[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[Alhambram]

Interesting about coast both in north and south, which means we can only expect landbased attack from west or east, or maybe one of direction is a deadend which means safe backline unless Woden's Phoenica arrives with his navy.
Argee with your scouting plans and altough I do favor warrior a little more, slinger is not bad option for archery eureka. A combo of discipline policy card and usage of terrain can allow sole slinger take down barb spearman.

Interesting question as usual: which Pantheon to take? There are two visible resources for both Goddess of Open Sky and Goddess of Festivals. I am likely premature here, need to scout more to make better judgement.

[suboptimal]

I'd lean towards Open Sky only because that could be more immediately used (settle second city on the coastal grassland and buy the sheep tile). There's always the free builder pantheon if we get a first-meet on a religious city-state early enough. We need more scouting, though. A pantheon without a religious city-state first meet bonus wouldn't be available until the mid 30's so we've got time to sort that out.

[suboptimal]

I went back into the save because I realized I forgot to check the score to see if Ichabod settled. He did and shows 7 points. Curiously, Woden shows 4 era points despite not having played his turn yet. The only "passive" historic moment worth four points is to be the first to discover a new continent. That only happens if you start at a continental divide and there are no other civs with start positions on that continent. Being the first to a natural wonder is only 3 points. Regardless, he shouldn't have any era points unless/until he plays his turn, unless that was a function of Cornflakes getting the start position screenshots taken.

[suboptimal]

Turn 2

And promptly forgot to turn off the mod again. Everyone settled on Turn 1 with Kaiser settling near something that gave him an era point. Warrior moves south to the coast as planned. Turn ends.




No fresh water or cities on settlervision to the southwest or west.

A settlment down here would need to be on the jungle in order to get an RND down. However, this is starting to look like a good location for our first settler to go. Plantation pantheon also gets a slight nod here. However, it also looks like there might be a 1-tile bridge between the southern end of the lake and the ocean in that tile east of the jungle hills. Part of me wants to go further south and then cut west before heading back north but I think it’s more important to get the lake scouted out now so we have a better idea of the immediate surroundings. We could send the settler down here and then send its slinger escort deeper south/west.

[Alhambram]

I argee with your scouting plan and settling plan. Settling upon rainforest also means that two seafood resources are inside first two rings of 2nd city, giving us the much needed eureka for Celestial Navigation which unlocks Royal Navy Dockyards.

[suboptimal]

Yeah, the more I think about it the more I think this is city #2. Crabs won't help with production but that's 6 sitting there waiting to be collected. Getting the city established now will make it able to just build the RND rather than chopping it in. I think I might farm the rice for the eureka and then somewhere down the line harvest it for pop and pave it over with a district.

[suboptimal]

Turn 3

Nothing much to see or do here. The warrior crosses the river and reveals a coast tile or two.




Time for some idle pinmapping. Here’s one industrial region that I came up with:




If I built this district configuration and the game gets to the Industrial Era it’s possible for City #2 to be generating 55 per turn from districts while running the Craftsmen (+100% IZ adjacency) and Naval Infrastructure (+100% Harbor adjacency) policies. The IZ would be boosted to +8 adjacency if I plowed over the rice and put the Encampment there or, more preferably, London built an Industrial Zone on the rice for a +5 adjacency IZ. Military Engineers would be used for most of the Dam and Aqueduct construction.

District construction order would be:

London: Campus → Government Plaza → RND
City 2: Encampment → RND → Industrial Zone → Dam/Aqueduct

At a minimum I think London will be placing the Campus and Government Plaza in the marked locations. A city up to the northwest might be able to use that Campus for an additional adjacency bonus.

[suboptimal]

Turn 4

Climb the jungle hill, they said. See the sights of the southern shores of Derwentwater Lake, they said.




Oooh...whales!

It does lead to an interesting question. In theory, it would be possible to do this:

- Shift City #2 from the coastal jungle to the open grassland. That puts both crabs and the wines first ring to the city. My earlier fantasy dotmap is not affected other than having to move the Encampment, likely to the tile NW of the wines.
- A builder could boat both crabs for the eureka then harvest the crab where the RND would be placed. That gets some immediate gold and doesn’t affect the RND’s adjacency (remains +3). I suppose if the gold isn’t worth the builder charge at the point in the game where the RND goes down we could just pave it over and use the third builder charge for a plantation on the wines (especially if we grab that pantheon).
- A city could then be placed on the grassland hill east of the stone at the southern end of the lake. That gives is the option of a +3 RND at sea or a +2 RND in the lake. Te main advantage is that it functions as a canal for London, which could then be used to building naval units if needed.

[Alhambram]

Shifting city #2 was one of possibilites that did run in my head in case that tiles east of hilled jungle isn't production heavy which seems to be case here. Argee with grabbing eureka then harvesting carbs in favor of RND.
Putting canal city for London isn't bad idea, however if there is much better city spot just east of that grassland hill, in future harvesting stone and place a canal there is also a option.

[suboptimal]

In looking at it again, the westward shift does mess with the the fantasy pin map slightly. The Aqueduct moves to where the dam is marked and the dam would have to pave over the rice. However, that means the sheep lives to see another day as a 32 tile.