Getting to know Krillmod before it changes again

[taotao]

Further clarification before going to bed: Initially I liked my version better, but I'm getting around to the idea that your version might be as good or better. I'm still slightly sceptic about delaying the third worker though.

[taotao]

Just going to say; I tried playing your version still yesterday and finally figuring out what you did I really liked it
Essentially you're trading one wasted worker turn + one worker-chopped-forest for 3 turns of pasteurised pigs.
Somehow you seemed to be slightly behind my iterations for commerce for both versions, but just for comparison, here's where I would've been with your worker actions (but worker as initial build in Antium):

(In this version I feel good about putting those 14h overflow into the settler as the third worker won't be far from cottaging the floodplains as they're needed and the road could be built by the worker standing on ivory just perfectly in time to connect the city and later start farming the corn).

[taotao]

Actually, considering we seem to be fairly well in agreement for the start, I'll probably play up to t27 later tonight and then hand it over to you for the next part.

[von Adlercreutz]

Ok go ahead.

[taotao]

I'll attach the save in a while, but first a short report:
t17: Scout moves NW and sees that the continent continues at least a bit further to the west. Heads for cover in the forest.
t18: Scout sees dry corn, pigs and stone, but otherwise mostly desert. Lands next to lion. All animals are now str1 though so he should survive.

t19: Scout survives and I decide to heal in place.
t21: Coppermine finished. Worker 2 (Brutus) finished and heads for a chop. Agri finished and starts mysticism.
t22: Augustus heads for the eastern pigs.
t23: An almost fully healed scout takes a look over the bay.
t24: Chop comes in so change build to settler for a turn.
t25: Scout heads NE to a forested hill and runs into a panther. Mysticism finished and start pottery.
t26: The scout wins flawlessly.
t27: Move scout jungle-jungle and end up next to lion. I’d suggest saving the promotion for now and awaiting the results from the fight to see if he needs faster healing or not. Apart from that I’d suggest circling him back and check out the lands north of the capital.


We've still not met anybody new, but this land does feel too large for us to be alone. Also, doesn't salt lakes on a big and small mean you're on the "big" portion?

[taotao]

I'll attach the save in a while, but first a short report:
t17: Scout moves NW and sees that the continent continues at least a bit further to the west. Heads for cover in the forest.
t18: Scout sees dry corn, pigs and stone, but otherwise mostly desert. Lands next to lion. All animals are now str1 though so he should survive.

t19: Scout survives and I decide to heal in place.
t21: Coppermine finished. Worker 2 (Brutus) finished and heads for a chop. Agri finished and starts mysticism.
t22: Augustus heads for the eastern pigs.
t23: An almost fully healed scout takes a look over the bay.
t24: Chop comes in so change build to settler for a turn.
t25: Scout heads NE to a forested hill and runs into a panther. Mysticism finished and start pottery.
t26: The scout wins flawlessly.
t27: Move scout jungle-jungle and end up next to lion. I’d suggest saving the promotion for now and awaiting the results from the fight to see if he needs faster healing or not. Apart from that I’d suggest circling him back and check out the lands north of the capital.


We've still not met anybody new, but this land does feel too large for us to be alone. Also, doesn't salt lakes on a big and small mean you're on the "big" portion?

[von Adlercreutz]

Played around this a bit and felt that not going worker in Antium was stretching the worker support too thin. So if we go worker first in Antium we have micro until SH is ready.

We haven't talked too much about tech path. I fear focusing too much on micro and forgetting bigger picture. About early teches, I think we can skip archery here at least for a while. In the medium term I'd like to get more info about the jungle north of us, if there are a ton of Cal resources. What about Alpha vs. Math? Better chops or overseas trade? Have to see which is more a constraint for us, tech or hammers, but we're imperialistic, so I think we should be able to expand so fast that tech is the constraint.

GP: One thing I don't like about the SH play is the GP points, we're getting a GP and what to do with it. I guess it has to be settled, it's too early to spend a GA. Saving for a GA would leave it unused for quite a while. Well, it could bulb theo IIRC after teching mono. Worth it? Maybe if one wants to secure AP, but that's quite a lot of hammers. But this pushes further away getting any scientists. Then again REXing lowers the slider, making early academy play less efficient. If we were planning to get a shrine, it wouldn't be so bad.

Scouting: I'd like to have a better view on what is north of the capital. Scout should head back there. Warrior needs to secure settling Antium.

I'm going to summer cottage until Sunday tomorrow, so I don't know if I have enough time to play before it. Or do you want to do two in row?

[taotao]

Played around this a bit and felt that not going worker in Antium was stretching the worker support too thin. So if we go worker first in Antium we have micro until SH is ready.

That's precisely my feeling as well, glad we're in agreement.

We haven't talked too much about tech path. I fear focusing too much on micro and forgetting bigger picture. About early teches, I think we can skip archery here at least for a while. In the medium term I'd like to get more info about the jungle north of us, if there are a ton of Cal resources. What about Alpha vs. Math? Better chops or overseas trade? Have to see which is more a constraint for us, tech or hammers, but we're imperialistic, so I think we should be able to expand so fast that tech is the constraint.

I'll admit to two things regarding tech-path.
1. I often default myself to setting a goal of something like 10 cities and Currency by t100 (meaning a fairly straight bee-line)
2. In SP I'm often dangerously low on military, delaying Archery/AH for unnecessarily long.
Here I'd like to go AH next. It'll get us one happy, let's us get a decent tile improvement from ivory and checks for horses that can be used as a mobile defense force. If we do have horses I'm good with delaying archery indefinitely, but question is what happens if we don't? I still don't think we need archers immediately, but I'd say that math/alpha is somewhat of an early breaking point where techs are getting more expensive and I don't see the point of going writing without following it up with one of the others...
Calendar is a luxury I generally don't see as worth it before currency (especially not REXing). Part of this is that it generally needs IW as well in order to get most resources. Of course, MoM is a great wonder, but without ind. trait or marble I'm not happy going crazy for it (and definitely not before math-chops). Further scouting is most certainly in place though, and for instance if we only see bananas, sugars and jungled pigs/rice as our future food, then this might still become the route we need to take.
As for Alpha vs Maths I see positives in both here. We've got a good amount of forests still so math's good. We have an overseas neighbour (and no visible islands of our own yet) so alpha's good. Perhaps this is even a case where we'd like to take both before going currency?

GP: One thing I don't like about the SH play is the GP points, we're getting a GP and what to do with it. I guess it has to be settled, it's too early to spend a GA. Saving for a GA would leave it unused for quite a while. Well, it could bulb theo IIRC after teching mono. Worth it? Maybe if one wants to secure AP, but that's quite a lot of hammers. But this pushes further away getting any scientists. Then again REXing lowers the slider, making early academy play less efficient. If we were planning to get a shrine, it wouldn't be so bad.

It might be that I'm not as bothered as you about this. Our capital will love an academy eventually, but in the intermediate term it doesn't have a precious metal or crap-load of cottages that it'll work itself, and as you say, we'll probably run a low slider, so I don't see an enormous need for an early academy.
Shrine would be the best use, aye. What are our chances of landing CoL? Perhaps going through currency? I'm not too interested at the moment in the other religious techs, but CoL would be of use earlyish anyhow with our half priced courthouses...

Scouting: I'd like to have a better view on what is north of the capital. Scout should head back there. Warrior needs to secure settling Antium.

Agree on both accounts.

I'm going to summer cottage until Sunday tomorrow, so I don't know if I have enough time to play before it. Or do you want to do two in row?

I could take time to play, but probably won't have time to do a proper report until Monday anyway (have a wedding on Saturday and make a weekend out of it by visiting some friends afterwards that have just moved 250km from here). So perhaps it's just as well that you play when you get time to do so?

[taotao]

btw. I've been doing a wee bit of casual playing with rtr3xx.e lately and one thing that has really struck me is that charismatic has really gotten a (much needed) buff.
Not that the trait itself has changed much (not needing monuments for the second extra happy is of course good, but not game altering). In general though, you want to do more one pop whips in favour of multi pop and here it might be useful.
More recently also the colosseum actually has become a situationally really good building. +25% military production can be a sweet deal for 40h. Especially if the +1xp (for non-gunpowder land units) pushes you into a second starting promotion.

[von Adlercreutz]

There doesn't seem to be too much land north of us. We got a spot with plaincow and gold, not too much food there, but nice for commerce and happy.

Had some problems with imgur, so a screenie as an attachment.

PB18 is coming to an end so the actual game might start soon.