I could have founded Buddhism eot41 if I had beelined it after Pottery. I could have still gotten Hunting in time for Owlthorpe cow pasture, and gone straight onto Sailing for a pair of lighthouses. WT would have been size 2, 2 whip unhappy with both food hooked, granary and lighthouse on T55, as borders would have popped from the holy city culture. This would put us up by around 1 settler compared to my current plan of the library double whip by T65, plus 2 warriors from Westminster instead of a work boat.
This would have been a massive play if we had pulled it off. And you know what? I'm still glad I ignored it. Buddhism should have fell 10 turns ago and all the players that chased it this late were greedy. They should have sacrificed for it earlier: religion is only worth chasing when it's not worth it (in most players opinions). Lower competition this way, in a game this large.
I think Elkad and Pin missed it. Neither players their turns in a reasonable time frame so they are free curing out what to do. Maybe Borsche got it, or BeardBeard as he played his turn quickly.
Straightforward turn this. The lion bounced off warrior1, so it is just set up of the previously mentioned barb-busting plan.
Third cities:
T41: OH/Hitru (IMP, first to third city)
T42: Pindicator (EXP/FIN, 10 turns since second city), Rusten (EXP/SPI 14 turns since second city). Both players whipped for 1 pop on T40. So yeah, I doubt either has granaries up yet.
T43: GKC (he must have limited workers, no granaries and low pop. Just not possible to get the settlers out with Darius that quickly and have decent development. 13 turns since 2nd city.). BaII (I think double whipped a settler so looks like he has granaries in place, doubt he double whipped a granary in his capital and single whipped a settler in second city, but may have naturally finished a settler and double whipped a granary. 12 turns since 2nd city.).
T44: None
T45: Elkad (CHM/PRO but no big whips?? 7 turns since second city though does suggest settler>settler but inefficient if not whipping hard), Borsche (EXP/CRE, who knows what is going on, 16 turns between cities suggests he has built a granary, or gone single worker opening which seems poor). 2MN (EXP/PRO, decent speed, 11 turns between cities).
T46: None as yet.
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As an aside, I have a favour to ask of a lurker: I am going to Cumbria Monday 25/11/19 until 29/11/19. I should be able to play on the morning of the 25th and on the evening of 29th, but I will need someone to play the actual turns whilst I'm away as my laptop doesn't work anymore (not surprising given it was built in 2006). I will still be around and able to give real time instructions so a spoiled lurker could do this, if anyone is willing to play 3-4 turns for me. Please, Is there anyone willing to do this?
No third cities settled on T46, but Adler planted his third city on T47.
I'm moving the scouts one tile away, and back to the barb busting tile every turn to look for barbs, but can't see any just yet. Barb cities can start appearing on T50. I might get lucky and have a city spawn with warriors near me, but I doubt I get that lucky. Probably spawn with axes.
Still toying with what to do with the capital for city 4 and afterwards, but I'm not doing any sim work now. After the lighthouse it might be that a whipped settler on T70 works best if the worker turns don't seem to line up for the mines (I don't think they do...) and we could have Maths by then. I really want both the horse city and silver city down ASAP with another settler for intercontinental routes, but the lack of hammers really hurts. The reality is it'll be the effects of barbs and the effectiveness of the barb busting plan that opens up whatever options I have here.
I am looking at if I can make the horse city into city 4. The problem is I need to have a decision by next turn. Settler whipped T55 (no third worker), settled T59, plains cow hooked T61, granary 64/60 T65 with food box at 16/22 isn't great.
I think it comes down to what we want to do with the forests at the city7 location and the great people plans. If we want to risk CoL for religion and then Meditation for a shrine, then we can delay Great people but we need to prioritize beakers and not spamming unsupported cities. If we want to just focus on growing pop and getting them onto cottages, then we should probably turn the forests into an army of workers.
Third cities:
T41: OH/Hitru (IMP, first to third city)
T42: Pindicator (EXP/FIN, 10 turns since second city), Rusten (EXP/SPI 14 turns since second city). Both players whipped for 1 pop on T40. So yeah, I doubt either has granaries up yet.
T43: GKC (he must have limited workers, no granaries and low pop. Just not possible to get the settlers out with Darius that quickly and have decent development. 13 turns since 2nd city.). BaII (I think double whipped a settler so looks like he has granaries in place, doubt he double whipped a granary in his capital and single whipped a settler in second city, but may have naturally finished a settler and double whipped a granary. 12 turns since 2nd city.).
T44: None
T45: Elkad (CHM/PRO but no big whips?? 7 turns since second city though does suggest settler>settler but inefficient if not whipping hard), Borsche (EXP/CRE, who knows what is going on, 16 turns between cities suggests he has built a granary, or gone single worker opening which seems poor). 2MN (EXP/PRO, decent speed, 11 turns between cities).
T46: None.
T47: Adler (from that double whip from size 6 on T43, so it's had 3.5 turns worth of movement. Either that's a reach, or his road network is crap. I imagine the latter on a map this size (is it a reach settling 8 tiles from the capital if your opponent is 25 tiles away?)
T48: To come.
I committed a cardinal sin of logging in twice in a turn to get an advantage from demographics. However will I live with the shame?
Turns out that it is BeardBeard with the two size 4 cities, and he just settled his third city so his pop went up to 97K.
On further musing: can't fit the horse city in as city4 without some risks I'm unwilling to take. Specifically, there is no way to fog bust for it and I don't have the warriors in place to defend the workers or settler up there. If axes turned up before T75 I'd also have no way to defend. Ahead full with the copper city.
Ugh, shitty day. You know those days where everything that can go wrong seems to? It's one of those days. Not in the mood for much, but I need to write this so I have something to focus on that isn't annoying me.
Turn 048
Founding of city 3 next turn so pushing out the barb-busting net starts this turn with Cavendish moving one tile west. In a change to previously posted edited screenshots, Cavendish moves a further tile west, Gilbert moves NW to checkthe way is clear for W1 moves around the peak (as a barb warrior could be moving up from the unfogbusted area but I can't rule out it has moved through the FoW and is on the fogged grassland), and W3 to move onto plains cow on T49. The library build is started in WT, and it swaps back to a warrior on T53. This is straightforward.
Oracle has been built and Gav has picked up a classical era tech. Obviously MC. Now every time someone finishes an ancient era tech that someone they know has researched they will lose a beaker...downside of the KTB when making so few hammers. eot47 is pretty decent speed, but Gav doesn't have a third city yet.
T41: OH/Hitru (IMP, first to third city)
T42: Pindicator (EXP/FIN, 10 turns since second city), Rusten (EXP/SPI 14 turns since second city). Both players whipped for 1 pop on T40. So yeah, I doubt either has granaries up yet.
T43: GKC (he must have limited workers, no granaries and low pop. Just not possible to get the settlers out with Darius that quickly and have decent development. 13 turns since 2nd city.). BaII (I think double whipped a settler so looks like he has granaries in place, doubt he double whipped a granary in his capital and single whipped a settler in second city, but may have naturally finished a settler and double whipped a granary. 12 turns since 2nd city.).
T44: None
T45: Elkad (CHM/PRO but no big whips?? 7 turns since second city though does suggest settler>settler but inefficient if not whipping hard), Borsche (EXP/CRE, who knows what is going on, 16 turns between cities suggests he has built a granary, or gone single worker opening which seems poor). 2MN (EXP/PRO, decent speed, 11 turns between cities).
T46: None.
T47: Adler (from that double whip from size 6 on T43, so it's had 3.5 turns worth of movement. Either that's a reach, or his road network is crap. I imagine the latter on a map this size (is it a reach settling 8 tiles from the capital if your opponent is 25 tiles away?), BeardBeard (two size 4 cities as max pop, possible double holy city? That'd power his expansion as the first shrine opens up a bunch of priest specs so the second shrine is easy to make).
T48: None as yet.
That first to last pop drop...but 15th place has size 3/1/1 cities, so one of the players with 3 cities (OH, GKC, Rusten, BaII, Pin) has low pop. BaII should be discounted as he double whipped from size 6 to size 4, then did a single whip and has regrown 3 pop. Looks like he has a granary and has one city above size 3. Rusten and OH should have more pop than that (OH whipped once in the past 5 turns but grown 3 pop, Rusten whipped twice and grown one pop and both started from higher pop figures than this anyway). So one of, or possibly both, Pin and GKC have low pop cities without granaries.
Warrior4 built and moved towards WT in case a barb warrior has snuck through the FoW. It will fortify on the rice but return to Westminster once it reaches size 6 eot57.
This is how poor the food situation is: The cow is improved from T50 (next turn) so the wheat is handed back to Westminster. Both forests will be chopped T54 to complete the granary 62/60, food box 19/22. Then avoid growth T55, and grow eot56 with food box at 9/24. Looking at the city there are slightly better ways to do it, but the cost is not working the plains cow: holistically, this is the best option for the empire because the extra food it gives the capital means growth a turn sooner in several situations but the extra food doesn't affect growth in Owlthorpe. The library can be whipped T60, from size 3>2, and then build an axe during growth. The axes are only of value against barbs, TBW's axes have free C1 and shock. I'm not actually sure what how to defend against his army anymore except with cats (Hence Maths>Currency as it keeps open Construction, and we have no other contact for trade routes, and we are screwed for scouting units due to lack of hammers which also hurts the idea of research builds).
Total city maintenance is now 3gpt, so Sailing slipped to eot54. Nothing I can do about it.
Calamity! A barb warrior appeared! And I forgot to take a screenshot before moving!
Found a fish though.
tl;dr: swapping the warrior and Gilbert around, and with warrior4 I should not have difficulty managing the warrior if it beelines WT which it could attack on T56, although I would have difficulty getting out the settler for city 4 (and thus have to change some micro).
If the barb warrior doesn't beeline WT, then things might be a little more difficult, because unless if attacks W1 on a forest hill it will have 30% odds of victory (at best for me) and I would have no unit to clean up if I got unlucky. I'm going to see if I can get the to focus Gilbert and get Gilbert onto a forest hill. Doubtful I can make this work though, but not much I can do with just warriors (and any smart arse that wants to talk about archers can go fuck themselves, I don't have any hammers for archers).
Needs an MP on T58 IIUC, as it can carry size 5 with 2 whip unhappy. That means I either have to change the micro, or warrior 4 needs to get out of WT on T56, so that barb beeline scenario is fine (unless it beelined, won at low odds and needed clearing out). Theoretically I could build into the settler at size 5 (T57 after giving up the wheat) to delay growth to size 6, which costs 1 commerce, grow into the unhappiness on T58, suck up the 8 hammers from the city4 tile forest chop on T59 and still whip the settler on T60, that would still work.
The library is whipped T54. I could whip a warrior after this and lose 15 hammers, or I could change the plan, grab archery and whip an archer...but I'm not doing that. Two warriors can hold this city, especially if one of them has 20% fortification (90% odds on defense).
Described last turn. Going to position Warrior2 two tiles north of the horse so I have vision on the approaches to Owlthorpe.
Top pop looks to be size 5, size 5 and size 3 pop somehow? Or size 6, size 3 and size 2 but that means the size 6 city isn't a capital?! The top MFG is annoying because it means a player is running a few hill mines, so where they found the food for that I'll never know, but whatever, no point in dwelling on what others have, I need to make the best of what I have.
Demographics dump:
I was planning to write a bit more, but what it comes down to is this: There's no point judging this opening based off the demographics. No one has control over the tiles their opponents has.
Ultimately, this start could have gotten to city 4 slightly quicker with a different leader, but all that means is it would have worked an extra dry rice. England (or other Mining/Fishing start tech civs) are the fastest civ for this start, and the lack of food for other cities shows that a quick capital granary, enabled by FIN doubled the effective food rate from +9 to +18, and CHM gives the happiness to use the granary to the most profitable extent. The fish is almost a trap except it's available to a border pop, but any other city location to speed up access immediately hits a brick wall: no way to get a granary or second resource, no way to fit in a lighthouse, no way to get a work boat to it, no other good tiles for workers to improve. The dot map is pretty much set for any none creative leader: a city for dry rice and copper, a city for plains cow and shared wheat, a city for fish and clam.
I have my suspicions that this start was deliberately kept slightly food poor compared to the other starts because it has access to a lot of land in one place (plus the lack of 3 hammer tile for a work boat cripples it slightly compared to a 5 food land tile), but there's no way to prove it. I'd bet £100 that TBS moved this start, it's too perfectly spaced between two isthmi.
The fogbusting plan has worked so far: 10 turns until a barb was sighted, and that was 6 tiles from the nearest city, giving time to position reinforcements and move units to intercept. Strategic resources are in such difficult places though that I don't know what will happen if the barbs start to swarm. Theoretically I could actually see it being enough to lose the game (as Plako did in PB22).
What to watch out for in this game now: watch the barbs. Wait to see who grabs Mids (Gav is a potential, no PHI leader and has Oracled MC. He could land it round T85). See who lands Judaism. Come back in 50 turns to see what the tech situation is like.
There is no sight of the barb. No sight of additional seafood east of the capital either.
I was rushing the last turn report, so I don't think I explained myself particularly well. Then again, I've been trying to write a short passage that explains the point I'm trying to make succinctly for the past week and failing, so being rushed isn't the true reason I was fucking up.
Basically: the demographics are only a measure of whom has the best land, and has, IMO, very little to do with skill.
There is no way for me to have any idea of who is playing well or not. I can only judge my play with hindsight. I think I've played the map as well as could be: so far, whilst I've made mistakes, it has only been in unit positioning and has not been measurable in output so far.
The reason I think this is because, well, the map is the map. There is no reason complaining about anything, just focus on the map and how to overcome whatever obstacles it throws up. There are no reasonable complaints that could be made, with one exception.
I'm still sore that I had no 3 hammer tile at the capital. That single point makes England a one right choice for a civ IMO v(with this start, in this game), and then Hannibal (happy to whip, saved hammers on not needing MPs)/Pacal (slightly quicker start but slams into happy cap trouble, didn't know I needed 2 additional work boats so quickly)/Wang Kon (saved hammers on a granary don't actually mean much but turns out it would have opened up a monument build and sped up city 2 fish, but again, impossible to know and hits happy cap trouble and need to spend additional hammers on warriors so it's not a real win)/Willem (fuck dot maps) were the only reasonable picks on the return, and out of those 4, only Hannibal was obvious from starting screenshot. And once Hannibal of England is locked in, everything else is pretty much on automatic (ie there is a one best route to take for the first 50 odd turns, figure it out and do it). So I don't think this is a test of my skill.
If I'd have had a 3 hammer tile, then that opens up alternative civs and further leaders, and the snake pick choices would have had some meaning. TBH I'd probably still have picked England and Hannibal but I'd have had a little more output in the first few turns, not an entirely relevant amount but still.
But the kicker is: it doesn't matter. It's the cognitive dissonance of a personal expectation, "I wasn't given what I should have had", when no such reality exists.
