[SPOILERS - El Grillo PB54] Staying home and stargazing

[El Grillo]

T16:




The Scout continues to make slow going through the jungle. Still no signs of life anywhere, human or barbarian. At home, our pasture is complete. Surprisingly, no one else has grown to size 2 yet, despite what had to have been multiple Workboat openings.

[El Grillo]

By sheer coincidence, Sullla streamed today and he played IMP/ORG Rome with a Great Lighthouse out of his second city finishing EOT66. Of course this was played live and not simmed, but I'll toss it into the bucket of data points anyway

[El Grillo]

T18:




A Lion attacked into jungle over the river and managed to land a hit on our Scout. I figure that's still enough health to continue hugging the coast.




We found Elkad of Maya's capital across the water. Based on the shape of the land and fog-scrying, he's not on our continent, which is great news because a Holkan wandering into view on T35 would've been terrible news for us if we commit to the Great Lighthouse plan.

I'm going to stick my neck out and speculate that we're on separate continents, but with very narrow waterways between them so that everyone has a mix of land and sea neighbors in the age of Galleys. Accordingly, seeing Elkad here makes me think that the shoreline to the west isn't necessarily an island, but another continent and therefore much more dangerous to settle. True islands will be much rarer and more valuable, though I see at least one to the north.

All the more reasons for the first Workboat to explore: we can determine if the island to the west is safe to settle, meet more contacts, and make it as far as we can along the E-W axis toward circumnavigation.

[El Grillo]

T19:

I decided to move my Scout to meet Elkad to start putting EP somewhere and to get KTBs on Agriculture and Mysticism (thanks so much for this feature Charriu!). Elkad happened to play before me this turn, so I might end up double-moving him and not revealing where contact was made. That said, it might be better and fairer to intentionally play after him next turn so he realizes that this landmass is occupied.

[El Grillo]

I simmed an alternative opening that began with starting the Settler at size 3 and 1-pop whipping it, instead of my the plan above where we grew to 4 and 2-pop whipped it. There are a couple different things being traded off here, chiefly:

- the scouting Workboat is not completed until much later, both because the initial turns building it while growing are now spent building the Settler, and because the capital needs to finish a Warrior after 1-whipping the Settler to avoid unhappiness
- The capital ends up with 12 more food on T33 (when both clams are netted), and this allows an earlier Worker and Settler whip for the third city. However, the overflow timing is altered in the process and that we can't put one chop+whip into the Lighthouse, which in turn delays the Great Lighthouse.

As you can see, the result is that the Great Lighthouse finishes four turns later at EOT59, but the second city is able to whip out its Lighthouse and Galley, and the third city has had long enough to grow that it can 2-pop whip out a Settler as well, such that we're ready to settle the intercontinental site, with an Archer on the Galley, on T60.

The research is a little messier because we found the third city earlier and it needs to wait a few turns for its clams so it ends up costing us more in the interim, but we're still able to get through Agriculture->Archery->Mysticism->Wheel.

I might be able to tighten up the timing here a bit more, but we actually need to make the first decision fairly soon in-game, when the capital hits size 3. Do we think the Great Lighthouse would be finished between EOT55 and EOT59? It's looking like a tough call...

[Charriu]

T19:

I decided to move my Scout to meet Elkad to start putting EP somewhere and to get KTBs on Agriculture and Mysticism (thanks so much for this feature Charriu!). Elkad happened to play before me this turn, so I might end up double-moving him and not revealing where contact was made. That said, it might be better and fairer to intentionally play after him next turn so he realizes that this landmass is occupied.

You're welcome

[El Grillo]

Thinking over it a bit, not only am I a bit uncomfortable with both delaying the Great Lighthouse finish date and delaying the exploring Workboat, building half a IMP Settler with foodhammer conversion as opposed to a 2-pop whip or chops just feels wrong.

EDIT: Turn rolled, I think I'll let Elkad play first.

[El Grillo]

T20:

Buddhism founded in the fog. Elkad has clearly already met other players and isn't spending any EP on us. Top food has a couple of 5f and 6f Worker-improved tiles, unless this is the player that moved T0 to settle on a 3f tile or something. Not much else to report for now.

[El Grillo]

T21:

Quick turnaround today. We're committed as of this turn to the plan of growing to size 4 ASAP, 2-pop whipping the Settler, and settling the coastal back lines, all by virtue of working the 3/0/0 rice over the 1/3/0 mine. Oddly enough, in my SP sandbox the governor preferred the rice, but here it automatically swapped over to the mine. Anyway, time will tell if this approach was wise or foolish (and the lurkers can certainly feel free to critique), but I'm more or less content with this plan.




This jungle region is certainly lush enough with Iron Working and Calendar, but did it really need to be quite so heavily jungled? Also, to date I still haven't found a single other AH food resource other than the sheep far to the south Maybe there will be more on the islands.

[El Grillo]

T22:




We've found the edge of the jungle so I expect to find another player on this continent very soon. Meanwhile, we've found another overseas player, giraflorens of Russia. We'll move SE next turn to make contact and then continue SW-NW.




Here's a preliminary dot map, which assumes I manage to build the Great Lighthouse and therefore am more or less encouraged to plant every coastal city I can. Ideally city #4 is safe to be settled on the western landmass and secures ivory as a critical first happiness resource, if not then it probably has to be the #6 cerulean dot, which wants a Monument anyway to bring the fish into range, and can use the horse pasture + a chop to build it quickly. Depending on how happiness is looking, settling on top of the gems pre-Iron Working could be in the cards as well, though I'd really prefer not to. These cities can be small and mediocre, but ideally they get up to +5 or +6f and can just whip through the midgame.

In the medium term, I'd really like to keep Elkad and giraflorens off of the continent, but that depends a lot on what their continent looks like, in addition to how quickly I can chop and whip out Settlers eastward. Looking to our west, the scouting Workboat that we finish at EOT24 when we work the grassland mine has some heavy responsibilities.

I should probably start looking at the Demographics more and posting them soon. We're the only player to have grown to size 3 so far.