[SPOILERS] Cornflakes brings the popcorn (because creativity is overrated)

[Cornflakes]

Love the reporting, Cornflakes. Keep it up! Rooting for you, I think. Or Banzailizard since he's new.

Thanks! Always welcome the encouragement!

   

Another jungle hill Coffee! 1W of wheat looks promising for another city. One other thing I've been considering is that I will either need coastal cities or harbors in order to build Quadrireme and later MG. I don't see a clear coastal location at present. I also don't want to build Commercial Hubs at locations where I will later want a harbor.

I played a Renaissance start to test the following question: Can MG be built without Cartography or Square Rigging? The answer is "yes but" ... the but unfortunately is that the Quadrireme > MG upgrade is blocked until Square Rigging is researched. Therefore I will need to time square rigging to complete before Nationalism at the latest. Quadrireme > MG upgrade costs 230 Musketman is required in order to achieve the Square Rigging eureka.

Also tested fleets (first time I've use fleets or corps in a game). Upgrade cost is doubled, so it doesn't save in that regard. The attack damage according to the calculator is about 50% higher for a fleet vs an individual unit, therefore 2 individual MG will do more damage than 1 MG fleet. Since their range is 3 I won't have as much of a traffic jam issue so I think it makes sense to keep most individual (just do one fleet to increase wall ranged strength).

[Cornflakes]

   

Poor roll in the south dealing only 24 [slightly below average] and taking 40 [almost the worst possible]  I'll heal up for a couple turns before proceeding with the assault.

In the north I found another barb camp. I have not seen a scout yet so either the camp has been there a long time and the scout when north before my warrior came through, or it is a brand new camp and the scout will appear on my borders in a turn or two. I'm going to wait one turn for Discipline to be slotted before attacking. In the meantime I'll go 1SW and might go another 1SE onto the PFH before proceeding with the attack, just to put my warrior between the camp and my territory in case it starts erupting.

That's yet another jungle hill coffee tile revealed in the north  There might be a good city site 4NE of RDJ that picks up the 5 adjacency spot and dye 2nd ring.

[Cornflakes]

With 2 barb camps to deal with I have about as much scouting info now as I'll have for the next 5-10 turns, so I put together a preliminary dotmap:

   

The BLACK LINES indicate the boundary 7 tiles from my starting location. With minimum of 12 tiles between each starting location all tiles within that box will definitely be closer to me than anyone else. The lines and beyond may be closer to someone else's capital. Notice that three locations fall right on that boundary. I have definitely decided to build a scout after the settler. Information on my neighbor's locations will be critical in determining priorities for settling and for exerting military strength. Plus the overall size and layout of the continent will help in guiding early/mid-game decisions ... how likely is early conflict due to proximity or nationality? How soon will land run out for peaceful expansion? Where and what are the natural wonder(s)? How easily will it be for me to get production-rich coastal cities set up?

RED ARROW is the quickest route for the scout to start revealing new territory after it is complete. Of course this is dependent upon the Valletta cooperating with its unit placement. One of the other priorities for the scout is to find another continent to boost foreign trade. On a natural map, east/west exploration is the best way to find another continent since the divides run roughly N/S. With custom continents it's less certain.

YELLOW dot is a pretty much a lock for 2nd city. I will move the warrior in the north onto the plains forest hill SW of the barb camp to reveal the last remaining tiles around BLUE before beginning my assault on the barb camp. Another jungle hill banana is about the only thing that might shift my preference off of yellow and up to blue for the 2nd city.

BLUE looks like a good candidate for 3rd city due to Coffee + 2nd ring dyes for a late pantheon.

GREEN with another excellent Coffee tile has quite a few 2nd ring hills.

ORANGE is fresh water and picks up Marble ... man, there are a lot of culture-producing resources nearby. This will help compensate for not getting a culture-producing pantheon.

PURPLE pick up horses and a couple of hills, and also double mountain adjacency district location.

RED has lots of hills but is a bit of a stretch for now.

BLACK will very likely be out of my natural sphere of influence.

WHITE is a coastal filler location that can steal some good tiles from the capital to get about 25/turn at size 8. Maybe I can assign the capital's citizens to specialists slots as white grows in order to get a decent production port.

[Thrantar]

Sorry, I've been away for a bit. I'll post some thoughts later today.

[Cornflakes]

After a brief and frustrating interruption, we are rolling again! After this morning I was concerned we might have to ditch the game.

   

Code of Laws complete, and I went ahead with Urban Planning rather than God King.

   

In the north I spend one more turn scouting with the warrior before beginning to wear down the barb camp. In combination with the builder I have revealed enough tiles around the river to make a fully-informed decision whether to send the settler that direction or to the south. In the north, a city planted on the PFH 1SW of Coffee will pick up both Dye and the 5-adjacency tile in the 2nd ring. The rice on the 5-adjacency tile will ensure that it is one of the earlier tiles picked up naturally. So the benefit of planing to the NE is that I can naturally acquire that tile in 20 turns thus saving about 130. Downside is slower growth because of no banana as well as no immediate amenity connection and for these reasons I think I'll still go south.

   

Interesting from the ranking screen is that with military strength of 34 I am still in 3rd place (behind Pindicator and rho). Starting warrior + slinger is 35, therefore either half the players only have warrior + scout or have barb conflict. I am last in all other rankings due to prioritizing over growth in these early turns.

[Cornflakes]

Not much activity the past 2 turns. Made 2 attacks on the northern barb camp with decent rolls. Still healing in the south, back to 100% end of turn. With the settler heading in that direction I wanted to be extra conservative, and since the damage was a multiple of 10 I didn’t waste any healing (hit 100HP exactly).

Settler completed EOT and will be able to settle on T23. I expect to see the first rival 2nd city planted in the next couple turns, but I should be the first to both 2nd city AND Craftsmanship (unless rho powers through without eureka)

[Cornflakes]

CONTACT!

   

A scout in the west brings [good?] tidings from TheArchduke of Russia. I'm content with TheArchduke as a neighbor. As one of the two biggest threats to win (along with Pindicator) it's nice to be able to watch his stats the whole game. And of the two, I'd rather border Russia over Aztec in the early game. The clock is ticking though on the Cossack timeframe, and on the same landmass that is definitely a threat that my UU can't help against. I definitely need to push science to try and get a military tech advantage earlier on.

This does solidify that I'll need to capture Valletta sooner rather than later. I don't want TheArchduke to take advantage of the Suzerain bonus. And with Valletta he doesn't need to hold Suzerainty long, even a single turn with a store of faith is powerful.

I'll also need to re-evaluate where I want to send the scout. Since ThArchduke's scout came from the west, my only chance at a possible additional first-to bonus is in the north. Also now knowing my western neighbor it is more valuable to scout in the north to determine the 2nd neighbor.

Stats on TheArcduke before continuing on with the turn:
Science: 4.1/turn (3 pop), 2 techs completed. Once tech must be Astrology since he has had a Lavra completed for 3 turns now (6 GPP), and he must have a natural wonder close for the eureka too.
Culture: 1.9/turn (3 pop), 1 civic completed.
Military: 28 so scout + ever-so-slightly damaged warrior
Faith: 3/turn but still 2nd in ranking behind rho21. Did rho meet 2 religious CS? I'm pretty sure that TAD's faith is coming from the Lavra adjacency.
Gold: 4/turn and 91 in the bank. Paying 1 maintenance on the Lavra. Also noted no resources connected on the trade screen ... no time to build a builder yet.

I'm going to hazard a guess that TAD met an industrial CS in order to power out the Lavra. Nothing else in the stats indicates CS contact yet. Could be a military CS but he hasn't pushed unit production yet.

OK, on to the rest of the turn:

   

Start of turn view, and my planned moves. Warrior in RED retreats from the barb camp to run interference for TAD's scout. Even if TAD moves as directly as possible toward my planned city site he will not be able to delay my settling. He currently has settler-radar vision of Valletta's sphere of influence though so I expect he'll head in that direction.

   

In the north I take the shot at the barb camp and come up victorious! I rolled decently enough on the first 2 attacks dealing in the mid-high 30's while taking high 20's myself. I'm red-lined now, but have earned the promotion so if an eagle warrior appears I take battlecry and shouldn't have any problems.

[Cornflakes]

Some additional micro:

• Craftsmanship is going land around T25-26 timeframe meaning that I still have some time after the scout is complete before Agoge is slotted. What to do? With the abysmal starting culture it will be ages before Colonization is unlocked so I'm thinking knock out another settler (finished T30, with just enough food in the box to remain at size 3 ). 2 warriors is ample for defensive purposes, especially since I have coast on one front and a wide swath defogged for barb-camp-spotting. After the settler I can knock out 3 slingers in 5 turns.
  
• I estimate Writing will land in about 13 turns, or about T32-ish. I'm going to take Archery to just short of 50%, and then continue down the Pottery > Writing track. Timing-wise that fits well with the capital going settler next. At that time I'll have 2 civics and 3 techs completed which brings district costs to 74.
  
• Irrigation lands around T40, probably could get it T38 or 39 accounting for since increase from pop growth.
  
• Builder as first build for 2nd city will be complete T31. If I buy the 5-adjacency rice tile from the 3rd city I will be able reach and harvest it T37 (2 turns after founding) to immediately boost the 3rd city up to 3 pop, increasing the growth time to size 2 by 5 turns and size 3 by 10 turns, thus returning 30, 14 and 6 for a charge that costs 54/3 = 18 ... also need to factor in the opportunity cost of what else the builder charge could do ... build a mine at the 2nd city which wouldn't get worked for 10 turns (but will be needed at that time in order to work an improved tile at size 4) or build a banana plantation for the +2. I think the 2nd city can go Builder > Builder to start getting mines down there and at the capital for when I start to grow.
  

Thus at T40 I'll have three (3) size-3 cities all nearing growth to size 4, and an attack force ready to capture Valletta within 6-8 turns. No buildings or districts constructed, but 3rd city nearing completion of 5-adjacency campus.

[Cornflakes]

Decided to take battlecry immediately in the northern warrior so I'll be back to 82HP next turn. Not sure if I'm going to try and explore a little bit more with this warrior, or whether it would be better to keep it home. I've got about 10 turns until the next settler is complete in the capital so I could explore out 5 turns and then back. I feel a lot better knowing Russia is to my west. I don't expect a DOW from TheArchduke in the first 60 turns, and probably much more, while he still has a religion to found and cities with Lavra + Shrine + Temple (Choral Music) to build.

TAD's scout disappeared, suggesting that there is a flatter approach to Valletta in the fog just to the west. My warrior moved back adjacent to the barb camp and settler continued south. I am again quite happy with my decision to go warrior first. A slinger wouldn't be able to single-handedly take out that barb camp so I'd either be forced to build another slinger now (still without Craftsmanship) or risk a possible barb eruption if the camp spawns another scout. I anticipate 3 more turns required to wear down the barb camp. Here's a look at anticipated unit movement, including where I think TAD's scout will go:

   

NOTE TAD moved after me in turn order. If TAD doesn't cross the river on T24 then I will be ahead of him (if he wants to climb the lake-adjacent hill first). Not knowing the geography there's a good chance he'll go for the hill before crossing the river. If he crosses the river on T24 then we'll be playing leapfrog with the scouts. I could potentially declare war so my scout's zone of control blocks his movement. I think I would only do that if my T26 move reveals city state borders. I don't want to sour relations this early in the game. After all, I need to end up on the right side of the continental 2v1

Fog-gazing shows coast visible to the north of the mountain as indicated. The tile east of horses is also coastal. Therefore I'm planning on sending the eastern warrior to uncover just a couple more tiles before returning to guard the next settler out of the capital [ORANGE]. I'm intending to settle 1SW of Coffee.

[Cornflakes]

I really like rho21's "Round-number roundup" that he's doing in PBEM 10 and I intend to do the same here. And since he's also playing in this game he won't be able to sue me for trademark infringement for a couple months  

T20 Civ Comparison

Civ	Cities	Pop	Techs	Civics	Gold	Districts	Military
Brazil	1	2	1 (+3.6/turn)	1 (+1.7/turn)	154 (+5.2/turn)	0	25
Russia	1	3	2 (+4.1/turn)	1 (+1.9/turn)	95 (+4/turn)	1: (1) Lavra	45

Power indicates TAD has completed another military unit. 45 = warrior + scout + slinger if none are damaged. If something(s) are damaged then possibly another slinger.

   

Attacked the barb spear again bringing it to 40HP. Next turn the attack would be 32 vs. 28 for damage range [28/35/42] requiring a very lucky roll to kill in 1 more attack. If I heal for a turn the range becomes [29/36/43] not much better. Heal for 2 turns and I get [30/38/45], which I believe is still only about 30% chance at a one-shot kill. Therefore I'm going to attack immediately and take out the camp in 2 attacks.