[Spoilers] The Egyptian Hannibalistic Commodore

[Commodore]

I dub this land "Dryricetopia". But I'm cool with it, really. Hopefully horses pop fairly close...

Tech path is Fishing->AH->Mining->BW->Pottery<-or->Mysticism. Animal husbandry because:

• Chops are unnerfed and we're Charismatic, want to whip a lot so the food focus > hammers.
  
• Best food tile available for a lightning snowball second city is the settle on sugar->work pigs.
  
• Egypt wants war chariots sooner than later, need to locate horse ASAP.
  

Next is the pretty obvious mining unto BW; the problem of course is that we're pretty light on tiles to improve after the sheep this path with the forests on all other hills. That's okay, though, given the awesome second city site...we can go worker->work boat-> settler on this one, even though my typical rubric is two workers before settler.

• Pottery next gets us granaries and cottages started.
  
• Mysticism next gets us obelisk(s) and possibly a Stonehenge run.
  
• Whichever we do, the next one comes next; Ivory is nice but alas I don't see it being enough to justify fast Hunting.
  

[Coeurva]

My mistake, I've been mentioning Hunting because I've overlooked that Mysticism was needed for monuments. I don't know how I keep missing things like these...

Hunting before Myst would only make sense if you were to found Bentham 1SW, on the other sugar. The sole advantage of Bentham-1SW is faster access to the 2/4/1 (?) ivory tile, provided that you tech Hunting instead of Pottery. At size four, assuming no border pops, the city becomes less productive than Bentham in the currently-planned location, due to losing a first-ring grassland hill and overlapping riverside grassland. Since pigs/3f center/a possible farm 2E of Bentham allow for rather fast growth to size four, Bentham-1SW needs a monument whereas Bentham can get by without it, saving hammers in whips / chops that can be invested into a granary instead. (I'd suggest a combined chop / 1-pop whip to produce the granary at Bentham, by the way; that was probably your idea as well.) Seeing as the granary effectively doubles the food surplus at a city and CHM allows for more frequent whipping, Bentham-1SW really falls behind at that point.

CHM also makes fast Hunting less appealing because you don't need ivory to push the happy cap, facilitating 3-pop settler whips at Bentham.

So, with BW researched, two cities rich in food, and the ability to build FIN riverside cottages for both of them, I think that earlier Pottery should prove stronger than earlier Myst. In addition, if you go worker -> WB -> settler, the relative shortage of worker labor interferes with building Stonehenge, although you probably won't have much competition: both of the CRE leaders won't attempt it, whereas Bob playing as Joao might prefer to skip or prioritize Stonehenge, depending on the map layout. He's currently going for AH or BW (no score increase yet); if it's BW, he would probably beat you to Stonehenge in a dedicated attempt.

Looking at the new discoveries in the west, the plains hill with double clams looks like another obvious strong site, particularly after you've obtained Sailing for the lighthouse. At least one of the necessary work boats could be supplied by Bentham, and probably should, since the second clam requires a whipped monument. It's a possible fourth city, I suppose, as the third city will probably go somewhere east of Hume Forks. If you don't defog anything more valuable than what's currently seen, you could plant it next to the rice, overlapping dry corn, once the capital doesn't need to work the corn at all times. This translates to a granary and cottages; that's another argument for Pottery.

I think Sailing will be important to research around the time that city 4 is founded; along with unlocking lighthouses for Hume Forks and Mind-Body Dualist Clams (uh, tentative name), there's the possibility of building a fishing village on the southern island... beats out dry rice, at any rate.

[Commodore]

So, with BW researched, two cities rich in food, and the ability to build FIN riverside cottages for both of them, I think that earlier Pottery should prove stronger than earlier Myst. In addition, if you go worker -> WB -> settler, the relative shortage of worker labor interferes with building Stonehenge, although you probably won't have much competition: both of the CRE leaders won't attempt it, whereas Bob playing as Joao might prefer to skip or prioritize Stonehenge, depending on the map layout. He's currently going for AH or BW (no score increase yet); if it's BW, he would probably beat you to Stonehenge in a dedicated attempt.

I concur. Playing for the solid and rather conservative seems wise on this one. Pushing the first *two* cities out fast will be important; not only is Bentham's Mill a crazy-good snowball location, but the dry rice/corn share eastern spot looks much much better post-AH. Still think it's third after sugared bacon, though.

Dyes will be very awkward.

I do love how the numbers have worked out on this one; Hume Forks grows and fishes WB on the same turn, then we launch into an 8-turn settler.

Wish we had HILLS TO MINE though.

City list of names:
Hume Forks
Bentham's Mill
Pascal's Stake
Plato's Caverns
Nietzsche's Bequest
Aquinas Causeway
Occam's Cut
Lao Tzu Way
Key Locke
Hobbes' Tooth
...etc...

[Dreylin]

Still think it's third after sugared bacon, though.

Mmmmm, Maple Hickory Bacon!

[Commodore]

'sup DTG. GermanJoey is in there egging you on, but I ain't messing around and I have a Woodie II warrior that can vector your way.

Don't do it, bud.

[Coeurva]

I like the naming scheme, particularly "Plato's Cavern" and "Key Locke". How's it going? Did DTG declare?

Dyes can be settled on the green hill if necessary, farming the riverside dyes to work the other two. Growth will be awkwardly slow unless a food resource is lurking in the fog, but growing onto FIN dyes is roughly as good as growing onto 2 riverside FIN cottages in the short term, disregarding the whip.

PS. A few more city name proposals:
Pascal's Wager
Lake Voltaire
Kierkegaard's Crossing
Russell's Redoubt
Fort Jaspers
The Bohr Identity

[Commodore]

I like the naming scheme, particularly "Plato's Cavern" and "Key Locke". How's it going? Did DTG declare?

PS. A few more city name proposals:
Pascal's Wager
Lake Voltaire
Kierkegaard's Crossing
Russell's Redoubt
Fort Jaspers
The Bohr Identity

Going pretty okay; should finally be back on a normal schedule now after the madness of the last few weeks; sorry about that. I love the names, pity Kierkegaard's Crossing breaks the character limit so hard...

DTG did declare...and offered a peace treaty after only forcing one warrior out of us. Why is that? Well, we've had some luck with barbs...specifically, luck with finding lots of them. Woodie II warrior, Nightmare of The Early Game:

He had to pump out a fast warrior too, so Flother was delayed as well as Bentham's Mill. I'm fine with that, DTG is definitely my top rival with that killer combo and his known intelligence.

Here's us. That's a fine young city there in Bentham's Mill, and the copper means the granary won't take long at all. I'd like to pump out a horse/rice/cornshare city fast and then swing for Stonehenge; obelisks aren't all that but Chm plus needing culture? Yeah.

I actually like Fort Jaspers for the horsetown...

[Coeurva]

They've hit upon grassland copper at Bentham's Mill, too? The local peasants are resourceful.

The clams city could prove a formidable defensive location down the road. Stonehenge seems like a good move to ensure further expansion into DTG's subcontinent, so hopefully said defensive location won't even come into play as such.

I've never seen much value in the obelisk compared to a regular monument. Mid-game, it might save time and hammers on temples that you would otherwise require for producing a Great Prophet, but there's no opportunity for divergent early-game strategies because the Prophet's bulb priorities are flat-out terrible, whereas I cannot imagine the early shrine compensating for the profit lost from working two desert hills for 17 turns, as well as doubling the cost for the first GSci. If your game relies heavily on GPP (i.e. PHI), maybe the Prophet can be saved for a mid-game Golden Age that would not be available otherwise, but that's all I can think of.

[Commodore]

The clams city could prove a formidable defensive location down the road. Stonehenge seems like a good move to ensure further expansion into DTG's subcontinent, so hopefully said defensive location won't even come into play as such.

I've never seen much value in the obelisk compared to a regular monument. Mid-game, it might save time and hammers on temples that you would otherwise require for producing a Great Prophet, but there's no opportunity for divergent early-game strategies because the Prophet's bulb priorities are flat-out terrible, whereas I cannot imagine the early shrine compensating for the profit lost from working two desert hills for 17 turns, as well as doubling the cost for the first GSci. If your game relies heavily on GPP (i.e. PHI), maybe the Prophet can be saved for a mid-game Golden Age that would not be available otherwise, but that's all I can think of.

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree the obelisk is a pretty meh building, but we gotta get culture somehow, and as Charismatic...well, why not? The clam city might be a little too good, actually, that's a lot of food, and I'm not so sure we don't want to push borders out a lot further in land claims, this land sprawls.

The really tricky dotmap is out east. A way too good city could be placed 2E of the horse, of course, if the free border pop could be insured, but that is a long time before the tiles work. The simple city for horse/rice that shares the dry corn works, of course, but those are relatively weak tiles compared the to wonder of Financial gems or pigs. I dunno man...

[Commodore]

Additional note: