[SPOILERS] Ghostpants buckles up for PB39

[WilliamLP]

Staring at the screen above, this map looks kind of doughnut-ish, doesn't it? We could just be 8 spokes on the cardinal directions along a big wheel here.

Choice now is, do I contact Wetbandit or not?

In favour:
- Have a use for EP.
- I could spot his capital tile probably, and use the pop count for C&D for the rest of the game.
- Starts the peace turns counter, so trade routes are more valuable post-Alphabet.
- Known tech bonus. This only matter for Classical techs and above though, so it's quite likely we'll contact before then.
- Maybe him knowing he's next to Protective Skirms is a disincentive for him.

In favour of turning back:
- He doesn't get EP on me.
- Not contacting him means I have an information advantage. He might make some small plays he'd play differently if he knew I was his neighbour.
- Extra scout turns.
- Better chance of getting my scout back home.

[WilliamLP]

My scout died to a panther on the way back  home.

I saw the panther (1W of banana) but I moved my scout to the jungle to defend, otherwise I'd just be playing a waiting game. Sometimes the cat wins, this time at 21% odds.

So, this screenshot is all the information I'll have for a long time. I think I want two warriors before the first settler, just because I want to make sure I can choose the best second city site.

I don't see a reason not to go bronze after agriculture. E.g. with pottery first, I don't need a granary this quickly for any reason.

I'm trying to track other players' techs in a spreadsheet. Most interesting note is, Superdeath (Agri, Wheel) didn't get mining first. It seems he's going for Hunting into AH, obviously thinking of war chariots. There's the possibility he could blindly just rush in one direction and hit us. But something like that does take a while to hook up: need to spot, settle, and hook up horses.

[WilliamLP]

There hasn't been much point reporting this game with a dead scout.

Just notes:

- With no scout info, I played to get two warriors and size 3 before a settler. Paying 24 food for growth to get 30 hammers with the whip seems like it has to be good vs building at size 2.
- I'm going to chop and mine the river plains hill. As expansive, having a 0/4/1 tile is always going to be useful, especially since 6 production is the breakpoint to get two bonus hammers on a worker. I'm pre-roading, since the worker won't be able to chop until I get Bronze. Another line would be to mine the dry plains hill first instead, but the early chop seems like it must be decent here and in the long run, the +1c every time I work the mine will add up.
- The settler will come out EOT 26 with a chop + whip. It would be a turn faster to straight up build it at size 2, but then I wouldn't get the second warrior and I think I need the bit of extra scouting info. (Not to mention avoiding a write-off game if a bear pops up in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.)
- Right now, I don't see a great spot for a second city. Sharing corn is virtually required, and the only site I see that picks up another first ring food is the underwhelming "c" spot.
- I'm seeing that Wetbandit has a wet corn right outside his capital though, and am wondering about the river grass tile 4S of the capital. Scouting this is what the second warrior is for.
- I was second to size 3, one turn behind Dark Savant. This is consistent with him having the same start as Exp, but not playing for the extra warrior.
- No religions yet, despite two civs starting with Myst.
- Long term, settling on the middle marble would be a dream. It's 8 tiles from my capital, 9 tiles from Wetbandit's. I was really hoping for some usable food between me and there though!!
- I'm still considering a Stonehenge plan. This probably requires Myst next after Bronze. Normally Hunting would be required but, well, no food animals are in sight other than plains hill sheep that aren't immediately useful. There's some chance I could backdoor a religion out of it maybe.
- I'm trying to run a spreadsheet on the other 7 players. Right now the only thing I see that screams "noob" is Superdeath, still at size 1. (Or it could be a scout choke, I suppose.)

I really hope I can do better than settling "c" as marked next.

I'm considering this map right now as if it's donut with me at the bottom, and my other neighbour about the same distance as Wetbandit to the other side. This is more early breathing room than some other games.

[WilliamLP]

Well the mystery spot 4S of the capital is wet rice, so I think my second city goes 3S of the capital. (Not 3S1E because that doesn't leave room for the "C" site.)

I've already messed up my micro badly! I had planned to whip a settler T26, but I forgot to revolt after bronze. And then I revolted T25, which I think was worse than not revolting until after the settler. I think this goof up costs me close to a full turn here in this game, a pretty bad deal.

Oh, there is copper in the capital, the plains hill 1N2E. I assume everyone has copper in theirs too then. So this is going to all but eliminate the possibility of early rushes.

[WilliamLP]

So, I spent a few turns on Pottery, but then switched gears to Mysticism to try and build Stonehenge.

On a lark I tried to get Buddhism through the back door (needing to research Myst and Meditation both, while 2/8 civs started with Myst).

And somehow I got it! Despite clearly suboptimal play. I have no idea why India and Inca let me have the first religion! Perhaps they were playing chicken with each other on Meditation so that the other could get Polytheism?

Also, I should get Stonehenge this turn (39), building it after 1 settler and 3 workers with 3 chops and some whip overflow. I could still lose to a coin toss but it seems unlikely someone is building it faster than this.

Wetbandit and Yuris both scouted me. I assume Yuris is past Wetbandit to the right, or I'm wrong about the doughnut theory. Either one of them could have choked my copper mine and made me cry a bit.

From here, it seems I'm distant enough from another player that the game will be a farmer's gambit for a while. It will be really nice to not worry about border pops. There are a lot of good city sites on this map in every direction.

This one is going to be a pretty casual game for me, and I'm not running a sandbox.

[WilliamLP]

I got Stonehenge, and am kind of hoping it (or Buddhism) caused some tears somewhere in the world.

I forgot about the map position update feature of it. No mini map shot but it turns out I'm right at the far NW corner of the map, and my view wraps the cylinder to the west.. This refutes my doughnut theory! (Unless there is an unusual topology.)

My view so far:

There are some impressive resource clusters on this map. I need to decide on my next two city sites.

The dream strategic site vs Wetbandit would be on the marble. The issue there is he has a brilliant bridge city to that same site, where I don't at all.

I need a strategic plan and a dot map. The border to Wetbandit will be important, but also there are certainly 1-2 players to the west as well.

[WilliamLP]

I noticed the lurker thread has suddenly come alive. I can't even speculate why though.

Here's my view of the world:

I've been playing a fairly uneventful expansion game. I have 5 cities and 8 or 9 workers, copper hooked up. My cities are strung pretty far out, but this is because resources are so poor very near my capital. I still don't have Archery or Fishing. I just scuffled with Charriu, killing a warrior with an axe aided by a road build. I'm plan to settle fairly agressively against him for my sixth city, on the "C" site.

I don't plan on investing in a border dispute with Wetbandit. It just doesn't seem like it will pay vs Boudica when there is so much nice land elsewhere.

Superdeath scouted me with a war chariot, but didn't press anything. I would have been prepared to whip a spear or two if he did.

It looks like I'm going to have 3 borders in this game: Charriu to the SW, Wetbandit to the E, and I think Superdeath to the NW. I think I've met everyone except Ipecac / Commodore which makes this a pretty small world. I'm feeling pretty secure in this game despite missing Archery, since I'm still Mali and the tech is so cheap in this mod.

I haven't had a single Buddhism spread yet, which is rather disappointing.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

The lurker thread is mostly armchair generaling and hand-waving, including by me. Nothing to worry about.

[Hollybombay]

Anything interesting to post for the lurkers?

[WilliamLP]

This game has lurkers?

After Stonehenge I've just been rapid expanding using cheap workers and free border pops - pretty nice! But I've run my economy into the ground, I have to micro to be above debt at 0% science! I'm hastily trying to spam cottages to make up for it. Happy cap is a problem. I was hoping for one or two free spreads of Buddhism but got zero, so I'm going to have to work on a monastary and missionaries. I should have started this much sooner.

Still, even with a crashed economy, I couldn't resist:

Charriu had only 2 axes in Pushpagira and 1 axe in Gondishapur. He just can't leave an attack open like that when I have a staging tile in his fog that can hit in one turn.

I whip + chopped 5 chariots and went for the surprise attack. The attack on Pushpagiri was flawless with wins at 65% (I think) and 75% vs fortified axes. After much deliberation I razed the city.

The threat of a chariot hit on Gondishapur caused Charriu to retreat his axe, so I razed that city too next turn.

Now, I have a lot of misgivings not trying to keep and hold Pushpagiri on the hill, when I have skirmishers. The big problem is my economy. I'm near breakeven at 0% science, and another city might put me near -10gpt, and then I might actually face the strike mechanic. I was too afraid of this so chose to simply raze.

I still lack Sailing and Masonry. JR4 is all the way up to alphabet! Somehow I need to make a competitive economy now. Sailing would help a lot for foreign trade routes with JR4. I just need to get my gpt above zero first.

The big thing I have going for me with the strung out and broke empire, is that protective skirmishers are a pain to attack for a very long time.

Somehow I never realized this map was torroidal until very recently. So Jr4 is both my north and south neighbour by seas, quite interesting.