[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues

[MindyMcCready]

Here is the power graph as of this turn. I'd say he definitely has at least one warrior. He's had 3 total power increases. I assume one of them is Mining. One of them would then be a warrior. Not sure what the other one would be. Maybe another warrior?

EDIT: Oh, I just redid part the beginning of my sim to watch my own power increases. That first small increase would be his Pop increase. The next one likely is him getting Mining, and then the next one would be him getting a Warrior (or the reverse).

Yes, population gives you +1K power on even city sizes (2,4,6,...)

Comparing his score with his power increases lets us determine whether power bumps are from tech or units (which is why I was pushing for the graphs early). Later today I'll try to determine which one is Mining vs warrior to try to see if my T40 estimates holds up. But unless we have an extra 5 turns it still won't be worth the opportunity cost.

Anyway, next turn we get our Settler, our chop goes into the WB, and we have to choose our next tech. I'm 99% sure that our best option is doing Wheel next, but feel free to SIM out any other options to see if I should start something other than Wheel. I do know we are going to want to re-check for the tech after Wheel to determine which is better, Agri or Pottery. I'm leaning towards Agri because that then gives the bonus towards Pottery.

Yes, I fully back wheel. Our new cities will not be safe until copper is hooked up. The only thing that could make Agriculture > Wheel is if we find a grain around our Gold City. That would be nice and probably/possibly worth the diversion.

Assuming Wheel, Agriculture is probably best due to bonus and 4th city intentions like you say.

[HitAnyKey]

I just made a spreadsheet of everyone's score increases. Good thing I was taking screenshots pretty much every turn.
Grimace got his Meditation on T9 and then Agriculture? (score from 38 to 44) on T17 (3320BC) with his Pop2 increase (score from 44 to 49) on T18 (3280BC). He started with Hunting/Mysticism, and since that tech score increase came before the population increase it couldn't be Mining. And Agri makes sense, if he'd want to send his worker up to the corn after finishing the pasture I saw him building.
He then got the increase to 60 on T20 (for Land) and then he increased to 66 on T23 (3080BC) and then to 80 on T25 (Land again I guess since I see everyone got increases on 25). So T66 must have been his Mining increase (6pts). So I'm guessing he made his Warrior first, and then finished Mining.

EDIT: Just moved my Score Tracking spreadsheet into a tab on the google doc. Feel free to look at it and/or make any updates or notes to it you would know based on the score changes.

[HitAnyKey]

Yes, I fully back wheel. Our new cities will not be safe until copper is hooked up. The only thing that could make Agriculture > Wheel is if we find a grain around our Gold City. That would be nice and probably/possibly worth the diversion.

Assuming Wheel, Agriculture is probably best due to bonus and 4th city intentions like you say.

As an aside, our Copper is already hooked up. Not entirely sure why, but I'm sure it has something to do with it being on/across that river. Or something like that. We don't need the road for that. But the roads will be needed/good for connecting C2 for trade routes.

[MindyMcCready]

I just made a spreadsheet of everyone's score increases. Good thing I was taking screenshots pretty much every turn.
Grimace got his Meditation on T9 and then Agriculture? (score from 38 to 44) on T17 (3320BC) with his Pop2 increase (score from 44 to 49) on T18 (3280BC). He started with Hunting/Mysticism, and since that tech score increase came before the population increase it couldn't be Mining. And Agri makes sense, if he'd want to send his worker up to the corn after finishing the pasture I saw him building.
He then got the increase to 60 on T20 (for Land) and then he increased to 66 on T23 (3080BC) and then to 80 on T25 (Land again I guess since I see everyone got increases on 25). So T66 must have been his Mining increase (6pts). So I'm guessing he made his Warrior first, and then finished Mining.

EDIT: Just moved my Score Tracking spreadsheet into a tab on the google doc. Feel free to look at it and/or make any updates or notes to it you would know based on the score changes.

Holy Crap! He went Agriculture after Meditation!?! So that gives us another what 8 turns? Wow. And he's still blind to the fact that we can show up south of him. Ok, that is ridiculous farmer's gambit on a map this tight. If we don't kill him someone else might. So we'll probably have to get serious about simming out his destruction as well as landing those 2 blocking cities.

[MindyMcCready]

As an aside, our Copper is already hooked up. Not entirely sure why, but I'm sure it has something to do with it being on/across that river. Or something like that. We don't need the road for that. But the roads will be needed/good for connecting C2 for trade routes.

Yes, anything on a river is hooked up - but that's only for the capital, not the other cities.

So nobody is going to take our capital by surprise, but if an axe (or later a chariot) shows up from the fog around our C2 or C3 we won't be able to defend until we have growth + roads. If for any reason we delay Wheel further we would need to pump out some axes and plant them in our frontier cities. Double corn around our gold could warrant that for example.

A few turns from now the Golden rule will be Spear not axe since a chariot can surprise you much more easily than an axe can.

Another side note is that you can continue to build warriors in C2 until the road is hooked. But, it's probably better to use those 1F/2H forests for the expansive bonus to keep pumping out workers or wb once the city has grown to size 3.

[HitAnyKey]

On a side note, while making my score tracking speadsheet I noticed that GermanJoey is the first one to settle his 2nd city. He did so this turn. 3 turns ahead of us planting our 2nd city. He is also IMP, so got his settler faster than everyone else. Only other IMP is retep, so I expect him to maybe have an early city2 also.

[HitAnyKey]

Yay! Just moved the Warrior onto our hill, and no Bear in sight. So the Settler has joined him on the hill, and I revolted to Slavery as planned. And since the Scout wasn't needed for protection against the bear, I moved him into Sleepy. I'll have him heal up, and then go explore to the west around where we want our gold city.
Next turn we get our Crabs netted, settle our city, and start the RGH mine.

[HitAnyKey]

We are now officially the 2nd nation to found their second city.
Donovan apparently revolted to Slavery a couple turns ago. This turn he grew and then immediately whipped something out.

Demos before settling the city (after netting the crabs):



Demos after settling:




WE HAZ A HUNGRY!!




So the friendly Bear had apparently wandered far off to the east while we were getting close to moving our settler up there. Wasn't that nice of him?

[HitAnyKey]

Question for those that understand numbers and such behind the mechanics of the game....

When GJ founded his 2nd city his score went from 77 to 81 (a 4 pt increase). But when I just settled mine, I went from 87 to 92 (a 5 pt increase). Why would my increase be better than his?

[MindyMcCready]

Yay!

Just a couple of quick things:
1. We cannot attack Grimace. While we could beat him to the copper, Archery is a 3T tech once he starts working those gems (4T if he doesn't). With his culture expanded, he'll see us early enough and then only have to stall us with a wall of warriors for 1T before he can whip in an Archer with 40% cutlure on hills. So that's not happening.

2. I took a quick look at your sim,...it looks like you only have 2 workers by T43 or whatever. That's well under the 1.5 workers/city rule of thumb and given that we'll be landing wheel and have an expansive relative advantage I think that we'd want to be on the high side of that number.

So,...onward and upward on the econ path.