[SPOILERS] SevenSpirits and The Black Sword - Baguettes and Circuses

[SevenSpirits]

How soon do we want a library and academy? I would normally be thinking about getting a library up in the capital about now and then pumping out the first scientist ASAP. I think if we don't do this, it's only because we want our first great person to go to a golden age that pumps out several more GPs and gets us into correct civics. If we are willing to spend our first GP on an academy, which I think I am in favor of, I think the sooner the better.

A monastery + missionaries in the capital obviously has some appeal too, though that's not possible to start on quite yet.

[The Black Sword]

I'm not so sure about an Academy because more cities feels pretty expensive and our breakeven looks like it might be pretty low. Though I guess we still have 3 cities that are just costing us money. It occurs to me that whip Library->Galley in the capital, whip settler -> worker in Bombix would work pretty well. With the gems coming online and wanting to work scientists, I wouldn't be worried about messing up the whip cycle.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, thinking about it a bit more, generating that scientist should match up a lot with the gold saving in anticipation of a currency run. Our island city should break even and we have probably >20cpt to pick up as our cities grow. I would like to use that first GP soon since he's so efficient, I was waiting too long.

[The Black Sword]

T46.



I overflowed the WB out of the capital. Next turn we can work the grass forest for 18/60 into the Library to 3-whip it. Then we need to work both plains hill mines on the turn we build the galley to finish it in one. The settler will come from Bombix.



The worker in the south could chop the forest in Bombix to 1t the worker, overflowed from the settler whip. I figured Bombix's next whip should be for the horses site and I started the northern worker roading over there. He can double back and put a chop into a missionary, and a second chop from the new Bombix worker after the capital whips in a Monastery.

We continue to dance ...


I forgot to take a picture of the barb city; 3 warriors, nice looking location, first ring sheep, 2nd ring lighthouseable lake crab. It is 13 tiles from Asterix though.

Demos:

[The Black Sword]

Here's my current plan for the next few turns:

It's not so rigorous from here.

GLH in Terroix looks pretty tempting at this stage IMO, with every city coastal. I'll probably see what's the earliest I can make it. The options for improvements in Monix aren't great until we pop borders. The capital is going to be unhappy at size 9 after this for 2t I think before the whip wears off. Aquatix is off picture for most, but pretty much doing what you'd expect, getting the granary up.

[The Black Sword]

The barb city:


I'm thinking Monix can get an axe after it's granary to head up here. Pillage gold and xp if nothing else. Speaking of Monix, there's an obvious improvement to the plan above:


Road the gems first, allowing a second worker to help mine them and hook them up a turn earlier. So the capital doesn't need to use avoid growth and can instead have an extra turn at size 8 working a mine. I guess that means we'll be working a plains cottage at size 3 in Monix though.

I don't have a clue what's going on with the dance between the barb warrior and our scout. I decided to try stand still for a turn, so the barb will keep moving away and we might escape.



Mack is really confusing me at the moment. Surely a religious conversion should wait until after you completed the Oracle? The really high rival top GNP has me scared he'll take something really good. But he probably wants to convert to OR/HR soon so that suggests Monarchy, which wouldn't be too bad. I think it's a pretty good plan for him considering the lack of early happiness on this map. We could have landed it T49, I really hope he completes it before then.

I also wish I knew which of Yuri or Dreylin has Sailing.

Demos:

[The Black Sword]

We're about to get our last contact:


Dreylin found the stone too:


I mostly just followed my sim, with the modifications in the North to to hook up the gems earlier:


Demos:

Btw, I'm away next week from Monday to Friday, I imagine I'll have internet access but it will be more erratic than usual.

[The Black Sword]

What's new in a small Gaulish village since last we visited?



The population is growing quickly, and we welcomed our newest member. I don't know what Paris did to his parents, but he's going to have some trouble in school with a name like that!

This place is looking good:

Yuri's northern city only had 1 warrior in it when we peaked in and he has some seafood in the north, but we plan to leave him alone with our galley. We don't gain anything by forcing him to build ships.

Asterix already got 1 Hindu Missionary for Aquatix, here's another for Monix;


It will soon be a centre for great learning. We have a new settler coming out of Bombix for the horse/clam site and and Seven has worked out a T61 target date for the GLH in Terroix.

Our scout was forcibly retired by a Greek chariot:


Poor guy somehow survived being trapped between England and Conan and now he's deleted by bureaucrats cutting costs.

Demos look pretty good:


GJ did Oracle Monarchy in the end and then revolted into HR/OR/Slavery. Nice stuff. We could have nabbed the Oracle out from under him and taken Currency I think, but I would have expected him to finish earlier and we got a nice Lib and Galley instead. Anyway, this makes his score(and culture) really inflated by wonder points, I wonder how he's getting on, we're trying for graphs now. Hopefully he doesn't feel he can afford another wonder in the GLH. He's the only person with masonry at the moment.

Ichabod appears to be the other trendsetter, with a big score increase recently and top population suggests he's rival top food in the demos.

Not sure what's been happening to Dreylin, you'd expect his Cre/Imp traits to yield a high score at this stage.

[The Black Sword]

I guess Mack isn't coming back if he's posting in the lurker thread.

Up north Monix is getting ready for the next settle. I'm thinking Terroix's worker goes up here to help out. Not sure what we should be doing with whip overflow and last chop. Probably should consider pre-chopping the new city's granary too. Ichabod has a galley further north that could be shuttled into this sea.



Terroix completes the GLH next turn:


We're also 4-5t from Currency so we really should get on settling the island cities. I'm thinking Aquatix could get us the rice one:



Assuming we get the GLH, the third island is a bit tricky. Neither option is great, I'd like to settle the one by Bombix, which can afford to give up a food resource, rather than the one pictured above. But then we need to build a galley for that sea.

I finished the cottage by Bombix to have something to work next turn at size 7 and I figured it would be awkward getting back there again with our road network. I think we might need to bring both workers from Asterix to get the new city improved in time though.



Here's that city spot btw, we're getting some axes for the barb city afterwards. There's a nice concentration of forests around these cities, so we should probably go easy on 1 of them(the barb?) and save it's forests for a future wonder attempt.


and demos:

[SevenSpirits]

t61 Got ourselves a Great Lighthouse and a Great Scientist!

Here is t64.

Asterix has been pumping missionaries and whipped a worker; now it will put 1t into a settler to avoid growing into unhappiness, then I think grow to size 11 on a forge and then whip back down to 8. Statistix was recently founded and just popped borders, allowing the granary to be completed with a second chop. Bombix just whipped a settler who will shortly found our second island city, visible on the left. A worker is ready to start farming the rice on the island next turn. Terroix is just finishing up this archer and will then build a forge and (hopefully) the Colossus to supplement its Great Lighthouse. (The academy powered through research of metal casting.) 4gpp per turn for free should be a good base for getting out our second great person, and all the extra water tile commerce will be nice.



Parix, our first island city, is doing fine. You can also see here how close everyone else's borders are getting. We wanted to settle the stone down there, but it's unclear if that will happen without war.



On the other hand, here is a section of land that we should be able to settle without any contest from other players. We'll have a city here soon, and need to get a couple axes down for the barb city too.



In the north, there was a barb city, which dreylin captured, but it looks like that city was subsequently razed and the barbs founded a new city next door last turn. Whaaaaaat? In any case, dreylin has chariots wandering around so our warrior isn't staying too near.



Demos. Lots of food for us. GNP looks good too given that it's at 0%. We'll get currency, which two opponents already have, in a few more turns.