[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[Ginger()]

I've got a general micro question for the lurkers, is it worth delaying a worker 2 turns to grow a city one more size onto a lake? In 5 turns I plan to conduct what would either be a 4->2 whip, so the only real affect is gaining 10 gold from working the lake. I don't know how that stacks up against finishing cottages and stuff 2 turns faster. It would guarantee I get Masonry 4 turns after Sailing, which was always very tight in the sims so I have no good idea how close we'd be in the actual game. How would you value two worker turns for the (possibly overkill) guarantee of hitting your tech goals to the turn?
In foreign news, another person (not Mjmd) teched Sailing and Henge fell last turn to what must be Superdeath as I have met everyone else. Him and Jack are in a turnsplit, so... scared:

[Ginger()]

Photo dump time
               

Found Vikings between me and Bing in latitude, closer to Bing, that mean SD with either his original or Pindicator's capital is directly across the western sea in the lands of Valinor. In foreign news, graphs reveal that Cairo has had a rough start. Looking at the tech screen I see 2 people on Mys, 2 on Sailing, and 1 on Archery. I don't think I'll be able to get Judaism, not with the current tech rate, and not with the juicy remaining city sites to fill. My current dot map has 6 more cities (preCalendar) to settler before I even start looking at the potentially contested or greedy claims. Two granaries have appeared in Mjmd's cities. Fabled has settled passively against Egypt as we can see from the improved corn, not that I blame him.

[Lazteuq]

I logged in to look around. I think the Turn 60 situation is pretty good. Of course Superdeath getting a free chunk of land hurts our chances, but still, we're not losing yet!

What's the plan for building the galley and settler for stone city? It looks to me like 3pop whip capitol, 2pop Cumae so it would be settled on... T65?
Once we've built a galley, settling a second island city isn't any more trouble... I'm guessing the long vertical island midway between us and Superdeath is a pretty valuable place to control. So after settling the stone, I think the galley should go up north and check it out.

Then where to settle next on the mainland? Since the Mjmd and Bing borders seem to be pretty solid already, I think the one you labeled priority settler is good. It may annoy the neighbors a little, but that strip of water means we would have a lot of warning time if anyone were to attack. It should be possible to build a workboat for the crabs a couple turns early in Ravenna and send it the long way around along Cornflakes' side of the lake, getting some useful vision.
On that inner sea, we have to watch out for a galley attack by Cornflakes eventually. Ravenna's borders will be small for a long time yet, so it's possible that Cornflakes could 1-turn it out of the fog if we leave it undefended.

I think your "calendar settle" site should be split into one 2S on the coast and one 2N.
I'm struggling to find any other city sites that would be easy to disconnect from the trade network to spam MP warriors. Not a big deal though.

I feel like landing GLH as a secondary effort with no chops, ORG, or IND is very unlikely. Since the failgold isn't boosted by anything, I'm skeptical if it's worth trying. Building more settlers out of Cumae feels better to me, unless that would crash the economy too much. In that case of "enough settlers" I guess the 1:1 hammer-gold conversion is reasonable. While GLH isn't quite as good on this map as it was in PB60, I still think it will be aggressively contested.

[Ginger()]

Yeah there’s plenty left to settle, and definitely free real estate in the oceans to gobble up. That’s what confuses me about this map. There’s only one ring of expansion between you and your immediate neighbors, but there’s also room for >10 cities without conflict. In the short term I agree more settlers and workers from Cumae beats a half assed attempt at GLH failgold, I’ll probably overclock the whip there to compensate for Antium’s slack. I think I want Neapolis to steal the pig and grow to size 4 and whip either a worker or Settler finishing the Granary with overflow. The current demos lead is tenuous so I need to keep pushing that expansion.

I have a problem in that I do not have a concrete plan. Yes Civ is about adapting and reacting but without a focus it’s easy to slip behind.
Longer term, looking past turn ~84 and post-Pyramids, I really don’t know what the play is. I feel like a fool for not getting into the duel mindset. I don’t think there’s a long term empire that has our current border with Mjmd. I think he’s a good ally and he hasn’t been provocative but he is probably thinking along the same lines: “early war is shit, but I don’t see this border lasting forever with one ring each between our Capitals”. Are we left playing chicken with Construction and HBR (HBR for him, IW for me)? A game of who researches it first? As soon as one of us starts whipping an army the other immediately has to follow suit because the border is so vulnerable with core, good cities right in the crumple zone. All these problems manifest in tech priorities and build paths.
Writing is a must, but after that I quickly run into problems.
A peaceful tech path that optimizes my research speed is Math Calendar Currency CoL Civil Service. This is a singleplayer classic and is especially suited to my leader, unlocking Caste Merchants and Bureacracy ASAP. Calendar along the way unlocks two more happy, some tile yields and at least one city spot as well as the ability to Engineer rush MoM.
But then I have to ask myself, what about Metal Casting? Non-Industrious forges are a total b*tch to build, practically requiring OrgRel for your sanity, but Forges are Forges. I think Colossus will be *really* strong if I end up growing out those cities that dot the coast line. And Triremes in the western sea would make me feel much better.
TL:DR I want to chase three rabbits. And map shape makes the border very precarious, while simultaneously disincentivizing war with peaceful expansion spots, locking us in a game of chicken. Specifically Mjmd because I have hills from which to see BING coming and the land and cities directly on our border are less spectacular prizes.

[Ginger()]

Gandhi is getting jealous as other Empires eclipse his advantage in city count, and ruthlessly orders the construction of more settlers with all due haste  More workers join the mix, trying desperately to balance the priorities of establishing new cities and laying down cottages to keep the economy afloat. I'll post demos this turn 63 and again on 65 after the stone is settled. 
   
   
I also fired off some diplo. Silver for Gold with Fabled (I don't plan to hook up my other silver for about 20 turns, but this might help him if he connects his second gold, and I want Fabled strong to counterbalance CF and Cairo). I also asked OB from BING, and offered a friendly Fish for Crab to Mjmd. OB is to signal friendship to BING. Worst case scenario is Mjmd isn't interested in friendliness but uses the crab-fish offer to continue his farmer's gambit (currently he's lowest power). I noticed that BING already OB with CF, and that someone has a +6 export-import and someone has -6.   I guess BING doesn't have sailing, given it was CF's GNP that spiked. In two turns I can expect a nice juicy trade route bump of my own from ICTR. 
     Speaking of Diplo, I wonder if I should be more aggressive, start probing BING by offering war versus Mjmd, see if he is responsive. The pro is that sometime in the future there will be a 2v1 war by intent or circumstance, the con is that this sort of thing can very easily backfire. More about questionable moves, another idea entered my head  ...
   
Realistically expansion there is a no go with the current (and projected future) state of the economy, but I can dream 

[Ginger()]

   
Mjmd accepted the Fish/Crab and sent this. Hmm, I guess this means he has a land bridge connection to SD and wants to use that. Fine by me. Should I send some kind of confirmation reply?

   
Overview of our lands, we settle our sixth next turn 65. Masonry is going to be a very tight fit. I had to spend about half an hour trying to figure out a way to both hit the tech next turn and still maintain the highest growths possible. 

   
*Internal Screaming*

[Ginger()]

I made sure to log in before Mjmd so I could be "first" to 6 cities. We won't be making Masonry this turn unfortunately, Antium puts a turn into a spear while swapping from hammer tiles to food.
   
Here we see our Galley and Chariot, initially intended for a bit of light terrorism on the other side of the coast, now redirected to uncovering the goodies in the middle. Room for 2 cities with some interesting dot-map decisions, thinking to settle south city on fur and north city on PH. If there is more food hidden at the horns of the island I might settle 3 cities there. Cumae will pump out the settlers required for this.

   
Hmmmmmm...

   
here we see what must be Pin's old Cap because I have an unfogged coast route but no trade with SD. Good, this means fur island should be all mine.

Mjmd and I are blowing away the rest of the civs in CY, while Cornflakes is playing some super tech gambit with no slavery. I'm really curious to see if he pops a Obelisk-assisted Golden Age to revolt into Slavery. Our economy looks better now that we have 2C trade routes, unfortunately I am giving them to BING too unexpectedly. My guess is through Cornflakes and Fabled somehow. If GLH doesn't fall by turn 85 I'm going to positively have a meltdown that I didn't go for it. All but 4 of our 14-15 planned cities are coastal. I'm also seriously thinking about Metal Casting and Colossus before Math and 3 C's.

[Lazteuq]

Yeah I do think you should resend the same deal to confirm. Maybe Mjmd is already seeing himself as a martyr to stop Superdeath from dominating the game. That would be nice. Mjmd's choices can make or break our game probably even more than Pyramids.
Are you trying to reach Masonry T66 to finish the scout with max overflow into mids? Isn't the extra maintenance of the island city going to make that impossible? Or I guess maybe it pays for itself...
I just realized we can chop the forest silk 2SE of Antium for pyramids, I'd forgotten it earlier. I do believe chopping everything including the banana forest is reasonable.

Edit: simultaneous post
Nice chariot. That fur on the island is probably still a high priority, even if we're expecting the Rep happiness in the top5 cities.

Colossus is an interesting idea but I think it has the same problem as GLH, except even worse because of the higher cost including forge. We won't have a nicely forested city to chop.

[Ginger()]

Yeah I do think you should resend the same deal to confirm. Maybe Mjmd is already seeing himself as a martyr to stop Superdeath from dominating the game. That would be nice. Mjmd's choices can make or break our game probably even more than Pyramids.
Are you trying to reach Masonry T66 to finish the scout with max overflow into mids? Isn't the extra maintenance of the island city going to make that impossible? Or I guess maybe it pays for itself...
I just realized we can chop the forest silk 2SE of Antium for pyramids, I'd forgotten it earlier. I do believe chopping everything including the banana forest is reasonable.

Edit: simultaneous post
Nice chariot. That fur on the island is probably still a high priority, even if we're expecting the Rep happiness in the top5 cities.

Colossus is an interesting idea but I think it has the same problem as GLH, except even worse because of the higher cost including forge. We won't have a nicely forested city to chop.

Okay I will resend the deal. The plan is to chop as much as I have the worker labor for. I think the fur is an even bigger priority given Rep, as we won't enjoy cheesing HR. Now this would be a mega feels-bad given it is one of the cheapest wonders in the game, but unlike GLH, Colossus can be great-engineered 20 turns after pyramids finishes. Might be worth over Mausoleum. Also, I dont think other people have that much forest available either outside their capitals, Tarkeel was pretty sparing with his 30H goody huts.

[Ginger()]

Wow, the fur island is rich. So many things to settle and not enough production, I start to sound like a broken record, but it's the quality of the map that dictates the pace of new cities (and value of traits like IMP). Something decidedly meh on your average BtS random gen map suddenly becomes very powerful. 
When I look at an 18 base production city taking ~20 turns to cobble some rocks together, I suddenly remember how stupidly expensive the Pyramids are and I cri. Well, I'm committed. The Capital sets up for another 3 pop settler whip in 2 turns, this will settle the cottage-helper city south of the capital that will steal the deer and work the grassland river valley. I could settle three cities on the fur islands, but I think i'm probably better off with just 2, a fraction of the setup and future infra cost and the only benefit to 3 is the greater  potential. Next turn I settle my 7th city on the western border with Mjmd. It's not the most profitable immediate settle and its risky to loss if Mjmd decides to start screwing around (I expect him to be rational). However, I did just want to get it out of the way now. Commerce hit won't be too bad as it can cottage-share with Neapolis. 
   
Two settling plans are visible, though to be perfectly honest, I don't think there's much competition, 2 cities is 100 + 60 + 60 hammers cheaper (Settler, granary, lighthouse) and that's before extra goodies like Library, Barracks, Forges, Courts, etc.

I missed it the last couple of turns, but Mjmd landed Buddhism in one of his cities up near BING. This falls in lockstep with the expected Sumerian Oracle play, will he grab MC? I think Math is probably too cheap, and Monarchy not as useful as CHA. CoL is weaker when Sumeria so I have to suspect the top candidate is Metal Casting. If he builds a big beautiful golden boy, I'll be very tempted to drop everything and rush him*, Colossus would be so nice on this map. We have trade connection so free spreads?  Does OB affect spread chance? In my singleplayer experience religion would spread regardless, but idk if it affects probability. Reading across some old reports I found the term C&D to refer to this sort of demographic and stats tracking, what does that stand for?
*As it stands there's enough room for peaceful expansion, so this is tucked in the back pocket with Iron Working.