[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

The thing about chopping the woods into the Cothon is that we'd need mining for it, which will take another 3 turns after CelNav anyways. I think it also drops that IZ's adjacency bonus (unless mines and lumbermills are counted together for that?), in which case we'd lose 3 hammers/turn in the midgame (with the doubling policy) instead of the one usually lost by chopping. We'll probably pick up the plains forest hill in the east pretty quickly, though, which is more choppable, and can go into the GP (if we delay SW) or AH or even just into a settler.

Builder instead of one of the boats is a pretty good idea, IMO, but maybe it should go instead of the second boat or we should plan for it to just improve two things and then go exploring on the ocean. At size 4, I think the capital wants to work fish/turtles/horses/marble so we can get the bonus culture while still growing at a half-decent pace, none of which can be improved without mining. We do have the second city's horse to hook up, and will want to work the sheep at size 5, but an early boat gives advantages too, to circumnavigate and meet more people/CS to make sure we hit the GA threshold and find/boost PoliPhil (which I assume we'll want to start moving towards after the essential Ancient Age civics). My Mysticism envoy is also doing nothing as of now, and it'd be awesome to find a culture or another science CS for it. Though, yeah, if we do FT next, then builder before boat probably makes more sense due to the shipbuilding card, which I admit I forgot about and which would make the builder essentially free if we're going to then build 2 boats with the card up.

Not sure I'm totally sold on FT next though, just because a TR now would be super weak without any districts up at the capital. Do you know if TR yields update if a district is constructed while the TR is already active? If so, it's worth considering, but if not, I'm not sure we'll want to lock ourselves into a 1/1 TR when we're less than 10 turns away from a Cothon and GP. We would also have to decide if the faster trader and extra boat production would be worth kicking the GP to after the Cothon finishes, which would delay our settler push. I guess that would itself free up even more pre-Cothon production that could then go towards the second trader (well, towards the first trader, but we'd buy the second one when the GP finishes), which could be nice, though again we should make sure it's not locked into 1/1 if we go that route.

[Woden]

Good point on the chop. As for the trade route, a trade route sent to the capital will start off as 2/1 and will instantly update as districts are finished...2/2 when Cothon finishes and 2/3 when GP finishes. The main issue I see is slow growth at your second city. You want to grow onto the mercury as quick as possible. Each one is an additional point of science.

You can also think about switching to Mining when you reach the boost level in Astrology. If I were mapmaker, I would either have everybody have a natural wonder on their Island or nobody and we know with the early era points for suboptimal (?), they had one on their starting island. My best guess is that it is somewhere south of my capital and I might come across it with my slinger shortly. I can also have my boat sail south around the island to look for one. Would hate to find it right when or shortly after you finish it unboosted. It is a little bit of a gamble but might be worth taking. You could have both Astrology and Mining complete by the time it takes to finish Astrology unboosted. This way, you could get your mercury hooked up sooner for more production.

Edit to add: Also, looking at what we know of the island right now, I can't imagine it going on much more to the south, why give you such a small chuck and me an area twice the size?

[ljubljana]

Wait, does the capital get bonus TR food from the palace or something? I thought it was 1/1 to start and then 2/2 after GP, then 2/3 after the Cothon. But yeah, instant-updating TRs plus the ship card make FT look pretty good - we probably have time for a builder and two ships at the capital plus a bought trader before the Cothon, as opposed to just the ships or one ship + builder and GP otherwise. The only issue IMO is the 3-4 turn delay on the settlers from pushing GP to after the Cothon, which is significant but might be worth it. If I do a builder next, I'll probably have it do the capital sheep (in case of pasture pantheon) + second city horse + embark and explore until Mining shows up.

Good point about the Mining gamble, hmm. The NW situation is seriously bizarre unless you have one right there in the south, and honestly even that is kind of weird...you'd think the place to put it would be between us so finding it isn't as luck-dependent. I don't know where else roland + sub's early ES could have come from though? We cleared that camp at the capital about as soon as we could have, and their ES was much faster than that - turn 6 according to our sheet. I can't think of anything other than roland scouting an NW that would give +3 to roland and +1 to sub that early... But yeah, the early builder makes way more sense if I do go for Mining, and then it'd get the marble and second city horse + mercury for a flat +3 hammers plus amenities. I think we should go for it if we do FT + builder next and you don't find the NW soon - we'll only lose like 2 turns on CelNav in the worst case, and we'll get plenty of extra hammers from the builder in the meantime.

[ljubljana]

Uh oh, I just realized another big problem with using TRs to grow the second city quickly - it's going hit the housing penalty at size 2, and there's nothing we can really do to forestall that with builders alone. Ok, this builder here is a mistake then, it has to start working on the granary immediately if we don't want it stuck at size 2 for the next 30 turns. That probably tiebreaks in favor of builder next at the capital to get the horses up IMO.

[Woden]

Palace does provide +1 to trade routes. As for housing, if you had an extra charge, a farm (with the horse pasture) will give you an additional housing. We could also combine gold so you can purchase a lighthouse. I want to buy a builder at my second city when I can get the gold but after that, I can save gold and we might be able to get enough combined to buy the lighthouse. Then you can focus on pumping out settlers in both your cities. A granary is still an option, if you can fit it in but not a necessity.

[ljubljana]

So the second city has room for I think exactly one 60ish-hammer build between now and Cothon - settlers. If that's a builder, we get three extra builder charges, although really it's two extra charges because we have to waste one on the farm (which I can't imagine we'll ever want to work over even an unimproved mercury), which will probably equate to a flat 2 hammers per turn extra pre-Apprenticeship. The granary gives just one food per turn, but it also lets the city grow a size larger, which won't make the difference in terms of getting the last mercury online but which will be worth a few extra hammers and some bits of science/culture. I guess it depends on whether we think the city will hit equilibrium in terms of regrowing pop while making settlers at size 3 or at size 4?

I'm not a fan of granaries in most cases, but, yeah, it seems even sillier than usual here when the city will want a lighthouse anyways for the extra TR. Additionally, the aqueduct is a better build than the granary for the next bit of housing after that, since it will pay for itself via IZ and Cothon adjacencies with the current setup. The city doesn't have enough good tiles to work to ever want more housing than that, I don't think, so if we can manage to skip the granary for long enough to build a lighthouse, we might not ever end up needing it. If you think size 3 is enough for the first few settlers, I think I'm inclined to try that (going for the extra builder now) and then build the lighthouse once the costs start escalating. Not sure about buying it, though - we're probably going to want that gold for traders and monuments and such, which seem more urgent then a few points of housing in a city that's going to be constantly losing pop from settler builds anyways.

[ljubljana]

Turn 29 - Phoenicia



I reposition warriors and buy the GP tile. I could still switch Linear A onto the granary, but I'm feeling increasingly sympathetic to the double builder - eventual lighthouse plan. I'm also probably going to swap to mining next turn because, wow, short of outright increased tile yields, I don't think I've ever seen a geographic feature so suspiciously indicative of a possible NW than that little patch of desert your slinger just found. Great find on what looks like another science CS too - I'll check the quest once we have contact, but if I'd have to go at all out of my way to get it, I'll probably just drop the Mysticism envoy here ASAP.



Also, the first Great Prophet points are in, and they're for...roland, wait, what? It tracks with the 2 ES they got last turn, but aren't they full-cost-Holy-Sites China? I'm amazed that they managed this with both Japan and Russia in the game. They also are surging out to a tech lead with their fourth tech this turn, probably due to the extra Eureka beakers.

[Woden]

I think I might have my slinger move south and not meet the city state this turn. My thought is to have my warrior move along the coast and meet them while my slinger continues to look for a NW. Alternatively, I can have my slinger meet them and have my warrior come and help with the barb camp, if you think that is necessary. What do you think?

[ljubljana]

IMO, it depends on how far away your warrior is, and on whether you also plan to dump the Mysticism envoy into the CS on contact. If so, every turn of delay could be worth as much as 4 beakers, which could end up costing more than the Astrology eureka is worth if it's like a 5-10 turn delay. If it's a short delay or you're planning to save the envoy, though, I think it's fine. I doubt I'll need help clearing the camp if it's just spawning warriors and slingers, and even if it's horses I think I'll be okay as long as they don't go for the second city. It's been a while since I had this happen with a Prince-level camp, though - I assume they're less intense than the Deity ones, but if not I might end up getting proven wrong here.

[Woden]

Turn 29-Vikings
At worst, I can meet the city state with my warrior on T33. I do have a few turns before Mysticism finishes, so I move my slinger south and find a promising tile..
   

That desert sheep is next to a natural wonder. I can discover it next turn and still might make it back to the coast by T32. 

In other news, I settle my 2nd city (I think last to 2) and have it start a monument. Longboat comes out next turn and Mysticism finishes in 2 turns.