside cottages, one to be shared by Big E and Bismarck, and the other to be shared by Big E and Yamato. After that, what are our next priorities? With military units present, our cities are going to be limited to 5 for Big E and 4 for the others until we can get that silver (which I think should be our next city), and I'd like to save the remaining forests unless we really need a chop for a wonder, whatever we may decide to do.

Big E will finish the workboat EOT and will also switch to a settler, which we can 2-pop whip once it's cooked a turn or two (we'll have 11 hammers overflow from the work boat).

I'm thinking that Bismarck should be our military producer for the immediate future as it's going to generally be food-poor and hammer-rich, so I think our best bet is to build/whip/chop a barracks next and then start pumping out some axes.

Thoughts?

[Grimace]

Also, Mysticism will be in soon, and what do we want to go for next? Sailing? Writing? AH? Masonry seems lower priority, as do the religious techs unless we want to go for one of the religions. Part of me likes to do so because a shrined religion is a huge boost, but I know it's a diversion as well in games where you can't tech trade.

[wetbandit]

Quick thoughts: Maybe hold off on this next turn until we can go over a plan to try for GLH in Yamato, or massive REX. Also for yamato, another warrior for MP to grow to 4 and then a settler also not bad.

Re Religion: I think our best religion opportunity is CoL because Courthouses are great for us. The top half of the tree is better for us with Math (look at all of our forests) plus currency (for obv reasons).

Masonry is really only worth it if we want to take a shot at GLH or even the mids.

EDIT: disappointing that there is no food down by that copper

[Grimace]

Quick thoughts: Maybe hold off on this next turn until we can go over a plan to try for GLH in Yamato, or massive REX. Also for yamato, another warrior for MP to grow to 4 and then a settler also not bad.

Re Religion: I think our best religion opportunity is CoL because Courthouses are great for us. The top half of the tree is better for us with Math (look at all of our forests) plus currency (for obv reasons).

Masonry is really only worth it if we want to take a shot at GLH or even the mids.

EDIT: disappointing that there is no food down by that copper

I had already ended turn last night as I didn't want to hold up the game for players in other parts of the world, so it's unlikely we'll get a plan together before it turns, but we can probably do so before the next turn. I think we'd definitely want to go sailing next, then, so we can get a lighthouse built.

That sounds good. We'll just make CoL a priority.

There may still be a sea-based food source...the warrior is going to skim the coast near the copper to see, because that would make it a pretty good site.

[Grimace]

So, GLH is 200 hammers. Yamato could produce 11h/turn working three GH mines and the sheep at size 4 (with a unit present to allow it to go to its happy cap). We have two forest we can chop for 30h each, plus we could finish it with a 2-pop whip (which is worth 50 in RtR, correct?). We can get Sailing in 8 rounds (1 more round of Mysticism + 7 rounds for Sailing), Masonry in 5 or 6. A lighthouse is 60h, which we get a +100% bonus towards because of ORG, so we can build it at max production in 3 turns (well before Masonry after Sailing). So we could realistically see the GLH ~T70 if we pushed it hard.

[Krill]

Wonders have a whip penalty and chops are 20 hammers without Maths.

[wetbandit]

What Krill said. The three forests around Yamato are only going to get 2/5 of the way for Yamato for GLH itself, not to mention the 30h for the lighthouse. I don't think whipping 2-pop for 25 hammers will be great either. Therefore, if we are going to go for it, there's going to be a lot of turns of slow building and perhaps use the forests at the end.

The big tradeoff is whether those hammers are better suited for workers/settlers/military.

[Grimace]

Wonders have a whip penalty and chops are 20 hammers without Maths.

What's the whip penalty?

And doh! I mostly play epic speed offline, so I'm used to more hammers from the chop.

In that case, it would come out more like T75. Still doable, and may be worth a shot.

[Grimace]

Turn 48

Copper mine was finished by the worker this turn, next turn he starts on the road.

And good news! Looks like that southern copper has some advantages after all.


A city where the warrior is sitting would get both seafood and the copper, plus two hills, a plains, and a few grassland tiles. Plus room for at least one more city on the peninsula (wouldn't be able to share the clams, though), and a possible city on that southwestern arm that would share the fish.

Work boat finished and I moved it towards the "island" to scout around it. Nothing new revealed yet. I set Big E for a Settler. Warrior finished in Bismarck...where do we want to send him? City 4's site? Which is going to be what? I need to go back and look at your dotmap comments.

We need to decide if we want to make a run for the GLH or not before next turn, because that will determine our next tech. Though I guess whether we go GLH or not Sailing is a good tech. It'll get us galleys so we can settle across the sea and lighthouses to improve our seafood bounty. And easier trade routes.