[SPOILERS] Mardoc gets back on the horse

[flugauto]

The site has furs happiness , enough to make settling worthy. And maybe there is seafood in the fog. With more happiness settling the main land should be easier.

[Mardoc]

After sleeping on it...nah, it's worth the risk to go for the mainland. A couple reasons:

a) Not as far from strategics hooked as I thought. Horses connected last turn, bronze next turn. Should be able to get at least an axe to go with the settler, and maybe a couple chariots as well.
b) Barbs have probably already been thinned out by our foes. Polynesian only has three warriors in it this turn, possibly an example of that already.
c) Settler is taking longer than I thought. I forgot how much I have to put into it before I can whip, so it's still not finished.
d) Gold and silver are better than furs. Haven't put up any forges yet, but 40h isn't all that much, they'll start coming up soon, and they'll double the metals. Markets are quite a bit further out, especially when we're sliding in Monotheism/Monarchy before Currency.
e) Plus, of course, the cities themselves are better.

Not to say that we won't grab the furs site, but it won't be next. Next is probably copper floodplains, then silver, then gold. We'll likely want to pause for scouting after that, which would be a good time to slip in the furs city.

[Mardoc]

Played the turn this morning. We've a settler on a boat, to be joined next turn by a chariot, then he'll head off to the bronze/FP spot. Next trip will bring a Vulture and worker, to allow the chariot to go roaming. Could get the chariot built and in place faster, but I'd prefer a unit that can get defense bonuses...hmm, actually I should probably make it a spear, shouldn't I? Barbs appear to be still warriors, but if a human shows up, he'll be in a chariot. I feel like this has a name...Ceiliazul doctrine, maybe?

Meanwhile, Polynesian grew to size 2, so I'm going to use the SE boat to ship a Vulture over to it to start work on its garrison. This'll be a couple turns yet since I need my first couple units in the west. Afterward, I'll either ship over a worker/spear, or move the boat up north in preparation for the gold city settler. Probably worker/spear, I'd expect a Vulture to be able to handle three warriors in three turns so there's no particular need for delay.

At home, Boyle, Bohr, and Lavoisier are the workhorses. They're going to be on REX duty for a while; Boyle and Lavoisier are going to 2-pop whip fairly often, while Bohr...it's got four resource tiles to work, I don't think I want to whip off any of them. Maybe later, once I get a little more happiness here and can split off some of the resources to other cities. Three-turn worker is pretty good, though! Dalton and Curie are both nearly finished with their granaries and will be able to start contributing soon. All five cities are going to stay on a mix of worker/settler/units for a little while; I'll probably slip in forges once we've got gold/silver hooked up and sufficient scouts/garrisons out to the mainland.

Does a scout count for MP happiness? I'm currently acting as though it does in Dalton, but I can replace him if I need a slightly stiffer cardboard for my cutouts.

Still no religion spreads of Buddhism, and it's looking possible that we get Hinduism and Judaism too en route to OrgRel. Maybe we'll use one of those as our state religion instead. Be ironic if we can't get a free spread of Buddhism in 20+ turns and one of the others spreads like a weed.

[flugauto]

Does a scout count for MP happiness?

No, the scouts are too weak to MP anybody into happiness.

[Mardoc]

Well, then, the scout is unceremoniously hauled from the garrison quarters and sent off into the barbarian wilderness.

Try not to die too fast. Don't forget to write!

Dalton's first whip will just have to be a garrison, then.


Next turn we'll have our first mainland city. Chariot will disembark next turn before the galley turns back around. ICTR ought to pay for this sucker immediately, and long term I see all those floodplains with towns on them.



We've almost got our first Vulture produced in Lavoisier, he'll be heading toward Polynesian, as mentioned.

Both Boyle and Lavoisier are about to need to whip something - I think I'll make it a pair of workers, with overflow dumped into spears. Curie's got a chariot in queue, and will probably whip a worker as well after that. Bohr is on settler duty, currently at a rate of one every five turns, so we'll need the backup units right away. That said, I don't want to overdo it on workers, we're not actually that far away from having our home island completely gardened, at which point we can ship the workers overseas until, oh, railroads or so

Someone did actually pick up Hinduism before we got there, so it's either Buddhism or Judaism for us. Still no free spreads. Our Great Prophet will be born next turn, and I think he's just going to hang out for a while. Right after a whip cycle is not the time for a GA, plus we don't have our desired civics unlocked yet. I'll have to check the ETA on the second one - maybe we can shrine the first GP and still get another in reasonable time for revolution.

As soon as we get a little bit of happiness going, someone's going to start working on forges and Colossus. Probably Bohr, that city badly wants a forge anyway. We'll see if we can't crash the economy a little bit, first

[flugauto]

The first city buddhism speads to will be Polynesian.

[Mardoc]

We have our first mainland city!



Not a moment too soon, either. I really didn't realize the map was this small (or, um, THH may be doing even better than I thought, alternately)



I'd like to put a city on that mountain, but barring that...I dunno. Maybe the scout will find something. Polynesian messes with the likely best dotmap, but I still don't think I want to burn it.

Next turn the vulture boards, and he should start beating on the barbs in three. Hopefully that's fast enough!

[flugauto]

We need nukes. ASAP!

[Mardoc]

Or, maybe the scout finds proof that we're close!

That desert hill sure looks like the 'silver city' spot to our west. So maybe a city location for us is just 2S of the deer, for deer/lake/coast. Filler-quality, but with Colossus actually pretty decent.



THH is...not as far ahead of us as I thought. One city of catchup to do, and if I'm lucky, Polynesian will be that catchup. Vulture lands next turn and starts killing in two.



Another chariot and a worker will be delivered to Carter next turn. Definitely keeping our ferry service in action here. If I don't see anything better to ship, I'll probably default to another worker. Can always start chopping. The spare chariot will...I think go explore by the gold. I'm not real happy with my current dot, maybe the fog will give me insight there.

We've got two workers just whipped, overflowing into units, and two settlers in queue. One should finish EOT next turn, the other can be whipped in a few. Three boats in the water ought to be able to handle that outflow, at least for now. The word of the moment is REX.

Next GPro is ~30 turns out, while Monarchy is more like 10 turns. So our newborn GPro is just sleeping for now.

[flugauto]

No Open Borders?