[PB58] Tarkeel and Amicalola's rule through fear

[Tarkeel]

Turn 63 (1480 BC) Dangerous Error
Playing a late turn so Superdeath could have his turnpace, I got complacent and made an unforced error:


I actually did know Superdeath had a warrior scouting out the coast, but had forgotten about it. Chances are he'll take the opportunity to kill Accuser.

Oh, and Serdoa pulled two new cities out of his hat this turn, as well as one a few turns ago that didn't show up on PBSpy, for a total of seven. Jowy planted his sixth this turn.

Demographics

[Amicalola]

 Happens to the best of us.

Edit:

Initially, the overflow is always the maximum of the item cost and your production in the city. So for a lighthouse 60 hammers (unless the city has even more production then those 60 hammers per turn). But after that production modifiers are removed. For an ORG civ (100% production modifier) you are left with 60/(1+1) = 30 hammers overflow. If you build a non-ORG lighthouse in a city with forge and OR (50%) you would have 60/(1+0.5) = 40 hammers left. Then for the next item this base overflow is multiplied again with the appropriate modifier for that item. So if you follow up the ORG lighthouse with IND Stonehenge (50% modifier) the 30 hammers get multiplied by 1.5 and end up at 45 hammers actual overflow into Stonehenge. Overflow is also always rounded down in both directions.

What Amicalola said is basically right. I just wanted to clarify a little.

Now that I have some more time, thanks Civac, this is a much better way of phrasing what I had tried to. I knew the basic outcome, but didn't know the actual formula involved. Cheers.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 64-66 (1360 BC)
The good news first: Superdeath actually spared our worker, so I guess he's serious about controlling his urge to attack. He's also likely to want me on his side as he tries to tackle Serdoa, whom I think is a 80% favorite to win this. Another person researched Writing T66, and I think it's Serdoa. We blitzed through Agriculture and are two-turning Pottery next. I'm meeting the edge of my plans again pretty soon.

In all the excitement I forgot to introduce this guy, who'se been busy connecting Kessel and it's gold to the trade grid.



The Conquest was reassigned to Tatooine after the Death Star plans were stolen, and was one of the ships seen chasing the Millenium Falcon. It was later assigned to Lord Vader's Death Squadron.

Demographics

T64:


T65:


T66:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 67 (1320 BC)
Superdeath whipped out two cities last turn, bringing him up to an impressive 7. Ruff also got his seventh this turn. Our hammers have mainly been going into another project lately...


Oh, that was the other lighthouse that got built last turn. Ours gets built next turn, and I'm feeling confident that we'll land it. Pre-build economy screen:



Demographics

[Tarkeel]

Turn 68 (1280 BC) A Day Long Remembered

This was the turn we built our lighthouse:


Economy (unsurprisingly) improved by 4 commerce from the new trade routes:


AT finally founded his fifth city, just in the path of our scout. I've made two offers of open borders which he's refused, so I guess that's it. Our sixth city will be founded here next turn, sealing off a good border with AT.


Meanwhile, it's time to start looking at how to settle the west. Those peaks make it very hard to dotmap, and while I'd like to claim both corn with something like this, those cities feel very exposed:



We're saving gold for now, not sure if we should do Writing or MetalCasting next, but leaning towards the former.

Demographics

[Tarkeel]

Turn 69 (1240 BC) Base Established
We established our sixth city this turn, as did AT.

The forest moon of Endor was of no significance until it became the site of the ostensible completion of the second Death Star, luring the rebels into a trap.

It's been some turns since the last overview shot, and the situation is evolving. We need some more workers on the scene as well after this wave of settlers.


Edit: You can see the borders of all three of our neighbors in each corner of the overview.

AT responded to my open border offers with this robbery:


I decided to take it for now, as I don't think he's in a position to really take advantage of the happiness right now.

Demographics

[Amicalola]

OK, so we had a long chat about the game, and there are a few topics we need to discuss in depth. I also logged in and changed a few builds to make them (I think) more efficient. We've run over them in brief, but I thought I'd explain in-depth in a post. Feel free to change any of these! And If a vet reads this, does the principle make sense?

So my basic idea is building a granary->settler/worker feels pretty pointless to me because the granary is not doing anything while building the civilian. So why not build the civilian first, and finish the granary with overflow, growing straight away? So I am just changing a couple of our cities to do that. This will affect 3 of our cities:




Previously, both Fondor and Coruscant were partway through their granaries. Calamari (great name) is building Moai. 



My thinking is that Coruscant will build a settler with the current tiles for 3 turns, and then whip on the 4th (T73) at 51/100 hammers. This will create enough overflow to 1-turn the granary on T74, and micro the food box to exactly half. Then we would run max food to get back to high population.



The concept at Fondor is similar; 2-whip the worker on T72, and 1-turn the granary on T73. We will not quite be half-food box by then, but <half is fine, and we will be close anyway. This one is slightly trickier, as we get exactly 15 hammers per turn. We can work the ocean instead of lake on T71, to get 29/60 hammers on T72, which is what I recommend. The efficiency of the 2-pop whip vastly outweighs that of the 1 food lost, in my opinion. Edit: We could actually 2-turn the granary afterwards by working the lake for 1 turn, which would get Fondor to half food-box. I don't know if this is worth doing, but it is an option.



Finally, Calamari will take a break from Moai and build a work boat for 4 turns. This allows us to hook the fish up on the same turn that ivory-city (the new settler's city) will be settled, allowing us to immediately work a very strong tile. We can further whip a lighthouse in the new city immediately after size 2.  


You can see from the signs in the first shot where I would move the settler/worker en route. Building the road 1SE of Coruscant shaves a time of settling, and times Avenger perfectly to start camping the ivory, so it is my preferred action for Avenger. The new worker at Fondor can finish the pre-chop that Avenger is currently doing. 

Let me know if you are happy with this! If not, I can change it back, but I am personally pleased with it. Also, Great Lighthouse. Wooo!

Edit: Also, should Endor build a monument before granary? For the crabs.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 70-71 (1160 BC)
After securing the Great Lighthouse it's time to grow and expand some again. This was the point where my plans more or less ended, as we're no longer being able to play in our little sandbox. We'll need some more metal units to secure our borders. Amicalola had some good ideas on how to get granaries out more efficiently which we've implemented. Fondor whipped it's replacement worker this turn, sending it's attendant to help the settler out of Coruscant next turn and claim the ivory city. Meanwhile Kuat and Kessel built their settlers this turn and will grow on granaries.

We're yet to end the turn, as our last scout is waiting at Superdeath's border, hoping he will accept our offer of open borders. I think this is the game where it's in our best interest to buddy up to him and focus on our other neighbors. Speaking of which, it seems Ruff and Jowy (whom we have yet to meet) is in a scuffle.

Tech-wise I'm still wavering between MetalCasting with Colossus or Writing with Mathematics next.

Demographics

T70:


T71:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 72 (1120 BC) Double Trouble
This turn we founded or next two cities, Bespin and Corulag.


Bespin gave us trade routes with Serdoa.



Bespin is a minor mining colony that supplies the Imperial forces with Tibanna gas, used to turbocharge lasers.


Corulag is one of the early core worlds with important connections both in trade and politics.

Demographics

[Amicalola]

Ok so next up on the agenda, tech. I think we have 3 options for techs we would really like right now, broadly speaking.

1. Writing->Maths
This would be good for chops and libraries (we already have asked OB with anyone who would matter). I'm not super sold on it, because on a map where whipping is worse, we are more likely to want lumbermills; we have already identified several forests that will be milled. Meanwhile, none of our cities really want libraries yet.

2. Iron Working
This would be to chop the jungles at Ivory city and the pigs at Endor (I actually didn't realise these were jungled when we were discussing the site prior to settling. Oh well). Each is valuable, but neither is as valuable as option 3, in my opinion.

3. Metal Casting
This would be for two things as well. The first is the Colossus, which is obviously great on such a water heavy map, and doubly-so with our many fishing villages encouraged by GLH. However, I find the forges even more valuable. I think 60 hammers forges compete with granaries to be the best building in the game, and we basically want one everywhere ASAP. They're even convenient to whip out!



So I suppose while I think there is some level of merit to the other two, my preference is obviously Metal Casting. The Colossus and IND forges are each a solid competitor in the argument to research MC first, and combined I think they make it a pretty clear choice. For after that, it will be somewhat circumstantial, but I predict IW to come before Writing. It does depend on how desperate we are to build libraries, I guess.