Objection! [SPOILERS]

[El Grillo]

T30:

Ruff killed my scout, but I did get capital visibility. Fair trade, I suppose. I'm not going to get too upset about it. I accepted peace from him.



We hooked up the silver to 2t Polytheism, and are shoving as much food through this granary as possible. Both cities grew, and Sisters will gets its corn back next turn. The First will get a cottage to work instead of the forest. I don't have to worry about the 6th pop point, because it will be unhappy for the one turn it exists before being whipped into a settler Worker labor is stretched tight as always.



No third cities from anyone just yet. Soldier count is still flat.

[El Grillo]

T32:

Wow, a three-turn day. We formally met greenline, who recently founded his 3rd city. He's to our north, where we've uncovered some dry, but still valuable land. Hopefully, that means the land to our west is uncontested. Our newest warrior is headed that way to check it out.



The First grew to size 6 and put a turn of production into a Settler, which will be whipped next turn. Unfortunately, the terrain in between is a bit rough, so it'll be 3 more turns before the city is planted, but at least it'll have an improved corn to work from the start. We picked up Hunting at 1t with overflow with Polytheism and will grab Archery next to start building real units.

[El Grillo]

Another whirlwind day. We're up to T38 now:

We finally got visibility to our west, revealing some very rich land. City 5 will definitely be headed this way. Unfortunately, the land shape and the presence of ruff/greenline scouts indicates that this isn't exclusively mine to settle.



On that note, I predictably was last to settle my third city on T36, but the upside is that my capital is back to size 6 faster than the others, and could whip my 4th settler next turn if desired. I think I'm going to hold off for one turn, because ruff offered Open Borders and I have just enough commerce to 2t Sailing and claim his 2c routes (I noticed that he had OB with Khan as well, but there are no imports/exports yet, and I have coastal visibility on ruff). The original plan had been to save gold while the capital finished its library, but I'll still have 46g in the bank.

Taking an extra turn on the settler also gives my 3 workers in the area time to road up to the site, in such a way that I will actually found the city on the same turn (5t from now). My archer is headed that way in case of any shenanigans.



In the north, I've found Khan's borders, but the area between us is rather unappealing. I'm planning for an eventual city by the rice that will chain irrigation and work cottages, but that plains cow seems questionable for the time being.



GNP is inflated by religion culture (got my first spread this turn to the capital for +6 total). Things are looking reasonable so far.



I dusted off my old population->pop checking spreadsheet, as well:
El Grillo: 6, 2, 2 (10 total)
Ruff: 5, 4, 2 (11 total)
Khan/Greenline: 4, 2, 2 (8 total)
Greenline/Khan: 4, 3, 1 (8 total)

[El Grillo]

T40:

Khan built Stonehenge. No 4th cities from anyone yet. I was reminded while checking the event log that ruff's wardec from earlier hurt our trade route multiplier, so there's no rush for Sailing. Silly of me to overlook that. We dialed research back down to 0% and whipped the settler, with enough food in storage to regrow immediately after ending turn.



This will dump a good deal of overflow into the library, and it'll receive a chop-cottage as well (I like doing this, perhaps too much, because it shaves off a worker turn). I don't see myself racing for any techs in the short term, so I think this will work out to get me to Currency and Calendar smoothly. With no marble in sight and no IND civs in play, I'd like to try for the MoM.

Scouting and a border pop revealed that we should definitely try to lock down this hub of land - the warriors will circle around to check for other land passages. There could be a sweet inland Moai city site 1E of the Wheat, picking up 5 lighthouse lake tiles.



More empty space than I was expecting, to the north. Where's greenline? Also, I wasn't giving it much thought, but I'm fairly close to circumnavigating here, even with our scout's demise. With the high water content, that would be a great prize to snatch up.



Demos:

[El Grillo]

A rainy day here, hopefully we'll get a couple more turns to play! No screenshots for now, but some quick thoughts:

Using KTB reading, I believe greenline picked up Priesthood and is aiming for the Oracle. There's some excellent land between us that I'd love to grab, at the cost of contending for any of these early wonders. In contrast, the land between me and Khan/Ruff is much less appealing. It also appears that I'm ruff's only land neighbor, which isn't going to bode well in the age of cataphracts. Thankfully, that's still a long ways off, and I have options for PRO longbows or PRO castles/pikes.

I mismanaged the library build at some point and its 6h short, so it'll finish with the whip overflow from our next settler. I look forward to seeing our score rise from 4th as we start teching again :3 We have enough for Sailing, Math, Currency, and Calendar at 100%, and our 4th city has 7 forests in range to chop into MoM. With no intention to rush or need to defend, I think I can put off HBR and Construction for that long.

Greenline refused OB, and I need ~6 tiles in his direction for circumnavigation. I'll try to do it peacefully if I can, but am willing to declare war and make a dash for it if I can't.

So the plan, in broad strokes, is to:
- Settle ~4 forward cities towards greenline, defended by PRO archers
- Chop out the MoM and use Calendar happiness to grow tall
- Use the capital library for a GS for a MoM-boosted GA to generate 2 more GS for an Astronomy bulb and capital academy, swapping into Bureaucracy before the GA ends
- Contain Ruff on land and go adventuring at sea. Conquistadors off of Galleons gets me bonus points, right?

[El Grillo]

T50 overview:

With our scouts revealing more of the map and cities spreading to claim it, we finally can start to visualize where we are on this toroid:

Ruff is to my southeast, with what is presumably a land passage to my southwest hub. He is north of Khan via water but not land, and Khan is to my northwest via a wide swath of land. Greenline shares a latitude with me and is to my far east/west. He has a lot of empty land to his northwest before running into Khan, and his south eventually connects to Ruff. It looks like I'm going to border every other player, while Khan and Ruff only have two land neighbors, with each other as a sea neighbor. That could prove a little awkward, but I don't think I'll be boxed in too early, so I'm interpreting this as a better scenario to get value from PRO and Citadels The one real bummer is that Khan and Ruff are able to benefit from coastal foreign trade routes for a +5c bonus (as good as my library!), while greenline has been denying OB and I don't even have a route defogged with him. Khan and Ruff will be natural allies until Astronomy makes a forking naval invasion feasible.

This understanding of the world will let me begin to describe a strategy. I want to box Greenline in from the east and west, prompting him to settle south and exposing him to Ruff and his cataphracts. At the same time, I'll limit my borders with Ruff to a single city, and a fort on a one-tile point. If I make myself prickly enough, Ruff will aim at Greenline, and then I'll be poised to pile on. Meanwhile, if I settle roughly as much land as Khan does, I think FIN will outscale ORG on these settings and this map. There are so many coast and lake tiles for me to work as a crutch, and ORG's civics discount isn't as impressive on Noble. He will have a nice opportunity to spam courthouses and develop an EP lead, but I hope that my economy will be strong enough to compete for the midgame first-to bonuses anyways.

City review:



The First just 3-pop whipped a settler and will overflow into more archers, which will be crucial in deterring Greenline from contesting my forward settlements. The library is worth between 3-6c right now as the city grows and whips, and I'll be getting my first village in 1t. The other hamlets are 7t and 12t to a village, and the remaining cottage is 2t to a hamlet. I'd like to mine the two plains hills and use the last couple of chops for the Great Library, then cottage everything else.



Sisters will whip its settler next turn and regrow on archers. A library here would be nice to have, but I think one library was about as much as I could afford in terms of delaying expansion. Over the long run, this city will go max cottages.



Samurai is my main production hub for now. It just grew to size 5, so next turn I'm going to 2-pop whip a worker (I'm starting to run short) and build archers while regrowing. After I find time to pop its borders and build a lighthouse, it'll transition into a more hybrid role with more flatland cottages.



Goodbyes was great to just set up and leave alone. It'll need its borders popped sooner rather than later, so I was thinking of a worker whip with max overflow into a monument. Then it can chop 7 forests and work the horse and 3 hills for 17hpt into the MoM. It'd be lovely to get some kind of bonus, and whipping a forge should be possible to fit into the timeframe. That sets it up as a natural candidate for the Colossus, which will be strong even if I do end up obsoleting it fairly quickly. I eventually want a city SE of the silk to share the pigs, claim the clams, and serve as a crumple zone, if needed, against Ruff.



The Forgotten also has quite a lot of chop potential, along with good steady-state production from all of its resources. I needed to improve the ivory first to enable happy 6->3 whips in two cities, but it should get off the ground soon enough. This could be a potential Hanging Gardens site, though I'll need a few more cities and workers to make that profitable.

Tech path:


I see now that I misjudged expenses, and I'll be able to finish Currency and Sailing no problem, but fall a bit short at Calendar. I do still want that for the happiness and yields, but I also want Metal Casting to make the MoM cheaper and enable the Colossus, as mentioned earlier. It'll be a tough call, and at that point I might even need a military detour. We'll have to see.

Other advisors and demos:

Pop comparison:
El Grillo: 6 5 3 3 1 (18 total)
Ruff: 6 4 4 3 2 (19 total)
Greenline: 4 4 4 3 2 (17 total)
Khan: 6 4 3 2 11 (17 total)


The game looks to be close. Everyone is within a tight range of pop and CY, and I expect Greenline to build the Oracle soon. I can only hope the turns continue to come so quickly!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Do you think the map is fair? I found it hard to strike the fairness/randomness balance.

[El Grillo]

T52:

Awkward turn. Khan finished the Oracle for Currency, and I know he has Sailing, so he could probably beat me to MoM as well. That would be very decidedly suboptimal. The good news is that Metal Casting and Colossus are still open as a way for me to compete economically, but clearly Khan has taken a strong pairing and good land and outplayed us with it, being the first to 6 cities and claiming two wonders.

I still don't have routes to Greenline, so I don't know what his land looks like yet, but so far the map seems fair in a holistic sense. There are clearly imbalances between players, but I trust that they will impact our decisions without making them irrelevant. Civ is certainly a snowball game, but we can still play for the second and third derivatives That being said, I wouldn't want to be in Ruff's position right now, with only ancient one luxury available, compared to my 2 or Khan's 3.

[El Grillo]

T57:

Quick update, Khan just teched Calendar, and I'm at least 4 turns away from it. I've decided to aim at Metal Casting and the Colossus instead for the nearer-term benefits. Now things will get scary when Khan's prophet points from SH/Oracle get him a boosted golden age, but I can't do anything directly about that just yet. I know multiple people researched Priesthood, one of them should've tried harder :3

In better news, ruff's trade modifiers have recovered enough for me to get 2c routes from him. After I get to Metal Casting in 4 turns, I'll do one last round of settler whips and let the economy recover on lighthouse coast and freshwater lakes.

[El Grillo]

T58:

So... I talked myself out of talking myself out of contesting the MoM. Here's my reasoning:

- Big picture: Someone has to keep Khan in check, we can't let him get everything he wants or we may as well concede I'm his only possible competiton for MoM right now (unless I'm completely misreading the graphs and demos), so that responsibility lies on me. Khan has built himself a nice lead with EXP and his wonders, but the best time to interrupt his snowballing is now, before he gets his boosted GA and completely runs away with it.
- Context: Calendar is 3t away, and is a good tech for me anyways, unlocking +2 happiness to grow on new cottages and the ever-present water tiles. I'll definitely try to make a play for the Colossus after this, but the denial value of MoM is too great to ignore. Furthermore, I'd need 10-15t to grow my cities and whip in lighthouses to make the Colossus truly appealing.
- Feasibility: I'm going to be 3t later to Calendar, but have presumably more forests to chop (if he intends to put it with his other wonders for max GPP), and I'm willing to invest a significant amount of my worker labor to make this happen. In contrast, Khan should probably be looking to settle more cities right now, and I don't think he has espionage production tracking visibility on Reunion, so he might not prioritize it highly enough.
- Thoughts: I could avoid hooking up my Calendar resources to try and trick Khan into thinking I've researched something else. I can stagnate Reunion at size 6 making 16hpt and chop 140h, but won't have much overflow, maybe 20-30h. That makes MoM a 8-turn build by default. I can shave that by a few turns by starving on more mines and maybe whipping it to completion. That could be good enough, it of course depends on how much Khan is willing to invest.

Should be exciting, if nothing else!