[Cornflakes] 57 Christmas Treats That Will Make You Hungry

[civac2]

What's an armory?

Also, great you used my name suggestion.

[Cornflakes]

Copper appearing in the BFC of an existing city is not something I expected a player to complain about.

See it not as a complaint, but a compliment that it is the worst I can find with the map so far. In reality I'm quite pleased that copper showed up on a flatland tile at Caramel Popcorn. That improved a 2/0/0 tile to a 2/4/0 at the city which needs production the most. Really it could only be better placed 1NW in the first ring so that I don't have to pop borders. With copper I can now achieve 20 hpt working corn + copper + ivory + grass hill mine + 2x plains hill mines [EDIT: Nope I'm only getting 19 hpt when I counted again, I double-counted the city center but it's not on a plains hill]. That is a perfect round number for a forge 25% bonus to provide a nice ROI. And that will also greatly assist in building the forge + colossus.

What's an armory?

An armory is the American UU (barracks replacement). In RtR all barracks and replacement UU's provide +1 culture, which is primarily a boost to Aggressive trait since the +100% production bonus makes the cost identical to a monument, while also providing the barracks XP. It also allows anyone to pop borders without researching Mysticism, but due to 60-hammer barracks cost it is not very practical if not AGG.

[Cornflakes]

With anarchy over and slavery adopted, I whipped twice this turn (first whips in the world).

   

I also defeated a barb lion in the east, surviving with 46 HP. I got a little greedy with exploration and moved onto flat land.

Cashew Bars' development is rapidly accelerating. Growth to 2 at EOT, then 3 turns to size 3 (working pigs + sheep), then 2 turns to 4, then 3 turns to 5. EOT26 it will be size 5 with 18 food-hammers per turn. That will give me a worker + settler pair every 9 turns, or just short of 2 settlers in 12 turns. Now that probably won't be sustainable since I will likely give away pigs and/or sheep to jumpstart new cities in the west.

Demographics are pretty close, except that I am very far behind in production after whipping off 2 pop.

   

Someone has a huge production lead. And if you add rival-worst food and MFG together it is higher than my combined food + MFG so I'm worst overall food-hammers currently. This I think is a side-effect of starting with a 1-tile island city which is only working coast tiles. However this same island city is fueling my economy.

[Cornflakes]

Quick-and-dirty timing on Metal Casting is:
Wheel [51 beakers]: EOT17 (Roads for connecting gold, copper, and trade route/travel from Cashew Bars north)
AH [130]: EOT23 (connect Ivory, reveal horses)
Pottery [101]: EOT27 (Cottages at Cashew Bars while I trade away the food to new cities, and MC pre-req)
Metal Casting [446]: T37-40ish.

This gives me a target date of about T35 to work towards completing all the mines that Caramel Popcorn needs for the Colossus construction. I also need to consider pre-chopping, although I'm now considering whether my beeline might give me some breathing room to chop some of the forests into something else ... like Oracle > Machinery since I'll have the MC prerequisite already. That would be a lucrative 1124 beaker haul for 150 hammer investment (936 raw beakers). This is also a case where the early commerce from FIN and AGG could potentially pay dividends by allowing me to snipe these wonders from IND TBS and convert to a larger tech advantage.

[Cornflakes]

From the event log it looks like Pindicator ended up with the free-shock-promotion-on-all-axes event ... I would much prefer if that could be un-done.

[Cornflakes]

For full disclosure, I did not replay identically after the reload

   

When we previously played T23, Gavagai's warrior was 1E as indicated by the Yellow arrow. I therefore moved my Orange warrior from copper 1NE to the ivory. This time with Gavagai's warrior on my border I moved 1SW.

And in the west my red warrior was healing while fortified. In the original T22 I canceled the healing at 96 HP and moved 1S on T22. In the replay I forgot to cancel the healing so I would have been on cows this turn instead.

Demographics are looking good:

   

My food has been within 1-2 of top in the world all game since I started with 4 cities. My production has been lagging. Someone has been rocking 25+ MFG since about turn 10 That is some serious production this early in the game. At 100% tech on pottery with double-prereq bonus my GNP is 55. I'm currently getting FIN bonus on 4 coast + gold, and I'm saving 3 gpt from AGG maintenance discount. 8 commerce per turn with the current 31 net is a 35% boost in research capacity from my traits!

   

On the tech tree I'm about to pick up the last of the "worker techs" and will soon need to commit to a mid-term tech path. I'm considering now saving extra gold and then burning through Mysticism > Meditation > Priesthood > Metal Casting in a single burn. That puts me about 6-8 turns slower to MC, but speeds up Oracle by the same amount because I can complete Oracle on the turn I finish MC research in order to claim Machinery. MC will take about 8 turns of 100% research which should be enough to slow-build Oracle. My biggest concern is that this wonder-building effort will take a huge chunk of my production capacity and stunt expansion. I'm currently building 2 settlers which will complete over the next 5 turns (the Caramel Popcorn sign is off by 1 turn, I 1-whip to completion on T26). But in addition to the raw beakers from Oracling Machinery, the tech unlocks Watermills which are the best riverside improvement for FIN which doesn't get any river benefits from cottages in RtR.

[Cornflakes]

Worker techs complete! Initial expansion mostly completed! Time for some microplanning on the mid-term Colossus objective!!! Note that I have been working 4 coast tiles continuously, and will be picking up a 5th coast tile in 2 turns when I found my 5th city (stealing pigs from Capital, which will pick up the un-netted 2/0/3 crabs. So colossus will have immediate beneficial return of commerce, plus merchant GPP which will eventually get me either GA, mission, or a low-odds GEngineer. Plus denial to the IND and PHI rivals.

   

The colors in the microplan correspond to the two workers that are currently mining copper together. See overview screenshot below where I sketched their movements and improvements.

Milestones:
- Polytheism EOT29 for a chance at Hinduism. I could speed this up by 1 turn but would still hit priesthood on the same turn. I decided to delay the turn because I'm founding a new city which I wouldn't mind a chance at landing the religion in. If I miss Hinduism by 1T it also masks my run for Oracle.
- Priesthood EOT30
- Oracle EOT43 which is a 13-turn build. That corresponds to the current breakeven research time for Metal Casting. I will be founding 2 more cities over the next 5 turns but my breakeven tech rate should remain equal or improve. I could speed up Oracle 1 turn if tech progresses quicker than projected because I'm currently delaying a chop. I think overall Colossus timing would remain the same.
- Colossus EOT50 ... this is 4 turns quicker than my PB53 timeframe where I used whip overflow and chops.

   

I have a settler on the map 1SW of Caramel Popcorn. I've been waffling on the location for this settler and the one that is completing in 1 turns at Cashew Bars. I'm currently planning for RED dot, settling on the sugar in order to steal Cashew Bars' pigs. I'm not entirely pleased with that location since it misses the cows to the west and ended up being a flatland border city. But it will grow like a weed and will not require any immediate worker labor. I can whip 2>1 a couple times while waiting for worker labor (maybe even chopping the forest in order to 1-whip a worker). Hiduism holy city culture would be nice to claim control over this border area which is why I decided to delay Polythism for a turn ... probably 15-20% odds??

[Cornflakes]

   

TBS completed Stonehenge. This means that he has had Mysticism for some number of turns, and is within striking distance of Oracle. Will he take the risk of challenging me, knowing that I founded Hinduism and completed another tech (Priesthood) the very next turn?

I will found my 6th city next turn which will raise expenses again, but I'm still looking to improve MCC research to 12 turns with the 2nd Gold mine. I'll take another look at the micro as well and see if I can shave another turn off of the build.

[Cornflakes]

How we ensure Gav will is a mystery to me though.

For the record I'm not overly concerned about one extra turn of worker actions. If I lose because Gav or anyone got 5 extra worker turns on (T30 in an advanced start game where this is more like T80) then I'm doing something wrong. This might be different if there was money on the line, but it's a game! We're all here to have fun, right? For myself I enjoy the journey more than the destination, and although I care about winning I get the most enjoyment out of making the best decisions for my any given game situation.

[Cornflakes]

My workers are off automation.

Also, I tried something to get Gav's attention through PBSpy

   

          Clever