[SPOILERS] Bacchus and Archduke serve a mouthful of Pecorino Romano

[TheArchduke]

Good news indeed. I like the coastal spot, too. Especially if you can equip it with a bath, as Rome very important. Going there first, I guess, that city needs no worker love initially.

[Bacchus]

Unfortunately, the barb camp does not have access to horses, and we get a spawn of the worst possible unit:



I retreat to the choke, and we are going to see how good the barb AI is at maneuvering these days. If he isn't good, the settler actually gets to settle in time. If he is good, we might have to go settle east, where there is also some hilled jungle, thankfully.

The city-state is Carthage, we are not the first to meet them, the quest is a fairly convenient "send trade route". Ichabod and Krill are all either sandbagging techs or going for Astrology, or a combination of both. I am sandbagging. No-one has yet had a settler out, which is not surprising. It's too bad we hardly had a chance to meet Carthage earlier, it's so awkwardly positioned, it's hammer boost in the early game would have been very powerful. Oh well.

[TheArchduke]

Still, better 2 hammers even now for builders and other stuff instead of 4 gold. Culture is great as well, Faith okish for an early pantheon. Science only in the long run.

So better then nothing.

[Bacchus]

For Rome, I would say militaristic is even better than culture, so yeah, a lucky pickup.

[Bacchus]

Barbs give an unfortunately timed display of good sense:



They must have object permanence! Obviously we can't stay on the choke and will have to retreat one. If it's the spear that then advances into the choke, we can defeat it, but the hopes of the city there I think are gone for now. So we need to decide what to do with the settler.




This stuff looks... ok. Better than the desert deer at any rate, it's closer, and better supplied on food. SW of the mountain has fresh water and a 4 yield tile to kick it off. SE can potentially nick the jade off Carthage.

What do you think? Move Settler 1W and see?

[TheArchduke]

Well, that is annoying.

I would go SE of the mountain. I am not thrilled about the deer site as a #1 city and you want to protect that settler. So yes, go East.

I would not hope that the slinger can protect and push the settler to its planned space. There will be more barbarians spawning over there.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, we definitely can't push for that city with just the slinger. The reason we could go there in the first place is that the slinger as a safe path of retreat to the capital, so at least he is not in danger, but it's all a little annoying and the builder is at risk now. That's the next question, what to produce. It doesn't seem like we'll hit the foreign trade Eureka, and it opens up nice things like Early Empire, so I think I'll go for that. That gives some space in terms of builder production. Another slinger in the capital in the meantime.

[Bacchus]

Buying to a third-ring tile costs 125 at the moment, will jump up a bit with the first civic though. I might settle SE of the peak and buy the jade, as a bunch of 4-yield tiles just got revealed to our immediate east. Fuck, forgot to screenshot.

[Bacchus]

The barbs continue to show good sense, and it's the healthy warrior that advanced into the choke, not the damaged spear. Slinger consequently retreats one towards the cap. The warrior will chase fruitlessly, and then get quickly shot up by two slingers at/around the city tile. I'm going to try and farm the barb for promos on both slingers (one is a given).

Land intensifies, and we have a dotmap:



Note the Great Barrier Reef. It's in a lake. Settling on the rice adjacent to the reef gives fast growth, a chunk of science and good districting. Even better, it leaves a spot for a plains hill plant SE of the horse, taking water from the lake. And that plant in turn works out at the perfect 3 tile distance from the desert hill NE of the Deer. We also manage to effectively squeeze two cities into a very unfortunately sized gap between capital and Carthage.

[TheArchduke]

Love that spot as well, both rice can be waterwheel boosted, mountain for campus, horses and hills for production and great barrier reef. This makes up for the desert waste SW.