[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[Krill]

Borsche gets second blooded by Elkad?

Keep your head down, Krill. Fix that godawful whilst you're at it. Get some cottages.

[AutomatedTeller]

Sorry, got waylaid talking on the phone, then lost my post. I hope your day is going well, with no family arguments.

Orders for this turn:

Cavendish moves SW, checks for barbs, then moves back onto the rice regardless of what he sees. - Done, no new barbs
Yeld moves 1N, if no barbs adjacent skip turn, if barb present moves 1S. - Done, no new barbs
Warrior7 promotes C1, moves into Scarrow and fortifies. - Done
Warrior on sheep hill moves into Scarrow. - done
Both workers on sheep hill pasture/cancel - done
Axe1 moves into sheep hill. - done
I believe there should be a new mine at Westminster, if so it should be worked instead of a coast tile. - done, Settler in 3.
Tech should be kept at 0% and on Currency. - done
Gilbert was offloaded onto the tile 1SE of the plains hill sheep, right? - yes
Thanks again AT.

Other things done:  triple whip settler in WT.
Move workers for new city to forest.
Spear in owlthorpe in 2.  
Axe in Wetheral next turn
ended turn, handing the reins back to you.  Hope you enjoyed your trip!

[Krill]

Thanks for playing for me AT.

I reckon we've hit a real slow down now, as Adler needs a turn player, and 2MN and BaII haven't played their turns...maybe T78 can be played on Saturday and then T79 on Monday.

[Krill]

Turn 078

First turn back and I've been thinking a little, I've neglected cottages, and I need to focus on getting those down, rahter than just "spamming" settlers which has been my primary concern up to yet. But right now I need to deal with the barbs and take it from there.




The opening screenshot shows the barbs took the obvious movements. I have the option of taking the 68% battle with the C1 warrior first, but I will not take that this turn. Taking the axe shot, but because I'm paranoid I promoted to C1 with the aim of having a shock axe to help push through the barbs. There is an argument for taking W1 and then W2, because it would mean I can get Axe1 back into the city next turn, provides a bit more leeway to deal with barb movemwents, and I can much more easily scout the north, but I can't see past shock. I don't think I can use chariots to deal with all the barb axes, and I also need it to defend a front city more effectively.





Bad screenshot, this: my axe got hit 3 times and was dropped to 58hp. The promotion heal therefore bumps it up to 79hp. Yeld finds a fish, and Gilbert took a risk moving two tiles forward, but not a massive risk: I thought the island was below 20 tiles due to the lack of barbs, this...proves it IMO.

I suppose I should probably come clean on what I've been thinking about: I've been looking at how quickly I could hit 12 cities. I think I could reach there by T95 unless low odds barb wins or a lone galley bearing axes dropped by. I could have them connected and multiple workers hooking food resources. The barb-busting net would pretty much fill most of the gaps so this would actually be safer than not settling forward from a barb management perspective.

I'm just unsure if I can afford it, as I think I need to slow it down slightly, and get a couple of cottages down. I'm really stretched on workers turns, but not actual workers. If I was 20 worker turns ahead (I had 3-4 cottages down) I'd be fine.





This island is a nightmare to settle. There are only two routes to fit three cities onto it, and a two city dot map isolates most of the coastal tiles. Gilbert has to check the grass sheep, 1S of grass sheep, 1S of corn and 1S of copper to check for seafood. I'm not sure if there is a tile 2S of the corn, but I think it's just coast. I might even have to settle on the sheep...

I can settle SE of the clam or plains hill sheep, or on the grass sheep on T82. 1S of the grass sheep takes until T83. Thankfully I will have the island completely scouted by then, but because of the changes to worker micro I've had to dump Worker4 into the galley because I don't know what I'm doing with him yet.

I'm expecting to settle 1SW of the clam though. T83 I can have it hooked with a workboat from Westminster, and I can have the copper hooked on T89 (with growth eot87) with a new worker from Westminster. I don't think this is the best option though, simply because I just don't know what is better: plains sheep could be hooked on T83, but that would be growth eot89 and then it's a grass hill mine versus a grass copper. And this requires Worker4, whereas I could keep worker4 to cottage the mainland. Too many variables for me to manage at this point, have to play it by ear. I will double check what settling south of grass sheep is like though. T83 settling and T89 corn hooked is the baseline.

I'll finish the report late, but here is the picture dump:




OK, restarting the report: The settler completes eot79, 104/100 (one whip unhappy wears off at turn roll). Loads onto the galley T80, unload T81.

I need 18 food to grow Westminster to size 8. Good argument there is no point in this until the last plains hill mine is completed. I was expecting to grow over 4 turns (two turns @4fpt, 14hpt, two turns @5fpt, 11hpt) and throw the 50 hammers into archers, or a library, or...you get the point. I'm 1 hammer short of getting out a wrok boat and archer and still growing in 4 turns, which really does not bother me. It's not like I can use the additional pop point until T89 anyway.

Ultimately Westminster just has to provide what the other cities can't, and it's about to sit at 18hpt and 2fpt. No point starting with it in a city review, really.

Read this bit after going through the rest of hte cities:

As you can see I'm short on worker turns, so I'm going to be forced to push them out of Westminster whether I like it or not. If I settle for the copper/clam location on the island, I also need to push out a workboat, but that's an unreasonable way to look at it: I need two island cities by Currency, and there are three city locations, so I should just ignore the plains hill sheep and accept I need to grab both of the other cities.

I've got a settler being pushed out of WT eot83, and I could use this for the second island city, and this would seem to make the workers fit so much more easily around SH, but I think it just leaves me having to throw half a dozen workers at a further road to nowhere.

OTOH, that means I have turns to chop out 150 hammers worth of forests into worker and settler

WT can sit at size 5 right now to build a settler rather than size 6, unless I dump the overflow from teh work boat into a settler, at which point the settler would be at 36/100 and can be triple whipped immediately (T83). One whip unhappy will roll off eot85, so WT can regrow pretty quickly but it is at the happy limit for triple whips now. Next triple whip would be T88, again for a settler.

Part of the trouble I'm having with worker turns: I think this is a scenario where the city is limited by happiness, not food. If I were to whip a worker, I'd actually be making this worse and I'd lose out roughly 20 turns into the future. But by whipping settlers I'm stretching what workers I do have, so I need to throw the workers out of other cities, specifically, Westminster.

OTOH, WT is about to reach the point it has to stagnate at size 5, and then size 4, so I'm reaching the point I'm going to have to split the fish off, or use it as a 7 yield hammer tile. Again, I reckon I'm going to have to change the worker micro around Aldeburgh and strip both workers out to go and hook the silver, and then throw a settler from WT to act as that pressure valve. That's the T88 settler IMO. I can't do it any other way, as the T83 settler would not have any worker support.

Oh look, the Aldeburgh (City6) workers finish the sheep pasture on T88. Isn't that nice. Silver could be mined T94 if I burn 3 excess worker turns. Whatever, that can be tightened, check other worker availability would speed that up and save further worker turns. Point being, there is a settler due eot83 and I have to figure out how to support that as well.





OK, this is where most of the foul up with lack of worker turns shows: Right now Owlthorpe is holding 3 whip unhappy (CHM is pulling its weight). One will wear off and it can stick to size 5 without any real difficulty, but there is no development here.

Growth@3 eot79, growth@4 eot81, growth@5 eot84, and no workers present. If I grab both the workers from Westminster, I could road the wheat T79, then cottage the three grass lands on T81, T83, and T85. But is this truly worth it? Whip unhappy rolls off eot82, but I'm going to have to either keep the spear as MP, or recall a warrior. Obviously the warrior has to be recalled once the barb issues are dealt with satisfactorily.

Growth to size 6 would occur eot88 but there is no happiness for that, and I can't whip, so do I need to swap the grass hill mine and wheat with Westminster sometime from T85? Again, it's a micro consideration that has to fit in around whatever Westminster is going to build, because even if I gave up the wheat immediately, Owlthorpe would still grow eot92. The library can't be completed until after size 5 either, so no additional grasslands to cottage, growth will have to be paused at size 5.

I suppose I could also use these two workers to get the silver hooked quicker. Stealing worker turns from the horse could bump up the cottage completion and give me a road over the desert and get the silver hooked T92....maybe a 3 pop settler whip T92 is not out of the question, or a 2 pop whip T90? Nah, need to keep on working those cottages, but I'll keep that in the back pocket.

Ultimately, Owlthorpe doesn't really figure as important, compared to any of the other cities. And because of this, I reckon I end up whipping Owlthorpe again for a worker because it is more important that I improve the other cities.





Another example of the issue with worker turns, I'd just keep on growing on cttages but as they don't exist, the worker whip is the first sensible option that came to mind and then I stopped looking.

Whip T80. Growth@4 eot84, @5 eot89, @6 eot95. A single worker can cottage 1NW T84, 1E T89, 1SE T96 with a pasture but no road on the plains ivory T93, and I will likely want this as trade bait anyway. So I suppose I can leave a single worker at Wetheral, and just let it plod through military builds after this. It will need an archer to guard it though, risky position to get boated.





I need a second tile improved for T82. Secondary concern: That settler from WT will be leaving SH on T86, and I'm going to settle the flood plains area. Probably the tile 1NE of the rice, so I need the workers running through that location. I've already given up on needing the horse tile hooked on T81.

Longer term plans are to grow onto and work cottages on every none resource tile, so with no opportunity to farm, grow to max size and then cottage, SH will need to grow onto cottages serially. So really that just means don't build workers or settlers. I can fit a whip in easily enough, but don't see any point of doing anything more than a single double whip in the midst of growth.

I'm a bit stuck on what to build here. I'm already building military in Wetheral, and doing OK in power against TBW and don't want to spook him, nor do I want to pay for more military units. I recognise the 5fpt limit of this city until and unless I chop a forest I'm saving for another city. I don't need military for the eastern island, so the only place to use it is to push down the FoW and swap the warriors. So sure, probably makes sense to build an archer or two. Both Wetheral and SH can build an archer apiece, and then build a chariot each. Am I at the point where I need to build a barracks for growth? I could kinda do with the ability to build wealth, even though I said I would view such a point as failure...still.

I'm going to need to use the C1/shock axe to protect the workers roading forward. Going to go through the grass forest 2W 1S of the city tile. So long as that is roaded on T86 the settler can move clearly through and settle T88. One issue is I would want to double chop the forests on that turn...which would require two workers on the forests on T85.

This is a good example of the worker issues. I was planning to flood SH with workers and then road forward, but now I'm pulling the workers out to Owlthorpe, and the pressures from WT pushing out settlers.





I want to say this will improve but I don't really see how, except by growth onto seafood and cottages. I can't improve the unit supply significantly: Aldeburgh will bring two units back into borders just as I'm moving units to settle the island. The barb sentry net needs two further units adding to it. Unit cost can only decrease by the settling making a city and losing units. I reckon with settling island cities on T82 and T86 I would theoretically reach around 55 bpt. Still 11 turn for Currency, which would mean I need 220 gold. Maybe T90 for Curreny is unreasonably optimistic.





Ragged.

[Krill]

That turn report probably makes no sense.

Halfway through writing it swapped my thinking of using the workers at the capital from cottaging Owlthorpe to using both for the island city and hooking copper for a size1 granary with a T86 forest chop. That still means workers out the capital can improve Owlthorpe but not in a quick enough timeframe, which pushes me back to another worker whip on T83. But that pushes back growth too much.

Probably better to just 1 pop whip the library, and then tie growth onto cottages from the new workers from Westminster. But again, that means growth on military.

[Krill]

The RNG controlling events in this game is a troll.

[Krill]

Turn 079

The RNG is having a laugh.




What this means is I will endevour to shove him on a forest hill and gain fortification and see if I can get a barb warrior to bounce off him. And then get a second barb warrior to to the same again, just so I have a back up HE unit.

Troll.





tl;dr: Going to get both island cities down ASAP, so they should be settled T82 and T86, with two workers to get them up and running. granaries first, then lighthouses, and growth onto coast to help solvency. But because of the speed, I'm rushing to make sure I don't have to settle south of the copper as that changes the worker micro slightly.

This means Westminster goes Worker>worker>work boat, and gets the clam for the copper city hooked the turn after the granary is completed, the turn it needs to be worked. Copper should be hooked T83, forest chopped T86 (2 workers, it's that or a wasted road), corn hooked T88, sheep T90. Unless Gilbert shows me more seafood to the south in which case I'm going to be annoyed as I will end up settling on a grass sheep or orphaning sea food.

Another barb warrior turned up near Scarrow, axe1 will thwack it next turn. I still can't get 2XP for a battle against a warrior, but after this I can get 3XP against a barb axe.

[Krill]

Every turn for the past week I have had to rebuild micro.

I am getting a little tired of it TBH.

[Krill]

Pre-turn 80

No pictures for this. Pure stream of conciousness, almost entirely written before T80 was played.

---

What am I trying to achieve? I am trying to win.

How do I win? I make everyone else give up, or I reach a VC before anyone else.

How do you make everyone give up? Be bigger, faster, and stronger than them.

Can I do this? Maybe if I get a boost in the next 50 turns, if I got an easy conquest, otherwise, probably not.

So which VC should you go for? Culture is out due to no religions, and extremely doubtful Sistine, so that means Space.

How are you going to reach Space? Cottage cheese plus a few conquests, starting land alone is never enough. Space is commerce limited.

Who are you going to try and conquer? AGG Rome to your north, or an unknown quantity to your west? Well, AGG Rome is currently second to last in points, after only crippled 2MN, and I'm ahead in all metrics except GNP, which can be measured in how far behind I am to Currency. I was planning to check research times again this turn, as tech needs to come on by T82 at the latest, but I am behind. AGG Rome is also up a narrow isthmus that means there is a rough route to attack him, unless there are naval options up that coastal path.

Ignoring the unknown quantity, how and when should you attack AGG Rome? Well, when AGG is not a huge benefit, and when I can use CHM to my advantage. That means post Construction, obviously, but unless I get a religion I probably can't get triple promoted units by around Guilds. Naval dominance to force AGG Rome to split defenders whilst pushing down an isthmus also works, but without Theo I would need Harbours plus Vassalage. This doesn't sound like a great idea unless I have a tech lead and better base units, so the when is probably dictated by the strength of my tech situation.

Probably better to attack west, but to do that I need to identify the opportunity, and I need to control the choke point. That means identifying scouts, and moving them through the choke point, an additional goal on top of the expanding, researching Currency and building a cottage base.

[Krill]

Turn 080

The preamble is the above two posts. I've spent most of the past week dealing with worker micro, but I need to write the previous post to focus my own thoughts.

I need to hold the eastern choke point, preferably hold a city just the other side of it. This game is not PB42: I have the leader and civ to capitalise on a large core this time, rather than trying to keep a crashed economy afloat with workshops there, I will cottage everything here. But I do need to manufacture a later opportunity, a chance for an effective attack to the west because attacking north is going to be hard. That is arguably much more important than cottages at this point, but not as important as getting to Currency.





So...I spent over 2 hours looking at the turn, but not because of what this screenshot shows. The barb that looks to be beelining Owlthorpe is actually not a major issue: the axe coming across from Wetheral can just run down there and protect that are if the barb runs down to Aldeburgh. If the barb instead heads towards Owlthorpe, then the spear will be able to attack for 2XP with the axe as back up. OTOH, that leaves me with one axe at 5XP north of Scarrow, and a spear. I lack any other real military.





There is now only a single dot map that makes sense for this island IMO. 1S of the copper, on the grass sheep, and 1SE of the plains sheep.

I am glad I moved worker3 into Westminster: The southern city and the grass cheep city need border pops. I can ferry over worker3 and unload that and the settler T81, so Huxter can be settled T82, and the copper will be improved T83. T84 I'll move one worker onto the forest, and reload the other onto the galley along with Gilbert. T85 I'll unload Gilbert onto the mainland, load a settler and then unload the worker onto the plains sheep. T86 unload the settler, and T87 settle the plains sheep city (Eswick), whilst the library is completed via forest chop in Huxter.

The problem is that I have 7 workers and I'm stranding 2 of them over here. And I'm finishing settlers eot83 (WT, er, more on this later), eot84 (Westminster, second island city so worker is already allocated), eot88 (WT, but I use this for the silver and use the two workers from Aldeburgh).





I need a road over to the western choke point, I need to adjust the barb busting net, I need to build and manage be the military units to hold those cities, whilst using those 5 workers I have already to somehow improve 8 cities. Yes, eight. Because I figure it's better to whip a settler out of Owlthorpe than a worker, as I can build workers from Westminster and whip 2 more with relative ease from Wetheral. And we are always on the clock.

This means that the T83 settler from WT can reach the plains hill 1NE of the forest rice on T87. I want a library chopped here on T88, the turn of founding, as that brings in four forests, two of which I can give to a city 1S of the pigs. I can road over the grass forests between the rice city and Scarrow with no real difficulty, as I want those forests chopped ASAP. The problem I have is workers, but I have found a way to get the horder improved on T82, cow T83 and then get all the roads and chops done.

I just doubt I'm going to be able to spare those workers for the chops.

The obvious downside is this leaves the worker just whipped from Wetheral as the sole worker to improve three cities. My answer is to chop more workers at Scarrow and whip more workers at Wetheral. I figure Owlthorpe is going to give me the same commerce sitting at size 4 working two wines tiles and build a settler as working cottages, at least over the time frame of researching to Currency yet costs no worker turns!

(Please, anyone with any sense of good worker micro, shoot me now. Put me out of my misery).

Anyhow, that would be another settler whipped on T87. This is the front city settler, but I need roads through the stone to get it to the front. If I don't use these three workers to prep the rice/clam site, I need only a single worker on the other side of the river on T90, in addition to these workers, to get the front city settled around T92. I know I can do [i]that, but I have a single worker, forests at Scarrow and Wetheral one pop whips to get as many follow up workers as I can.

The problem? I can basically use the 5XP axe as the only unit that can escort, until I get a chariot chopped on T84 (via the new worker) in Scarrow hill (to overflow 18 hammers during growth from 2>3 for a 3 turn worker at size 3). I also need that spear to go with it, but that depends on the barbs behaviour. In reality, I think I can use the axe to cover it whatever it does, and the spear should be free.

But with all this in mind, it is obvious that I need to build another couple of units to hold at Scarrow, and I do need Cavendish to screen in front of the axe.





Another flawless win. But the Roman scout is interesting. That's the same scout that wandered past the capital 40 turns ago, I'm sure of it. He must have spent a good number of turns scouting down here, suggesting there is a lot of space and it isn't just a dead end. Doesn't prove it, but I'm expecting a player to be down there.

At this point I have to note that my warrior, after it heals to 60hp, has a 45% chance of victory against that barb. Not enough, so I need to move it. NE would give me perfect knowledge on where the barb is moving to, but I get that on T82 anyway, or move it NW and bring down another warrior to fill in the net.

Yeld moves 2SW, it appears stupid and wasteful, but there is a single land tile I can't barb-bust any other way unless I put a unit 2W of scarrow (so inside borders). The flood plains 3SW of Scarrow is also another difficult tile to barb bust, and I need two separate units to cover both tiles. Meanwhile I also need another unit around the wines once the barb warrior passes through because until the silver city is settled around T90 that area will remain a potential barb spawning ground.

I think the smart money is to just move warrior3 back 1SE next turn to resume barb busting duties. Let that barb warrior through and have other units deal with it, then push the healing warrior in Scarrow Hill (3XP, C1) as far SW as I can go, OR use that warrior to cover the Yeld position as Yeld moves to the SW area. I reckon I could have the entire area fogbusted by T84, with the workers just leaving my borders and axe1 promoted to shock and close to 100hp (maybe 99hp?).





Oh yeah, settled Aldeburgh this turn. Crab is hooked next turn, because sometimes micro just isn't that nice.

Worker micro is reposted here (not new, just so I can find it). I'm not actually that concerned about not immediately mining the hills, as they aren't exactly needed until after the silver is hooked, and I can easily return the workers from the silver tile as the roads are in place.

T81: W1 road. W2 move N. Net Crab.
T82: W1 road/finish. W2 road
T83: W1 move W. W2 road/finish
T84: W1 chop. W2 chop.
T85: W1 chop. W2 chop. (City 6 borders pop and growth@2 eot, work crab, sheep)
T86: W1 chop/finish. W2 chop/finish. (City 6 completes granary)
T87: W1 move N - pasture. W2 move SW - SW pasture
T88: W1 Pasture/finish. W2 Pasture/finish.
T89: W1 + W2 move NW - N. [Settler from WT moves SW - SW - SW onto same tile]. Work boat complete at Aldeburgh eot.
T90: W1 + W2 move NW - road/finish. Settler moves NW - N. Aldeburgh growth@3, 26/24. Net Crab#2, start light house.
T91: Settle silver city. Steal fish from WT. Build Granary. W1+W2 move N - N.
T92: W1 + W2 mine/cancel. Aldeburgh growth@4 30/26.
T93: W1 + W2 mine/finish. Aldeburgh work coast.
T94: W1 + W2 road/finish. Aldebrugh work grassland, growth@5 32/28
T95: Aldeburgh whip lighthouse, growth@4 26/26.

Part of the realization that I need to just rush the cities is that I'm not managing my GNP at all. Any idea of founding religion is gone. Grab Currency, reach 12 cities.