Unsurprisingly, Donovan was the first to build a second city. He`s Imp and can easily produce more Settlers. But that`s (likely) someone else`s problem as we haven`t met him yet.
We revolted to Slavery this turn and our Settler is en route to the spot 3W of Gower which I think we all like. You know, building ON the Copper might just be an option. We do save a lot of Worker turns that way. On the other hand, the dotmap will be a little bit awkward if we go for the Copper build. We still have some time before a decision has to be made. If Gavagai/Superdeath decide to settle up on us we could turn to military instead. Actually, I think that Superdeath showed a good understanding of having a stable border by not squeezing in a city between us in PB 39. So I think he`ll be content with a city on "his" side of the river.
The question of building Granaries or Settlers is an interesting one. Hmm, maybe we can do a little bit of both? Maybe we can`t afford to wait on building our outer ring of cities, though..
There are two civs with a size 4 capital as of this turn. Jack the Ripper is size 3 fwiw. We`ll get graphs on the Killers in a few turns.
(May 2nd, 2019, 11:18)JR4 Wrote: You know, building ON the Copper might just be an option. We do save a lot of Worker turns that way. On the other hand, the dotmap will be a little bit awkward if we go for the Copper build.
I think the dotmap is awkward no matter what, but planting on the copper definitely makes it worse. There are any number of reasons to go for a dense build to the southwest, and the combination of "On Copper" and "Pink Dot Hill" would preclude any other settlement in that direction, most likely giving us (in effect) one less city than settling e.g. on the stone, on the flatland E or SE of copper, and on the forward hill SE of the bananas, just on the near side of the river. On Copper is great as a quick starter, and to start making real units quickly, but I don't know if that makes up for the longer-term limitations it imposes.
Quote:The question of building Granaries or Settlers is an interesting one. Hmm, maybe we can do a little bit of both?
Maybe. Our options look sort of like this:
1) Focus hard on expansion and foodhammer units. After The Wheel, tech Agri -> Pottery, for a gain of about 15-20 beakers over doing it in the opposite order, partly (or wholly, depending on how you count) offset by the delay to cottaging.
2) Expand, but focus hard on growth, teching Pottery right after The Wheel to get 2 granaries up while we're still on 3 cities with 3 Workers.
3) Expand and get some hammers into granaries but effectively delay expansion, granaries, or both to get cottages down and worked quickly. (Same tech path as for option 2).
[EDIT: In effect, option 3 would mean chopping less to start cottaging sooner. Another option where we mine a hill is also a possibility if we want to preserve as many of our remaining forests as we can, but a mine isn't much better than an unimproved floodplain yet, considering the cost in worker turns, so I regard that path as iffy.]
Also, though we've met a couple more players, I haven't found time to express my thoroughly uninformed off-the cuff opinions about their chances and their picks! Let's start catching up then:
- Superdeath -
Tier: Background Radiation
Previous Encounter: Kublai Khan of Egypt in PB39
Analysis: Often unproductively aggressive, partly because he is so prone like so many other players to comparing the empire and army he hopes to have in "just a few more turns" to what his opposition is fielding already, Superdeath has smashed several rivals' games to pieces without achieving much himself in the 952 games he's played in the past year and a half. His micromanagement has historically been poor, but his military tactics are usually strong, and when he identifies an important goal, he can push for it effectively. He's also shown an ability to learn; one of these days, he's going to win one of these things, especially if he learns the right lessons from...
- Gavagai -
Tier: Killer Vet
Previous Encounter: Suryavarman of the Ottomans in PB37
Analysis: This game's Superde(a)dlurker has logged into the game enough to justify a suspicion that he's a significant member of the team. If so, the other players (starting with us) may be in trouble. Gavagai's strategic planning and micro abilities are good enough to contend with nearly anyone, and in spite of occasional lapses and ill luck (see especially against Dark Savant in PB37) his tactics are usually excellent. Based on his experience with us, he likely recognizes that we won't be a soft target, but also expects to be able to hold gains without reprisal in a limited war if we leave him an opening. That's just part of the reason we're likely to have difficult relations on our closest border no matter who's behind the wheel at any given moment. If they're working well together, this team will be tough to beat.
- Peter Alexeyevich -
Traits: Expansive, Philosophical
Analysis: The great Tsar gets out to an enviably fast start, saving 10 foodhammers on the first worker and up to 7 hammers on the workboat, then spitting out the next work[er/boat]s quickly too. As our only Philosophical rival, he'll have some of the same tricks available we will, and Gav has more experience at leveraging their power. I wouldn't trade Pericles for Peter given our capital and civ, but Peter is comparable in power level even under circumstances like these.
- France -
Techs: Agriculture + The Wheel
UB: An Observatory that gives a free specialist
UU: A 2-move Musket
Analysis: Wouldn't have worked for our start, since our best tile needs a pasture instead of a farm, but since it looks like Gavadeath started with grain, this is a terrific pick for them. When mackoti called the Musketeer the best UU in the mod, he was barely exaggerating: It's a 1-pop-draftable two-mover that works with defensive terrain. Fworkers are still better, even with the nerf, but they're arguably disqualified by their terrible RtR starting techs. The inverse of this argument gets the Cho-Ku-Nu into the running as well, but that's about it; for a Farm start, the techs France has are already difficult to beat. Oh, and just for completeness: France also has a UB.
- Overall -
Every part of this package is a winner, from players (especially to the extent Gavagai contributes and helps to keep Superdeath focused) to traits to techs and uniques. The Salon is the weakest link, but at least it's better than what it replaces (yes, I'm still complaining about Jaguars) its synergy with Phi is more relevant (when it eventually appears) than most UB synergies, and RtR France could accept a weaker and/or later UB than this and still be great. This team could be thoroughly unpredictable too: They could end up in a forever war with somebody and turn into an irrelevant but unconquerable hole in the map. They could tech their way to Musknighteers and compete with or become the top leaders in the game. They could run over an unprepared neighbor with horchers or even chariots and cruise to victory from there. One of our goals has to be to avoid becoming their targets in any of these scenarios ... and their capital and ours are just 11 tiles apart with a land path all the way. So wish us luck!
Another double turn today and we built our second city, Antiochus. Only Donovan managed to beat our eta but I suspect that at least Cornflakes will build his second city on t31 as well.
Gavadeath (hey, I like that name!) moved up a Warrior and could threaten our Scout on t31. I think we should play it safe and move away if that Warrior comes closer.
As long as no nasty surprise awaits our Warrior next turn (like a Bear lurking in the fog) it should be able to fortify on the coveted plains hill, looking for enemy movement and making preparations for an eventual new city.
Our demos look good as our city count doubled. Let`s see if we can get off to a flying start. The Wheel will finish in three more turns.
On dotmapping our immediate south: It`s going to be tricky no matter what. In SP I probably would have gone for the super city on flatland, catching all of the resources but as you have already mentioned - we need to take our southern neighbour seriously. We don`t even want to give them half a chance of taking or razing one of our core cities. If we somehow can successfully conquer Gavadeath we`d be that much better off as we wouldn`t have to deal with a close neighbour for the rest of the game. I`m inclined to go for hill cities over that super flatland city. But which hills? Well, we have a few options.
Should we be growing on a WB rather than a warrior for the second city?
I think we should go for 2 cities with 1 on top of the stone and 1 inbetween the rice and furs. This probably gives us the best in terms of long term as our rice/fur city claims more floodplains and the stone city will claim the lake tiles for us. This is probably the best long term set up while still giving us safe front line cities. I don't think the delay in the copper will cause us any loss, especially if they settle the copper as the 3rd city. If they settle the copper 2nd it might get more dicey if they get frisky but in that case we can change our 3rd city site to be on top of copper.
I do think we need to take some smart risks otherwise we'll fall behind at some point.
Let me start by correcting one of my silly errors from up-thread: The hill by the bananas I suggested as an evetual city site was a figment of my imagination.
Secondly, to answer my idle question up-thread, we can get four cities by T48 if we really want to ... but I believe we really don't want to. Getting there also got us to about 5gpt at 0% science. Maintenance is no joke with these settings - so I think we probably want to concentrate on Workers, resources, and cottages for a little while once our third city is down before we get out city 4. I'll note we can build a city on the stone as soon as T45 without undue sacrifice (or T44 on the copper) and still have a couple of workers ready to start pasturing the pigs.
Third, and importantly, we do not need to "waste" a Worker turn on T33 as suggested in the microplan posted above unless we want to finish Gower's granary by T45 at size 2, at the cost of a forest, 5-7 Worker turns (depending on how we value various roads (south-)west of Antiochus) one turn of city 3's existence, and whatever we would otherwise have done with the 40 food and hammers that in that plan get turned into two thirds of a granary. If we want a slightly more sane worker plan, the Worker can just move 2W to the grassland hill after finishing its current chop, and road that before pasturing the Cow.
(May 3rd, 2019, 11:34)JR4 Wrote: Gavadeath (hey, I like that name!) moved up a Warrior and could threaten our Scout on t31. I think we should play it safe and move away if that Warrior comes closer.
Thanks! But I think we need to turn down the paranoia level a tad, even with this team as our nearest neighbor. What would they gain by killing off our scout except an injured warrior? (And a chance, though slight, to lose the guy altogether.) I also don't think we have to worry about a super-early chariot rush, still less an axe rush, on this map. There are plenty of good sites for people to claim peacefully in multiple directions, multiple neighbors for each player, all of whom would share the gains of a rush without needing to spend the resources, and high enough maintenance costs to limit the value of direct gains at the distances involved early in the game.
Also, if I'm reading the map correctly, Cornflakes is only one tile further from the Killers than we are.
Quote:As long as no nasty surprise awaits our Warrior next turn (like a Bear lurking in the fog) it should be able to fortify on the coveted plains hill, looking for enemy movement and making preparations for an eventual new city.
Is that the best spot for him? If that's our next city (probably meaning we don't connect Copper until at least T56) then it's still going to be a dozen turns before we plant a city there - and if we plant near copper next, the warrior could be sitting there for 20 turns or more! Or is the idea just to spawnbust the area and watch for incoming barbs from further out?
Quote:Our demos look good as our city count doubled. Let`s see if we can get off to a flying start.
Looks like we're among the first three to our second city in spite of being neither Imp nor Exp! Here's hoping we can build the snowball on from here!
(May 3rd, 2019, 22:22)BaII Wrote: Should we be growing on a WB rather than a warrior for the second city?
The plan was to start a Warrior immediately (as we did) and then switch to a Workboat after that. This way, in a desperate emergency, once at size 2, we'd be able to whip the Warrior with minimal hammers lost. The Workboat only needs 1h in time to be whipped out itself, and we'll put the overflow into the Warrior anyway, so since we won't need to whip out the Warrior, it doesn't really matter as long as we start the Workboat at some point!
Quote:I think we should go for 2 cities with 1 on top of the stone and 1 inbetween the rice and furs. This probably gives us the best in terms of long term as our rice/fur city claims more floodplains and the stone city will claim the lake tiles for us.
Honestly, I think planting on the stone is our only realistic choice in the lake region unless we give up Pink Dot Hill: The latter would just be so alone and unsupported otherwise that it might never be really safe (unless or until we conquer a neighbor or two). I'm just going to repeat though...
Quote:I don't think the delay in the copper will cause us any loss, especially if they settle the copper as the 3rd city. If they settle the copper 2nd it might get more dicey if they get frisky but in that case we can change our 3rd city site to be on top of copper.
...we don't need early copper to survive a rush by Gavadeath. If they rush us, we've lost the game anyway (and so have they) so who cares how bad it gets? My worry is that as of at least T50 - the earliest we could possibly connect the copper with the stone city as far as I can tell, and only by building and committing 4 workers to the task on that turn - our barb defense would consist only of Warriors (well, and I guess the Scout if it survives) and precious few of those. This is a big difference from both of our previous games, when we had axes ready to meet the barb warriors by the time they started violating our borders.
Relatedly, both Gavagai and Superdeath have been known in the past to act like barbs: Not wasting resources on an actual rush, but taking an attack of opportunity with a scouting unit against a ~defenseless Worker or Settler or city. (Surely not just to kill a Scout that isn't even approaching them though, right?)
Gavadeath moved up the Warrior but not in a threatening way. I`m quite content to let the Scout fortify in place for the time being (until we build up a military force). As long as we have some sort of warning I agree that we should be able to wreck the game of someone who decides to attack us.
Our Warrior moved to the plains hill and has a good look of the floodplains area. There is a Lion nearby, hopefully it will move away. I don`t mind fogbusting with the Warrior for a long time because as you have already noted, barbs could easily be a nuisance at Emperor.
In global news, Wetbandit revolted to Slavery this turn so I expect him to build his second city this turn or next. No sign of Gavadeath revolting yet..
If we want to go for the Stone site we should make sure that we have enough Worker support. We urgently need to improve the Pig as well as making a road, not to mention improving the Copper. I like that site but it`s a little bit of a slow starter. Those lake tiles down SW have some value but it`s not the end of the world if we don`t get them as we`d still get visibility across the lake without them.
If we`re set to go bankrupt (well, almost) already on the forth city we need to a) Stop building cities until we can afford them or b) Focus on commerce (and improving the Furs). Hmm, maybe we should take a short break in Settler production after the third city, allowing our economy to recover?
Everything that can avoid wasting Worker turns is good. I`d much rather have a road SW of Antiochus than no road. We should definitely pasture the Cow asap when the borders pop in a few turns.
(May 4th, 2019, 06:05)JR4 Wrote: I`m quite content to let the Scout fortify in place for the time being (until we build up a military force).
For spawnbusting purposes and to watch for incoming barbs, I'd be inclined to move the Scout back toward our territory, even if that just means NE for a glance at the fogged forest, W to the forest next door, and continuing to move slowly and carefully from there. We have almost nothing in the way of actual military, and we'll want to know about animals and other barbs that could interfere with our Workers and Settler in advance (or better yet, prevent them from appearing).
Quote:In global news, Wetbandit revolted to Slavery this turn so I expect him to build his second city this turn or next.
Well spotted - and according to PBSpy, you're correct!
Correcting another of my mistakes: It shouldn't matter since I think we're planning to found our copper city next, but Antiochus won't pop its 3rd ring borders any time remotely soon. (I had it in my head that it would take 25 turns like the capital, but of course it takes 50, barring another source of culture.)
