[49 spoilers] Miguelito, pindicator and Adrien take Shiva by the hands

[Miguelito]

t43 + 44 - lots of news!

One thing to keep in mind about borders is that you want to have only a single city border if at all possible.   One problem with the white & pink dot setup you have is that if Cairo were to invade then he could threaten both cities with 2-movers from the hill N-NE of pink dot.  That is my biggest reasoning for proposing settling on top of the sugar before.  Other options might be settling on top of the rice (river defense on all the relevant sides) or N of the rice for better claiming of bonus resources.

You are correct. I should have considered forking, and that would not look good. It's moot for now though:


Cairo planted his third city of obnoxiousness. I do feel offended: He settled straight in our direction, he had at least equivalent spots (I think better) in the north, and I can't imagine he has nothing to his east (that includes a neighbour). Maybe he saw the proximity of our caps and is treating this as a deathmatch. He might be right.
Atm we have a single axe (which I am hiding from his scout in Mahadeva), so I did not walk straight onto the city. But we are going to have a window: This eot, Mahadeva (holy city) pops borders, taking the flood plain. Then on t50 the capital takes the other two southern tiles, giving us a great view on his supply lines (or earlier, if we finally get a religion spread after >= 20 turns). If we do strike, we should do it at that point. I think we'd want a spear and 3-4 axes. I have not simmed yet when I'll be able to bring that on but with the granary in Mahadeva finished, and soon as well in the cap and the third city Pashupati, we should have a whipping machine going soon (maybe, probably, Pashupati should change to a direct axe next turn when I connect the road. Shame, but it's what it takes).
You can also see that Commodore founded his third city t44 (while I was logged in) on the pigs that I had been eyeing. Commodore, wasn't he more to the West? I got the colour wrong on that shot, and it turns out that actually Raskolnikov is in the NW:


Rasko has no second city, and that is because I didn't read PBspy carefully, and actually Cornflakes razed it on t37! Now that very much confuses me, as in my head I had Cornflakes placed firmly in the southwest - that's where his scout appeared to come from quite early - but that can't be... maybe he's on about our latitude, on the other side of that desert? Then I could maybe even see the ruins with my scout.

A corollary of that is that Fintourist could actually well be our southern neigbour. That's the guy who this turn founded his fourth! city, and we're the IMP guys. Yeah, looks like he's better at this game than me (no, it surely must be the map's fault!).

More foreign news: As suspected Ruff declared war on superdeath on t42, and they've been whipping merrily since. As I had reported, superdeath was the second to a third city, without having whipped at all and being Stalin. So it makes sense that he was running light on military, where else would the hammers come from? In an ideal scenario, Ruff takes a city from him but can't take him down seriously, superdeath holds the grudge and goes to punish him, and we build the Oracle instead (ok, I'm planning our own war, )

With so much happening, have an update on the tallies:

Cities:
Elkad           28    
Cornflakes    33    
Rasko          32
us               25    42   
MrCairo        31   43
Fintourist      31   38  44
Commodore  31   44
Ruff-Hi         34    
superdeath   35   40
That's right, FT and Superdeath (Stalin, without any whips!) already have their third down. I do feel bad.  (that was copypasta)

Whips:
Elkad           35 (1)    39(1)            
Cornflakes    23 (1)    28 (1)    30 (2)    35(1)    38(2)   41(1)
Rasko          28 (1)    42(2)            
us               22 (2)    25 (1)    32 (1)    41(1)    
MrCairo        38(2)                
Fintourist     22 (1)    37 (1)            
Commodore                    
Ruff-Hi        40(2)    40(1)                 
superdeath  41(1)    43(1)      43(1)                  

Elkad with Joao seems not to be doing so well, maybe also in a war? He's now the last player that we don't know yet (so we'd rather have him at least modestly successful).


New stitch:


Upcoming dot map is an interesting topic. We will not have a new settler before the early 50s (yeah, sounds bad). I had that one destined for black/white, but that will not happen as long as MrCairo's effrontery stands. The three options I see:

1. We go to war with Cairo, raze that eyesore, and soon after pull a settler up to found... yeah not sure where. White dot? On the hill between the sheep and rice? Former pink dot (the FP)?
   
2. As we will not found black/white that soon, we can forego Agri in favour of Sailing and get a galley. Now, 2a) we use that in a war with Cairo as a bluff on his cap to bind forces or even load it with 2 axes or 2b) settle yellow dot and leave the war for afterwards or never.
   
3. We stay peaceful for now and found the light purple dot in the south (with Agri)
   

The new blue dot is for later. It could be realistic given Rasko's setback. I still don't see green as a good fourth city option due to no food.

Demos and graphs. We're catching up to midfield, but it's visible how little we got during the 30s. Cairo is bathing in hammers. If he's going for Stonehenge as I suspected the war may have better prospects. Notably his power has been flat (but significantly above ours):

Question for the lurkers: Do we go to war? If yes, when and with how many? Also dots.

[Miguelito]

I did a sim where I put 3 axes and a spear on the flood plains on t53, with 2 axes trailing one tile behind. t54 a galley gets whipped at the capital. 3 granaries, no new settlers (but I have Mahadeva start a settler, which may not be the wisest decision). pop 3/4/2, almost 4/4/3. 3 of those units get built at Mahadeva in the last 3 turns before moving in; the axe from Pashupati can also be delayed to arrive in time.
edit: Medic scout is also in that party of course.

Does this force dislodge the city? Is it worth it?

note to self: axe whip at cap t49, spear whip at Mahadeva t50 with two turns left.

[pindicator]

I would get AH and try to get horses hooked up. Chariots can hit Cairo's city from out of the fog and with no warning. I would advise settling away in another direction - give Cairo no reason to suspect that his plant has offended you, and he may defend it lighter for it. Where he has planted is going to be impossible for him to hold against you later on - the culture of your capital and the holy city combined will mean you will always have the ability to hit the city from out of the fog from 3SW of where he planted.

Let's settle all the gold locations, cottage the flood plains - make commerce our strength and then come back on Cairo with a tech advantage - or if he doesn't adequately defend then come at him with chariots sooner. But do not settle the white or grey dots you have in the last update; those will be far more expensive than they appear and they do not pick up resources as good as the gold in the west or the bonus resources in the south.

I recommend against an axe rush now. Perhaps Cairo will clear the jungle and improve the gems for us while we spend our resources growing our snowball in the best spots available and easy to take.

[AdrienIer]

I would get AH and try to get horses hooked up.  Chariots can hit Cairo's city from out of the fog and with no warning.  I would advise settling away in another direction - give Cairo no reason to suspect that his plant has offended you, and he may defend it lighter for it.  Where he has planted is going to be impossible for him to hold against you later on - the culture of your capital and the holy city combined will mean you will always have the ability to hit the city from out of the fog from 3SW of where he planted.

Let's settle all the gold locations, cottage the flood plains - make commerce our strength and then come back on Cairo with a tech advantage - or if he doesn't adequately defend then come at him with chariots sooner.  But do not settle the white or grey dots you have in the last update; those will be far more expensive than they appear and they do not pick up resources as good as the gold in the west or the bonus resources in the south.

I recommend against an axe rush now.  Perhaps Cairo will clear the jungle and improve the gems for us while we spend our resources growing our snowball in the best spots available and easy to take.

This. Settling those FP should be prioritized.

[Miguelito]

turn 45

Who can tell me why this is, and if it will go away next turn?


I put myself up to date regarding plot culture mechanics. Even with only a monument (I've said a couple times that I think he's building SH, more rambling of that below) he gets the first ring back really quick. (I had wrongly remembered that after popping borders, the culture per turn on the tiles in the first ring would just be doubled - that would have left the holy city and religious capital still better - but no, apparently he receives a flat +20 on it.

In other news, Elkad came over through the southeastern gate and now have contact with everybody. Here's the relations:




It's notable how Ruff and superdeath have made so few contacts. Maybe their corner of the map is somehow remote from the others? Their war seems to stay hot, with Ruff adding two 1pop whips this turn.
I also saw a Bowman of Cornflakes' at Raskolnikov's capital border. These are probably pretty nasty to deal with early! So that war also seems to be at least somewhat active.

Domestically, we can whip Nataraja's (the capital) granary next turn (so we keep not working unimproved tiles) and also Nataraja finally got a Hindu spread (which we still don't need immediately, but is nice).
Pashupati in the north was connected and I hope for a faster religion spread this time.

Demos/graphs:

-> not last in power anymore! (I wasn't aware that land tiles apparently add to that stat, duh)
-> My explanation for Cairo's recent MfG upshoot is that he connected stone and is now building SH with the bonus. Maybe Comm is contesting him though? I'd prefer that, although he just whipped 2 pop, likely for his next settler. We could put some hammers into stone bonified SH failgold, but I think we prefer to put our prod in units and settlers/workers, where we're lacking most.


so much for the turn report, now the strategy dicussion:

I would get AH and try to get horses hooked up.  Chariots can hit Cairo's city from out of the fog and with no warning.  I would advise settling away in another direction - give Cairo no reason to suspect that his plant has offended you, and he may defend it lighter for it.  Where he has planted is going to be impossible for him to hold against you later on - the culture of your capital and the holy city combined will mean you will always have the ability to hit the city from out of the fog from 3SW of where he planted.

Let's settle all the gold locations, cottage the flood plains - make commerce our strength and then come back on Cairo with a tech advantage - or if he doesn't adequately defend then come at him with chariots sooner.  But do not settle the white or grey dots you have in the last update; those will be far more expensive than they appear and they do not pick up resources as good as the gold in the west or the bonus resources in the south.

I recommend against an axe rush now.  Perhaps Cairo will clear the jungle and improve the gems for us while we spend our resources growing our snowball in the best spots available and easy to take.

This. Settling those FP should be prioritized.

Thanks team for being voices of reason. I agree that an axe attack on Cairo is not helpful to improve our position in the game. I feel that he put that plant there because he assumes that with a newbie he can get away with it, and a big part of me wants to show him that he will not.
But it's true that even if we manage to raze the city, we only have set back the two of us. He will also probably have thought on how to respond to an axe attack, and have a plan for response. So I will call this off. 

Part of the reason is that with the Ruff/superdeath war, there are new opportunities opening up: First, Ruff remains at two cities and seems to be putting his whips into units instead of settlers. We may get that cow/rice spot in the south. But also, this likely delays superdeath's Oracle heavily, so I am again considering that option. Actually Cairo's af-front city would be a lot more tolerable (for a while) if we had triremes. Of course there's also the possibility that FT builds it while settling cities 5-8 in the next ten turns (that's my envy speaking).

I am still torn between Sailing and AH. Sailing eliminates the option of an opportunistic raze from the fog with chariots anytime soon. But I really want the island city: MrCairo has scouted it now, and if he gets that island our capital is even more boatable. It also is a pretty good city with ICTR on top, a great Moai site we could get started, and improving the cow would immediately help Nataraja (though it would be shared, again). But for the Marble to be of any meaningful help with the Oracle, green has to be the 4th city. That would possibly allow to pull AH ahead, which of course will be a quite good tech for us.

So my tech path would be:

• Sailing OR AH
  
• Priesthood (maybe before AH, to start earlier with trickling natural hammers in)
  
• AH OR Sailing
  

Oracle site would be Pashupati, with just the 2 first ring forests if we don't get a religion spread pretty soon. We'd probably want to delay the granary to whip for overflow later, and prebuild an archer for the same purpose.

I have simmed (sloppily) tonight with going for the island first, and the Oracle gets delayed pretty much into the sixties. I'll sim tomorrow with Green dot first, then decide. I think both of you also would pull green ahead, if for the floodplains?

[Miguelito]

t46

This is annyoing:


He can look into the empty capital next turn. If he then placed a galley 2 tiles away in the second half of a turn, he'd kill it. I decided to still whip the granary, and pulled the axe from Mahadeva towards the cap. It will stand guard next to it while an archer gets built.

Elkad now also has war with Raskolnikov. If he's Rasko's western neighbour that would place him to Cairo's east. I would not like this, as Elkad despite Joao seems to have trouble settling cities, and I really could do with a counterweight here.



Cornflakes did what appears to be a 3pop whip this turn.

I simmed quite a bit and managed eot58 Oracle, my earliest date for connecting marble (it costs 11 worker turns , what's again the reasoning to make desert improvements more costly?). I think while not secure at all, it's realistic, if superdeath and Ruff keep up their war.
We run on sketchy defense at times (from t 51 on we are getting out military), but always have prebuilds for whips ready. If Cairo walks up with >2 Immortals (or 2 of them on a boat) I'd start to worry, but would he? We've even gained some power lately.

Demos/graphs

[pindicator]

Which tech are you planning to grab with Oracle?

[Miguelito]

Which tech are you planning to grab with Oracle?

Metal Casting, for Triremes to get an edge on Cairo, and an Engineer for Mids or a Machinery/Engineering bulb. I think that with how boatable we are, naval combat superiority would be a great relief and could open us offensive options vs. his capital/forking the 3rd city.


turns 47 & 48

speaking of, apart from the archer in the city, he now has a warrior and spear on the plains hill N of it (with a road). That seems defensive to me so far. He clearly has identified his vulnerability to 2-movers (but note that we can also boat that city from the fog). He also apparently moved his WB back without looking into our cap

immediate military plans: Mahadeva is currently building a spear and axe in parallel. It will whip the axe on t51 when it is about to reach pop5, then right afterwards the settler for green dot (both whips 1pop), then finish the spear, and then go for another spear. Nataraja (cap) is going to whip the archer once it gets to size 3, then go for workboat -> galley, with one turn into another archer for emergencies. Pashupati has a turn into an archer, but will start Oracle next turn. So yes, until t58 we're quite light on military. I will have a look at whether I can squeeze more out of Mahadeva (though it is getting quite some important tiles that shouldn't be whipped), or whether I should rather build an axe in Nataraja.

Because farmers' gambits certainly can get punished: Ruff took a city from SD, and kept it! he renamed it immediately so I can't tell whether it was the cap or  (more probably) the second or third one. My conclusion is that SD was planning to Oracle IW asap to get his precious AGG Praets, and got caught by Ruff, who certainly wasn't too trusting of him after their last game. I hope that this buries SD's Oracle plan, and that he manages to put up a steadfast, and spiteful, resistance.

I had a look into Comm's third city (it touches second rings with our third. Maybe this can be a peaceful border for a while. He certainly has an incentive to go for that rice, where he will clash with Cairo, hopefully):


the turn after I saw a second worker, chopping.

More stuff from Ruff that I don't understand:


he had a border pop at the cap already, which means that he built a totem pole there, but why? XP for his archers, ok but why not at the second city, where he wanted the culture? He was able to use his starting Tracker for that. Hm, maybe I'm reading something about that wrong.


Demos/graphs:

Ruff lost an axe there most likely. Cairo's power is rising again, but those are no real units (1 grid line equals 1k power)

[AdrienIer]

Didn't Ruff found Buddhism ?

[Miguelito]

Didn't Ruff found Buddhism ?

No, his culture graph doesn't show more than a monument,and everyone else I have graphs on has no more than the palace. That leaves SD, FT, Rasko and Elkad. I had assumed SD because Oracle and FT has terraces for culture,  but he also had a score increase iirc. The other two I don't remember,  possibly also candidates (Rasko s CRE though, Elkad... no idea what's up with Joao of 2 cities).