[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[naufragar]

Rusten, you meanie. You log in and see the war dec and don't say anything?   No, I'm just functionally illiterate.


So, based on the way our opponents were playing their turns, Rusten and I sort of suspected this. It's nice to have confirmation. Note the Superdeath warrior I've highlighted.

Now note his scout.


(Pictures aren't in chronological order.) This is absolutely fantastic news. Not only is our neighbor at war with someone in the opposite direction, our neighbor is so far from thinking about invading us that he is placing a picket of defenders to prevent us from surprising him. Superdeath, as we are all wont to do, is projecting. Superdeath is afraid that his neighbors will pile on while he is at war because that's exactly the sort of thing that he'd do. Note that I myself am so afraid of a surprise attack because every MP civ4 war I've been in started with me making an attempt at a surprise attack. We can't help but see ourselves in others. Superdeath is worried about us piling on for the same reason.

This is such good news. May the conflict be long and bloody.

Miscellaneous: I think that on turn 56 we can turn on tech. MSCC have passed us again in EP by one point. They know we're only putting 2pts in them. Let's see if they remain gentlemanly about the whole thing. Pajarocu is working the grassland cottage we just made. That river makes this land so rich.

[Rusten]

Did we ever decide between 1N or 1NE of gems?

Given recent developments I can see a good case for the more greedy 1NE whereas before the DoW I didn't want to cause any short term tension. 1NE gets 2 more forests which is 60 hammers and is a potential super-city later. Lack of food resource, but seeing as almost every tile is green we can get away with only farming the fp and a select few grassland river tiles. We'll run out of tiles between the triangle of cities if we settle 1N.

[naufragar]

We've now entered the part of the game where I work out the micro in-game. Ugh. Long turns ahead.


We've started a cottage 1S of Gaon. I really want to mine the plains hill, but I went with cottage first. One of our doubled up workers chops the forest 1N of Gaon, after which it books it over to the furs to improve them. The other worker boards the galley, picks up the axe in production and starts chopping ahead of the settler's arrival. (I'll have to double check timing, but I think I've got time to put a turn into a floodplains cottage.) After producing the axe, New Viron produces another worker with a whip. New Viron still doesn't have a granary, which eats me up, but we're very starved for worker labor. The capital regrows to 4 and gets to work on the gems settler. Others will produce the escorts. All of this is subject to change. In fact, I've changed it a few times as I was writing this post.  

On a happy note, we've turned on tech for Metal Casting. We are settling another city, but with the ICTRs and cottage growths, we should make it. Exciting times.

P.S. Am I supposed to work the tundra furs tile? I can't figure it out. Eventually, I guess.

[naufragar]

Did we ever decide between 1N or 1NE of gems?

Given recent developments I can see a good case for the more greedy 1NE whereas before the DoW I didn't want to cause any short term tension. 1NE gets 2 more forests which is 60 hammers and is a potential super-city later. Lack of food resource, but seeing as almost every tile is green we can get away with only farming the fp and a select few grassland river tiles. We'll run out of tiles between the triangle of cities if we settle 1N.

Ninja'd! I'll have to think about it more. One thing that appealed to me about 1N is that we should be able to put (at least part of) an improvement 1SE of where our worker currently is, so the city could start strong. If I understand you, you're thinking about chopping an early barracks at a 1NE gems plant to grab that floodplains?

[naufragar]

Preliminary rough thoughts: 1NE is a much stronger long term site, as you say. Either 1N or 1NE is slooooow. 1N is significantly faster to start because of overlapping borders. The idea of double gems is very appealing. It makes us more happy to build expensive commerce buildings (universities, observatories) than if we had two cities with a gems each. It's no more aggressive towards Superdeath than 1N. It's just harder to defend and support. I imagine we want an axe & spear garrison. I'm trying to visualize the timing for workers chopping at Pajarocu. Lizard produces its settler ~turn 60. It regrows to 4 (but without its fish) and produces another settler. I imagine this takes ~9 turns. At this point, Pajarocu's borders pop, and we'd like workers to start chopping. (In a perfect world, they finish chopping as borders expand, but this is unlikely.) I guess 1NE plant could work since those chopping workers would then move east to improve Pajarocu. Ok. I think I can see the rudiments of a plan here.

I'm not opposed to 1NE. We've got some time to see how the situation develops, but I'm happy to grab double gems.

[Rusten]

My turn to get ninja'd!

Sounds good!

I'm glad you went for the cottage first because plains hill mines are pretty bad. A fp cottage not only gives more commerce, but more hammers as well through the whip.
Tundra furs should not be worked unless there are specific short-term reasons to work it. Like finishing a tech a certain turn or if we're really struggling for commerce. The output is pretty bad generally speaking. It's 1F4C, right? I had one of these in PB41 and I preferred whipping or working coast every time. If it had a forest on it we could work it, but no such luck.

Gems city: I think 1NE is better because Pajarocu lacks food as well and if the gems city isn't working the fp tile then Pajarocu could benefit from it instead. I don't see this city doing much for the war effort in any case, it's just for happiness to whip more and long term output, so I'm not too bothered about it having a slightly slower start. In comparison the soon-to-be-settled overseas city is much more important as it's got potential to whip a bunch of samurai.

And yeah, chop barracks --> farm fp (when available) --> mine both gems (IW after writing shouldn't take long with our high commerce). Probably working a farm until border pops. I presume we don't have the worker turns for a size 1 granary, although it would certainly help.

[naufragar]

Slight headache this morning, so I wasn't super in the mood to stare at civ and crunch numbers. Take what follows with a grain of salt!



We have time to get two worker turns into that flood plains cottage 1S of Gaon before worker needs to hop on a boat. This completes the cottage by the time Gaon grows to size 2. I've marked the boat route. I'm pretty happy with the way this all links up. Cottage completes turn 57. Turn 59 worker and axe get onto galley and the galley makes its first move. Axe and worker unload at the forest tile turn 60 (presumed forest tile. If I've misread the fog, I'll feel silly). Chop completes turn 63, which is when stone city gets founded. (Note to self: Please remember to cancel the chop order on turn 62 so we don't chop a forest for 2 hammers in Lizard.)

New Viron completes its axe next turn, after which it starts on a worker. I think I want to just naturally produce this. It will complete one turn after borders pop, so it's a touch inefficient (although I think the odd tundra timings make it work out ok). I want to make the worker naturally, so I can quickly two pop whip a granary once its done. New Viron doesn't have many good tiles to work right now, so we don't lose much.

I've whipped Pajarocu, and if I was able to do basic addition, the spear completes with the overflow. This will make me feel better. I'm not sure what comes after the spear. When that unit completes, the city will be one turn away from growing to pop 3. I think I still want to build a worker while at size 2 and work the floodplains cottage. Growing to size three doesn't get the worker done faster. This one I would whip, and then probably regrow while building an axe.

Despite us only putting 2EP per turn into MSCC, they are putting the full four into us.    So instead of splitting EP on them and Superdeath, I've put it all on them. Not really an issue. Our tech path should be obvious even without tech visibility.

P.S. I notice Pajarocu's borders will pop over its outer forests the turn we get Metal Casting. This was unintentional, but it is nice.

[Rusten]

Worker moves sound good and New Viron plan seems ideal. It doesn't have the most food so I'm totally fine with not whipping the worker.

Pajarocu sounds wrong. It has a granary and an available fp on size 3 so I'd be shocked if it's not better to grow to 4 and 2-pop whip the worker rather than getting it on size 2.

[naufragar]

I made a mistake with the worker shipping logistics (I think). I don't know how, but the earlier plan left the settler sitting idly while the galley came back for it, so I've had to move the worker up now. The cottage gets done next turn. Annoying to lose the cottage turn. All this mental math is making me dizzy.



On a positive note, look! Free city!


What does this require? A pair of axes? Odd that it's planted two tiles from the deer. Whale, please?

Pajarocu sounds wrong. It has a granary and an available fp on size 3 so I'd be shocked if it's not better to grow to 4 and 2-pop whip the worker rather than getting it on size 2.

You're right, if my fuzzy counting is correct. Two pop whipping is a turn faster plus we get to work commerce tiles in the meantime. Boak/GKC built the Oracle.    We're second in power after the axe completed. Mr. Cairo/Superdeath must be a low intensity thing.

[Rusten]

You know, for someone who didn't want to make any promises on the reporting you're doing a real service so far!
But don't let me wear you out.

I'd imagine that city is guarded by warriors, so a single axe might be enough. Perhaps send the axe back with the galley after the island has been secured and settled?* Drop it off next to the barbarian city. OTOH it might be an idea to let it grow to size 2 so we can keep it. If so I imagine we'll need to wait a bit, but it's possible it will never happen due to no food. If we just want a tiny bit of gold for razing it then we can go immediately.

*If the island area is rich and part of a larger landmass we should probably keep the axe there for future cities.